“- And I’ve spent so much on textbooks, I don’t know how I’m going to eat.”

“As if you ever pay for groceries anyway,” J.D. muttered. “All your money goes to takeout and alcohol.”

“I’m a poor student, I have to enjoy life somehow.”

“You know,” Lu observed, “if you’d actually had a job this summer you could be enjoying life so much more.”

“But I have to take my freedom while it lasts!” Sehun protested. “We have to do co-ops this year, I won’t have any free time!”

Minseok snorted. “That’s objectively not true, but anyway.”

“Where are you applying for co-op placements?” Baekhyun asked, looking over his shoulder where he was slotting Yixing’s dictionary and English study guides into place on the bookshelf.

Sehun sighed and flopped dramatically sideways onto Minseok’s lap. “I don’t know. Everyone else already seems to have theirs sorted, and I don’t have a damn clue where I’m going to end up.”

“You gotta be proactive, friend,” Zhixiang said, snapping his fingers. “When you’re a lawyer things happens fast, gotta know what you’re doing, can’t wait for life or it’ll bite you in the bum.”

Sehun groaned and closed his eyes. A moment later he was sitting upright, staring at Zhixiang as if only now seeing him clearly.

“Zhixiang.”

“Yah, buddy?”

“You’re a lawyer.”

“I am.”

“You work… for a law place.”

Zhixiang smirked. “Yes I do.”

“Get me a co-op placement where you work.”

Yixing, sitting next to Zhixiang, burst out laughing. He hadn’t yet worked out what co-op meant, but whatever it was, it was clearly a lot to demand of Zhixiang in that tone of voice.

Zhixiang clearly thought so too. “Oh wow okay, so easy. Let me just do that. Hey, Sehunnie, how many languages you speaking?”

“Huh?”

“Languages.” Zhixiang held up his hands and counted off on his fingers. “Community law centre offers services in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Hmong, Khmer, Vietnamese, Filipino and Malay. Which of those you speak?”

Sehun’s face fell. “Uh. None of them.”

“Hm.” Zhixiang raised his eyebrows. “Well I guess you don’t got a job with us then.”

Sehun sighed and nodded, the slump of his shoulders pure dejection.

Zhixiang laughed. “I’m just kidding. We also got services in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hindi, Arabic and English, and I know you speak a couple of those!”

“I haven’t spoken Spanish since high school,” Sehun pointed out.

“Time you gonna brush it up then,” Zhixiang said. “I’ll talk to boss lady on Monday, see what we can do. No promises, kiddo, wipe that smile off ya face.”

“Thanks, Zhixiang,” Sehun said, trying and failing not to grin from ear to ear. “You’re the best.”

“Speaking of jobs,” J.D. said, raising his bottle of beer, “Yixing. What’s it like to be working for the Seattle Ballet?”

“I love it.” Yixing nodded for emphasis. “Mr. Peterson, he’s a very good boss.”

“Y’know,” Minseok observed, “you should really start calling him Thomas at some point.”

Yixing’s mouth tugged down in horror. “No, no-”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun agreed from the bookshelf, which he seemed to have gotten sidetracked alphabetising by author. “You’re kind of the only person in the whole company who actually calls him Mr. Peterson.”

Yixing struggled with that for a moment.

“Th-” he winced, shook his head, reconsidered. “Mr. Thomas?”

The whole room burst into laughter. Baekhyun doubled over and smacked his forehead against the edge of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, his yelp of pain quickly strangled by giggles.

“Yes!” Minseok yelled over Sehun’s raucous squawks of glee, “Yes, Yixing, call him that, that’s adorable!”

“I bet that’s what they called him back in Ye Olde England,” Baekhyun chortled. “Mistah Thomas.”

“I don’t understand,” Yixing blinked. “What did I do?”

“You just set the standard for addressing our esteemed director, that’s what,” Minseok said. “Holy hell. Mr. Thomas. Why is that so funny?”

“It’s the accent,” Zhixiang said. “Everything’s funnier in our accent.”

“We don’t have same accent,” Yixing objected.

“You don’t?” Lu said, frowning slightly.

“No!” Yixing insisted. “Very different! I’m from Changsha, ehh,” he waggled his hand, “speak kind of Beijing accent now. He’s from Taipei.”

“You say it like it’s something dirty,” J.D. said.

“Taiwan, bleh.”

“Hey!” Zhixiang shoved him sideways on the couch. “Disrespect my home like that!”

“He’s worried you’re gonna make him forget about Chairman Mao,” Lu grinned.

“Impossible.” Yixing shook his head. “I love Chairman Mao.”

“Glad to hear it,” J.D. smiled. “I thought living in America might have changed that.”

Yixing shook his head. “America haven’t changed me- no- hasn’t? Hasn’t changed me.”

“Yes it has!” Sehun blurted out.

Yixing blinked at the incredulity on his face. “Has it?”

“Yes, are you kidding?” J.D.’s eyebrows seemed in danger of detaching from his face and running off to join his hairline. “Yixing. What are you drinking?”

Yixing looked down at the bottle of Sprite in his hand.

“Okay, so I drink new drink-”

“And wear trendier clothes, and listen to different music, and go to gay bars,” Lu listed off on his fingers, “and talk about things other than the weather and ballet, and say stuff like ‘wow, amazing,’ and make fun of Zhixiang-”

“Honey,” Baekhyun cut in, leaning over the back of the couch to tilt Yixing’s chin up and plant an upside-down kiss on his lips. As he made to straighten up, Yixing cupped a hand around the back of his head and pulled him back in for one more quick peck.

“I rest my case,” Baekhyun said, pushing Yixing forward and going back to the bookcase.

As Sehun crowed with glee, Minseok offered Yixing a grin.

“I’m willing to bet you were not this comfortable with kissing guys in China.”

Baekhyun snorted. “No, he was not. Did I ever tell you about our first kiss? Hoo boy. I thought he was gonna cry.”

“Ah-” Yixing cringed, “Baekkie, baby, no-”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Baekhyun winked at him and slid Footprints Under The Window off the shelf to sort it in beside While The Clock Ticked. “You have changed, though. You’re much less scared of yourself now.”

Yixing considered that with the next sip of his Sprite. If he really thought about it, they were right; he was different now. The person who had scrambled away from Baekhyun, who had grovelled and begged for forgiveness on the floor of the practice room - he didn’t live here anymore. It had been gradual, almost like the passage of the moon from dark to light, but day by day that man had disappeared, leaving behind this newer, freer version of himself.

“Ooh,” Lu checked his watch and tapped Minseok on the shoulder. “We gotta head off, that chicken’s been sitting out of the freezer for way too long.”

“Oh, true.” Minseok climbed to his feet and glanced down at Sehun. “You two want a lift?”

“Yes, please.” Sehun stretched his string bean legs and set his drink down on the end table.

“I’m going with Zhixiang,” J.D. said, “I’ll see you at home later, Sehun.”

“Alrighty, looks like we all heading out.” Zhixiang hugged Yixing to his side for a moment, then stood up and leaned over the back of the couch to slap Baekhyun on the shoulder. “You two have a good evening! Have fun, be good, listen to some nice music! Dinner at my place tomorrow, okay?”

“Okey dokey.” Baekhyun flashed him a thumbs up. “Thanks for coming over, you guys.”

“Hey, we gotta welcome Yixing to the neighbourhood, right?” Zhixiang grinned. “Finally moved out of the boss man’s house, he’s a big boy now.” He ruffled Yixing’s hair on his way back around the couch towards the front door. “See you tomorrow! C’mon, you dorks, let’s go. Catch you on the flip sides!” -- See you later, Yixing.

-- See you later!

Zhixiang chivvied the others out the front door and slammed it behind them. Their chatter lingered through the open windows as they clattered down the stairs, fading into the noise of the building and the distant rumble of traffic.

“Whew!” Baekhyun flopped backwards onto the couch, legs dangling over the back and head hanging upside-down by Yixing’s knee. “It’s been a day, huh?”

“Yeah.” Yixing glanced over at the empty box by the shelf, at his precious few books now sorted in amongst Baekhyun’s. It felt like so much more than just this morning that he had carried that box out of Mr. Peterson’s house. Their hug goodbye at the front door had felt so much more meaningful than was reasonable - he would be seeing Mr. Peterson on Monday morning at the Seattle Ballet, but somehow it had felt like a more momentous farewell than that.

A farewell to the summer, he decided, a farewell to his time as a momentary guest in this country. Farewell to Summer Student Zhang and hello to Yixing, Seattle Ballet soloist and holder of a precious new work permit stamped in red ink into his passport, which was now safely stowed in the bedside table with Baekhyun’s American and Canadian passports.

“Hey.” Baekhyun wiggled his leg along the back of the couch to nudge the side of Yixing’s head.

“Hey.” Reaching up, Yixing grabbed that leg and pulled it down into his lap. As he a finger down the length of Baekhyun’s shin, over his ankle and across the silky skin of his foot, Baekhyun twisted around so that he was lying on the couch rather than dangling off the edge of it, his other leg still hooked over the back and his thighs on gorgeous display beneath the bunched-up cuffs of his shorts.

“Just got a little more unpacking to do,” Baekhyun pointed out, wriggling his toes as Yixing’s finger traced along underneath them, bumping from one hardened, calloused pad to the next.

“Mhm.” His clothes, in one suitcase and one small box, stacked in Baekhyun’s bedroom - their bedroom - waiting to be folded into the neatly cleared space in the bureau.

“Shall we?”

Yixing nodded and took hold of Baekhyun’s ankle to drag him across the couch until he was almost in Yixing’s lap.

“We shall.”

So saying, he grabbed Baekhyun by the wrists and, twisting between his legs, hauled him up onto his back as he stood from the couch. Baekhyun gave a giddy little squeak and clenched his knees around Yixing’s waist, and Yixing carried him piggyback like that across the lounge and into the bedroom.

“Whee!” Baekhyun sang as the bead curtain parted like a waterfall around his face. “Ah, I’m so tall. Is this what it’s like being Sehun?”

Yixing just laughed, and as the beads settled back into place behind them he tipped Baekhyun over his shoulder and onto the bed in a squeak of springs. Baekhyun laughed and splayed himself out like a starfish, feet flopping onto the pillows and hand dangling off the near side of the bed as he panted up at Yixing.

Then, after an interval of amused silence: “I can’t believe you don’t have to go home tonight.”

Yixing tilted his head, not quite smiling, not quite not. “I am home.”

“I know.” Baekhyun’s face split into the sunniest grin Yixing had yet seen from him. “I know!”

He bounced up off the bed and planted a kiss on Yixing’s face as he whirled past him towards the bureau.

“I made space for your clothes in these three drawers,” he said, opening each one in turn and then turning to squint at the suitcase and box stacked by the doorway. “You have more stuff than I thought, though.”

“Mr. Peterson buys me so many stuff!” Yixing lamented. “He bought me sweatshirts, jeans, T-shirts - Baekkie, do you know, back home, my father works so hard. Every day, he works hard, makes fifty dollars in one year.”

“Fifty dollars-”

“Mr. Peterson, he took me out first day here, he spent two hundred dollars! Two hundred dollars in one day! It’s too much for me, I was feeling so bad-”

“Oh my gosh.” Baekhyun hauled the suitcase up onto the bed and popped it open. “That must have been a shock. That’s American hospitality for you, though, right?”

“Right.” Yixing nodded as he took the stack of clothes Baekhyun handed him and began to sort them into the drawers. “I know that now. But then? So embarrassed. Four times my father’s money for a year, in one day!”

“Yeah, Thomas is rich,” Baekhyun acknowledged. “I’d probably spend twenty bucks on you.”

Yixing laughed, glancing over his shoulder to catch the glint in Baekhyun’s eye. “I like twenty bucks.”

They worked through the suitcase and the small box, refolding pants into the drawers and hanging shirts up in the closet. When the last pair of socks had been slotted away in the top drawer, Baekhyun turned and nodded at another box sitting by the door.

“What’s that one?”

“Huh?”

“That box. More clothes?”

Yixing stared blankly at the box. It was larger than the other one, and rather than having the flaps all tucked under one another it was held closed with a strip of blue tape. Yixing had never seen it before in his life.

“It’s not mine.”

“What?” Baekhyun frowned at the box. “Well it’s not mine.”

For a moment Yixing wondered whether he had accidentally picked up some of Mr. Peterson’s belongings and walked out with them. But no, he clearly remembered nestling the suitcase and single box together on the back seat of Baekhyun’s car, remembered glancing back at them on the way to make sure they hadn’t fallen over, remembered arriving here at the apartment where J.D. and the others were already waiting, remembered Zhixiang insisting on helping them carrying Yixing’s belongings in even though they were only packed in those two small-

“Ah.”

“What?”

Yixing squatted down and slid the box towards him. It was heavy, much heavier than clothes, and even though Yixing had no idea what was in it, he knew without a doubt who had put it there.

The tape came off easily, and Yixing folded the flaps outwards to look inside.

“What is it?” Baekhyun peered over his shoulder.

“Don’t know.” The weight of the package was hidden beneath a blue silk scarf, on top of which sat a neatly folded slip of paper.

Baekhyun reached in to pick it up, unfolded it, and baulked.

“Uh.” He held it out to Yixing. “You might have more luck with that.”

Yixing glanced at the page and laughed. “Yes. Let me read.” He ran an eye over the note. “He writes traditional characters. Give me a second.”

“Is it from-”

Yixing nodded and began to translate.

“Zhang Yixing and Bian Boxian-” he paused, squinting at the page. “Wah. Such terrible handwriting.” He cleared his throat and began again. “Zhang Yixing and Bian Boxian. This has been in my room for years and I don’t use it anymore, so you can have it. It’s a too early wedding present, because you aren’t getting married yet-”

“Yet?” Baekhyun interjected. “What?”

Yixing tilted his head. “It says… Yes, says, ‘you aren’t getting married yet.’”

Baekhyun snorted. “What the hell does ‘yet’ mean? Two men getting married? To each other? Not in our lifetime.”

“I dunno,” Yixing said. “It’s what it says.”

“M’kay.” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows doubtfully, but indicated for Yixing to continue.

“It’s a too early wedding present, because you aren’t getting married yet, but when you do please remind me that I already give you this so that I don’t accidentally give you another present and make Yixing embarrassed.”

Baekhyun laughed as Yixing hid his face in his hand for a moment.

“I hope you will be happy living together. You deserve some happiness. You’ve worked hard. From your friend and comrade, Luo Zhixiang.”

“Wow.” Baekhyun hooked his chin over Yixing’s shoulder to look at the little drawing Zhixiang had doodled next to his signature, which was presumably supposed to be a face but which looked more like a pig. “That’s really sweet. What’d he give us?”

Yixing carefully untucked the scarf and pulled it out of the box.

“Woah!” Baekhyun’s jaw hit Yixing’s shoulder. “What the -”

Sitting in the box was a record player, sleek and silver beneath its tinted cover. Yixing stared at it, blinking in disbelief - there must be some mistake, it couldn’t be real, this was too much-

“Is that a Technics SL?” Baekhyun nudged Yixing aside and reached into the box to gently lift it out. “Holy , it is. Technics SL-1200. You know they just released a new version of this last year? This is incredible! Why did Zhixiang never tell me he had one of these?”

As Baekhyun stood up to set the player carefully on the shelf above his desk, Yixing swallowed the tightness in his throat. Even after these months, even now knowing the kind of money people had to spend on each other in America, a gift like this was a little overwhelming.

“Oh my gosh, this is the best present ever - hey. Hey!” He turned around to beam at Yixing, his eyes alight, cheeks glowing. “Is this the first thing we own together?”

Something about the corners of his smile set an affectionate warmth in Yixing’s chest. This was so much more than a record player.

“Yeah,” he said, “yes. First thing.”

Baekhyun let out a soft squeak of delight and hopped from foot to foot as he turned to unwind the player’s power cord and plug it in next to the lamp.

“Oh, I know exactly what we need to play first!”

He reached over the player to fiddle some more cords into the back, then squatted down and began flicking through the records on the low shelf next to the desk. Yixing sat down on the bed, watching the tilt of Baekhyun’s head as he searched.

“Did Sehun put these back out of order again? Oh! Gotcha.” He straightened up, satisfaction evident in the roll of his shoulders, and lifted the cover of the player so he could slide the record out of its sleeve and set it on the turntable.

“What song?” Yixing asked.

“What song do you think?” Baekhyun stepped back from the player, and as the first note of a trumpet burst from the speakers he flopped onto the bed beside Yixing with a satisfied sigh.

“Ah.” Yixing lay down next to him and nudged him in the side. “Your favourite song?”

Baekhyun nodded, eyes closed and smile soft. “You know how some songs make you dance straight from your bones? No mind, just body.”

“Mhm.” Yixing kissed Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Just moving.”

“Just moving,” Baekhyun agreed.

Perhaps it was the better quality of the record compared to Baekhyun’s radio-recorded cassette. Perhaps it was the months he had now spent here in America. Whatever the reason, when the silver women began to sing their voices resolved from a wall of language into actual words.

“Nobody gets too much heaven no more, 
It’s much harder to come by, I’m waiting in line. 
Nobody gets too much love anymore, 
It’s as high as a mountain and harder to climb…”

The muscles of Baekhyun’s arm were shifting under Yixing’s lips, twitching and clenching in minute movements as though the music would not let him lie still. He was humming under his breath, and as the music swelled all the air in his body seemed to stop, teetering for a second before shivering out in a sigh.

“God,” he whispered. “I swear, Barry Gibb is like Disco Jesus.”

Yixing made an amused noise in the back of his throat. “Jesus is a man.”

Baekhyun chuckled and turned his head to peer down at Yixing, who was resting against his bicep. “So’s Barry Gibb.”

“… Huh?” Yixing was confused. Was Baekhyun not talking about this music?

With a good-natured snicker, Baekhyun sat up and slid off the bed to grab the record sleeve from the desk.

“Look.”

Bee Gees - Too Much Heaven, read the title, and Yixing nodded - this seemed to be the song. The album cover, though, was a photo of three men.

“Hm?”

Baekhyun tapped the man in the centre. “Barry.” The man on the right. “Maurice.” The man on the left. “Robin. The brothers Gibb, a.k.a. the Bee Gees.”

Yixing blinked at them, struggling to wrap his brain around what he was seeing. These were the owners of the silvery voices. Long, flowing hair notwithstanding, the beards did not lie - the beautiful women with whom he’d been so enamoured had been men all along.

“Wow,” he murmured. “All the time… I love men.”

Baekhyun laughed and fell back onto the bed with a snort. “. Title of my autobiography right there.”

Yixing had heard that word from him a few times over the past few months, but he hadn’t been able to find it in the dictionary - largely because he hadn’t been able to work out how to spell it.

“What is autobiography?”

“It’s when a person writes about their own life,” Baekhyun said, “it’s basically a book telling their life story.”

“Oh, okay. You’re going to write one?”

Baekhyun shrugged, hands behind his head. “Maybe, one day.”

Yixing hummed and settled into Baekhyun’s side with an arm across his waist.

“We can turn away from the night and day, 
And the tears we had to cry. 
You’re my life…”

“Will I be in your autobiography?” Yixing wondered.

“Oh yes.” Baekhyun kissed the top of his head, his hand settling soft on Yixing’s back and beginning to in tiny circles between his shoulder blades. “Very prominently.”

“Prominently?”

“It means you’re a very important character. I’ll spend a lot of the story talking about you.”

“Hmmm.” Yixing wrapped that warmth around himself and hid a smile in Baekhyun’s chest. “How much of the story will I be in?”

“Well…” Baekhyun considered it. “You’ll probably be introduced somewhere around chapter four.”

Yixing found his fingers walking across Baekhyun’s chest, moving, just moving, without conscious thought, until they were resting directly over his heart and dancing in tiny circles to each beat.

“Love is such a beautiful thing…”

“Chapter four,” he said. “How many chapters will there be after that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Baekhyun murmured.

Yixing looked up at him, fingers faltering, eyebrows raised. For a moment Baekhyun just stared at him, and then a smile flickered through his cheeks and he leaned forward to cup a hand behind Yixing’s head and kiss the sunlight into his mouth.

“Doesn’t matter,” he repeated, soft against Yixing’s lips. “You’ll be in all of them.”

FIN

--

A/N: Psst! There's an epilogue.