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“Welcome back to our monthly show Icing on the Cake. This was You Can Go by Chinese Man, Scratch Bandits Crew and Baja Frequencia. I’m your host Kyungsoo and this is 89.35 FM you’re listening to.  I’m joined by our dear Chanyeol. Tell me, what’s the plan for tonight?” Kyungsoo was unable to stop smiling widely throughout the introduction. He was positively beaming, and his legs were shaking.

“Hello to our viewers also from me, it’s been a little while since I was actively on the program and I got messages that people miss me, but I’m back from preparing some work as a producer and it’s a big one this time, but I cannot tell you who it is. You’ll learn soon enough. Tonight’s a little special, don’t you agree, Kyungsoo?”

“Hello to our lovely viewers too, we’re live streaming Icing on the Cake as regularly scheduled on the radio show. If you want to know more about our show this evening or want to know anything else, catch us on www.eightninethreefive.ca or on Twitch where you can watch or listen to our previous podcasts, guest DJs or the current radio program. This is episode no. 78, and we have a lead in the case of our mutual friend we had on our show before as entrepreneur.” Kyungsoo picked up where Chanyeol left off.

“This is right, we have Wong “Lucas” Yukhei, CEO of Tremblay & Wong Enterprises here with us again. We joked about our friend a couple of months back about the hitchhiker he picked up. He talked about his experience a while back on this show but maybe he wants to talk about this experience himself. Welcome, Lucas, how are you doing?”

Yukhei harrumphed before he leaned a bit closer to the microphone, waving shyly at the camera pointed at him, sitting next to Chanyeol, “Hello everyone, this is Yukhei Wong, but feel free to call me Lucas in the chat. This is a private appearance so I’m comfortable being addressed as such. As introduced, I’m the CEO of T&W Enterprises, a leading developer of medical prostheses. Before I’m a CEO, I’m a lead engineer and in discussion with my two friends here, I’m allowed to talk about currently openly job offers. Please check our website and if you find yourself fit to apply, please do so. It’s www.tw-protheses.ca. We want to see young and visionary faces. But back to what I was supposed to talk about; the friend I made along the Trans-Canada Highway.”

sculpordwarf: i didnnt know that the ceo is so hot?! is he single? how old r yall

Yukhei chuckled after Chanyeol pointed out the comment in the chat, people flocking around the stream much more since Chanyeol was revealed to be LOEY.

“I already talked about it the last time, I won’t reveal any private information about him, besides him being a guy and that he’s quite young compared to us. For the listeners on the radio, someone in the chat asked how old I am, despite being able to easily search it online. I am 35, Kyungsoo 36 and Chanyeol almost 39, for anyone unaware.” Yukhei was urged gently by Kyungsoo and Chanyeol to continue and eased more into a softer speech pattern.

dwarfwarrior: wait, I thought loey and dj soo met in uni but youre three years apart? Didn’t you study together?

“Chanyeol started uni later compared to me. And it’s actually just a teeny tiny bit over two years. And no, we had different majors, we just lived together. The next song will be PDX by Little People. After that you’ll listen to the wonderful cover version of This Is Not America by David Bowie and Pat Metheny, rearranged by Charlie Haden. Today we are a bit more experimental with our musical choices, I wanted to go a contemporary post-bop route but Chanyeol had a different opinion,” Kyungsoo explained while double-checking the queued songs.

While the song was playing, Yukhei checked his phone for messages while Chanyeol replied to messages in the chat, explaining what the evening agenda was for people who entered the stream late. Kyungsoo just stared into the void outside his studio. He ran his hands through his hair and grimaced at how long it had gotten. “I’m going to buzz off my hair after the stream,” he suddenly announced to his friends.

Yukhei stared at him with wide eyes, incredulous, but Chanyeol was less surprised, “Okay. You need help?”

He shook his head, “Only in the end, you have to check if I missed anything.”

“That I can do, that I can do…” His voice trailed off while staring at his desktop and he rolled his eyes.

“What is it?” Kyungsoo asked in return, Yukhei stunned by their suddenly overly smooth dynamic, “I assume you just got a mail based on your expression.” He turned off their microphones in advance.

Chanyeol rolled his eyes again and pulled out his phone, to pull up the email there as well, to show it to Kyungsoo at the other side of the table.

Dear Mr Park,

We hope this email finds you well.

We ran your demo tracks with our artist and we thank you for all your work, but our artist said it’s too jazzy for them. I know we agreed on a Jazz influenced album, but this is a bit too strong even for our taste.

“Finds you well, my . You ran the songs by me, I mean, I played clarinet samples for it. There was barely any jazz innit, what are they talking about?” Kyungsoo questioned before resuming reading the email.

We’d like to talk to you again to rearrange the sheet music and the ideas you had; this can’t be too much Jazz as our audience might question our direction of the musical career our artist aspires to follow.

“I’m not in a contract with them as off yet, so I might just pull out from it and sell the songs to someone else in their original Jazz arrangement and see what they can do with it. I’m a Jazz musician first and foremost and even my producing is speckled with Jazz, Blues and everything in between and around, I don’t change my style and identity for them just because they want my name, you know?” It was as if Chanyeol knew at which part Kyungsoo was of the email.

He shook his head in disbelief, “’course, I know LOEY is more Rap, but since you revealed who you are, you have a lot more Jazz and Blues, as well as Funk influences in your songs and even released your Jazz Rap finally under your pseudonym but expecting you to change your style again is asking for too much in my opinion. I know we musicians usually always develop from where we started but this is just pretentious. Seriously, who do they think they are?” He skimmed the rest of the email and shook his head. “What are you gonna do now?”

Chanyeol shrugged his shoulders, “I give them one more try and if isn’t any better, I pull back from the collaboration, because this is way too much stress. I actually might contact the artist directly to hear their opinion on it, because I wasn’t able to talk with them from face to face and that gets immensely on my nerves because I do think it’s only the label that wants to push that direction.”

o-apostrophe-sehun ✔ : u look like u gossp

“This was Charlie Haden’s take on This is not America. Today we’re joined by Yukhei Wong, CEO of Tremblay and Wong Enterprises. After a quick interlude with A Love I Can’t Explain by Birch Pereira & The Gin Joints, we discuss his experience of picking up a hitchhiker and meeting him again. Please stay tuned.” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes while announcing the next song.

mroldman: I second that.

bfusrbvo: i 3rd

“As our viewers on our livestream can see, they gang up against Kyungsoo and me for not sharing the tea, which means not sharing our private and work-related gossip with all of you. This is 89.35 FM, and we have Yukhei Wong with us. Say, we coined the man you picked up ‘wonder boy’, tell us about your second meeting with him.”

Chanyeol reached over to pinch Yukhei’s cheek who swatted his hand away with a love. “So, yeah, weird story. I actually thought someone wanted to mug me. Someone was standing at my car work, clad in all black, turns out he found me somehow. And I immediately got reprimanded for lying about my age back when we met. I’m simply curious to know how he knew which my car was because I had travelled by another car back when we met. And afterwards, we went for dinner, catching up and all this. He moved here some months ago and found work that’s very fitting for him. Not at my company before anyone starts complaining. And I was also just here shortly to update you all about my process. Thanks for listening to me on this one! Good night.” He let out a chuckle.

Kyungsoo hummed before continuing, “Sorry to all our regular listeners tonight for not talking about the arts or music, but friendship is some form of art as well, don’t you think so? We even had friendships form beneath our viewership and apparently, at least one couple emerged from that, and drum roll please—” Chanyeol suddenly whipped put out two drumsticks from literally nowhere “—Chanyeol and I got invited to the wedding of said couple!”

The drumsticks almost flew out of Chanyeol’s hands “We’re WHAT?”

“You heard it right, two of our long-time supporters and listeners are getting married and we got invited, my friend— wait, are you crying?”

Chanyeol pulled his sleeves up and wiped his wet eyes, crying dramatically, “I- wow. It’s just so-so romantic, Soo. I want something like that too…”

Kyungsoo dropped his face into his hands and let out an exaggerated breath, before lifting his face again, “Congratulations to the couple from the two of us. It’s an honour to be invited. The next song is fitting for Chanyeol here now; They All Say I’m The Biggest Fool by Stanley Turrentine, followed by There Goes The Neighborhood by Robert Walter, and Jacquai Nalor’s I’ll Be Loving You. I’m Kyungsoo, and you’re listening to 89.35 FM. You can also catch us on www.eightninethreefive.ca and Twitch under the username eightninethreefive, one word, just like our web address.”

“Soo—” Chanyeol wailed, dragging the O’s of Kyungsoo’s name, and made grabby motions with his hands, Yukhei was at a loss for words, seeing his friend suddenly like this. Kyungsoo just huffed and pulled his headphones off, after muting the microphones for the livestream that was still running. He got up before he rounded the table and came to stand between his legs. Chanyeol smashed his face into his abdomen, circling his arms around his waist, hiccupping violently from how much he was crying suddenly.

“Hey, baby, what’s up? Why are you crying?” Kyungsoo whispered into his hair, swaying them left to right.

“I, I do-don’t know…” He still hiccupped but the sobs got quieter after a few minutes and Kyungsoo pulled back, peering into Chanyeol’s face, wiping softly the tears under his reddened eyes. Kyungsoo detached himself from the taller of the two and Chanyeol just very unwillingly let go of his co-host.

“I’ll get you something to drink, okay?” Kyungsoo cupped the side of Chanyeol’s face who pouted at him, angrily wiping his eyes. He looked like a kid that was angry at himself and Kyungsoo didn’t know what to do with him.

loeys-wifeu1995: i ship! the 2 r too cute for me to handle

loeys-wifeu1995: asdfhjfroba 🥺😭😭😭😭

o-apostrophe-sehun ✔: same…

mroldman: What do you mean by ship Ms Loey?

boohoobobohu: they see both mr park and mr doh as a couple, that’s what shipping means. Not the process of sending something, but ‘shipping’ two persons together 🤷♂️

mroldman: Ah, thanks a lot. All this new slang these kids use is flying right over my head. I have a hard time keeping up.

o-apostrophe-sehun ✔: same…

o-apostrophe-sehun ✔: but what about me, ms loey? aren’t soo and i cute tgther? 🙄🥺

you: Aren’t you the one calling Chanyeol ‘baby’? 🤔 are you mayhaps *gasps* two timing??? /ironyoff

o-apostrophe-sehun ✔: what if i’m three timing 😱😏😏

“Hey, Soo, I’d love to stay and not leave you alone with Chanyeol right now, but I’m still meeting up with a few friends of mine and I’m running late already.” Yukhei also got up, squeezing Chanyeol’s shoulder. Kyungsoo nodded at him.

“It’s fine, nothing I didn’t handle before. But thanks for being on air with us tonight. Always a pleasure to have you here.” He bumped shoulders with the taller man. “Dinner still stands the day after tomorrow?”

“Of course, I’m taking my leave now. Bye Chanyeollie!” Yukhei waved at Chanyeol who weakly raised his hand and left through the front door.

Kyungsoo came back with a tall glass of water and offered it to Chanyeol who took it, gulping down its contents greedily. Suddenly the doorbell rang and Kyungsoo left again, Chanyeol eyeing the runtime of the songs to see how long the break will take and reading over some comments, turning his microphone back on.

Kyungsoo came back, a smirk on his lips. “You’ll never believe who just dropped by with a case of beer.” Kyungsoo left again and came back with a well-known hardshell case, followed by a man of a similar statue, pearly white teeth in stark contrast to his skin tone, a massive case indicating a cello shouldered. “Chanyeol, my favourite crybaby, I heard you crying on-air while I was in the neighbourhood and it sounds like a dying trumpet. Decided to drop by since I have nothing better to do anyway.”

“Chanyeol-ah. A session for our listeners again, I’d say?” Kyungsoo retrieved his clarinet, a soft smile playing around his lips while he was gazing at Chanyeol’s face running through expression and emotions of joy and happiness.

Chanyeol jumped up, throwing his arms around the newcomer, “CK! Chiamaka!”

“Kyungsoo, tell me, why is he crying over a marriage proposal?” Chiamaka asked while being bone crushed by Chanyeol who started crying again.

“If I would know, we wouldn’t be sitting here. Chanyeol-ah—” Chanyeol broke into a new set of terms upon hearing the softly whispered endearment. “I’m going for a smoke, and you’ll introduce Chi to the audience, can you do that for me?”

Chanyeol weakly nodded at that, his arms still wrapped around his bandmate.

When Kyungsoo came back, Chanyeol was back to animatedly talking to the viewers, the radio listeners listening meanwhile to Chiamaka strumming along with his cello, talking about his experience working with Chanyeol as producer.

“Chanyeol, sit down at the upright,” Chiamaka ordered Chanyeol and he stood up more comfortably while Kyungsoo warmed up his clarinet by playing some scales, after placing a microphone closer to the piano.

“Before we end out very unusual Air-Check tonight and say our goodbye’s before the Late Night Playlist. We’re playing for our dear listeners in a small session Bags Groove by Milt Jackson, J.J. Johnson and Ray Brown and after that Chanyeol and Chiamaka will play their version of Kevin Eubanks and Stanley Jordan’s Old School Jam as an ending. This is 89.35 FM I’m your host Kyungsoo Doh.”

“I’m host Chanyeol Park. Thanks for listening to us once again. Till next time on 89.35FM’s Icing on the Cake next month with some youngsters storming the charts around their world with their formidable Blues.”

I maybe planned to connect It Was Never the Same Again and this au and now I finally did it! maybe I need to finally continue the second part for LuTen I apparently started ages ago.
anyhow! happy birthday love of my life!!! 

also: official 89.35 FM playlist on Spotify.

follow me on twitter, maybe. i do the arts.