Lay has always liked their dance practices, because a) he likes dancing and b) he’s a quick learner and can afford to zone out while the instructors go around correcting everyone else’s form. They were learning a new section of the choreography today and Chanyeol was, as always, struggling to get his long limbs to cooperate, so Lay had ample time to plot his next course of action.

“Pst, Sehun!” he hissed. Like him, Sehun had already memorized the steps and was merely going through the motions before the mirror. “I have a mission for you.”

Sehun met his gaze in the mirror and pointedly arched an eyebrow. “What kind of mission?”

“I need you to distract D.O. while I conduct an...investigation of his personal belongings.”

“What for?”

“Not telling, it’s classified,” Lay shrugged. Sehun’s eyes narrowed but he looked thoughtful as he went through the arm motions of their dance. After a few moments of deliberation, he said in a low voice, “If I succeed, I want a bubble tea and a slice of that matcha cheesecake from that café down the street.”

“It’s a mission. Did James Bond ever ask for anything in return for serving his country?”

“Yeah, well, James Bond had hot chicks and kickass guns,” Sehun replied petulantly.

Lay sighed. The brat’s ego was seriously getting out of control. “No bubble tea, no cheesecake, you’ll be lucky if I don’t tell Chanyeol to double check his liquor stash for empties.”

Sehun’s face darkened, but they both knew just how stingy Chanyeol was about his soju.

“Fine, I’ll do it. How long do you need?”

"Twenty minutes, tops."

*****

It was surprisingly easy for Sehun to convince D.O. that the latest episode of Kuroko no Basuke should be experienced in all its glory on the widescreen TV in the living room. Chanyeol, too, had left for the M dorm for some bonding time with Baekhyun and Chen, so the only one left in their bedroom was Kai.

“What’s up?” Kai asked, glancing up from his phone as Lay stepped inside.

“Uh, nothing much,” Lay replied, taking care to close the door quietly behind him. “Just looking for something.”

Kai shrugged and put his headphones back on, his attention returning to his phone as Lay moved to D.O.’s corner of the room.  

It was a good thing that D.O. was obsessive about order and cleanliness, because it didn’t take long for Lay to find the same notebook he had seen D.O. making notes in. Lay threw a glance at Kai to check that he was still engrossed in whatever game he was playing on his phone, then quickly began flipping through the lined pages.

There was nothing but names on the first few pages written in neat block letters, and Lay suddenly remembered a conversation with D.O. about some anime where the main character murdered people by writing down their names in a cursed notebook. The thought sent chills down his spine and it was hard not to think about the way D.O. sometimes looked like he was two seconds away from stabbing someone with his butcher knife.

It was Kai’s voice that brought him back to reality. “You do realize that D.O. will actually kill you if he catches you touching his notes.”

Lay quickly dropped the notebook and held up both hands. “, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Yeah, he’s getting a little out of control,” Kai continued in a perfectly normal tone, as if they were discussing the weather instead of his possibly deranged roommate. “He takes pregame rituals to a whole new, crazy level.”

“Wait, pregame what?”

“You know, for all his fantasy sports leagues,” Kai explained. “He tracks every single thing he does before a game and compares it to the player’s performance so that he can pinpoint the correlation. This week is flowery air freshener and red socks, in case you’re wondering.”

Lay picked up the notebook and flipped to the most recent entry and sure enough, the words ‘lavender room spray’ and ‘crimson socks with black stripes’ are listed beside a bunch of foreign-sounding names and the word ‘BLACKHAWKS’ scrawled across the top of the page.

“So he does all this stuff so that his teams can win?” Lay asked, incredulous.

“Yup, and if they win, he wins money, and I get peace and free food. So please, please put that down before he sees you.”

*****

While it was an interesting tidbit of information, D.O.’s gambling addiction was not what Lay had been looking for, so he bid Kai goodnight and padded back towards the living room. D.O. was still sitting on the living room couch, focused on the rainbow-haired characters dribbling their basketball, but Sehun was slumped against the cushions, snoring lightly with his mouth hanging wide open. Lay contemplated waking him up by using a vacuum hose on his mouth, but he paused when he catches sight of Sehun’s laptop.

The screen was still on, open on a Word document, and Lay edgesd closer so he could lean over the back of the couch to read what Sehun had written.   

The room is lit only by the orange glow of the streetlamp outside the grimy window, but it is easy to find her hands in the darkness, and easier still to draw her closer until our lips are a mere breath apart. The feeling of our entwined fingers is familiar, and it brings forth memories of azure skies and laughter and a pang in my chest that has remained since the moment I realized Victoria was the only woman I could ever love.

“Are you really going to marry him?” I whispered hoarsely. My heart did not wish to hear her answer, for it naively believed that we could continue to exist in this isolated bubble we had created, far removed from duty and responsibility. Yet, I knew we could not stay like this forever, that I would not be satisfied with her smiles unless they were mine and mine alone.

She lowers her head, her fingers slipping from my grasp. “Kris, I

Lay squinted at the title of the document and nearly falls over in shock.

zephyrus commission #16 written for peachypanda93

Holy .

author's note

If you are still reading this, thank you for your endless patience and my sincerest apologies for not updating for the past few months. I've been out of the loop with all things kpop partly due to school/work and partly due to my preoccupation with other fandoms, so I'm sorry that I haven't found motivation/inspiration to update until now. There's only two more chapters left to write so hopefully I'll be able to wrap things up soon!

Also, I'm not too active on AFF these days so if you want to reach me for some reason, I can usually be found on Twitter and Tumblr emoting about all my hockey feelings...  

Cheers,

Maunier