Chapter 15: Birdcage

Baekhyun cleared his schedule for Saturday night.

Smudges of kohl rimmed almond eyes with a steady hand. Soft gloss smoothed subtly onto thin lips. A beige teeshirt and black jeans wrapped his narrow frame, over which he donned a deep green leather jacket. He slipped his feet into Converse of the same bright hue and completed the look with a fluff and tease of his hair.

Slender hands pressed to the top of the dresser as Baekhyun gave himself a critical once over. Drumming his fingertips once against the wood, he narrowed his eyes. Despite himself, the corners of his lips twitched upwards at the insouciant brat that glared back at him. The anger he saw kindled deep in his own eyes was strangely satisfying.

He stepped into the night having forwent a coat - for it ruined the look - and braved the cold as he hailed a cab on the main drag. Disinterested in playing audience to the extrapolations of his mind, he closed his eyes and knocked out during the half hour ride to Hongdae. Like an elastic gone weak his mind stretched far and wide with very little snap. He was only too eager to tune out his inner monologue like a bad radio station, mollified by the knowledge that he was taking the bull by the horns. He couldn't let one blip on the radar run his entire life.

When the cab came to a halt outside the small venue in Hongdae, Baekhyun hopped out and surveyed the scene. To his surprise, it surveyed him right back. Brightly colored hipsters thronged the entryway, puffing away at cancer sticks. More than one pair of eyes followed him to the door with aloof interest; one girl with a short pixie cut and a shorter tunic sent a unmistakable smile his way.

At the door Baekhyun applied his credentials and was directed to a table behind a rope. The Birdcage was part cushy lounge, part underground livehouse. The stage was small and the capacity was cramped. VIP was a technicality more so than a section.

Phoenix Rising was headlining.

Baekhyun sat through a couple of opening acts, critiquing each for mass profitability as he sipped a blue martini. A redhead girl with a guitar and the voice of a chanteuse earned high marks in his book; he jotted a note in his phone to have Jongdae do some research. Potential.

Between acts, Baekhyun slipped to the bar and procured a second drink. The Birdcage was a curiously decorated venue, with antique birdcages dangling from the ceiling like lanterns. There were no birds in the cages - rather, the patrons themselves were a motley flock perched on rattan stools and threadbare sofas, clad in bright colors and curious fashions. As he waited for his drink, he basked in the strangely comfortable atmosphere. He barely noticed as a slender girl perched on the stool beside him.

"Hey gorgeous," said a sultry, soft voice at his left. Baekhyun turned his head. It was Pixie Cut, from outside. He must have looked flummoxed for she grinned easily, large kohl-rimmed eyes narrowing to long, pleasant crescents. "Yes, I'm talking to you," she said in a low, laughing murmur. "Haven't seen you around these parts before... and I know everyone around here." Her wide, thin smile was impish as an elf's; it reminded Baekhyun of Jongdae.

Baekhyun blinked in surprise as a sheepish laugh escaped him. He felt a genuine smile pull across his lips. "Is it that obvious?" he laughed. He lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. "I guess I'm...kinda new." 

She laughed, and her eyes creased at the corners. "I can tell. What's your name, newbie? I kinda like you. You're honest." She pointed a thin manicured finger at him and lifted a finely sculpted brow. "Don't let it get to your head though, it'll spoil the effect," she warned, breaking into a grin.

"Baekhyun," he replied with a smile and a chuckle, " and I won't."

"Pleasure to meet you, Baekhyun." she said and slipped him a hand to shake. "I'm Ga In."

He took the girl's small hand and and shook it, as he might've at a business meeting with foreigners. "So you know everyone?" he challenged with a small grin.

"Everyone worth knowing," she replied with a slow nod and a wave of delicate fingers. She regarded him from under heavy lashes with a gentle smirk.

Baekhyun was about to open his mouth to ask her how she selected the worthy when a cheer went up from the small crowd - which was no longer small. "Oh-- I think the main act is on." He gestured to the crowd and began to move toward the roped off area. Ga In followed - and to his interest, flashed a wristband that gained her entry after him.

"Are you a fan?" She asked as the noise level rose. Elegantly, she perched on a tall chair adjacent to him. The trio took the stage; the lights were red.

"I guess you could say that," Baekhyun replied distractedly. Kai's sultry vocals were seeping through the speakers. A thumping bass drum and snare beat in four-four stole his attention away from Ga In, measure for measure. A walking bassline gave way to punchy power chords - and to Kai, who disseminated cynical truths of life like food stamps to the starving. He sang about futility with heart-rending earnestness, about weakness and truth. In a breath he metamorphosed from the pedagogue to the harlot as the first track melted into the second, rolling in on the same throaty, gritty bassline that had captured Baekhyun's attention the first time. He felt his heart rate accelerate, though it had nothing to do with Kai doing the tango with his mic stand - and how.

Phoenix stood tall at stage right in a black wifebeater and artfully tattered denim; lashes of braided leather ringing his wrists and throat. Carmine lights poured over long auburn locks, half pulled back in a messy bun, and spilled onto bare arms. Phoenix and strummed the strings of his black guitar with his head bent; long shadows obscured his face from view beneath a heavy fall of bangs. His hands, square palmed and long of digit, stole Baekhyun's attention for the span of several songs, entirely too many minutes and measures to be considered appropriate. He remembered in vivid, lurid detail just how those fingers had touched him, and where. He swallowed and dredged his gaze up and settled somewhere around his neck, on the collarbones Baekhyun could not remember kissing as he'd wanted to. Then Phoenix stepped to the mic and opened his mouth to sing and Baekhyun remembered those lips, how they'd tasted, how they'd felt, how they parted to gulp for air as he pounded into him--

Baekhyun's fingers crept up to touch his neck as he suddenly felt short of breath.

The show ended and the band took a bow to raucous applause and even a few chants for an encore. Ga In wolf-whistled and lifted her delicate hands to applaud them loudly, a glittering knuckle ring glinting in the hazy lights.

Baekhyun's heart was racing. It was time. He set his jaw and slipped out of his chair, and paused only when he realized Ga In was speaking to him.

"Hey. Wanna go backstage?" She was asking, and her voice sounded like it was coming from inside a fishbowl - or perhaps she was on the outside and he was on the inside. Either way, he blinked at her in confusion as she reached for his wrist and wrapped her small, slender hand around it.

"Come on. You're a fan," she said with a soft half-smirk. "I saw how you watched them," she informed coyly. Before he could protest, she was tugging him out of VIP on her sky high spike-studded Jeffrey Campbells.

"But--" His attempts to disabuse her of misconception were in vain as they squeezed through the thickened crowd. At the stage doors he managed to catch his footing and tugged on the hand she held captive. "Listen, Ga In, I really--" he began, but just then one of the opening acts barreled out of the stage doors, laughing garrulously, and nearly upended both of them.

"Come on! Don't be shy!" She said with a laugh and pulled him through the open doors. 

Tao and Kai were just inside  - and the latter was face-deep in the bug-eyed boy Baekhyun had spotted at the front lines of the shows he'd attended before. The former was peeling off his leather vest and replacing it with a teeshirt which left his red and black hair sticking up in all directions as it went over his head. 

And then there was Phoenix, who was looking at him with curious perplexity. 

"Chan!" Ga In sung out as she tugged Baekhyun after her - past the couple wrapped up in each other, and the muscular bassist who managed to look even more appetizing in a simple white teeshirt. But Baekhyun's eyes were for Phoenix alone, and he hoped that they communicated some of his frantic, futil