pairing: laychen... chenlay?
word count: 3000.
rating: PG-13.
genre: humor. slight fluff?
summary: jongdae has been avoiding yixing, but he has a totally legitimate reason for it. totally.
 

“So... what's going on with you and Yixing?”

Jongdae will be the first person to admit that he is good at a lot of things. Unfortunately, acting is not one of them. It certainly doesn't help that he has just taken a massive bite of pizza at the time the question is asked so he ends up choking as the surprise causes him to inhale an entire mouthful of hot cheese and tomato sauce. By his side, Kyungsoo looks at him as if he just grew a second head (then again, that is how Kyungsoo looks at pretty much everyone all the time), but pounds Jongdae in the back nonetheless to help him get through his coughing fit.

“Nothing,” Jongdae finally wheezes out as a response to Baekhyun's poorly timed question. His voice is several octaves too high, not only because of his recent near-death-by-pizza-experience, but also because he is a goddamn liar. A terrible one, at that. So terrible that even Chanyeol lifts his head from the food he's been stuffing his face with to raise a skeptical eyebrow at him. Jongdae clears his throat. “I mean... wh-what are you talking about?”

“'What are you talking about?', he says.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes so hard Jongdae fears they might roll right out of his skull and skitter across the floor. “Please. Don't insult my intelligence.”

Kyungsoo scoffs and mutters under his breath: “What intelligence?”

Baekhyun ignores the comment in favor of pointing at Jongdae with a Complimentary Breadstick. “You're lying. You're a goddamn liar. If you were Pinocchio I'd ask if I could sit on your face, that's how much of a liar you are.” He's waving the Complimentary Breadstick around so vigorously he nearly pokes his own rolling eyes out with it. “I am the King of bullting. I have like a ing seventh sense that allows me to know when people are bullting and guess what? That sense is ing tingling like a motherer right now because you are, in fact, bullting. I am the King!”

“Indoor voice, please,” Jongdae hisses, casting cautious glances around. There's no one else here, though, and Jongdae remembers that, right, it's ing o'clock on a Sunday morning, and most normal college students would be in bed by now, not sitting in some dingy pizza place with their friends after drinking all night. The only other person in the room is the kid who usually works the graveyard shift here, and he's scowling at them from behind the counter, but, much like Kyungsoo, he's Emotionally Challenged, and he always tends to look unimpressed with life in general so that doesn't exactly say a lot.

“I think what our frivolous friend here is trying to say,” Kyungsoo interjects. “Is that you've obviously been avoiding Yixing for the past week or so.”

“What?” Jongdae exclaims. Once again his voice is far too shrill, but he has always been the type of person to commit to his lies so he follows through. “Whattt? Me? Avoiding??? I have no idea what you're talking about, haha, 'avoiding', haha, I-I barely even know what that word even means, haha. Hah.” Wow. ing nailed it. A+ acting. At this rate, he's going to win an Oscar before Leonardo DiCaprio does.

Kyungsoo narrows his eyes to achieve that look that says that if Jongdae doesn't stop lying right this second, he's going to find out firsthand why Chanyeol's initial instinct always is to flinch whenever Kyungsoo as much as reaches out for him. Jongdae is sweating bullets, desperately thinking of a way to avoid telling the truth without having to meet Kyungsoo's Fists of Fury.

He's saved by the bell. Literally. The little bell above the door jingles and they all turn to look in its direction to see which lost soul has stumbled into this place at this hour and...

Oh.

Oh no.

It's Yixing.

Jongdae would rather want to meet Kyungsoo's Fists of Fury a dozen times than see Yixing this very moment. He looks like he's been out clubbing – hair disheveled (not in a messy way, more like he meant to do it cause he's totally cool and effortless like that), eyes lined with black, glitter on his skin, low-hanging neckline (Jongdae simultaneously hates and loves his life right now), jeans clinging to his legs so closely it should be added as a ing eleventh commandment or whatever. Thou shalt not wear pants so tight other people have trouble breathing.

Yixing shoots a look around the place, and his eyes almost immediately land on their table. Of course they ing do, they're still the only ones there. Yixing waves and smiles, cheek dimpling, and he starts making his way over to them. Jongdae sees it all as though it's in slow motion while his brain ticks and clicks and struggles to think up some kind of excuse that can get him out of there as quickly as possible.

Now Yixing has made his way all the way over to them, an astounding five foot journey from the entrance to where they're sitting. “Hi guys,” he says, still smiling. “What's–?”

“SORRY, NO TIME TO TALK, GOTTA GO FEED MY HAMSTER!” Jongdae shouts. He launches himself out of his chair and powerwalks towards the exit, though not before grabbing another slice of pizza from the table. One for the road, right?

“Jongdae has a hamster?” is the last thing Jongdae hears as he swan-dives out the door and faceplants onto the sidewalk, pizza held high to save it from meeting the same terrible fate as him.

Okay. So maybe Jongdae is avoiding Yixing. But he has a very good reason for it.

Jongdae should have seen this coming. He should have known that Chanyeol was leading him right into an ambush when he asked Jongdae to help him out with homework on a Saturday night. But Chanyeol, unlike Jongdae, is a Pretty Decent Actor, and Jongdae always had trouble saying no to his puppy eyes, anyway, which is why he currently finds himself face to face with the one person he's been trying to avoid for weeks. Yixing is sitting on the bed with a guitar in his lap, and he raises his head to look at Jongdae and simply says: “Oh.”

And Jongdae does a full one eighty to flee the room, only to walk straight into the now closed door, face first. “Ow!” he exclaims, followed by a delayed but no less empathetic: “, what the ing ?” He grapples for the doorknob and jiggles it frantically, but it barely moves, and the door remains firmly shut. They ing locked him in the ing room. With Yixing. Jongdae closes his eyes, takes a deep, steadying breath to calm himself down... and proceeds to slam his fist against the door over and over. “Come on, this is ing ridiculous.”

“You're ing ridiculous,” Baekhyun shoots back. For a moment, Jongdae wonders when he even got there, but quickly comes to the conclusion that Baekhyun was most likely the one who organized this whole thing in the first place. He doubts Chanyeol would be able to think up a plan like this, and Jongdae is honestly surprised he went along with it and even agreed to let them use his room, too. Baekhyun probably convinced him by bribing him with pizza and . Not necessarily in that order. “I'm not opening this door until you put on your big boy pants and fix the mess you've created for yourself, Kim Jongdae. Now you better have this worked out when I come back tomorrow or I'll sic Kyungsoo on you, I swear on me mum. Toodles.”

“You're a piece of , Byun Baekhyun!” Jongdae calls out, but there's nothing he can do and he knows it. He bangs his hand forlornly against the door one last time, letting it slide down slowly like the protagonist in some lame American teenage drama.

Then he turns around to look at Yixing, who's looking right back at him. The guitar is discarded, now, set back in its stand next to the bed, so it's just Yixing, all Yixing. Jongdae won't deny he feels a little weak in the knees. “Are you okay?” Yixing asks. His voice is just as soft and sweet as Jongdae remembers it to be.

“Yeah, I'm totally fine,” Jongdae croaks. Yixing wrinkles his nose. Even he must be able to tell when Jongdae is lying. Jongdae changes the subject. “How did they get you?”

“Kyungsoo said he needed my help with something,” Yixing says. “So I came here.”

“Ah.” It's all Jongdae says. He doesn't know what else to say. The tension feels so thick he could probably carve it with a dull blade, and he prays to somehow, preferably within the next few seconds, develop the ability to teleport at will. Or walk through walls. Or fly so he can jump out the window and escape that way. Then again, they're only on the third floor. A couple of broken bones wouldn't hurt that much, right?

“How's your hamster?”

Frowning, Jongdae turns his attention away from the window to look at Yixing again. “What? My hamster? I don't have a-...” Jongdae trails off. Yixing is smiling wryly, like he knew the answer to the question before Jongdae even began to respond, and Jongdae realizes he has just been caught in another lie. . He's such an idiot. The mayor of Idiottown. If there was a record for being The Biggest Idiot in the World, Jongdae would definitely hold it. If one was to look up the definition of 'idiot' in a dictionary, Jongdae's picture would be right ing there, he's so ing–

“We had , Jongdae.” It's a good thing Jongdae isn't drinking something right now or he'd be choking all over again. Fortunately, he's not so he settles for spluttering and gawking incredulously at Yixing, who simply shrugs. “What? It's the truth. I'm just putting it out there.”

It had been drunken . There had been a party, Jongdae and Yixing had both had quite a bit to drink, Yixing was , Jongdae was more than willing, and they had managed to stumble their way back to Yixing's room. Jongdae doesn't remember much of the act itself, but he does remember panicking upon waking up in bed with Yixing the following morning and getting the out of there while Yixing was still asleep. That was two weeks ago, and Jongdae has been avoiding Yixing ever since, ashamed of what happened.

And now they're here, stuck in a room together, Yixing staring right at Jongdae as he struggles to figure out what to say. Jongdae opens and closes his mouth uselessly like the useless piece of useless that he is. “How... how can you just...?”

“Say it like that?” Yixing finishes the sentence when it becomes obvious that Jongdae isn't going to. “Why shouldn't I? We are two grown- adults, who had grown-, consensual and that's that. It's not embarrassing, it doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be a big deal. Now will you please stop avoiding me so we can hang out again? I kinda miss being your friend.”

Jongdae has mixed feelings about Yixing's words. On one hand, he's happy that Yixing is fine with it, and that he doesn't regret sleeping with Jongdae. On the other hand, it's upsetting to hear Yixing saying that it's not a big deal. Because to Jongdae, it's kind of a huge deal, and to find out that Yixing doesn't share the sentiment is painful. “No big deal, right,” he mutters to himself with a bitter laugh. “I mean, it's not like I've had a crush on you for the past year and a half or so.”

“Wait, what?” Yixing says, and Jongdae blanches when he realizes that 1) he said that way louder than intended, and 2) Yixing totally heard it. He really is an idiot.

“Uh,” Jongdae says intelligently. Nervous sweat begins beading along his hairline, and the window escape route is really starting to seem like a great idea right now. Yixing is staring intently at him, either waiting for an explanation or trying to determine if Jongdae has lost his mind. Or maybe he's waiting for Jongdae to laugh it off as a joke, which Jongdae would totally do if he wasn't currently frozen on the spot.

After centuries of excruciating silence, Yixing finally clears his throat and says: “A crush?”

Jongdae wants to implode. “ my life. my life so hard.” Yixing just blinks, and Jongdae lets out a weak laugh. “L-listen, it's... it's not a big deal. I mean, it doesn't have to be, at least. It's just... just me being stupid... I guess. Haha.” Jongdae is pressing himself against the door in hopes that maybe, if he's diligent enough, he can actually become a door and get out of this situation.

Yixing is still watching him, quietly, thoughtful. The he scoots over on the bed and pats the spot next to him. “Come sit?”

“I'm fine,” Jongdae squeaks. “I'm fine here, standing is fine, I'm fine.” He tries not to think about the last time he was on a bed with Yixing. He fails.

If Jongdae has a hard time saying no to Chanyeol's puppy eyes, it's goddamn impossible for him to say no to Yixing's anything. So when Yixing furrows his brows resolutely and pats the mattress one more time, Jongdae immediately gives up resisting. Defeated, he shuffles across the floor and perches himself carefully on the edge of the bed, sitting as far from Yixing as he can without making it seem like he's purposely trying to avoid physical contact. He chances a glance at Yixing out of the corner of his eye, and his heart flops over in his chest when he sees Yixing chewing on his bottom lip in thought. Jongdae wants to chew on his bottom lip.

“I've actually been wanting to ask you this for a while,” Yixing says, and Jongdae pulls his mind out of the gutter to focus on what Yixing is saying. “I know this is kind of backwards, but do you think I could, like... take you out on a date sometime? Maybe?”

Jongdae gawks. “What?” he says. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Yixing shrugs and scratches the back of his neck with one finger, that cute thing he does when he's embarrassed or shy. “I've liked you for kind of a long time, and I was actually really happy when you agreed to go home with me that night, but then when I woke up, you weren't there anymore, and then you kept avoiding me, so I thought that maybe you regretted what happened cause you didn't like me back and–”

“ no,” Jongdae exclaims, a little too enthusiastically judging by the way Yixing jolts a bit. “I'm so ing into you, oh my God. I don't think you even understand.” Yixing smiles, and his dimple comes out, and Jongdae finds himself struggling to hold back a whimper because he just wants to kiss the living daylights out of Yixing.

Jongdae doesn't realize he said that out loud until Yixing's smile turns from sweet to impish. At first he flushes in embarrassment, but then Yixing is curling a hand around the nape of Jongdae's neck, thumb the sharp edge of Jongdae's jaw, and he starts leaning in slowly.

Kissing Yixing is much, much better when Jongdae is sober and can remember it happening.

Byun Baekhyun is a smug son of a . Always has been, always will be. He taps Jongdae on the shoulder while they're all out eating, and Jongdae hesitantly turns his head to find Baekhyun grinning at him. Jongdae squints. “What?” he asks, despite the fact that he's not so sure he even wants to hear what Baekhyun has to say.

Baekhyun glances down at Jongdae's hand, loosely intertwined with Yixing's under the table, then looks at Jongdae again. His grin widens. Jongdae squints even harder. He can barely see at this point, but vision comes second to conveying to Baekhyun how much of a, capital A, he is. “You're welcome,” Baekhyun says haughtily. “I accept rewards in the form of alcohol and-slash-or pizza. A good old 'thank you, Baekhyun, you are The Man' would be great, too.” Baekhyun grins. Jongdae scowls. “Or how about 'I accept you into my life as my lord and savior'?”

“How about you go yourself?” Jongdae retorts, at which Baekhyun only shrugs.

“Nah, I've tried that. Didn't work.” Jongdae tries his very best not to let that mental image enter his mind, but he has seen Baekhyun's so many times he could probably draw a pretty decent sketch from memory. Baekhyun's features shift into something less douchey, more genuine. “For real, though. You guys are really cute together. I'm happy for you.”

“Byun Baekhyun, was that a legitimate compliment?”

“What can I say? I may be an , but I'm not one hundred percent a .” Jongdae narrows his eyes at Baekhyun again because he's pretty sure he heard someone say that in a movie once.

He's distracted when Yixing, who's sitting to his left, doubles over laughing at something Chanyeol said, and his hand automatically tightens around Jongdae's, squeezing it. Jongdae's heart gives a weak, helpless twinge. He's so in love it's almost a little scary, and, although it pains him to admit it, he supposes he does have Baekhyun and his forced matchmaking to thank for getting together with Yixing. He also supposes he should probably express his gratitude. He clears his throat, and mumbles, quickly and without as much as looking at Baekhyun: “Thankyou.”

In other cases, Baekhyun would be his usual self and make a big deal out of it. Right now, however, for what is probably the first time in his whole life, he doesn't say anything. He just smiles and pats Jongdae on the shoulder.

~*~

A/N: I don't even know what this is, I just liked the idea of two people getting forcefully locked in a room together to sort out some between them so I went with it and it turned into this mess... but isn't that how all my stories come into existence at this point, really?

this story is a birthday story for both jongdae (whose birthday was on september 21st) and yixing (whose birthday is on october 7th). I guess you can say it's a kind of "two birds with one stone" kinda deal... three birds if you consider the fact that this pairing makes my little heart so, so happy and this entire thing is extremely self-indulgent. laychen is love, chenlay is life. sorry, not sorry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

here is a cute gif cause reasons. bye~~~!!!

ps. title comes from this.