It turns out Kris is leading Joonmyun to the waiting room backstage, which, considering how tiny it is, really feels more like a dusty broom closet with a battered couch pushed into a corner than an actual room. Still, the entire band somehow manages to fit in there with extra room to spare for Kris and Joonmyun once they arrive.

The moment Joonmyun steps through the open door, Yixing's face lights up, and he almost knocks both of them over when he crosses the floor to tackle-hug Joonmyun, arms wrapping tight around him. Next to them, Joonmyun can see Kris receiving a similar treatment from a jittery Chanyeol, except their greeting involves more... tongue. Joonmyun gulps. It's not that he means to stare, it's more that he can't look away. He can't think of anyone he knows making out in public so unabashedly, and though he's not disgusted by it, it definitely makes him feel... something. He can't figure out what that something is, though. Maybe it's because this level of public display of affection is so unfamiliar to him. Or maybe...

Joonmyun is distracted by Yixing exclaiming: “You made it!”

“Yeah, of course,” Joonmyun says. “I told you I'd come so...” Yixing is still smiling when he pulls back, and he looks more energetic than Joonmyun has ever seen him. Usually he's more subdued and calm than this. Joonmyun also notices that Yixing has put his sweatshirt back on and is now covering his tattoos again, and he feels a little let down by this. He was hoping he would be able to get a better look at them.

Yixing doesn't seem to notice Joonmyun's disappointment as he says: “Hey, let me introduce you to the guys.” The hand Yixing places at the small of Joonmyun's back should be comforting, but for some reason it has the opposite effect. It only seems to make Joonmyun's already heated skin burn hotter. “Everyone, this is Joonmyun.” Yixing gives him a gentle push forward.

Joonmyun bows. “It's very nice to meet you all.” He gets muttered replies in response.

“This is Chanyeol and Yifan,” Yixing says, gesturing towards them as he speaks.

Kris (or is it Yifan? Joonmyun is confused) scowls. He looks even scarier like that. “It's Kris.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Yifan prefers to go by 'Kris' now.” Yixing says it in the patronizing tone of someone who's speaking about a particularly difficult child. This just makes Kris frown more.

“It's great to finally get to meet you,” Chanyeol says, and Joonmyun learns that Chanyeol's grin is overwhelmingly bright up close. “I've heard a lot about you. Yixing keeps talking about you all the time. Like, he doesn't shut up about you. Ever. He literally can't st–”

Yixing cuts him off by clearing his throat loudly. “Right, moving along,” he says and Joonmyun can almost swear he sees Yixing's cheeks color. He chooses not to mention it. “This is Sehun.” Sehun is leaning against the wall, and he doesn't look up from the phone he's holding at the mention of his name, but he takes one hand off it momentarily to give Joonmyun half a wave.

“Impressive,” Minseok says from his seat on the couch. “He actually acknowledged you.”

“And this is Minseok,” Yixing concludes, and Minseok grins at Joonmyun, crooked and toothy.

Again Joonmyun can't stop staring. There are more than a dozen piercings sprinkled all over Minseok's face, most of them in the area surrounding his mouth, as well as a good handful in his ears. And it's not that Joonmyun has anything against body modifications, he has just never known anyone with more than a couple of ear piercings. This is all quite new to him. “Why don't you take a picture, it lasts longer,” Minseok drawls and Joonmyun quickly snaps his mouth shut, flushing.

“I'm r-really sorry,” he stutters. “I-I didn't...”

Minseok waves him off. “Nah, man, it's okay. I'm used to the looks. What else can I expect with all this metal in my face, right?” Joonmyun chuckles awkwardly, not quite sure if Minseok is joking or not. Fortunately, Minseok turns his attention to Yixing. “You never told us your newest pet is a suit,” he says, shooting Joonmyun a pointed look from head to toe.

Yixing rolls his eyes. “He's not my pet.”

“Don't mind Minseok,” Chanyeol stage-whispers. “He's just grumpy because the chesty blonde chick he had his eyes on all night apparently fancies Kris.”

Minseok huffs and crosses his arms. “Yeah, well, for her that Kris is a homo.”

Kris barely bats a lash at this, but he does mutter: “I'm not gay.”

“Right,” Sehun scoffs. It's the first thing Joonmyun has ever heard him say.

“Kris likes girls sometimes too,” Chanyeol tells Joonmyun in a patient tone that makes it seem like it's something he has had to explain several times before.

“Oh yeah,” Minseok laughs. “He likes girls, but he loves Chanyeol's .”

“Who doesn't?” a familiar voice says behind them. Joonmyun isn't sure when Baekhyun got there, but once he makes his presence known, Yixing smiles and immediately moves away from Joonmyun to give Baekhyun a hug just as tight as the one he gave Joonmyun. Maybe even tighter. On Joonmyun's lower back there is now a cold spot about the size of a hand.

“Joonmyun, this is Baekhyun,” Yixing says, still smiling widely and with an arm slung around his friend's shoulders. “Baekhyun, Joonmyun.”

“We've met,” Baekhyun says, smiling at Joonmyun, who nods slowly. He doesn't quite understand the look Baekhyun is sending him.

“Shouldn't you be taking care of the bar?” Chanyeol asks.

Baekhyun makes a dismissing gesture. “I left Amber in charge of everything, I trust her to–” He breaks off abruptly mid-sentence and jerks away when Yixing suddenly raises a hand to touch his neck, and he sends Yixing a scathing look.

Yixing just laughs. “Calm down, I'm not even doing anything,” he says, but Baekhyun looks far from convinced. “Those are new, aren't they?” Yixing points to the stars tattooed onto Baekhyun's skin.

“Not really, I've had them for weeks,” Baekhyun says, batting Yixing's hand away. “You just never come around to see me anymore.” He crosses his arms and he looks offended.

Judging by the way Yixing continues to grin it's all an act, though, and Yixing seems to see right through it. He pacifies Baekhyun by pulling him closer and pressing his lips close to Baekhyun's ear to whisper: “They look good.” His voice is quiet, but still loud enough for Joonmyun to hear. “They match the ones on your thigh.” Baekhyun bites his bottom lip to stifle a laugh.

And all of a sudden Joonmyun becomes aware of yet another thing he doesn't understand: why does the sight of Baekhyun and Yixing together make him so upset? He's pretty sure it's jealousy, but it's both ridiculous and completely unjustified. He has no reason to be jealous of the two of them. He knows that they're close friends and they're not doing anything friends wouldn't do. There is no reason for him to be jealous. No reason at all.

Still, it puts a bitter taste in his mouth. Trying to distract himself, Joonmyun turns to Minseok. “So,” he begins awkwardly. “Switchblade Granola, that's... an interesting name. How did that happen?”

“Funny story, really,” Minseok says with a grin. “When we started this whole thing, we knew that we needed a name, right? Yixing is usually happy as long as everyone else is happy and Sehun doesn't really care about about anything unless it's got something to do with Zitao's ...”

“Bite me,” Sehun cuts in, accompanied by a lewd hand gesture, but Minseok goes on regardless:

“...so it was up to me and Chanyeol to come up with something. In the end, I figured we'd pick a word each and put them together. And, well, that's what we did.”

“I still think my original suggestion was pretty good,” Chanyeol muses.

Minseok shoots him a very unimpressed look. “There is no chance if ing hell that I would ever agree to naming our band 'Switchblade Kris'. That's just ing stupid.” Kris looks like he's trying to glare holes straight through Minseok's pierced face.

“Oh, and 'Switchblade Granola' isn't?” Baekhyun scoffs.

“Don't look at me,” Yixing says, holding his hands up in defense. “I wanted us to be named 'The Unicorn Dreams'.” Everyone shoots him a very unimpressed look. Yixing smiles sheepishly.

“I don't know, I like it,” Minseok says with a shrug.

“I like granola,” Chanyeol supplies, grinning. Kris kisses his temple.

Joonmyun's sure the others talk more after that, but he doesn't know what they talk about. Despite his attempts at distracting himself, he keeps glancing towards Baekhyun and Yixing, who are still speaking quietly to each other. Envy's green-eyed monster rears its ugly head again. Joonmyun thinks to himself that it's probably their close friendship that makes him so jealous, the fact that he doesn't have anyone like that in his life and he'd like to so he's jealous of what they have. He really wishes he wasn't, though. Sure, he's had his moments in the past, but he has never felt it this strongly before. It's not a pleasant feeling.

Baekhyun turns his head to look at Joonmyun and they lock eyes. Joonmyun flushes, embarrassed at getting caught staring. Baekhyun, however, simply smiles. “Hey Yixing,” he drawls. “In all the times you've talked about Joonmyun, you never mentioned how good-looking he is.” He gives Joonmyun an appreciative onceover. Joonmyun flushes even more.

“What are you talking about?” Yixing says. He's frowning now. “I told you he's really handsome.” It's uncomfortable, the way Joonmyun's heart somersaults.

“Well, yeah, but that was clearly an understatement. Joonmyun is...” Baekhyun looks him over again, biting his bottom lip this time. Joonmyun can't help but squirm.

“He's really hot,” Chanyeol joins in. He exchanges a knowing grin with Baekhyun and purposely ignores Yixing's scowl. “He's got that whole... vanilla thing going for him. It's cute.” Joonmyun finds himself unable to move as Chanyeol comes closer to sling an arm around his shoulders. “Ya know, I'd totally love to... I mean, if Kris is up for it...” A glance at Kris' passive face gives no answer as to whether or not he would be okay with whatever Chanyeol has in mind. “...then I'd totally love to, you know...” Chanyeol wiggles his eyebrows, still grinning that bright smile (does he ever stop?).

Joonmyun recoils. “Uhm, what?” He feels so out of the loop, like he's the only one not in on the joke, like the point is passing right over his head. He doesn't like it one bit.

“He's so cute,” Baekhyun coos. That doesn't make Joonmyun less tense. Not at all.

Apparently Chanyeol takes it upon himself to explain. He begins to lean slowly closer and closer to Joonmyun... only to be stopped by a hand planted flat on his face, shoving him away. Using his other hand, Yixing grabs Joonmyun and pulls him behind himself as if trying to shield him with his own body. Joonmyun still isn't quite sure what's going on. Or why he needs to be shielded, for that matter. “That's enough, you guys,” Yixing says.

Minseok chuckles. “Come on, Yixing, be a good boy and share with your friends,” he says, and even Sehun finally tears his attention away from his phone to look at them.

And then it happens. Yixing actually growls. Literally. “No,” he says, tugging Joonmyun closer, and Joonmyun can feel his face burn red. “We're leaving.”

“It was nice meeting you all,” Joonmyun manages to get out before Yixing has dragged him out of the room and away from his band mates.

Yixing doesn't slow down until they've made it all the way outside. Here he stops and he appears to be genuinely apologetic as he looks at Joonmyun. “I'm sorry about them.”

“What?” Joonmyun says, surprised. “No no, they all seem pretty nice. I... I liked them. And they seemed to like me, too.”

“Oh, they like you alright,” Yixing mutters, but he doesn't sound all that happy about it. Joonmyun furrows his brow. Shouldn't Yixing be happy that his friends like each other? “Uhm, this may be really forward, but... would you like to come back to my place?” Joonmyun blinks at the sudden change in subject, but Yixing seems to misinterpret his expression. He grimaces. “I'm sorry if it's inappropriate, but it's just... I didn't get to spend a lot of time with you tonight and I, uh... I'd like to. Spend time with you, I mean.” Yixing scratches the back of his neck bashfully and it tugs at the strings of Joonmyun heart.

“That would be nice,” he says. The way Yixing smiles does other things to Joonmyun's heart that he doesn't know what means. He figures those thoughts are better left alone, though. At least for the time being.

~*~

A/N: yesssss.
okay okay, here you can see the group's chemistry as well as a bit of some of the other pairings in the story: kris/chanyeol, sehun/tao (baekhyun/, haha bye), ft. flirty!baeklay and jealous!joonmyun and, as a special bonus, the super interesting story of how "switchblade granola" became their band name. yeah. you may think it strange that yixing growled when everyone was bothering joonmyun (aka trying to trick him into having a , haha byE!!), but that is because I read an interview one time where they talked about the lyrics to "growl" and the host asked them about it and yixing said that one time someone was bothering his girlfriend and he 'growled'. so yeah. that's inspired by that. because joonmyun is totally yixing's girlfriend.

this author's note is super lame, but I am too tired to write anything properly. I haven't had a lot of sleep these past few days (a conscious choice) and I am literally running on coffee right now. I don't even like coffee. what have I become.

here is a gif because why not

hhhhhhh...