understanding astrophysics: the cargument
Dec. 13th, 2022 06:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajayinthedark[19:07 - Lee Donghyuck (MUA)]
Lee Donghyuck (MUA)
yangyang had an emergency with his apartment [I was originally planning on having Yangyang stand up Renjun, but the physical pain of making him that much of an asshole was too much, so I scrapped it.]
something to do with the pipes
i’ll talk to renjun about it in private but i know you’re in the car with him
so i figured you’d want to know
don’t say anything shitty to renjun
he’s been going through a lot [Can we get a round of applause for Donghyuck, Renjun's version of Jisung? Can you even imagine how many long long rants about Chenle didn't do this Chenle isn't listening that he's had to endure?]
and i like him a hell of a lot more than i like you chenle
he has a glass heart you’re not allowed to play basketball with it [Underrated Donghyuck line.]
watch your fucking mouth
if you hurt him i’ll kill you
“Tomorrow,” Renjun falters, breaking the still air inside the car, “You have a photoshoot with Candylab [My favourite Chenle product promotion photoshoot.] in the morning, a demo listen for your repackage in the afternoon, and—”
“Can you shut up about work for once?” Chenle shoves his phone into his pocket. “Just—shut up.” [I reuse this line in the finale, when Chenle tells Renjun to shut up about Haidilao. In both scenarios, he's screaming inside his head, "Don't shut up, please don't shut up, please keep talking, you always talk so much, give me back the always, make everything normal again."]
Renjun croaks, “Okay.” His voice cracks on the way up the tone, and Chenle falls back against the car seat with a wince. From inside his pocket, Chenle’s phone stings, the ghost of Donghyuck’s fingers wrapping around his neck.
Every time they’ve driven together, there’s always music humming through the speakers. Sure, Chenle wrinkles his nose at every western pop boy band song that comes up on shuffle, and he always has to slap Renjun’s hand away from skipping the fantasy video game soundtracks, but there’s enough Troye Sivan, Jay Chou, and classic trot in their car playlist to keep the two of them satisfied. [Sharing music is one of Chenle's love languages, if the incessant recommendations to his members and his Bubble spams are anything to go by.] If they aren’t both mumbling the lyrics, it’s Chenle singing the harmonies or Renjun humming to the tune, a constant lull as natural as breathing.
Today proves to be an exception.
Renjun doesn’t make a single move to pick up his phone, and Chenle doesn’t want Renjun to know he figured out his new passcode. [It's "hdlmalabase321".]
All Chenle gets is the sound of the rush hour traffic surrounding them.
Gazing out the window gets boring in less than five minutes, the car crawling forward at a centimetre per hour pace doing nothing to change the slate grey scenery.
There’s a speck of dust on the dashboard, and Chenle brushes it off. [I get very acutely observant when I'm stressed or overwhelmed, and it's one of those small pieces of personality I share with Chenle that I hold near and dear to my heart.]
His vision drifts over to Renjun, whose head angled straight forward. His hair is a total mess, windswept from how he ran to his car earlier, and every breath he takes in is ragged. Despite how much Renjun hates it, Chenle’s seen Renjun like this far more times than he can count.
It’s why he notices it’s different this time around.
“You have—” Chenle clears his throat. “You have something on your face.”
“Tear streaks?” retorts Renjun, “Thanks for pointing that out.”
“No, I mean.” Trying to reach back in his memory for the right words proves to be harder than moving in zero gravity without a manned manoeuvring unit. “You have glitter eyeshadow on. And wings. Whatever they’re called. You never do that. You just do the base stuff.” [Donghyuck helped him get ready for the date. For someone so artistically inclined, this Renjun is abysmal with makeup. His hand shakes too much.]
“I—yeah, I suppose.”
The conversation is going somewhere, at least, and Chenle keeps pushing forward. Stale conversation is better than no conversation. “Why’d you do it, then? You never care about your looks this much.”
“I cared tonight,” Renjun snaps. “Do I have people to impress on schedules?”
Like that, it’s back to quiet.
Chenle gets lost fishing around for another conversation topic in the deep space of his mind, and Renjun’s stomach growls loud enough to tether him back to Earth. Renjun’s entire posture slackens, and Chenle doesn’t know if that makes him feel better or worse. He doesn’t know anything about how he feels, it seems. [Chenle's relationship with his emotions is that if he doesn't understand them at first glance, he completely ignores them. It's helpful for someone who forces himself to keep his emotions surface level, but the moment you introduce something more complex and multifaceted, bing bong error noise.]
“We can, uh.” Chenle scratches his neck. “We can have hotpot at my apartment.” He’s sure he can scrap fridge leftovers soup and save the Thai for tomorrow, for another night of hotpot. It’s not a big deal. It’s not. [It is a big deal. He hates hotpot.] “I have the Haidilao soup base you left last time, meat in the freezer, and the mushrooms you like. [Renjun does the grocery shopping for Chenle, and always buys less groceries for himself. Chenle knows this, and writes down all of Renjun's favourite ingredients on the list, because Renjun deserves to treat himself.] We can watch Alien Worlds again. [Alien Worlds is really good, I honestly recommend it LMAO.]”
“No, Chenle. I don’t want hotpot anymore.” His voice shakes over every character.
The words don’t add up. “What do you mean? You said you’d eat hotpot every day if you could. You literally went out today for hotpot. You clearly cared enough about hotpot to dress up for it.”
“It’s not about the hotpot.” Renjun sighs, and it sounds like it takes all his energy to do so. “Forget it.”
On the other hand, Chenle’s starting to get heated. [Renjun gets upset so much more than Chenle that it's infinitely more exhausting for Renjun. Another rodeo, another night curled up in bed trying to beat it all down into submission. Chenle so rarely gets angry that when he starts feeling anger, it zips through him like adrenaline, a drug high he's not used to.] If the conversation goes in one more circle, he might lose it. “I’m trying to help. What are you mad at me for? Why don’t you want to eat?”
“Because it’s not about the hotpot! It’s not about eating or food!”
“Then what the hell—?”
“The date, Chenle!” Renjun explodes, “I cared because it was a date! I cared because it was a date and I wanted him to like me!”
Renjun is sensitive. Renjun is short-tempered. Renjun is prone to raising his voice to the point of strain.
These are all traits Chenle is more than acquainted with.
Chenle, in his entire life, has never flinched at Renjun’s volume, has never heard Renjun’s voice erupt from so deep in his chest, has never seen Renjun look so unmistakably angry. It’s not funny in the slightest. [Callback to when Chenle says in the opening scene that Renjun angry is funny. It's only funny when it's trivial, and everything Chenle makes fun of Renjun over is trivial. It's not so funny anymore when Renjun is hurt by his words.]
“Well—” Chenle stutters, digging his blunt nails into his palm, feeling pain cut into hands, feeling different, feeling a sudden bout of understanding and clarity he’s never felt before, feeling a meaning, feeling an answer he should’ve stumbled upon earlier in the past five years, feeling too much for him to keep inside, feeling the overwhelming urge to blurt out, “Can’t I be your date?” [Jay branded long long sentence with ridiculous repetition.]
“What?” The car lurches in place [Totally out of the mood, but Renjun sparks me as one of those Asian grandma drivers that haven't obeyed driving laws since they first got their license. He's definitely U-turned in the middle of a 3 lane road.]— “No, I—are you kidding?”
“I—I like gege already [Gege...], so you don’t have to worry about that—”
“Chenle, no. Stop. This isn’t funny—”
“I could—I could peel your shrimp for you and separate your perilla leaves [Oh my favourite little contrarian.] and—”
“No—”
“What else would you want on a date? Is your favourite dinner and being treated like a prince not enough? [Good food and people doing things for him is Chenle's idea of romance. That's probably why he likes Kun and Jaemin so much.] I can get flowers from the supermarket at the corner and—”
“No, I—”
“Stop saying no! Why can’t you say yes? What would make this a yes?” [Renjun's spent his entire career saying yes to you, Chenle. Be serious.]
“I—” If Renjun didn’t have the arm strength of a stale rice noodle [This line is so unserious and it makes me laugh every time. I should not be laughing at this scene.], his white-knuckled grip would rip the steering wheel clean off. “Nothing would make this a yes. You’re not a date. You’re never going to be a date. Eating dinner with you and spending time with you isn’t a date, it’s my contractual obligation. It’s my job.” [Renjun's spent the past years of his life wishing it wasn't like this. Every time they've gone out to get food, every takeout meal huddled around the couch, every protein bar nibbled on at the end of 16 hour work days, Renjun's wished for more. He doesn't let himself wish very often, but if he goes to bed after a meal, he'll dream of a world where he and Chenle meet outside of the industry, and have a sit-down dinner in public, just the two of them.]
And back to the fucking circle again. He hasn’t lost it, but it sure as hell hurts. “Your job this, your job that,” Chenle groans, throwing his hands up so hard they bang against the roof of the car, “Is everything about me fucking work to you?”
“Yes, it is,” Renjun seethes. “You want to know why? Because you are my job, Zhong Chenle. You’re my fucking job, and every second you test me is another second I have to endure with a smile, another meeting with an executive I have to grit my teeth through, because your name is written in fine print on a piece of paper with my entire livelihood signed off at the bottom. I’m tired. I want a life beyond the overtime you force me to deal with! [Even though Renjun would choose Chenle no matter what, the lack of choice itself is one of his biggest fears: being trapped in a box beyond his control.] Why can’t you see that for once?”
And that’s it. That’s just fucking it. [I despise big arguments where one person sits and takes everything. Renjun is overly defensive and Chenle is overly stubborn. If there's any combination of 7Dream that results in the worst, ugliest arguments, it'd be either these two or Donghyuck and Jeno.]
“Oh, fuck off with this shit!” Chenle roars, balling his hands into fists, “We’ve spent five fucking years together, I don’t believe for a second that all I am to you is a paycheck to your bank account. Okay, so I’m an idol, you’re my manager, the lines are smudged all over the place, I get it! That doesn’t change the fact that we grew up as two foreigners in a country that wanted nothing to do with us under a company that shits on us every single goddamn day of our lives [I wish I could've explored the toxicity of the industry a little more, but I was already cutting close to the deadline when this scene was written. If I ever write another idolverse fic, I want to take the time to explore systemic homophobia and how awful the industry is.] and, I don’t know, maybe that means something! Maybe our fucking relationship means something! Maybe you mean something to me! Why can’t you see that for once? Why can’t you see me for once?!” [Chenle's entire life is an act, and every single person that perceives him perceives this fictionalised version of him that's ready-made for cameras. Renjun's never seen him like that. At least, so Chenle thought up until this explosion.]
His inhale hits him all at once, a sonic boom ringing in his ears. [I actually drafted from "Stop saying no!" all the way to this line holding my breath, my hands flying across the keys, and here is the exact moment when I exhaled.]
The silence is held overtime [Basketball reference,], a fermata [music reference,] the length of a lightyear. [and space reference. I wanted at least one line that tied the big overarching analogies/metaphors, but this line still drives me insane. I can't tell if I hate it or not.]
“Chenle.” It’s the barest whisper. Chenle hears it louder than day. [I think people are scarier when they're angry if they're quiet. Renjun has never gotten truly angry on camera, and if he ever did, I imagine it would be this chilling, silent kind of rage.] “Get out of the car.”
Blinking clears his red-tinted vision enough for Chenle to see that the car is stalled in front of the side entrance to his apartment complex.
Renjun isn’t even looking at him, and maybe that’s when he loses it.
“I’m not fucking done with you—”
“I am,” Renjun says wearily, “Chenle. As your—as your da-ge [Da-ge...], I’m telling you right now to get out of the car.”
“Fuck you,” Chenle spits. He doesn’t look behind him either when he throws open the door and slams it shut behind him.
He can’t hear anything over the ringing, can’t see anything past his tunnel vision.
Chenle stands there for a minute, five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, until he can feel something other than numbness.
What he feels first turns out to be cold and wet, and when he reaches a hand to ghost across his face, he looks up and finally notices that it’s raining. [Daegal whines when he gets back home and sticks to his leg for the rest of the night. Why is Father so cold? Why is Father's heartrate so erratic? Why is Father feeling so stressed and sad? Where is the other Father?]
[Renjun goes home to a text from Jisung asking why Chenle cancelled the livestream, and a missed call from Donghyuck. He doesn't call back. Instead, he fishes out his paint-by-numbers from his closet and paints until everything is numb again. He hasn't done this in a while, hasn't been this upset over Chenle in a while, but. Well. Maybe what happened was for the best.]
