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ajayinthedark) wrote2022-12-13 07:04 am
understanding astrophysics: the confession
“Are you…” Renjun trails, “Are you giving me your own album after I almost got assaulted?”
“There’s a Zhang Yixing [I habitually forget Renjun is EXO-L.] album in there too!” Chenle defends, setting a pot of water to boil. He’s glad he can keep himself occupied, or he’d probably end up clawing his eyes out and throwing them into the gutters or holding Renjun’s hand [This is what I mean by detracting humour. Objectively, this is hilarious, but what is it doing here? I couldn't tell you, man, my muse had fully possessed my body at this point.] or something equally as drastic. “My narcissism has bounds, thank you very much.” Daegal barks and Chenle adds, “See? My daughter agrees with me.”
“Your daughter is hungry. We’re an hour late to feeding her.” [If they're in Seoul, they feed and walk her together every night. If not, Kun does. The hate between Daegal and Kun used to be mutual (Kun is a staunch cat person and Daegal thought Kun always smelled funny) but they've grown on each other.]
“Hungry in agreement.”
“Chenle—” Renjun hesitates. “Can we talk about it? For once, this time?” [Callback to every "They don't talk about it" moment throughout the fic. Renjun hates confrontation and Chenle hates the possibility of feeling upset and being vulnerable over deeper emotions, so of course they've spent their entire relationship dancing around arguments.]
Chenle flinches, then schools his face into an expression belonging to someone who definitely did not just flinch. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he huffs, slicing the scallion with so much force, the thud the knife makes against the cutting board echoes throughout the kitchen. “I’m sorry my fans are batshit insane, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s all up to the company.”
On the ride from the mall to Chenle’s apartment, Renjun went frantic taking company calls to PR, the legal team, and half the executive board. Chenle’s personal cell blowing up with texts from Kun, Jisung, and Jeno didn’t hold a candle to the way Renjun’s phone started to overheat from the amount of incoming messages. [Jisung and Jeno are curled up together in bed, refreshing their phones over and over again. They're worried. They have each other, but they're worried.] God only knew what SNS looked like, and whatever hell was being raised on the trending tags.
Through each insult and every threat flung at him in formal Korean, Renjun’s voice never wavered. Chenle wanted more than anything for him to curse back, but all he did was steel his expression and drive faster. [Chenle thinks Renjun deserves to get mad back. Renjun thinks he doesn't deserve to feel anything. It's a conversation they'll have in the future.]
It wasn’t until Doyoung called and instructed Renjun to turn off his and Chenle’s company mobiles, I’ll handle it myself, stay offline and rest well, I’ll see you tomorrow, that either of them could loosen their shoulders. His quiet, “Take care,” had Renjun exhaling, breath faltering for the first time since getting into the car. [The way Donghyuck is to Renjun what Jisung is to Chenle, Doyoung is to Renjun what Kun is to Chenle. Doyoung is fiercely protective over Renjun because Renjun started where Doyoung started years and years ago, and Doyoung knows how hard it is to fight for love. To do it while in the industry, well. That's Doyoung's story for another day.]
They picked Daegal up from Chenle’s apartment, triple checked the paths they took, and on the last leg of the drive, Chenle read updates from Kun aloud—the statement, the fan policy adjustments, and the beginnings of the case. Once Kun told him the company was saving the rest of the public announcements for the next day, tell Renjun everything is going to be okay, get a good night’s sleep, [Kun doesn't get a good night sleep.] Chenle put a ballad playlist on shuffle and the two remained silent all the way up to the closing of Renjun’s front door.
The same playlist hums through Renjun’s sound system now, Lin Junjie and Chan Yick Shun settling over them in a layer thick enough to spoon.
“No, not that.” Renjun reaches a hand out and Daegal waddles [Daegal's lopsided walk is so cute.] over to him, snout bumping against his palm. The contact works some kind of magic spell, sending Renjun slumping against the living room couch. [Dogs are scientifically proven to be therapeutic.] “About—you know what.”
“No, I don’t, actually.”
That’s a lie. Chenle does know.
Chenle does know, but it’s late and he’s exhausted to the inner workings of his bones and the reins holding back his spite dig into his hands harder than he’s ever.
The time Renjun yelled at Chenle for almost fifteen minutes while they were stuck at customs, only for it to turn out that it was the fault of one of the wardrobe technicians [He learned the English word "deported" that day, and he's never been more paralysed with terror to this day. He went to his hotel room and locked himself in the bathroom until he could feel his breathing again.]; every argument they had during the months Chenle pushed himself to match the pace of his standard schedules with his sprained ankle, ER always a breath away [Every visit to the physiologist hurt Renjun as much as it hurt Chenle.]; their very first fight after Chenle found out Renjun had been redoing his Korean assignments for him during his last months as a trainee to ensure he debuted [Renjun was eighteen, and he was so, so scared. Chenle couldn't go back to China. Chenle couldn't lose his years of work just because of messy homework. Chenle couldn't leave Renjun alone.]; all of the things they never talked about threaten to pull themselves out of Chenle’s grasp.
He does know what, though.
It doesn’t surprise him when Renjun asks, “Were you joking? When you asked to date me?”
It doesn’t surprise him, because he’s had this argument with himself in the shower more times than he’s taken showers in the past four years. [You know I'm a real little sun because I have to include at least one comment about how stinky Chenle is.] He challenges, “You never take a single word I say seriously, so does it matter anymore?”
Renjun takes a grand old time mulling over his next words, and the passing seconds add an extra degree to the heat of Chenle’s stare. Soon enough, he’s sure he can get the pot of water to boil faster than Renjun’s cursed induction stove so long as he glares at it hard enough. [Every person that cooks regularly can tell you how much they hate induction stoves.]
“That’s,” Renjun starts, “not true—”
“Then why did you ask that?” Chenle cuts in, “Why can’t you look me in the eyes?” He’s spent five years wearing his patience thin, and if he has to play another game of NASCAR, constantly turning left in circles, he might just direct his car at Renjun’s and crash head on. [Is NASCAR still a thing? I remember it being popular slang like five to six years ago, and I personally never stopped using it, but does anyone else actually use it?]
Renjun scowls and chucks Daegal’s watermelon chew toy at him. He misses and it lands in the empty rice cooker. “Stop deflecting.”
Chenle goes back to cutting strips of pork at lightning speed. “I’ll stop deflecting if you stop avoiding.” [Renle's biggest conflict, broken down to it's bare essentials.]
Their silence stretches long enough for the water to boil, and Chenle sets down his knife with a sigh, closing his eyes. If Renjun isn’t going to take the first step, so be it.
“You can say no,” he says, fighting to keep his voice level. “I won’t be upset at you.” [He had a lot more rehearsed than this, but staring at Renjun made him lose his words. Me too, king.]
It surprises him how the words taste like the truth. A bitter truth, but the truth nonetheless.
“That’s not it.” Renjun picks Daegal up and sets her in his lap. He could hold her in one hand when they adopted her, and now her legs have to hang off the sides of his thighs. “We can’t date.”
“Why not?” Chenle demands. Autopilot is starting to take over, million character rant fighting to get its way out of him. [Now the words are back.]
Except, Renjun doesn’t say what Chenle anticipates at all, a comet flying by his peripheral in the opposite direction he’s headed. “Donghyuck is engaged. Did you know that?”
“Donghyuck is engaged?” Since when—?
Chenle shakes his head and dunks the blocks of noodles into the water. He’s not falling for this. “This isn’t how the conversation is supposed to go. You’re supposed to spew that bullshit about how I’m your job and you’re only spending time with me because you’re on a check, and I’m supposed to shoot it all down with my perfectly constructed arguments. Stop avoiding.”
True to himself, Renjun ignores him. Avoids him. “They’re aiming to have it in October. [Johnny said Halloween wedding. Donghyuck said yes. Donghyuck's parents said absolutely not.] Donghyuck already asked me to be his best man.”
“I just told you the script,” Chenle snaps, “Why do you keep derailing?”
The look Renjun fixes on him is so—sad, and Chenle’s resolve crumples into pieces. Not angry, not dismayed, just flat out sad; there’s nothing funny about it [Bringing back the angry Renjun is funny thing I mentioned in The Cargument breakdown.]. He bites his tongue and doesn’t interrupt when Renjun starts to speak again. “We used to joke about it,” he recalls, voice faraway, “about how the two of us had such terrible commitment issues and still somehow managed to stay each other’s only close friend for years. Every date I went on said I was too obsessed with school, too obsessed with work, too obsessed with my future. Donghyuck’s dates said he was too obsessed with himself. [Once upon a time, Donghyuck was gunning to be an idol, too.]
“Donghyuck met Youngho around the same time I started working for you, and I watched him change before my eyes. They’ve gone through hell and back, but in those five years, Donghyuck grew a full garden with Youngho helping him water the flowers [The first time Johnny walked into Donghyuck's old apartment, this run down broke rat studio with clothes strewn everywhere and ten League of Legends posters plastered all over the walls, he saw a small herb garden sitting on the kitchen window sill, and realised he might have been in love.], the two of them always making their way back to each other in the end. I’m happy for Donghyuck in a way I’ll never be able to put into words, but I’m also so envious.”
Renjun curls around Daegal, making himself so small, he’s seconds away from disappearing into the gap in the couch cushions. “I’m still here. It’s been five years, and I’m still here, stuck in my own mud. Every date in the past month, all the dates in the past years, they all ended the same: me, left alone with my dirt pot and my seeds that refuse to germinate. [Tomato seeds.] I’m tired all the time, anxious all the time, neck deep in my work all the time, I’m just—me, all the same, all the time.
“What I said about you being work was aggressive and exaggerated and completely unfair to you at the time.” Daegal squirms out of Renjun’s arms and Renjun doesn’t bother reaching for her. He slouches upright against the couch. “It wasn’t the full truth, either.
“I love you, Chenle, I think I’ve loved you for a long time, but work is a lot. I get up exhausted, go through the day pretending I’m not, come back here exhausted, and go through it all over again four hours later. A lot of times, it feels as if all I’m living for is the last hour or two of the week I can spend for myself, watching a documentary or reading a novel and letting myself escape—all this. [We are all victims to the corporate grind. Fuck capitalism.]
“It’s not your fault, it’s never your fault, but you’re always there, you’re the one that keeps me through it, and every part of work—the bad, the worse, the ugly—is going to follow us around in the back seat. Parts of you might be work, and I’m used to it, but you aren’t. There are days where I look at you and I can only see deadlines I haven’t met, emails I haven’t responded to, paperwork waiting in a stack on my desk, and you don’t deserve that. You deserve someone that can see you as more, especially when you are more.”
He picks up the album and runs his nail along the plastic seams with practised ease, the packaging coming undone in two neat pieces. “You have your last stage Saturday. You have repackage recording next week, and its promotions in a month, a stadium concert before the end of the year. You have million sellers to perform, countries to tour, people to meet, awards to win, a career and a future and a whole world that’s bigger than me. You’re bigger than me, Chenle. You’re bigger than me and my desk and my ten alarms. [Eleven.] You deserve bigger.”
Renjun finishes with a weak chuckle, a broken chord dissonant against the love song belting from the speakers. Chenle studies Renjun from his place in the kitchen. The harsh lighting of the condo highlights the creases sunken into Renjun’s bare face and the expanses of ghost-pale skin; he looks sick, in a way Chenle knows isn’t only from today. [When I write, I imagine every scene like a movie; I can very clearly visualise the positioning of the characters, the layouts of the setting and the lines they draw across the screen, and the camera angles/lighting, as if I was there, directing it.
This frame, so to speak, is my favourite in the whole fic. You have Renjun, curled up on the couch, and Chenle, standing up right in the kitchen, with his hands occupied cooking the noodles, light flowing from an overhead smack dab in between the two of them. It reflects my favourite dynamic contrast between the two of them as a ship, where Renjun holds all of his emotions very close to him in a bottle, and Chenle lets them all out as quickly as he can so he can move on. Defensive versus offensive, physically represented in their positioning.]
Still, he’s Renjun.
Chenle’s first friend, second in command, older brother Renjun; quadrilingual, employee of the year for three years, senior chief manager Renjun; spitfire, idealistic, a little too beautiful Renjun.
Frustrating, frustrating, frustrating Renjun.
Fuck the script. “You L-word me, right?” [I could not tell you how I thought of the L-word thing. It's genius, but where did she come from? I could not tell you, my friend.]
“Really? L-word?” Renjun shakes his head. “That’s the point you’re focusing on?”
“No shit, I’m focusing on that point.” Chenle cranks the burner for the frying pan to max. “That’s the only point you made that has any value. I L-word you too. Isn’t that enough?”
“Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice—”
“Fucking brilliant!” He’s not shouting, he never shouts, but there’s sparks racing up and down his arms, a simmering kind of anger he’s prided himself for knowing how to control. The pressure in the room takes a nosedive, gravity forcing every atom in Chenle’s body closer and closer together, on the brink of an explosive collapse. [Anger does actually affect your blood pressure, if you didn't know.]
Chenle clenches his fists. “If the L-word is a choice, you’ve already chosen me. You’ve committed to me for another two years, even longer if you sign off the next contract renewal. You take me to work everyday even though we have a designated driving team, you pay for all my drinks out of your own pocket, you’ve chosen me more than you’ve chosen anything else in the past five years. [Acts of service is Renjun's love language.]”
“But it’s not—”
“I’m not done,” Chenle seethes, throwing everything into the pan all at once. The oil crackles to life, him with it. “Fuck off with this whole ‘bigger than’ bullshit! If I wanted bigger, I would’ve asked out Jisung or Jeno or fucking—Yizhuo, for Christ’s sake. But I didn’t. You know why? Because I don’t want bigger! I want dinners where I cook everything because even though I complain, I love cooking for you, and I want you to choose our ingredients when we go out to Haidilao because I don’t even like hotpot, but I love that you love hotpot, and I want to give you my salted cashews on the airplane because I hate cashews and I love seeing you eat well. [You can see him getting closer and closer to Saying It.]
“I want to take you to places that I pay for and let you drive because it makes you feel better about not paying, I want you to take the remote when you’re over at my apartment and put on a space documentary, and I want you to talk through the entire thing, because I listen to everything you say, and I want you to take Daegal’s leash on walks when my hands chafe, since I forget to apply moisturiser unless you tell me to, and I want you to tell me about everything you read on JJWXC, so I can keep sending you those memes you only check on work hours because it gives you a two second break in the day. [A Renle moment I think about all the damn time is when Renjun scolded Chenle and called him inconsiderate, and it stuck with Chenle for so long that he awkwardly Bubble-d about it. Chenle may seem inconsiderate, but he watches so, so closely, and takes so much care to save these moments. The little things truly mean the most to him, and you can see that every time he talks about what he appreciates from the members: basketball matches with him, doing his dishes, etc.]
“I don’t want bigger, gege [Gege...], I want you,” Chenle says in his final breath, feeling himself floating back down to Earth. His ears feel fuzzy. “Why can’t you understand that?”
Renjun opens his mouth, closes it, pauses, and opens it again. “How is that any different than the past five years?”
“It’s not.” Chenle sets the stir fry aside once it’s finished cooking and mixes the hot oil with the packet seasoning, the motions tethering him to the ground. He hates getting caught in his own head, hates the way Renjun looks at him so lost even more. Continuing to cook dinner at least ensures there’s something in his hands, something going right.
He regains himself once the noodles finish cooking. “For as many times as you’ve chosen me,” Chenle manages, dividing the noodles into uneven halves for the two plates, “I’ve always chosen you, too. The difference is that I know what it means now. Is it enough for you?” [What a kicker.]
Chenle doesn’t dare look up until Renjun laughs, this time clearer. A real laugh. “Look what I pulled.”
Cradled in his hands is one of Chenle’s photocards, the one he helped Chenle take. Renjun’s avoiding again, but Chenle doesn’t have the energy to tell him off.
He picks up the plates and brings them to the living room with two sets of chopsticks and glances at the disassembled album in Renjun’s lap. “This is your most expensive photocard on the market,” Renjun explains, flipping it over to examine the signed side.
“How do you know?” Chenle humours him, “Why is it so expensive?”
Renjun ignores the first question. [He knows because he runs one of the biggest little sun fan accounts on Twitter. Reread the social media parts, you'll see.] “Because everyone says it looks like you’re in love.”
“I was. I am. In love.” Chenle clears his throat. “Renjun, I’m in love with you.”
The words settle, tea leaves at the bottom of a glass, basketball rolling to a stop, chemical reactions reaching equilibrium in the vacuum of space. [Another line where I reference all of the analogies/metaphors I've been using throughout the fic. I actually really like this line. I think it's the most weighted line out of the whole fic.]
Chenle sets both plates down on the coffee table, hands shaking.
His foolproof plan didn’t account for all the hurt in between the lines.
He pushes the plate with more noodles towards Renjun and pretends his heart isn’t splintering into pieces. “Eat.” [This is the most intimate expression of love in the entire fic. To me, this is what sacrifice for a loved one is. This is what it means to give selflessly. If you've ever given someone a bigger portion, you know you're just as filled watching them enjoy the extra bite.]
Every second that passes breaks off another chunk. They settle too, a bloodied mess staining Chenle’s croissant slippers.
What gets Renjun to move is Daegal padding back into the room, whimpering and laying down in the space between their feet, upset. [Dogs can feel when their humans are upset. Daegal is overwhelmed because why are her fathers fighting? She loves them, so why don't they love each other?] Chenle wants to move her, save her from splotches of red, but Renjun beats him to it, bringing her back up on the couch. She nestles against his side, and looking at the two of them makes everything burn.
“Loving you is so easy.” Renjun sniffles, mixing his noodles together. “Why is this choice so difficult?”
“Maybe you’re thinking about it much harder than you should be,” Chenle comments, watching Renjun bite the bits of his soul he left in the noodles, the bits he’s left in every last dish he’s cooked. [I know I overuse food as a metaphor for love, but as someone that cooks for others regularly, this is genuinely how it feels. Artists know that everything they create has a part of them in it, and the same thing goes for cooking.]
After chewing and swallowing the first bite, Renjun sets down his chopsticks and replies, “I don’t know how not to.”
It’s instinct that feeds Chenle the idea, adrenaline that has him leaning forward, and in a split second, his hands cup Renjun’s jaw and tilt his head backward so Chenle can capture him in a kiss. [Don't do this when you're confessing, friends. Ask for consent first.]
Chilli stings the cracks in his lips first [Donghyuck long gave up trying to get Chenle to invest in lip balm.], but the muffled noise Renjun makes has him pushing further. Chenle has no fucking clue what he’s doing, has done this less times than he can count on his hands, but Renjun’s mouth is soft, parting under Chenle’s tongue, and he wants more. There are lyrics collecting in the back of Chenle’s throat, uncorked metaphors and symbols and feelings he pours into Renjun with what’s left of his heart. [Underrated line in the fic. It's a callback to the recording scene, where Chenle mentions he has no idea what he's singing about. He does now. He knows what heartbreak feels like. He knows what love feels like. He'll write about it later, and show it to Kun, who doesn't say anything about the sudden shift in attitude, but Kun will know. He'll know.]
Chenle doesn’t get to chase more, because Renjun puts his hands on Chenle’s chest and pulls back.
Both their shallow breaths match in tempo, Renjun flushed red from the tips of his ears down the slope of his nose.
Chenle licks his lips. Stares at Renjun. Runs his thumbs over Renjun’s cheekbones. “Did that stop your thoughts?”
“I don’t know.” Something flickers in Renjun’s eyes, and his hands grasp the fabric of Chenle’s hoodie. “Do it again?”
He does.
Again, and again, and again, until he tastes past the oil, salt, and spice, coaxing out something sweet. [That's what love is: trying again, and again, and again, until you get past all the messy stuff until you can find the real value.]