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Changbin’s got one eye on his bowl of noodles and one eye on Chan’s Spotify history. It’s getting worrying. He’s jumping between The Rose, Woodz, and (for some reason) the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. It’s been going for about three hours. That means Chan isn’t working—he can’t make tracks or write lyrics and listen to this playlist all night. So he’s probably wallowing. He probably hasn’t eaten either, because he hasn’t left long enough to pause the music.
Changbin slams his laptop closed and grabs a Tupperware.
When he gets to the studio, he can hear the strings from He’s a Pirate through the soundproof door. He knocks quietly. The music cuts. “Yeah?” Chan yells.
Changbin pushes his way in. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve eaten.”
“When, at noon?” Changbin puts down the Tupperware on the desk. “It’s past ten, hyung.”
“Oh.” Chan blinks at the container. “Is it really?”
“Eat, all right?”
Chan scrubs a hand through his hair. He’s sleepy and thin-skinned, bruised eyes and bitten nails. Changbin wants to gather up his hands and press a kiss to every knuckle. “How do you always know what I need?”
The thing is, Changbin has been doing this for a while now, monitoring Chan’s music. It’s just a way to keep an eye on Chan without being too overbearing about it. But that sounds really weird, and probably really condescending—Well, hyung, you never ask for anyone to check up on you, but even you need to be checked on. If you spend a few hours blasting your angst playlist, a guy starts to worry.
Chan would probably hate that, though. Changbin squirms and laughs nervously. “Just got a psychic connection, I guess.”
Chan opens the container. “Thanks, Bin.”
“Cheers.”
Chan won’t come home until morning, but at least he’ll have eaten. Changbin sleeps better because of that.
Minho’s voice stops Changbin dead in the hallway. “Where are you going?”
“Uhhhh.” He drops his shoelaces like he’s done something wrong. “Just to the studio.”
“Aren’t you done for the day?”
“Chan needs help.” He finishes tying his shoe and straightens.
“It’s midnight.”
“Yep.” Minho should know by now that midnight is no odder an hour to work than noon.
Minho rolls his eyes, leaning against the doorframe. “I’m not saying it’s weird for Chan to be working, I’m saying it’s weird for him to call you in at this hour.”
“He didn’t call me,” Changbin admits, then wishes he hadn’t, because Minho raises an eyebrow.
“Then how do you know he needs help?”
He clutches his phone in sweaty fingers. “I just got a feeling.”
“Okaaaaay. Well, leave me out of your creepy mind connection, but remind Chan that we have practice at ten tomorrow.”
“Gotcha.” Changbin darts out the door.
He keeps refreshing the Spotify app on the walk over, nearly tripping down the curb and stepping right out into traffic. Fifteen plays. Sixteen. Eighteen. Jesus. Changbin’s going insane without even listening to the song. He’s glad it’s only a ten minute commute.
He doesn’t bother knocking; he can hear Chan giggling exhaustedly to himself, and Changbin’s own voice playing back at him. Kkulchong! Kkulchong! Kk-kk-kkulchong! He slams inside.
“Hyung. Hyung, please. Please stop.”
Chan spins around in the desk chair, a full circle, then again, laughing. “Binnie! Hi, Binnie, I was just listening to you.”
The song ends. Chan hits replay.
“Hyung you haven’t slept in 30 hours, please.”
Kkulchong! Chan is giggling. Changbin can feel the smile creep up his lungs. He tries to keep a straight face. He cannot encourage this. B-bada kokili! Chan shouts along and dissolves into laughter. Changbin yells, “Yah! Why are you playing this!”
Chan’s face is red from laughing so hard. “This is the greatest song you’ve ever done vocals for, Bin.”
“Turn it off!”
He lunges for the mouse, but Chan slides his chair in the way so Changbin sprawls half-over it, and just ends up jacking the volume higher. The beat picks up, the most absurd thing they’ve ever made, and then the beat drops and Chan mimics rave-hands, howling with laughter and pounding Changbin on the back. “Bin! It’s our jam, Bin!”
Changbin breaks and cackles. Chan is too much when he’s delirious with exhaustion, he’s unbearable to look at in the best way. Now neither of them can stop laughing, falling over each other, headbanging ridiculously.
When the last kkulchong! fades out, Changbin grabs Chan’s hands before he can hit replay again. “Hyung,” he chokes out through laughter, “how many times have you listened to this?” He knows the answer, but maybe if Chan says it out loud he’ll realize how insane he’s being.
“Ah- ah-“ Chan can barely breathe, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “I dunno? Three, four?” He hits a button and another reverbed kkulchong! rings out. He squeezes his eyes hard and laughs. He’s breathless, hair messy, face red.
Changbin’s chest is heaving too, but he tries as hard as he possibly can to sound serious. “Hyung, Jesus, seriously, how many?”
“Fine, like, ten?”
“Don’t lie!” He chokes down another hysterical giggle.
“You’re like, a mind reader, you know?” Chan throws an arm over his eyes, chest still shaking. “I dunno, it’s been like an hour and a half. I just—you just—with the little—” he collapses again. “And the beat drop!”
“Okay. Okay, I think you need to go home.”
“No! No no no, I was working, I can keep working.”
“You’ve been listening to this for two hours, you are! Not! Working!”
“Binnie, Bin, it’s a good song, you understand that it’s a good song, right?”
“OH my god! If you want someone to whisper sweet kkulchongs in your ear all night—” and here he can barely speak through bubbling laughter—“I will! Gladly! But you’ve gotta come home!”
Chan snorts, howls, covers his face with his hands while his shoulders shake. “You wouldn’t.”
“Kkulchong!” He gets right up in Chan’s ear and whispers another, “Kkulchong!”
“I—can’t—breathe—”
Changbin hauls him to his feet in his moment of weakness. “We’re going home.”
“I haven’t saved my work, wait—”
“You haven’t done any work, let’s go.” He manhandles Chan out the door, into the elevator. Every time he catches Chan’s eye out of the corner of his own, they both shake with suppressed laughter.
Chan’s fading by the time they actually get home, thank God. Changbin wants to offer to help him get ready for bed, but that feels like a really weird offer—weirder than what he normally does, for sure. But he can’t resist when Chan wrestles a strong arm around his shoulders and ruffles his hair sleepily.
“Thanks, Changbin,” he says. He only uses his full name when he’s being really sincere. Changbin’s lungs flutter. “How did you know, really?”
Changbin can’t really say Because I’m stalking your Spotify playlists. What if Chan privates his listening history? So he laughs, and says, “I just know you, hyung.”
Well, that’s true too, isn’t it?
“Bin. What are you doing here?” Chan says when Changbin shows up at his bedroom door holding a papaya smoothie in one hand and the huge velvet blanket draped over the other. He wipes a hand over wet eyes. Changbin’s heart clenches.
“I’m just checking on you,” Changbin says. He puts the smoothie on the desk. And then he hovers for a second, but Chan isn’t moving, and, well, it’ll make him feel better, won’t it? Chan’s always trying to steal this blanket, it’s the softest and heaviest in the house. So Changbin unfolds it and wraps it around Chan’s shaking shoulders. “I just want to—” his voice skitters in his throat. “To check on you.” To know you’re okay. To make you okay.
Chan turns his face into Changbin’s t-shirt, and he can’t move away. “I said I was fine.” It’s muffled in velvet and cotton.
“I didn’t believe you,” says Changbin. And that’s not precisely true. When they’d left the meeting (two scrapped songs and a vague, insidious admonishment about puffy faces during photo shoots), Chan had seemed fine. He had sounded okay. He had said he had other track ideas to work on, anyways. He hadn’t mentioned anything about photo shoots.
If Chan had disappeared into his room and put headphones on and Changbin didn’t have access to his Spotify, maybe he would’ve believed that Chan really was working.
But as it is, he does have access and there’s only so many times a person can listen to a three-song playlist (Tired by NIve, Tokyo by RM, and Hallelujah off the Shrek soundtrack—Chan is unhinged) before Changbin has to intervene.
Changbin gently unhooks Chan’s fingers from his shirt and pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders, then pushes the smoothie into his hands. “I got this for you. So you have to drink it. Otherwise I’ll be sad.”
“Maybe I—shouldn’t.”
He gets it. Changbin doesn’t like being told he’s never allowed to have sugar or salt again, either. And he doesn’t like the pushback he’ll get when he decides to ignore that bit of 'friendly advice', but he’ll ignore it anyways. “You know what I think? I think if people never see that our faces get puffy, they start to think it’s not normal for faces to get puffy. And then when it happens to them, they start to worry about it.”
Chan’s mouth turns down. Changbin doesn’t let him come up with an argument, doesn’t let it linger and make him sad. “So, it’s your duty, hyung. It’s your job for people to know that you’ve got these big cute cheeks sometimes, it’s like, a public service.” He pokes Chan’s cheek for emphasis. “People look up to us. People look up to you. You don’t want to give them the impression that they can only look one way, do you?”
Chan relents. His fingers curl around the cup, but he doesn’t drink. “I feel bad for the makeup artists, though.”
Changbin hisses dismissively. “Psssh, they like a challenge sometimes. Besides, next week photos are all boyfriend concept anyways. You know, if people only ever saw my incredibly chiseled jawline, I’d be too intimidating. Soft face is in. People love that shit! Look at Hannie, everyone’s obsessed with the round cheeks, he’s like, drowning in cutesy hashtags.”
It makes Chan smile, fragile and watery, but still, real. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right.”
Chan takes the straw in his mouth. “Fuck. You’re right, that’s good.”
“I know I’m right.”
They’re quiet for a second. Then Chan says, “You know me too well. It’s a little creepy.”
Changbin shakes his head. He wants to say, I love you, but that’s cheesy shit reserved for late nights and cameras. Even if it’s true.
“Hey, can I borrow your laptop?” Jisung asks.
“Sure.”
And then it takes Changbin two more minutes after Jisung has gone into his bedroom to shoot up off the couch and yell, “No! Wait, no, you can’t!”
It’s too late. Jisung is already frowning at the screen. “Hey, why do you have this note on here—Chan is only allowed 2 more Linkin Park songs—what does that mean?”
“Nothing! It doesn’t mean anything!” He scrambles to close the window. Unfortunately, behind it is—
“Is this Chan-hyung’s playlist?”
Changbin groans. “No. It’s nothing.”
Jisung squints. “Well, I think he’s exceeded his Linkin Park quota, if it is.”
Changbin covers his face with his hands, torn between the pit-in-his-stomach need to check up on Chan (he must be seething, based on that music history), and the desire to clock Jisung over the head and hope he forgets everything by the time he wakes up.
“Are you— Bin. You’re not like, checking Chan’s internet history, are you? That’s a little invasive.”
“No!” Changbin protests. He has to close the bedroom door and lower his voice, because this is strange enough without anyone else overhearing. Minho would have a goddamn field day with this information. “Of course I’m not! He just—he shared his password with me a while ago and I think he forgot, so I just… I just use his Spotify, so I just notice things, that’s it.”
“And… that’s why you have permissible levels of Linkin Park for him to listen to. Because you just… notice.”
“It’s not—I’m not—” Changbin sputters, because this is indefensible, this is insane.
“This is cyberstalking,” Jisung declares cheerfully.
Changbin sinks onto his bed. “Okay. You’re right, I should log out of the account.”
“Oh, definitely not!” Jisung says.
Changbin looks up. “…Not?”
“Listen, he bottles up everything, I’m glad someone’s keeping an eye on him. And no one better than you, hyung.”
“Uh… thanks?”
“I think you’re practically doing charity work. Although I’d close this tab when you’re not using your laptop, if I were you.”
“Yep. Yeah.”
“Okay! Well, this has gotten weird enough. Can you help me with these lyrics?”
“Actually…” Changbin runs a hand through his hair. “Actually, would you ask Chan for help?”
Jisung pouts. “What, you don’t have time for me anymore?”
Changbin can feel the back of his neck heating up. “I do, I just…. Look, he likes to help. It’ll make him happy to work on something with you. Instead of whatever angst-wallowing he’s doing right now.”
Jisung rolls his eyes. “I feel very weird about you using me as a present to make Chan happy.”
“Okay! Never mind! Forget I said anything!”
“Nope, I’m going. I just think you should know it’s weird.” He’s out the door before Changbin can stop him, calling back, “And I’m telling him that you sent me over to cheer him up.”
“Don’t you dare tell him about the—”
Jisung laughs and slams the door.
Later, Chan texts him.
thx for sending han over
needed to work on something different
how do you always know
What is there to say? He types out an I know you, deletes it. Types out, I love you, deletes it. In the end, types out a version of the truth and hopes Chan thinks he’s joking.
I have ears everywhere
listening
waiting
I think youre just psychic really
nah ur just obvious
You know me so well
I’m really grateful
Say that to my face you coward
k.
<3
“Don’t go in, Chan’s working,” Changbin tells Seungmin without even looking up.
“Ugh.” Seungmin wheels away without argument.
The same thing happens an hour later with Hyunjin, then with Felix. Changbin isn’t precisely camped outside Chan’s bedroom door as a guard dog; he’s just set up his computer in the living room, and he can see Chan’s door from here. And he’s not spying, he’s just keeping an eye on the playlist. There are only a few songs in the last couple hours. That means Chan is focused, and he hardly ever gets to focus without interruption, because usually concerns and schedules are so pressing.
“Whatever you need, it’s not urgent,” Changbin tells Jeongin before he can open his mouth. “Chan’s working. Ask Minho.”
Jeongin goes away as well. It’s silent.
Finally, sometime long after everyone has eaten (quietly, because Changbin kept glaring when they clanked cutlery or laughed too loudly), Chan’s door edges open and his face appears in the gap. He’s got dark circles under his eyes, but he’s glowing, papery light under his skin, gleaming eyes, excitement-shaky hands.
“Bin, it’s done! Come take a listen.”
Changbin follows him in and accepts the headphones. He closes his eyes to listen. Chan keeps a hand on his shoulder while he takes in the song, nodding to the bass. It’s beautiful, it’s heavy and slow. It’s a song like the thick velvet blanket, muffled and dark and warm. Changbin sucks in a breath at the chorus, Chan’s voice on the demo a high sweet hum over the low notes.
“Yah,” he says when it’s done. “Fuck, that’s good, Channie-hyung. That’s one of your best.”
Chan squeezes his shoulder. “You like it?”
“I love it. I can’t wait to record it.”
“It’s—I can’t believe no one interrupted me today.” Chan laughs. “I didn’t think I’d get to finish it.”
“I knew you were working, I kept them out,” Changbin says without thinking.
Chan pulls his hand away and frowns down. Changbin’s stomach drops for no reason. “You know me so well,” Chan says. His face is serious and tight. “Changbin, I’m so grateful.”
“I— Hyung, no. Nah, it’s nothing.” He tries to laugh.
But Chan looks so, so warm, lit up from within like a paper lantern, eyes bright. The laugh dies in Changbin’s chest. And Changbin can’t know him that well or he would know what that expression meant, why his eyes are glassy and glowing, why his mouth trembles at the corners.
“The song,” Chan says. “It’s for you. I wrote it for you.”
Changbin’s throat catches, a clasp on a silver chain pulled too tight, about to snap. “For me to sing?”
“No—well, yes. Bin. You know me so well, you must know—you’ve got to know—”
And he doesn’t know, Changbin doesn’t know anything, he’s just staring helpless, a moth caught in Chan’s lantern-light, mesmerized. Chan’s hand smooths up his shoulder, and that’s normal, that’s perfectly normal, but then it slots below his ear, thumb pressing the hinge of his jaw, fingers splayed across Changbin’s throat, and Chan murmurs, “You must know, you know me so well.”
“I—hyung?”
Chan kisses him. Chan. Kisses. Him. Chan’s mouth is on his mouth. It’s soft and a little tacky from chapstick, and the silver clasp keeping Changbin’s lungs locked up snaps, his whole body flooded with golden breath when he gasps in the air that Chan exhales, breathes the air from Chan’s mouth, tastes the metallic zing of joy on Chan’s teeth.
He can barely bring himself to pull back an inch. “Hyung? Hyung, what are you, are you sure—”
“I’m sure,” Chan says against his mouth, and presses harder, so that Changbin can’t speak, so that he doesn’t want to speak, so that he sinks into this dizzy mellifluous spiral, pulling Chan down to kiss him harder.
“Changbin, Changbin,” Chan whispers into his lips. Everything is glitter. “Is this—you—do you want?”
Changbin is a ringing bell of wanting. He wants the candle-flame inside Chan to catch the paper and set them both alight, he wants to be snatched by the breeze into the sky, he wants to kiss Chan forever, to never surface from the spiral, but he can’t say it all, he can just gasp out—“Yes, yes, I want you.”
And then he doesn’t surface for a good long time.
He falls asleep in Chan’s bed, despite his best efforts. Chan fell asleep first, delirious-tired from another 30-hour day, his leg slotted between Changbin’s thighs, face smoothed out and mouth kissed bruised-peach tender. Changbin wants to look and look and look, now that he can see Chan’s face in person, see what he’s feeling in real-time instead of on a wifi delay, see Chan’s peace of mind for himself instead of deducing it from a complicated music algorithm. But eventually, his eyes slip closed as well.
He wakes up the happiest he’s ever been. He keeps waking up happy.
“Hey, Bin?”
“Hm?”
Chan snaps his fingers in front of Changbin’s nose. “Babe, are you still logged into my Spotify account?”
It freezes Changbin for too long to hide it.
“Hey, is that how you fucking know about the Shrek soundtrack thing?” Chan demands.
“N-no!”
“Oh my god, are you spying on my music history?”
“No!”
“Changbin! I can’t believe you!” Chan groans loudly, too exaggerated. “That’s sacred ground, you know! I should be able to listen to whatever I want without your judgmental ass having something to say about it!”
“I’m not judging you!” Changbin protests. He’s on the back foot, though. Humiliated heat claws up his chest. “I’m really not, I hardly look at it!”
“So why are you still logged in?” Chan demands. How did he even find out?
Changbin stumbles over his words. “I just want to make sure you’re okay, I just think if you listen to twelve Coldplay songs in a row, that usually means you need a couple of hugs, that’s it!”
“Is that how you know when to get me to come home from the studio?” Chan presses.
It’s useless. Changbin’s never getting out of this, he just hopes Chan doesn’t leave him over it. “If you’re working, you keep things quiet. If you’ve listened to, like, Insomnia too much, you need to go home,” he explains miserably.
Chan puts his face in his hands. “Fuck I thought you were seriously kind of psychic,” he says. “This is so much worse.”
It is worse. Changbin doesn’t have any defense.
“I can’t believe you know how much Japanese ska I listen to,” Chan whines.
Changbin sighs. “Actually, you’re usually in a pretty good mood after a ska run,” he admits. “It’s shit like Leonard Cohen that worries me.”
“You are. The. Worst.”
But Chan doesn’t leave him over it. He doesn’t even change his Spotify settings.
“Is that Chan’s Spotify?” Jeongin asks. He likes to visit these days, even though he says he's not lonely now that they've all moved to their own places.
“Yes.” Changbin is busy, so he hasn’t been watching closely, but it’s weirdly comforting to have the running playlist up somewhere. An easy check-in. Just to have it around when Chan is away.
“Why is he just listening to Marry You by Bruno Mars on repeat?”
Changbin’s head shoots up. “What?”
“Gross,” says Jeongin.
"Lock the door if you leave!" Changbin tells him. He speedwalks out of the apartment without even grabbing his wallet. He’s panting by the time he gets to the studio—four minutes instead of ten. He pounds on the door. “Hyung! Hyung, what the fuck!”
Chan yanks the door open. He’s grinning. It’s fucking cute. “Hey, Bin. Come here often?”
“Hyung, if you are proposing to me by Spotify playlist using an overplayed pop song from 2010—”
“Is that a no?” He’s got that cheeky fucking smile on.
“Of course it’s not a no, fuck you very much!”
Chan pulls him into the studio. He gets down on one knee.
Changbin kisses him stupid before he can even get the question out.