compound to compound

For all the silken smoothness of Baekhyun’s voice, it’s got a bit of a rough edge to it like he forgot to file down the little prickly edges. He’s going through notes, a harmonious (if repetitive) cycle of vocal exercises up and down the scales at the raw hour of seven in the morning. Jongin starts to pad across the floor to the rhythm when quite suddenly, like the saw of a mandolin shredding through the cold, whistling air, Baekhyun’s voice skates off a note rather unpleasantly and shatters the peace of the morning.

(The previous night was better. Listening, as he lay in bed, to the sound of Baekhyun’s careful footsteps past his room to Chanyeol’s. They’re so prudishly quiet though, that Jongin has to paint the mental image for himself: Baekhyun’s soft, sweet mouth wrapped around Chanyeol’s swollen prick, Chanyeol’s rough square-ish hands wound in Baekhyun’s carefully made-up hair, every shallow gasp, every guttural ejaculation of pleasure muffled by the pillows and sheets. And then there’s the aftermath: half an hour later, like clockwork, Baekhyun knocking on Jongin’s door asking him if he’d like to join him on the balcony for a cigarette.)

Baekhyun appears in the doorway, looking exhausted, the soft flannel of his yellow dressing gown hanging loose over a worn shirt that Jongin recognizes as Chanyeol’s. Jongin is stuffing his face with dry cereal straight from the box – he likes the loud crunches, the sharp little pieces jagged under his teeth and turning to paste along his tongue – but he feels the need to say something so he says, “Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key.”

“That wasn’t a minor key or a song.” Baekhyun snorts, shuffling towards the refrigerator. “Lately, it’s like all I ever do is disturb you. In the middle of the night. Now. Are you ever not listening?”

Jongin shrugs. “I meant well.”

When Baekhyun smiles at him, it’s simultaneously sharp and gratifying, thin like winter sunlight, but bright enough to give life. “Of course you did. As for me, you know. Force of habit.”

He peers into the refrigerator and doesn’t even blink at the severed head staring up at them from one of the shelves. “I see Chanyeol’s brought his homework back with him. He brings home jaundiced livers stewed in formaldehyde like we’re having some zombie pot luck but he can’t remember to buy milk.”

Baekhyun sighs at Jongin and Jongin grins back, wondering absently if Baekhyun’s breath still smells like sex.




In the beginning it had just been Jongin. Sehun had put him onto Junmyeon when he moved to Seoul to pursue dance and maybe a degree at Hongik, if he got in and if he did, then if he still felt like it and then, if he felt like it, if he could afford it. Mostly, it was to find a choreographer who saw his talent, network his way around the industry and move up the ladder. Work for one of the big three, and if things went really well, move to better markets. Japan. USA. Or something like that.

Junmyeon has a place that’s more of a dormitory than a flat, but the rent is peanuts and it could’ve been a lot worse, so Jongin deals with it. Predictably enough, within a couple months, Jongin picks up menial part-time jobs between sparse gigs. Six months in, he’s alone, friendless and desperate in a city with a million other talented, beautiful people and in a last ditch attempt, he auditions. That’s where he meets Baekhyun, on the verge of giving up after his latest rejection.

They go out, drink until they can’t tell their asses from their heads and fuck. And the worst part is, Jongin can’t remember it. Nothing. No phantom flesh memories of the feel of Baekhyun’s cock in his mouth or Baekhyun’s ass around his cock or a sigh or a kiss. It’s a blank.

All he has is the morning after, tasting stale and bitter, too bright for his pulverized brain to handle, a used condom plastered to the bedside table and Baekhyun tumbling out of his bed to heave on the floor, groaning, “That was a mistake.”

He buys Baekhyun breakfast, figuring it’s the decent thing to do and as they’re tearing through piping scallion pancakes listlessly, Baekhyun says, “It’s time to go home.”

“You’re giving up?” Jongin asks, wincing when he accidentally bites his tongue.

Baekhyun passes him a glass of water, staring absently at his chopsticks. “I feel like… I’ve lost sight of it, sort of like I’m going blind or drowning or something. Like, I’m standing there and it’s been do or die for so long, I’ve forgotten how to breathe. Sorry. I get the feeling that this,” he gestures to himself and Jongin, “should be really awkward, considering, but it isn’t. Or is that just me and you’re wondering why the stranger you had a one night stand with is pouring his guts out?”

“In more ways than one,” Jongin jokes and Baekhyun looks like he’s going to throw up again. “No,” Jongin amends quickly, “It’s not just you but hey, I guess, if you don’t remember it, then it’s like it never happened.”

Then Jongin had suggested Baekhyun stay, move into one of the three other empty rooms, not anticipating he’d fall in love with too many hair-care products taking up nearly ever spare inch of the bathroom and being able to borrow impossibly tight jeans and having his preshow make-up done with delicate, careful hands and being woken up by the sound of Baekhyun singing in the kitchen and having grocery shopping lists pressed into his hands and answering rejection phone calls together and the way his birthday is now part of Baekhyun’s calendar and drinking and singing in noraebangs and getting high and accidentally kissing on New Year’s Eve and then it happened but he never got around to saying anything –

How Baekhyun met Chanyeol is still, by far, the more interesting story.




The day Baekhyun moves in, it’s dark and stormy. Jongin watches him slip out of a hoodie and into his pajamas. Baekhyun shows him his personal talents; the commercial is cute, but when he starts dancing Jongin ends up on the floor, clutching his stomach, gasping for air.

“I’m so ready for this, seriously. I have everything prepared. All I need is for someone to want me.” Baekhyun fiddles with the drawstrings of his pants.

“I’m sure someone will,” Jongin says reassuringly. “You’re very likeable.”

Baekhyun smiles impishly. “Thanks.”

He’s got a face that needs peering at to find the beauty but once Jongin sees it, there’s a distinct feline grace to the shape of his eyes and the sharp lines of his lips. The slight imperfections just add to the allure and when he talks, there’s just something so magnetic and attractive about him that’s hard to resist. Jongin thinks he’d like to try kissing him again, but he can’t get the words out.

In hindsight, Jongin thinks, everything went wrong for Chanyeol because Jongin got there first and while he never made a move, he never really left either.




“The dismembered body parts are kind of a mood kill,” Baekhyun admits, trying on different jackets as Jongin thumbs through the scattered magazines while simultaneously trying to watch the latest episode of Bridal Mask. “It’s kind of cool that he’s a forensic scientist and works in an actual crime lab but isn’t ‘forensic scientist’ just a glorified title for lab assistant or morgue technician or whatever?”

“Kind of,” Jongin postulates, not really listening to Baekhyun as much as he’s just watching him preen in front of the mirror. He’s lounging on Baekhyun’s unmade bed, present for moral support, as Baekhyun gets ready for an evening out.

Baekhyun sighs, mouth twisting downwards in an unhappy, darling little frown. “Sometimes, and I know this is terrible, but I wish he didn’t live here. I mean, I like that things never get old and he’s funny, that’s why I gave him the idea in the first place. But now it feels like we’re already married or something when really it’s far too early for that, you know?”

Jongin raises an eyebrow in response and Baekhyun groans and pulls the jacket off. He stops just short of tearing his hair out, probably remembering it took him an hour to get it to fall into his eyes exactly the way he wanted it to.

Baekhyun sits down at the edge of his bed somewhat gingerly, looking beseechingly at Jongin. “It’s just. I’m worried it’s going to get too complicated. I mean, I can’t decide what to wear because he lives across the hall from me. Should I dress up or down, is black too formal, is leather too sultry– just because we live together is it okay to have sex after every date and/or in between?”

“Then don’t.” Jongin shrugs lamely and he feels bad about it a second later when Baekhyun stares despondently at the expanse of crumpled sheets between them. “Don’t worry.”

“You’re jealous,” Baekhyun hazards, half-jokingly.

Only the most serious things are said half-jokingly, all the things people are so afraid might be true. So afraid they can’t say it, can’t bear to give it the weight of being spoken aloud unless they pretend it’s absurd. Perversely funny. So Jongin, half-jokingly says, “It’s true, I love you.”

Baekhyun brightens up, lips curving upward, and he says, totally seriously, “And I you.”

Jongin thinks if he could’ve felt his heart break, it would’ve happened at that moment. It’s monumental but nothing shifts. He must be heartless. Baekhyun puts on his jacket, smooths his shirt down, reapplies his lip-gloss, checks his hair again and kisses Chanyeol at the door when he knocks. There’s no trace of the frenzied tension he’d expressed earlier in his silhouette as he laughs and slips a hand into Chanyeol’s back pocket and squeezes.

Jongin steals one of the sandwiches Baekhyun made for himself for tomorrow’s lunch and rewatches Bridal Mask. It’s been a year and he’s no closer to choreographing anything big, but he knows Baekhyun licks his lips when he’s nervous and only cries when he’s frustrated and doesn’t like his ears but thinks his eyes are his best asset and only wrinkles his nose when he’s trying not to smile and ends up smiling anyway. He bets Chanyeol doesn’t know any of this. He probably believes Baekhyun’s bullshit spiel about how he enjoys reading historical novels and likes action movies and his ideal date is strolling along the Han River, sharing patbingsoo.




When Baekhyun shakes Jongin awake, he looks obviously well fucked. Jongin tries not to stare at the oversized, unbuttoned shirt hanging down to Baekhyun’s knees, at the way the fabric shifts and whispers in the dark, revealing the pale gleam of Baekhyun’s chest, the dark circle of an erect nipple, goosebumps texturing the flesh along his throat. The tousled hair, the dilated pupils, the sweat-cooled palms. The satisfaction making his movements languid.

Leaning against the parapet, Baekhyun lights up. His lips around the cigarette are red and wet. As he exhales, Jongin hooks a finger in the collar of the shirt, inspecting the tag. It’s Chanyeol’s.

“That’s just going to ruin your voice, you know.”

Baekhyun shrugs. “It helps me… relax.”

“Relax,” Jongin echoes, eyes turned to the starless sky. “I see.”

“Besides, it just adds character,” Baekhyun says roughly. His fingers, the outline of his lithe body, the way his skin shines – it burns Jongin to know Chanyeol can touch him with his lips and hands and dick, share spit and sweat and oxygen when he can’t even– “Have you ever heard of anything bad happening to people who smoke?”

“Lung cancer,” Jongin says matter-of-factly.

Baekhyun flips him off. “Killjoy.”

“Why don’t you smoke with Chanyeol?” Jongin only just stops himself from saying ‘in bed.’

Baekhyun shifts uneasily and when he speaks it’s stilted and jerky like he’s being forced to confess. “He falls asleep, usually. I suppose it’s fairer to say that I wait for him to. This is just a me thing. Okay, well. I guess, as traitorous as it seems, considering I can’t call this thing with Chanyeol casual sex anymore, this is more of a you and me thing.” He chances a glance at Jongin. “Does it bother you?”

Jongin takes the cigarette from Baekhyun, presses it between his own lips and pulls. He feels vaguely dirty, vaguely cheated. The smoke goes down his throat hot and heady and when he exhales, Baekhyun’s sharp eyes trained on him, he says, “No, but it’s not me being bothered you should be worrying about.”

Baekhyun nods and looks away, flicking the lighter open and clicking it shut. “I’ve been thinking and… this dead end has gotten pretty stale. I think I’ll just apply to Kyonggi.”

“Well.” Jongin smiles bitterly. “It was only a matter of time.”

Baekhyun winces like he’s been stung. He wrings his hands together. “Chanyeol– he’s been offered a promotion. And he wants to move and he hasn’t asked me but I know he’s working up to it and I,” Baekhyun licks his lips. “I need a reason to stay.”

“Don’t you love him?” Jongin knows how words can be like knives and he’s digging one into Baekhyun’s side, twisting it to see how much it hurts.

And it’s like Baekhyun pulls it out, blood gushing from the open wound, bleeding like a martyr. “I’m not ready to.”

That’s when it strikes Jongin as ridiculous. All of this. Smoking on the balcony. Not talking about things. Hiding. It’s so stupid.




Baekhyun had been on a delivery run from the jajangmyeon restaurant he worked at part-time and he’d ventured into the deserted lab full of abandoned, blood-stained surgical equipment feeling distinctly like he’d walked into a horror movie. Then the pig hanging from the ceiling had exploded, showering him in blood and guts and Baekhyun swears he was about to faint or cry if he hadn’t been rendered motionless by what felt very much like a heart attack.

As Baekhyun told it, seconds later Chanyeol came barreling towards him, flapping his arms about, agitated and profusely apologetic and tooth-achingly sweet despite the shock. And as he set about trying to wipe Baekhyun clean with his lab coat, he apparently said, “Oh god, I’m so sorry this was for an experiment, I swear – pig flesh is closest in consistency to human – oh, I’ve ruined your eyeliner – wow, you’re so pretty, I could actually cry–“

And that had been the beginning of Baekhyun’s unfortunate stab at vegetarianism (ultimately his aversion had rather ironically been overcome by a treat of samgyupsal) and also of Chanyeol’s near constant presence.

The first time Jongin meets Chanyeol he asks, “Were you dropped on the head as a child?”

Chanyeol starts to answer but Baekhyun glares at Jongin and ushers Chanyeol out the door with, “Oh, would you look at the time! We have to go.”

And it had already been three weeks of Chanyeol leaving surprise cheesecakes and cold coffees in the fridge for Baekhyun before he left in the mornings, but if Jongin recalls correctly, it’s after they meet that the Tupperware boxes of frozen body parts start appearing between the milk cartons and cute heart-shaped prepacked lunchboxes with handwritten notes to Baekhyun.




In the hour that it takes Baekhyun to get home Chanyeol plays Diablo 3 as Jongin fiddles through a pile of bills inexpertly. Conversationally, like he’s talking about gameplay or the weather, Chanyeol says, “I know you’re in love with him. And it’s cool with me. In case you were wondering.”

Jongin pauses mid addition, feeling his skin prickle, hot, then cold, then hot again. “What.”

“Oh come on,” Chanyeol laughs throatily, crushing a handful of Cheetos into his mouth from the bag nestled between his legs, “It’s really obvious. Contrary to your belief being dropped on the head as a child hasn’t made me stupid! Or at least, that stupid. It was only once. And an accident. Anyway, you should tell him. It only makes sense to fight me if he knows he’s got an option, right?”

“We’re best friends,” Jongin says, sounding more strained than he intends to. “And I’ve got a life.”

Chanyeol shrugs. “Sounds to me like you’ve got a big, fat broken heart.”

“You’re an asshole,” Jongin mutters, trying to get back to work, but he feels restless now, like he needs to break something or run as fast as he can for as long as he can until he can’t see anymore.

Chanyeol grins, big and harmless, turning around to fistbump Jongin but Jongin doesn’t move. “All’s fair, remember?”

The key turns in the lock across the hall, front door swinging open inwards and it’s Baekhyun, hair windswept, smelling like the autumn leaves and coffee, hands weighed down by shopping bags and Jongin takes an uncalculated leap, crossing the room even as Baekhyun’s trying to say hi, to kiss him.

This is how it happens: Baekhyun drops the bags, kisses him back and the sounds of Chanyeol playing his video game set the tone, flashy and jumping and Jongin knows he should treasure this moment of actually kissing Baekhyun but he feels terribly like a bullet is going to lodge into his spine and he’s going to die and end up dissected by Chanyeol on one of his big, white tables, all blood and guts and Chanyeol will tell him that inside out he’s just like a pig, no difference at all and –

Baekhyun gasps, pulling away, a stuttered breath and the look on his face makes the dam of hope – held back and buried and bullied into silence – burst in Jongin’s chest. And then Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol.




They flirt over breakfast. Chanyeol corners Baekhyun at the counter as he’s trying to put together something like an omelet and says, “You’re hot like a crime scene with the bad guy still hiding in the closet. And the police show up and he has to stay very still and the body is still warm and. Yeah.”

Baekhyun turns in the parentheses of Chanyeol’s lanky arms and his big hands make Baekhyun’s hips look almost delicate. And Baekhyun’s wrinkling his nose, smiling though he doesn’t want to, hands coming up to curve around the nape of Chanyeol’s neck. He catches Jongin’s eye (the expression on his face somewhere between amusement and helplessness and embarrassment) as he presses closer to Chanyeol, mouth to the curve of his shoulder and he says, “I guess you’ll have to dust me for fingerprints then.”

Jongin retches exaggeratedly but Baekhyun misses it. He’s already shut his eyes and he’s kissing Chanyeol so Jongin crunches loudly, over the soft sounds of their lips sliding together. Behind them, the eggs burn.




“Is he home yet?” Baekhyun toes his shoes off, still breathless, letting his backpack drop to the floor. Jongin sits up and drops his phone, forgetting to hit send. “No? Good.”

And he climbs into Jongin’s lap, straddling his thighs, starting with his arms, precise even in his hurry but Jongin pushes his shirt up kissing the flat line of his tummy, delighting in the way Baekhyun gasps, in the way Baekhyun’s hands are claws fastened to Jongin’s shoulders holding him close, in the way Baekhyun is saying, “I’ve been thinking about this – and he won’t talk to me but I didn’t–”

“You did the time,” Jongin murmurs, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses as he trails upwards, “Might as well commit the crime.”

“I still like him, you know,” Baekhyun whispers when Jongin reaches the curve of his neck.

Jongin stills, and it’s a herculean effort. “What is tact.”

Baekhyun grimaces. “I’m sorry.”

Jongin kisses him and it’s better than the first time they don’t remember and the second time they can’t forget, it doesn’t stop until they’ve undressed each other partly and Jongin is bucking up restlessly, trying to join their hips, starting to and then forgetting how to breathe. Baekhyun’s cradling Jongin in his perfect hands, slim, graceful fingers warm against his cheeks and scalp and Jongin feels utterly cowed by the affection, tonguing the soft bud of a nipple.

He’s trying to get to his feet so they can move to his room, when Baekhyun announces, “I got into Kyonggi.”

“Oh,” Jongin says intelligently.

“I did decently in school, alright?” Baekhyun sounds reproachful. He looks mildly offended and Jongin laughs.

“No, I’m not surprised you got in, don’t worry.” He rubs slow circles along the soft, pale skin of Baekhyun’s back, dancing around the jut of his shoulder blades and he knows this is somehow important but with all his blood having fled south his brain feels sluggish and altogether rather unwilling. “I – congratulations. What are you– what does this mean?”

Baekhyun takes an even, measured breath. “That I’m going to tell him. That he’s probably going to break up with me when he finds out.”

Later in bed, when they’ve finished, Baekhyun smokes with an almost vicious relish. He starts to laugh, shoulders shaking, beautiful in the golden afternoon light and it sounds like relief so Jongin smiles. The smoke from his exhales dissipates like every single doubt gnawing at the back of Jongin’s mind.




The day Chanyeol officially moves in Junmyeon is hanging around the doorway, handing over a pair of keys to him. Jongin helps Chanyeol move what looks like a massive, impossibly heavy typewriter with a mouse.

“It’s a pet project of mine. I call it the fingerprint recording device,” Chanyeol explains excitedly, flyaway, curly gold hair getting in his eyes. “You scan it with this thing – I haven’t decided what to call it yet – and usually you have to do a whole bunch of other stuff but once I get this baby running it’ll carry all the info and it’ll run through all the available databases until we have a match. So it won’t take ages going back to the office and stuff, but it’ll be faster than the current system and obviously it also records… the ones it scans… hence, you know, the name.”

Jongin nods sagely. “Isn’t that also called a computer?”

Chanyeol flashes him the most shit-eating grin he’s ever seen and throws an arm around Jongin’s shoulders. “You’re such a super guy! I think we’ll get along just fine. All we have to do is avoid each other.”