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Conquering China (Without Sacrificing the Bank) - Tongli & Shanghai, Days 15, 16 & 17
Written by Kyungsoo

So, it’s been a few pretty quiet days. I think both Jongin and I are starting to get a bit worn down from all this travelling. I think it happens with every vacation, at least for me, where you start to get tired of crappy internet connections and showers you don’t quite understand and beds that aren’t familiar and always being tired and sore. You start to want to go home, even though you love it where you are.

So on Day 15, we spent the day in Tongli. First up, we went to the Sex Culture Museum. Which sounds raunchy, but is actually pretty interesting. And surprisingly tasteful. It’s divided into exhibits: Sex in Primitive Society, Marriage and Women, Sex in Daily Life, and Unusual Sexual Behavior. So if you want to see a lot of sculptures of Chinese people in interesting sex positions, or obscenely large dicks (and I mean obscene), this is the place to go. (But seriously. I’d recommend it, just not with your grandparents or something.)

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Artful portrayals of dicks that were probably sculpted by young men trying to compensate.

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Some lovely, uh, decorations? Because who doesn’t want figurines of people doing it doggy-style around their house.

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Seriously, just, what the hell.

After that eye-opening adventure, we kind of just chilled, went to some old streets to take pictures, spent long hours in pretty cafés offending people by not ordering tea, enjoyed the quaint atmosphere of this ancient water town. Tongli, you were a little bit boring, but I gotta say, you were gorgeous.

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In the early evening, we caught a train to our final destination: Shanghai, China’s largest city, and the world’s most populated city, with 24 million people. That’s over six times as big as Los Angeles, in case you were wondering.

Here, we utilized an amazing resource for backpackers that Baekhyun’s mentioned in past posts. Couchsurfing. Across the world, there’s a network of people offering their couches and spare rooms for travellers (often being travellers themselves), completely for free. It’s sometimes risky and not always convenient, because they can cancel on you last minute and don’t always know if they’ll be able to host you until close to your arrival, but it’s always worth a shot. We scored a room in the home of a cool Chinese-Canadian English teacher, Kris, and his Chinese roommate, Yixing. They were incredibly welcoming, and I got to comfortably speak English to someone other than Jongin for the first time in over two weeks. Magical.

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We’re on the top floor, which means long elevator rides that Jongin isn’t a fan of, but an amazing view of the city.

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Jongin gets a mattress on the floor, I get a pull-out couch. Surprisingly not the worst beds we’ve had thus far.

Kris offered to take us to experience Shanghai’s nightlife (all the Chinese speakers pronounce it Shahng-hai, and it’s catching on), but Jongin and I weren’t really feeling it, so we watched Netflix instead. It almost felt like home.

On Day 16, we went out to see some of Shanghai’s most famous sights. People’s Square, The Bund (where everyone takes pictures of Shanghai’s famous skyline), Nanjing Road (the popular shopping center), Tianzifang (a more hipster shopping area full of arts and music). We took our time in each place, stopping to rest a lot and eating way too much food. We just can’t help it! Everything is so cheap!

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The skyline is probably way prettier at night, but we always get too tired by evening to be out and walking around.

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Nanjing Road was seriously packed, Jongin had to hold onto my backpack straps to avoid getting swept away. And this was on a weekday afternoon.

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Tianzifang is part of the old French Concession in Shanghai, boasting distinctly European architecture.

Here’s a fun fact for you: people in China basically never ever sit on the ground. Ever. I mean, I can kind of see why, because there are always kids peeing in the streets and stuff, but they seem to have something really against it. Jongin and I, however, have no such qualms, especially when we’re tired and cranky and sore. If you sit on the ground, you will be stared at. People will look at you like you’re from outer space. And you will soak it all in, like yeah, I’m a foreigner, I’m badass, I’m not afraid of germs and terrible sanitation. And you’ll just keep on reading your book, with the knowledge that you are an unstoppable force. You will smirk to yourself and think, I have truly conquered China.

And then you will get elbowed in the gut by a small girl on the subway who’s trying to get to the only empty seat before you, and you will lose, and you will have to reevaluate your outlook on life. And you will hear Baekhyun cackling at you from across the world. And then you will laugh at him, because you’re in China and he’s not.

By the time we got through all of that, we were exhausted, and ready to watch more Netflix. So we did. Our hosts brought home snacks, which was awesome and totally not something they were obligated to do, and we all had a very lazy party.

On Day 17, both of us were feeling kind of sick-ish in the morning, possibly from all those germs we picked up from sitting on the ground (or maybe from all the mystery meat we ate during the day). Neither of us got seriously ill, but we decided to stay in for the morning, commandeering Kris and Yixing’s television while they were at work. We’re almost entirely through the first season of Criminal Minds.

In the early afternoon, we were feeling better, so we decided to ruin it by getting lunch at a roadside stall. But we recovered quickly and went to visit Shanghai’s famous financial district, and then the Jade Buddha temple, and then the Xintiandi Mall, where we got some super delicious, famous xiaolongbao, a kind of dumpling with savoury soup inside. They were seriously so good. A bit pricey, for China, but worth it.

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The view from Jin Mao tower’s 88th-floor observation deck, which required an elevator ride I will never put Jongin through again, I promise.

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We actually went inside the Jade Buddha Temple, even though we’re (as I’ve mentioned before) cheap-ass motherf***ers, because it only cost 20¥, or ~$3.

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Jongin made several lewd remarks about how much he loved these dumplings, but Baekhyun would chastise me if I wrote them here.

After dark, we hit up the Waibaidu Bridge, because we heard it made for a gorgeous night skyline. They were right. It does.

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And then we went home to our beds because Shanghai is loud and busy and crowded and it saps the energy right out of us, I swear.

So that’s about it for the past three days. We’re ready to go home, with only two days left in China, but we’re also going to be sad to go. We’ve had almost three weeks here, but it doesn’t feel like nearly enough. There were so many places I wish we could have seen, so many cities farther south that didn’t make the cut. I guess we’ll have to make another trip out east sometime in the future. Oh, bummer.

But anyway, Days 15, 16, and 17: Conquered!

On their second-last day in China, a Saturday, Kris and Yixing take Kyungsoo and Jongin out for the day, much like Lu Han had in Hangzhou. It’s not as difficult for Kyungsoo to bear, though, because Kris is fairly quiet and perfectly happy to make conversation with Kyungsoo at the back while Yixing chatters with Jongin in Chinese up front. Kyungsoo had been a little intimidated by Kris’ size and face at first, but he’s obviously head over heels in love with his roommate, which makes it easier to talk to him, somehow.

Kris and Yixing take them to small, local places and off-the-beaten-path attractions, which is exactly what Kyungsoo had been hoping for. They go to Longhua Park of Revolutionary Martyrs and the Hongkou District, where 20,000 Jewish refugees lived in the Second World War. They rest at the nearby Lu Xun Park and eat at a hole-in-the-wall joint, and Kris obligingly orders Jongin’s chocolate bubble tea with extra sugar.

He’s sucking on that bubble tea, humming happily with his lips clamped just lewdly enough around the straw for Kyungsoo to get distracted occasionally, when they run into a sweet-faced little girl selling bundles of flowers by the side of the road. Jongin stops to coo at her, and in a bizarre turn of events, finds himself holding a bouquet of peonies a minute later.

“I did not mean to buy these,” Jongin says dumbly, and Kyungsoo snorts helplessly with laughter.

“What are you going to do with those?” Kris asks, grinning.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to carry them around all day.” He stares at his flowers like he has no idea how they got there.

“You buy them, you hold them,” Kyungsoo says, biting his lip to rein in his laughter.

Jongin whines childishly and lets the bouquet hang limply at his side as they keep walking along the street to take photos of the architecture. He gets tired of holding up his camera with one hand after ten minutes and sighs loudly, then says, “Kyungsoo!”

Kyungsoo turns around in surprise, stopping in the middle of snapping a picture. “What?”

Jongin holds the bouquet out to him. “I would like to give these to you.”

“You—what? I don’t want them,” Kyungsoo says, blinking at him.

Jongin gasps dramatically. “Are you…rejecting my love?”

Kyungsoo coughs and tries to turn it into a scoff. “You just don’t want to carry them anymore. I don’t want them.”

“Kyungsoo, I spent twenty kuai on these. An absurd amount of money, no doubt. On these flowers. For you.”

“You did not buy those for me. You said yourself that you didn’t mean to buy them.” Kyungsoo sets his jaw stubbornly.

Jongin takes a deep breath, and Kyungsoo cringes in anticipation of what’s to follow. He isn’t disappointed. “Oh, woe is me!” Jongin says loudly, theatrically. “Bought these beautiful flowers for my faaaavourite person, and he rejects me. Turns me down point-blank. Doesn’t even take the flowers to soften the blow.” His voice gets steadily louder, attracting stares. “And now I’m left with them as a cruel, cruel reminder of my broken heart. If only he would take them away from me, and take pity on my poor soul, and—”

Kyungsoo snatches the flowers out of his hand, red in the face, and hisses, “Everyone’s staring at us.”

Jongin grins beatifically. “You’re the best, Soo.”

“I do not like you,” Kyungsoo huffs, marching away with the bouquet in hand.

He hears Jongin—and Kris and Yixing, for that matter—laughing behind him, and a smile pulls at Kyungsoo’s lips despite himself. Jongin is terrible and shameless and occasionally an obnoxious piece of shit, but Kyungsoo had been lying.

He likes him a lot.

Before dinner, while it’s still Happy Hour, Kris and Yixing take them to a karaoke room (which are called KTV in China). Kyungsoo’s never been to one, although he knows they exist in California’s Chinatown, but he won’t deny that he’s intrigued by the idea. Baekhyun would love it.

Kris, despite coming off as quiet and a little shy at first, sings enthusiastically right off the bat. He and Yixing sing a Chinese song together, loudly, and then Jongin joins in when they sing Jason Mraz. Kyungsoo sings too, quietly, to himself, and accompanies them on the tambourine. Jongin sings a Korean solo, and Kyungsoo films it for him, using that as an excuse to stare. He’s not an amazing singer, but he has a sweet voice, and Kyungsoo thinks he sounds nice. He could bear to listen to a few more songs from him.

They cycle through the three languages, though they mostly choose English songs, and Jongin occasionally gets up to dance to songs he apparently already has routines to. Kyungsoo stares then, too, and hopes it’s dark enough that no one notices.

They do notice, eventually, that Kyungsoo never sings loudly enough to be heard.

“Solo!” Jongin cheers. “Kyungsoo solo! Sing for us!”

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo mutters warningly, face hot.

“Come on, Soo. Just one song. We’ve all sung a solo, you can’t be worse than any of us were.” Jongin aims some very potent puppy eyes at him.

“I don’t sing in public,” Kyungsoo says, swallowing thickly.

“We’re not in public,” Jongin says placatingly. “It’s just your good friend Jongin and two acquaintances you may never see again.”

“You should sing,” Kris says encouragingly.

“I know the perfect song for you,” Jongin says suddenly, grinning. “Hold on.” He picks up the remote and starts clicking and typing and scrolling.

Kyungsoo realizes what he’s doing almost immediately. “Oh my god.”

“You said it yourself, Soo, it was your favourite song. You’ve gotta know it by now.” Jongin grins and chooses the song, the same one they’d listened to on Jongin’s iPod together on the train to Hangzhou. “Please?”

Kyungsoo’s stomach turns, but he crumples under Jongin’s soft, supportive smile. “Fine,” he croaks.

Kris and Jongin cheer, and Yixing joins in automatically. Kyungsoo picks up the mic.

He knows every word of the song without even looking at the screen, but he stares at it anyway, red-faced and embarrassed. He barely sings loudly enough to be heard over the music, but as the the first chorus starts, he gains a little confidence, lost in his little world of college memories.

He finally dares to look around during the second chorus, and while Yixing smiles pleasantly at the screen as the music video plays in the background and Kris nods at him encouragingly, Jongin stares at him with something like awe. Kyungsoo has to look away, stumbling over lyrics that are practically branded into his brain.

His song ends, and his three spectators break into applause. Jongin cheers the loudest.

“I didn’t know you could sing like that,” he says, grinning. “That was really great.”

Kyungsoo blushes and shrugs. He knows he sings pretty well. Baekhyun has told him so, and Baekhyun doesn’t give empty compliments. But he doesn’t usually get so flustered by it.

“Perfect Man Kyungsoo,” Jongin says with a broad smile. “Handsome and talented.”

Kyungsoo blushes darker. “Whatever,” he mutters, like a moody teenager.

“You sounded really nice,” Kris offers, and Kyungsoo shoots him a grateful smile. Jongin huffs in the background.

Kyungsoo doesn’t look at him for the next half hour, still thinking about the look on his face as he’d watched Kyungsoo sing.

That evening, Kris and Yixing take them out for hot pot, their most expensive meal yet (and then insist on paying for it). They order the option that lets them try four different kinds of soup bases, and then a plethora of delicious and interesting vegetables, meats, mushrooms, and other goodies to cook inside them. Kyungsoo is grateful to have native Chinese people with them, because he has no idea how to go about eating this food without them. Jongin sets up his camera on a tripod next to their table, and he and their hosts discuss regional cuisines and Chinese etiquette.

“Listen, though,” Jongin says out of nowhere, gesticulating with his chopsticks. “Why do people honk so much in China? I don’t get it. How does anyone know when someone’s actually pissed? Everyone is always honking. All day every day, it’s one big honk-fest.”

Kyungsoo snorts, rolling his eyes as Kris laughs and translates for Yixing, who chuckles as well and says something in Mandarin. This is a topic Kyungsoo has already heard much about from Jongin, so he only half-listens, dunking youtiao, a stick of fried dough, into the beef soup base.

“When I get honked at in California, I think about it for weeks,” Jongin says, shaking his head. “It’s the ultimate shame. Even if I barely did anything wrong.”

Kyungsoo hums his agreement, holding a ladle-full of raw beef in the tomato soup base and then picking it out with his chopsticks, putting half on Jongin’s plate beside him.

“Oh, thank you,” Jongin says, beaming at him.

Kyungsoo goes a little red and avoids his gaze, shrugging. “He did it for me,” he mutters, gesturing vaguely at Kris across from him.

“It’s the Chinese way,” Kris says, nodding.

“Kyungsoo’s not Chinese, though, he just likes me,” Jongin says, grinning.

Kyungsoo snorts, and it comes out sounding more mean than he’d intended. “Sure,” he mumbles.

Jongin looks at him with a downward curl to his lips. “Well, on camera he does. Sometimes.”

Kyungsoo keeps his eyes on the pot in front of him and drops a roll of crab meat into Jongin’s bowl. “Eat your food,” he mutters uncomfortably.

“Isn’t he a charmer?” Jongin says wryly, and suddenly Kyungsoo wants to throw up. He shoves boiled cabbage into his mouth and burns his tongue.

He doesn’t talk for the rest of the night, with The Asshole firmly in charge and wreaking havoc on his mental state.

It’s only later in the night, when they’re getting ready for bed, that Jongin kicks at the floor and says, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

Kyungsoo looks at him in surprise, brows furrowed. “What?”

“The— I was kind of mean, earlier, at the hot pot restaurant. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have said those things, in that way. It made you uncomfortable and upset.”

Kyungsoo bites his tongue, stomach rolling. Great, now he looks pathetic again. “It’s fine,” he says with a shrug. “I’m a grown man.”

“So am I, and I almost cried getting onto the subway the other day.” Jongin smiles ruefully, looking up at Kyungsoo through his fringe.

“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo says again.

“You can say something mean to me, if you want,” Jongin suggests, smiling a little wider. “It’s only fair.”

Kyungsoo fidgets, tugging at the hem of his night shirt. “I’m sorry for making you get on the elevator in the Jin Mao Tower yesterday,” he blurts.

Jongin blinks at him. “That’s not how this is supposed to work, Kyungsoo. That wasn’t mean.”

Kyungsoo’s lips quirk up. “Still. I shouldn’t have made you. You didn’t like it.”

“It was on the itinerary. You wanted to go.”

“I should have changed the itinerary. You have a hard enough time with all the crowded buses and things.”

Jongin shoots him a small, bashful smile. “While true, this is now bordering on embarrassing, and I feel adequately chastened for bringing up your insecurities.”

Kyungsoo snorts slightly. “I’m sorry, though.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“It’s settled then.”

Against all odds, Kyungsoo goes to sleep with a smile on his face.

Their last day in Shanghai goes badly from the start.

It’s just a bad day. It’s unbearably hot and humid, and being outside is miserable, and they’re tired, and they’re ready to go home. They don’t have anything planned for their last day, and everything is really crowded on a Sunday. They almost get hit by a car in a crosswalk, they get lost on their way to see a temple they don’t really want to see, they spend too much time on a bus with too many people on it and no place to sit, Jongin complains that his ankle hurts, Kyungsoo has a headache. They make it all the way to 5pm, somehow, and then they end up at the Bund again, but there are like a zillion tourists there and they keep getting jostled and pushed around and they end up sitting on the ground. Except Jongin actually lies down right there on the cement, and people stare at them, and Kyungsoo grinds his teeth.

“We should have done more research before we left Kris and Yixing’s,” he says, huffing and flipping through his guidebook. “Now I can’t look anything up.”

“I just want to lie here anyway,” Jongin says, his arm covering his eyes from the harsh glare of the sun.

“We can’t just sit here,” Kyungsoo says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m lying down, actually.”

“Well, get up and help me look for somewhere to go.”

“Just read them out to me and I’ll tell you if I want to go.”

“You’re just going to lie there and be unhelpful?” Kyungsoo asks dryly.

“I’ve been very helpful. I am entirely in charge of all the Chinese-speaking here. And just so you know, it isn’t easy, or fun, and I usually get very embarrassed, and people laugh at me.”

Kyungsoo bites his tongue to avoid saying anything in response to that. “Do you want to go to the Yuyuan Garden?”

“Ugh, we’ve already seen a million gardens. I’m bored of gardens. We have them in America.”

Kyungsoo flips another page. “We didn’t go to the Pearl Tower yet.”

“Boo, towers. More elevators,” Jongin mutters.

Well, fair enough. “Shanghai Museum?”

“Too much walking. My feet hurt. And it probably costs money.”

“The Urban Planning Exhibition Mall?”

“I feel like you’re just listing all the boring options on purpose.”

Kyungsoo clenches his jaw. “Well then you look, Jongin.”

“I don’t want to,” Jongin sighs. “Just let me lie here.”

“You can’t just lie there, people are staring.”

“Who cares if they stare, Kyungsoo! I don’t care! Why do you care so much?”

“Because I just do,” Kyungsoo says exasperatedly. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Well, get over it,” Jongin mutters, and if he were anyone else, Kyungsoo would have hit him for that.

They sit in tense silence for a few minutes, and then Jongin whines, “I’m booooored. Shanghai is boring and loud and smelly and crowded and hot and I’m bored.”

Kyungsoo maybe, kind of explodes. “Well, what do you want me to do about it, Jongin?” he asks, too loudly. “I’ve suggested like a million things and you hate them all and you just want to lie there but apparently you’re bored so what should I do?”

Jongin sits up and looks at him, brows furrowed. “I don’t want you to do anything! I’m just whining!”

“Well stop! You’re acting like a baby!” Kyungsoo snaps.

“You’re the one who can’t even stand being looked at,” Jongin says, rolling his eyes.

Kyungsoo’s jaw ticks. “I’m bored too, okay? I’m bored and I’m cranky and I’m sore and I’m hot, but I’m not the one whining about it like a child.”

Jongin makes a face at him and mimics crying, a universal gesture for poor little baby, and Kyungsoo really does almost hit him.

This is it. They’ve finally both reached the end of their ropes. They’ve spent nearly three weeks with just each other, almost-strangers that had never been able to carry a conversation in the past, and they’ve both snapped under the weight of exhaustion and homesickness. They’re done.

“Dick,” Jongin mutters, looking across the water.

“Oh, grow up, Jongin,” Kyungsoo spits, smacking his guidebook down on Jongin’s lap hard enough to sting.

Jongin turns to him, eyes hard, and says, “Goddamn, Kyungsoo, I know you don’t like me but can you at least pretend you do? Can you at the very least pretend you like me, like you do when the camera’s rolling? Jesus Christ! I cannot figure you out! One second you hate me and the next you don’t and it’s really fucking tiring!”

Kyungsoo stares at him with wide eyes, completely caught off-guard. The silence hangs between them for a heavy moment, and Kyungsoo is terrible at expressing himself. “I don’t hate you,” he says, too snippily.

Jongin snorts, looking away again. “Yeah, okay,” he mutters.

Kyungsoo doesn’t move, trying to get his breathing and his rolling stomach under control, letting himself cool down slowly. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just says, “Let’s go back to the apartment and watch Netflix.”

“Fine,” Jongin says without turning back.

“Fine.” Kyungsoo gets up, and Jongin scrambles to his feet beside them. They don’t talk for the entire trip back, or during their show.

Kyungsoo slowly starts to feel awful, though. He...hadn’t handled that nearly as well as he should have. He’s used to whining. His best friends are Baekhyun and Sehun, Whiners Co. He doesn’t usually let his temper get the best of him, not in the way he had with Jongin.

And he doesn’t treat Baekhyun and Sehun as badly as he treats Jongin on a daily basis, either.

They leave for Beijing in the morning, to catch a 6-hour train back to the capital city to catch their plane in the evening, but that leaves them with a chunk of time in between with nothing to do. Kyungsoo gets out his laptop and starts searching.

“Kyungsoo, where are we going?” Jongin trails along behind him tentatively, like he thinks Kyungsoo might be leading him to his execution. “Shouldn’t we be heading for the airport?”

“Our flight isn’t until 8; we don’t have to be there until 6. It’s only 1.” Kyungsoo tries to navigate the subway station through dense crowds. “We don’t have to be here long, I know your feet hurt.”

“Where is here?” Jongin asks, hiking his backpack farther up his shoulders. They’d left their big luggage at the train station, which technically means they’ll have to leave early to get it before they go to the airport, but really, they shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.

“You’ll see,” Kyungsoo says, and leads him to Exit A.

They come out right at the south gate of the Beijing Zoo.

“Aaaaaah!” Jongin says, his entire face lighting up. “Animals!”

Kyungsoo can’t help but smile. “Yeah,” he says, and tugs Jongin forward by his backpack strap.

“But isn’t it expensive?” Jongin asks, stumbling along.

“It’s twenty kuai,” Kyungsoo says. “Three bucks. I think we can afford it.”

Jongin laughs delightedly. He seems to have completely forgotten yesterday’s argument, which is just like him, honestly. “I love China.”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo murmurs with a smile, waiting in line for their tickets.

They get in, and Kyungsoo keeps the English pamphlet they receive away from Jongin, which isn’t hard because Jongin gets very distracted by everything they see. They’re lucky, though; the South Gate leads almost straight into the Panda House.

Jongin makes a long, high-pitched sound next to Kyungsoo. “Pandas!” he says, in a voice that could be described as a squeak.

Kyungsoo grins ruefully. “You told me they’re your favourite.”

“That was weeks ago,” Jongin says, turning shiny eyes on Kyungsoo.

“I remembered.”

Jongin’s throat bobs, and then he fumbles for his camera. “I, we’re not even getting this on camera, you’re—”

“We don’t need to film it,” Kyungsoo says quickly. “This is just for you.”

Jongin positively beams. “Thank you,” he says, and then he bolts for the Panda House.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he loved pandas, back on the plane. Jongin leans in as far as he possibly can to see the clumsy animals, squealing and cooing as he reaches out for them futilely. He films them eagerly, providing enthusiastic commentary in the background, most of which revolves around, “Look at these small wonders. Look at their roly-poly faces. Such precious creatures. Such beautiful beings. So pure and sweet. So lovely.” And etc.

Kyungsoo watches happily, taking some pictures but mostly just enjoying Jongin’s joy. It’s infectious, his bright laughter and his 1000-watt grin, and Kyungsoo trails along behind him, absorbing Jongin’s good mood. It’s such a turnaround from the previous day, but the best kind. It feels good not to hold onto grudges. Kyungsoo so rarely feels free to just let go.

Eventually, Jongin says goodbye to the pandas with much regret, tossing longing looks over his shoulder as he goes but mumbling that the other animals deserve love, too.

They don’t see the whole zoo, but Jongin seems fairly enamoured by any and all animals they see; lions, tigers, bears, waterfowl, the nocturnal animal section. Jongin coos at them all, calls the lions and tigers kitty, reaches out for the bears adoringly. Kyungsoo called him a child yesterday, and sometimes he is one, but that’s not always a bad thing. Kyungsoo loves his childish wonder, his simple joy.

Kyungsoo wanders away to a souvenir stall while Jongin looks at the tapirs, and comes back holding a little stuffed panda toy that he never would have bought for anyone else. Jongin takes it with the biggest smile Kyungsoo has ever seen, and then he surprises Kyungsoo by swooping in for a hug that threatens to cause bruising. Kyungsoo goes hot with embarrassment, but he’s secretly pleased, even if he doesn’t return the hug.

Long before Jongin would declare himself ready to go, the heavy clouds above them begin to rumble threateningly. It’d been cloudy and humid all day, the threat of rain hanging heavy in the air, but Kyungsoo had been stolidly ignoring it until suddenly, the heavens pour down.

Jongin seems delighted by that, too. He yells, shielding his camera with his body, and laughs, and he beckons for Kyungsoo to join him in a mad dash towards the nearest gate. It’s about time they leave to collect their luggage anyway, so Kyungsoo goes, clinging to his backpack straps, and they get soaked anyway, but Kyungsoo doesn’t care. It’s not a cold rain, even if the wind whips at his wet clothes, and it’s somehow too funny to be really upset about their discomfort anyway.

They take a breather inside the subway station, panting and dripping, and the crowd pushes them close together. Jongin stares at Kyungsoo with a breathless grin, clutching his panda toy tightly. “Thanks,” he says, and that’s it.

“For what?” Kyungsoo needs to wipe off his camera, make sure it’s not wet, but he can’t look away from Jongin’s face, chest heaving, heart thumping.

“Just...for today. I was a dick yesterday. You didn’t have to do this. But it was really nice. Like, super nice.” Jongin pants and stares, and he says, “You’re amazing.”

Kyungsoo swallows hard. “I just took you to the zoo.”

“You remembered I love pandas. And you did something nice for me after I was acting stupid and blew up at you. And I didn’t even apologize.”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “I overreacted.”

Jongin smiles at him, and Kyungsoo’s heart thuds. It’s too much. He feels too much.

Someone bumps into Jongin, and he stumbles a step closer. Too close. Kyungsoo snaps out of his trance and steps away quickly, heart racing, this time with fear and horror. He looks away. “We should go,” he says. “The subways will be even more packed during the rain.”

There’s a pause before Jongin says, quietly, “Okay.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t turn to see his face, afraid of what he might see, and of what he’s hoping to see. He leads the way deeper into the station, and his heart doesn’t stop beating too fast until they’re halfway to the train station.

The storm worsens, and horror of horrors, their flight gets cancelled due to weather. Kyungsoo groans all the way to the enormous line already forming to get flights rebooked.

“So what does this mean?” Jongin asks, trailing along behind him. “It’s bad, right?”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “Worst comes to worst, we’ll have to spend another night here and leave in the morning, once the storm has cleared.”

Jongin makes a face. “We’ll have to get a hotel?”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “I don’t know. We’ll see when we get to the front of the line.”

Which takes an hour of waiting on sore feet, but does eventually happen, and they manage to get tickets to California booked for the following morning at 8am. “Would you like us to help you book a hotel?” the lady at the counter asks. “Or you can stay here until morning.”

Kyungsoo looks at Jongin and makes a face, and Jongin makes a face back. “Stay here?” Kyungsoo asks tentatively. “We’d have to get up at like 5am anyway.”

“Yeah,” Jongin says with a nod. “I can sleep through anything, no biggie.”

Kyungsoo agrees and tells the counter lady they’re fine, and they take their tickets to an empty gate to set up camp. Kyungsoo carefully places their carry-ons in the seat between them to keep his distance. He’s not sure if it’d be wise to sit next to Jongin right now. The younger man is still clutching his damp panda toy like a lifeline.

They sit there, tapping away at their laptops, telling friends and family members of their plight, taking advantage of free airport wi-fi, for hours. Jongin quietly plays his Gameboy, Kyungsoo messages back and forth with Baekhyun when he wakes up over in California. Kyungsoo doesn’t mention Jongin. He doesn’t want to talk about him. His feelings are too mixed-up, too confusing.

Night falls, and blankets are handed out to everyone staying the night in the terminal. They don’t manage to snag a cot, but that’s okay—Kyungsoo has become very adept at sleeping on floors recently. Jongin mentions that he’s fully expecting to fall in love here, like in that Tom Hanks movie, and Kyungsoo just shoots him a small smile before taking his blanket and his neck pillow and curling up on a free patch of floorspace between rows of chairs.

He can’t sleep, though. He wants to, he’s tired, but too many thoughts are swirling around his brain, and his chest hurts.

He’s had a nice vacation. He really has, for the most part. He even enjoyed spending time with Jongin, there at the end, once he’d managed to stop acting like an asshole to him all the time. But the feelings in his gut are bittersweet. He’s had a nice vacation, and he’s made some progress with social interaction, but in the end, all he’s left with are memories and a load of dumb feelings he can’t get rid of. And eventually, when this is all over, he won’t have any reason to see Jongin anymore, and no one will ever know that he was possibly falling in love with him. No one will know, because Kyungsoo won’t tell anybody. He’ll keep it locked away, like he always has, and he’ll continue on the same way he had after college, except it’ll be a little harder now. Because now he’s gotten a glimpse of what it’d be like to be with Jongin. He’s seen Jongin at his best and his worst, and at the end Kyungsoo still likes him, and will never say anything.

In a month, Jongin will be nothing but a memory again; a too bad, a what if, another regret. Kyungsoo has a lot of experience with those.

He finally manages to fall asleep, heart heavy, after midnight.

And then he wakes up again half an hour later, blinking groggily, because he hears familiar voices.

“What do you mean,” says a voice that sounds suspiciously like Baekhyun’s, quiet but too familiar to miss, “he was ‘being nicer to you?’”

Jongin is sitting on one of the terminal seats, laptop sitting on his thighs, talking in low tones. “I don’t know,” he sighs. “Like, he’s nice to me, sometimes, but usually just when there are cameras out? But he was being nicer to me. He did a super nice thing for me, even though I didn’t deserve it. But now I’m like. I don’t know. I think he still hates me?”

“He doesn’t hate you,” says the voice, and yeah, that’s definitely Baekhyun. Talking to Jongin. About Kyungsoo. “He’s just terrible at communicating.”

“But he writes so well?” Jongin says, sounding cutely puzzled, maybe a little frustrated.

“No, yeah, that he’s fine with. It’s his face. And his words. Verbal and nonverbal communication.”

“He just acts like he doesn’t like me…” Jongin mumbles, and Kyungsoo is hot with shame. “Like he doesn’t really look at me, or stand near me, and he barely smiles at me, and when we talk his responses are usually a couple words long at most.”

“He’s just not good with attractive people,” Baekhyun says, that bastard, Kyungsoo is going to kill him. But he doesn’t budge, knowing that doing so would only lead to mortification, both on his part and Jongin’s. “He’s only not like that if he 100% has no interest in banging you.”

“What?” Jongin splutters, and Kyungsoo has to choke down a protest as well, even if it’s the truth. “But like, if he touches me by accident he springs away like I burned him.”

“Dude,” Baekhyun says placatingly, and oh, no, this can’t be heading in a good direction. “Sweetheart. Jongin. You said he’s being nicer to you? Elaborate.”

“I don’t know, it’s mostly just when we’re filming,” Jongin mumbles. “And he’ll smile at me and laugh with me and we have a good time but then as soon as I kind of, you know, do anything, he runs away.” He sounds miserable. Kyungsoo is miserable.

“Oh, Jonginnie,” Baekhyun coos. “You don’t know Kyungsoo well, so you don’t know this, but he can’t act to save his life. I was going to tell you to put it as a disclaimer on all your videos. Any fun and feelings you see this guy having, they’re real. Don’t believe his dark, broody face. That’s just what he looks like when he’s in denial.” Kyungsoo is going to kill him.

“Then why does he run away?” Jongin asks, sounding pathetic.

“Honey. Darling. If he runs away from you and, like, never looks you in the eye, that means he has a huge fucking crush on you.”

This time, Kyungsoo very nearly does say something. But he’s too shocked, lying there on the ground, heart pounding almost loud enough to drown out Baekhyun’s traitorous voice.

“If he has, at any point in time since then, smiled at you and/or willingly been close to you, either he’s completely moved on and you’re firmly friendzoned, or the guy’s halfway in love with you.”

Before he really knows what he’s doing, Kyungsoo is sitting bolt upright on the floor, yelling, “Baekhyun!”

Jongin slams his laptop shut and turns to stare at Kyungsoo with wide, shocked eyes. Kyungsoo, in turn, stares back at him, frozen with horror at everything that just happened. People nearby are shushing them, but Kyungsoo barely hears.

Jongin licks his lips in the low light, and goddamnit, despite himself, Kyungsoo tracks the movement with his eyes. “Baekhyun, he...he knows you pretty well, right?” Jongin says softly.

Kyungsoo nods stiffly, unable to form words just now.

Jongin gulps audibly. “Have I—” He clears his throat. “Have I been friendzoned?”

Oh, god. Kyungsoo almost says yes. His entire body panics and he’s so close to saying yes, because that’s just what he does, he runs away from anyone he finds himself interested in. The prospect of confessing his attraction to someone is too much for him, he’s not mentally prepared, he’ll never be mentally prepared, and this is why he’ll be alone forever. He’s so scared of telling the truth.

But this time. This time, he swallows and says, “No?” like it’s a question.

He immediately regrets it. He regrets it with every fibre of his being. He’s messed it up. He’s upset the balance. He can’t go back now, and he’s terrified.

“...No?” Jongin asks, his eyes wide in the dark.

“No,” Kyungsoo whispers, and he thinks he might throw up.

“Oh.” And Jongin breaks out into a huge smile, easing himself off his chair, closer to Kyungsoo, who has to fight his muscles not to move away on instinct. His heart hammers against his chest.

“You know Baekhyun exaggerated, though,” he says quickly, breaths coming short in his panic. This is happening too fast. He doesn’t have time to process everything.

“Yeah,” Jongin says, still smiling as he draws closer. “But he still tells the truth.” There’s only a foot of space between them, Kyungsoo sitting on the floor, Jongin on his knees in front of him.

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo whispers, and Jongin leans in, and Kyungsoo thinks Jongin is going to kiss him. Jongin is going to kiss him.

But he just whispers, “I had a crush on you in college.”

Kyungsoo blinks at him. “What?”

Jongin grins. “I mean, like, not a huge one, because you acted like you really did not like me.”

Kyungsoo goes scarlet. “I didn’t want you to know that I had a crush on you,” he says, and then clamps his mouth shut, because god. He just confessed one of his biggest secrets of all time. Out loud. To Jongin.

Who totally doesn’t seem to mind, at all. “I asked Sehun about you all the time and I thought you were so cute, and everything Sehun told me about you sounded so nice,” Jongin says, his smile rueful. “I thought you just disliked me. My first unrequited love.”

Kyungsoo sputters. “That’s— I didn’t—”

“I know,” Jongin says, which doesn’t make sense, because Kyungsoo doesn’t even know what he was going to say. “I’m figuring you out, though. Slowly.”

Jongin reaches out and takes Kyungsoo’s hand, very gently, and just holds it, and Kyungsoo feels like dying, but half in a good way. His whole body is very hot, but he kind of wants to cling to it and make it stop at the same time.

“I was so happy when I showed up at your house after Baekhyun told me about the trip and there you were,” Jongin says. “But then I thought you still didn’t like me. But I thought maybe I could work on that. And get to know you better.”

“And you weren’t disappointed?” Kyungsoo asks, breathless, incredulous. He can never speak when he needs to, and he can never shut up when he wants to.

Jongin smiles. “No.”

Kyungsoo’s heart thuds. “I never expect anyone to like me,” he says quietly, searching Jongin’s face for a lie, waiting for him to say he’d been joking this whole time.

But Jongin just squeezes his hand and keeps smiling and says, “We’ll work on that.” And then, more softly, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Kyungsoo panics immediately, his whole body going stiff and his eyes squeezing shut as he struggles not to flee, clutching Jongin’s hand hard enough to be painful. He waits in breathless silence, and Jongin’s lips brush against his at last.

It’s not even as firm as their half-accidental kiss in Tongli. It’s barely more than a schoolyard peck, just the softest touch of lips, but it’s so sweet, and Jongin draws back and Kyungsoo opens his eyes and he’s just sitting there, smiling at him sleepily. He just sits there and holds Kyungsoo’s hand, and Kyungsoo melts.

He’s a mess. And he’s terrified. And he wants to run away.

But he’s also so, so happy. He stays where he is, and he breathes.

Planes are not romantic. At all. Kyungsoo hates them, in fact. He barely slept all night (how could he?), and Jongin has to fight off panic attacks, and Kyungsoo has to fight off motion sickness, and both of them take anti-nauseants that knock them out for a good chunk of the plane ride. They watch movies, they share Jongin’s iPod, they read, they play Pokémon Yellow. When Kyungsoo isn’t too busy feeling exhausted and miserable, he feels embarrassed and a little panicky, but Jongin holds his hand between their seats, and while terrifying, that’s also wonderful. Kyungsoo really...has very strong feelings about him.

They arrive at the airport in California at 6am, and it’s past 7am by the time they collect all their luggage and make it through customs and security. They stand in front of the airport, groggy and jetlagged and vaguely nauseous. “Um,” Kyungsoo says, fidgeting with the buckle on the front of his backpack. “Are you hungry? It’s...breakfast time. Kind of.”

Jongin looks at him, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I could eat.”

“I can make breakfast,” Kyungsoo says. “At my apartment.”

“Sure,” Jongin agrees. “Let’s go.”

So they go. They’re both quiet on the subway, and Kyungsoo feels like he’s halfway to passing out, but he doesn’t. Jongin keeps a steady hand on his forearm the entire trip.

The nerves start to set in as soon as they’re in front of his apartment building, and it intensifies as they take the elevator up two storeys to his home. “The, uh, it’s easy to take the stairs,” he says, fidgeting restlessly. “I just figured, since we have so much to carry—”

“Mmm,” Jongin says, shifting closer to him to rest his head against Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Kyungsoo’s pulse skyrockets.

They get to the door, and it gets even worse. Kyungsoo fumbles with the keypad, his fingers clumsy and freezing up when Jongin deliberately undoes the buckles on Kyungsoo’s backpack, pulls it down from his shoulders, and crowds up against his back to rest his chin on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Kyungsoo swallows thickly.

“What’s for breakfast?” Jongin murmurs, breath warm on his ear, and he presses warm lips to the skin just under it.

Kyungsoo shivers, his insides twisting, partly in pleasure and partly in panic. “U-um. What would you like?” he asks, trying again at the code.

“I don’t care,” Jongin says, laying two tiny kisses on the edge of Kyungsoo’s jaw.

Kyungsoo’s brain becomes one long gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, and his heart is pounding so hard, because Jongin is his kind-of boyfriend and he’s kissing Kyungsoo’s pink skin and they’re going into Kyungsoo’s apartment. And Kyungsoo’s still fighting the urge to hide his attraction to Jongin, even though there’s no need anymore.

He manages to get the code right, and he all but falls into his house. Jongin falls with him, closing the door a little too loudly behind him as he drops his bags on the floor, and suddenly, they’re completely alone together, in private, for the first time since...last night. (Yesterday?) Nobody breathes.

And then suddenly Jongin is kissing him, for real, full on the mouth, long and lingering. His lips move against Kyungsoo’s, slotting together, and Kyungsoo’s brain melts out his ears. He has to forcefully keep himself from moaning at every sensation, because he’s never done this before, not like this. Jongin’s mouth is soft and warm and a little slick, and he’s backing Kyungsoo against a wall and kissing him over and over, gentle but firm enough to make his intent clear, sucking very lightly on his lip, breaths warm between them. Kyungsoo trembles, hands moving up to curl in Jongin’s sweater, and loses all sense of time. All he cares about is Jongin’s mouth and Jongin’s body pressed warm against his and the little sounds that slip out of Jongin’s throat. Nothing else matters.

And then a voice comes from Kyungsoo’s room, triumphant, saying, “Aha! I knew it!”

Kyungsoo practically rips his mouth away from Jongin’s, staring down his hall. Oh, shit. Fuck. Kyungsoo forgot he’d asked Sehun to watch his apartment for him while he was away. And he’s coming out of Kyungsoo’s room, dressed in his pajamas, looking like he’d just woken up. Kyungsoo stares at him, breathing hard and completely red-faced.

Sehun, on his part, is grinning. “I knew it,” he says, sauntering down the hall. “I saw the blog posts and the Instagram pics and I knew this was gonna happen. Jongdae owes me twenty bucks.”

“Oh, god,” Kyungsoo says, mortified. He wants to hide his face in Jongin’s chest, but he thinks that might be worse.

Sehun beams at him. “Don’t worry, hyung, I could only tell because I know you. Anyway, I’ll just get out of your way—”

“He’s only here for breakfast!” Kyungsoo says, knowing it’s futile coming from someone trapped between a wall and a warm body, pink-cheeked and panting.

“Sure he is,” Sehun says predictably, eyebrows dancing. He scoots around them towards the door, slipping on his shoes. “Nice seeing you guys~ Hope you had a nice trip~” And with that, he flees through the door.

Kyungsoo swallows hard, wondering if he could just die from embarrassment. “Ugh,” he says, not looking at Jongin despite being mere inches from his face.

Jongin pushes his smile right into Kyungsoo’s line of vision. “Shhh,” he says softly, soothingly. “He was going to find out eventually.”

“But this was in the worst possible way,” Kyungsoo mutters, fidgeting.

“So?” Jongin smiles, leans in to steal a kiss from Kyungsoo’s lips. “I don’t care.”

“I—” Kyungsoo doesn’t get to finish, distracted by another kiss. He thinks he deserves that much, at least. He thinks he’s quickly becoming addicted.

“Breakfast?” Jongin asks, kissing his nose, his cheeks. Kyungsoo wants to cry with how happy and terrified and happy he is.

“Soon,” he whispers, and pulls Jongin closer.

They don’t even move from their spot, kissing up against the wall. At some point, they swap places, and Kyungsoo presses up against Jongin and does his best to kiss him breathless, curling his hands in Jongin’s sweater, sucking on his lip a little the way Jongin had done to him before. Jongin groans, soft and breathy, and it’s perfect. It makes Kyungsoo so much braver than he would usually be. Kyungsoo has had nothing for all these years, not even any hope for anything, and now he wants everything, all at once. He wants every sound Jongin can make, and every word muttered against Kyungsoo’s lips, and every hitched breath, and every stuttering heartbeat. He wants Jongin to push his hand up under Kyungsoo’s shirt, and he does, but not enough, he doesn’t touch enough skin, and Kyungsoo feels so hot.

Jongin breaks away panting and grinning. “My stomach is growling,” he says, biting his tongue in that teasing way he has. Kyungsoo wants to kiss it.

Instead, he says, “Eggs?”

“Yes please,” Jongin hums, and his eyes go all soft and warm. It’s unbearable. It makes Kyungsoo’s insides go all funny.

They’re at the table when Jongin rests his chin on his hand and says, “I’d like you to ask me on a date.”

Kyungsoo blinks at him, his mouth half full of eggs on toast. “What?”

Jongin nods, tapping his fork against his plate. “You said you’ve never asked anyone on a date before. This could be your last chance to experience it.”

Kyungsoo goes red at the implications. Either Jongin is telling him he may never have anyone interested in him ever again, or he’s telling him this’ll be the last first date for either of them. He hopes it’s the latter. “Well,” he says, embarrassed.

“Come on,” Jongin says, smiling, but not teasing.

Kyungsoo frowns at his plate. It shouldn’t be that hard. He just has to do it. He just has to be brave this one last time. “Would you like to go on a date with me sometime?”

Jongin beams at him. “I’d love to.”

When Jongin’s travel vlogs start to come out on YouTube, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s number of blog subscribers skyrockets. People love Kyungsoo’s stupid, snarky blog posts, apparently, and they love Baekhyun’s enthusiastic, flowery ones too. And they love Jongin and Kyungsoo, together. As update after update is released, more and more fans scream for them to get together. It’s absurd. Kyungsoo has possibly never been more embarrassed in his life.

Baekhyun revels in the glory that is his own matchmaking skill.

After the last vlog update, Jongin posts that selfie of them in their matching flower crowns—Kyungsoo ended up keeping his after all—with the caption He fell for my charms after all. Should I change my username to CallMeTaken? #lookhowhappyhelooks #totallyfellforme #boyfriendtag

The fans go wild. Kyungsoo doesn’t look. He’s too busy discovering the wonder that is hour-long makeout sessions.

(It’s a very good distraction method.)

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From:

hojichadust.livejournal.com

jesus fucking christ okay

where do i even start

this fic is honest to god so, so amazing, and there's so many things that i could ramble on about for hours--the amazing writing, the way you so vividly (and i feel like accurately?? personal experience???) described all of the various places and people in China, but the thing that really, really got to me was Kyungsoo. His social anxiety was so vivid and real, and I fell in love with him right away because I understood exactly how he felt and how much it fucking sucks to have people (especially your fucking friends!!!) tell you that you that you have to just "open up" or "just say something", like it's that easy to get over how hard it is talking to strangers or to attractive people. my heart went out to him so badly here, you painted his cycle of embarrassment and self-loathing so accurately that it hurts honestly it just makes me want to coddle him and tell him that he's fine just the way he is /sniffs/

i will probably never get over kyungsoo in this fic like i have literally never read a more accurate depiction of social anxiety and i felt like this was a real story about a real person and their battles with themselves and wow holy smokes im so taken with you rn this was such a beautiful, amazing work :')

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Tranquil as a Forest (But on Fire Within) (5/5)

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