that kaisoo rockstar au in which nothing happens, compiled -->



In this fic Do Kyungsoo is the vocalist of a no-name (and damned proud of it) indie rock band and college sophomore Jongin accidentally catches one of his gigs because asshat Chanyeol mixed up his tickets. The only reason Jongin—who has one thousand better things to do than hang around in a dingy venue—actually stays for more than minus two seconds is that he had, coincidentally, caught the glitter of the stage lights in Kyungsoo’s eyes and had, just as coincidentally, connected it to the sound of Kyungsoo’s voice and the shape of his silhouette and the scent of the live house and, of course, tripped over thin air and fell into the biggest vat of love there had been since Paris ran face-first into a war for Hellen of Troy.

Love is just curiosity at first. Then it grows an obsessive edge. And then this edge, Jongin discovers, will eventually learn to cut you, and slice you, and bleed you, until it grows into your flesh and consumes you. Half a year later Jongin has dropped out of school. He forgets his dance recitals. Sometimes he over-pours his coffee, thinking about the last time he had seen Kyungsoo, thinking about that electric jolt he had felt when Kyungsoo sang “try loving me,” with his eyes locked in Jongin’s.

For Kyungsoo’s birthday, Jongin sells the jacket his mom had bought him to buy Kyungsoo a present. He braves the January night cold waiting for Kyungsoo to come out of the live house, fingers freezing around wrapping paper, only to find by dawn that Kyungsoo had left out from the fire escape hours ago. Just as Jongin is about to chalk it up to fate and leave, Kyungsoo, bare-faced, breathless, in pajamas and a beaten-up leather jacket, comes dashing up the sidewalk.

“I had no idea,” is all Kyungsoo manages to say, before collapsing into a bench just anywhere, “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you go home? You shouldn't have waited.”

Jongin doesn’t know what to say, so he stares up at the sky and lies, “I just got here.”
Kyungsoo laughs. Jongin has always been a terrible liar. As Jongin hands him the present, Kyungsoo thanks him, lips quivering into a smile, and says, “You didn’t have to.”

“I just happened to remember. Because. It’s two days before mine. So,” Jongin says.

Without saying anything, Kyungsoo shakes off his jacket and drapes it over Jongin’s shoulders.

“Happy birthday to you, too,” Kyungsoo says, grinning ear to ear. And before Jongin could respond, Kyungsoo’s already gone, as abruptly as he had arrived. The weight of Kyungsoo’s jacket, the warmth that could have burnt, that distinct scent of leather and moth balls and curry, Jongin will carry in his memories for the rest of his life.

Fast forward ten years and Kyungsoo is no longer some painfully adolescent boy drowning in eye-liner and cheap cologne. Kyungsoo is no longer someone who could afford to run four kilometers across town on a January morning. Kyungsoo can fill the hundred thousand seats of a dome at will. Kyungsoo is surrounded by body guards and managers and a small army of staff. Kyungsoo's face is on the billboards, name printed over the magazines, songs blasted all day on the radio.

This version of Kyungsoo, however, still drapes a jacket over Jongin's shoulder in the same way after they’ve fucked back stage. He still wishes Jongin a happy birthday. But he does it casually, between tying up the condom and lighting up a cigarette, and it’s confusing for Jongin, because even if Kyungsoo gives him things—jackets, watches, leftover fan goods—Kyungsoo is also fucking a different person every other night, bumming their smokes, walking in and out of scandals like house-slippers. Even if Jongin is his oldest fan, even if he’s known him since the very beginning, had wrecked his life for Kyungsoo, there are still some million people between them, a million other bodies that drown away the soft murmur of Jongin's breaking heart.

Sometimes Jongin wonders what it would be like if he told him. That when kyungsoo's eyes met his ten years ago in that dingy pub, his heart stopped. That he goes home and balls up in the shower crying each time Kyungsoo fucks him and tells him “see you again”. That he doesn't really want to fuck Kyungsoo at all, that he just wants to do the small meaningless things you do when you're stupid in love. All he wants is to kiss Kyungsoo softly on the forehead, to watch him fall asleep, to wish him sweet dreams. But Jongin would never tell Kyungsoo. He keeps quiet about all of this, bc he knows that Kyungsoo would never love him that way. Bc he doesn't want kyungsoo to throw him away. Bc being a fucked out piece of flesh is better than being nothing. Bc in the end, Jongin would rather break his heart a million times for a dream than live without one.

And so he's there for Kyungsoo when Kyungsoo's killing the charts, and he's there for Kyungsoo when he's floating in and out of rehab like an over-washed skeleton, and he's there for Kyungsoo going through his sixth divorce and declaring bankruptcy and there, again, like he had always been, when Kyungsoo's kinda ugly and freckled and wrinkled and dirt poor, sitting on the doorstep of that pub where he'd had his first gig.

Just like time had taken away from Kyungsoo all that it had given him, time had polished away the glimmer and charm of the pub. It’s now just an abandoned, dingy hole of bricks, bandaged in broken window panes and juvenile graffiti. When Kyungsoo sits there on its front step, he blends right in.

Jongin shows up next to him and offers him a jacket, bc it's dead cold in January and he just happened to remember Kyungsoo’s birthday.

“I used to look for you at our concerts,” Kyungsoo says absent-mindedly, to no one in particular.

“What if you couldn’t find me?”

“I always did,” Kyungsoo says, playing with a twig.

When the silence has once again soaked into the air, Kyungsoo asks, casually, like one would ask for the time, “You were never just a fan, were you?”

Jongin says, with all the frankness of someone who had been lying for his entire life, “Don’t be delusional. I was always just a fan,” because love always makes you break your own heart first.

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