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Renjun’s had perfect hearing all his life, but today, he really, really hopes his ears are failing him.
“You want me to what?” he asks, and Kun looks at him over the rims of his spectacles.
“Listen, I know it’s a lot to ask from you, but the Saturday evening slot has sat empty since Guozhen-ge left. Right now, it’s just dead space, and we’re missing out on tons of listenership and ad revenue.”
“No, I understand that ‒ ”
“Oh.” Kun frowns, and his spectacles slip further down his nose. Amidst the stacks of paper taking up every inch of his desk space and the framed accolades hung up on the wall behind him, he looks a bit like a frazzled professor rather than the frazzled radio station boss that he is. “Sorry, was this about the extra hours? Rest assured you’ll be appropriately compensated, and with the projected ad money we’ll get during the show, I’m sure that ‒ ”
“It’s not about the money,” Renjun says quickly, even though it is also kind of about the money. He swallows and straightens up, the old, rickety stool he’s sitting on swaying slightly with the movement. “It’s about, um…”
The problem with Kun is that he has the patience of a saint. The problem with Renjun is that he is often inherently incapable of saying what he really wants to say. So what happens next is that Kun tilts his head, curious, and waits quietly while Renjun sweats through his cashmere sweater and tries to phrase his thoughts in a way that gets his point across but also won’t get him fired.
“It’s, um,” Renjun says after about thirty million years of silence. “I’m just concerned about the ‒ you know ‒ the, um, the person I would be working with.”
Kun blinks. “You mean Yangyang?”
Yes, of fucking course, Yangyang.
“Um,” Renjun says, because he can’t say that. “Yes.”
“What about him?”
What about him, indeed.
Renjun’s gaze drifts to the right, where Kun keeps the promotional posters of all the radio station programmes framed. Near the top is Renjun’s, a tasteful cream poster featuring him posing by a grand piano, dressed in his coveted vintage YSL top. After years of being part of a duo or trio where he was overlooked or overshadowed, he’d been so proud and excited when Kun offered him an opportunity to host a show on his new radio station, and solo. To this day, The Fresh Start has one of the highest listenership amongst morning radio programmes in their district.
Renjun’s gaze drifts down further and falls on the very last poster on the wall ‒ the most recent addition to their station’s programmes. The background is a bright red and sticks out like a sore thumb. It features a young man smiling, his teeth as white and sharp as a shark’s. He’s winking flirtatiously in the shot dressed in an oversized hoodie and jeans with more rips than actual fabric. Kick Back with Yangmoney! it reads in spiky neon font. The entire poster hurts to even look at.
At a loss for words, Renjun gestures at the posters, and then at himself. “He’s just so… And I’m so…”
He had tuned into Yangyang’s show once, not long after Yangyang had joined the station. In the course of his thirty minute drive home, Renjun’s ears had been assaulted with no less than three songs that seemed to be more yelling than music, a couple of dirty jokes, and a startingly in-depth conversation between Yangyang and a lady revolving around how to unclog cat hair from a toilet bowl.
Basically, what Renjun wants to say is that Yangyang plays loud hip-hop garbage noise for unemployed, unhinged people and makes crass, inappropriate jokes on public radio while I play actual music for people who actually have jobs and I actually comply with the region’s broadcasting standards.
Except he can’t say that or he’ll get fired. So.
“We seem to have very different vibes,” Renjun eventually settles for saying. “Are you sure us hosting a show together is a good idea?”
To his utter surprise, Kun bursts out laughing.
“I have a feeling you two will get along just fine,” he says with an air of knowing more than he lets on, which, weird. “You two haven’t spent much time together, right?”
“Well, no, not really. We have opposite timeslots, and like I said, we seem to be very different people.”
“Hm.” Kun taps the end of a pencil against his chin thoughtfully. “We’re still working on the concept of the programme, but I like that angle. An advice show ‒ two perspectives from two very different people. What do you think?”
Renjun personally doesn’t think he should be giving anyone advice, but if there’s anyone who should be giving out advice even less, it’s definitely Yangyang.
(Renjun begrudgingly admits that Yangyang may have kind of helped Toilet Bowl Lady. But then again, he had switched off the radio before the call ended, disgusted by the graphic descriptions of the cause of the clog, so who’s to say for sure.)
“Um,” he says instead, and Kun stands up.
“Anyway, we’ll get back to you on that. For now, I took the liberty of printing out Yangyang’s profile for you ‒ did you know you two are the same age? His contact information is in there, too, so you can reach out to him and arrange to meet up before we do the chemistry test, if you want.”
Kun holds out a manila file, and of course Renjun, who possesses the hand-eye coordination of a newborn baby, misses it. The contents of the file flutter to the floor, and, in a somewhat ominous sign, Yangyang’s passport photograph falls at Renjun’s feet, all six hundred teeth on full display. Renjun goes to pick it up, and notes with mild distaste that Yangyang’s hair is a fiery orange ‒ who submits this kind of photograph for a job?
This is a crap idea, he thinks despondently. This is going to fail.
“This,” Kun says, “is going to be great!”
All Renjun can do is smile weakly. “Sure.”
Kun misinterprets Renjun’s unenthusiasm for uncertainty. “Don’t worry so much!” he says, clapping Renjun’s shoulder so hard his knees buckle. “I have absolute faith in you.”
☯
Renjun only wishes he could say the same for Yangyang.
There’s a new dark spot on the wall of their shabby conference room that wasn’t there last month. Renjun has been sitting here for the past ten minutes, nose wrinkled, trying to guess what it could be. Dirt? Mould? The central air-conditioning has been leaking and acting up lately. They’ve had to put a bucket under the vents in the pen where all the DJs sit when they’re not on-air.
Renjun is contemplating snapping a picture of the spot and emailing it to their building superintendent when there’s a knock on the door. He springs from his seat and spins around, some choice words on the tip of his tongue, only for them to fall away when he sees who it is.
“Oh,” Renjun says, deflating. “It’s you.”
Chenle’s face is mostly hidden by his oversized sunglasses and overgrown bangs, but Renjun’s known him long enough to know that he probably didn’t appreciate that. And he’s right. Instead of greeting him, Chenle takes his hands out of the pockets of his basketball shorts and folds them across his chest, clicking his tongue in disapproval.
“Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Renjun says. He waves a hand in apology and plops back down in his seat. “I was just expecting someone else.”
“Is that why you’re here so early? Or ‒ ” Chenle checks his watch, a chunky gold Rolex that is either a very good fake or a terribly gaudy design. “Actually, this is pretty late for you, isn’t it?”
Renjun looks longingly out the tiny, grimy window through which the afternoon sunlight streams in. Any other day, and he would already be at home, in bed, ready for his nap. “Yeah. Unfortunately, this is the only time that worked for both of us.”
“Who?”
Renjun is unable to stop himself from grimacing when he answers. “The new DJ, Yangyang.”
“He’s not that new,” Chenle says. “He’s been with us for, what, almost four months now?”
Renjun doesn’t know and doesn’t care. “Whatever. Anyway, Kun wants us to take over Guozhen-ge’s old slot, so we set up a meeting to discuss the format of our show. Except he’s ‒ ”
“Late? Oh yeah, you gotta account for, like, fifteen minutes with him.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
“Oh, we play basketball together sometimes.”
This is news to Renjun. “Since when?”
“Uh, since he came up to me at the company dinner and told me that he liked my Curry jersey?”
“What? He did?”
“Dude, you were standing beside me for the entire conversation.”
“You know I tune out whenever you talk about sports,” Renjun complains, and Chenle shakes his head.
“Well, Yangyang’s cool,” he says. “And mad good. Last game, he sunk a three-pointer and put everyone on skates.”
Renjun has no idea what any of those words mean. He stares blankly at Chenle, who heaves a sigh and pushes his sunglasses up onto his head.
“Look, all I’m saying is Yangyang is really nice. A little awkward at first, but nice. Give the dude a chance.”
“Who says I’m not giving him a chance? Wait.” Renjun frowns, suspicious. “Why are you acting like I don’t like him?”
Chenle actually laughs at that, long and hard. “You looked like you’d just sucked on a lemon when you said his name just now. Also, you called his jeans an abomination to fashion and said he looked like a scruffy, stray cat Kun took pity on.”
“What?” Renjun is scandalised, because he has thought all of those things before but he didn’t think he’d ever said them out loud, much less to Chenle. “When the hell did I say that?”
“At that office party. You had a lot of wine, dude.”
Renjun spends approximately three seconds (a) stunned, (b) freaking out over what else he might have possibly said while under the influence of alcohol and (c) fervently hoping that he didn’t get up and drunkenly dance on the potluck table like their producer did at the last office party.
“I don’t don’t like Yangyang,” he grits out once his three allotted seconds are up. “I just think we’re two complete strangers with absolutely nothing in common.”
“Kun-ge told me you guys are the same age.”
“And that’s a good enough reason for us to host a radio show together?”
“Well,” Chenle says, looking over his shoulder at something in the hallway. “I guess you’re about to find out, because here he comes.”
That’s all the warning Renjun is given before another person crashes through the door. And he means that literally ‒ Yangyang skids through the door at breakneck speed in a blur of acid-washed denim and peach pink hair, barrelling right into Chenle. His arms dart out, managing steady Chenle by the shoulders before sending him flying across the conference room.
“Oh my god, sorry! I’m so ‒ Chenle? Hey, man! Are you here for the meeting, too?”
“Ah, no,” Chenle says, grasping Yangyang’s outstretched hand in what Renjun can only call a bro-shake. “I was just leaving ‒ I gotta be on air soon.”
“Lele,” Renjun pleads, but Chenle just grins, shark-like, and slips his sunglasses on.
“I’m sure you two will have lots to discuss. Have fun!”
Then, with a jaunty wave, he disappears, leaving Yangyang and Renjun very much alone.
“Um,” Yangyang says after what feels like an eternity. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Renjun says. “Come in and have a seat, I guess.”
Yangyang dithers, looking between the nine other vacant chairs before picking the one furthest away from Renjun. He slouches in his seat, shoulders hunched, and swivels his chair so he can affix Renjun with a blank, listless look. He looks like he does not want to be here.
Well, that makes two of them.
But Renjun is a professional. A professional who loves his job and does not want a show with his name attached to it to fail, no matter how much he doesn’t want to do it, so he decides to get the ball rolling. “Well. Here we are.”
Yangyang stares at him mutely. Renjun is both slightly unnerved and irritated.
“We know of each other, of course, but I don’t think we’ve properly been introduced. I’m ‒ ”
“Oh, no, we have,” Yangyang interrupts. “At the office party, remember? You said you liked my jeans.”
He points, and Renjun’s gaze follows. The jeans Yangyang has on today are, indeed, the same ones he’d worn to the office party. Renjun knows, because, like Chenle said, it had been an abomination so bad that he’d apparently felt the need to comment drunkenly on it, and it’s seared into his memory forever. As it is, there's a giant section of the fabric cut out to expose a skinny-looking thigh and a knobbly knee.
With no small amount of effort, Renjun wrenches his gaze up, and pastes on a smile.
“Right,” he says. “I said that. I totally said that.”
There’s an awkward pause.
Yangyang raises an eyebrow. “So…?”
“So.” Renjun clears his throat. In an effort to look like he knows what he’s doing, he opens his notebook where he’s made a bulleted list of topics for discussion. “Kun wants us to host a radio show together.”
“Yep.”
“What do you think of the concept he suggested?”
“The advice show?” Yangyang blinks slowly. “I guess I’m okay with that.”
“Uh…” Something about Yangyang’s casual indifference grates on Renjun’s nerves. He rifles through his notebook aggressively, until he lands on his scribbles from the day before. “Okay, but what about other types of shows? I did some research, and there’s a bunch of formats that this station hasn’t tried before ‒ ”
Yangyang yawns loudly.
“ ‒ like paranormal stuff and radio dramas,” Renjun continues, despite his irritation. “Have you listened to Welcome to Nightvale? It’s good stuff. Or we could do quizzes, like when Caoli-jie was around ‒ ”
At this juncture, Yangyang cuts in. “Kun-ge wants us to host and interact with each other and the audience, though. That’s why he likes the idea of us giving advice.”
“And…” Renjun’s mind flashes back to Toilet Bowl Lady. He’s almost afraid of Yangyang’s answer. ”... you like it, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Yangyang shrugs again. “I just do.”
Great. Just great.
“Okay. Um. So if we go with it, I was thinking we could have a different theme each week ‒ like, workplace issues, or relationship problems. We could take in a handful of questions from the livestream, or calls if they’re driving, which would then be split up into segments, and play songs in between.”
“Yup, sounds good. Also, what would, like, the vibe of this show be like?”
Renjun cocks his head. “The vibe?”
“Yeah,” Yangyang says. “The vibe.” He waves a hand around in the air, as if it will help.
It does not.
“I don’t understand.”
“You know what I mean!” Yangyang says, even though Renjun literally just said he didn’t. “I was thinking it could sound like a couple of friends talking casually?”
“You can speak casually, but our show should sound like it was made for radio. I know it might be difficult for you, but definitely nothing too dirty. We’re still ‒ ”
“Definitely Nothing Too Dirty, title of your sex tape!” Yangyang interrupts suddenly, then laughs quietly to himself.
Renjun, appalled, shuts his jaw with a click. Yangyang, on the other hand, has the audacity to grin at him. He looks downright demonic.
“Yeah. That ‒ ” Renjun jabs his finger at Yangyang “ ‒ is the kind of energy I’m not looking for.”
“Huh. You’re kind of a wet blanket, aren’t you?” Yangyang observes, and Renjun bristles.
“If that’s what being professional is, then yeah. Yeah, I’m a wet blanket.”
“Oof, that is not the flex you think it is,” Yangyang mutters, and punctuates the end of the sentence with another yawn, one so wide that Renjun can see all the way to the back of his throat.
The rest of the meeting proceeds in pretty much the same vein. Yangyang is clearly not as present as he should be, rubbing at his eyes and continuing to yawn throughout their meeting. He even appears to nod off halfway through Renjun showing him his proposed list of show names, which is offensive. Like, hello, it’s not easy to be creative!
It’s like pulling teeth. Renjun’s annoyance grows and grows, but holds his tongue. Time drags as they go down the list (the template of how their show will run, weekly themes, and playlists) but they get through it, and after a gruelling hour, Renjun shuts his notebook and declares that they’re done.
Yangyang jumps up. It’s the most animated he’s looked since the meeting started. He grabs Renjun’s hand and pumps it up and down, grip so tight he almost crushes Renjun’s fingers. Renjun can’t extract his hand quickly enough.
“Looking forward to working with you, bro!”
Yangyang grins brightly. Renjun barely has time to process how even his rows of teeth are before Yangyang speeds off to god knows where, the door clattering shut in his wake.
“Yeah,” Renjun says flatly to the empty room. “Me, too.”
☯
By the time their first broadcast rolls around, Renjun feels no more assured than he did when he first sat down one-on-one with Yangyang.
They had another meeting with Kun, where the format of their show (the advice one) was finalised. Renjun and Yangyang also did a quick chemistry test where they just riffed off each other, and although Renjun had some concerns about the nature of some of the jokes Yangyang made, Kun had seemed happy with their banter and deemed the two of them a good fit.
Unlike their regular shows, Kun told them, this one would be entirely self-produced. Which was fine ‒ Renjun liked coming up with his own music playlists and script. It reminded him of his student days working at the university radio station, and it gave him the creative control he didn’t normally have with The Fresh Start. He’d done up a draft of the playlist and script for and, three days before their first broadcast, emailed it to Yangyang.
Who did not reply.
And who, unsurprisingly, is late.
“Look,” Jisung, the sound guy, says, trying to be reassuring even if he keeps glancing anxiously at the clock. “I’m sure he’ll show up soon.”
“Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t,” Renjun mutters, aggressively stabbing at Yangyang’s contact and bringing his phone to his ear. “That way I won’t fucking murder him the instant he steps through the door.”
“Sorry, did you say something?”
“Nope.”
It’s Saturday evening, mere minutes until they go live, and Yangyang is nowhere to be found. Renjun had told him in the email to be at the studio at least an hour before broadcast ‒ he’d triple-checked it before pressing send, and, reading it back now, sees that the call-time is stated there in black and white. Whether Yangyang had read it or not is up for debate.
Judging by the empty chair next to Renjun, though, he’s pretty sure that his co-host did not. Consequently, he’s had to do everything himself ‒ printing the scripts, setting up the playlist, and even briefing Jisung ‒ and for the last fifteen minutes, he’s been alternating between dialling Yangyang’s number and working himself up into a quiet, seething rage.
The call goes straight to voicemail, just like all the others had. Renjun hangs up with a frustrated groan. He really should have seen this coming, knowing what he knows now about Yangyang
What a way to start our first broadcast, Renjun thinks despairingly. This is beyond unprofessional. He is beyond fed up. Yangyang is ‒
The door to the studio bursts open.
“I’m here, I’m here! Sorry I’m late ‒ ”
Yangyang is sweating and breathing hard. He’s clearly just ran all the way from wherever he was to the studio. He stumbles inside and collapses into the seat next to Renjun. Renjun watches, appalled, as Yangyang drops his bag to the floor, and its contents spill out all over the worn-out carpet.
Renjun doesn’t yell, but it’s a close thing. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you non-stop!”
“I’m sorry,” Yangyang says again, bending over to scoop back his five thousand balled-up receipts and packets of half-eaten candy into his bag. “I had to pick Coco up, and I forgot to charge my phone ‒ ”
Renjun is in no mood to hear his excuses. “Whatever. Just get ready already. We’re going live in ‒ ” he glances at the clock, and inwardly groans “ ‒ three minutes.”
Yangyang looks at the clock, too, and letting out a little squeak, begins to move faster. He fishes out his headphones, the wires of which are of course completely knotted together. Renjun refrains from sighing and, like the good co-host that he is, helps switch on the second computer monitor so that Yangyang can see the live chat and playlist he’s queued up for the show.
Meanwhile, Jisung has slipped into the adjacent room to man the sound. He nods at Renjun, indicating that he’s all set, and Renjun turns to Yangyang.
“Ready?”
Yangyang untangles the last of his wires with a triumphant cry. “Yup! Ready.”
He plugs his headphones in, pops them on, and gives Renjun a thumbs up. Renjun, trying not to roll his eyes, slides his own headphones on. He straightens his script in front of him, and gives it one last scan.
Jisung’s voice crackles through their headphones. “Alright, guys. And we’re live in 3… 2… 1…”
Above them, the On Air sign flickers, then glows red. Renjun takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and ‒
“Yo yo yo, it’s your boy, Yangmoney!”
Renjun whips his head around so fast his neck cricks. For one, that is not how the introduction in the script reads.
And for another, the guy sitting next to him is no longer Yangyang ‒ nope. That voice decidedly belongs to Yangmoney.
In the blink of an eye, Yangyang has transformed from awkward and flustered to the laid-back, loud-mouthed radio personality he’s adopted. He’s even got some swagger now ‒ Yangyang swivels his chair back and forth, one leg hiked up on his seat. When he catches Renjun staring at him in disgust, he throws him a flirty wink.
Renjun’s mouth drops open, because what the hell was that?
“I’m here tonight to host a brand new show, Yin and Yang ‒ Yang, get it, hahaha ‒ with Ren-D. Ren-D, say hi!”
Renjun is caught off-guard by the abrupt handover. “Uh, h-hi,” he stutters, then clears his throat and glances down at his script. “Yes. As Yangyang said, welcome to Yin and Yang, a music and advice show that’ll be hosted by the two of us every Saturday. Each week, we’ll have a theme for discussion and you, the listeners, are free to send in any related questions that you may have. Yangyang and I will discuss the question ‒ ”
“And give you our advice, solicited or unsolicited!”
“Except it would be solicited,” Renjun says, shooting Yangyang a look for the interruption, “because that’s what we’re here for.”
Yangyang doesn’t look particularly frazzled at the correction. “Sure, sure. So what’s the theme for this week, bossman?”
Renjun frowns, his nerves grating slightly at the term Yangyang had used. ‘Bossman’? What does that even mean? Is it a nickname? They’re not close like that.
Yangyang raises an eyebrow, and Renjun realises he’s been quiet for too long. Heat crawls up the back of his neck, and he runs a finger down his script until he reaches where they had left off.
“This week is all about school, career and work! So anything from studying tips to dealing with irresponsible colleagues,” Renjun reads. He refrains from mentioning that he has some recent experience with the latter. “Feel free to call us with your questions at 1800-YIN-AND-YANG, or drop them in the live chat online. For now, though, here’s 9 to 5.”
Renjun plays the first song queued up on the playlist he had carefully curated for this week's theme, and Dolly Parton's twangy voice fills the studio. Once their mics have been muted, Yangyang pulls off his headphones anc turns to Renjun with a small smile on his face.
“So, this is exciting, huh?”
Renjun, still sore about Yangyang hijacking his instructions and the whole bossman thing, sniffs primly. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“This is all new to me,” Yangyang says. “I've never co-hosted with anyone before.”
Renjun flashes back to his meticulously crafted email, buried somewhere in Yangyang’s inbox, unread. He eyes Yangyang’s script, already creased and cast off to the side.
“Really,” he deadpans.
Yangyang beams, oblivious. “Yeah, really!”
The next song plays, a country-adjacent track that Renjun had selected to complement 9 to 5. Yangyang wrinkles his nose, but wisely says nothing about Renjun's song choices, and instead drums his fingers on the table in time to the beat.
“Do you think anyone’s listening? What happens if we don't get any questions?”
“I'm sure Kun is, just to make sure we’re doing okay,” Renjun says, checking the number of viewers tuning in online. Just over a few hundred people. Not great, but not terrible, either. “Anyway, I prepared a few questions just in case. We can just pick one of them if we don’t get any from the listeners.”
“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Um ‒ is that, like, ethical?”
Renjun looks up from the screen. Yangyang is fiddling with his hoodie strings, twisting them around his fingers. The expression on his face is doubtful and uncertain.
An edge of defensiveness creeps into Renjun’s voice before he can stop himself. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. Like, isn’t that kind of… fake?”
“Okay, but this is an advice show,” Renjun points out. He refuses to acknowledge that Yangyang is, technically, correct. But who cares if the questions were staged? “So what would be the point of it if no one was asking us for advice?”
Yangyang doesn’t look convinced, but he shrugs and leans back in his chair.
“I guess you’re right,” he says, and they sit there in awkward silence until Dolly's dulcet tones fade.
“Alright guys ‒ ”
“Welcome back to ‒ ”
This time, Renjun doesn't bother hiding the way he rolls his eyes. He stabs at the script, which shows that it's his turn to speak, not Yangyang's.
Yangyang's nose scrunches in apology. Sorry, he mouths, but Renjun is already shaking his head and reading his part aloud.
“Welcome back to Yin and Yang, the show where we offer our advice on your problems, no matter how big or small. I see that we've received a couple of questions ‒ Yangmoney, why don't you go ahead and pick one?”
No one has called in, but thankfully, a few of the people listening to them online have left messages in their live chat ‒ no need for Renjun’s prepared questions, then. They scroll through the chat box together until they land on one that Renjun thinks is fairly uncontroversial.
“Hi there,” Yangyang reads. “I’m a first year student in university ‒ oh, wow, that’s amazing! Congratulations! Sorry,” he amends, catching the look on Renjun’s face, “um ‒ after three months, I’m starting to realise that I don’t want to be studying what I’m studying. I only picked this course because my grades were good, and because my parents told me it would lead to stable jobs down the line. I don’t want to disappoint them, but I’m also not sure that this is the right path for me. What should I do? Hm, interesting. What do you think, Ren-D?”
Renjun already knows what he wants to say, but pretends to think about it. “Wow, thank you for your question. That’s a real dilemma, isn’t it? It’s not a very nice feeling to wonder if you're on the right path. But as you said, it's only been a few months. I tend to find that the longer I stick with something, the more I enjoy it and the better I get at it. I’m sure it’ll be the same for you.”
Renjun leans back in his seat, satisfied with his answer. He turns to Yangyang expectantly, waiting for him to do something silly but approving, like a dumb thumbs-up, or whatever.
Instead, Yangyang is frowning slightly.
“Huh, really? Because I think the opposite.”
Renjun blinks, then sours. Of course he does.
“Do you care to explain?”
“Sure,” Yangyang says. “Like ‒ life is short, right? Why bother spending what precious little time you have doing something you know that you don't enjoy?”
“It’s only been three months, though,” Renjun points out, and Yangyang shrugs.
“For some people, three months is enough of a trial period. All I’m saying is that if you know, you know, so why waste any more time than you have to on something that’s not for you?”
He’s got a point. Several listeners seem to think so, too, if the comments streaming in seem anything to go by. Renjun glances through them briefly, and is annoyed to note that there are more people agreeing with Yangyang than him. His lips twist, and he turns back to Yangyang, folding his arms over his chest.
“Okay, but what about their parents?”
“Well, I’m sure their parents love them,” Yangyang says, upbeat. “Listener, if you’re certain this isn’t the right choice for you, I’m sure they’ll understand where you're coming from. Like, my mom wasn’t exactly thrilled when I told her I wanted to become a radio DJ ‒ in fact, she told me that was, like, gonna be the end of our relationship if I did that. But I asked her to give me a chance to prove myself, and after talking it out, she said okay, and, well, here I am! So it all worked out.”
He smiles, small but proud. It strikes Renjun that Yangyang, when silent and smiling that gummy smile with somehow too many and just enough teeth, is actually quite attractive. His eyes crinkle into slits, and he even does this nose scrunching thing that, if Renjun had seen it from across the dancefloor of a club, he might find cute. It's like Yangyang’s whole face lights up, or something. In spite of his chosen career, he definitely does not have a face for radio.
Which irritates Renjun even further.
“That’s really inspiring, Yangmoney. But a university education is so important ‒ ”
“The listener never said they didn’t want to keep studying, though?” Yangyang asks, looking down at his notes ‒ oh, well look at that, he took notes. “Maybe they just want to pursue a different course, or something.”
“Okay,” Renjun says, growing frustrated for reasons he can’t quite explain, “but assuming that they want to drop out ‒ I can’t in good faith encourage foregoing an education. Can you?”
Something passes over Yangyang’s face, and Renjun gets the distinct, sinking feeling that he’s said the wrong thing.
“Well, I was a university drop-out, actually,” Yangyang says. His tone is pleasant enough, but there's a sharpness in his eyes that wasn't there before. “And I think I turned out just fine!”
There’s a long, awkward pause. Even the live chat goes quiet. Heat spreads across Renjun’s cheeks. In all of the dead air, he feels kind of terrible.
Not terrible enough to apologise, of course, but he’s just put his whole foot in his mouth in front of hundreds of listeners, so he has to do something.
“You misunderstand me. I didn’t mean ‒ ” Yangyang begins to fiddle with his computer mouse, and Renjun covers his mic. “What are you doing?”
“Making some changes to the playlist,” Yangyang whispers back. “Don’t worry about it. Keep talking.”
“What? You can’t do that! There’s a theme I’ve stuck to, and besides, we’re already live ‒ ”
A distorted voice suddenly blasts over the headphones, and Renjun reels back, muffling a shout. He yanks off his headphones, but the sound still fills the studio. A rhythmic clap follows, then a gritty, over-processed bassline that grates on Renjun’s eardrums with all the finesse of a rake dragging across asphalt, and he realises what it is.
Rap. Yangyang has added rap to his playlist.
Yangyang doesn’t even look at him when he makes the announcement. “Oops, looks like it’s time for the next song! Here’s Work by the one, the only, queen Rihanna!”
☯
“I’m going to be frank,” Kun says. “Your show with Yangyang needs a lot of work. In the literal and musical sense.”
When Kun had called him into his office, Renjun knew that it couldn’t be good news. Still, his heart sinks at the serious look on Kun’s face, present since the moment he had walked through the door, and the way Kun doesn’t bother beating around the bush. Deep down, Renjun knows that this talk is coming from a good place. Receiving constructive criticism is all part of the job ‒ any job, really.
That doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.
“Oh?” Renjun asks as neutrally as he can.
Kun glances down at the notebook open in front of him. There’s a pen in his hand, and he drags its tip down the lines of his neat handwriting.
“I’ve received feedback that the two of you don’t really talk to each other, but rather at each other. And I agree ‒ I’ve been tuning in for every show, and there seems to be a disconnect in the way you speak to each other. It’s almost like neither of you are hearing what the other has to say.”
It’s not an unfair observation. Ever since that first broadcast, it’s like there’s some sort of unspoken tension between Renjun and Yangyang. Yangyang begins to acknowledge Renjun’s emails with brief, sometimes emoji-ridden replies that are indecipherable. The one substantive reply he had was a suggestion to shorten the length of their script, which Renjun had rolled his eyes at and ultimately ignored.
They’re still civil towards each other ‒ friendly might be stretching it ‒ and at least Yangyang follows the script whenever Renjun reminds him, with a pointed tap to the papers, that one exists. But now, there’s a stiltedness to the way Yangyang speaks and interacts with him while they’re on air. His voice goes unnaturally bright and chirpy and stays like that for the entire time.
If Renjun didn’t know any better, he’d think that Yangyang’s trying to overcompensate for not liking him at all.
“Plus,” Kun says, consulting his notes ‒ notes that Renjun now knows were taken when he and Yangyang were broadcasting. “The other night, the music suddenly cut off. What happened there?”
What happened was this: Renjun had gone on a quick bathroom break, and Yangyang, taking advantage of his absence, had sneakily tried to add his own songs to the playlist. Upon Renjun’s return, he had caught Yangyang red-handed, and they had (silently) wrestled for control of the mouse. In the tussle, all of the other songs Renjun had queued up had somehow gotten deleted, and he had spent the next few minutes frantically restoring the playlist as Yangyang distracted their listeners by doing some truly nauseating sa jiao.
“Uh, we ran into…” Renjun licks his lips. “Technical difficulties.”
Kun doesn’t seem totally convinced by this lie. He looks at Renjun steadily over the rims of his spectacles. Renjun stares back as innocently as he can. His nose itches, probably growing with the force of his lie, but he resists the urge to scratch it.
Eventually, Kun breaks eye contact, and Renjun exhales in relief.
Prematurely, as it turns out.
“I know we’re still in the teething stage, but it feels like there’s some kind of friction between you two.” Kun pauses delicately. “Is there something wrong?”
There’s a lot wrong. Yangyang seems content to let Renjun do all of the actual work, like planning the theme of each broadcast, assembling the playlists and writing the scripts. He keeps adding non-approved songs to his playlists, sometimes announcing them while they’re on air so Renjun has no choice but to play them. They keep clashing over the questions that listeners send in, their debates growing so heated to the point Jisung has to frantically wave his hands from the next room over to get them to stop.
So, yeah, there’s something wrong. There’s something wrong, and its name is Yangyang.
He can’t say that without coming off as a whiny brat, though, so Renjun presses his lips together. A moment passes, then two, and then Kun lets out the longest sigh that Renjun’s ever heard.
“I guess I should’ve known that something like this might happen,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “The two of you have such strong, distinctive personalities.”
Shame twists in Renjun’s gut. Kun is disappointed. He hates it when Kun’s disappointed.
Which is the only explanation for why Renjun opens his mouth and blurts out, “Kun-ge, no, it’s nothing like that.”
Kun drops his hand. His glasses are askew. “It’s not?”
“Well…”
Honestly, Renjun should just say it. Say that Kun’s decision to make them host the show together was wrong. Say that he and Yangyang are fundamentally different people who don’t, and probably will never, get along. Say that he hates Yangyang’s guts, and work ethic, and the way he smiles at Renjun after he says reads out their sponsors’ punny advertisements even though they aren’t funny at all.
Except now Kun’s got such a hopeful look on his face, and, surrounded by his mountains of paperwork and with eyebags the size of a small purse, he looks so downtrodden that Renjun knows he can’t say any of that at all.
“We don’t know each other very well,” he settles for saying. “It’s just like you said ‒ we’re in the teething stage, and sorting kinks out.”
It’s the right thing to say. Kun visibly relaxes. He adjusts his glasses, regarding Renjun carefully, and, ever the decent boss, probes one last time.
“Are you sure it’s nothing else?”
He’s right to be skeptical. Renjun is a terrible liar. So in lieu of a proper answer, Renjun forces a smile.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “We’ll fix it. I promise.”
☯
Except the more Renjun thinks about it, the more he realises that if anyone has anything to fix, it’s not him.
It’s Yangyang.
“Like, who the fuck does he think he is to amend my playlists?”
Renjun’s voice is so shrill that maybe only dogs in the vicinity can hear him. Chenle probably can’t. Renjun suspects that he’s been zoning out for the past five minutes of his rant, making appropriate noises at the appropriate times. He looks far more interested in stirring the pot (literally; he’s been doing all of the cooking while Renjun vents) and demolishing the food, while Renjun’s tomato soup grows cold in his bowl.
“I don’t know,” Chenle answers, mouth full of rolled prime pork rib. So he has been listening. “Did you ask him for his input? Also, do you want more fried beancurd rolls?”
“Yes, and yes,” Renjun says. He waits for Chenle to key in their order before continuing. “I mean ‒ I always send the draft playlist to him a couple of days before. But I don’t even know if he opens them, or listens to the songs, or whatever. Sometimes, he replies with emojis ‒ emojis, god, like what is this, a group chat? ‒ but usually he just waits until we’re on air to start messing around with the queue and adding his own horrible, garbage music ‒ ”
“Whoa, there, tiger. Remember the unspoken, golden rule all DJs share: everyone’s tastes in music, no matter how much you disagree with them, are valid and must be respected.” Chenle pauses. “But mine is unquestionably the best.”
This is coming from a man who has been playing the same rotation of anime OSTs exclusively for the past week, to the point where Kun had to physically force Chenle to change up his playlist.
(It hadn’t worked, of course. Once Kun had left, Chenle simply reverted his playlist to its original form.)
“But seriously,” Chenle says once Renjun is done rolling his eyes. “There must be an explanation for this.”
Renjun aggressively stabs a cheese tofu with his chopsticks. “The explanation is that he’s an asshole.”
“Dude,” Chenle says, watching the cheese ooze out, “calm down.”
“I’m calm. I’m so calm.”
Chenle doesn’t believe him, because Renjun is a bad liar even on his best days. He orders him a Tsingtao to relax, then another, and another. By the end of the night, Renjun is feeling the kind of tipsy that causes him to rashly decline a ride in Chenle’s comfortable Benz, and to walk home. It’s only when Chenle’s driven off that Renjun realises that one, it’s really fucking cold tonight, and two, he’s worn heeled boots that are made more for fashion than comfort.
As a result, the journey home is slow-going. It sobers Renjun up, though, and gives him a chance to think.
The next Yin and Yang broadcast is coming up in just a couple of days. Neither he nor Yangyang have reached out to each other to talk, even though Renjun is pretty sure Kun’s had a separate discussion with Yangyang by now. He had been annoyed, but not surprised, at Yangyang’s inaction, but the shock of cold air and pinched toes provide him with some much-needed clarity. They’ve not exactly been friendly to each other. Yangyang’s probably unwilling to reach out first. Plus, it’s Renjun who is the more senior between the two of them; maybe Yangyang is just being respectful and waiting for him to initiate the dreaded conversation.
Either way, they don’t have a lot of time to fix their issues. Whatever Renjun’s feelings are towards his co-host, he knows that Yin and Yang is a big opportunity for the both of them, and neither of them want to screw it up any more than they have and risk disappointing Kun further. They need to talk, and quickly. Determined, Renjun picks up the pace and turns round the last corner home, resolving to call Yangyang tomorrow.
Only to find him standing outside of his building, agitatedly stabbing the buzzer for Renjun’s apartment over and over again.
“Come on ‒ why won’t he answer ‒ ”
Yangyang jams his thumb into the buzzer, causing it to emit a long, low whine. He must have pressed it too many times, because like a balloon deflating, the buzzer peters off, then goes ominously silent.
Yangyang stares at the buzzer in disbelief. Renjun stares at Yangyang and feels the familiar sensation of his blood pressure rising.
“What the hell,” he says. “Did you just break my buzzer?”
Yangyang jumps, then whirls around. When he catches sight of Renjun, his eyes narrow into dangerous slits.
“You,” he says menacingly.
Renjun blinks. “Me? Ow!”
In the short amount of time that Renjun has said one syllable, Yangyang has crossed the space between them and poked him in the chest. Hard.
Now Renjun is really mad.
“What the hell!”
“What,” Yangyang demands, “is your problem?”
“My problem?” Renjun asks acidly, massaging the sore spot on his sternum. “How about you tell me what you’re doing here? How do you even know where I live?”
“Not important. What’s important is this beef you have with me.”
Renjun’s first instinct, as always, is to do what’s proper and deny it.
“What? There’s no ‒ ”
“You don’t like me,” Yangyang says. It’s not a question.
“I don’t ‒ ”
“Renjun,” Yangyang says, and for the first time since they’ve known each other, he looks and sounds serious. “Come on. Stop bullshitting. Be honest with me, if nothing else.”
He folds his arms over his chest and, planting himself squarely in between Renjun and his building, stares him down.
Renjun considers his options. He could try and make a break for it, but Yangyang, with his unreasonably long legs, would most likely catch him before he could make it inside. He could turn back around and call Chenle to come pick him up and crash at his house, but that would take at least half an hour.
Or he could just have what is going to be an uncomfortable conversation now, in uncomfortable weather and uncomfortable shoes, because if he’s going to be uncomfortable he might as well do it all the fucking way.
“Fine,” Renjun grits out. “No, I don’t like you.”
“I knew it,” Yangyang says. Renjun has never seen anyone so triumphant about being right about something so unflattering. “Why? Did I do something wrong?”
“What do you want? A list?”
“Wow, that bad, huh?” Yangyang looks mildly impressed, which is not appropriate for this situation at all. “Fine. Give it to me.”
“Give you what?”
“The list of reasons why you don’t like me.”
Renjun looks at him like he’s crazy. “Are you serious?”
“What, you don’t think I can take it?” Yangyang challenges, and Renjun feels himself swell up like a pufferfish.
Fine. If it’s a list he wants, it’s a list he’ll get.
“First of all,” Renjun says, voice dripping with displeasure, “you never reply to my emails. And no, emojis do not count. Second, you make me do all the work: script-writing, playlist-making, even deciding the themes! Which leads me to my next point ‒ what even is the point of a script when you wing it all the time? Also, not sure if you noticed ‒ I hate winging it.”
Now that he’s started, he can’t stop. Renjun’s bottled up every grievance that he’s had with Yangyang for weeks at this point and, when offered a release, everything unkind, uncharitable or just downright mean comes bubbling up to the surface. He feels like a pot boiling over, feelings scalding hot and frothing at the mouth.
“And your music?” Renjun says, his mouth running off with a mind of its own. “What is with it? If you wanted to add your songs to the playlist, you should’ve done it before the live broadcast and cleared it with me! Not during! Never during! Don’t even get me started on the time that I went to the bathroom, and you tried to mess around with the playlist and ended up deleting everything on it. Kun knew about it ‒ god, I should have just told him it was your fault!”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Renjun is rendered momentarily speechless. “Because ‒ because ‒ ”
Why didn’t he just snitch on Yangyang? It was, objectively, his fault. Sure, maybe Renjun had a part to play in the mess, but the mess wouldn’t have even started without Yangyang’s interference.
As Renjun stutters, Yangyang cocks his head. His eyes glint, and take on a knowing look. The sight of it sends something deep and visceral through Renjun’s chest ‒ not quite annoyance, and not quite anger ‒ and he says the first thing that comes to his mind.
“Because, unlike you, I’m not a complete asshole!”
The word rings through the night, piercing. Renjun flinches at the volume and pitch of his own voice, but he doesn’t cower. He doesn’t regret telling Yangyang exactly what he thinks of him, even if he could have said it in a more polite way. He lifts his chin, defiant, and braces himself for what Yangyang’s going to say.
To his shock, Yangyang doesn’t look particularly ruffled. When their eyes meet, Yangyang merely raises an eyebrow.
“Wow,” he drawls. “Okay.” He runs a hand through his hair as his gaze flicks over Renjun, appraising. “You done? Feeling better, now that it’s all out?”
Renjun is taken aback. Feeling better? What the hell is Yangyang talking about?
Except now that Renjun thinks about it, he does feel better. He was yelling before, sure, but he doesn’t feel like he needs to anymore. His shoulders, always so tense, have dropped without any conscious effort on his part. He’s still slightly breathless from his venting, and his palms are still sweaty, but his heart rate is beginning to slow. He feels lighter; calmer. His pot is no longer boiling over.
“Yeah,” Renjun says slowly. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay, good,” Yangyang says. “My turn.”
“What? I didn’t give you permission to ‒ ”
“You,” Yangyang says, like Renjun hadn’t even spoke, “are the biggest control freak I’ve ever met.”
Whatever calmness Renjun has cultivated promptly evaporates.
“Excuse me ‒ ”
“Why do you think I let you do all the planning and stuff? Because the second I make a suggestion, you shut me down.”
“What? When?”
Yangyang looks at Renjun incredulously. “The second broadcast? Dude, you literally ignored my email asking if we could shorten the script!”
“That?” If Renjun rolled his eyes any harder, they’d pop right out of his head. “Oh, please. The script was fine as it was. I know you just wanted to slack off.”
“What? No, I didn’t. Is that what you think I am? A slacker?”
“If the shoe fits,” Renjun sniffs, and Yangyang’s face darkens.
“Well, you’re long-winded as fuck!” he snaps. “Forgive me if I was trying to make our show a little more snappy. And which person even follows the script word for word?”
“I do!”
“Sorry ‒ which sane person follows the script word for word?” Yangyang snorts as Renjun flushes crimson. “There’s, like, zero flexibility with you, man! Sometimes you have to think up shit on the spot, like when we answer our listeners’ questions!”
“That’s different. I can’t prepare for that ahead of time, so I make do as best I can. As for everything else, I come prepared.” Renjun gives Yangyang his best withering look. “Unlike some people.”
“Oh my god, please. When have I ever been unprepared?”
“I literally caught you adding your songs to my playlist last week without running them by me first.”
“That’s because I knew you’d say no!”
“I would not,” Renjun says, even though he knows that Yangyang’s right.
“Yes, you would! You don’t play anything but music only boring boomers would enjoy.”
Renjun gasps. The audacity.
“At least it’s actually music,” he sneers, “instead of whatever grating, noisy trash you and the rest of Gen Z listen to.”
Yangyang sputters in disbelief. “We’re literally the same age!”
“So? That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Um, yes it does?”
“You need to grow up!”
“Or maybe you need to chill out!” Yangyang bites back, and Renjun sees red.
“You know what? Your music taste sucks.”
“Your music taste sucks.”
“You both suck!” a third voice says, and Renjun and Yangyang jump and turn around.
The night shift security guard auntie of Renjun’s building, who’s normally tucked away behind her desk over by the door, has left her post to stick her head outside. Her phone is clutched in one of her hands, a video playing on mute. Renjun has never seen her look happy in all the years he’s lived in the building, but the scowl on her face is truly awful. It signals a new level of disgruntlement never before seen by humanity.
The auntie takes a menacing step forwards. Renjun and Yangyang both take a step back, shrinking under the force of her glare, and simultaneously recoil when they see her open her mouth.
“The two of you are so loud! Do you have no respect for your elders?”
“Sorry ‒ ”
“We didn’t realise ‒ ”
“I can barely hear my drama over your arguing!”
Yangyang offers an apologetic smile. “Ah, we’re really sorry, auntie.”
“We’ll keep it down,” Renjun promises, contrite.
“You’d better,” the auntie threatens. “Or else I’ll lock the doors. I don’t care if you live here, you can find somewhere else to sleep. Young people these days, tian ah…”
She throws them one last dirty look, and, still muttering, goes back inside. Renjun and Yangyang stand perfectly still until the door shuts behind the auntie with a click. The two of them breathe twin sighs of relief, and exchange glances.
A beat passes.
Then, as if struck by some unseen force, they both burst out into peals of laughter.
“Holy shit,” Yangyang gasps in between giggles. “She’s mean.”
“I’ll say.” Renjun is crying, what the hell. He hastily dabs at the corners of his eyes. “God, she’s going to hate me forever, isn’t she?”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely.”
“She’s going to throw away all my food deliveries,” Renjun says miserably.
“Your packages will mysteriously disappear.”
“She’s probably going to turn off my water and electricity, too.”
“If I were you, I would start finding a new place, like, right now,” Yangyang says solemnly, and this sets the both of them off all over again.
When they’ve both calmed down, laughter dissipating into the night like cigarette smoke, they’re facing each other. The ghost of their merriment is still etched into Yangyang’s face. His eyes crinkle, still lit up from laughing, and the corners of his lips turn up naturally. He looks nice. Under the amber glow of the streetlamps, hair tousled by the breeze and from where he had run his hands through them during their argument, he looks nice. He looks like someone Renjun could like, if given the chance.
Renjun looks away, uncertain, and the smile on Yangyang’s face falters.
“Listen,” he says. “You don’t have to like me, or my music choices, or how I host.”
“Well, good, because I don’t,” Renjun mumbles, but it’s a half-hearted thing. Judging by the lopsided smile he spies out of the corner of his eye, Yangyang knows it’s all bark and no bite, too.
“That’s just too bad. Because Kun-ge chose us for this show, and he chose us for a reason. Like…” Yangyang gestures at the space between them. “He must have seen something in us, right?”
“I guess?”
“So…” Yangyang sounds tentative, but hopeful. “Can we start over? Try again?”
Renjun finally looks at him. Yangyang’s trying to play it cool, with his hands shoved into his pockets, but his teeth worry at his lower lip. The show means something to him, Renjun realises. Even more importantly, Kun means something to him. They have that in common, at least.
It also doesn’t escape his notice that this is by far the most pleasant conversation they’ve had. Just like Kun had said, they had gotten along. There had been banter. There had been jokes. There had even been, Renjun is loath to admit, something that could amount to chemistry.
Maybe ‒ just maybe ‒ this co-hosting thing could work out.
“Fine,” Renjun sighs. “What do you have in mind?”
☯
“Not that,” Renjun says, aghast. “Anything but that.”
When Yangyang had asked to meet in the park near the radio station the following afternoon, Renjun had thought it strange, but he went along with it. He figured that maybe Yangyang wanted to grab lunch, or so they could speak away from the prying eyes and ears of their colleagues.
Not doing dumb trust falls off of picnic tables.
Yangyang, whose arms are already outstretched, lowers them with a pout. “What? C’mon, this is a super common trust-building exercise! Google said so!”
“You want me dead, don’t you?”
“Dude, no. Relax, I’m gonna catch you!”
“With what?” Renjun wants to know. “Your skinny twig arms?”
Yangyang makes a noise of protest. “Hey, I lift, bro!”
Then, in a totally unnecessary and wanton display of peacocking, Yangyang rolls up one sleeve of his oversized hoodie and flexes his bicep. Before Renjun can start to fake-gag, he catches a glimpse of corded muscle, and heat flashes through his entire body.
Okay. So skinny, twiggy Yangyang may lift.
Whatever! Who cares? Not Renjun, that’s for sure.
“Can you not?”
“What?”
“Oh my god,” Renjun mutters, and looks away before the warmth spreading across his cheeks can betray him. “Have some decorum.”
Mistaking Renjun’s discomfort for annoyance, Yangyang puts his bicep away ‒ thank god ‒ and frowns.
“Aiyah, it was just a joke! You are such a wet blanket.”
“No, I just thought I came here to talk, not to be flashed at!”
“Okay, fine, you want to talk instead? Let’s talk.”
“About what?”
To Renjun’s surprise, Yangyang says, “You.”
“Huh?” Renjun is instantly suspicious. “Me?”
“Yeah, you,” Yangyang says. “You were a host at Night Night a few years back, weren’t you?”
The name of his former radio show has Renjun tensing immediately. He turns sharply towards Yangyang, who somehow looks knowing, sympathetic and fearful all rolled into one.
“Yes,” Renjun says, wary. “Why?”
“Um. Well.” Yangyang looks as if he’s having second thoughts about broaching the topic, but then a determined look settles into his features. “I think I know why you are the way you are.”
Suddenly, those trust fall exercises look a lot more appealing than what this conversation is turning out to be.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Renjun says flatly.
Yangyang’s nose scrunches in irritation. For a moment, Renjun thinks ‒ hopes ‒ he’ll let it go, but then Yangyang’s expression softens, shifting into full-blown sympathy.
“Renjun,” he says softly. “You were just a rookie at the time. You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
Logically, Renjun knows this. But he isn’t exactly ruled by logic. The honour of his guiding emotions goes to panic, fear, and anger, and they all had some part to play in what had happened.
Which was this:
A couple of years ago, Renjun was part of a talk show trio at another station. It wasn’t a very good fit ‒ the other two hosts were more seasoned and boisterous, and Renjun’s gentle, soothing voice often got drowned out in the chaos ‒ but his bosses at the time thought that this would be a way for Renjun to gain experience.
What they had failed to tell him was that his two co-hosts were notorious pranksters. One day, on a viewable radio broadcast, they made him read out an advertisement that Renjun had thought was real. It was, in fact, totally fake, and when read in totality, was wildly inappropriate and sounded like it had a lot of swear words strung together. Renjun didn’t realise what was happening until he was more than halfway through the script, and only after looking up and finding out that his co-hosts were clutching their stomachs as they silently howled in laughter.
It wasn’t so funny to Renjun, or to the general public. Listeners rang in to complain, and the audio of the advertisement, and Renjun’s face, were everywhere.
They were all called in by the bosses. His co-hosts were let off with a warning, but Renjun had been pulled from the show. Utterly humiliated, he had spent the rest of the year working behind the scenes, pushing papers and producing other programmes for the station, all the while stewing in his anger at the injustice of it all.
Then Kun called, and it was like a dream come true. Renjun was offered his own radio show, in a city hours away, where he knew no one and no one knew him. The choice was obvious. He had taken up Kun’s offer, run, and never looked back.
Until now.
Renjun collapses onto the picnic table seat with a thump. He looks down at his hands. They’re shaking ever so slightly, possibly from residual rage, or panic, or both. He pulls his sweater sleeves over his hands before Yangyang can see. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than it’s ever been.
“Did Kun tell you?”
“He didn’t have to,” Yangyang says. “Your employment history was in your profile. Also, I’m so chronically online that I think I remember seeing it play out in real-time.”
Renjun looks up, surprised. “You read my profile?”
“’Course I did.” One side of Yangyang’s mouth slants up into a crooked smile. “I do prepare, you know.”
Normally, Renjun would roll his eyes, but he understands that Yangyang is just trying to lighten the mood. He shrugs in grudging appreciation. Yangyang’s smile widens slightly, and he comes to sit next to Renjun, bumping their shoulders together.
“Hey. I’m really sorry that happened to you, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. It was an honest mistake.”
“My honest mistake was broadcasted live to thousands of people and went viral online,” Renjun says bitterly. “And don’t worry, I’m not beating myself up about it. I couldn’t have read that ad ahead of time ‒ my co-hosts literally thrust it on me while I was on-air. I panicked, and did as I was told.”
“What the hell,” Yangyang says, outraged. “If anyone should be beaten up, it’s them.”
“Well, they didn’t. They got off scot-free, but I…” Renjun lets out a frustrated sigh. “You fuck up one time and people will remember it for the rest of their lives.”
“Yeah, but people suck. Your co-hosts sucked.” Yangyang pauses to scuff the toe of his shoe in the dirt, then looks back at Renjun. “But, like, I get it now. Why you have scripts and stuff ‒ ”
“I never want to be in that position again,” Renjun hastens to explain. “I have to be prepared ‒ ”
“ ‒ and why you don’t think you can rely on me.”
Yangyang says it so matter-of-factly that Renjun doesn’t register what he’s saying at first. When his meaning sinks in, though, Renjun feels the blush return to his cheeks. In contrast, Yangyang doesn’t look the least bit bothered by this uncomfortable truth. He looks at Renjun steadily, open and honest. Renjun’s skin prickles under his gaze.
“It’s not personal. I just don’t…” Renjun bites his lip, and looks away. “I don’t know if I can rely on anyone.”
This doesn’t seem to dissuade Yangyang. “I know, and I hear you,” he says. “And, like, you know I like to go off-the-cuff, and I don’t work off of scripts like yours, but I’m gonna try.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And...” Yangyang’s voice grows serious. “I hope you know that I won’t set you up like that. Ever.”
Something about the way he says it compels Renjun to glance back at him. Yangyang looks so sincere it borders on earnest. It’s an endearing look, almost puppylike, and in spite of their history and differences Renjun finds himself wanting to believe him.
“Thanks, Yangyang,” he says, and Yangyang’s breaks out into a wide, relieved grin.
“Yeah, well, not being a shitty co-host is the bare minimum, right? It’s not like I’ve been a super great one, but, you know. New leaf, and all that.”
He mimes turning over something ‒ a new leaf, Renjun guesses ‒ and beams awkwardly. Yangyang’s smile is so genuine and bright that it’s infectious. The corners of Renjun’s mouth lift of their own accord, and he wonders, after all of the understanding that Yangyang has shown towards him, if he should show that he wants Yin and Yang to work out, too.
Renjun wracks his brains. He thinks about this weekend’s playlist, already curated ahead of time and suited to the theme, and, heaving a semi-reluctant sigh, thinks, fuck it.
“And in return… I suppose you can add a couple of your own songs to the playlist.”
Yangyang gasps, but it’s not the grateful kind.
“A couple? Bro, let me have half, at least!”
“You didn’t have any to begin with.”
“Exactly! Which is why I should have more now.”
This is surprisingly sound logic from someone who thinks anything produced pre-1990s falls under the genre of classical music. “Fine,” Renjun concedes. “A third.”
“C’mon, at least give me a quarter ‒ ”
“A quarter? Okay.”
“Wait, hang on ‒ That’s less! Nope, no take-backs, a third ‒ ”
Renjun lets Yangyang grovel for his third of the playlist back, secretly enjoying his inability to math. He does eventually grant Yangyang’s pleas, of course. It’s because he’s such a good person, Renjun tells himself, and not because of how Yangyang tugs pathetically at his sleeve, eyes growing big and boba-like as he tries to get his way.
Renjun bats Yangyang’s hand away, putting some distance between them. “So,” he summarises. “You’ll try and stick to the scripts, and give me your input on them. I’ll share the playlist with you, and we’ll both refrain from pissing each other off on purpose. Deal?”
He sticks a hand out, and Yangyang wrinkles his nose.
“What are you, fifty?” he asks, but he envelopes Renjun’s hand in a clammy, two-pump handshake anyway. “Deal.”
Once that’s settled, they sit together in silence. They watch leaves flutter down around them, shaken from their branches by a gentle breeze. Renjun feels not exactly settled, but more at ease than he has in weeks. He glances to his left, and catches Yangyang looking at him. Yangyang quickly looks away, then, bizarrely, back again.
“So.” He gnaws on his bottom lip. “What now?”
Renjun should go home. He’s fresh off his morning stint, and desperately needs a shower and a nap. Yangyang’s solo show is on tonight, but he probably has things to do until then. They have a plan that they need to put into action. Now would be the natural point to stand up and bid Yangyang goodbye.
Something in Renjun compels him to suggest otherwise, though.
He takes a deep breath. “I still think it’s dumb, but since we’re already here, we can try that trust fall exercise. If you want.”
“Wait ‒ for real?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Really?” Yangyang’s eyes light up. “That’d be great. ’Cause they really are supposed to work, you know ‒ ”
After some intense negotiating, they get into position. Renjun vetoes falling off the picnic table and opts to stand on solid ground, his hands crossed over his chest and with his back facing Yangyang. Behind him, he hears leaves crunching under Yangyang’s footsteps.
A shiver runs down Renjun’s spine, sudden and unexpected. He forcibly shakes it off. Must be the nerves.
“If you drop me,” he threatens, “I will punch you in the throat.”
Wisely, Yangyang doesn’t rise to the bait. “Whenever you’re ready,” he simply says. “I’m right here.”
If Renjun concentrates, he can feel Yangyang’s presence behind him; can even feel his hands outstretched to catch him. The seconds tick by and Renjun doesn’t move a muscle, but Yangyang doesn’t say anything; doesn’t ask what’s wrong, or urges Renjun to hurry up. He simply stands there, patient. Ready and waiting.
Renjun can be ready, too.
“Okay,” he says. “Here I go.”
With that, he closes his eyes, and lets himself fall.
☯
And, despite Renjun’s initial misgivings, things do change for the better.
After falling into each other's arms more times than is deemed necessary by any corporate handbook on building trust amongst employees, Renjun and Yangyang head back to the station for some serious brainstorming. They draw up themes for Yin and Yang’s future shows, build playlists, and even discuss how they can improve their on-air relationship after their atrocious start. By the time Yangyang leaves to get ready for Kick Back, they’re both tired but satisfied with their new direction, and Renjun’s notebook holds pages and pages of new ideas.
Of course, nothing can be fixed overnight, and the next few weeks see a couple of kinks that need to be worked out. Renjun is still a stickler for the script. Yangyang cuts it way too close to call-time for Renjun’s liking. So used to flying solo, they each sometimes forget to account for the other when answering questions, leading to on-air bickering. Sometimes, they even exceed their allotted air time, much to Jisung’s dismay. (His astronomy group meets most Saturday nights, and he cannot be late.)
But for the most part, things are surprisingly good. Renjun starts to rely less on what he’s written down, and focuses more on what Yangyang and the listeners are putting out. On the drive home, he finds himself absentmindedly humming to Yangyang’s song selections instead of his own. As the weeks go by, Renjun can feel himself relaxing and loosening up. It’s obvious when they listen back to their broadcasts; he’s surprised to hear how casual and at ease he sounds, and when Yangyang looks over at him and smiles encouragingly, he knows that it can only be a good thing.
It trickles over to his solo show, too. Renjun’s producer still gets him scripts for it, but if an interesting fact or anecdote pops into his mind, he doesn’t force himself to get back on-track. Instead, he follows that tangent and sees where it leads him.
It’s like Renjun has spent all of his life regimentally training for a triathlon, and now he’s just letting the sea take him along for the ride. Going with the flow, working off of Yangyang instead of against him ‒ somehow, it makes for better radio.
At least, that’s what the listeners think.
“Never knew two Gen Z-ers could have such sensible takes on love,” Yangyang reads aloud as Renjun tucks his headphones back into their case. “Wait, is that supposed to be a compliment?”
Renjun would take it as one. This week’s theme had been love and relationships, and although a little spicier than their other topics, Renjun thought it had gone well. Sure, he and Yangyang had differing opinions on a number of questions, but that was the point of the show. There was supposed to be a dichotomy in their views. It was fine as long as they were respectful of each other’s opinions, even if they didn’t necessarily agree with them.
But, honestly? For an emo skater boy, Yangyang is surprisingly perceptive. He navigates the questions thoughtfully, never judging or making their listeners feel dumb, or less than. It’s an act of kindness that hadn’t really occurred to Renjun. This surprises and intrigues him. Maybe he was ‒ kind of, sort of, possibly ‒ learning something from Yangyang.
Yangyang huffs, then, bringing Renjun out of his thoughts.
“Ah, whatever,” Yangyang says dismissively, and continues flicking through the comments left in their chat box. “Oh, look, and someone said they liked how we answered that guy who’s never been in a serious relationship before, and they think his voice is sexy. Hang on ‒ do you think we should set them up?”
He glances up at Renjun, excited. Renjun has to fight down a smile.
“By combing through their caller ID and IP addresses? Um, no. That would be creepy.”
This disappoints Yangyang. “Aw, you’re right. That’s too bad. That would’ve really solved that guy’s problem.”
“Like downloading a bunch of dating apps would have?” Renjun says dryly, referring to Yangyang’s offered solution. “Telling him to go out with as many people as he can, until he finds someone he likes?”
“Hey, it’s called throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. And it beats whatever you were saying about going outside, seeing the world and ‒ ” Yangyang mimes air quotes “ ‒ ‘finding himself before finding someone else’.”
A month ago, Renjun would have taken grave personal offence at this criticism. Now, he sees it as the rib that it is, and just rolls his eyes. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t try to retaliate, though. Renjun pulls the sleeve of his jacket down and flicks it at Yangyang, who is already used to his random acts of violence, and dodges it masterfully.
He putters around, cleaning up and putting their equipment away as Yangyang continues browsing the comments. Just as Renjun is wondering whether he can cobble together any leftovers for dinner, Yangyang nervously clears his throat.
“Hey, so ‒ do you wanna get something to eat?”
Renjun looks around the studio. Jisung’s zoomed off to his astronomy club; there’s no one around but them.
“Er ‒ sure. What do you have in mind?” Dread coils in his belly when he remembers Yangyang’s penchant for instant noodles. “Convenience store food, or something?”
“Actually, I was going to suggest hotpot.”
Instantly, Renjun perks up.
“Hotpot?”
“Yeah, there’s one nearby. It just opened up, and specialises in ‒ ”
“ ‒ Mongolian-style lamb spine broth with wolfberries and red dates?”
Yangyang blinks. “Wow. You really like hotpot, huh?”
“What’s not to like?” Renjun, revitalised by the promise of hot, tasty soup and rolled short ribs, collects the equipment they need to return and dumps them into Yangyang’s arms. “Here, you put these back and I’ll finish up in here.”
Yangyang salutes. “Yes, sir.”
No sooner has he disappeared through the door, juggling the equipment, that Renjun’s phone rings. He digs it out from his pocket, and sees that Kun is calling.
Uh-oh.
Renjun spends approximately three rings panicking before he bites the bullet and picks up. “Hello?”
“Renjun,” Kun says. “Hi. Is now a good time?”
He sounds… not angry. Which is a good sign.
Right?
“Um ‒ sure. What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you about your and Yangyang’s show.”
Renjun tenses. Kun’s not physically here, and they’re not in his office, but receiving his call late at night whilst no one else is around does not forebode well. Renjun sets down the papers he was in the midst of clearing and braces himself for what Kun has to say.
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Kun says. “It seems to be going well.”
Oh?
Oh!
“Wait ‒ really?” Renjun asks, still hardly daring to believe it, and Kun huffs out a laugh.
“Yes, really. It’s only been a couple of shows since we last spoke, but I can really hear the difference. Also, playing Teresa Teng and Ariana Grande back to back was inspiring ‒ and you made them cohesive with the moon theme.”
“That was Yangyang’s idea, actually.”
“It was?” Kun sounds impressed. “Well, props to him. Props to you both. You guys seem to have found a good rhythm. You’re more ‒ how do I put this? In sync.”
Pride and relief, warm and glowing, course through Renjun. He clutches his phone tightly, and resists the urge to pump a first. When he looks up, he catches sight of himself in the glass separating the studio from the sound room, and sees that he’s smiling like an idiot.
“Thanks,” he says, and watches as his reflection’s smile grows wider. “I think so, too.”
“Can I ask what changed?” Kun asks.
“Well…”
Renjun steps out of the studio and tiptoes down the hall to their equipment room. Yangyang’s in there, putting away their headphones. He’s vibing to something, bopping his head and lips moving as he softly sings. Renjun lowers his phone, straining his ears. It takes a second, but Renjun figures out what song Yangyang’s singing.
9 to 5 by Dolly Parton. The first song he’d ever played on their show.
Renjun backs away from the doorway before Yangyang can spot him. He lifts his phone back to his ear.
“Let’s just say you were right,” he tells Kun. “In the end, it was all about communication.”
☯
Buoyed by the waves of encouragement from both their listeners and Kun, Renjun finds himself looking forward to his weekly shows with Yangyang.
After their love-themed segment, they move on to health and fitness (Yangyang took most of the questions for this), quarter to mid-life crises (which turned out a lot more serious and existential than Renjun anticipated), and then, bizarrely, pets. Renjun is pretty sure that Yangyang had snuck that one in, and purely for ulterior motives.
He’s subsequently proven right when Yangyang waltzes into the studio fifteen minutes before they’re due to go on air, hefting a cat carrier.
“Um,” Renjun says, watching Yangyang set the carrier down on the floor. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Coco is a he, actually.”
“That is so not the point. What’s he doing here?”
At Renjun’s exasperated tone, Yangyang pushes out his bottom lip into a pout. “He kept meowing as I was putting on my shoes. I couldn’t just leave him!”
“Don’t you leave him alone all the time when you’re at work?”
“Besides,” Yangyang continues, ignoring Renjun’s valid point. “We’re supposed to be talking about pets today! It’s on-theme!”
“Oh my god,” Renjun groans. “You totally planned this. Did you even check if we were allowed to bring pets into the station?”
“Are you going to tell on me?” Yangyang wants to know. “Are you going to tell on him?”
With a flourish, he pulls his cat out of his carrier and holds him up to Renjun’s face. Renjun is met with two startlingly blue eyes and a shock of grey and white fur, and, upon backing up so he doesn’t get a mouthful of fur, sees that Coco is a tiny ragdoll kitten. He is also forced to admit that Coco is cute. Very cute.
Renjun glances from Coco, to the clock on the wall (which shows they have approximately ten minutes left to get their shit together), to Yangyang. Yangyang’s got his best pleading face on, the one that wouldn’t look out of place on the emoji keyboard. His bottom lip is even wobbling, what the hell.
All of Renjun’s resolve evaporates. “Fine. He can stay.”
“Yay!” Yangyang cheers, and plops Coco onto the floor as he sets up his station.
Coco is a curious little thing, sniffing at the wires and pawing at the rough, scratchy carpeting. Renjun, who consistently kills any plants that have the misfortune to fall under his care, is wary at first and keeps his distance. But then Coco hops into his lap where he makes muffins and purrs contentedly for the entirety of the session, and Renjun instantly falls in love.
Yangyang’s expression as he coaxes Coco back into his carrier is smug. “Bringing him today was a good idea, huh?”
Renjun shrugs, not willing to give Yangyang the satisfaction. “If you say so,” he says, but he sneaks in one last scratch behind Coco’s ears when Yangyang isn’t looking.
The following week’s theme is one of Renjun’s suggestions. “Regrets ‒ we all have them,” he says, glancing down at his script briefly before moving it to one side. “Things we wished we said, things we wished we hadn’t said, and everything in between. Need a solution? Or just a listening ear? Feel free to call in, and we’ll try to help you out however we can. For now, here’s No One Compares to You by Jack & Jack.”
Renjun mutes his mic as the song plays, and he settles back in his seat. When he rolls his head to the left, he sees that Yangyang’s looking at him with a small smile.
Renjun cocks his head. “What?”
Yangyang shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, but his secretive little smile stays on his face throughout the song.
The second it finishes, the caller light blinks on. Renjun glances at Yangyang, and waits for his nod before he presses the button.
“Hello! You’re live on Yin & Yang. Who’s this speaking?”
There’s a pause as the line connects, and then a young male voice fills Renjun’s headphones. “Hi, this is Hyuck.”
“Hi, Hyuck!” Yangyang chirps. “What can we do for you?”
“Your topic today is about regrets, right? Well, I have one.”
“Yeah? Lay it on us, man.”
“Well…” Hyuck takes in a deep breath. “I think I rubbed someone the wrong way with my attitude, and now, he totally hates me.”
“Your attitude?” Renjun asks. “Can you elaborate?”
“Well, I…” Hyuck sounds sheepish. “I may have pranked my annoyingly perky, lactose intolerant colleague by putting dairy in his food.”
“Oh, Hyuck.”
“I didn’t know he was, like, intolerant intolerant. But then he clogged up our floor’s toilet. Now the whole office calls him Milk, and it’s all my fault.”
“Oh, Hyuck.”
“Alright, alright, this is a safe, non-judgmental zone,” Yangyang says, nudging Renjun playfully. Renjun hums in agreement, but nudges him back, too. “So what I’m hearing from you, Hyuck, is that you behaved badly, possibly in an effort to be funny, and you’re regretting it now.”
“Yup, exactly.” A burst of static sounds as Hyuck sighs wistfully. “I really wish I hadn’t done it. He was getting on my nerves, but he’s actually a nice dude. I don’t know, I feel like I screwed up any chance of us being friends.”
This sounds vaguely familiar. Renjun glances at Yangyang, and, before he can second-guess himself, leans forwards to speak into the mic.
“You know, all is not lost. Yangyang and I didn’t get along at first, either.”
“Wait ‒ seriously?”
Meanwhile, Yangyang’s eyebrows have shot up past his bangs. He doesn’t look like he’s inclined to stop Renjun from spilling the beans on their relationship, though; instead, he looks intrigued, and Renjun takes it as permission to keep going.
“Yeah.” He makes sure to maintain eye contact with Yangyang. “Let’s just say that I found him annoying, too.”
“What?” Yangyang bolts upright in his seat, faux-outraged. “That is an understatement. You hated me.”
“You were late to our first meeting and yawned throughout it! Amongst other things.”
“I have a good excuse!”
Yangyang had never offered one before. Renjun’s curiosity is piqued. “Oh, really? Let’s hear it.”
“You know how Kick Back is on until, like, late ‒ every weekday evening from ten to two for our new listeners, shameless plug, heh ‒ right?” Yangyang waits for Renjun to nod. “It takes me at least a couple of hours to wrap up work, go home and shower. But then you scheduled our meeting early the next day, right after your show, when I was technically still supposed to be asleep.”
Renjun does the math. That means that Yangyang would, at the earliest, only get home at about four in the morning, and he had set their first meeting at ‒ what? Ten?
No wonder Yangyang was late and looked worse for wear that day.
“Well…” Renjun trails off, flustered. “Why didn’t you say anything!”
“And have you dislike me even more? Nah, man.”
“Huh? You knew I didn’t like you?”
“Um, yeah? I overheard you complaining about my jeans to Chenle at the office party.” Yangyang leans closer to the mic, and lowers his voice. “You didn’t hear it from me, guys, but get Renjun a few glasses of wine, and he will not shut up.”
“Oh my god,” Renjun cries. “That had nothing to do with it! Everyone, if you had just seen the jeans that Yangyang had on ‒ they were more rips than fabric, honestly…” He sees the caller light still on, and remembers that they’ve got a listener waiting. “But we’re getting off track. Hyuck, it sounds to me like you’d like to try and fix this relationship if you can. Have you tried apologising?”
“He avoids me like the plague,” Hyuck says miserably. “Every time he sees me coming, he runs in the opposite direction.”
“If a verbal apology is out of the question, there are other ways to show you’re sorry,” Yangyang pipes up. “Have you tried writing him a note, or offering help when he needs it? The situation might still be salvageable if you show that you care about making things right.”
“I see,” Hyuck says slowly. “Do you really think those will work?”
Renjun doesn’t miss the way Yangyang’s eyes drift over to him. “I mean, it did for me.”
He flashes him another smile, small but genuine and no less dazzling, and something in Renjun’s heart twangs. He presses his hand over his chest quickly, surprised. Before he can figure out whether he’s experiencing a medical emergency, Yangyang has already turned back to the mic.
“Anyway, you won’t know until you try!”
“Okay,” Hyuck says, sounding heartened. “Okay, yeah. I guess I will give it a try.”
Renjun’s heart is beating steadily, and he doesn’t have any chest pains. Mildly alarmed, but having assessed that he’s completely fine, at least for the moment, he jumps back into the conversation.
“Yup, I agree with Yangyang ‒ actions speak a thousand words. Although,” he cautions. “If you’ve done everything reasonably within your power and Milk still refuses to accept your apology, you might have to come to terms with the fact that you may never form a proper relationship with him.”
“And that’s totally fine,” Yangyang is quick to add. “You did your best, and the ball is now in his court. What you did may have been shitty ‒ hahaha, whoops, sorry Jisung, please blip that out in the replay ‒ but at the end of the day, you can’t please everyone.”
“Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Yangyang says. “We hope it works out!”
“Good luck, Hyuck!” Renjun says, and waits for Jisung to take Hyuck off the air. “Now, let’s take a look at our comments ‒ ”
Two hours, four more questions and a nine song line-up later, they wrap up the night’s session of Yin & Yang. The outro of Grey Suit, one of the songs that had spilled over past their allotted time, plays as they clean up the studio. Renjun waves goodbye to Jisung as he zooms off to his astrology meeting, and moves to roll up an extension cord when he catches Yangyang smiling to himself.
“What’s so funny?”
Yangyang shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. “Nothing. I was just thinking about that guy who called just now, Hyuck.”
“Oh, him. He sounds like a real disaster.”
“Aiyah, you’re so judgy,” Yangyang says, flicking a damp cloth playfully at Renjun. “No, but I was just thinking his situation with Milk is kind of like what I faced with you.”
“At least you didn’t poison me.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it.” Before Renjun can process what he means by that, Yangyang moves on breezily. “And now look how far we’ve come!”
He cheekily hip-checks Renjun as he moves around him to wipe down the desk. Renjun falls forwards from the movement, having to catch himself on the edge of the desk to prevent himself from face-planting, and makes a noise halfway between a tsk and a snort.
“Yeah? Well, maybe I’m regretting it. What kind of friend behaves so childishly?”
The swish-swish-swish of Yangyang’s cloth on the desk abruptly stops. It’s only when Renjun looks up and sees Yangyang looking at him in astonishment that he realises what he said.
Friend? Where the hell had that come from?
“Uh ‒ what? I didn’t ‒ ”
“Renjun, relax.”
“Friend? Pft, who even says that anymore. It was just a slip of the tongue ‒ ”
“I mean,” Yangyang says with faux-reluctance, “I guess I kinda consider us friends, too,” and Renjun shuts up.
“You… do?”
Friendship is a funny thing. It’s only been a couple of months hosting with Yangyang, but in that period of time, Renjun’s gone from active dislike to neutral regard to actually, maybe, sort of liking him. As an actual person.
Renjun has spent far more time with people he doesn’t even remember the faces of, but maybe it’s not time that’s the deciding factor. Maybe it’s forced proximity, having to spend four hours each week with each other cramped up in a small room. Maybe it’s mutual respect, having to answer questions ranging from the deep to the inane week after week, and coming to appreciate how they each think. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that Yangyang is, once you peel back the layers of his unrefined manners and filthy mouth and ripped jeans, sweet, thoughtful, perceptive and every bit the nice guy Chenle had claimed him to be.
Despite Yangyang’s affirmative answer, Renjun can’t help but eye him warily. Across the room, Yangyang shrugs nonchalantly, acting cool, but the apples of his cheeks have turned pink.
“Coco doesn’t just make muffins on anyone, you know,” he says, looking down at the cloth bunched up in his hands. “And he’s a good judge of character. So yeah. We’re friends.”
“Okay,” Renjun says, relieved but trying not to show it. “Cool.”
“Yup. Cool.”
“Cool.”
There’s an awkward pause, and then they quickly turn back to what they were doing before this conversation started. When Renjun sneaks a peek at Yangyang, he’s scrubbing at a now-spotless desk. His blush has turned a vivid shade of pink.
Eventually, Yangyang throws in the towel ‒ literally ‒ and, after putting the cleaning supplies away, clears his throat. “Alright. Listen, I promised Chenle I’d meet him for basketball tonight, so I’ll see you next week?”
Renjun is grateful for the change in topic, but he’s still appalled. “You’re going to exercise now? It’s like ten-thirty.”
“Gotta keep these legs toned and sexy for my ripped jeans,” Yangyang says, and raises up a leg and slaps his own thigh like it’s a horse’s rump, or something.
“Ugh, just go already.”
“I’m going, I’m going!”
Yangyang picks up his gym bag and, with a wave goodbye, heads towards the door. Just before he steps over the threshold, though, something from their show earlier niggles at the back of Renjun’s mind.
“Hey,” he says, and Yangyang turns around.
“I never asked, but I’m curious. What was your first impression of me?”
Yangyang blinks. “Eh?”
“I was just wondering. I mean, it was probably bad, but you didn’t say anything earlier when I was telling the story of how we first met, so…”
Yangyang gives Renjun a long, searching look. “You really wanna know?”
“Well, if you don’t want to tell me,” Renjun says, starting to get annoyed, “it’s fine, I was just asking,” and then Yangyang steps into his space.
Like, really into his space.
The edge of Yangyang’s gym bag is brushing Renjun’s knee. The toes of their shoes are touching. This is way too close for comfort, and Renjun opens his mouth, ready to tell Yangyang off, when he bends down so that they’re at the same eye-level.
Yangyang’s eyes are chestnut brown. Renjun had never noticed that they were this colour; the fluorescent lights of the studio wash everyone out, and anyway, Yangyang’s taller than him, so of course they would appear darker than they actually are. They’re wide and warm, and Renjun feels himself being slowly but surely pulled into what feels like a vortex. He tries to move his gaze away, but it doesn’t help. His eyes go to Yangyang’s nose, the fullness of his cheeks, the sharp slant of his jaw. His top lip is uncommonly fuller than his lower lip.
Then Yangyang moves slightly to whisper in his ear, and, involuntarily, Renjun’s eyes flutter half-shut.
“Fine. I’ll tell you…”
Renjun holds his breath.
“... next week.”
Renjun’s eyes fly open. Yangyang has drawn back already, and is grinning like the devil. With a wink, he darts out the door, leaving Renjun standing in the studio flustered and unsettled, and wondering why he feels that specific way.
☯
“Viewable radio?” Renjun asks dubiously, watching Jisung struggle to set up the webcam. “We’re seriously doing this?”
It’s late on a Friday night, and they’re all still at the station. Renjun had thought they could just click a button and livestream their show on YouTube or whatever, but it turned out a lot more work of the tech variety was involved. Even Kun had emerged from behind his mounds of paperwork to supervise.
“Yeah, I thought it was a good way to reach more listeners,” he says. “And with the increased traffic we’ve been seeing ‒ Jisung, tilt that webcam to the right, or else Yangyang can’t be seen ‒ no, my right ‒ I figured that we could jump on the bandwagon and pilot it with Yin and Yang.”
“Okay,” Renjun says. “But why us?”
“The stats show that most of your listeners tune in from home or the office, so they aren’t commuting on the roads,” Kun explains. “They’re more likely to watch you guys in video format, instead of over traditional radio. Also ‒ ”
Yangyang, who’d been sitting off to the side quietly, pipes up. “We’re young and hot?”
Kun’s expression flattens. His face is the personification of his most-used emoji. Renjun is quietly amazed at the similarity.
“That was not what I was going to say.”
“But we are, right?”
Kun stares at Yangyang, unimpressed. Yangyang looks back at him guilelessly. Neither of them move a muscle.
At last, Kun lets out an exasperated sigh, and looks up at the water-stained ceiling as if for strength. “Whatever makes you feel better, I guess,” he says, and Yangyang’s face splits into a wide grin.
“Knew it. Hey, Renjun, did you hear that? Kun-ge wants to whore us out.”
“What?” Kun says, scandalised. “I do not want to whore you out ‒ ”
“Ouch, Kun-ge, is that we all are to you?” Renjun asks, wounded. “A couple of pretty faces?”
“Definitely,” Yangyang says gravely. “He wants to doll us up.”
“Parade us in front of the general public.”
“Sell our bodies to the advertisers.”
“Don’t forget our voices.”
“And get that sweet, sweet viewership coin.”
“Enough,” Kun says loudly. He throws Renjun and Yangyang an exasperated look as they fall into hysterics, giggling behind their hands. “I’m glad you two are getting along, but this viewable radio idea is serious! I think it would bring in a lot of new listeners to the station if they could see you, and therefore relate to you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Yangyang whispers, “that’s definitely not whoring us out at all,” and Renjun can’t help but snort, undignified.
“I regret this already,” Kun mutters, and stomps out of the room to another wave of giggles.
Teasing Kun and joking around with Yangyang is a nice distraction from how Renjun is really feeling, but that’s all it is: a distraction. Deep down, he’s anxious as hell. He still vividly remembers what happened the last time he had broadcasted live on video. Of course, nothing about his current situation is the same (specifically, and most importantly, his co-host), But something about being in front of a camera again, his face and every word being streamed in real-time to strangers with zero margin for error, makes Renjun’s skin prickle so uncomfortably that he wants to claw it off his bones.
“Er,” Yangyang says, interrupting Renjun’s thoughts when they reconvene the next day. “You doing okay?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s just that you’re scratching your arm. A lot.”
Renjun follows Yangyang’s worried gaze and looks down. His forearm is covered in angry red marks. He hadn’t even noticed he was doing that.
He quickly tugs the sleeves of his cardigan down over his arms. “Sorry.”
Caught, Renjun turns away and fiddles with the console for something to do with his hands. He sneaks a peek to his side, and finds that Yangyang is still watching him. Renjun kind of wishes he wasn’t.
“Is… everything alright?” Yangyang asks gingerly.
Yangyang, Renjun has come to realise, is the kind of person who doesn’t shy away from these kinds of things. He’s kind of like a dog with a bone, but, like, gentler. Renjun, on the other hand, is the kind to sweep everything under the rug. So while he would much prefer for Yangyang to let him be, he can’t deny that having someone so attentive to him and concerned is kind of… nice.
“Yeah. Just…” He takes a deep breath. “Thinking about the last time I was on a viewable broadcast.”
Understanding dawns on Yangyang’s face. “Oh, shit, dude. I should have ‒ ugh. Should we tell Kun to call off today’s livestream?”
“What?” Renjun says, alarmed. “No, come on, it’s not that big of a deal.”
Yangyang frowns in disagreement. “Your feelings and comfort aren’t not big deals, Renjunnie.”
Renjun flushes at the nickname, along with the earnest way Yangyang speaks. He looks away, floundering, until he finds something else to latch onto. “Poor Jisung spent two hours setting up the webcam to the perfect angle. I think he’d cry if we didn’t actually use it.”
“So… What do you wanna do?”
Renjun knows what he doesn’t want to do: make a mistake. Be mocked online. Have something embarrassing caught on camera for thousands of people to see.
But is he really going to let fear hold him back? He can’t hide away forever. No matter how much he values sitting in a studio and playing songs, there’s always going to be a public element to his job. So many of their competitors have already started viewable broadcasts. It’s really no biggie.
Perhaps it’s fitting that today’s theme is about stepping out of one’s comfort zone ‒ Renjun thinks he might be ready for a teeny, tiny step.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s kind of nerve-wracking to be in front of the camera again, but…” He glances at Yangyang. “At least I’m doing it with you. Right?”
It might be Renjun’s imagination, but he swears he sees Yangyang’s eyes shine a little brighter with emotion. Yangyang coughs to cover it up, but when he smiles at Renjun, it’s with all his teeth and encouraging.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got your back, bro.”
As the seconds till they’re on air tick down, Renjun silently hypes himself up by thinking about the positives. This livestream gig could really help Yin & Yang and the station take off, and reach people outside of its small but dedicated circle of regular listeners. He isn’t so sure about himself ‒ he’s got a pretty voice, yes, but he’s always thought himself too delicate to be handsome ‒ but Yangyang, with his gummy smile and boyish looks, is undeniably easy on the eyes.
A fact that, to Renjun’s displeasure, does not escape the listeners’ attention.
“Why, thank you, justinbieberluver0808,” Yangyang purrs as he reads yet another comment complimenting him on his good looks. “I’m sure your smile is lovely, too. And ZoroSan4eva, you flirt! Why don’t you come say that to my face?”
Renjun clears his throat, trying to steer Yangyang back on track. “Um, Yangyang?” he ventures, but Yangyang is still deep-diving into the live chat.
“From allidoiswinwin: are you dating anyone?” Yangyang grins, flattered, and answers saucily, “Sadly, I’m single, but very much ready to mingle ‒ ”
Enough is enough. Before anyone else can proposition his co-host, Renjun reaches over and switches off Yangyang’s monitor.
“Hey!”
“Thank you all for your support and comments,” Renjun says loudly, ignoring Yangyang’s pout in his periphery. “Now, let’s move on to our theme for today: stepping out of your comfort zone, which this viewable radio definitely is for some of us! And in honour of our theme and this being our first viewable radio, we have something special planned for all of you watching.”
“Dude, that was not cool,” Yangyang whispers, then speaks into his mic in his made-for-radio voice. “That’s right! Along with taking in your questions for the night, our sound assistant, Jisung, has prepared some special challenges for us to do right here, right now. We have no idea what he’s planned, but we’re ready for whatever he’s going to throw at us! No epic fails today whatsoever, nope!”
“Stop flirting with our listeners, then,” Renjun whispers back before introducing the first song on their playlist. “And to accompany that winning attitude, here’s Queen’s We Are The Champions.”
They answer a couple of questions from their listeners and play a few more songs before it’s their turn. Earlier, Jisung had prepared a bowl and filled it up with folded up slips of paper listing out challenges for Renjun and Yangyang to carry out, and it sits between them now. Yangyang reaches for it, and shakes it beneath Renjun’s nose.
“You first!”
“Why me?”
Yangyang bats his eyes. “Because I’m nice like that.”
“A likely story,” Renjun grumbles, but something in his stomach stirs at the way the fan of Yangyang’s eyelashes catches on his cheek. Before he knows it, he’s reaching into the bowl and fishing out a slip of paper. “Okay, so my challenge is…”
What he sees makes his heart drop.
Yangyang, reading over Renjun’s shoulder, lets out an audible gasp. “Dancing to Nicki Minaj’s Chun-Li? Oh my god. Oh my god.”
Then, like the menace he is, he snickers.
Renjun whirls around to the control room. “Jisung!” he hisses furiously, catching sight of their sound assistant through the glass. “Did Yangyang put you up to this?”
“Um,” Jisung says, “which answer will get me into less trouble ‒ yes or no?”
“So he did put you up to it ‒ ”
“Jisung, don’t throw me under the bus like that, man!” Yangyang whines. To Renjun, he says, “Dude, I swear I had nothing to do with it. But you have to admit it’s kinda funny. I love that song.”
“Why am I not surprised,” Renjun mutters.
“Anyway, today’s theme is all about stepping out of your comfort zone. What’s farther out of your comfort zone than dancing on a livestream to one of the greatest songs of the 2010s?”
“There’s such a thing as stepping too far out of your comfort zone, you know.”
“If it’s any consolation, our listeners ‒ and those of us in the studio ‒ would love to see you shake that thang.”
Yangyang points to the live chat on Renjun’s monitor. It’s blowing up with comments, the majority of which seem to be delighting in the challenge Renjun’s picked.
“Do not call my butt ‘thang’,” he says, but his stomach kicks at the fact that Yangyang had indirectly included himself in the group of people who would like to see him shake his… thang.
“Who said anything about your butt? Wait, are you, like, thinking of twerking ‒ ”
“Absolutely not. Who said that? I didn’t say that.”
Renjun’s not panicking, per se, but he’s also not not panicking. He's supposed to dance? On camera? Oh, people are definitely going to record this and put it online and make fun of him forever. He’s also aware that they’ve spent far too long talking and not doing anything, and he can see Jisung checking his watch worriedly.
So, while Renjun is not exactly panicking, he is in despair. He is in agony. Of all times to do a challenge night, it just has to be on their very first viewable broadcast, where his unwilling antics will be caught on 4K.
“Hey,” Yangyang says, and Renjun’s attention snaps towards him.
“What?”
“You know what? Why should you get to have all the fun? I’ll do it.”
“Huh?”
“Er,” Jisung says. “Technically, it’s Renjun’s turn ‒ ”
“And technically,” Yangyang says, getting up from his seat. “Rules are dumb and meant to be broken. Sorry, I know you worked really hard on this game, but I said what I said!”
“Not really, I just Googled ‘embarrassing challenges for your friends to do’, and ‒ ”
Yangyang cuts him off. “Jisung,” he says, puffing out his chest like he’s a soldier off to war. “Just play the song.”
“Ugh, whatever, I don’t get paid enough for this,” comes Jisung’s sigh, and then his fingers are flying over the soundboard.
As the opening bars to Chun-Li play, Renjun grabs Yangyang’s sleeve. “Yangyang,” he says urgently. “You don’t have to do this. I can ‒ ”
The music swells. “Too late,” Yangyang says, and with a fiendish wink, tugs himself free of Renjun’s grip. “5, 6, 7, 8 ‒ let’s go!”
Then, honest to god, he starts twerking.
It’s horrifying. It’s amazing. It’s probably the most unhinged thing that the local radio scene has ever seen. Yangyang turns around when the beat drops, and begins, for lack of a better phrase, to shake that thang. He alternates between gyrating his hips and throwing his ass back in time to the music, coupled with a few truly obscene thrusts forwards. Renjun silently prays that Kun isn’t watching this.
He can’t say the same thing for himself. Watching Yangyang twerk is like watching a car crash ‒ he physically cannot look away. Yangyang really is putting his whole chest ‒ or rather, butt ‒ into it, the fabric of his grey sweatpants leaving nothing to the imagination. And there truly is nothing ‒ despite Yangyang’s impressive moves, his ass, Renjun notes, is objectively flat.
Not that Renjun was looking, but ‒ what else is he supposed to do in this situation?
“Like what you see?” Yangyang asks sultrily, and Renjun physically feels himself turn scarlet.
“No! Just ‒ you can stop now! You don’t have to do the whole song!”
“Who says I don’t?” Yangyang leans down, propping his elbows on the desk to read the live chat. The position makes his ass stick out, and leaves it free to continue swaying from side to side. Renjun is both repulsed and impressed by his ingenuity. “Everyone, do you want me to stop?”
The comments respond with a resounding no. YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE, someone says. KEEP GOING, someone else writes. DANCE UP ON REN-D ‒
Wait. What the fuck?
“Good idea,” Yangyang says, and then promptly shoves his butt in Renjun’s direction.
“What the f‒ ” Renjun almost falls off his chair trying to move away, catching himself and his F-bomb in time. “Yangyang, go away! Your butt is in my face!”
“Title of your sex tape!” Yangyang says immediately, then gasps. “Wait ‒ title of our sex tape?”
“In your dreams,” Renjun fires back, but then Yangyang’s butt does a disappointed little wriggle and, well ‒ he loses it.
He can’t help it! Yangyang looks ridiculous like this, his back arched and hands behind his head as he gives Renjun what is essentially a lap dance. He even grabs a pencil off the desk and shoves it between his teeth in some approximation of a rose, and flutters his eyelashes before proceeding to spell out Renjun’s name using his butt.
It’s so bad. It’s so corny. And yet, Renjun is having the time of his life. Before he knows it, he’s cheering like a madman, throwing imaginary dollar bills at Yangyang as he does not one, not two, but three slut drops. As the last bar plays, Yangyang does a split on the floor, spreading his arms out as if to say ta-dah!, and Renjun laughs so hard that he cries.
It takes several minutes for both of them to calm down. Even the live chat is going wild, and through his tears Renjun spots several laughing-crying emojis. Eventually, Yangyang hoists himself off the floor, and collapses in his chair.
“So,” he says, breathless. “How’d I do?”
Yangyang’s hair is all messed up from his crazy dancing, surrounding his head like a soft peach halo. He pushes his hair back, mouth curling up at the corners into a feline smile as he stares at Renjun, dreamy and smug and confident, and suddenly it’s like all the air has been sucked out from the room.
A kaleidoscope of butterflies erupt in Renjun’s tummy. They surge up his throat, colourful and fluttering, and he has to bat them away before he can do something crazy. Something like pushing Yangyang’s hair back himself, his hand trailing to the back of his neck where he his sweat is surely beading, sweat that’s only there because of the dancing. Because Yangyang had noticed Renjun was uncomfortable, had taken up the challenge for him even though he didn’t have to, had been silly but sweet, insane but gallant, that Renjun could kiss him ‒
Oh. Oh, no.
“Great.” Renjun swallows, and returns Yangyang’s smile as best as he can. “Just great.”
☯
So maybe Renjun finds Yangyang attractive.
So maybe Renjun is attracted to Yangyang.
So what?
Yangyang is still the same guy Renjun met at the station’s office party all those months ago: a wise-cracking, slut-dropping, wannabe hip-hop skater boy with a too-big smile and questionable taste in music. Each of these characteristics, on their own, would ordinarily be totally unappealing to Renjun. For some reason, though, the sum total of all these qualities, housed in Yangyang’s lean frame and distressed jeans, catches his attention and holds it.
And lately, Renjun is finding it increasingly difficult not to notice Yangyang. It’s like he’s gotten bitten by a radioactive spider, but instead of gaining cool superpowers or heightened senses, all that Renjun seems to have acquired is becoming painfully aware of Yangyang every time he’s around, unconsciously angling his body towards him like a flower turning to the sun. Every smile, every thoughtful gesture, every time their fingers brush reaching for the computer mouse ‒ all of it sends currents fizzing through Renjun’s veins, effervescent and sparkling, lighting him up like a circuit board. The effect that Yangyang has on him now is pure biology; pure electricity. Renjun has driven home on several occasions idly thinking about how Yangyang looked, or something Yangyang said, only to glance at the rearview mirror and realise, holy crap, has he been smiling like a lovesick idiot all this time?
God, Renjun is over it. He will get over it.
And then Yangyang makes things ten thousand times more difficult when, during the viewable radio the weekend before Renjun’s birthday, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, only to return with a massive cake and Kun, Chenle and Jisung in tow.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you ‒ ”
As Renjun gapes in surprise, Yangyang sets the birthday cake down in front of him.
“Happy birthday dear Renjun, happy birthday to youuuuu!”
Yangyang ends off the song with a drawn-out, slightly pitchy note, making a big show out of it. Renjun covers his face, simultaneously embarrassed and touched by the gesture.
“Oh my god, you guys. This is so sweet, but my birthday isn’t until next week!”
“It was Yangyang’s idea,” Kun says. “Sorry about hijacking your broadcast, but he thought it would be nice if the listeners celebrated your birthday early. Say hi, everyone!”
“Hey, make sure we’re getting this,” Chenle says, pointing at the webcam. “Are we sure that thing is on? Remember how Jisung forgot to remove the lens cap? And then forgot to end one of the broadcasts?”
Jisung colours. “That was one time ‒ ”
“Two, actually, if we’re counting ‒ ”
With that, Chenle and Jisung descend into full-on bickering. Kun steps between them, trying to keep the peace. In the chaos, Renjun only has eyes for Yangyang.
Yangyang edges a little closer. “Go on,” he says. “Make a wish.”
There's a single flickering candle on the cake. The wax has already begun to melt, swirls of yellow and white dripping down the length of the candle and pooling in the holder. Yangyang is smiling down at him small and bashful and so genuine it almost hurts. It takes a Herculean effort for Renjun to look away, and at the little flame dancing at the top of the candle.
Please let me stop having these feelings for Yangyang, he prays fervently. It’s not a big ask. It’s not like he’s wishing for something completely unrealistic, like world peace, or whatever.
Everyone cheers when Renjun blows out the candles. The live chat blows up with well wishes. Kun disappears for a minute or two and returns with an unopened bottle of supermarket wine, and they pour each other glasses of the stuff. The five of them spend the rest of the hour drinking, eating cake and chatting casually, and the rest of the broadcast is completely derailed. Funnily enough, though, Renjun finds that he isn’t particularly upset by it at all.
After the others leave, he and Yangyang stay behind to clean up. They do so mostly in silence, shoving used napkins and cutlery into a trash bag and boxing up the leftover cake. Just as they turn the lights off in the studio, Renjun catches Yangyang by the elbow.
“Hey.” He clears his throat nervously ‒ why is he nervous? “I forgot to thank you for the cake and the surprise earlier, but… yeah. Thanks.”
Yangyang doesn’t smile like Renjun expected him to, or tease him. Instead, his face softens. The expression he wears looks almost tender. Renjun watches Yangyang’s Adam’s apple bob by the light filtering in from the hallway.
“Oh, really?”
“Don’t make me say it twice,” Renjun grumbles, and laughter bubbles out of Yangyang’s chest.
“I hope you liked it. Happy birthday, Renjun.”
Then, before Renjun can even blink, Yangyang darts forwards and kisses his cheek.
It’s a barely-there touch, warm and dry and fleeting. One second, Renjun feels the graze of Yangyang's chapped lips on his skin, soft and electric, making his insides twist and expand all at once. The next, Yangyang’s got the door open, clinical light spilling into the room and washing out the pinkness that’s crept into his cheeks.
“Um,” Yangyang says, “okay, bye,” and promptly flees.
Renjun stands alone in the darkened studio for several minutes after that, slightly dazed. It could be the wine. It could be something else entirely.
Renjun touches the spot Yangyang had kissed. It feels hot. When he stops by the bathroom on his way out and looks in the mirror, he sees that his cheeks are the exact same shade of pink as Yangyang’s.
Yeah. Maybe he should have wished for world peace instead.
☯
So Renjun deals with it the only way he knows how: by acting like everything is normal, when in reality, everything isn’t.
That’s not to say he’s not doing anything. During their shows, he sits as far away from Yangyang without it looking weird. He keeps his hands and eyes to himself. He makes up excuses and turns down Yangyang’s offers for dinners, ensuring that they’ll never be alone together. By doing this, Renjun reasons, he can finally get rid of his dumb feelings. It’s a reasonable hypothesis ‒ reduce exposure to oxygen, and eventually, the flame will flicker out. For the most part, Renjun thinks he pulls it off.
But then Yangyang corners him in the studio a few weeks later after their broadcast, and Renjun knows he hasn’t been as subtle as he had thought.
“Alright, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Renjun says, a beat too quickly, and winces when Yangyang’s eyebrows knit together.
“See? There is something wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Renjun insists, and makes for the exit, only for Yangyang to block his path.
“You think I haven’t noticed?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” Renjun says defensively, and immediately wants to smack himself when he realises he’s just given himself away.
The hurt is obvious in Yangyang’s eyes. “You’ve been avoiding me? Why?”
“Because I…”
The situation rapidly spiralling out of his control, Renjun trails off. He can’t meet Yangyang’s eyes, but judging by the expression on his face, he’s confused as hell. Renjun doesn’t blame him; he doesn’t know what he wants to say, either.
Then Yangyang’s face changes, shifting into that familiar expression that Renjun had seen once, when he had volunteered to do the challenge for him, and he steps closer.
“Hey,” he says softly. “It’s ‒ it’s okay. I’m not mad, I swear.”
“You have every right to be.”
“Yeah, but… Didn’t we agree to be honest with each other?”
They did. Renjun remembers. He nods, and, encouraged, Yangyang takes another step towards him.
“So, like, what is it? What’s going on?”
There’s still a respectable distance between them, but after weeks of purposefully avoiding Yangyang, their closeness is amplified. If Renjun concentrates, he can feel the warmth radiating off of Yangyang’s skin. Smell the powdery scent of his perfume. See the burst of rosiness that spreads across his bottom lip when he catches it between his teeth. All of these crash into Renjun, overwhelming his senses, and he feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin.
Then Yangyang reaches out and touches Renjun in what he probably thinks is a comforting gesture, just below the cuff of his sleeve. At the skin-on-skin contact, though, there’s static, a spark, and a shiver runs through Renjun’s entire body.
“Hey,” Yangyang says, glancing up in alarm. “Are you…”
His voice dies down. Whatever he sees on Renjun’s face gives him pause. Renjun watches Yangyang, cataloguing every minute shift in his features, every emotion, from confusion to the surprise at how close their faces are to nervousness to ‒ Yangyang’s eyes darken. His gaze flickers down to Renjun’s mouth and up again, quick as a flash, but Renjun sees it anyway. Sees the hunger. The desire.
And just like that, the very last thread by which Renjun’s self-restraint hangs, snaps.
“I’m fine,” Renjun says breathlessly, then surges forwards to kiss Yangyang.
Yangyang gasps. For one scary moment, Renjun thinks that he’s misjudged the situation, that he’s got it all wrong, and he stiffens, mentally preparing himself for rejection.
But then Yangyang lets out a muffled mmph and melts into the kiss, arms coming up to wind around Renjun’s waist.
And ‒ kissing Yangyang? Renjun is cursing his past self, because kissing Yangyang is hot. Everything is hot ‒ the way Yangyang’s tongue pushes past the seam of his lips to eagerly lick at the inside of his mouth; the way he crushes Renjun to his chest, making him feel small and safe; the sounds, unfiltered and enthusiastic, that he makes with each hot slide of their mouths.
They stumble around the room, kisses too passionate to keep them still, hands flying everywhere. Renjun shamelessly feels up Yangyang’s toned arms. Yangyang’s hand follows the dip of Renjun’s waist to his ass. He grabs it, pushing their crotches together, and Renjun feels the unmistakable bulge of Yangyang’s boner.
“Already?” Renjun says, and Yangyang grins against his mouth.
“What can I say? You’re so sexy, fuck ‒ you should see yourself now ‒ ”
Yangyang isn’t just all dirty talk. He’s bitey, too, mouthing at the column of Renjun’s neck the first instant he can get to it. The scrape of his sharp teeth makes heat pulse all the way to Renjun’s belly, and he whimpers. In retaliation, Renjun grabs a fistful of Yangyang’s hair at the base of his neck and tugs. Yangyang moans, then, fully moans, loud and horny in a way that it shoots straight to Renjun’s cock.
“Fuck ‒ Renjun ‒ ”
“Shut up,” Renjun demands, because every second of Yangyang talking is a second that his mouth isn’t on Renjun’s body. “Just ‒ shut up and ‒ ”
A little voice in Renjun’s head, the one not completely addled by lust, tells him that this is not a good idea. They’re making out ‒ and possibly more than that, if they keep this pace up ‒ in their place of work. He isn’t even sure if he likes Yangyang, or whether Yangyang likes him.
But they’ll have time to sort out the kinks later. For now, Yangyang backs Renjun up until his butt hits the edge of the desk. Reaching behind him, and in one fluid motion, Yangyang sweeps everything off its surface and onto the floor. Renjun opens his mouth to protest at the mess, but before he can do so, Yangyang lifts him as easily as if he were a feather and sits him on the desk.
Which ‒ hot.
Still. Renjun isn’t just going to let him get away with it. “You’re going to have to clean that up later,” he says as Yangyang settles between the spread of his thighs.
“After we clean ourselves up,” Yangyang says with a wicked grin, and, before he can be chastised, slides a deliberate hand down to the tented front of Renjun’s slacks that distracts Renjun completely.
They make out like that, Renjun spread across the table and Yangyang devouring him like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Somewhere along the line, Yangyang gets his hand down Renjun’s pants and begins to roll the heel of his palm in slow, tortuous circles over Renjun’s cock, punching the most embarrassing, needy sounds from Renjun’s chest.
It’s heaven. It’s hell. Renjun’s blood is buzzing, his head spinning, his thighs quivering from the strain of keeping his legs spread ‒
Oh, hang on. That’s just his phone.
As Renjun struggles to fish it out of his pocket, a low whine escapes Yangyang’s throat. “Don’t answer that.”
“Oh god,” Renjun says, catching sight of his screen. “It’s Kun.”
“Even more reason not to answer it.”
“He’s our boss.”
“Okay, and?” Renjun gasps when Yangyang grinds the heel of his palm, hard and deliberate, along his bulge. “I’m not stopping.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Renjun says, and answers the call.
Funnily enough, though, Kun does.
“Renjun, stop!”
“Um, hi, Kun.” God, Renjun hopes Kun can’t tell how breathless he is right now. “Stop? Stop what?”
“You and ‒ ” Kun makes a strangled noise. “Just ‒ stop.”
Renjun’s usually pretty good at understanding what Kun means, but the way Yangyang is sucking a mark on his neck is making it really hard for him to think straight right now. “What’re you talking about?”
“For god’s sake,” Kun cries, “You’re still broadcasting! We can see everything.”
Wait. What?
Kun’s voice is shrill and loud enough that even though he’s not on speaker, his voice carries. Renjun pinpoints the exact moment Yangyang hears Kun, because he feels him go rigid against him. Renjun doesn’t blame him; he feels like he’s been turned to stone himself. All of the heat that’s built between them fizzles out, and ice creeps into Renjun’s veins where there had been fire before.
His lips are numb. “What did you just say?”
“You’re still live, damn it! Turn around and look!”
With a slow, creeping dread, Renjun and Yangyang turn to the front of the studio in unison.
The webcam that Jisung was supposed to turn off is still blinking red. It’s live-streaming them. Live-streaming them making out. Live-streaming them groping each other for the past ten minutes, and with Yangyang’s hand down Renjun’s pants.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
☯
“The good news is that you’re not going to be suspended,” Kun says.
Renjun is so relieved that he almost collapses back into his seat. He had been freaking out over what was going to happen to him, freaking out over people clipping his and Yangyang's extended make-out session on every social media platform ever to exist, and then freaking out about the comments and reactions that those posts were attracting. His whole Sunday had been spent hiding in his apartment, with his door locked and blanket draped over his head, trying and failing not to obsessively stalk his apps, which seemed to be flooded with videos of him and Yangyang shoving their tongues into each others’ mouths.
Like, maybe the occasional swear word that could be bleeped out was okay, but sticking your tongue down your co-host’s mouth on livestream definitely wasn’t.
And now he’s back in Kun’s office, talking about him and Yangyang. Again.
Renjun is starting to see a pattern with these visits.
“The bad news,” Kun continues, “is that the both of you have to attend a compulsory course with HR on appropriate workplace conduct.”
Renjun bolts back upright in panic. “With Yangyang?”
“Uh, no. Alone. HR thought it would be for the best, in light of…” Kun pauses delicately, and Renjun wants to die all over again. “The situation.”
Okay. Fine. A workshop. Renjun can handle a workshop. What he can’t handle is severe and public humiliation ‒ again.
But then he had been summoned to the office, where whispers followed him and Renjun felt the prickle of of his co-workers’ stares on the back of his neck, and he just knows that everyone was talking about him and Yangyang.
On the other side of the desk, Kun is visibly struggling for words. “Listen, Renjun,” he eventually says. “What happened was an honest mistake. None of us could have known that we were still broadcasting. It was just... bad luck.”
That’s one way to put it, Renjun thinks bitterly. “Right.”
“And as your boss, I hope that this doesn’t happen again. But as your friend ‒ ” Here, Kun clears his throat awkwardly “ ‒ I want you to know that I’m, um, really happy for you and Yangyang.”
He smiles encouragingly. Renjun doesn’t return it.
“Oh, no, we... we aren’t like that.”
“Sorry?”
“We…” The words taste like sour grapes in Renjun’s mouth. “We aren't dating. Or whatever.”
The truth is this: after Kun’s phone call, Renjun had pushed Yangyang off of him and leapt to turn the webcam off. Once he made sure the live had ended, Renjun had very calmly and maturely stormed from the studio, red-faced. Tellingly, and to Renjun’s quiet dismay, Yangyang hadn’t called out after him.
They haven’t spoken since.
The smile on Kun's face rapidly fades. “Oh. I see.”
“Yeah,” Renjun says, and they fall into silence.
The pitying look in Kun’s eyes is too much to bear, so Renjun looks around the room instead. His eyes land on the poster of Yangyang ‒ still obnoxious, still sticking out like a sore thumb, still so vivid and fucking bright - and a wave of something slams strong and violent against his ribcage.
Then Kun asks tentatively, “Are you alright ‒ ” and Renjun suddenly decides that he can’t do this anymore, and stands abruptly.
“Is that all?”
“Oh.” Kun blinks, and rises, too. “Of course, here, let me ‒ ”
He opens the door for Renjun. Before he can leave, though, Kun stops him with one more thing.
“Listen, take a few days off. Stay offline until this blows over. If there’s anything you need, though, you know you can come to me, right?”
It's a kind gesture, but Kun can’t give Renjun that. Renjun needs all of those posts making fun of him to be taken down. Renjun needs to sink into the deepest, darkest cave the world has to offer and never emerge. Renjun needs to turn back the clock so that he never agreed to do the show with Yangyang, so that he never got to have his bad first impression proven wrong, so that he never developed an attraction to him. What Renjun needs ‒ what he needs ‒
He smiles, strained. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, and flees.
☯
Renjun takes Kun’s advice and spends the next couple of days holed up in his apartment alone, his phone switched off except to order in food. The self-imposed social media blackout actually leaves him free to do a lot of things: decluttering his storage closet.
Catching up on movies that have been out for years. Dusting off his yoga mat and trying out some tutorials, only to fall asleep during the resting bits.
(He allows himself to think about Yangyang, but only for a couple of minutes at a time. If Renjun thinks about him for too long, he’ll remember how Yangyang couldn’t meet his eyes as he left the studio, and that ‒ he doesn’t want to think about that.)
Renjun is in a downward dog position, another Youtube tutorial playing on his TV, when the buzzer to his apartment sounds. He turns his head slightly at the sound, frowning. He hasn’t ordered any dinner yet, and none of his online purchases are being delivered today.
It’s probably some asshole who’s got the wrong apartment. Renjun rolls his eyes and settles back into his yoga pose. He follows the instructor’s voice and lifts and drops his heels, feeling the burn in the back of his shins, closing his eyes and ‒
Bzz! Bzz! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
The buzzer sounds again, long and loud and insistent. Startled, Renjun loses his balance and falls face-first onto the yoga mat, his elbow smacking into the floor. The shock of the impact reverberates through his entire body, and Renjun clutches his elbow, whimpering.
“Fuck,” he groans, getting up and dragging himself over to the intercom. “Who the fuck is that ‒ ”
Then Renjun catches sight of a familiar face in the black-and-white live feed of his intercom, and his heart thumps so loudly he feels it in his throat.
It’s Yangyang.
Fuck. Oh, fuck.
Yangyang’s voice comes crackling through the intercom speaker. “Renjun! Open up, I know you’re in there!”
“No, I’m not,” Renjun whispers instinctively, and nearly gives himself a heart attack before he remembers that Yangyang can’t actually hear him.
For the next few moments, Renjun anxiously watches the live feed. Yangyang is holding what looks like a big thermos in his hand, the other stretched out in front of him as he presses the buzzer again. The quality of the video is pretty shitty, but even that can’t mask the look of growing concern on Yangyang’s face. Renjun sees Yangyang frown at the intercom, jabbing at the buzzer a couple more times before pulling out his phone and dialling a number.
“Hey,” Renjun hears Yangyang say. “I’m, like, at his building, but he isn’t responding. Maybe he’s sleeping? Ugh, I don't know.” There’s a pause, then, all of a sudden, Yangyang’s tone changes. “No, what do you mean he might be lying unconscious and no one knows? Why would you say that? Oh my god. Oh my god. Shit, should I call the cops?”
Now Renjun really is going to have a heart attack. The cops? Who is Yangyang talking to?
“Oh my god,” Yangyang is saying, clearly freaking out. “Oh my god, oh my god, shit, man, okay, I’ll talk to you later, I think I saw a patrol car down the street ‒ ”
Renjun thumps his forehead against the doorframe, and, left with no other choice, presses the button on the intercom to allow him in.
There’s a heavy metallic clang, and then Yangyang looks off-screen. “Oh, wait,” he says. “I think ‒ he let me in? He’s not dead, yay! Hi, Renjun!” Yangyang beams into the camera, waving like a crazy person. “You doing okay? No, asshole, I wasn't talking to you ‒ ugh. I'm hanging up now. Renjun, I’m coming up, see you soon!”
Renjun spends the next few moments agonising over what he looks like (sweaty), what he’s wearing (his ratty bootleg Lululemon tights and top) and what he’s going to say to the person who intimately knows the inside of his mouth before deciding that no, he Does Not Care.
Then he’s marching open to the door and flinging it open to find Yangyang standing there, fist raised as if to knock on his door, smiling down at him, hallway light haloed around his head, not sweaty, not ratty, just unbelievably ‒
“Dude, you look like shit,” Yangyang says, and that gross, sticky-warm feeling in Renjun’s chest vanishes.
“Wow,” he says flatly. “Thanks.”
Yangyang doesn't seem to notice. He pushes past Renjun, tracking his dirty shoes through his entryway. “I haven’t seen you around the station in days. I just found out from Kun-ge that you were sick.”
“Yes. What of it?”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
In spite of the way Yangyang’s been acting, Renjun’s traitorous heart speeds up. “Why would I tell you?”
“So we can plan properly for Saturday, duh,” Yangyang says, and Renjun deflates.
It’s about work. Of course it’s about work. Why would it be anything else?
“Is that why you’re here?” Renjun says coldly. “To find out if you’ll have to tank the show yourself on Saturday?”
“Actually, I…” All of a sudden, Yangyang looks kind of... shy. “I brought you some congee.”
He holds out the thermos. Surprised, Renjun takes it, then unscrews the lid gingerly. Steam billows out of the container, bringing with it the familiar smells of ginger, garlic and spring onions.
“I got the recipe from my mom,” Yangyang says. “She used to make it for me whenever I was sick at home from school. Also, I figured wet rice can’t be that hard to screw up, right? Wrong. Did you know that it can burn if you don’t add the right amount of water? I mean ‒ that definitely didn’t happen to me when I was making this, hahaha ‒ ”
Renjun peers inside the thermos. The congee looks thick and clumpy, just the way he likes it. It must have taken Yangyang a long time to make it. Renjun thinks of Yangyang standing over his stove, stirring a pot with a ladle and his kitchen in complete disarray, and feels a lump grow in his throat.
“What are you doing?” he says, and Yangyang stops laughing.
“Um. Bringing you food?”
“No, I mean ‒ why?”
“Because…” Yangyang looks confused. “Because you're sick? And this will, like, make you feel better? At least, I hope so.”
And in that instant, Renjun is pretty sure he doesn't just look like shit. He feels like shit, too.
Because Yangyang doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to kiss Renjun on one hand, and then pretend he doesn’t exist on the other. He doesn’t get to tell Renjun he looks bad, and then reveal he came all this way to bring him food. What’s he hoping for? Renjun’s gratitude? A round two in the comfort and privacy of his home? It’s giving mixed signals. It’s giving fuckboy and untrustworthy, and at the thought, Renjun’s anger builds and builds until ‒
“I’m not sick, Yangyang.”
Yangyang furrows his brows. “Eh?” he says, and Renjun takes a deep, controlled breath.
“I was never sick.”
“Huh? But Kun-ge said…”
“I told him to say that if anyone asked,” Renjun says, and Yangyang’s expression changes into one of incredulity.
“So you… lied?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
Because Renjun doesn’t want to appear weak. Because Renjun sweeps everything under the rug if he can. Because Renjun has always operated better alone, and this incident has proven it to be true more than ever.
“I can’t do the show with you,” he says, and Yangyang’s jaw drops.
“What? Is it because of what happened in the studio? Renjun, be serious ‒ ”
“I am being serious. Our ‒ ” Renjun lowers his voice into a hiss “ ‒ kiss is everywhere! People have even dug up that video of me at my old job. I’m a huge laughing stock!”
“I understand, but that doesn’t mean you have to lie. It doesn’t mean you have to ice me out like this. Like I said before, I got your back ‒ ”
Yangyang takes a step towards Renjun. Instinctively, Renjun moves backwards, maintaining the distance between them.
“Like when I left,” he scoffs, “and you didn’t say anything?”
“I ‒ what? You didn’t say anything, either!”
“I was upset!”
“So was I!” Yangyang’s voice colours with sulkiness. “But I didn’t even get a call from you to check if I was doing okay.”
He’s trying to pull that card? Renjun laughs, disbelieving. “You do dumb, embarassing shit on your show all the time. Don’t tell me that this is something you need to be comforted for?”
“That dumb, embarrassing shit,” Yangyang snaps, “is just an act. And our kiss ‒ our kiss wasn’t.”
Renjun hates the way his stomach kicks at that. “You expect me to believe that? You couldn’t even look me in the eye when we left that night.”
“I was embarrassed!”
“You didn’t seem to be embarrassed when you kissed me!”
“You kissed me first!”
“Yeah, and I wish I never had!”
The words are out of Renjun’s mouth before he can stop himself. They reverberate through the room, through the silence, so much louder than Renjun had intended. The only thing to rival it in volume is the ensuing silence.
Before him, Yangyang has gone completely still. Hurt hangs heavy on his features.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Believe me or don’t, I don’t care. I just ‒ ” Renjun swallows, and turns to the door. “I just can’t be around you right now.”
He opens the door wide and stands aside. Realising he’s being snubbed, Yangyang slowly shuffles outside, casting an unreadable look over his shoulder. Once he’s over the threshold, Renjun moves to close the door ‒
‒ only to be stopped when Yangyang’s hand slaps against the wood.
Renjun rears back. “What ‒ ”
“Even though you’re confusing as fuck and being kind of a jerk right now,” Yangyang says, “I really do like you, Renjun. And… I think you like me, too.”
His gaze is unwavering and determined, his words even more so. They steal all the breath from Renjun’s lungs. He feels trapped, pinned to the spot by Yangyang’s raw honesty and magnetic gaze. Like this, they’re even closer than that first night. If he wanted to, Renjun could lean forwards into the gap. If he wanted to, Renjun could brush his lips against Yangyang’s, and kiss him all over again.
Instead, he looks away.
Yangyang’s face falls. “Or not.”
For a split second, Renjun thinks about releasing the doorknob and letting Yangyang back in. But then Yangyang’s hand falls away from the door, and he takes a shaky step back.
“Okay. Well. Message received, loud and clear. I guess I’ll just, um. Go.”
Without sparing Renjun a second glance, Yangyang turns on his heel and walks away. It’s only when he turns the corner, disappearing from view, that Renjun shuts the door behind him and sags against it. He feels, strangely, overwhelmed. The edges of his vision are starting to get blurry. When Renjun touches a fingertip to the corner of his eye, it comes away wet.
Yangyang’s thermos is still sitting where Renjun had left it on the dining table. Its contents are growing cold. As if on autopilot, Renjun meanders to the kitchen, fetching a clean spoon, and dips it into the congee.
The rice sitting at the bottom of the thermos is burnt. Renjun finishes the whole damn thing anyway.
☯
He settles into a routine for the rest of the week he has off. In the mornings, he switches on his old radio to listen to Aurora-jie, the part-time DJ who’s covering his usual slot. In the afternoons, Renjun orders food that will last him the rest of the day and flits about his apartment listlessly. In the evenings, he attempts to clear his mind with pilates, yoga, or meditation, eventually giving up to lie on the floor and watch his ceiling fan spin lazily above him. Throughout it all, he thinks of Yangyang, and the way they had left things.
On Saturday, Renjun finally caves and warily opens all of his apps. Thankfully, it seems that most of the furore surrounding the scandal has died down, and according to his notifications, no one has tagged or name-checked him in days. When Renjun opens his texts, he sees dozens of messages from friends and family. There are none from the one person he was hoping would reach out the most, though, and so Renjun switches off his phone in defeat.
He’s doing yoga again that evening when there’s a knock on the door. Heart pounding wildly for reasons unrelated to the exercise, and hope peaking, he wrenches open the door, Yangyang’s name already on the tip of his tongue ‒
‒ and finds Chenle standing there instead.
“Chenle? How did you get up without ‒ ?”
“The nice aunty downstairs let me in! I would’ve been up sooner, but she was watching Empress in the Palace, and it was a really good episode, so.”
Of course Chenle had found a way to charm the building’s grumpy security guard. Renjun can’t say he’s surprised.
“Okay,” Renjun says. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“I’m dragging your ass to get some food,” Chenle says. “When’s the last time you ate?”
Renjun’s stomach chooses that precise moment to let out an embarrassing gurgle, and Chenle snorts.
“Knew it. Hurry up, let’s go. I left my car idling in a no-park zone, and if I get a ticket, you’re paying for it.”
“What? But you just said you were ‒ ” Chenle is already halfway down the hall to the elevator, leaving Renjun to scramble to grab his things. “Hey, wait up ‒ ”
It only occurs to Renjun once they’ve been seated that this isn’t a casual social call. Chenle had been unusually silent on the drive over to the hotpot restaurant, and he had let Renjun pick and choose what he wanted to eat instead of insisting on ordering himself. He hadn’t even asked how Renjun was feeling. Which means that Chenle knows Renjun isn’t actually sick, which means ‒
“Yangyang told me what happened,” Chenle says, and Renjun instantly feels his guard go up.
“So now you’re gossiping about me behind my back?” he accuses, but Chenle merely lifts an eyebrow.
“You know Yangyang is my friend too, right? Just because you guys fought doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t have to listen to what he has to say.”
He’s right. Of course he’s right. Renjun bites his lip, embarrassed. He watches Chenle fiddle with the temperature dials, waiting until the soup comes to a boil and for him to ladle some of it into his bowl before he gathers enough courage to speak.
“How is he?” Renjun asks quietly, and Chenle sighs.
“Sad. Mopey. He was so distracted that he accidentally hit Mark in the head during a free throw the other day.”
“That bad, huh?”
“That bad,” Chenle agrees. “But then again, you told him you wished you guys had never kissed, so.”
Renjun looks down at his untouched soup. “He really told you everything, didn’t he?”
“Pretty much.” Chenle gently raps his chopsticks against the side of Renjun’s bowl. “Eat. Your soup is getting cold.”
They don’t speak much for the rest of the meal, silently pressing slices of meat and clumps of vegetables into each others’ bowls. When most of the food is finished, they sit across from each other in silence. Chenle makes no move to get the bill. Instead, he regards Renjun, arms crossed loosely, expression neutral. Of the two of them, he’s better at the waiting game, even more so when he knows that Renjun has something important to say.
Renjun swallows, his mouth dry from all the MSG and his feelings, and his lips part around a hoarse confession.
“Yangyang told me that he likes me.”
Chenle says nothing, waiting for Renjun to continue. He knows there’s more, and there is.
Renjun licks his lips and presses on.
“He said he thinks I like him back.”
“Well, do you?”
“It’s… complicated.”
“How so?” Chenle asks, and Renjun struggles to phrase it in a way that will make sense.
“Me and Yangyang ‒ we don’t fit,” he says. “We have no common interests outside of our jobs. We bicker, like, all the time. We didn’t even like each other at first. Like, we don’t make sense. We shouldn’t work. You know?”
He looks at Chenle a little desperately, hoping he understands. Chenle had remained expressionless throughout Renjun’s explanation. Now, though, as he processes Renjun’s words, a crease begins to form in between his brows.
“Renjun,” he says at last. “I say this with love, but you need to get over yourself.”
Renjun blinks. “Excuse me?”
“No common interests? Bickering? Please. Haven’t you heard of the term opposites attract? Everything you’ve just said are facts, yes, but they sound like excuses. You haven’t said anything about how you feel. So ‒ ” Chenle leans forward, gaze piercing, giving Renjun nowhere to hide. “What’s really holding you back?”
Renjun considers the question. What is holding him back? His mind flashes back to the way his former co-hosts threw him under the bus. The way Yangyang had been so understanding, so sweet about accommodating him. The way he had kissed Yangyang, brazen and reckless and against every fibre of common sense in his body, only for it to backfire on them both.
After that, Renjun doesn’t have to search very long for the answer. He’s probably known it all along.
“I’m scared,” Renjun says honestly. “I don’t know if I can trust him.” I don’t know if I can trust myself around him.
“Okay,” Chenle says. “So let me ask you this: has Yangyang given you any reason to distrust him?”
The past few months come to Renjun in snippets: fallen leaves. Trust falls. Scripts annotated in Yangyang’s childish cursive. Yangyang taking one for the team and dancing to Chun-Li. Coco doesn’t just make muffins on anyone. A birthday surprise, a candle melting, and a chaste, shy kiss pressed to his cheek, sinking into sinew and bone.
These memories are all different, all significant and insignificant in their own ways, but a common thread runs through them all: ever since that night outside Renjun’s building, Yangyang had made Renjun feel seen. He had made him feel safe.
And maybe, Renjun realises, even loved.
Chenle must like the look on Renjun’s face as this devastating but simple truth washes over him. He settles back into his seat, satisfied, and raises his bowl and chopsticks to noisily slurp up his sweet potato noodles. When he’s finished, he sets his cutlery down, wipes his hand across the back of his mouth.
“So. What’re you gonna do?”
Renjun glances at his phone. Its screen lights up with notifications, and he realises the date. It’s Saturday night. There’s less than an hour left on Yin & Yang’s slot. Yangyang should be at the studio.
An idea begins to form in Renjun’s mind. It’s crazy, and entirely uncharacteristic of him, but if he hurries ‒ if he tries ‒
“Chenle,” Renjun says, looking up. “How fast can your car go?”
☯
Renjun should have never asked.
“Fuck!” he yells as Chenle carves sharply around a Subaru to overtake it, narrowly missing its front bumper. “Chenle, what the fuck, slow down!”
“Nuh-uh.” In the driver’s seat, Chenle is as cool as a cucumber. He’s only got one hand on the wheel. They’re going twenty kilometres per hour over the speed limit. Renjun is one hundred percent certain that they’re going to die. “You asked me to get you to the studio as fast as possible, which is what I’m doing.”
“Yes,” Renjun says, watching with growing dread as the needle on the speedometer pushes past 100. “But I would preferably like to get there conscious, or at least alive ‒ ”
He’s cut off with a choke when Chenle suddenly hits the brakes. Renjun is thrown forwards, only to have his seatbelt tighten around his torso and send him slamming back. The back of his head bounces off the headrest, and he slides down his seat, clutching his head in pain.
“Ow!”
“My bad,” Chenle says, sounding like it is not, in fact, his bad.
“You ‒ oh my god.” Renjun has a scary thought, and cranes his neck to look over the dashboard. “Did we hit ‒ ”
“No, you moron. Look ‒ there’s traffic.”
There is traffic. Tons and tons of it. Everyone is rushing to get home, and, consequently, everyone is at a standstill. Renjun looks out at the sea of harsh red brake lights, and his heart sinks all the way down to the grubby floor of Chenle’s car.
“We’re not going to make it.”
“You are so dramatic,” Chenle groans. “Like, I appreciate that you want to confess your love to Yangyang in person, or whatever, but can’t you just tell him the next time you see him? Or text him, or ‒ ”
A lightbulb goes off above Renjun’s head.
“Call!” Renjun grabs Chenle’s shoulders and gives him a little shake before diving for his phone. “Chenle, you’re a genius ‒ ”
“I mean,” Chenle says, watching Renjun dial the hotline for Yin & Yang. “That was kinda obvious, but I guess I’m not gonna object if you say so ‒ ”
“Don’t be a prick, now be quiet,” Renjun shushes, just as someone on the other end of the line picks up.
“Hello, you’ve reached Yin & Yang. How may I address you?”
“Jisung!” In his other ear, Renjun hears Chenle wince, and he dials down his volume. “It’s Renjun.”
“Renjun?” Jisung’s voice colours with surprise, then concern. “Are you okay? I heard you were sick.”
“Yes, thank you, I’m fine now,” Renjun says impatiently. “Listen, is Yangyang still on air?”
“Yeah, but he’s going to wrap up soon ‒ ”
“Put me through.”
“Uhhh…” Jisung hesitates. “There’s a caller ahead of you, though, and we only have time for one more ‒ ”
Is he kidding?
“Are you kidding?”
“Um,” Jisung says. “No? I mean, you told me ‒ quite sternly, in fact ‒ that questions are on a first-come first-serve basis, so, like…”
“This is important,” Renjun says, rushed and unbecoming and passionate all at once. “Please.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line. Renjun clutches his phone to his ear, waiting with bated breath.
Then ‒
“Okay,” Jisung says, “okay, hang on,” and puts Renjun on hold.
Bland background music filters through the speakers. Chenle raises an eyebrow which means what’s going on?, and Renjun gives him a thumbs-up to let him know that he’s in. Chenle nods. The minutes tick by. Traffic crawls forwards.
Then there’s a click, and Renjun hears a voice he hadn’t realised he’d been missing until now.
“Welcome back to Yin & Yang,” Yangyang says. “Tonight, we’re revisiting love and relationships, an episode that everyone seemed to enjoy! We have our next caller on the line, so why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself?”
Yangyang sounds pleasant and cheerful and so familiar Renjun could wrap himself up in it like an old blanket. It hits him in the chest with the force of an arrow, rendering him momentarily tongue-tied, and Renjun grips the phone tighter, as if it’ll bring him closer to Yangyang.
“Er ‒ hello?”
Renjun swallows. Don’t fuck up.
“Hello, Yangyang,” he says, and he hears Yangyang’s sharp intake of breath.
“I ‒ hey. Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Injun,” Renjun lies, and he can practically see Yangyang shaking his head incredulously.
“Hi, Injun. Um… Are you calling with a question?”
“Kind of,” Renjun says. “You see, there’s this guy.”
Yangyang doesn’t prompt him. Instead, he waits, silent. He’s always been a good listener.
“There’s this guy,” Renjun says again. “He… I didn’t like him at first. He’s ‒ he wears the most terrible clothes, and he has Cardi B’s WAP as his ringtone, and he finds a way to make everything a fucking sex joke ‒ oh, god, sorry, please edit that out in the replay ‒ and it was just… everything that I thought I wouldn’t like in a person.”
Yangyang doesn’t sound particularly impressed when he says, “Go on.”
“But then…” Renjun takes a deep breath. “I got to know him. And he turned out to be entirely different from who I thought he was. He was sweet, and caring, and just so hilarious. I don’t think I’ve laughed harder with anyone than with him. He makes me smile so much, and sometimes, when I look at him, it’s like… it’s like the rest of the world fades away, because he shines so bright.”
Renjun understands their listeners now. It’s liberating, sitting here in the dark, spilling all of his deepest, darkest secrets to a stranger. Except it’s not a stranger he’s talking to; it’s Yangyang. Yangyang, who’s seen him at his worst. Yangyang, who wanted him anyway ‒ and who might still want him if Renjun plays his cards right. If he’s honest, like he should have been from the start.
The line crackles, breath rushing out of Yangyang’s lungs. “He sounds like quite the catch.”
“He is,” Renjun says sincerely. “And ‒ and he told me he likes me.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Elated. Scared. More scared, I think, because I didn’t know if I could trust him. I didn’t know if I could trust myself when I was with him. So I screwed it up ‒ I let him think I didn’t feel the same way, and I hurt him. I was an idiot and let my fear and overthinking get the better of me, and didn’t know I had a good thing until I lost it.”
Yangyang is quiet for a long time. “Why are you calling me now?”
“I’m calling to tell him that I’m sorry,” Renjun tells him. “I’m calling to tell him that…”
He trails off. There’s a heavy pause. On the other end of the line, Yangyang is silent. Yangyang is waiting. They’re broadcasting live, but he needs Renjun to say it. Renjun needs himself to say it.
He licks his lips. Gathers up all of his courage. Don’t fuck up.
Don’t fuck up.
“... I like him, too.”
There’s a burst of static, the sound of Yangyang sucking in a breath. “Oh.”
“Tell me,” Renjun says, heart caught in his throat from where he had bared it. “Is it too late? Do I have another chance?”
“You’ll always have a chance with me, Renjun,” Yangyang says softly, voice full of emotion, and Renjun feels absolutely shot through with starlight.
A hand falls on his shoulder. Renjun turns around and sees Chenle’s worried face. Did he say yes?
He said yes! Renjun mouths back, and Chenle gasps.
YES, Chenle cheers silently, and in celebration, jams his car horn so loudly that the drivers of the surrounding cars all give him dirty looks.
Yangyang’s voice comes again, tinny in Renjun’s ears. “Renjun? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” Renjun says, giddy and grinning and so god damn relieved and happy. “I’m still here.”
“Where are you now?”
Stuck in traffic, Renjun wants to say, but then he stops. He cranes his neck, looking past all the cars towards the city. If he squints, he can see the tip of the building their station is housed in. It’ll take forever to get there by car.
On foot, though…
“On the way. Don’t move,” Renjun says, and he hangs up.
“Dude,” Chenle says as Renjun puts away his phone. “I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks, Chenle,” Renjun says gratefully. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
He leans across the console to give Chenle a brief, but fierce, hug. When Renjun leans back, he unbuckles his seatbelt. Seeing this, Chenle looks at him quizzically.
“What are you doing?”
“I told Yangyang I was on the way,” Renjun says, and pops open the door.
“Wait,” Chenle says, realisation dawning as Renjun slides out of his seat. “Wait, are you leaving me alone in this traffic jam?”
Renjun shuts the door. He leans down to peer through the window, and gives his best apologetic expression. “Sorry, Lele, but you get it.”
“No!” Chenle says, outraged. “No, I don’t get it ‒ ”
Renjun never finds out how that sentence ends. Because before Chenle can yell at him some more, he takes off, weaving in and out of vehicles towards the station.
Which is, on hindsight, a bad idea. By the time Renjun makes it to the lobby of the building, his feet hurt, he’s sweating buckets ‒ why did he, a person who hasn’t exercised in months, think he could run? ‒ and his phone is blowing up with a million texts from Chenle, who’s undoubtedly cursing him out.
But he’s here. Sweating bullets, feet hurting, red in the face and unattractive as hell, but here. Here in the building, walking down the hall, swinging open the door to the studio, and finally, finally laying eyes on Yangyang, headphones still plugged in, seat still in motion as he turns to see who’s opened his door.
“Renjun,” Yangyang says. His eyes are as wide as saucers. “You look like shit.”
“It’s nice to see you, too.”
Yangyang’s hands flutter over Renjun, reaching, but not touching. “You’re all ‒ you’re all sweaty, did you run here, or ‒ ”
Renjun grabs Yangyang’s hands. Yangyang’s eyes dart around the room, from the blinking red light of the webcam, to the livechat that’s visibly blowing up with comments, and then to Renjun, and where they soften, and stay.
“We’re still live,” he reminds Renjun. “The broadcasting standards ‒ ”
“Fuck the broadcasting standards,” Renjun says roughly, and, bracing one arm on the back of Yangyang’s chair, leans down to ‒ breathlessly, sweetly, finally ‒ kiss him.
☯
To no one’s surprise, Kun makes them go through another round of workshops on appropriate workplace behaviour.
This time, though, Renjun and Yangyang do it together, holding hands the entire way.