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If there was something prodigious violin player and genuine concertmaster Jeon Wonwoo would outright admit he’s not good at, it was teaching little kids. Even more so, he could be very vocal about how he would not be able to teach someone how exactly to teach little kids. In this case, Lee Chan was someone he knew he could run to.
Three days into his one on one lesson internship, Wonwoo was close to ripping out his hair as he watched his student walk out sniffling.
It was hard to miss the caring smile Chan gave the child as he reassured her that Wonwoo does not, in fact, eat children who cannot tune their violins on their own.
“One of these days, I’m going to tell Junhui that all he has to do is pretend he can’t tune his instrument.” Chan teased, throwing a bottle of Coke to Wonwoo.
Wonwoo huffed. “You know we aren’t like that.”
“I don’t judge.” Chan sat down on the student’s seat. “Maybe you’d finally eat him if he does that.”
Wonwoo threw a tissue from his pocket at Chan’s face. “You’re absolutely disgusting.” He scrunched his nose. “You teach children with that mouth?”
“That’s not how the saying goes.”
“Do I look like I care?” Wonwoo raised an eyebrow.
“Fair.” Chan took out his viola from his carbon fibre case that was vaguely reminiscent of Junhui’s own (Wonwoo almost choked at the thought that he remembers Junhui in anything and everything). “Maybe you should watch my lesson with the next kid.” Chan invited him, tuning with his hands. “Maybe you’d finally see that you’re not as effective as a teacher as you are a violinist.”
And he was right.
“You call Ryujin a kid?” Wonwoo remembered the poised prodigy (could you call someone old a prodigy?) just two years younger than the violist.
“You call me a kid.” Chan pointed out. “If only she started sooner. She could have joined us in the orchestra and we’d finally have someone with enough spunk in them to speak out against the viola oppression from the concertmaster.”
If anything, Wonwoo had to fight the laugh coming out of his lips. “I can tell we’d get along pretty well.” He moved to the couch at the other end of the room. “She’s just been learning for two months, right?”
Chan nodded, greeting Ryujin, as Wonwoo had read from Chan’s clipboard schedule. She entered the room, smiling with her bright blue case slung behind her back, matching her hair. “Oh, it’s blue this month?” Chan smiled.
“I’m just using up all the funky colors I can until a certain concertmaster calls me out when I join you.” She didn’t once look at Wonwoo’s direction.
Chan did, however, and he was obviously struggling to keep a serious face. Instead, he pushed his glasses up. “So how are you?”
Standard lesson opener.
Ryujin shrugged before raising her instrument to tune. “I have Telemann and Bach prepared.”
Wonwoo tried, he really did.
He had as much restraint as he had hoped for.
“Her C string is low.” He frowned, immediately regretting it (not really) as soon as he had blurted it out.
Lee Chan and his student turned to him, sighing as if they already expected it to happen even before the day had even begun. Wonwoo began to wonder just how badly it was going for his journey as a music teacher.
However, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, there was still much to learn from the youngest of his friends.
Once upon a time, Wonwoo was a sceptic—he just couldn’t understand why the members of their orchestra run to coffee whenever they had problems. Furthermore, he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of drinking iced Americano like water (admittedly, the reason why he chose Lee Chan over Boo Seungkwan as his principal viola counterpart was the fact that the latter downed iced americanos like his lifeline dependent on it).
So when he ended up ordering an iced Americano in the largest size available at the coffee shop next to the Lee family music studio slash school, Lee Chan wouldn’t stop laughing at him.
Wonwoo was on the border, teetering between his thoughts, thinking about how he simply adored Chan’s patience for him, and wondering if the people heard ducks whenever his friend laughed too.
It’s been a while since Wonwoo had gotten around to visiting their dorm. More than two weeks at that.
“Have you been talking to Junhui?” Chan asked, forking at his blueberry cheesecake. “How is he?”
On a good day, Wonwoo would have smiled and just answered. On a bad day, he would have brushed off the question. However, it was one of those days when Wonwoo’s uncertainty was at a seesaw fifty feet high up the sky. “He’s having trouble with his dissertation.” Wonwoo sighed. “I don’t know if he’s taking his frustration out on me, but it just... kind of feels bad, you know?”
“Mhmm...” Chan hummed, obviously resisting the urge to say a snarky comment.
“Say what you want to.” Wonwoo urged.
“Huh?”
“Just tell me what you think?”
Chan was a blessing in Wonwoo’s life, he had to acknowledge that fact. Not only were they friends, but they were also musicians who worked on the same wavelength without much thought. So when Lee Chan told him that he’s overthinking, maybe Wonwoo truly was overthinking. “Honestly, Wonwoo, have you two even talked properly?”
Wonwoo nodded, recalling the nights he faced his MacBook until the last yawn on midnight. “Yeah, I watch him write whenever we video call.”
“I mean,” Chan shook his head, “have you two talked? Like outside of music and your horny escapades.”
“We do not have horny escapades.” Wonwoo controlled his voice, and yet it earned him at least two judging looks (oh, to be Lee Chan and say those kinds of things with a straight face). “We’ve both just been so busy with his dissertation and my internship.”
“But the following semester you two will have the same situation, only switched.”
And he was probably right.
Wonwoo sighed, deflating in loss. “I don’t know anymore, really.” He said. “Thanks for the treat, Channie.”
Lee Chan smiled. “Of course.”
“How much do I owe you now?”
“Since when did we ever count?” Lee Chan chuckled.
He was right.
They never counted. That’s why Wonwoo held Chan so dear to him, as a friend and as a colleague. But more than all that, Chan was someone he could confide in when the going gets rough.
Junhui’s calls were beginning to feel like a routine for Wonwoo—they answer, greet, say a little about their days, then go back to writing their respective papers. However this time, Junhui had Mingyu onscreen with him, making Wonwoo’s heart feel the tinge he knew he shouldn’t feel in the first place.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Junhui.
No.
It was that Junhui looked happier.
“Hi, Channie.” Junhui greeted Lee Chan, sitting on the couch right next to Wonwoo. “Has Wonwoo been treating you well?”
Wonwoo could feel Chan’s shoulder tensing up by the question.
“He hasn’t.” Chan faked a cry. “He’s going to give a bad name to my studio at this point.”
Wonwoo nudged him for his arguably false accusation. “That’s not true!” He huffed. “Why’s Mingyu with you?”
Mingyu raised his middle finger. “Not interested in your boyfriend, Jeon.”
“Don’t call me that!” Wonwoo mirrored him. “I’m gonna drop the call.”
“Don’t do that!” Junhui laughed. And Wonwoo had to fight tears from pouring out. “I love you, Jeon.”
Besides the fake barfing sounds from Mingyu (who was honestly just as bad when it was him and Minghao), and Junhui’s endearing smile boring into his heart, Wonwoo’s mind immediately flew to Chan who stood up to drink water.
Junhui already knew it was going to be a short call the moment he found out that both Mingyu and Chan would be present in the camera. “How are you, Jeon?” He shoo-ed Mingyu away for a moment. He was set on treasuring the few moments he’d be talking with Wonwoo.
And Wonwoo knew they were both trying to connect. “Honestly?” Wonwoo sighed. “I miss you so much.”
“I know. I miss you too.” Junhui smiled at the camera. “You’re going to have to fix your kid.”
“He told me we should have sex.” Wonwoo searched through his browser, passively speaking. “Do you want to?”
Junhui chuckled, a low one from deep down his chest. “Jeon, you of all people know that’s not going to happen.”
“Right.”
“Though, maybe when you come back, I’ll give you the most mind-blowing blowjob that will make you totally forget you even knew Kim Mingyu.” Junhui’s joke had Wonwoo biting his lips.
Perhaps, Lee Chan was right all along.
“Junnie, baby...” Wonwoo smiled, staring right at the man whose eyes look like they’ve seen the universe and more whenever he looked at Wonwoo. “I love you.”
But all Wen Junhui told him was to love Lee Chan back.
“Oh, you’re done?” Chan greeted Wonwoo the moment he entered their shared bedroom. At least, shared until Wonwoo finally moves out and back to the dorms after his internship. “How was it?”
“He just told me that we’d be playing Telemann the next time we all get together in the orchestra.” Wonwoo tried to consider how else he could get his friend to look at him in the eyes again, but he couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”
Chan’s eyes didn’t leave his phone. “For what?”
He connected his Bluetooth speaker to play the Overture in D Major. As soon as the first few notes hit the air, Wonwoo tried to breathe.
Wonwoo’s throat felt like it had his heart beating from there—it was so heavy, he thought he was going to bark on the spot. He ran marathons in his mind before gathering up even the slightest thought of saying Chan’s name. “For not liking you the way you like me.”
If there was anything Jeon Wonwoo was willing to admit, it was that Lee Jung Chan was so much better at a lot of things, even if the world refused to acknowledge it. And Chan, the hardworking musician he is, was more in touch with his feelings than Wonwoo could ever hope to be.
“I thought we already talked about this?” Chan chuckled. “Wonwoo, I like you, yes there’s that.” He sighed. “But maybe you’ve forgotten that we’ve been friends despite how different we are—you bring out the competitive side of me and I bust one of your veins.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Wonwoo, we’re friends.”
“Yes, we are.”
“You’re one of my best friends, Jeon Wonwoo.” Chan smiled. “And that’s enough for me—as long as I’ll always have you by my side.”
Wonwoo attacked Chan at the bed, enclosing the younger in a tight hug despite the protests and warnings that Wonwoo’s glasses may get destroyed. “Lee Jung Chan, I love you.” Wonwoo settled his hands around his waist.
“Okay.” Chan was defeated. “Thank you.”
“You don’t love me?”
“You don’t deserve it.” Chan was joking, of course.
But in the end, Lee Chan was always right.