Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 22

"I'll find out and we can discuss it next time," he said, standing up to retrieve his phone from where he had set it down on top of the piano lid. He quickly swiped away a long message from Dongyoung, hoping he'd remember to respond to the man later, and rolled his eyes when he saw the string of colourful memes that appeared under Jaehyun's name below it. He strongly suspected most of these were actually from Yuta and he resolved to ask his brother to pass his number along to the older man, so that he would more easily be able to distinguish between the messages he was receiving from each of his hyungs.

"Do you need to answer those?" Chenle asked softly, as Donghyuck finally navigated away from his lock screen, pulling up a music streaming app instead. The older boy smiled but shook his head, showing Chenle the screen as he answered.

"It's fine. They can wait." He tapped the device a few times, pulling up a list of popular music. It was a little odd, Donghyuck thought, seeing music from a few years in his past appear as current releases-- it reminded him once again just how alien this place and time was--but at least most of it was familiar. There were a few gaps, most notably those where he knew his own songs would have been charting at this point in his own timeline, but other groups he liked seemed to have continued to make music in NCT's absence. "Let's warm up with something easy first. Which of these do you know best?"

Chenle took a few moments but finally settled on a slow ballad by an artist Donghyuck had thankfully heard of. It was quite a well-known song, and Donghyuck was sure he remembered the basic melody, but he pressed play on the app anyway and set it down. He'd save his mediocre piano skills for songs he knew significantly better.

"Just sing along as you feel comfortable," he told a nervous-looking Chenle. The boy had his hands clasped tightly in his lap and was wringing them together, staring intently at the phone resting on the keys in front of them. "We'll sing together for this first one. Don't worry about it. It's just to get your vocal cords stretching and warmed up properly."

He suspected that Chenle wouldn't start singing alone, so he let the tenor voice on the recording produce the first few notes of the verse and then joined in softly. Donghyuck's voice wasn't as strong, or as smooth as he wanted it to be, as he was used to, but the basic principle wasn't hard. He let himself start softly, knowing that this much wouldn't cause him any difficulties, and relished the way that the emotions of the lyrics easily washed over him. He closed his eyes, maintaining the low volume, hoping that not making eye contact might encourage the boy beside him to join in.

For several minutes, there was nothing but a tense bubble of silence to his immediate left, even as the lilting strains of the ballad filtered through the space around them. Donghyuck was starting to worry that he had made a big mistake, and that Chenle had been made too uncomfortable by his request, when finally a third voice joined the mix. It was almost inaudible at first, only detectable because Donghyuck was so hyper-aware of the freshman at his side, but, as they sang, Chenle relaxed a little more into each word.

As the song came to an end, Donghyuck opened his eyes, ignoring the phone as it started to play an upbeat new-wave song, and turned to face a trembling Chenle. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Chenle laughed at that, and Donghyuck couldn't help the accompanying chuckle that left his lips.

"I haven't sung like that in a long time?" Chenle told him, shrugging. "I forgot how much I enjoyed it."

"Me too." Donghyuck wasn't lying--yes, he sang all the time, but it wasn't the same as this. Sitting in a practice room and just singing a random song for fun with one or other of his members wasn't something he had a lot of time for anymore. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed it, just like the boy beside him did in his own way.