deerofdawn | [for uponinfinity] Rippled Reflections [3/4]

Part III

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It’s a little after four in the afternoon on Thursday and the air of summer is creeping so fast over campus that nearly every student on campus is sweating. The stick of salted water to skin, irritating and reminding of the pressing deadlines and the heat plagues the population as Luhan squints in the sunlight, walking back to the center of campus. It’s easier to breathe in the warmer air, the fresh smell of the summer that will be here so soon, stuck in air-conditioning and pouring over details and code and smiling at the co-workers around their various coffee induced degrees of consciousness.

The library steps are crowded as Luhan approaches them, the sunlight filtered through the trees towering beside the steps and casting shade of the more populated sections. Some students are relaxed, some of them are enjoying the sunlight, some of them are studying, laughing, chatting and a few are reading quietly and ignoring the world.

The lenses of Luhan’s sunglasses tint the world darker, his eyes open and seeing all as he walks to the steps and smiles. He drops his bag on the cement steps, far less careful than he has been in the past, knowing all of the materials within to be not fragile and insignificant. It drops beside a young man on the steps with copper hair pouring over a book in his lap with a concentrated frown on his face. With a jump, Minseok looks up at him and lets out a small sigh, eyes closing and relaxing as he catches Luhan’s grin.

“You asshole,” he says, laughter in his voice rather than admonishment. He moves over, creating room beside him on the steps and Luhan doesn’t hesitate to sit down with him, stretching his legs out and letting out a soft sigh. “You’re here earlier than I thought. Did Taeyeon let you go early?”

Within the depths of his pocket, his phone vibrates gently, a small reminder of other people in his life he hasn’t seen in a period of time he really couldn’t be bothered with. Luhan has been busy; he has other things to do. He has more important people to be with and more pressing things to attend to. “Yeah,” he answers, brushing fingers through his hair. He takes off his sunglasses, flipping them around to check his reflection briefly, searching for imperfections. “She said because it’s nearing the end of the semester and we have finals in a few weeks, it makes more sense to just let us focus more on our studies.” His skin is faultless today, like every day.

His eyes look clear, though the veins in them are more pronounced against the white. His lips are slightly chapped and his hair could do with a trim.

“Stop checking yourself out, you look like you’re in love with yourself,” Minseok scoffs and nudges him with his knee, drawing Luhan’s attention away from his sunglasses. “Besides, you’re supposed to be helping me with focusing on work, not making handsome poses at yourself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being in love with yourself,” Luhan laughs, reclining on the steps as he watches Minseok carefully pack up. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to love yourself. They write books on that shit. All about personal development and growth. I can recommend a few if you’re struggling with it yourself.”

“Whatever,” Minseok says, turning to him with a look. “Stop looking like you’re infatuated with yourself.” He scoffs. “Other people might be jealous.”

“Of me?” Luhan laughs, loud and clear in the air as Minseok shoves him to get up. “Or you?” Minseok blinks and Luhan laughs again. “I’m kidding,” he says, pushing to stand up and stretching, taking his time and grinning as Minseok looks taxed with being delayed. “How long are we looking at? I thought you finished that paper a week ago.”

“I finished the first draft of it a week ago,” Minseok grumbles at him, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and stepping back towards the cooler air of the library, Luhan following him and stepping close, keeping close and listening. “Not all of us have insane work ethics and don’t sleep.”

“I sleep,” Luhan protests, voice lowering as they step into the atrium of the library. Presenting their id cards for the security guards, swiping through the turnstiles to get into the building, Minseok scoffs perhaps a bit too loudly for library protocol. Before Luhan can protest, Minseok is snatching his sunglasses from his face.

“Your dark circles tell me otherwise,” he points out and Luhan glowers, reaching out for the sunglasses and the itch of irritation rises within his palms. Minseok simply grins at him, fitting the sunglasses over his own eyes as he strides easily through the main level, computers lining the sides of the room and assistance desk occupied by students all absorbed in their notes and work. He clicks his tongue as Luhan’s sunglasses rest on his nose, eyebrow cocking and Luhan.

“Classy,” Luhan huffs out a quiet laugh, flashing him a peace sign as he holds out his hand for the sunglasses to be returned to him. It’s funny, but the joke isn’t one that will last. He wants his property is his possession.

“Now you don’t have to take them off when you want to check out yourself,” Minseok says, grinning at his own humor as he leads them to the main staircase. “You can just look at me and make kissy faces instead.” He, as if to ensure that Luhan understands his point, leans forward and his lips pucker into a mocking kiss. He doesn’t pull away immediately as their steps ascend them into the upper levels of the mezzanines, magazine collections and secluded study tables.

“Are you asking me to make kissing faces at you?” Luhan laughs, too loud and quickly coughs his noise level down. Not here, keep up the pretext of being in a public space where rules above all apply. Rules should not be broken unless in extenuating circumstance with specific terms and justification.

“No,” Minseok says and pulls away, stepping ahead and walking onto the main level. “I’m just giving you something else to focus on aside from how easy it is to see your pores. Though you should be drafting up letters for those internships, right?”

“I don’t need you nagging me too,” Luhan mutters, keeping his voice down as the reminder of the internships fast approaching settle once more and press down on his shoulders. “Besides, I already got that settled. I’m working at Misrotex.”

Minseok’s eyes widen, barely visible behind the sunglasses and a moment later he pulls the frames from his face to show the wide almond eyes behind them, looking at him in shock. “You made a decision? Already? I thought you just got the letters before the weekend.”

“I had to do it sometime,” Luhan reminds him, hand slipping to Minseok’s waist and steering him through the stacks of books, the small alcoves of tables occupied by students with papers. The stacks of tomes muffle the sound, nothing but the soft turning of pages, fingers tacking over keyboards and pens scratching over papers. Even the carpet seems to suck in the noise around them, everything quiet and still and it’s as if it lures into his own serenity.

It spans through the whole building, sinking into them and Minseok doesn’t resist his hand as he pushes them through the stacks, letting himself be guided and it’s nice, reassuring and comfortable. Minseok is warm, despite how he is so easy to get cold. He walks without falter, without issue and his indifference is refreshing as he watches Luhan and waits.

Patient. Minseok has always been patient with him.

Patience is a virtue.

“Is it the military sponsored one you had been on the fence about? The engineering start up?” Minseok finally asks, voice hushed when they’re seated in two matching chairs, a table between them that Minseok is already spreading his work over, books, papers, notebooks, and his laptop. His hands are careful, pausing over everything and they move in perfect tandem with when Luhan pulls out the minimal materials from his bag.

A journal, a notebook, and a few pens are all that he has with him aside from his phone. It lies silent and expectant before him on the table, the most significant of all the objects.

“It is,” Luhan admits. Three months of pouring over business details, shadowing the leaders of the small startup company that works towards energy conservation and environmental preservation and fuel efficiency. Learning technical aspects as well as the finer points of business and all of it sponsored by the military to aid in the slaughter of hundreds with more efficient vehicles, equipment, and provisions. “And it’s not just for military, it’s moving towards a different future in the aspects of electrical energy and science.”

“You’re still going to be helping soldiers blow people up,” Minseok hushes to him, though his tone isn’t harsh. He sighs, sitting down and opening up his laptop. “I suppose there are always two sides to something.” He grins and Luhan watches his eyes disappear as he slips the sunglasses on once more, teeth flashing small and pretty white in his mouth. Luhan’s own face looks back at him, warped and metallic in the lenses, tinged with yellow and pink.

“You’re inside, you don’t need sunglasses,” Luhan tells him, reaching over the table to try to take them back, and Minseok pulls away, leaning out of reach. Luhan’s lips press into a line of annoyance, getting tired of the game but the quiet and the light streaming in, highlighting the dust as it floats before the window maintain it to a minimal level. “Give them back; they’re mine.”

“But they look so good on me,” Minseok protests as he twists away from Luhan and out of reach, amusement radiating from him as he ducks from Luhan’s fingers and they close on air. “I’m the cool guy this time.”

“Insinuating I’m the cool guy all the other times,” Luhan concludes, pulling back with a disgruntled turn to his lips, crossing his arms to rest on the table as he watches Minseok. “You aren’t wrong.”

“I have no idea how I put up with you,” Minseok half laughs at him, voice quiet so the laugh shows mostly on his face, creasing in amusement as the eyes behind the tinted lenses appear to crinkle as his smile stretches.

“You love me,” Luhan grins over the table, flipping open the notebook and slipping the journal, thick with writing and thoughts, under his elbow, safe and closed. He doesn’t remember putting it into his bag, but it sits there, heavy and slowly becoming more and more worn resting under his elbow and shut from the outside world.

“Somehow,” Minseok murmurs and it’s so quiet that it’s just a whisper to the pages of his notes, face turned from Luhan but his ears catch anyway, blinking once, twice and then glancing up. Minseok isn’t looking at him, but his hands move carefully across the paper as he continues to work and Luhan finds his eyes remaining, not moving away as he just watches the way that Minseok functions.

The soft crack of Minseok’s voice and the looks in his eyes and the way he’s always, somehow, there. The sunglasses slip down his nose as he peers down at his books, the print fine and Luhan wonders if he were to reach out and touch him, would jerk away, or move into it. Previous moments when on instinctive reflex he had moved too close and pushed into the space around Minseok that always seemed to demand to be respected, he was never pushed away, never rebuffed. Minseok is always there, through everything and with eyes that see far more than his lips ever speak.

Time moves lethargically in the silence of the library, the only marking of the day slowly passing the darkening light outside the window as the sun begins to set and the watch on Luhan’s wrist. The soft ticking of the mechanism within is the only display of the time that slips from them and he glances up intermittently to look to see Minseok as he works without break. Attention flickering between the books and notes before him and flying his fingers over a keyboard. His eyes catch on Luhan’s every so often and a soft smile graces his lips, lingering for just a moment too long.

The sunglasses rest on the table between them, Luhan having looked up when Minseok’s fingers placed them there gently, creating almost no sound and a gentle forfeit of them to him. Returned. As he works, he runs his fingers through his hair, pushing it back but never into disarray, only carefully pushing it back into the styling he had cast it into previously.

Minseok is a clean person, succinct and organized, planning things out and making lists and his room in his dorm half across campus is immaculate and efficient. He keeps himself just as composed and, though fewer with words, they are carefully picked and selected, as if when he speaks, it is entirely with purpose. Slowly, as Luhan’s thoughts flicker between the housing that he has to select before the end of next week and the drafting of business emails and collecting references, he pushes over Minseok’s words in his mind.

His eyes linger on the lenses of his sunglasses, facing him and displaying the world from Minseok’s perspective, colored in metalics and an abstract color spectrum. The stacks of books behind and the ceiling that holds little importance and himself, his eyes staring back with a faint crease to his lips as he ponders.

Silence ticking and only punctured with the scratch of pen to paper, the soft shift of pages and the gentle ‘tak tak tak’ of keys on a computer as students around them all delve and dissolve into their own minds, the sounds of their thoughts echoing in on themselves. Completely absorbed in the individual structure of their own worlds. Minseok’s fingers begin to drum gently on the tabletop before him, creating a muted cadence as Luhan looks up and watches them move.

Out of sync with the symphony around them, the tempo incorrect with the ticking of the watch on his wrist, Luhan reaches out without thinking and closes his hand over Minseok’s to cease the irritation. A brief twitch, eyes flashing up to meet his, and the hand beneath his lies still, Minseok’s eyes not leaving his as they lock over the table and Luhan finally looks for longer than just the customary designated span of time. A few seconds longer and he can see the flicker of question and he doesn’t remove his hand.

Minseok doesn’t pull his hand away, and it lies warm and soft, quiet and gentle beneath his as if removing it is to break something naturally occurring. As if Luhan’s hand is meant to be, asked to be, and desired to be there.

The look away isn’t abrupt or sudden and Luhan finds himself still watching as Minseok turns his attention back down to annotating through the copy of reading material he had been pouring over. There is a smaller curve to his lips that Luhan had yet to see and his hand stays and never pulls away. Even after Luhan has finally let his eyes drop, the words from the day tumbling in his mind and the soft smiles that always seem to greet him when he sees Minseok.

The same soft smiles that have always been around Minseok, the gentile patience and the calming acceptance. The immediate response to his calls and how Minseok was the one that wrapped Luhan closer time and time again when Yixing was unable to, when Yixing stopped being there to.

The loud buzz against the table startles him from his thoughts, jerking his awareness back from musing as he searches with jerking motions for the cause of the distraction. His phone is lit, a number he doesn’t recognize upon the screen and Luhan knows better than to ignore numbers today from strange sources. It was the same a year ago, when his voice was lighter and his mind less experience and Yixing was the one sitting across from him.

With a nod and swiftly grabbing his phone, Luhan strides from the small alcove, hand feeling cold as he pulls it away and from Minseok’s and walks quickly to the side, moving as fast as he can into the stairwell. The number is from a familiar area code and he has a strong suspicion as the to the caller.

The light in the stairwell is off and the phone glows in the dim light as the answer bar is swiped, the only light cast hidden as Luhan raises the device to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hello, I’m calling for a Mr. Lu Han?” says a voice that sounds constricted and distant, artificial over the line.

“Yes, speaking. What can I do for you?” Years of etiquette drilled into him from the age of youth and keeping him in tight fitting shoes that pinch and holding his chin high in the air, mouth neither smiling nor frowning but with stark indifference. Appear the vision of impenetrability as the words of ‘girl’ and ‘cute’ and ‘freak’ were pelted to skin and Luhan breathes in.

“Hi Luhan,” is kinder this time. “This is Yoona from Duas Luna. I hope you’re well.” She pauses but not enough for Luhan to answer the implied question. He doesn’t expect to, remembering the last time he spoke with the company and their slightly disconnected speech patterns. “I am calling because there have been a few questions that our director, whom you spoke with last time, was a bit curious about.”

“Of course,” Luhan lets himself fall back, shoulders hitting against the wall behind him as he listens, fingers gently sliding up the side of the phone as he breathes in and out and consumes calming energy. “What is it about?”

“It says on your resume, and after we looked over your references from your professors, that you had an internship last summer?” Luhan’s fingers tighten around the phone, the muscles around his bones stiffening in automatic response. “But you didn’t finish within the allotted time frame and you didn’t include a letter from them. However, you do still include them on your resume and we were just wondering what the issue was that you terminated early. Could you explain the circumstances?”

Breathe in, and try to envision the space between your eyes. Not as the physical space, but more of let yourself sit and experience the space between your eyes, breathing into that space, letting yourself stay and allowing it to expand as you breathe out. Expand and expand and expand as you pull yourself back into the slowly opening chasm that appears at the crown of the interior of your mind, sky painted black and dotted with stars that look like eyes and blink at you only with the time of centuries as they strip you of your clothing, your skin, and gaze into your soul.

The sharp inhale has Luhan nearly coughing, a sharp shiver splintering up his spine as he slams his focus back to the call and the background noise behind the woman on the phone. “Ah,” he says, clearing his throat. Don’t get lost in the maze. “Yes. I apologize for not having a reference but was advised against it actually by the supervisor of the position I was in.” He winces, realizing how that sounded negative. He wets his lips, reminding himself that Duas Lunas has already accepted him for the program. They are just double checking. “I had to leave the position for personal health reasons.”

“What kind of health reasons?” She doesn't sound critical, instead more curious and it’s relief that sweeps through him, the weight of his eyelids pulling down and down and he lets his eyes close, sinking further into the wall that pushes against his back. Cold pressing into his skin and a stabilizer from the wet panting against his skin as chalky white coats his fingers and scatters the floor.

“I fell ill during the ending period of the internship and my supervisor, Mr. Jung, suggested that the time and circumstances for my departure were unfortunate and he felt that, while he could provide a spoken recommendation, written was out of his hands due to the limited time span that I spent with Dong Bang Inc.”

“I see,” says Yoona, the woman at the other end of the phone with the background noise of an office laps against the fringe of their conversation. “In that case, I’ll tell Mr. Cho that he can contact Dong Bang.” Luhan is surprised they didn’t do so already. When Yoona speaks again, her voice is warm. “I wanted to check with you before we talked to Mr. Jung because here, at Duas Lunas, we like to keep things very close and act as a very tightly knit unit. We’re not a small company, even if our dreams and what we do are big.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “We’re looking forward to having you join us this summer, Luhan. You’re records look very impressive and promising. I am excited to see what you can do.”

The shade of the hall alcove, cut away from the rest of the library, is detached, unseen for the most part and rarely visited, out of the light and the acceptance of the rest of the main building. Luhan swallows down the needles in his mouth, arising from the flashing thoughts of Mr. Jung as he sat at the desk across from him, mouth in a line and Luhan’s hands still shook despite his best efforts. “I am looking forward to working with you this summer,” he says, the words paper in his mouth and typing off into sound as they leave his lips. “It is such an exciting opportunity and I’m grateful to be included in the program.”

“We will be in touch, Luhan,” Yoona says as Luhan burns the name into his mind fiercely.

“I hope so, Yoona.” People like it when you remember them, are charmed when you take the time to show that they are worth being remembered. Luhan’s skin is jumping as the line goes dead, the soft click of the receiver as his hand drops, phone heavy and heart shaking in his chest. It doesn’t beat, the flashes of deadlines, computer screens, empty coffee cups and pills that swam in front of his eyes before falling to the ground as his jaw locked and his teeth bled. It shivers because beating is stable and that was not stable.

Maintain, contain and keep steady on course with the path that has been chosen and keep the blinders up. The light at the end of the tunnel is still white and ringing.

Three hours of sleep laid into the skin of his neck and slipping down into his limbs, Luhan walks back to the table, his phone slipping onto the wood surface as he sits down in one of the other chairs, opposite his things and lets himself lean to the side. There isn’t a flinch, no shy away and no startle as his head pillows on a strong shoulder, eyes closing and breathing in the soft cotton and smell of soap. “Who was that?” asks a soft gentle voice, always soft and waiting, never pushing too hard and Luhan breathes out without the shake.

Warm despite how he complains of getting so cold easily, Minseok doesn't push off Luhan as he leans into him, resting his weight against his side and his head lays on Minseok’s shoulder. “The internship.” Luhan’s lips feel numb, eyes cracking open to see three windows open on Minseok’s laptop and papers with four colors of notes and annotations. “They just had a few questions.”

His eyes close as Minseok doesn't move, just letting him rest against him and Luhan could work on something, could look for apartments or call up the owner of the unit he had been looking at. Luhan could go and get more work aside from that which he has already laid out in the books across from him, but it’s the first time in over a week that he is tired and stopping. It’s the first time he’s really been warmer and relaxed and his eyes flicker open as he feels fingers brush his bangs up and from his face.

“Tired?” The words ghost over his face, Minseok turned to him and looking at him and Luhan feels warm, warm and content and he hasn’t felt that for weeks or perhaps longer. Not since the early points of Jongin, before it all shattered and leaked away. Minseok’s fingers linger for just a moment, brushing over his forehead before his hand drops, resting on the table. “When was the last time you legitimately slept, Luhan?”

Benevolence which seems to always hold true and stick to Minseok is the one thing Luhan will never really understand or choose to comprehend. He’s not blindly kind, but it makes him more real. Luhan blinks slow, shifting to lean further into him. He’s not Yixing, with broad shoulders and immediately shifting to pull Luhan closer, but he has his own methods of comfort.

Yixing hadn’t stayed in the end, anyway. Just like all the others, he had been left because he didn’t see it. Didn’t see him and wasn’t enough.

“I slept last night.” It’s not a lie, the hours pushed up against the creeping of the dawn through the windows as his eyes filled with sand and lead as his jacket lay over the surface of his mirror.

“For how long?” Three final papers, one cap project and three ahead of schedule assignments sitting completed on his desk waiting to be passed in, their deadline yet to arise and Luhan is running out of things to do.

“Two hours.” He closes his eyes, feeling the slight pat of a hand to his forehead, a punishment for his actions and Luhan shoves lightly, putting more of his weight onto Minseok and earning a soft laugh in response.

“Rest,” Minseok tells him, voice gentler and not soft and sweet as it fills into him like the smoke of cleansing incense, purifying his air and his thoughts. Luhan inhales the faint smell of coffee as his eyes close. “Rest, so I can stop wondering if you ever do.”

Luhan knows if he opens his eyes, he will see Minseok looking at him, that look in his eyes that speaks of concern, speaks of worry and hinted anxiety for him. All for Luhan. The warmth in his chest burgeons. “Only since you told me to,” he whispers, angling his head and waiting for the typical laugh.

He is greeted by stillness and the pressed line of a mouth, eyes straight and staring into nothing as they bore into the table. The line of Minseok’s jaw is at eye-level, and Luhan can see the faint lines of tired that linger in the corners of his eyes as he looks out into nothing and doesn’t respond. “Minseok?”

“Did you used to do this with him too?” is quiet, the appropriate volume for the library but Minseok doesn’t look at him when he speaks to air and looks into something Luhan can’t see.

look at me, though

“What?” Shifting closer. It’s not cold in the library, but the warmth from Minseok is pleasant and Luhan has always been more interested in intimacy even if Minseok hasn’t always been as enthused.

“With Yixing.” It’s Luhan’s turn to stiffen, his eyes to go unfocused as it pulls back. Lying with Yixing when bored, curled up and pressed too close for what some may view as specifically friendship. Laughing and touching and always so close as Minseok stood to the side and watched. The press of warm familiar tones, skin against his from years back, breaths too fast and too hot and the soft thin fingers held between his as Minseok stood by the side and watched.

How long has he been there?

How long?

“Did you wish it was you?” he asks instead of answering because he doesn’t want to. Yixing isn’t here, and Minseok is. Minseok has always been there, even when Luhan wasn’t. He wonders what Minseok did when he was gone, if he thought about him while he was gone, if he watched him and Yixing laugh and fall together and regretted never being a part of it.

Reaching up from where his hands were curled together, he drifts his hand to the other not belonging to him resting atop color-coded notes and specifications and details about a class Luhan has never taken. Minseok’s hand, like Yixing’s hand, is smaller in his, slipping into his own and limp as he toys with it. Minseok lets him, just like he lets Luhan lean on him and shout at him and he listens and watches him.

“Do you want it to be you?” How long has Minseok been watching him?

how long have you wanted me and never said anything? how long have you waited for me to come to you and choose you to make my own? how long have you hungered for this, burned for my touch and for my eyes to rest on you and see?

“Rest,” Minseok tells him and his voice is quiet, barely over a whisper but Luhan can hear it, hidden in the depths of the timber, the quiver that tells him that it has been there forever.

not yet. don’t push him yet.

Eyes closing and just letting himself sit and seep, Luhan waits, his mind turning things over, from practicalities, to the mess of text messages that all spindle together on his phone in a complicated jumble of social networking he doesn’t have the attention span for a the moment, to the feeling of how Minseok’s hand is still within his. He almost laughs, because now he looks, he sees it so clear it’s blatant.

Minseok has always been there, since things began with Yixing back at the end of high school and Luhan told Minseok first, his smile and his congratulations that seemed lackluster. Since the relationship hit turbulence and Minseok sat for hours and listened to Luhan’s voice rise and fall as he paced a rut in to the center of Minseok’s bedroom floor. Minseok is the one he called after the breakup, after he and Yixing said no and Luhan didn’t sleep for four days and Minseok alternated between keeping him company and napping as he prepared for his lifeguard certification course.

It was Minseok who showed up at the hospital first last August and Luhan woke up with his hands being held and the sleeping face of his friend, only waking up again when Yixing’s tears stained face loomed into vision over his own and a sob wracked through his own chest as tubes pumped fluids into his body.

It was Minseok who stood at the side and quietly smiled and commented and observed and let him be and supported him. Minseok who first met Joonmyun in their first encounter, post the introductory session with the counseling services and Joonmyun looked too proper and shaken to drink anything but black coffee and never took sugar or cream. Minseok was the one who smiled and told him to be happy.

Do what makes you happy, do what you love. Be with the person who you love and who makes you happy.

This whole time Luhan missed the most important piece, the most important factor in the whole mess, and he almost laughs at himself because it’s so stupid of him. When Minseok has been there taking it all and standing at the sidelines and watching Luhan and letting him go.

when you love someone, let them go

Minseok must love him a lot to have let him go this many times and Luhan appreciates that. He admires that. He just wonders if Minseok would let him go if he ever had him.

would you love me? can you really love me? am I so beautiful?

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between the soft taking of the computer keyboard, one handed as Luhan keeps the partner captive within his own and his fingers smooth over the back of a hand that has been waiting for him to take.

“Why?” Minseok has been listening. Minseok is always the best at listening, always sitting there and taking it and loving him anyway. The one that was never seen but which is, perhaps, the most important one.

“For being dumb,” Luhan says and his hand tightens over Minseok’s. It earns a soft chuckle, a squeeze back and sends that warmth blossoming in his chest further and further as his pulse resonates along the framework of his body and he breathes. Coffee, soap, shampoo and cotton linen. Minseok doesn’t smell of anything Luhan doesn’t already know and it’s not comforting, it’s affirming.

“You’re always dumb,” Minseok reminds and it makes Luhan smile. This isn’t playing, this isn’t trying to maneuver the game and figuring out likes and dislikes and watching as the person unravels before him and spins away and forgets who he is and why they love him. He already has Minseok, he just never saw it.

Now, he doesn’t want to let him go.

don’t let go never let me go please see me and only me and love me and only me do not forget me

With eyes closed the time slips by easier, the papers resting on the table shifting as the hand in Luhan’s remains and never moves, only occasionally adjusting and there is no need to move. Minseok’s shoulder is not Joonmyun’s which he rested his forehead to for hours and breathed in the stiffness of Joonmyun hating himself and loving Luhan instead. It isn’t the comforting sweetness that stuck to him and spoke without words that Yixing’s arms had given and it isn’t the thrill and passion that Jongin’s neck had been when he’d pressed his face and sucked the life from because it was his.

The darkening light outside doesn't register when the lights of the library are kept on and the quiet stills and maintains even as the campus outside pulses with the beat of schedules and commitments. The light shining through Luhan’s eyelids is a calming red, playing against his irises as he lays and counts his breathing, expanding the area between his eyes and focusing on the rhythms of his calmly and surely beating heart.

Do not fear. Do not envy. Do not hate. Do not tempt. Love yourself and love will come to you.

do you love me, Luhan?

“I have always loved you,” Luhan murmurs, voice fogged with sleep and his head tips forward as he is pulled down with exhaustion. He is caught by a strong grip that never hurts and propped up.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Mumble through and no one will notice, the irritation at poorly enunciated speech earning a sharp look and the snap of hands together in a disapproving slap.

SPEAK UP

“Is this another nothing like all the other nothings?” Minseok asks and when Luhan looks he doesn’t see the same warmth, but the concern is back, the vague annoyance and the strong sense that Minseok is watching him and can see that he has more to him than a pretty face and a handsome body.

you’re like a girl

NOT.

“What other nothings?” Luhan frowns and pulls back. His eyes are dry, his mouth tasting sour.

A long sigh and a head turned away followed by the snap of a computer closed and the hand leaves his, cold and disconnected and Luhan wants it back. There is silence for a while as Minseok stands, gathering up his papers and his notebooks and his pens, shoving them back into his bag and Luhan watches him.

don’t go there.

“Are you coming?” Minseok asks, standing with his bag slung over his shoulder and looking down at Luhan expectantly. His hair is sticking up at the roots from his fingers pushing through it so much while he studied and Luhan comprehended.

“Where are we going?” Luhan stands, barely noticing as he pushes his things into his satchel, packing away and the weight of his journal feels like it never stops increasing. So much. “And am I allowed to continue using you as a pillow?”

“Dinner,” Minseok tells him, and the conversation from before feels distant as it begins to fester in the back of Luhan’s mind. His eyes flash and Luhan wants to step forward, to push him back and push into his space. Make the space his. Test, just to see. The eyes fix and pierce and Luhan likes them there. “And no, you may not.”

“Please?” His hand finds one smaller, wrapping around it and pulling, fingers slipping to lace and hold, to tug in intimacy that he needs, that he wants. That he should have. “You’re so comfortable to lie on.” Lips spread in a crooked grin, amusement spinning amid the warm molasses that coats his chest and rises to his head. “I don’t know why I never lay on you earlier. It was clearly a poor call in my judgment.”

“This is why you have me to tell you when you’re being an idiot,” Minseok says, using their linked hands to tug Luhan around and pull him from the alcove.

When Luhan met Joonmyun, sitting with his knees together and perfect posture and eyes that lingered too long outside of the social worker’s door on the first week back at campus, he had paused and blinked because Joonmyun was pretty and told Luhan he didn’t think he was real. Joonmyun compartmentalized everything and hated his work ethic and hid his face because emotions made him ugly. Luhan told him they didn’t even if they did.

Joonmyun clung to him, in his own demoralizing habits affecting only himself initially as his fingers clutched Luhan’s and held him as if he would pull away at any second. It was sweet at first but it bled into him like poison into a water source and Joonmyun’s hands closed too tight around him. His hands were small and desperate when he reached out for him, and it was easy for Luhan to let go from their feeble grip.

Joonmyun’s hands were about the size of Minseok’s currently with fingers curling around his own. The difference is that Joonmyun wanted from him just as much as he pushed onto Luhan and it never was anything Luhan ever really could have wanted. The difference is that Minseok has never asked too much from him and the hand around his is strong but never in the way that it would clutch and pull until he had nothing left.

Joonmyun’s hands still clutched, thin tiny digits swallowed as they vanished beneath Yifan’s too large hands that were handsome and strong but Luhan couldn’t breathe in with the simplicity of everything else.

“I have you for other reasons as well,” Luhan says, stepping up closer so that the pull of hands isn’t a test and that instead it is a balance and he can walk with Minseok and raise his chin in confidence. “You’re very convenient.” Minseok laughs quietly, mouth stretching in a smile as he places Luhan’s sunglasses once more over his eyes and looks to him.

Luhan looks back at himself, tinted in metallic pink and yellow and brown as Minseok’s copper tinted hair brushes just over his eyebrows and the top of the lenses. A skewed image of himself and the hair rises on his arms as the smaller duplicate images of himself wink at him.

don’t worry, you’re more handsome on the inside.

such a wonderful but strange and unique child

The hand around his own clenches, holding tight, holding fast and then makes to let go and panic shoots through him. Automatically, his fingers tighten and hold. don’t let go of me I don’t want to lose you. I am tired of losing the things that matter to me Minseok gives him a look that is confused and tentative as they walk back into open air and away from the quiet whispering between walls and the night sky spreads above, his fingers loose in Luhan’s grip. “You can let go,” Minseok tells him, the sunglasses irrelevant now that it’s dark and shadowing his face.

“I don’t want to,” Luhan tells him, shifting his grip so he can slide his thumb over the smooth skin at the back of Minseok’s hand, pressing just slightly at the dip between his thumb and forefinger. “What if I like holding your hand? What if I want to hold your hand?” He plucks his sunglasses from Minseok’s face, folding them carefully and one handed before slipping them into his pocket. “No one is cool enough to wear sunglasses at night.”

Minseok laughs, and his fingers curl back around Luhan’s, sating the nagging writhe that had begun in the bits of his abdomen. “Not even you?”

“I might be an exception,” Luhan laughs and it rings through the air and with the hollow tones of bells from towers signaling the end of the day and the advent of night’s darkness.

◦❀◦

The choice of the mess hall is ruled out when Minseok makes for it, Luhan dragging him away with a frown on his face and a laugh on his own as the stars shine and watch them with unblinking eyes and appraisal. His room is immaculate, hours spent as the clock ticked and his limbs leadened, finding things to do as the mirror waited with bated breathing.

“Why?”

“Because I refuse to eat shitty pizza and that’s all they've been serving this week,” Luhan explains as he drops his bag on his desk and automatically unloads it. Notebook on desk, pens in proper place, minimal paper to their appropriate piles. keep it safe whispers as he pushes the journal that has begun to look black around the edges, worn and disgusting, into the top drawer and snaps it closed. “So what do you want?” the list is endless from the small menu’s carefully stacked at the side of the door.

The bed is sacred. The bed is his and only to those who have earned special permission are allowed there. It has seen a few, but not many. The sushi to-go orders scatter over the floor, wasabi and soy sauce kept in small containers to keep from mess and Luhan lies sprawled on his bed and watches as Minseok wipes his hands with a napkin.

“What else do you have to do tonight?” Luhan asks, the mirror in the corner standing tall and waiting, displaying the room in a reversed image and he can see Minseok’s back in it as the other stands in the center of the room.

“Sleeping?” Minseok runs a hand through his hair, striding to sit in the chair at Luhan’s desk. He does look tired, perhaps more tired that Luhan does, though Luhan rarely exhibits how exhausted he is, or that he can ever be exhausted.

why do you refuse me? A delicate crawl up his skin to settle and nip gently at the sensitive cartilage of his ear, caressing at the reactive tissue. why do you reject me and push me away? all I ever did was love you and want to be with you A shiver over his skin as his eyes trail on the curve of Minseok’s neck rising out of his shirt long and smooth and unmarred. Unmarked. Untaken. I want to be with you. let me in.

“That’s boring,” Luhan sighs, reclining slightly onto the bed and watching Minseok. Those eyes linger and the waters lap against the shores, waiting to be tested, waiting for the plunge before complete submersion and the breath is held until lungs burst. “Come here.”

The laugh rings loud and clear in the room. “And get kicked off? No thanks. You don’t let anyone there except Yixing.”

Snap.

“He’s not here.” Tight and grip and the refusal grinds against his teeth and pushes them into sand. “He’s not talking to me and he refuses to even look at me. He’s not there anymore for me.” I don’t want him anymore. He isn’t what I want anymore, he doesn’t want me anymore. I just want to be wanted.

shut up you weak inferior child.

Wincing and Luhan rolls away, trying to block out the sudden shocked look on Minseok’s face and the concern and the trying, trying, trying to see and pull it apart to do something. Luhan doesn’t want Minseok to do something about him and Yixing. He doesn’t need Minseok to focus on how Luhan and Yixing are friends and there are problems because Luhan and Minseok are here, now, and that’s what is important, isn’t it?

“You never left me like he did.” It’s quiet, speaking without him thinking and to the wall opposite him over the sea of blue comforter he drifts upon. “You never told me it was my fault, that you couldn’t stand me and you were always the one that listened to me when I needed someone.” The strong smell of flowers leaks into his senses from tactile memory and the controlled breathing of tested patience looks down at him as he hurts and hurts and is not allowed.

Don’t Let Them See You Cry. It Is Weak. You Are Weak.

no one could ever understand. no one was ever there to understand. no one can ever really know. they must never know.

“I wouldn’t leave,” is soft, careful and still over the stretching mock tranquility of the room, void of excessive noise.

Sharply rolling over, the drive pushing him as he looks and demands, “Why?”

“Because I’m your friend.” Minseok looks confused, his eyes flashing to read Luhan’s face, to try to push past the determination. tell me, tell me why. tell me why you need me, tell me you love me. “I just want to be there for you.”

The greatest way to tell someone you love them is by saying ‘I am here for you.’

“I’m sorry I never saw it before.” Earnest. Honest. Honesty is the most valuable component in a relationship, a key to communication and he will make this work this time. “I didn’t realize, and I’m sorry.”

“What?” The hitch and displacement of breath is easy to pick up on, easy to see when Luhan’s eyes are open, when he is focusing and when he is watching Minseok and sees Minseok and Minseok is the one who has always been there and Luhan is a fool.

It’s so easy to fall in love. It’s so easy to let your heart skip down into a spiral track and watch it spin before being swallowed and the connection to it is so strong you lose yourself every time you try to get it back, broken pieces put back together to try to make it whole. It would be so easy to fall in love all over again even if you know the end result is more unsure than the day you die. Fear of the unknown, fear of that which is unplanned, undetermined.

He isn’t afraid of it.

are you sure you want to do that? the shadow on the wall whispers behind him. are you sure you want to give your heart to someone else? to let yourself be exposed like that again and put out yourself to trust him? look at him.

“I can see you now.” Luhan is looking, and resolution builds in his chest as the flashes in Minseok’s eyes finally register as emotion and not confusion or apprehension or worry. “I was an idiot before and I’m sorry but I see you and I want you to know that.”

“What are you talking about ‘you see me’?” Minseok’s skin is pale, the bob of his Adam’s apple at his throat emphasizing the ivory of his neck and how clean he always is. Immaculate, strong and supportive as the bones within Luhan. Yixing was the soft place, but Minseok is what holds him up. He sighs and it blows through into him. “Did Yixing really say those things to you? Luhan, he cares, just like I care-”

“Really?” Luhan asks, sharp. “You care the same? You’re the same as Yixing? It’s not the same!”

“Is it so bad that I care about what is going on?” Minseok protests, leaning forward in the chair and the air in the room spikes, cracking and Luhan feeds off of it, the energy fueling him where he is nearly dry. I told you to rest, I told you to come to me and let me heal you “You two have always been so close and seeing you two like this isn’t right. I’m worried about you”

“Why?” tell me.

“Because I care!” Minseok’s face cracks with insistency, the tender edge breaking through where Minseok cares too much and his borders are crumbling down into nothing but his truths. show me, lie naked before me in all of your honest being and let me see you for what you are and let me in to everything that you are. “Because I care so much about you, Luhan. I care and I can't stop that.”

“You care so much that you love me.” Desperation rushes out and he shakes with torment at an intake of breath and exposure shining from a core. tell me Now.

The face before him isn’t relieved, it isn’t consoled by the truth being thrown into the open for him. It is apprehensive, as if Minseok thinks Luhan will reject him entirely. He swallows and it’s buying time, it’s stretching too long and too thin and Luhan’s restraint is being tested to the limits as he waits and waits and yearns. “Of course I love you.” Scream through the storm and slam from behind as it burns into him in furious fire.

Minseok who so rarely dates. Minseok who always stays close and never stops watching him and keeping him in his sight and there and Luhan never thought about it but now that he does, he can’t stop. It’s all he needs.

I am all you need.

SHUT. UP.

“Then love me,” is the crack over the swell of raw passion that threatens to smother him before he can live with it. Within arms reach Minseok is frozen, staring when he should be coming and embracing just as he’s wanted to do for so long. “Please, and let me love you.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” the barrier is littered with fissures, the last step and the hearts quake in the static silently crackling between waiting for the shock. “We- you, and I-”

“I know it took me so long,” I’m sorry “but you’ve always been there, and always loved me,” don’t look at me like you never knew “and please just let it be my turn.”

I deserve your love. I need it and I will do you justice and give it back if you give it to me. Give it to me, give you to me, give me, let me, hold me and let me hold and everything will be ours as long as you never leave me. As long as you love me.

“You’re the most important thing in my life right now,” he quietly admits, feeling the shudder of his whole spirit through at the verity of the statement, the ring that resonates in him as his eyes fix on the one person who matters most. “I don’t want to lose you. I never want to.”

“You won’t lose me,” is the soft admission and it makes him reach out, palm open as the lotus in the mire waits to be taken and adored for the beauty that it represents. “You could never lose me.”

Despite the words which hold the pieces and keep the heart agitated with apprehension in Luhan’s chest, when he moves, reaches out, Minseok pulls back, as if burned. “I’m not going to hurt you!” Luhan protests. don’t pull away, don’t refuse me. come to me, come with me, crawl to me and wrap into me.

bend him and break him until he is nothing but ours.

Luhan does not share well.

I am you and you can share with me because you will still always have him just as you always have me.

“I don’t want this to change,” Minseok’s voice is harder, more definite and he’s serious, wanting but serious. He always was so sharp, always far more perceptive and less romantic than Yixing ever was. Than any one Luhan has ever been with.

The lack of romance never meant he never cared, just that he was quieter where Luhan was loud and calmer where Luhan was wild and gentler where Luhan was pandemonium. It is the perfect balance, the perfect push and pull and Luhan has always had it with Minseok. It was always there. Minseok has always been there and now when Luhan wants him, he’s stepping back.

“Is it really so bad if it does?” Luhan asks, voice hanging around a whisper as his hand remains in offer, extended from his body and his heart, beating raw and bloody in his hand as the longing shade of increasing eagerness towards an end that is so close. “Is it really so bad if we both want each other to be together.”

“But Yixing-” Lacerations down his skin and into the crying heart begging to be accepted. Tears of blood dripping down his hand and to the floor, painting into patterns of flowers and the most elegant of roses from the gunshot wound at the back of the head as weakness soaked the carpet.

“This isn’t about Yixing.” I want you. “This is about us.” You want me, I can see it in you.

anyone who doesn’t love you is a fool. anyone who doesn't desire you with every fiber of their being is fraught with error and blindness. Hands press against reflective glass and push to break through, eyes boring into him, not his eyes but the cavity within where all of him lies in wait.

Luhan watches Minseok with bated breath as Desire and Futility gently teeth along the edges of his neck and tease over the sensitive spot just under his right ear.

“I don’t want Yixing.” TrAItor. “I want you.”

There is a brief flicker of doubt, a moment where Luhan reads the suspicion that he is not speaking the truth, the spindling curve of lusting smoke around his arms and settling into his chest put into question. “Are you sure?” A voice hushed with the last fragment of uncertainty.

Would Luhan want someone like Minseok?

you deserve nothing but the best and to settle for less is to be beneath yourself and your worth. never let someone make you feel as if you are less than you are.

“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.” - Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

“Yes.” The palm open and waiting is filled with the press of another, dropping moments later as hands fist into the front fabrics above chests too short with breath and Minseok tastes exactly like Luhan might have expected. Neither is he gentle and neither is he rough but the unrestrained force that hits Luhan as he is pulled down and in and harder, closer, faster, more, more, more into the dizzying entity that is Minseok is nearly drowning.

“Yes,” flutters from his lips as the hot press of lips trail down his neck, searing against skin and his hands fist so firmly in garments that are too many begin to ache with the force of his grip.

are you happy?

“Yes,” pants to the air against lips just brushing against his before the air cuts and he can’t see for the fog cast into his mind.

are you pleased?

“Yes,” disintegrates into a moan and not from him, skin slick and hot to touch and intoxicating as his hands explore.

“Luhan.”

do you feel loved? The press against his back as Minseok rests into his front, the bite of another mouth and another fire burns, raging higher and higher and the structure of the universe bends and shakes as systems malfunction and he cannot stop.

“Yes,” is strained and caught in his throat but he forces it into the air, bending to wills and letting it all press to him and imbed him in the feeling of being everything, his eyes catching on the mirror at the sight of three and his core pierces through all.

“What changed?” is asked with quiet wavering, curled on the sea of blue comfort and with Luhan’s fingers painting down the curve of Minseok’s spine, resting to him. Minseok is smaller than Jongin, but he lies with Luhan and has none of the need that the other man had, the dependency on Luhan to guide him. Minseok has never had that. His eyes don't shine when he looks at Luhan now, cleared and honest and full and Luhan allots himself a brief moment to look between them before closing the short distance and feeling the small curvature of Minseok’s mouth fit against his once more.

Slow, unrushed, unhurried and calmed after frantic exploration was cut with a gentle relaxation of kisses and the quest of mouths to the soft resting press together as breathing calmed.

Not yet.

when will I have you?

Soon.

“Nothing changed,” is the murmur Luhan presses to Minseok’s waiting lips and pulls them closer, eyes closing as he wraps himself in himself and the warmth of the air and the feeling of strong holding and structure that exhales with every fall of Minseok’s body against him.

Luhan sleeps, resting in warmth and tranquility, for the first time in weeks. Luhan sleeps, and he is at peace.

◦◈◦

The water laps against his skin, cool and refreshing and he looks up into the violet and pink sky, eyes opening slowly as liquid seeps into his ears and leaves him waterlogged. The sky above winks with eyes and stars and planets and loom out of the hazing swirl of the colors, blending into each other in a constant dance of motion. His lips are sticky and his limbs too heavy to move so he closes his eyes.

The warm water that caresses his skin begins to repeat, an ebb and flow against him like the water breaths into his skin rather than maintains solid form against Luhan. He realizes that he has nothing between himself and it, lying weightless in the surface tension, the soft encasement around most of him, pressing into his skin with equal pressure as he reflects back.

In his ears begins the gentle pounding of a heart, echoing at the same cadence as his own and low clouds begin to brush over him, opening his eyes to opaque whiteness freckled with light copper dust.

Luhan.

“I am enough,” resonates from his chest, words mouthing into the air as his neck tips back, the curve of vertebrae creaking as he looks behind and his mouth gapes wide, the rush of fluid into the maw and filling him, jaw unhinged. “I am everything.”

The cool feeling of chemical composition oxygen and hydrogen married for life purpose is soothing against his eyes, so raw before and now cared for. Through the haze, he can see a figure approach, strong and sure, a vision in the glaze between the waving flow of water and air. He blinks, slow and with solution dripping before opening to see with clarity.

A perfection smiles down at him, eyes glinting through to him and mouth small and blushed with pink, smiling at him and the love within bursts to skate in flames along the exposure of himself. Luhan. Do you see me?

“May I never look away from you,” breathes with the swell of a storm, building within him to a hurricane of desire. “May I never love another as much as I love you in this moment.”

A brilliant smile of white, flashing to him as arms open, strong and lithe with muscle and with a golden sheen to their excellence. The spread of glory and true surrender unto him as his body burns and alights with fervency of which he has never known before. To look upon and see such a visage is to crack the skull along the surgical lines. Remember rumbles through the fabric of the complete. Remember that none can love you as I do. For I see you in all of yourself.

Along the prickling surface of his front, vines and weeds begin to sprout, breaking the delicate film of skin and leaking blood in pin pricks of pain, the plants slowly secreting with them an oozing black that drips and fuses with the blood that gentle seeps from him. A disfigured cry works up from his lungs before soft nimble fingers cradle the dip of his chin and entreat him his head to raise.

Precious is the press of lips as exemplary against his own as the glimmering paragon possesses, soothing to him the hastening of his self as he succumbs into evanescence. Do not forget who is the most important person, resounds into a concussive weep as he bends into submission and confirmation. Do not forget me, Luhan.

“Never,” cascades to quintessence as the decay wilts away, leaving the burnished reflection of flass displaying the rooms within his bosom. “I could never.”

I am yours, skims along his shell and litters into oblivion as the strings of ardor are pulled within. And you are all of mine.

Take me for your own.

The chasm of rapture dilates in the recesses, careening to a cataclysm of euphoria in the splintering lament of self.

◦❀◦

There are two weeks left until the end of the semester and the sun is hot and sticks clothing to skin as the students all finalize their last minute schedules and assignments. The campus is both emitting stress and carbonizing into exhaustion littering the lush greens and the spots of rare shade along the walkways. Summer is approaching and with it the prospect of a break and a rest from the rigor of academia and, in some cases, the chance to build upon future and careers.

The phone in his hand flashes a text message and Luhan replies quickly, a smile upon his lips as he considers the sender. It has been a good week, and even the disapproving stare he had initially been met with when he walked into the long familiar room with white walls and sterile atmospheric pressure softened when he explained.

Two weeks and Luhan will be in the city, the smog separate from his space of accommodation by the glass of windows and décor to his preference. The stipend for the internship had been more generous than he had initially thought and his smile broadens as he remembers the brush of Minseok’s shoulder to his as they looked over potential furniture for the unit.

“You know I’m not going to be staying with you,” Minseok had reminded him as Luhan asked about the desk and table set that were cheap and do-it-yourself assembly. “I’m going to be living at home and commuting.”

“But you’re still coming to stay with me sometimes,” Luhan had reminded with a knowing grin as he twined their fingers together and watched Minseok’s mouth curve up into a reassuring smile. “And I want it to be comfortable.”

“It will be,” was the promise made, the lightness of his steps over the campus paths towards the afternoon lectures is more than Luhan has felt in a long while. It’s freeing, the change in everything dramatic and yet nothing at all. They are the same, but there are just simple additions that make it brim just on the edge of fantastic.

Minseok still tells him he acts too cool and is full of himself and smiles indulgently at his jokes while making his own and scolding him for his rash behavior. He also fits into Luhan’s side as he belongs there and doesn't lean too hard, the only exception being when his hands press flat to Luhan’s well defined chest and his lips suck Luhan down into mindlessness.

It isn't like any other time, not even with Yixing, and Luhan finds his mind straying constantly to man who was once his friend and now pants hot into his mouth and rests warm and secure with him in the dark when Luhan counts away the seconds and minutes to the sound of sleeping.

People wave as he passes them, exchanging kind and amicable greetings as he walks to his afternoon class and thinks of the final term paper nestled into his bag, waiting to be turned in at the end of the lecture as he leaves behind another year of University and looks into the future. Exams are approaching fast and while the primary events are all lining up for the arts groups and the musical department, Luhan finds himself exhilaratingly free.

nothing is quite like the bliss of being in love, purrs warm against his ear as he closes his eyes and relishes in the kiss of sunlight to his skin. nothing is like the feeling of being loved.

The phone in his bag no longer resides within a black case, the decoration sleek and soulless but instead the hand-picked design that was chosen after suggestion and vague argument and brought smiles to lips that were felt against skin in the later hours. The phone in his bag is laden with messages, from his friends, who seem to have swept back and linger around the fringe all with tentative and appeasing smiles for his approval. There is no number beside any names save for one, and the most important name is filled with stupid hearts and sardonic retorts that all spiral into jokes only for them.

Two weeks and Luhan raises his head to the venture into a professional world to progress and grow, flourish and prove himself worthy. He will not repeat last year; he will not fail.

Luhan is stronger than anything from before. The set back from the year prior was not his to blame for, the fault rather lying in the poor judgment calls of the company and the physicians who mistook his strength and virtue as weakness. The set back from this year written over and over on pages of notebooks and hidden away in a desk among a thousand other case files, will soon be nothing but a figment in the past.

The lecture room is hardly filled, students yet to arrive and Luhan more than punctual as he arrives and takes a seat near the front of the room. He eases back, phone withdrawing from his bag as he scrolls through the applications and messages. An email from Duas Lunas, explaining the first few days of work and the materials required and duties expected. An email from his mother backed up by twenty that he ignores to deal with later when less distracted. An update of one of his applications, his timetable for the rest of the week and a smile spreading over his lips as a new message flashes over the screen.

Minnie - the dance company is doing their show on Thursday.  Are you free to go?

Leaning back in his chair, the windows across the room gaze in at him, students in the room unaware of the second pair of eyes watching the lone figure in the second row of seats on his phone. The eyes watch him as he ponders, adjusting the grip of his hands around the phone and wets his lips slowly.

It’s been over three weeks since he last exchanged pleasantries with Yixing, catching his eyes occasionally and the old familiar longing slowly is shoved and jammed down to rest with the discarded remains of everything else that has failed.

The failures spreading and growing into a desolate wasteland of useless shells of people that were never worth his time filled with regret and bitter disdain.

From the time spent and the time in between though, Luhan knows and can understand, can see the connection that Minseok still needs, still wants to have with Yixing despite his faults and Luhan isn’t a cruel person. With a sigh he taps the phone back into life and lets his fingers fly.

To: Minnie - yes. but only if you sit with me

.

He smiles as the message sends, looking out over the room and through the windows. The eyes look back and his smile fixes into appropriate image.

Minnie - where else would I sit?

you can’t hide from me, Luhan.

To: Minnie - my lap

Minnie - public.  Shame?

He smiles wide and light as a few more students walk into the room, chattering loudly and filling the room with loud buzzing nonsense, a good distraction for the constant rushing in his ears. His eyes focus on the phone in his hands as he types back to his lover.

To: Minnie - I have none with you

.

His smile grins as the minute ticks by.

Minnie - gross ♡ 

The professor walks in, and after a final glance, Luhan slips his phone away and focuses his attention on the designated superior of the room.
designated and undeserving

Represent the best version of yourself you want people to see. Show them exactly how you beat them at everything they car. Never let them take from you, never let them in.

Luhan earns a smile as he drops off his term paper at the end of class, chatting a few minutes with the professor and getting a warm smile before he turns to leave the classroom and walk to the next point of destination on his schedule. Follow the linear sequencing and connect A to B to C and arrive at exception.

Fingers type an absent addition.

To: Minnie - would you rather be somewhere else?

Minnie - no

In two weeks time, the sounds of the city will be filtering in through apartment windows as furniture is assembled and the summer beings, setting up for experience and the adherence to a path set in stone long before free will became involved.

make me proud

You try so hard whispers through the summer breeze as it runs fingers through his hair and teases him gently with a light nip at his ear, shivering own his back. You try so hard, even though you are the best. even though You cannot improve any more than this.

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.” - Harvey Fierstein

Where is there to go when he’s already achieved up?

○❂○

42. 36. 98.296-39950. A.

I’ve realized something. I suppose all of life is about realizing things but there is, I suppose, an aspect of such a general life practice.

People talk, all the time, of being perfect. Of being the best of the best and doing the most amazing thing that there can be. We have a book of world records that updates every year by individuals attempting to be the most amazing thing that is possible and end up doing foolish acts to get there. Where do they go after that? Do they have some sort of life revelation that they’re idiots and go back to their pathetic excuses for lives after that, or do they try to do something even more ridiculous and unnecessary?

In short, I’ve realized everyone, EVERYONE, is stupid. There is no reach for the sky, there is no limitless ceiling. There are limits, there are bars that are set and do not move and when a person passes them it is only for a short time before they fall and destruct into bits.

Horrible pointy nasty worthless bits. Lying all over the floor and making such a mess of our world and the place we live and try to call nice.

NO one is perfect. There are exceptions of excellence, but the idea of perfection among so many is subjective and moronic because they’re all so stupid they have no idea what makes a person perfect or not.

Everyone I know is imperfect. My fuck up of a friend Yixing, my friends who all end up being simpering little bitches and lap up for the next bit of attention because they’re so damn desperate. My professors who specialize and rationalize and preach and act as the holy gifted on their subject material.

I can teach their fucking classes. Knowledge isn’t power; power is power and you’re a fool to think differently.

Power is what you get when you own everything in your life, when you have everything and when you can do everything as the best, when you know what excellence is because you are excellence. People spend years telling themselves what the best is and how to become it and I, I have mastered it.

There are issues, as there always are issues. Ideally I would have everything as the absolute best, instead cursed to constantly be searching for something that UnderSTands just how important I am, just how lucky they fucking are to be near me and sharing my air. Someone who knows Who I am.

I have love, which is what someone is supposed to have. It is my right and Minseok does his best.

I love him,…opl……. ~~I love him so much sometimes I can’t think and I odn;t know hwo ilovebe ujfaheo hlpto sgir ME~~

I love him.

~~HOW cn youe LOVE HIM GF yougjiencanr;t bloeve youtgusFl. Youcantleth love ANYEONE~~

I love him enough. Enoughn..g that he deserves. Love ismore important to keep thatn to givem.

~~DEFECTYIVE~~

Love is mine and I am me and I am waiting, spending and biting through time for the best. I am absolute and I will find it.

I will find. Me.

CAN YOU STILL SEE ME. CAN YOU STILL HEAR ME. ARE YOU FUCKING LISTENING TO ME BECAUYSE YOU CAENT; GET AWAYJ. YOU CA N N E V ER….

HIDE.

I love myself. I love myself. I love every inch of my self.

you can never forget about me

◦❀◦

The room glows warm, the air conditioning turned off and the air moves through the slow oscillating fan in the corner of the room. The sky outside is overcast and it’s late afternoon and his attention is divided, between the dinner after this in celebration for the end of the last week and the phone calls he has to make to cement everything.

His skin sticks and feels like perfectly formed and molded wax as he half melts into the couch before a foot that taps gently, hooked over a knee as a clipboard rests on her lap. She is wearing glasses today, a new pair. Luhan tries to think if she was wearing the same glasses the last time he saw her, but it all mixes together into an insignificant blur over the back of his mind.

“It’s nice to see you again?”

“Is it?” Luhan nearly laughs at her, the stupidity of the question. What is it worth it to her if he comes here or not. Unless she gets a pay raise for him simply gracing her with his presence.

“I didn’t know if you would be coming today.” Soft, calculated speech that follows a specific pattern and timber and Luhan is exhausted of it. It’s all the same. He could probably do her job for her, listening to college students whine about their lives to her for hours on end and give them life advice. “It’s been a while since I was sure you would show up in my office. You had me concerned.”

“I’m alive.” Obviously. “And I’m here.”

She smiles and it’s warmer, kinder and it has him nearly faltering. Almost, nearly, hesitantly but then the pen in her hand moves and it breaks and he’s back to straightening his back regulating presence. “So, what do we talk about today?”

“Would you like to choose today?” Always so calm, so composed in all of her inquiries. Sterile. “Has there been anything new that’s happened in your life.”

“I got an internship and a boyfriend and made Dean’s list.” Again. Listing of the significant life changes and progressions and things which matter when people ask you questions. No one ever wants to hear about the lack of sleep or the journal that has very few pages left in it, nearly a year old and stuffed into the back of his desk drawer so no one can ever see the words within.

“That’s great.” Of course it is. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” So polite and formal and regal and piled with etiquette and propriety it reeks of roses and hand cream and dust. Long banister stair ways with dead eyes in the photographs of dead worthless people and tainted blood. “I’m very happy.”

so very happy aren’t you glad you’re happy aren’t you pleased with your life choice haven’t you done the right thing?

Not here.

A serene smile wanders over her lips and Luhan watches her, waiting for the next move in the game.

“What do you fear?”

This isn’t one of the normal questions. Not the ones that Luhan is used to, where she asks him how he thinks or feels about something, what he did recently and why he did it. This has him looking up from the spot on the wall where he’s fallen into a comfortable stare.

“What?”

The line of the therapist’s mouth presses thin, edges curving upward in the mockery of the smile she previously had boasted. “What are you afraid of, Luhan? What is the one thing that you fear most?”

“I don't know,” Luhan says automatically, the notion of being truly afraid of something, one specific thing, is a bit strange. “I’m afraid of heights,” he concedes after a moment. “Heights and large dogs and…”

The blank vacant expression that had looked up, unseeing from within silks and softly smelling too strongly of flowers and death flashes before his eyes. The weakness of the skin as it lay before him, waxy and lifeless. The bitter taste rises at the back of his throat, crawling up into his mouth and Luhan suppresses a shudder at the slick feeling of blood between his fingertips.

“And?” prompts Taeyeon, her legs wrapped in nylon and the makeup on her face concealing the person she really is under all of the prestige. “What else do you fear?”

Mouth pressed in the thin line that makes it look less the light tempting curve, Luhan looks at her and breathes to keep his hands steady. “What does everyone fear?”

She tilts her head to the side, studying him. “Do you fear dying, Luhan?” Her tone isn’t patronizing but the question is enough that he still meets her eyes with the same hard look.

“No,” he says, lips stretching in a smile. “I don’t fear the unknown.”

The vast stretch of the future and the cageless ceiling that spreads up into the night sky and swallows objects and sound and light. To fear the unknown is human, but Luhan is beyond that.

The unknown isn’t what has the slight rise on his skin and the itch to pull at his fingernails until he feels them connecting with a tug.

“Then?”

People will say that not everyone dies alone, that sometimes there is always someone with you, taking those last moments and holding your hand as the life you once had slips away, slowly seeping from the body and vanishing into nothing. They all lie, because at the moment that the last breath will leave Luhan’s body, that moment when he is truly in the last moments of his life, there will be no one with him.

She waits, crossed legs and crisp white shirt a pleasant offset to the black blazer that looks far too hot for the weather and the room. Luhan says nothing for a long time.

“It’s okay to fear death,” she finally says, leaning a bit in her chair as she looks him over, pen rising and posing to write. “Many people do.”

“Thank you,” Luhan says, his voice distant on his ears, the phantom feeling of slipping into nothing, warmth leaving his flesh as darkness consumes him slowly tickling at the edges of his mind as the light glints against her glasses.

◦❀◦

SCS - Luhan, please remember to contact the man whose name I gave you last time we met.

SCS - Luhan I really think, even if you may not agree with me, that this will benefit you in the end to continue with the sessions.  I won’t be able to see you, but he can and I highly recommend him.

SCS - Luhan?  Please contact him?

SCS - Luhan?

◦❀◦

Summer is the best season, in Luhan’s opinion, as he steps through the doors of the smaller studio apartment with one last box. It’s already blazing hot, the air of the unit slightly stuffy despite the open windows and fan already blowing at the top setting. He can feel the bead of sweat drip down the back of his neck and clot into his shirt, seeping into the material as he pants and drops the box on top of the last one he brought up.

“When did you say the internship starts?” calls from near the kitchen area, the apartment strewn with a mess of furniture, moving boxes, and the suitcases used for Luhan’s clothing. It’s summer, but he’s entering in as a young professional, so clothing like the low cut sleeveless tank he’s wearing isn’t an option.

You could make anything look good. put you on display and wrap you in iron and trash and you’d still shine. the most attractive one, they all say. Minseok doesn’t know how lucky he is for you to touch him, to love him, to have you at all. he doesn't understand.

“He does.” Turning up from unwrapping a few plates and glasses, Minseok raises his eyebrows in question. “On Monday.” In the heat of the summer, Minseok has on a shirt similar to his, a size too large because it doesn’t belong to Minseok and Luhan likes the look on him. “I like you like this,” he says, smirking as he steps into the kitchenette and slides his hands to rest over Minseok’s tight abs though his shirt, fingers playing with the hem of his tank as he pulls him back into his chest. He yields, but doesn't turn his attention to Luhan.

“Unwrapping plates?” is the blithe answer and Luhan leans to nip gently just at the curve of his boyfriend’s neck in punishment for the comment. For ignoring him and for being teasing. “I should do it more often I guess.” He leans into the touch, though still doesn’t turn to Luhan with his full attention.

“Wearing my clothing,” Luhan corrects, resting and even if it’s hot and the air is stale the solid weight if Minseok in his arms is something he isn’t willing to sacrifice right now. “It looks good on you. I look good on you.” Minseok’s skin smells of salt, still clean from the shower this morning before they moved him in and Luhan closes his eyes, breathing deep and filling the head space where it feels fuzzed and precautious when he’s focused elsewhere.

When the more important thing than his constant attention to a schedule which is no longer founded on academics falters in between and his eyes are drawn to the hand which rests in his own.

enjoy it while it lasts.

“You prefer nothing,” Minseok chuckles.

“Are you offering?” Luhan grins against the skin of Minseok’s shoulder, warm against his lips as his fingers slip under the too long hem of the shirt and tease gently, a curl tugging as he wants. Now.

“Have you looked at your apartment?” Minseok points out, shifting under the touch and pressing harder back into Luhan, knocking his head to Luhan’s and gently nudging him away. Luhan’s fingers climb further under, seeking the soft warm skin and ripple of muscles and a shuddering gasp. “Go unpack your house,” Minseok pushes back harder, putting down the plates and turning to him.

Good.

Leaning in to find lips that slide with sweetness and push back just as much as he presses in and drive Luhan forward and down as the pound of his pulse rocks against the dull throb at the back of his head. It is allowed, and the shiver that runs into his hands has his body giving a throb as he leans in, seeking more, testing and tasting as Minseok tilts and allows access to plunder the cavern of his mouth.

“Come on,” Minseok pants out, fingers gripping into the strong muscles of Luhan’s arms as he pulls back and Luhan’s mouth follows him. “It’s not even my house and I’m doing all the work.”

“This is more fun,” Luhan counters, grinning as his thumbs rub along sensitivity and earn him a shove back, laughter at the game as Minseok turns and heightens the intrigue.

“Unpack your apartment,” Minseok tells him, glancing over his shoulder with red lips that are swollen from Luhan’s claim. His eyes flash over the small space, the ends of the hair at the nape of his neck damp with sweat and the fading marks down the side of his neck and scattered over his shoulders, marking him claimed have Luhan lingering. “Go!” Minseok demands, delivering a light kick in his direction with a pointed look and Luhan scoffs before turning.

System. System. Categorize, organize, plan and fixate and perfectly lay out the formula of the apartment and Luhan feels the sweat drip as he perfects it. By the time the furniture is set, his effects unpacked and placed into a proper location, he can feel the tension that symbolizes exhaustion drawing up his skin and digging it’s teeth into his cramping muscles.

rest. No. just for a little while. No. why do you reject me? you don’t reject him and you know I’m better than he ever will be.

“Shut up,” hisses past his teeth as his fist clenches in hair, pushing it back from his face and feeling the nasty slick of sweat against his palm. His jaw draws taut and the hot air of the room presses too close.

“What?” Swimming in a mix of dimmer light that streams through the windows and the vague illumination from the only lamp in Luhan’s possession, Minseok’s figure swims in copper and black and light toned skin, steps away from him. The gleam in his eyes is question and the feeling in them is concern.

always worrying about you. he doesn’t trust you. Stop it now.

“Nothing,” follows a sharp inhale as Luhan’s hand drops, hanging limp at his side with fatigue accenting the lines of his vision. “Just nothing.” They’re done, skin disgusting from the labor of setting up the apartment in an afternoon, but it is the vision Luhan projected. A small space of solace and the interlude between spaces.

“Is it always that answer?”

The noise from the city is the soundtrack to the conversation as neon lights and street lamps pollute the falling darkness outside, blocking out the long beautiful stretch of the vast limitless night sky that swallows everything into itself.

It’s Luhan’s turn. “What?”

“Never mind,” Minseok says and a smile blooms over his face, pliant and serene as he looks at Luhan and the haze around him clears, the room settling into clemency. “Just forget it,” he says and closes the last few steps between them, his hands sliding to rest around Luhan’s neck, tangling into his hair and tugging him down to his lips. His eyes are closed as Luhan’s droop, the easy pattern their lips follow together as Luhan’s hands wrap around him, pulling them flush and savoring the low moan that drags from Minseok’s throat as he ventures into his mouth.

The glaze in the eyes that look back at him, lips red and wet from his own ministrations, have Luhan wanting more, to do more, take more, claim and peel apart the layers until Minseok is stripped under him. Instead, he is left with Minseok leaning up, pressing a faint lingering kiss and pulling away. “I’m going to shower,” is the explanation. “You should see what kind of food we can order. I know there were fliers outside.”

“I look terrible,” Luhan protests, watching as the skin that stretches up his lovers body exposes while Minseok tugs his shirt over his head and drops it in the hamper strategically placed.

Minseok laughs. “You never look terrible.”

Good.

“Except sometimes when you laugh.”

Luhan glowers at him, the expression the strong point rather than the intent behind it. “You love me anyway,” he reminds and Minseok laughs again, stepping into the bathroom and glancing back just before the door clicks.

“I do.”

for how long whispers against the nape of his neck, pushing into the hairs damp with sweat. for how long will he love you though? how long will it last this time before he, too, leaves you?

Not this time rattles around in the structure stability of his mind sanctuary, the walls being now fortified by strong pillars that show cracks as they keep suspended the open chaos center above, the images and visions and organization flickering across and bleeding together. It’s okay, it will be okay, they will be okay. Luhan will ensure that things work even if he has to break things to make it bend in the way it should.

Across the room, propped against the wall, is the full length mirror from his room back in university, no jacket over it and the splash of light over it from outside paints along the background with Luhan as the centerpiece. His dark hair is tousled, unstyled yet still flawless in it’s own manner and the sheen of sweat over his skin makes him alluring.

The air is suffocatingly hot, the light breeze of the fan oscillating around wafting into Luhan’s clothing and with eyes fixed on his reflection, he reaches to swiftly draw the tank off, over his arms as they shine with muscle and strength. It’s been over eight months since he began, and in the dim light of the room, his eyes linger on the firm lines of muscle with push from under his skin, fingers tracing again the lines of brawn and his eyes pull down and around.

Lips parted and with the faint sound of the shower filtering through the apartment, mingling with the noise of outside, Luhan’s gaze drags in a slow appraisal of himself, the hard defined curves of his chest and torso, the lines that lead down to his hips, faint and distinct muscles of his abdominals and the strong jut down to his groin. His collarbones stand in beauty above his sternum, leading out to shoulders no longer weak and small and his arms flex and form into power. He breathes in, watching himself and his eyes fix on their match.

like what you see?

“I always have.”

A brilliant laugh echoes as his mouth stays shut, the noise from outside and the lingering patter of the shower the only thing to fight it as he rings and rings and crawls into the corners of the room. Luhan watches himself and hears the laughter and frowns because it isn’t funny.

does He like what he sees.

“How could he not?” Luhan can play games. Luhan is excellent at games, the push and pull and the tug of war over who wins and who is left in the dirt. “I am faultless to a key.”

The shower water stops and Luhan’s heads turn to the side, watching and waiting for the reappearance. Luhan’s skin sticks with sweat but he does not move.

we could have him together.

“I don’t share.”

I am you.

Twist and clench, the jump in his pulse when Minseok opens the door and walks out with nothing but a towel and asking for a clean shirt. He shoves Luhan off, telling him he’s gross and to shower first and earning a laugh as Luhan retreats. Minseok is staying, the move an unknown period of time and his home outside the city too far.

The food cartons lie stacked nearly on the kitchenette counter as the lights fade and the air is too hot but it doesn’t stop the slow tantalizing brush of lips over lips, lips over skin and the sensitive pads of fingers drawing over far more sensitive flesh.

The sounds are maddening as they build and build and fit to a cacophony that rages inside his head and slams into him as sheets sling.

It’s too hot as Minseok lies, skin pressed and half sticking to his in the darkness, closer in the bed made for one. It’s horrifically strangling hot to lie together but Luhan wraps his arms tighter and inhales to fill himself and never allow the hollowness to manifest.

He closes his eyes to shut out the other aspects of the room and to focus on the slip into sleep.

◦❀◦

The first night in Luhan’s new apartment, he sleeps for the first time and lets himself relax in over a month.

The first night in Luhan’s new apartment in the city with Minseok lying beside him and with his hands stretched to press hot into skin, Luhan dreams of crimson skies. He dreams that the earth is too hot to touch and the crash of a mouth to his that is sweet and familiar as hands he has known since he first opened his eyes rake scalding over his body.

The first night in Luhan’s new apartment, he watches with hooded eyes in a bloody background as faces morph and shriek in agony before he looks back into himself. He watches with rocks in his chest and daggers in his throat as his hands cup his face gently and mimicking lips press and never before has he felt so perfect and loved. And just as the breath dissolved, so does he watch the love disintegrate with the wind as if spun by sand. FIND ME slashed into his skin as he ran to reclaim and be whole. He ran as the ground fell away and opened up into the satin silk that stretched into every direction as dead eyes opened and stared with no emotion as he plummeted and the face before him melted into his own, a crimson massacre pooling behind him.

It’s been months but he wakes up to his throat on fire and screams so loud in his ears he can’t comprehend his surroundings. It’s been three months and this time there are hands on him, shaking, violent and savage and he lashes out, terror gripping around him like a vice as fear shatters through the glass dome of his sanity.

“STOP!” bellows and his eyes meet the glass reflective as all heat drains from him, his own face glaring through the darkness with teeth bared and cruel grip around his wrists, holding him down and forcing him into abject obedience. DO AS YOU ARE TOLD. DO NOT DISOBEY ME.

The screaming doesn’t stop, only rises as he fights and with a roar, flips because this is HIS. The screams flood from his own lips in tattered ruins.

“Luhan!” yells out in fear and with wide eyes he sees his hands wrapped around Minseok’s wrists, pinning down as he looms over and it’s too much.

“Get out.” Ragged edges which rip when touched and the walls bend and cry black for him. You cannot tell Me to, “Get out!” A broken dreadful dragging sob to sit beside a face forever dry. I will never leave You, Luhan.

Minseok leaves and Luhan never wanted him to.

◦❀◦

To: Min - I’m sorry. 

Min - I’m at work.

To: Min -  I didn’t mean for you to leave. It wasn’t about you, I promise.  Just come back.

Min - you told me to get out, so I did.

To: Min - I can explain.  And it was never meant for you. I would never tell you to leave. I love you.

Plot, seduce, entice and beckon back with words of love. Remember to remember to remember to love. It is the most powerful force that any one person may know.
I told you he would leave you

Please leave me be.

◦❀◦

The building is new and the floors pleasantly clean as Yoona greets him, a smile on a surprisingly pretty face for working with a bunch of engineers. She laughs when Luhan compliments her and her long hair falls down her back. She’s pretty, and her eyes take him in appreciatively.

as she should.

The first day of work isn’t rigorous and intensive, mostly his department head, Mr. Cho who introduces himself as Kyuhyun showing him around and explaining a few things about the position. Kyuhyun wears a light blazer over a dark gray tee-shirt and shakes Luhan’s hand with a wide grin. A desk is provided for Luhan to set up at and a computer which looks no less complicated than the ones he’s ever used before.

“Welcome to the family,” Kyuhyun says, hand resting on the back of Luhan’s chair as he leans over and smiles at the computer screen, the company logo as the desktop background and the air conditioner is silent, keeping the area comfortable. The technical and actual product teams are going to be more separate from where Luhan is positioned, working on the hands on design and product testing of the ‘fuel cells’ which the company specializes in.

“Do we get to work with them at all?” Luhan asks, frowning as he looks at Kyuhyun and the way the older man sifts through the packs of paper the latest designer had just dropped off for him and explained using complicated jargon about circuitry. Kyuhyun flashes him a look. “The designers.”

The smile is kind but it hinges on condescending. You are an intern, You have to wait until they look up to You. prove to them that You are worth admiring and show to them that You are the best. Yoona had mentioned wanting to see what he could do, and Luhan will soon have the patronization of the system hierarchy under his thumb. He works hard and fast and he always comes out on top.

“We don't work with them all that much,” Kyuhyun informs him, back straightening as he turns to hand him a stack of documents. “I think they prefer it that way. They seem to think that we could never understand the true beauty of code and circuit boards.”

“Code,” Luhan repeats, trying to imagine the aesthetic of beauty in a running stream of numbers across a paper or down a scrolling screen. He thinks instead of the stretch of skin and the sound of soft gasping breaths. He thinks of doe eyes and pink lips. He thinks of strong hands neither pretty nor manly and exhales. “Right.”

“Some people have different ideas of what is beautiful,” Kyuhyun muses and Luhan allows himself a brief moment of evaluation of his new boss before storing it away, reverting to the state of obedient intern. Do as he is told and do what is expected before passing the bar and standing above.

On his desk at around three in the afternoon, amid the beginnings of paperwork and the analysis of the company structure and division specification, stacks of the latest product designs waiting for him in open PDF file son his computer, his phone gently hums against his thigh.

His mother, his cousin, his lover, his therapist, and the man who once called him ‘best friend’. The apartment rent is covered by his stipend on the internship, the allotted money keeping him supported over the summer season as his time and energy outside of work is to be expended how he wishes.

Two and a half months of independence and the abandonment of walls that watch and whisper.

The messages wait for him to give them his time, his energy, and grant satisfaction as he instead turns to read over the latest analysis on a long term battery compressor which will be both helpful in the case of transportation and the long term military placement of soldiers in Afghanistan.

For two and a half months, no one owns him and he owns everything.

He smiles as Yoona brings a coffee later, black and bitter and without sugar and he takes it with a pleasant smile and knows she is charmed already.

It’s so easy. It’s always so easy.

◦❀◦

It’s too hot, the windows open and the fan blowing air through the room but it does nothing to alleviate the nasty perpetual drag of heat that wafts into Luhan’s mouth and pushes into him like smothering pillow.

Shirtless, legs stretched out before him, he briefly rolls around the idea of calling up Minseok, the texts stretching long on his phone and the days three since he last saw him. They are both busy, Luhan preoccupied intensely with his internship and mastering the position of Kyuhyun, learning his secrets and methods and getting to know the other staff at the company though chatting during lunches and in between shifts.

They have a company soccer team, and he pushes off plans with Minseok to run around the field late into the night at the local part laughing and yelling with Minho and Kyuhyun, blood pumping through him and pushing him harder and harder and harder. He remembers the single games of soccer with Minseok back at school and eyes his phone briefly, but they haven’t played in over a month.

They have other things to do now. It’s not the same.

Zitao - Luhan.  Are you busy these days?  We miss you at home :c

The message buzzes on his phone and Luhan’s eyes linger on it, the light pass of air between his lips drying them amid the heat as the dying rays of the sun cascading through the window to the center of the floor. The whole space of the apartment appears suspended in the golden light that streams in, enunciating the parallel between light and shadow.

It’s been a while since he’s been home, his time available to see Zitao and Sehun minimal despite how Zitao always manages to text him something interesting about his day (or relatively so). He still gets messages from Sehun, though they’re mostly just random lines of text that he amuses himself with and always end ups up with five lines of laughing dictated.

It makes him smile in amusement as he mulls over the composition of his phone and the people included on it, in his life.

Min - Are you still visiting tomorrow?

The pad of his thumb swipes over the locking key.

To: Min - Why wouldn’t I be?

Min - I just wanted to check because you’ve been so busy lately.

To: Min - Of course I’m coming over, don’t be ridiculous.  Unless you want to stay here.

The deep breath and exhale try to smooth the lines of his face and do not succeed. Standing, he walks with bare feet over the floor, the floor the only cold surface for him to rest upon as he passes his desk, his bed, the small couch, television, mirror, set of draws and the light of the setting sun streams in constantly. Pausing he watches he refract over himself, looking down as he phone in his hand remains still.

The lines shine in fire, coruscating over him and it is a sight to behold.

you have always been a sight to behold.

such a wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous boy you are who shines and radiates and will be nothing but the best

The air is hot as it clings to him and pulls beads of water from him to drip and make him brilliant. you will always be the most magnificent thing to ever exist.

Skin itches, the slide of fingers assisted by the sheen under them and it’s not enough, wanting and hungering for more.

To: Min - Come over

Min - When? Now?!

To: Min - Yes.

Min - I’m busy.  I have things to do.

To: Min - What could be more important than me?

Min - Me?

A laugh bursts loud and resounding as it shakes apart the dust from the recesses of the room, the screen of his phone remaining stuck on the open text and the question which is so, so foolish.

To: Min - Don’t be stupid

.

◦❀◦

Such his mood and spirit and his pride, none gained his favour.

◦❀◦

The city is so much quieter at night. Rather than the life that seems to constantly palpitate along the lines of the roads and clamber up the sides of the buildings, spilling higher and higher up into the atmosphere, at night it settles down into a strange eerie stillness. The only sound that is prominent in the room is the soft whir of the steadily rotating fan, positioned in the corner and aiding in the circulation of air through the room, attempting to prevent the space from morphing into a metaphorical human oven.

Sheets stick and cling against the gross texture and lingering day over skin, a form stretched out without care as to where limb is placed over the neatly made bed. The coverlet, the dark blue folds lying in a horribly folded heap on the floor, stripping the bed down to just the barest of cover, the body resting on it in similar state.

Fingers gently card through hair, pushing it back and the action is soothing, calming for Luhan’s restless minds as his body and thoughts remain awake and fight the natural instinct that soaks into him to surrender to the luscious tendrils of sleep.

is it because I'm here? Fingers draw small incomprehensible patterns on the mattress, the meaningless action far better suited for the skin of a lover currently absent. A call and seven texts unreplied to and Luhan’s displeasure simmers just under the film of sweat along his brow. is it because You know as soon as You surrender, you’ll finally be happy?.

“I am happy,” he murmurs, the light timber of his voice elegant even to his own ears, words enunciated from years of refinement and meticulous criticism. “I am.”

Hours dropped in twos and threes and the stretch of four too far as it jerks him panting and thrashing in the darkness, the lingering of high wailing and shrieks skittering along his skin and burrowing into the walls around him. Soon, they too will begin to whisper. About him. About what they see.

He closes his eyes, the view of the ceiling above him the only thing that he paints along the high arching expanse within, over the eye blinking stars and the cosmic spectrum of chaotic flow. The ceiling so boring and simplistic with shadows that stretch and rarely move, only shifting when the passing of a car drifts through the open windows and alerts him of it’s presence.

Another drunk soul stumbling home late. Another woman or man returning from the arms of a lover and feeling the lasting marks against their flesh and branded into their romance.

Where is his lover to distract him?

Seven unread text messages and one missed call. His phone lies with the battery remove on the small dining table near the kitchenette, ignore and refused as the hours of the night stretch on.

what if he calls you? shakes up the curve of his arm, the delicate brush of fluorescent rimmed fingers traveling over the strong flat of his stomach, swirling just about his chest and never touching, only teasing, testing him and waiting for him. what if you so called faithful lover tries to contact you? asks you for your love and tries to shell more of his own out, feeble as it is?

Distance and lethargy droop strong shoulders that he curls around and pulls the energy from, feeding into what he knows and holding when it hits the collapse. Minseok doesn’t take care of him like others had done in the past, but neither does he require Luhan to take care of him.

It still doesn't fit though, something beginning to wear at the edges as his vision blurs, the edges of the ceiling blending in as the shadows creep together, forming into mutations and he watches him passively, waiting for something. Anything.

maybe he doesn’t want you anymore. It crawls, the blackness, over the pitted surface of the ceiling and drips down, peppering along his skin as fingers pale as morning light tenderly appreciate with mock contact over the lines of exposed tissue, shivering at the faux brush over him and the temptation to succumb to it. do you still want him? all of his flaws and his inability to cooperate, to be here now when you need something from him. to give you what you want. the brush of air against his ear, skin awakening into shivers as the heat presses into him and begins to curl within. Licking over the heated skin waiting for the last string to snap and to surge forward into the caress.

I can give you what you want.

“You don't know what I want.” It's hollow, meaningless because the truth is the opposite when what he wants is what he knows and there is no use with arguing what is apparent to both sides before the quarrel begins. His throat constricts as laugher presses into him and he forces his eyes open to trail over the lines once more and conjures up images of copper hair and a face so often mature and composed with eyes open and a heart beating frantically in the bleeding gore of his hands.

don’t forget me, Luhan

The clock ticks and the mirror stands and waits the edge of his vision. He refuses to turn and instead waits for the sound of the next passing car, counting down the drops of blood in his capillaries and the breaths between stepping into work the following morning.

◦❀◦

I can’t.

◦❀◦

It’s becoming frustrating. Horrifically, irrationally, unnecessarily frustrating and Luhan’s teeth grit to keep from lashing out. He can feel the skim against his skin of eye cream to hide the darkness that has begun to set there and which leeches under his fingernails as he types up documents for hours and hours and hours on end.

“You can’t do that,” Heechul laughs at him, longer hair pulled back into a knot at the base of his head as he looks at Luhan and his desk scattered with papers, files, haphazard arrangement he doesn’t have the patience for at the moment. There are random machine parts, little divits and screws and the base plates of circuit boards scattered in between and this is out of his range.

“I can’t do what?” Luhan asks, forcing his voice to remain calm. Maintain, keep breathing in to the space between your eyes and fuck the holes that rip through the gauze of tranquility. Fuck through the calm features until the writhe and beg and pants into his mouth and his arms shake. Fuck it. Fuck it all until his hands are so wrecked the blood on them and from them is indecipherable.

Heechul is still laughing and Luhan hates him with every fiber of his being.

“The code script,” Heechul says, reaching over his shoulder and pointing at the document Luhan has been typing up for the past three hours. He fails to see the relevance of doing this when he’s here for a business experience and not to file up secretarial work and do grut assignments. This is bullshit. “You can’t write it up like that. Plus, you’re missing a line.”

Jerk and turn and look, eyes bloodshot and aching racing over the screen, searching for the mistake. There can’t be. “Yeah,” Heechul says, leaning close so he’s right beside Luhan, invading his personal space and getting into his central nervous cortex of ire. “Right here,” his finger taps the screen, the wavering of the LCD screen as the crystals are displaced. Luhan thought that an engineer would know better than to touch a computer screen, the idiot. “You’re missing a line of code here. Look.”

Invasion of space as Luhan watches Heechul shuffle the papers on the desk and find the lines Luhan had been copying from. He tightens his jaw, keeping his mouth closed from snapping at the older man, his superior for the slight.

“You can see where Kibum made the edits. He wrote the new line of code in the margins here.” Eyes that are far too sharp, flickering with intelligence and confidence snap to him. “I thought you would have noticed that.”

“It was a mistake,” Luhan says, nodding in consent as the words harshen on his tongue.

It’s become a cycle, him being dragged into working with Kyuhyun on the moments when he isn’t packed with paperwork, the notes and files growing higher and higher and there are no specified deadlines our schedules he can follow. Just the drop by of Kibum with a cup of coffee at his lips hollering “By Friday, work bitch” before disappearing into the design sector and leaving Luhan with a workload already full and now further burdened.

The ability to manage and organize and properly construct time and focus begins to crumble and as the nights drag on, the interactions between internship which is nothing but grueling grut work and missing calls and ignoring Luhan’s patience is scraping bottom.

Order.

“It happens,” Heechul says, clapping a jovial hand on Luhan’s shoulder that does not belong there before moving away, shaking his long bangs from his face. “Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect.” Luhan does not like Heechul as the man grins at him, eyes glinting in jest. “Except me, of course.”

Luhan hates Heechul.

He had expecting upon applying to the internship that he would be learning, training himself for life after university in which he moved on an accelerated course through University and into the professional field, climbing the corporate social ladder to the top rungs by hard work and perseverance. He had expected hands on experience, not engineers and technicians speaking a different language than the two he was brought up with and giving him patronizing looks when he stood with Kyuhyun and went over the details of the latest design concept.

“What’s wrong?” answers over the phone when Luhan stands during lunch, temper bristling in the break room bathroom and with his forehead resting against the cool tile of the sterile walls. “What happened, are you okay? I got your texts and tried calling you but you didn’t answer.”

“You’re free tonight,” Luhan demands rather than asks. “Tell me you are free tonight.”

do not refuse me.

“I had a meeting but I can cancel, what happened?” His voice is worried, shaking and rushed on the line and Luhan latches onto it as hard as possible, eyes closing as he concentrates on the voice in his ear that is not his own and the cold tile against his skin. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Just come over tonight.” I don't want to discuss this. The topic is closed. Just shut up and do what I tell you. “Stay over.”

“I have an early shift tomorrow,” slips out and Luhan’s breath catches angrily in his throat. “I can stay though. I’ll just call my friend.”

It catches, the mention and Luhan realizes he didn’t think before but now he thinks about it, he had no idea Minseok was going out with someone not him tonight. “Who were you going to see?”

Tell me now. Tell me who is obligating your time. Who is taking you away from me? Why are you spending time with them what do they have that is pulling you away from me?

I’m not going to let you get away from me. I won’t let you go. As long as you love me, I’ll hold onto you forever.

“It’s just a friend, it doesn’t matter,” Minseok explains softly, sounding tired and distracted. pay attention to me when I am talking to you. “I’ll be over at seven? Or is that too early?”

“Who was it?” Tell. ME. The rushing of water begins to flow in from the back of his mind and flood, drowning in heat and anger and possession. Luhan doesn’t share, Luhan never shares, Luhan should never be asked to share. Ever.

The pause between question and answer is too long, making it worse as the silence stretches and Luhan waits for the word that will burn holes into stone. “I was going to meet up with Yixing.”

Cold and stoic ram over the cracking of wrath and Luhan doesn’t want to speak anymore.

betrayer.

Remorse spreads and there is nothing Luhan can do. This isn’t his choice, this is Minseok’s decision and he is naught but a simple observer in this field of calamity. “I see.”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it might upset you.”
Slowly constructed of the blood, sweat and tears of men, walls rise from the earth and block out the attacks of others, of foes and of those who desire to do nothing but hurt, do nothing but destroy. The walls begin to build, draining the core components that keep him alive as they rise around the crumbling pillars that hold everything up.

“It’s fine.” Lies through lips that feel of acid. “I understand.”

“Do you still want me to come over?” It’s tentative, as if worried Luhan will reject him, will pull away and will throw him away.

Minseok who was always there, who picked up the call and who stays with him even when so many others drift too far out of reach. The stable skeleton that resides in his closet and keeps wanting to see the light of dawn play across the delicate span of his skin.

It belongs to Luhan, all of him belongs to Luhan.

what if he doesn’t feel the same as you? what if he doesn’t care about you really? Leave him before he leaves you. don’t you remember?

such a small perfect wonderful boy. My beautiful son

they all leave you. you can never trust any of them.

The crack of broken tile snaps through the air and blisters into the throbbing flesh of his hand, broken and oozing the color of life down his palm to trickle past his wrist and envelope into the cover of shirt. Hiding the disfiguration as his shoulders shake violently.

Dull it down, push it down. Imagine the space between your eyes and SHrEd It.

“Luhan?” comes fast and louder, worried.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he says before snapping the phone closed.

Turning with head bowed, heartbeat pulsing in prominence in his hand as he shifts, eyes unseeing as they raise. Rise up, sweep over the image before and see all that there is to see. Rise up, be all that there is to be in oneself and embrace that which you are and hold nothing as dear to his heart. Rise Up, and break through the dawn with the cry of a newborn and the energy of the most resplendent tempest over the earth.

Hands press against the back of the glass as Luhan’s rest at his sides, a crooked smile on lips that gaze back at him and speak of power and lust, eyes dancing and he knows it all too well. He can see it, reflected in the eyes there as they soften and transform into a softer key. As they take on gentility and they radiate compassion and understanding and love.

“What are you going to do?”

The smile that shines back is breathtaking and beautiful as his own pulse drips gentle and weeps to the slowly dotting tiles.

◦❀◦

The click of the door is all he hears. Then it's just the gentle hands that slide over his back and awaken him from the focus he’s driven into, sitting at the table and looking down at the blank surface with nothing on it.

“I’m sorry.” The voice that is already soft and sweet, gentle and laced with understanding, that which Luhan got so familiar hearing constantly, with him always and even when he never thought about it, there it was. Minseok was always there. Minseok is still here.

Eyes that look back at him and are a reflective copy have his heart pumping at a faster pace than is typical and the breathing focus exercises is all he can do to keep things moving at a gentle pace without the horrible tang of anxiety creeping in under his tongue. The soft drip of precious liquid ruby hitting the floor the only distraction from the unwavering look of himself back and gazing directly through him.

What are you going to do?

The smile did nothing but run his blood colder and send the throb even worse than anticipated.

“Why are you apologizing?” He’s not angry anymore. The withdrawal from a workspace where he’s treated as ineptly substandard and ignorant gave him time to focus, to quell his simmering temper. Luhan is not an experience electrical engineer, not like Kibum and Heechul and has none of the expertise that Kyuhyun does with his team of engineers. He turns to smile, reaching to take one of Minseok’s hands on his shoulder and reveling in the strength he finds there.

The strength that has been beside for so long, the strength that he tries and tries and which remains and he leans without sinking. Strong and steady and there for him when he needs it. When it matters.

Breathe in and expand the space within the chasm and breathe out the putrid darkness. Make that space within yourself just as beautiful as the physical representation.

“I don’t know,” Minseok says and then laughs, small and nothing more than a chuckle, fingers lacing with Luhan’s easy as they twine together. “I guess it’s mostly because I just haven’t really talked about it. I know you guys…”

A darker look shadows over his face. Doubt, worry, concern, fear and Luhan squeezes his hand.

He is patient. He will be kind. That is what is required in love. And he expects the same courtesy to be paid to him should the instance ever arise.

It’s been almost two months since Luhan and Yixing had really seen each other, and oddly the absence of the other man in Luhan’s life seems to not be as raw of a wound as he thought. He misses him, naturally, but he has come to accept that Yixing’s decision was his own. It heartens him, because in many ways, if Yixing hadn’t shown his own stubbornness and refusal to be with Luhan, he would never have what he does now. In a strange way, Yixing’s blindness and selfish rebuttal was what pushed Luhan to open his eyes and see that which is so much better. To see Minseok, the one who could be all the things Luhan wanted, and needed, and deserved.

Luhan doesn’t want to let go of Minseok, despite the moments of tension between them. He’s tired of losing things, and he tightens his grip.

“But you didn’t fight with him,” Luhan reminds, voice merciful and silken as he looks up at Minseok. Looks up at the one person he has closest to him in the world right now. “That wasn’t between you two. That was between us, and you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Why did you fight anyway?” The question is one that he’s obviously been wanting to ask for a while. Minseok is the eldest sibling, the peacemaker and the one who observes rather than partakes but he knows what happens and he is as close with Yixing and he was Luhan. The shift in their relationship does not change that Minseok is still in contact with Yixing, that he elects to continue that friendship.

Luhan has to learn that this will be something he has to deal with, something he must accept. Just as he has to accept that the loss of his best friend was something he couldn’t control, Yixing’s own refusal of him and his attempt to help him from branching into a darker field and people who would hurt him.

It doesn’t mean that he wants to discuss that with Minseok, to explain the details behind his actions. For all that he knows, Minseok was never aware that Yixing was still in love with him, and he doesn’t want to burden him with it.

He doesn’t want the guilt of being with him now to taint what they have which is so beautiful. As beautiful as it can be, at any rate.

“It’s not important,” Luhan says, turning to look over the table towards the windows out to the streets and the common masses that span in every direction. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“It’s not about me worrying about it,” Minseok sighs, heavy and long as his hand pulls from Luhan’s leaving it cold. He steps back leaning against the edge of the table, hip digging in and Luhan misses the feeling of his hand against his back too quickly. stay. “It about what happened between you two. You have been best friends since before I met you two, at one point more than that, and I just want you to know you can talk to me about this.” He bites his lip, trepidation creasing over his face. “About anything you need to. I’m not here to judge you, I am here to love you and help.”

Don’t let them see how weak you are.

“I don’t need to talk about it,” Luhan tells him, ending the topic. It’s closed, off limits. “I don’t need help for this, it’s not something that I need to dwell on. I am okay with you two remaining friends, but Yixing and I-”

“What about him?” Minseok asks and it jars something in Luhan that he had never expected to feel.

“What about him?” Ice frosts over his lips, fogging his breath as the words linger between them. “I just said I don’t need to continue this. I don’t need his friendship. We're both better off without it.”

“But what if he needs yours,” Minseok asks, and one of his hands comes to rest flat on the table as he looks at Luhan. As he takes authority over the conversation, the air of being the one in control, the elder and the one with more authority on the manner settling around him. As he questions what Luhan has done and is doing. As he questions what they’re doing. “He misses you, even if he doesn’t say it explicitly, and I know you miss him, even if-”

“How do you know if I miss him?” Invasion. They haven’t talked about this and Minseok has no authority to be telling him what he does or does not feel about something; about someone. Anger bites down hard, tearing into supple tissue. “I don’t.”

“You do,” Minseok corrects him and his tone is so sure that is shocks him, sitting back in his chair and moving back.

“This isn’t open for discussion,” Luhan says, voice firm and Minseok’s mouth snaps shut. Luhan doesn’t want to talk tonight, just to unwind and not think and not over organize and let himself free and have comfort. He doesn’t want to have a long conversation about shit headed friends who choose assholes over him and how his boyfriend is still concerned over a failed friendship between two people. “This conversation is over. We’re done.”

Shut it down.

“What if I don’t want it to be done?” Minseok pushes and Luhan closes his eyes, letting out a long irate breath, turning from him. Fighting is never something he truly enjoys, the energy of it growing and swelling to pump hot energy into him like a drug. Tonight is not the night for this. Luhan’s patience is gone, and he doesn't want this now. “What if I do want to talk about this?”

“Then you can leave,” Luhan snarls looking up so fast his neck flashes in pain, spiking up the back of his skull in a knife of white pain and he winces in anger and irritation. “Then you can leave and I won’t stop you.”

yes you will.

He’s not going to leave.

how do you know?

Minseok’s eyes are wide with shock as he looks down at Luhan, arms limp at his sides and the comfortable outfit he must have thrown on after work today suits him. Mundane. Luhan’s lips incline to curl but he keeps them straight.

“What?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, and if you do then you can leave,” Luhan speaks low and serious, his tone neither threatening nor wrought with emotion. “I just wanted to be with you tonight.” He sighs, the stretch over his skin too thin, too taught and his eyes are too heavy.

The look on Minseok’s face softens and he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t leave as instead smiles warmly and stays.

Luhan breathes in triumph and serenity. Minseok stays and gives him a pointed look when he checks the refrigerator for food. He doesn’t bring up Yixing again, even as his phone rings, simply pocketing the device and suggesting they go out for dinner instead. Luhan slips their hands together, breathing in the chemical infused air of the outside from pollution and he and Minseok walk to a small restaurant and he drags them to a café after, smiling at Minseok’s pleased expression before kissing it into himself.

Luhan was wrong, that he will admit. He was wrong about Yixing and his friendship with him and being able to rely on him to be there when Luhan needed him. It was one sided, flimsy and he should have known after the first failure that it never could be something he could rely on. This isn’t the friendship with Yixing, the other loving him under all the friendship. This is balance, pushing and pulling and snapping back together.

He and Minseok don’t have their own strange mental connection, finishing each other’s sentences and being too close for others to categorize and that’s why it works. Because he and Minseok are different and Minseok loves him without forcing himself there.

“I was so late,” he whispers into skin radiating heat, hands sliding through darkness and over familiar patterns and curves of a body that is all too familiar to him now. Yielding and pushing back, Minseok just as much there as Luhan, not clinging and needing from him but instead holding Luhan’s face in his hands as he pulls him in and lets him fall to pieces.

The rush of breath from his chest aches, the shudder of being together as when Luhan rests with his arms wrapped firmly around Minseok, he buries into the foundation he needs. It claws and curls and wraps around him with intensity and he was so late, so late with this whole revelation but he’s never been more grateful to have finally seen what was always there.

“You weren’t late,” presses into his forehead as fingers tangle in his hair and sooth away the throttle as everything he never knew he could feel bulges in his throat like a tumor, cancerous and infecting him but he doesn't stop it. “You were just a bit of an idiot.” He coughs out a dry laugh, eyes squeezing shut as he fights to keep it all.

don’t cry. Never cry. Don’t let them see you cry. Don't let him see you cry.

The cracks that climbed up pillars buckle, the glass shaking and as Minseok’s lips brush against his the ceiling crashes down and collapses, devastating as it rises into silent sobs that shake him into tremors as he holds on and can’t hold himself.

“I love you anyway.”

That's all I ever wanted falls without words from his lips.

Tracks of hot burning water carve down his face and it all crumbles between his fingers.

◦◈◦

He’s lying down, splayed on the bed and on his side. Curled into his arms is Minseok, his once friend, his boyfriend, his lover, and his eyelashes rest soft against the curve of his cheeks. He looks so peaceful, so serene and Luhan’s chest fills at the sight. He lies in his arm, back warm against Luhan’s chest and they fit together, just them, just as they are and it’s immaculate.

Minseok understands, to a degree, and Luhan can rest with that. Minseok stays and meets his stubbornness head on, checking with his ideas and his plans and when determining they are something he won’t regret, he lets him be. There is no second guessing judgment, snapping at him that he’s not doing enough, and Luhan wants to stay. He wants to exist in this forever, the soft orange light drifting through the window and sparkling over the floor as it laps gently at the feet of the bed.

Leaning down, he presses his lips to Minseok’s cheek, warm and soft, and the small sound that Minseok makes in his sleep makes Luhan smile, eyes closing in contentment as he settles to curl closer, arms wrapping secure around the other man’s waist.

That’s cute, cuts across the humming stillness and his eyes snap open. Looking across the room in shock, searching for the voice. The floor is just as always, hard wood and the light filtering in from outside the window is shows that it’s late morning, the fan turned off in the corner and waiting to be switched on. There is no on else in the room, just them.

His nerves buzz.

You two, lying there, wrapped up and him never waking and never moving, a rock weighing down in your life. There is no direction from which it comes, the voice that slices into him and has him pulling back at the same time wanting to curl forward. Minseok’s bare skin is pleasant against his but he feels a creeping cold over his own, wishing that he had thought to dress before bed the night before rather than lying in nothing with a lover who has seen it all regardless.

“Where are you?” he asks, voice louder and sure enough to wake Minseok as he looks around the small studio apartment and searching for the culprit. “Who are you?”

He expects Minseok to stir, knowing him to be the lighter sleeper of the two of them.

He doesn’t move.

A laugh begins, light and happy and clearly entertained, loud around the room and still, Minseok does not stir, Luhan’s head snapping in all directions, eyes searching for the cause of the voice and the laughter.

He knows them.

You know where I am.

In the corner there once stood a mirror, the one Luhan uses every morning and stands in front of for at least twenty minutes, getting dressed and fixing his appearance to acceptability. never let someone see you as anything less than what you want to become. As his eyes land on the corner, the mirror is gone and he realizes why when at the turn of his head, it is standing, directly in the center of the floor opposite him and reflecting himself back to him, eyes wide and shocked, panic lacking down his arms.

The mirror doesn’t show Minseok though, the young man still solid in Luhan’s arms as his breath hitches, copper hair splayed on the pillow. Luhan stares into the mirror and sees himself, shocked, and a replica of himself, lying twined in his arms, smiling delightedly as he lounges with hair falling perfectly over his features and the mischievous glint in his eyes Luhan was accosted for when he was young, burning strong.

He swallows and so does his reflection. Minseok doesn’t move in his arms as the other Luhan turns over, the long stretch of bare skin beautiful as it stands in stark comparison to the dark blue of the comforter stretched over Luhan’s bed. With luxury he shifts and pulls at himself, pressing back and Luhan watches captivate and frozen as the figure in his arms remains motionless. The reflective glinting eyes crease in amusement, a coy smirk dancing over those pretty pink lips.

You know who I am.

“That’s not possible,” Luhan snaps out even as phantom images of too many colors and himself race through his mind and he remembers the feeling of those hands which flex in the mirror before him.

you can’t hide from me forever. The face smiles, a full smile, unrestricted and confident, emanating from him and the heat in his body rises, subconsciously pressing forward as he watches enraptured as the vision of himself rolls, splaying on his back and in Luhan’s arms, breaking eye contact. He watches as his hair falls back, fanning about his head like some sort of angelic halo of twisted fantasies and one of those hands, strong and unique reaches up to grace fingertips against the line of his jaw.

He jumps as he feels it, jerking to look down at the motionless lover in his eyes and the air vanishes from his lungs as he sees, not Minseok, but that smirking vision of himself, eyes alight and vibrant and with fingers slowly sliding to walk along his jaw, tickling into his hair and teasing his ear.

isn’t this better? he asks, those perfectly arched eyebrows rising on his flawless skin as lips form around alluring words. isn’t this what you would rather want? someone who wants you so desperately that they never, ever, part from you and only wants the absolute best for you? Perfect lips curve up into merriment as that hand cups the back of his neck, nails scraping gently against his skin and eliciting a shiver. Luhan stares and is paralyzed, neither moving forward nor away, the draw of the replica of himself too strong.

I’m not a replica. I’m you, all of you that you want to be and can be. He sighs, the sound a wave of music on Luhan’s ears as his cheeks rise into a light dust of rose. He smells not of flowers, nor fragrance, but of fascination, and Luhan’s interest is piqued. I’ve been trying to tell you for so long, speaks the enigma of transcendence resting in his arms. The free hand slides up his arm, warm and making the hair rise in electricity as it shocks into Luhan. If you could only just let me in, let me love you, as I already so yearn to do, then I swear to you that you will never feel pain or suffering again.

“That’s impossible.” His heart pounds with the rising of drums in his chest, threatening to break free and the fingers in his hair clench gently. The body, hot against him, shifts, wanting to move closer, arching slightly off the bed as he hungers for him, himself. “You are me.”

Is there no greater love than this? rushes out as he begins to pant, arching in lust, his body shaking in anticipation. Am I not better than anything you have ever seen, ever know? Am I not superior to that man you so humorously refer to as ‘lover’ now?

Heat spiking along him, Luhan glances up, eyes clouding and narrowing as the thrill of desire pulses through him insistent. The vision in the mirror is of himself, Minseok lying quiet and asleep in his arms, nestled in his arms. He looks like home, like everything Luhan has been taught to know and move with.

He looks like everything that knows nothing about him and liesto make him fall under his traps.

Minseok’s eyes open, bleary with sleep, and fix upon his. His head pounds and beats and begins to throb as Minseok blinks slow and his eyes fall to the man in Luhan’s arms, Luhan’s gave following his.

Come to me urges from the wet and luscious lips below, eager for him, beckoning with starvation as hot skin arches up to meet his and surprise a gasp from his throat. Let me claim you as you claim me and we will be one. Forever

He wants so badly it sets an ache within him that is blinding.

“Luhan,” cracks from a groggy voice and Luhan doesn’t look up to see the shock in Minseok’s eyes as they fly wide, staring as the arms around him yank down, pulling Luhan into a laughing smile and rather than falling into passion, the scene snaps out and flips to black, a howling scream shattering through the still of the room as his mind is ripped in two.

MINE crashes into him as the fading voice of Minseok’s scream is swallowed whole.

◦❀◦

“Please,” cracks out broken and Luhan’s eyes clear, wide as his vision swims back into focus and the first thing that registers is the splitting pain in his side as it rests against the hard ground. He isn’t in bed, and his chest is heaving as if he’s just run a marathon, air burning in his lungs and throat dry and raw. Minseok looks down at him, hair plastered to his face as he looks with eyes that shake in fear.

Luhan realizes the heat against his cheeks are Minseok’s hands, the ache from landing on the floor, and he knows, without asking, that moments ago the room was filled with his voice.

“Why can’t you just tell me?” Minseok’s voice isn’t broken, it isn’t angry or terror stricken. Minseok sounds weary, as if the act of finding Luhan like this is exhausting for him.

As if Luhan is a burden. His chest seizes as he raises a hand to cup Minseok’s cheek, holding him and reassuring that he is fine.

“It’s not your business,” Luhan says, and his voice is ice on the midsummer heat that suffocates the small apartment.

“It is my business!” Minseok rarely yells, but when he does it is impressive. “Luhan, this is my business even if you say it is or not. Tell me what is wrong!”

“There is nothing wrong with Me!” Luhan roars, surging up from the floor and feeling the rush of fury propel him. His grip is harsh, hands wrapped around Minseok’s arms so tight it nearly breaks, his teeth grit as the pressure inside his skull booms. The air is on fire as he stares hate into Minseok’s face.

A stiff doll in his hands that remains rigid in obstinance. Luhan seethes as no breath passes from Minseok’s lungs, held in wait for Luhan to unhand him.

“I just want to help you.” Weary, weak, tired and pathetic.

“I don’t need help,” snarls as black bleeds in the edges of his eyes and covers in shadow, vision shaking in fury. “I need no one’s help.” Hissing met by a grimace as the body in his possession attempts to pull away.

Dark brown eyes close as eye lashes lay to rest against the smooth skin of cheeks and Luhan stands in the desolation of the sanctuary that for so long was the only stability he could hold to in his mind.

why did you trust him? whispers as the world flashes out of focus and the alarm clock blares too loud on the bedside table. he could never understand you.

◦❀◦

The smiles that pass him as he walks into the office the next week are reassuring, back held high and chin aloft in assurance as Luhan walks to his desk and sits down in his chair.

Yoona places a familiar cup of coffee, black, beside his stacks of folders and papers for the morning. “You look happy today.”

“Going home this weekend,” Luhan tells her, leaning back in his chair and grinning at her over the rim of the cup. She has her long hair up today and Luhan’s phone flashes on the desk with a number he now remembers to be one he doesn’t want to answer. Ever. “Going to visit some friends.”

“How far is home?” Yoona asks, intrigued but the look on her face.

A home which is more of a past as Luhan thinks of the time that he spends between University dorm rooms and the walls of his apartment, slowly filling with his life and his memories and the observations which he prefers to keep secrets. Walls never talk, but the ones where his mother resides and waits with cutting judgment whisper about him as he walks along the halls and ignores the creep up his spine.

“Just about an hour away,” Luhan tells her with a smile. “I’m going to check in on my mother and a few friends of mine. Nothing too big, just a quick reunion. Kind of a midsummer event because I haven’t been home. It’s been a while since I saw them.”

“That’s nice,” Yoona says, a true smile flashing to her eyes as she nods, leaning against his desk. “There aren’t enough people out there like you, Luhan.”

He laughs, eyes creasing in amusement at the comment. “Of course not,” he laughs as she joins in.

not everyone can be me.

Taozi - Luhan… Can you please come home this weekend?  I miss you~

“Hey!” has Luhan looking up from his phone, expectancy flashing over his face as he looks over the divide and into Minho’s smiling face. He leans on the barrier between Luhan’s desk and himself, prospective. “What are you doing after work tomorrow? We have a last minute soccer game and thought you could come play with us.” He winks, smile widening. “Maybe even bring that boyfriend of yours. You said he used to play with you all the time, right?”

“I can’t,” Luhan says, leaning back in the chair and letting out a sigh. “I’m going home this weekend to visit family. Leaving tomorrow right after work or I’d try to squeeze you guys in.”

Minho looks terribly disappointed and Luhan offers him a consoling smile in return, wishing that he could play but knowing that to agree is something he can’t do. If he backs out on actually visiting Zitao and his mother, there will be consequences. “Maybe next game?” he suggests, starting up his computer and glancing at the work he has to do today.

It’s gotten a lot easier over the past week, him sticking around the office and shadowing Heechul who seems to have warmed up to him. It helps that Kyuhyun had Luhan doing some of the business promotion with in the beginning of July, meaning that by now, he’s running right on par with Kyuhyun in terms of productivity.

“That better be a promise,” Minho says, stepping away and fixing him with a look. “We need you on the team, man. You’re one of our best players.”

Luhan cocks an eyebrow, the messaging system already popping up and filling with memos from the staff. “Not the best?”

Minho laughs and it’s too loud in the office but Luhan has learned that no one cares much anyway. The standard here isn’t absolute refinement and poise, which is why it’s been so easy for him since he figured out the system. Here they are more casual, and Luhan can calm himself when knowing that even by being in his natural state, he can be ahead.

“Yeah,” Minho laughs. “VIP for sure. So next game you better show up, or you’re buying lunch for all of us.”

“Good thing I’ll be there then,” Luhan throws back jauntily. “Good luck tomorrow.” He winks back. “You’re going to need it.”

Minho scoffs, grinning as he shakes his head and turns away, walking back into the development department with his hands slipping into his pockets easily.

Sitting into his desk and opening up the scheduling program he had mapped out and reconfigured after spending a few hours talking with Kibum about their latest project, Luhan smiles and settles in. He takes a sip of the coffee Yoona brought him and breathes deep before checking the message from earlier and typing back.

To: Taozi - I know you do.  I’ll be there tomorrow night.  Please anticipate!

He closes his eyes briefly and drifts into the rubble that once was the shining mind dome of his core. There is nothing holding up the vast expanse as he looks up into it, streaked with slashes and oozing multicolors.

It’s more interesting now.

Taozi - I always do \o/

◦❀◦

He who approves is equally approved; he seeks, is sought, he burns and he is burnt.

◦❀◦

It's been a long time since the weekend was free for him to do what he wanted, typically the time spent doing other things; alternating between the time when Minseok is with him and his own distracted meandering. Luhan doesn’t object to having Minseok with him so often, he never objected to Minseok’s company before, nor does he now when there is the added rush of hands slipping into his and his own permission to touch, place hands wherever he please and never run the risk of being outright rejected.

Luhan looks back and almost laughs at the time before, when Minseok would push him off or when Luhan would be hesitant to touch, when there was some sort of barrier between them. Like Minseok couldn’t bear the feeling of Luhan too close when he couldn’t touch, when he wasn’t allowed to truly take him and have him. The time when Minseok was not given the permission to be his is passed and is settles Luhan’s mind now to have him so malleable under his fingers.

It’s nice to want something and be wanted in return, the soft play about lips and Luhan enjoys it. He revels in the feeling of being wanted, a few messages already in his phone checking in and reminding him to let him know when he gets back.

Minseok is spending time with some of their mutual friends, fraternizing with Yixing and possibly the group that Yixing now associates with but Luhan will allow it. Luhan is mature and such petty disputes are below him. If Yixing wants to spend time with people who will never be able to take care of him and know him as well as Luhan, that’s his choice. Minseok understands that that phase of life is over, that Luhan isn’t going back to it.

we’re better off without him.

“Go away,” he murmurs to the glass of the bus as it moves to the center of the suburb. “I don’t need you now.”

you always need me, and I’m always here. That’s the beauty of us is that even when everyone else is gone, we still have each other.

Luhan swallows, turning from his reflection and checking his phone, noting the messages from Sehun and Zitao that are both excited to see him and promised to pick him up at the bus.

Zitao is the first, practically running with excitement as Sehun laughs at his childish behavior and Luhan grins in good humor, wrapping his cousin in a tight hug as Zitao practically crushes him to his chest.

“Did you get taller?” Luhan laughs as Zitao releases him and the younger man’s smile spreads so wide his face threatens to break.

He laughs, his whole body shaking with humor as Sehun walks up with slightly less hasty steps and smiles, the stretch of his lips looking too big for what he’s displaying, hidden in his enjoyment. It’s cute, in a humorous way. Luhan can’t believe he’s only just graduated, at the height and way he looks, amazing bone structure already setting him to look years ahead of his actual time.

“I didn't get taller, but Sehun did,” Zitao says, turning to his best friend and easily draping an arm over his shoulder, tugging him close and Sehun leans in with casual practiced ease. “Don’t you think Sehun should stop growing?” Zitao looks at Sehun, who rolls his eyes and stoops to grab Luhan’s bag, moving closer as he lifts it to hook over his shoulder. “He’s so tall now.”

Luhan has to look up to see both of them and his smile isn’t as wide as he looks between them. “You’re still taller than him, I don’t see why you’re complaining.”

“He’s just afraid I’ll get taller than him and then there won’t be anything he’s better at,” Sehun comments as he leans into Luhan and smiles, sweet and eyes sparkling with youthish joy. Zitao scoffs on the other side of Luhan. “I’m already more handsome than him.” He tries to wink and Luhan laughs at him when instead it looks like he winces, causing Sehun to draw back with a sheepish grin.

“At least I can wink,” Zitao jabbers, throwing an arm around Luhan and leading him to his car, parked in the lot and waiting expectantly. “Plus, you’re handsome but we both know I’m sexier than you are. Sexy style AB Zitao.”

“Is that why you look ugly in all your photos?” Sehun asks, his voice low and deadpan as Luhan allows Zitao to open the door for him.

“I do not look ugly, you’re just blind,” Zitao huffs back, flashing Luhan a look that speaks of excessive tolerance and beguilement. The whole ride back to Luhan’s house is occupied by Zitao talking, chattering about his own summer internship at the local martial arts institute as a top instructor as Sehun makes commentary in the backseat. It’s nice, in a distracting half listening sort of way as Luhan watches through the windshield and nods along at the proper moments.

Zitao talks about anything and everything, a flow of words as he gets them home and Luhan focuses on him rather than the faint nagging to check his phone. It’s gorgeous outside, the faint light of the setting sun filtering over the houses of the familiar neighborhood and the fresh cut lawns sprawling to the street. Zitao drives carefully, arguing more with Sehun at the other boy’s comments than pressuring Luhan to talk.

It’s nice not to have to hold up the conversation, and when Luhan does have something to say, both boys quiet and listen to him. Sehun is perched unsafely, elbows on the shoulder rests of the two front seats to keep involved in the conversation, nodding along and looking out the front windshield. Zitao scolds him multiple times to sit back or he’ll die if they crash and go through the windshield.

Sehun laughs every time and hits him on the chest.

“See!” Zitao exclaims, stopping at a red light and turning to shove Sehun back into the back seat, Sehun bursting into laughter as Zitao wrestles with him. “And just think how your handsome face will look after it’s been through one quarter inch of safety glass. What would you have to go on then?”

“My stunning personality of course,” Sehun laughs, loud and high as he shoves Zitao back into the front seat and fluffs his hair, destroying the styling and laughing further as Zitao glowers at him. “I’m smart, Taozi, I’m sure other people will love me for more than my perfect face.” He pets Zitao gently on the face with a teasing smile and Luhan snorts at the exchange, watching as Zitao looks just off the edge of punching Sehun into the backseat.

“What perfect face, you can’t make expression,” Zitao huffs as he shoulders Sehun off and shifts back into drive, shaking himself as Luhan laughs and chances to look back. Sehun’s eyes are creased, almost slits as he laughs quietly and heartily, shoulders shuddering. He grins so wide when his eyes meet Luhan’s, like seeing Luhan’s amusement only pleases him further.

It feels too soon that they are arriving in front of the house Luhan grew up in, the house with the plain front door and steps, the house with white trim and walls and the smell of flowers and lavender wafting through the air. Sehun refuses to let Luhan take his bag, instead lifting it for him with a swift rebuttal to Luhan’s protest.

“You had a full day of work,” Sehun says, placing a hand on his shoulder as he looks down at him with a strange sort of gentility about him. “Just let us take care of you for a bit. Take a break.”

Luhan doesn’t push after that, letting Sehun take his bag and bring it upstairs for him as Zitao smiles at his retreating back, his shoulders far broader than Luhan last remembers. “He missed you,” Zitao says, stepping to Luhan’s side and brushing against him, always one who preferred contact from distance. It was always Zitao who would curl up with him to watch movies when he went to visit his aunt and uncles, crying at the television and getting indignant when they lovers were being foolish.

Zitao was always a huge romantic under all of the muscle and martial arts boasting.

“I missed you guys,” Luhan tells him with a smile. “It’s always nice to have you around. You two seem so attached now, more than when you were in high school.” He laughs as Zitao falters and lets out a sort of chuckle, pushing his black bangs from his tan face, skin smooth and countenance handsome. “Who knew that being apart would make you two better friends?”

“I visit him a lot,” Zitao tells him, opening the door to the house and letting Luhan walk in first. “Coming home and seeing him and the family.” He laughs again. “You know how much I care about family.”

Luhan doesn’t reply, just smiles as he thinks of family, thinks of the house he lives in and how he can already feel it slipping under his skin. “I know,” he says, and lets Zitao follow him upstairs. “How could I forget? I spend holidays with you.”

“But you’re not always home,” Zitao reminds as Sehun appears at the top of the stairs and blinks down at them. “Which is what makes when you are here so special.” Sehun’s face twists into confusion.

“I thought we were going out,” Sehun asks as he looks down the stairs, into the front hall which at all other times is so sullen. “Did we change?”

“Out?” Luhan looks to Zitao and raises his eyebrows at the grin and blush on his cheeks. Odd. “What do you mean going out?”

Luhan has come home for the weekend. He talked to his cousin, talk to Sehun and mentioned it to a few of his other friends from home, all of whom were busy in other parts of the country or working, and talked with his mother who agreed. Luhan has come home for the weekend and is taken out to dinner by Sehun and Zitao as his mother is not home.

“She called me last minute,” Zitao explains, a sorry look on his face as Luhan is hollow and doesn’t care. “She said she had something to do with the company and will be back late. Or tomorrow.”

“It’s fine,” Luhan says, shaking his head and shaking it off and smiling, smiling, smiling because it doesn’t matter. He’s used to being alone in the house at night, considering it’s been over eighteen years since he last set foot in his mother’s bedroom unless out of necessity. “Where are we going for dinner?”

Zitao smiles.

◦❀◦

It’s a beautiful clear night, the moonlight streaming in through the window and the only light in the room the lamp at the bedside table casting a warm yellow glow over everything it can reach. He desk is clear, most of the books stacked and stored away or given to charity out of disuse and the barest of essentials left. A heavy journal, with ink stains and pages with frayed edges from use and compulsion, sits with a blank page near the end open and waiting, a date written and a slew of numbers that mix with letters.

Luhan sits with the heels of his palms pressing in to the sockets of his eyes, feeling the air pass over his lips as he inhales and exhales and focuses on the fragments which float just out of reach of his proverbial mental fingertips. He sits and presses deeper, digging back and pushing darkness further and further into himself as he focuses and sound muffles against the drums of his ears.

He jumps, entire body jerking back at the sound of three raps on the door, turning sharply with breathing elevated to look at the door. He was in the middle of something, a small scowl pasting over his face.

“You’re home,” his mother says, walking into his space with grace and elegance. Her hair is pulled back from her face in a neatly tied bun, controlled and clean, a dress hanging from her slim figure and always so, so pretty. She looks at him with eyes hardly lined in mascara and they don’t speak to him like anything ever does. They are cold, and he cannot read them.

“I am.” Swallow carefully around the shards and sit up straighter. Each vertebrae shifts one by one they align into proper order and push him taller and surer in his chair. “How are you?”

“Good.” She doesn’t ask in return, a polite smile the only thing that graces him from her. “I assume Zitao met you at the bus. Did you have dinner with him?”

“We went out to one of Sehun’s favorite restaurants,” Luhan says. “It was fun. I haven’t seen them in a long while.”

“You haven’t been home in a while,” his mother reminds and it snaps like a whip against wounds.

“I’ve had a lot going on,” he says, voice short.

Nodding, his mother steps back, eyes dropping from her only son as she turns and reaches a delicate hand to the door. “Get some rest, Luhan,” she says, looking back into the room and there is no acknowledgement, no acceptance in her eyes as she smiles at him in that pretty serene way that he finds it difficult to mimics anymore. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night,” he replies, nodding to her in consent as she leaves the door open a crack, just a sliver of the light of his room leaking into the blackness as his fingers tense on the desk. His hands are shaking as the push the remaining space closed, cutting out the darkness and leaving only the last of the light from his room, cutting off the waiting presence of the photographs on the walls and the door that is always closed at the end of the hall.

His hands are shaking as he rests his head on the door, letting the pass of air between his lips take all of his focus as the rubble remaining quivers in anticipation. Outside, the air is calm and still, waiting and the tension from a sky that is cloudless with nothing but starlight watches him and waits.

I am here for you ghosts along the planes of his chest, whispering up the curve of his neck and ruffling against the ends of his hair. His eyes flutter shut and he stands under an ocean, looking up at the rippling waves above him and feeling the press of water all around him. His hands slip down the cool strong surface of the door as the indistinct shapes form above him, disfigured and looking from the surface above the water, and opening his mouth he swallows asphyxiation as his knees give out.

The ache in his chest makes it hard to breathe, the claw gripping his windpipe rendering him unable to speak and call for anything. For anyone.

I am always here for you.

◦❀◦

‘I am here for you’ is the greatest way that you can tell a person you love them. It is the ultimate meaning of caring, showing that regardless of how a person acts or behaves, you are willing to understand that there is good in them, that their actions are because they are in pain, and they may not intend to hurt you at the time that they do something which inflicts hurt. I know you are suffering, and I see your pain, and I am here for you.

I know you are there, and I am happy you are there, and I am here for you and I will always be here for you.

By loving someone, you offer them yourself, your support.

Look into their eyes and say that you are there and they need not fear. Look at them, see them for who they are right here and now and you do not care of their past or their future because in this moment they doubt you and your love. When you say ‘I am here for you’ it is telling them that you are fully there, that you recognize their presence as something precious to you. You see them and embrace them with mindfulness and compassion.

To be loved means to be recognized as existing.

To love means to be there, for how can you love if you are not there?

‘I love you’ can mean so many things. Gratitude, relief, compassion, lust, romance, and obsession are all said with ‘I love you.’

‘I am here for you’ says that you embrace someone entirely.

‘I am here for you’ is love.

◦❀◦

The portrait on the wall hangs as it has for years, faded with time and the faces on it no longer the same. It is frozen in the past, along with so many relics in this house, frozen in a space where they can never be removed, never be changed. It is stale.

“You promised,” Luhan says, barely a whisper that sneaks through the air and clouds over the face of eyes that wept for days. “You lied.”

The strong arms that held him close, water dripping and speckling against his young supple skin, a voice cracking as it wept out. A gentle voice splintered as it promised of future, sweet words that poured into a trembling heart. It’s the sweet things that are always so bad in the end.

The face in the picture never answers him, never answers for the things it has done, the ways that it ruined him, and the way that he is fighting now to purge himself from the toxin that plagues through him.

◦❀◦

To say I love you in return the greatest way is not to tell the one you love that you are also there, but be there in their times of suffering, when you see how someone is in pain and let them understand your presence. When you are suffering, to let them know you trust them. Let yourself experience their love, their compassion, and their ability to love you for you will both grow and benefit for this.

‘Darling, I suffer. Please help me’ slips from your lips. When in love, you want to do everything you can for that person, to share and experience and grow with each other. Love is never a one sided experience, and even in suffering, love can grow. Go to the one you love when you are in pain, go to them and tell them ‘I suffer. Please help me’ as is your duty with them, for if they suffer would you not also want to help them? To be there for them? Let them help you, let them share this openness and this compassion, let yourself love them and them love you.

For even in suffering, you can still experience loves greatness.

◦❀◦

I am here for you whispers over the ruptures and the rubble, seeps into the cracks and sinks into his skin, breaths against the wounds and he shivers. I am here for you and I see you. I am the only one that can, for no one else will you let yourself see in turn. I am here for you, and never will that change.

The waters of a shore lap in silent affection and eyes remain dry despite the desperation to relieve their burden.

◦❀◦

Good morning, Luhan.

Luhan wakes, eyes opening and checks the clock, noting the time to be just past the early morning hours. His alarm should have gone off but he pays no mind, sitting up in bed and stretching. On his desk, the journal from the night before lays open, the page black with writing and markings of pen, strewn over the paper only virgin until the previous evening. Now marked with black that scrawls up and down and across, desperate to fill it and be seen over the white.

you should close it. don’t leave things like that lying around, someone might see them. you don’t want them asking questions, remember?

His mother is already awake, down in the kitchen and dressed, clean and prepared for the day as he runs his fingers through his slightly damp hair from a fast shower and greets her with an automated kiss to the cheek.

“Were you up late last night?” she asks, turning to look at him from the stove.

when will you let me take you again? When will you just let us be? Stop avoiding me, Luhan, and give in.

“I had some things I had to do,” Luhan answers, pulling open the drawer and getting the specific cutlery for a proper place setting. Systematic, drilled into a method and with two knives, two forks, and two spoons every lays out into visual ideal. “For work.”

Laughter and the word lies.

The scratch of a pen frantic over a paper as words crossed out and were replaced and his thoughts all clamored to be put down first, to bleed in black ink onto a page that weeps white.

“The battery company.” She glances at him.

“Fuel cell research start up,” Luhan corrects with a long controlled exhale. Small insignificant facts that are never remembered. “I wanted to get some last minute things done.” Lying splayed with his back to the mattress and the cool of his sheets under him while air lay over his naked form, eyes blurring as the ceiling swamp and shadows crept at the edges of the walls, the light slowly fading into endless static gray. He laughs. “It’s a little weird sleeping without the sounds of the city.”

“You didn’t bring Minseok home with you.” Her eyes are fixed on him, waiting and calculating with cold severity, looking for the place she can stick, the place she can pry, the spot that is wrong and where she can get in. She is looking at him harder than he’s seen her look at him in so long.

She can’t see him.

i see you. i have always seen you. i will always see you, Luhan, don’t you understand?

“He was busy.” Minseok back in the city with texts lagging in Luhan’s phone and the smell of his skin etched into the fabric if his bedsheets back in the city. Back where he’s constructed his new sanctuary and his protection. Back, back, back into the world which he has moved to from this one. Away from decay and history and revolting reminders that are nothing but ugly. “He couldn’t come.”

he chose not to come. you told him you were going home and he said okay. he made other plans. he isn’t here with you now. he’s gone. just like all the others who were never good enough. he’s gone.

“You brought Jongin home,” says his mother and it’s so light, so airy, and slipping just under the shell of her perfect visage. “I liked him.”

The glass in Luhan’s hand shatters, splintering everywhere and falling to the floor, the shards digging horrifically into his palm and fingers as his mother shrieks in alarm, Luhan wincing at the sudden pain as the space within him howls in outrage. “Luhan!” shrieks in fury as her eyes reflect no kindness, only hate.

she’s always only wanted the best. only the best and perfection and everything that seems so impossible. there is no winning with her because she doesn’t see what i see.

“I’m sorry,” tastes of deceit as he looks down at the destroyed glass at his feet. Blood, his own, vibrant and glistening drips down his hands, the shards half buried in his flesh and ripping through the skin. “I must have gripped it too hard.” He looks up at her, an eerie clam slipping around him like a mantle as everything centers on the light pulse he can feel in his hand, the sting and burn and the rising ache.

you don’t need her. what has she ever done for you really? when has she ever been there? she can’t see you, can’t see how perfect you are and all the things you do. she’s blind, ignorant and stupid just like the others who have no idea who you are. they don’t know what you are.

“Are you hurt?” The note of concern has him looking up, snapping his head up to look at her as she stands feet from him, not moving closer.

He shifts. “I’ll clean it up,” Luhan says, making to get a broom and pan, to remove the shards and hide them, to throw them away and bury them to never be seen. Droplets of blood follow him as he walks, speckling floor as he keeps his hand limp, unmoving to keep them from driving deeper.

Beautiful.

anything from you is beautiful. you are beautiful. so wonderful and everything no one else is. if you would only just let us be, i could show you that.

Breaths hitch as he slowly pulls the translucent fragments from himself, invisible but for the red painting over them in a display of life and desolation. His hand twinges as they are removed, stinging as they exit and the wounds try to press back, as if nothing had ever cut into him.

i can make it go away. all the pain, all the agony, all the suffering they make you endure. that wretched woman who claims she is our mother and yet scorns us for our achievements, for our worth.

“You shouldn’t grip things so delicate so hard like that,” his mother says as he returns, broom in hand and the bloodied shards resting on the bathroom sink board from pulling them out moments before, the crimson life blood smearing on the broom handle as it throbs with the beat of his hear. “Delicate things break, Luhan.”

you are Not Weak. You Need Nothing to make you strong.

“I’m glad I’m not delicate then,” Luhan says and she stills. He looks away, stooping to clean up the destroyed glass and averting his eyes from his mother’s calculating survey of his every fiber. The glass tinkles gently as it is brushed to be disposed of forever.

When he straightens up, back tall and strong and with the brokenness in his hands, ready to be removed and replaced with something perfect and designed with absolute precision. When he straightens up, the dark bleeding from him and dripping down with a small dull niggling of pain, his mother’s eyes are on him.

she is never the thing that will make you strong, she only is the thing that stands in your way now. constantly comparing and keeping you in a cage. break free, Luhan. Embrace yourself, embrace your magnificence. embrace me.

Throat open and clear, Luhan smiles at her, the wreckage in the once sanctuary gleaming under the savage display of warring colors against the endless firmament of his mind. He stands and is strong, firm and whole.

Outstanding as the Majesty of the Dawn.

Luhan stands and is defiant against the opposition. He stands and he is everything that he has created himself to be.

His mother’s eyes widen and Luhan stares into them without looking away.

“Aren’t you satisfied?”

There is no smile on his face.

◦❀◦

The noise in the restaurant is drowned out by the constant chatter which goes between the two young men in front of Luhan, seated and talking away as they make their way through dinner and Luhan pays half attention to what it is they are so enraptured with.

The restaurant is nice, familiar, and a pleasant reminder of the places Luhan likes to be when he is home, the places he enjoys spending his time and where he can sit back and watch the ping-pong discussion before him.

do you wish he was here? your precious boyfriend? do you miss him? I wonder if he regrets not coming with you, not being with you when he could have.

Luhan's phone rests quiet on the table beside his place setting, unmoving and without notification appearing for the last few hours. He waits, checking and looking for something new every few minutes or so, absently running his fingers over the surface. But there is nothing.

He is busy.

are you sure he just isn't beginning to move away from you? perhaps he’s lost it, the meaning of what it is to love you. maybe he too is wrong for you, just like all the others. Imagine if he forgets what it is to love you.

He knows better. He knows I won't let him go.

what if he wants to let go of you?

Don't be stupid.

"Luhan?" Blinking, he looks up at Sehun's waiting face, lips pressed into a line as he looks across the table expectantly.

"Yes?" Luhan asks, realizing he's lost the thread of the conversation, too wrapped up in his own. "Sorry, I didn’t hear that."

Zitao laughs, high and loud and with his head tipping back before he nudges Sehun hard. "He's just spacing out," Zitao says. "You were probably boring for Luhan, talking about all your high school things. University is nothing like high school and Luhan is too old to care about how your prom date was such a dud."

"She was nice," Sehun protests before sinking a bit in his chair. "I'm sorry if I was boring you." Luhan blinks, watching Sehun as the young man shifts before him, fingers curling in a napkin. Sehun was always terrible at keeping still and it seems to have carried with him as he grew up and grew older. "It wasn’t my intention. I know you have other things on your mind."

"Or other people," Zitao teases and Luhan's lets himself smirk, kicking Zitao under the table. Zitao yelps and jerks back, a mocking affronted look on his face. "What? I don't blame you for thinking about Minseok. You must miss him when he's not around. Even when you were just friends you two were always together. It was bound to happen with you two."

"We are dating. That doesn’t mean we have to be together constantly," Luhan tells him, picking up his spoon and spinning it idly, letting his mind drift to the hours and years of his time with Minseok. They have been together for so very long, always close and getting closer, Yixing the rift between them before it closed and Luhan could see Minseok. Until he could see the look that told him why there was a distance maintained in the first place. Until he could see how desperately Minseok wanted him.

who wouldn't want you? people always want what the things which are the best. it doesn't always mean that they can have it.

"He has his own life and I have mine and we can do thing separately. We are our own people."

“That’s mature,” Sehun comments as he watches Luhan and smiles, pink lips turning at the edges. “Though you’ve always been mature, Luhan.”

"Luhan understands how to have a functional relationship," Zitao says, leaning into Sehun and grinning at Luhan. "That’s what people who are older and wiser than green stringy not even college students do and comprehend. Things that you have yet to understand, dear little freshman."

Sehun's scowl indicates that he doesn't appreciate Zitao's commentary, the older boy grinning as he leans in and nudges Sehun with his shoulder, eyes twinking at him and clearly pleased. “How long have you been together?” Sehun asks, ignoring Zitao as he presses almost too close, but not seeming to mind, his eyes instead fixed on Luhan. “I still couldn’t believe it when Taozi told me. I don’t think I would have thought of you two together.”

“Why?” Luhan frowns, looking across the table at Sehun’s small contemplative frown.

“You two have always just…” He trails off and absently steals a morsel of food from Zitao’s plate. “I don’t know, I never knew him all that well.” He presses his lips together, mouth pressing into a line as he leans over the table and Zitao glares at him for stealing his food. “I didn’t know you well either until recently, really.”

Sehun’s smile is funny. Luhan doesn’t often pay enough attention to it because all too often Zitao is the one talking or he has something else on his mind. But now, when the alternative is to go to a house he is expected to call home with fondness, Luhan could use a distraction and Sehun is serving said purpose. “That’s because we didn’t see much of each other until this year.”

“You were always busy,” Zitao reminds. “With school or work or sports or music or all of your other activities.” He smiles, soft and sweet and so full of kindness. “It’s been really good to see you this year, when you have time in your busy schedule. It’s helped the transition into university a lot. I don’t think I could have done this year without you.”

“What about me?” Sehun protests, pushing at Zitao’s shoulder. “Where is my thanks for helping you move in and listening to you whine all year? I nearly missed championships for you this spring.”

“I will be thanking you by mentoring you when you become a cute little freshman,” Zitao answers as Luhan’s mind turns from their conversation, drawing away and drifting into the times when he was a freshman, the changes that have happened since then. “I’ll be the one who crawls into your bed and comforts you when you cry over you first term paper of the year.”

“I don’t cry,” Sehun protests, cheeks blushing red and Luhan thinks of staying up until four in the morning his freshman year to complete his first slew of take home exams. A week ahead of time. He remembers Yixing coming with food and Minseok showing up with coffee and nodding off on Luhan’s floor. “And I’m not cute.” He remembers Yixing not letting him comfort him on his harsh marks from the music department. He remembers Minseok pulling him out with Eunhyuk and Donghae to celebrate after the first week of finals were done, laughing and smiling as Yixing got lost in the crowds.

“Aw,” Zitao coos, reaching up to brush Sehun’s dark hair from his face and Sehun lets him. “You are cute though.” Sehun’s eyes drop to the table, looking as if he wants to pull back as far as possible from the hands of Zitao and the gushing smug smile on his face. “Don’t you think so, Luhan?”

Luhan looks at Sehun, the strong set of his shoulders, the eyes that aren’t wide but set within his face that is nicely structured with lines rather than curves. He sees a boy who is still filling into the skeleton of a man. With cheeks that flush and a tongue that flashes to lips so often, Luhan watches Sehun and sees the hesitant smile and the curve of his nose and sees a young man who has just turned from a boy, ripe for the picking.

“Cute,” Luhan agrees and the flush in Sehun’s cheeks deepens, most likely in embarrassment. “Sehun is cute, in his own way.” Sehun’s eyes drop to his plate, teeth biting into his lip as Zitao beams. “I guess.”

Zitao laughs, loud and clear and Luhan presses his lips together at it. It’s so boisterous, almost obnoxious in how free and uncaring Zitao is about his reactions, handsome face creasing unattractively.

“If any of us are cute, it’s Luhan,” Sehun protests and immediately Luhan’s jaw tenses.

“I’m not cute,” snaps over the table harshly and both Sehun and Zitao turn to him, shocked out of their typical banter. “Just because a person looks a certain way doesn’t mean that’s all there is to it. Zitao looks menacing but is the softest person I know.”

“I never said,” Sehun begins but bites it down, shoulders weakening as Zitao stares. “You’re very handsome, is all I meant.”

The grip around his chest lessens and he sits back slightly into his chair, closing his eyes. The last thing Luhan has ever been was cute, the term weakening and diminishing the actual value of a person. Cute, childish, and needing to be taken care of.

you’ve never needed to be taken care of. You’ve always done it yourself, instead taking care of others and hoisting the burden of both higher than any other. Admirable, not adorable. Never forget your worth.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” whispers out and Luhan’s eyes close.

blessed with eternal youth and fairness, a beauty for all to behold and adore. The ideal that can never truly be captured, above and beyond and the epitome of all that is wanted, desired. There is no compromise, and there is no competition.

I am enough

Imagine the space between your eyes as you inhale and remember that they are watching you always. Never let them see you cry. Never let them see the cracks under the surface.

There is no fracture.

“Don’t worry about it,” Luhan says, smoothing over the irritation with a hand that crumbles the spikes beneath it, absorbing them into his flesh and neutralizing it with superiority and command. It will never own him.

you cannot be owned.

Sehun smiles sheepishly, Zitao already looking ready to move on as hastily as possible and leave the brief drop in the conversation, the unpleasantries, behind. “Okay,” says the young man with this mind of a boy still as he looks at Luhan for direction and guidance. For reassurance.

I can never be owned.

◦❀◦

The ride back home is just as loud as the ride to, Sehun and Zitao continuing to talk and pull stories and speech from Luhan as best as they can. Zitao smiles and chirps his opinions as Sehun listens with avid attention and comments in between the stanzas of speech. Luhan looks out the windshield and waits for his phone to indicate remembrance.

Sehun bids them farewell, clambering from the car as Zitao watches him go, Luhan waving with a smile as the younger man waves with eyes like crescents and turns to walk into the night towards his home.

“I’m amazed you two are still so close,” Luhan comments as Zitao pulls away, driving in the direction of Luhan’s house and his awaiting mother, headlights shining in the darkness, illuminating the way. “I would have thought your going to university would have put some distance between you two.”

Zitao laughs, light and softer than he had before, hands gripping the steering wheel flexing. “Well, some friendships just can’t be broken.” A seizure in Luhan’s chest follows those words but he makes no display, instead letting Zitao continue as the flash of how false those words are roils between cartilage and bone. “I’m just lucky to know him so well and that we understand each other so well. It’s like-” He breaks off and the roiling grows within to press out of his mouth.

“Like what?” Luhan demands with a bit more fervor. That friendship is over, that which was poisoned with tainted love and promises. It’s over and he has put it in his past, broken and ugly along with so many other failures he has had to tolerate.

“I’m really happy for you and Minseok,” Zitao says, and the topic change is jarring, Luhan turning to him with surprise spreading over his features. He hadn’t been expecting that nor the light flush that is visible on Zitao’s cheeks visible even in the darkness. “You two just are so good together, so happy and you understand each other and have know each other for so long. It’s really nice, because from what you have said and what I remember from when you would bring him out and we could see, he makes you happy.”

“Happy,” Luhan repeats the words numbly, rolling it on his tongue. Hands pressing into his skin, holding him firmly as his eyes close and he breathes in. Always there, even if he pushes, there is always the push back and a defiance that he has yet to break to his will.

yes, Luhan, are you happy? Does he make you happy? He swallows. don’t I make you happy?

“You two have been so close for so long, understanding and supporting and even if you have different ideas and opinions, you still are able to love each other and I’m just so happy for you.” Zitao is rambling, speeding through the night along the main road as the stars wink, more visible here than the city, and watch them from the night sky. “I just hope to have something like that someday. Someone who is so close and perfect and wonderful that they just fit together and there isn’t a step between where it is awkward or strange.”

Luhan laughs, laughs because when Zitao says it, it all sounds so romantic and sentimental and destined, like he and Minseok were supposed to date. “You’re so dramatic,” he laughs, as Zitao’s blush furthers and he ducks his head slightly, hiding himself as he turns down a street and stops at a red light, glowing in the black. “Is everything a romance for you?”

“There isn’t anything wrong with being romantic,” Zitao protests, turning to glance at Luhan in the front seat. Zitao who gets offended when someone doesn't notice his clothing choices, who sends hundreds of text messages weekly, and who chatters for hours about anything and cries at movies. Zitao who needs people in his life to take care of him in his own dependent self. “Being romantic doesn’t make me a bad person, and I like to have hope. I like seeing you and Minseok together. I love seeing two people so close and understanding each other and never worrying what other people think.”

Zitao is a bright and vibrant person and he is far too disillusioned about the world. It’s amazing, in it’s own way and Luhan laughs. “Like how you and Sehun are basically inseparable.”

“He’s my best friend,” Zitao says softly. The light is still red, a shining beacon in the night as it looks down on them waiting for it to change and let them free. “I love him.”

Luhan laughs, loud and free and unrestricted with no one but Zitao to watch him and join, to partake in the notion of his cousin and the youngest family friend romantically involved. Nothing can be like he and Minseok are, like he and Yixing were. Zitao and Sehun aren’t like them. “Like you and Sehun would ever date,” Luhan chuckles, looking at the windshield and letting the amusement wash over him.

Zitao doesn’t speak and it isn’t for a moment before Luhan notes the abnormal silence, turning to his cousin. The light turns green, but they don’t move, sitting as the engine idles in the darkness of night as Zitao stares at the center of his steering wheel with a small crease over his face. Luhan’s eyes widen as he realizes the reason.

“It’s not so strange, is it?” Zitao asks, and his voice is so quiet, so hushed and Luhan stares at him as the younger man looks up and appears so small. “You fell in love with your best friend and it worked out.” Sehun. “Why can’t it be the same for us?” Zitao is in love with Sehun. “It worked for you and Minseok.”

Sehun, the young man that for so many years and even now still holds the childish nature of a boy, the teenage haughtiness of superiority and importance, cocky and sure and teasing constantly with his best friend. Sehun who grew up with Zitao in sleep overs and movie theaters and the most important, and sometimes only, person at Zitao’s birthday parties. Sehun who took a girl to prom and did his best to be a good date and ended up never holding her hand.

Sehun is the man that Zitao is in love with, Luhan’s romantic cousin who views the world with optimism and hope and chokes on his words as they spew from him in a never ending breach of silence. Zitao, the young romantic and passionate boy, is in love with Sehun who has still yet to even begin to think of what love even is aside from arrogant self praise.

Luhan considers it, in the seconds where Zitao looks at him and the light burns green into the night, tries to picture the reality in which Sehun and Zitao date, where their bickering and teasing is interspersed with the romantic lines and touches that Zitao so fawns over from dramas. He tries to see it between their gestures, the brush of fingers more and the closeness of their friendship spinning into a love and from deep within him gurgles up a laugh, growing louder and bolder and stronger as it spills from him into the waiting silence of the car.

The absurdity of it has humor leaking from him, seeping between the annoyance of the last few days, the stress and the necessity from job and a relationship and life rushing from him as he laughs and laughs and Zitao watches him with a face falling. “Sehun?” his voice weeps with mirth. “You’re in love with Sehun?”

“It’s not like we choose who we fall in love with,” Zitao huffs back, turning away and looking through the windshield as Luhan continues to laugh, the whole thing foolish and exactly what he needed to lighten his tense mood. “It’s not like we choose who falls in love with us. It just happens, and we can’t help it. I can’t help that I want to be with him.”

“But it’s Sehun,” Luhan continues to laugh, sitting back and watching Zitao and the image of his cousin and friend playing before his mind ridiculous with the added element. Sehun who argues philosophy and ideals and boasts about himself and is nothing but curt commentary over Zitao’s gushing artistic license. “Why would Sehun love you?”

Still chuckling, Luhan turns to look out the window, at the darkened lawns cast into shadow as the sun shines on the other side of the earth, lighter and with merriment settling his chest to rise. He doesn’t see the way Zitao’s eyes glisten in the passing street lights, nor the way his teeth sink into his bottom lip as his fingers tighten on the steering wheel.

“Is it so different from you and Minseok?” is quiet, defeated and catches Luhan’s attention absently.

“Yes,” Luhan answers immediately. “It is.”

“Why?” The speed of the car slows, the light creeping mist along the road from the late evening fogging as the headlights pierce over the tarmac and Luhan’s smile is serene as he watches the road slip underneath them and steadily grow ahead.

“Because you and Sehun don’t have what Minseok and I have,” Luhan answers. The stability that holds and supports and the leaning that pushes back, the tugging and pulling and the giving way under his hands as he takes and turns and gives what is deserved. It is a fragile balance and they are learning and growing and Minseok will be there when Luhan returns tomorrow, waiting and arms ready to accept and whisper words of affection against his lips.

“What’s that?” Zitao asks.

yes, Luhan. The echo ricochets about his skull in a bell toll. what do you and Minseok had that makes it so special? Why are you in love with him? what does he have that makes him worthy of your devotion?

“Minseok loves me,” Luhan says and it is just that simple.

The rest of the ride home is silent, only the sound of the car engine filling the space between Luhan and the quiet drops that paint down soft impressionable cheeks.

◦❀◦

“Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a more satisfying and balanced life.” - Ellen Sue Stern

◦❀◦

Skin sticks to the soft material of a shirt, pulling along the hem and riding up, the sweat that has gathered bunching up and up and up until flashes of porcelain are all that the eye can see. Heart beating fast, he looks at himself in the mirror, the shirt that has come to rise to expose his waist, to reveal himself to eyes that are none but his.

handsome. such a perfect embodiment of handsome and awesome and everything anyone would ever want.

The lingering eyes of those that he passes, walking from the bus terminal to his apartment, sunglasses on his face and blocking them from him, putting up a barrier which they cannot dream of passing, never able to touch or hold without his explicit permission.

Zitao had not come over on Sunday, calling the next morning with a voice groggy and thick, explaining that he had to get some things done before teaching an early class of children the drills of their first tier martial arts. Luhan had told him it was fine as he absently fixed breakfast and the shower ran too long, his mother not yet appearing and the gauze along his palm sticking to the still red gashes etched into his skin.

The scabs itch as he stands now, shining with sweat from physical exertion, chest rising and falling as he breathes and looks over himself. Attuned to perfection and physical immaculacy. Strong, stable, perfectly toned and a vision to behold.

There are three weeks left before he returns to school, to campus and a dorm room and falls into preset schedules and the routine of finishing everything weeks before hand. A report and GPA of the highest marks and his head held high. Proud of his accomplishments and his ability and his obvious ability to rise over all that crowd just behind him fighting for worth.

there is no competition for you, mouths up his torso, sucking at his skin and licking sensation into his body, making him shiver as his eyes close, mouth parting in a gasp. there is none that can parallel you. you who embody supremacy. My beautiful being.

A shuddering exhale to a room filled with shadow and light, figments of hands holding tenderly at his sides as respect is laid against him with ethereal touch.

The bell of the door rings and pulls him back, returning from the increasing headspace and shuddering heartbeat as it climbs higher and higher, rapid in his chest. “Wow,” is the greeting he is met with as the door opens and he pulls it wide, dark eyes sweeping over him. “Is this what I get to see every time you come back from a weekend away?”

“Only if you’re good,” Luhan answers, stepping back and reaching forward to curl his fingers into Minseok’s shirt, pulling him in and laying their lips together in a salutary kiss. “Will you be good for me, Minseok?”

“Have I ever been bad?” teases back and Luhan thinks of petty fights, of arguments and of confused eyes and disapproving looks, of chastisement and a darkened gaze. He yields under Luhan’s mouth, arching into him as the door swings shut.

He thinks of denial, thinks of the door slamming in the middle of the night and the texts unanswered in his phone for hours and the defiance in decisions. Tell me, speak up, do this, open to me and stop saying no and asking for yes. A long lick to a swollen lip and Luhan pulls back, hands holding firmly around Minseok’s middle, keeping him snug to himself. Holding and not letting go. Breathing the same air, mouths so close and just touching, he says “I forgive you when you are.” He sighs, drinking everything in and filling the spaces vacant. “Not everyone can be perfect.”

“No one is perfect,” Minseok breathes into him, hands sliding to comb through his hair, gentle and warm and Luhan closes his eyes. Forgive. Understand. “I know I'm not perfect.” exactly. and you never will be. “I know you’re not either.” A tightening of his jaw. “But I love you anyway.”

“Show me,” calls from his skin and the reflection inside, eyes open as the world swells and spins around them, hands sliding and scalding as they seek out to captivate. “Show me you love me.” prove it to me. prove you are mine. prove you won’t leave me. prove you know how to love me and that you will love me and Always love me, love me, love me, Love ME, ME.

“I can’t stay tonight,” sighs against his lips and it’s not the correct answer. It caves in and darkens and the welts in his skin throb, still stinging gently from sweat and pressure from exercise routines and suffocation. “I have to work early tomorrow, and so do you.” A gentle kiss that does nothing to sate the oppressive heat that laces through his body.

“I don’t care,” pushing and pulling and tugging forward, the barriers between too much and needing to be destroyed. Show me you want me, show me you need me, show me you love me. “It doesn’t matter.”

i love you and always will love you.

SHUT UP screams inside his head as he leans in, lips frantic and seeking and being met with nothing as Minseok pulls away. He whines, pining and desperate. Hands fall to push easy against his chest, separating when the opposite is what he wants. “Luhan,” is spoken with resistance, with refusal and annoyance.

no one will love you like I love you.

Minseok pulls away, and Luhan’s fingers reach to pull him back. Minseok pulls away, and the crash of desperation hits him like a vice. “Don’t you want me?” he cries, higher and harsh, stepping back as the air stings against the drying skin that is naked to eyes that would only see him. Need me. “Is there something wrong that you don’t want to be with me?” Sick twisted and lacking, the thing which no one could ever desire nor long for. Defective and lying cast to the side, a waste product of those already failed before it.

NO.

are you so like him that he finds you repulsive? Fool to think you anything but what you are and to think himself better than you. Fool to have you, unworthy and simple as he is. look at him and his insufficient nothing.

“Luhan,” sounds tired and defeated, a hand pushing through hair and he steps back, shifting and away, Luhan’s hands slipping from his waist as Minseok’s hands rest heavy against his chest. Pushing.

Don’t. Fucking. Go.

“What?” snaps between his teeth in a hard crack. “There’s something that has you pulling away, that had you so preoccupied that you didn’t talk to me once this whole weekend? That you would so rather spend time with Yixing and his new misfit friends of pretension than with your lover?”

“That’s- Luhan, no.”

A sneer paints over his lips, curling them in distaste as he steps back, steps away from eyes that look hard and cannot see. “Am I boring for you now? You have to go and spend time with Yixing just to deal with me? ”

never boring. Never Boring.

“No!” The hard note of anger spikes his own higher. “Luhan, I never said you’re boring!”

Raised voices screech higher and higher, escalation into an opus magnum of malcontent. Driving into his ears, into his skull, the force against the walls pushing them in, sending fissures deeper and deeper as the sound pounds loud. “Then why do you refuse me!?” rips from him as everything bleeds around the edge. “Why are you pushing me away?”

he doesn’t love you he doesn't love you he doesn’t love you MAKE HIM LOVE YOU.

“Luhan, stop.” The fight is one-sided, one is chaotic energy, one is the quiet definition and the defiance and it crashes into a hurricane as he wants something, anything, to respond. “I am not refusing you, I am telling you that I’m tired and I don’t want to start the week exhausted.”

no.

“Why did you even come then?” Don’t touch me.

“Because I enjoy spending time with you, and because I want to spend time with you.” because you love me. “Because you asked me to.” Because you Love Me.

It never comes and the air is too thin and he can’t take any in.

“If you’re so tired, you should go.” don’t go. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Just leave, okay, I shouldn’t have asked you to come over.”

Minseok steps back, eyes hard and expression stone as it faces Luhan and the heat transforms into blackness. “So if I don't come over to sleep with you, you don’t want me.” There is no affection in his voice. “That’s what this is?”

No, that’s wrong. That isn’t what it is at all. Minseok isn’t listening.

“If we’re not fucking then you don’t want me here? What kind of fucked up relationship is that?” Minseok mouth is pressed into a line so thin it could cut, face furious and he’s not supposed to be angry. He doesn’t understand, he’s not listening and doesn’t get Luhan.

can you make him understand you though?

“No,” exasperated and weary with the dramatics of it all speaks from Luhan’s mouth as anger furrows into the sweat lines over his skin. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How is it ridiculous what that’s literally what you just said!” Minseok yells. He’s emotional, wrought up into a fit and Luhan doesn’t have the energy to deal with him when he’s like this. “Is that all that I am to you? Is that what this-” a wild gesture between them, cutting through the air, “- is to you?”

“You have no idea what you are to me,” hits hard and deep and cracking and it takes all the effort he has not to reach out and seize Minseok as his own. To take what is his and has been given to him freely. No one else has the permission to touch. “You don’t understand, Minseok. You aren’t listening to me!”

“Then tell me!” Minseok continues to yell, all anger and frustration and distance from him. “If you want me to understand, then tell me and let me understand what it is! Because right now I have no idea what the fuck is going on with you or me or us and I don’t know what to do when you won’t talk to me.”

where is the love you so adamantly claim is there? Stop. where is your lover now, Luhan? is this your lover? is this the man you are choosing over me? over yourself? over being happy? can you ever let him see what you really are and trust that he’ll still love you?

“I don’t know how,” crawls weak and defeated from him, slipping into the space between as all stills to listen, to watch the fragile admission as it lays down for judgment and scorn. “I don’t know how to.”

“Goddamnit,” shifts and hisses through the air to him and freezes the tissue vulnerable and exposed. Minseok’s eyes are closed. They cannot see him as he stands, lip between his teeth and biting harder and harder, head angled away and distant. don’t. His hands fall to hang limp as Luhan watches him, once hot with exertion and fury now icing over as the threat of loss begins to latch into him sincerely. “I can’t be there for you if you don’t talk to me.” It’s steadier than Luhan would expect, his own self shaking too hard to hear as his hands remain immobile. “I don’t want us to be like this.”

Racing with panic, he stumbles, lurching forward to grasp and hold in desperation to never leave, to never part and to always keep. “I’m trying.” why? “I will try harder.” why? why are you trying so hard when the issue lies not within you. “I want to talk to you about this.” why are you working so hard for him when he can’t understand or see you? when you’re already broken?

A sob that never escapes lays ruin to everything within as the strength gives into nothing.

“Then talk to me,” whispers as his hands cling and hold, wanting to be held and embraced in return but met with closed eyes and a grimace of torment, arms limp and hands unwielding. “I want to listen.”

Soft hands that smell of rose and flowers, fingers delicate and tapered, unlike his own and reminiscent of the past, brush against tears that slide down his face, pushing them away and wiping him clean as a stern sweet voice tells him never let them see you cry. Never let them see how weak you are. Never let them break you, lest you be like him. don’t ever be like him, Luhan. Soft hands smelling of soap and caffeine cup his face and hold as calloused thumbs brush over his cheekbones, gentle and caring and it makes him shake from the firmament that is always unseen.

don’t let him in, Luhan.

“Please.”

don’t let him in, Luhan, never let anyone in again like you did before.

Shaking the function which keeps him standing and alive, sinking into the depths of despair as it falls down, worry and concern and fatigue show at the peripherals and creep in from the eves of the stage that his life plays on with masks on all the faces as the curtain waits to fall.

I will be your adoring audience.

“Please tell me, Luhan.”

Fingertips to skin, welts rising when they draw away, growing and growing until his skin burns and the embedded glass shards dig deeper and deeper until all of him is shattered, all of him is impaled with the translucent destruction of that which appears so elegant and perfect.

“I’m here.”

He opens his eyes and sees nothing but white. “Will you still love me though?”

I will Always Love You.

The tall door of mahogany slams shut on eyes that can never see him again and inside a scream begins that will never end, suffocated with silence.

◦❀◦

Sunlight splinters into the room with irritancy and greedy tendrils, poking with insistency into eyes closed and pulling from rest without consideration. Even at the early time of day, the heat is already seeping in through the windows and attaching to anything it can possibly possess, sliding over and clutching to an already heated body. The fan in the corner circulating air only serves as a further aggravator of the heat as it consistently reminds with brief relief that the torturous temperatures are only to return at higher force once the sun has claimed it’s throne in the sky and beats down on the earth relentlessly.

Luhan opens his eyes to look into the softly lighting space of his small apartment in the city. Shadows still crawl along the floor and his mouth stinks of bile and the bitter taste of morning as he blinks to clear the brief sleep from his eyes, mind still groggy and with shapes flitting in and out of his consciousness. It hadn’t been a good dream and he can still feel it clinging to him possessively.

Turning on the bed and shifting from the sleep that seems to never want to let go, it isn’t the dream that is so latched to him and holding with want, but Minseok, still curled in the bed sheets and disconnected from the world by his own slumber. His arms are draped around Luhan, holding him in a careful embrace as his face remains relaxed in sleep, separate and at ease.

Luhan looks down upon him and waits for the stutter of his heart, the feeling of contentment to rise within and hears the solemn whir of the fan and the distant clamor of street below. He looks down at his lover, and closes his eyes to see nothing at all.

Slipping from bed quietly, Luhan strides to the bathroom. He has woken before his alarm, before Minseok which was once so rare considering Minseok’s own habit of waking so early and having a much higher point of function in the early morning hours than Luhan. Looking into the mirror at the slowly beginning etches of age around his eyes, Luhan scoffs at how things change, how he instead is the one who is still alive with energy to last him deep into the night as breaths stick and skin catches and yet wakes early and rises before the dawn with vitality still strong in his veins.

because you refuse to allow yourself to rest, echoes from the glass around him as he showers, water cascading down skin that ripples over strong toned muscle and firmed bone. because you won’t visit me. because you’re avoiding what you know is your destiny. His eyes close from the steam fogging the mirror and the reflective panels of glass as he rinses the purifying soap-scum from him to drain into nothing.

Minseok is awake when Luhan returns, dripping and with a towel wound around his waist, sitting up in bed and squinting through the sleep in his eyes at him, still tired and still logged with exhaustion. “How are you up so early?” he asks, voice groggy and thick. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Yes.” Answer curt and official, his skin prickling in the air as it wakes up further and Minseok’s hand drops from running through his copper hair, the roots beginning to show. “You need to dye your hair again, it’s growing out.”

“Okay.” Minseok’s face creases in confusion. Luhan turns, dropping his gaze and pushing down the slow burn in his stomach at the quiet that stretches between them. “I can do that this weekend.” Luhan turns with a nod and doesn’t look at him. “I’ll shower.”

Luhan doesn’t watch him, eyes closed and hands on his dresser as he hears Minseok at the process of the mundane, the system and the lack of variation that seems to have swallowed up his world and his life, imbedding into his skin like splinters of disinterest.

you broke last night. you let him in and let him see and you fell. what happens now, Luhan? where does it go now? can you live with how he’s seen you? if he loves you, he will stay, right?

Breakfast is a simple meal for one, absently made at the stove as Luhan stands in dress slacks that breathe and bare feet, his top bare and open, focus on the automatic system that is daily routine. He doesn’t look up as the door to the bathroom opens and he hears Minseok walk out, doesn’t look up as he hears Minseok walk into the main room and doesn’t look up with he doesn’t hear anything.

“Good morning,” speaks gently as a hand comes to rest at the small of his back, warm and damp from the shower and Luhan doesn’t move, his eyes on the pan before him and the egg cooking on non stick Teflon. He doesn’t respond to the slide of fingers to hold him closer nor to the press of lips at his bare shoulder. “What’s for breakfast?”

“I thought you had an early shift,” Luhan says, turning to look at Minseok and feeling the space fill with static and nothing, senses dulled to the point that even Minseok’s hand at his waist is nothing, the feeling of the other with him insignificant. Nothing is significant, nothing but that feeling of deadened energy that decomposes along his mind.

Minseok blinks, as if something Luhan has said or done has caught him off guard. The sounds of the apartment both sharpen and muffle against him as Luhan looks down into a face that flickers between confusion and imperception and he doesn’t have the will to figure it out. Minseok is too complicated sometimes. “I do.”

“I thought you never ate breakfast for early shifts,” Luhan says and pulls away, plating his breakfast and shifting through the kitchen, absently grabbing a fork and proceeding to eat, standing and moving about his daily routine. Eat, dress, organize, clean, prioritize, style, check the keys and the lights and grab his shoulder bag before leaving for work and another day of mindless productivity.

“I do sometimes,” Minseok says as Luhan takes another bite of egg running with yolk into his mouth. It tastes like nothing, only the highly concentrated protein his body requires in order to maintain functioning capacity. “I’ll just make my own breakfast then?” There is a note in his voice Luhan can hear but doesn't listen to, focusing on his own process as he eats and drops the plate in the sink.

“Go ahead,” he says and turns away.

why is he so persistent? The words slink up his back and whisper into his ears. why does he have to bother you so much like this? can’t he see you don’t want to talk to him?

I don’t want to talk to you either.

I’m far more interesting than your fucktoy.

Shut. Up.

Pulling a button down from the closet, Luhan pulls it on with mindless practice and method, his eyes heavy and the vague two hours of sleep both tugging at his skin and prickling as he runs in the kicks of a start up. The last of the energy shot through him from last night as his heart beat like a rabbits in his chest and spiraled him into oblivion as his limbs protested and he paid them no mind. He can hear Minseok rummaging in the kitchen.

“Are you staying home tonight or coming over?” Perfunctory ritualistic questioning. Are you going to be here or are you going to avoid me and pretend there are better things to do with your life?

“I don’t know,” comes back too harsh and Luhan turns to see Minseok leaning with his jeans low on his hips and a scowl. “Am I?” Water has the ends of his copper hair dark brown and clinging to his temples and the nape of his neck, hanging limp before his eyes.

“That’s your choice,” Luhan informs him, turning back to his mirror and running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t,” Minseok sighs and Luhan pauses with his fingers pushing his bangs from his face and his eyes flicker to Minseok as he turns to the stove and glares at it.

“Is there something wrong with you this morning?” Luhan asks, finally turning to look at Minseok, his own frown crossing his face as he takes in the scowl and the unhappy countenance accompanying him in his home. “What’s up with you?”

“Me,” Minseok repeats, and sounds exhausted. He never did have as much energy. “What’s wrong with me.” It isn’t phrased as a question, rather as a statement and Luhan’s eyebrows raise at it. “It’s never any other way is it? There isn’t going to be any change. I’m the problem.”

he has a point.

Shut up, we’re not talking about this now.

Laughter trickles between his ears and down the side of his jaw. I’m just saying, it’s funny that he finally sees it.

Instead of waiting for an answer, Minseok sighs, turning back to stove and leaving Luhan to continue getting dressed. Luhan doesn’t bother asking, he knows that Minseok will tell him if it’s something serious. Minseok only ever talks about what is important, reserving his words for significant matters rather than running his mouth like others. It’s something Luhan respects about him even if it can sometimes make casual conversation a bit vexing.

Minseok leaves the apartment first, dressed as Luhan still styles his hair and grabbing his discarded clothing from the ground and shoving them into a shopping bag, one of Luhan’s own dress shirts slightly too big on him. “Have a good day,” he tells Luhan before leaning up to place a kiss on Luhan’s cheek. He leaves without another word and Luhan stares at the door with a perplexed frown.

He will give him space, time and air to breathe. Minseok just needs time to figure out what the problem is and come to terms with it. Luhan won’t pressure him, he’ll just let him be for the moment.

Minseok will still be there though. He always is.

are you sure?

“Shut up,” Luhan says under his breath as he pulls the door to his apartment closed and turns the key in the lock, frowning at the laugh that spills within him and cannot read the amusement in it.

◦❀◦

“Long night?” and the tap against the desk divide has his attention jerking from the task at hand of reorganizing schedules and prioritizing business deals and negotiations. Minho is grinning at him as he leans over the barrier, arms folded and back curved in lazy nonchalance.

“I had a busy weekend,” Luhan explains with a smile, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms out in front of him to ease some of the cricks in his back and shoulders. “How was the soccer game?”

“We got our asses handed to us,” Minho laughs, stealing one of Luhan’s pens and playing with it. He flashes a look back to Luhan with a slightly imploring edge to it. “Are you sure you have to go back to uni and leave us? We could just, you know, keep you on and pretend you already graduated. We need on you on the team, man. You can’t leave us like this.”

Luhan laughs, a feeling of satisfaction and warmth spreading in his chest as he watches Minho’s face spread into a pleased grin. “You’re going to have to wait another year before I can come and grace you guys with my presence again.” He glances at the calendar on the desk, marking a week and a half left of the summer internship before he moves back to University and begins the final countdown. “If I get asked back, that is.”

Minho laughs, Yoona pausing to give him a slightly skeptical look before she continues through the office, a stack of papers and packages in her arms from the delivery system. “As if Kyuhyun won’t ask you back after you graduate,” he says, stepping back and standing tall. He’s wearing a t-shirt today, under a light jacket that is mostly for indoor purposes and looking semi-professional rather than the business attire everyone from the management and business section are wearing.

Luhan imagines a time when he can walk in with the semi-casual ease and attire of the development team and the casual style of Kyuhyun simply because they’re on different levels. He considers doing it now, realizing that with the reception he has currently at the company, he probably won’t be accosted for it.

“I can’t make assumptions,” Luhan says, smiling even if he knows he’s already probably going to be asked back before he graduates. He’s done a lot for the company and they could use his work and expertise. “But I can hope to come back and make this place better.”

“Cocky shit,” Minho chuckles as he steps away, turning towards the design sectors where they’re working on a new fuel cell design for long term engines and vehicles. Luhan has the schematics loaded up on his computer at the moment, the designs and codes and configurations easy for him to read and decipher now, his aptitude at processing the material having skyrocketed in the past month.

because you aren’t sleeping with me, curls around his ears. because you refuse to come to me and let yourself rest. let yourself surrender. You only do that with him, your so called lover who may not even be so precious and dedicated anymore. I’ve seen how he looks at you, like he’s not sure.

Luhan clears his throat, scratching at the back of his neck and throwing a sheepish smile at Minho. “Just trying to keep optimistic.”

Minho clicks his tongue, throwing a point in this direction as if indicating his significance and indicating that Luhan shouldn’t worry, that he’s already in, that his optimism isn’t necessary. Luhan just raises his chin in response, preferring not to yell across the office and disturb the other drones in their cubicle cells working away at the paperwork and files, spreadsheets and accounting division and crunching numbers down with excessive coffee from Styrofoam cups.

you’re meant for more than this, more than what is here. You’re worth more than this.

“It’s a stepping stone,” Luhan murmurs as he opens up the company messaging system and scrolls through the notifications, the emails and messages that flash and register to file back within the sectors of once immaculate chaos now occupying his mind temple.

Settling in, he loses himself until mid morning. Checking over reports, reviewing documents and drafting up proposals sent to him by Heechul and menial tasks shoved onto him by Kibum with cordial and polite responses and efficiency. He is pulled away by Kyuhyun walking to his desk with a smile and a folder under his arm.

“You busy?” Kyuhyun asks, eyebrows risen in question as he looks over Luhan’s overly organized workspace, eyes flickering to the desk beside Luhan, where Junhong has been quietly struggling since day one, barely offering Luhan a glance as his workpile increased to overflow over his desk.

“I have time,” Luhan answers, closing out of the chat room where he had been discussing the new pitching details of their product with Heechul and Jinri, formulating for the expo the company is attending next month. He stands, turning to Kyuhyun with a pleasantly attentive smile on his face. “What can I do for you?”

“Step into my office,” Kyuhyun says, voice oddly formal and Luhan’s interest is piqued as he follows at an appropriate distance behind his boss and proverbial superior. The desk is just as cluttered as usual, with the illusion that there is organization amid all the stacks of papers and documents, letters torn at the edges and the scattered pens and markers. The whiteboard has so many disconnected patterns and details on it over the half erased notes from events prior that it makes it nigh impossible for Luhan to decipher it without assistance.

He looks at Kyuhyun with his hands relaxed at his sides, back straight and patiently waiting for direction and instruction. His boss stands back bent, hands resting on the surface of his desk where there is room and looking at him over the strewn sensible work obsession to meet his eyes, gaze sure and determined. “We want you back next year,” Kyuhyun says and immediately Luhan has to fight back a smile of assurance and pride.

He knew it.

what would this company be without your contribution from this summer?

“I’m flattered,” Luhan answers, allowing himself a tamed smile as internally his triumph rings with elevated laughter and rising victory. This is only the beginning of his climb to success. “I love working here and I’d be delighted at the prospect of returning as soon as my undergraduate studies are completed.”

A soft but clearly amused laugh meets him as Kyuhyun straightens up, stepping back from the desk and looking more at ease, more relaxed and less professional. “You don't have to sound so formal about it, though I do appreciate the precedent.” He laughs and Luhan sees a flash of himself in Kyuhyun’s place, business jacket hanging from his shoulders broad and strong and a casual tee underneath suggestion of his status and his power in the company that specific dress codes need not apply to one of his import. “You’ve done a lot for us in the short time that you’ve been here, and after talking with the directors, there is a possibility that we can offer you a full time position once we get around to next year.”

“I’d be happy to join you then,” Luhan says, the cogs within keeping him on his typical schedule and rhetoric. “Of course, I’ll have to finish my university degree before becoming a fulltime member here but I would love to help continue to make this company expand and grow.”

Kyuhyun’s smile is genuine and warm as it meets him across the room. “It’s been really good having you here, Luhan.” Pride hits over triumph hits over satisfaction hits over worth and sinks into him with the slow burn of value. “I glad you were able to join us.”

see? tickles at his jaw as the gratification grows with bonding tendrils. I told you that you were everything that no one understood. let them see how great you are, don’t let anyone hold you back anymore. break free.

“It was my pleasure,” Luhan says and grins as Kyuhyun lets out a chuckle and shakes his head lightly. Kyuhyun knows, he understands.

Yoona winks at him as he returns to the desk and everything is as it should be.

King of the world. Top of the bar. Peak of all and the one that should be seen.

“You’re on for soccer this Friday,” Minho tells him as he passes his desk again. “If you bring your boyfriend, we can definitely win.”

“He doesn’t play much anymore,” Luhan says absently, is phone still resting in his work bag under the desk. He has more important things than to check for messages from his Minseok right now. “Besides, you say that like you need more than just me to win these games.”

no one needs more than you whispers and he closes his eyes, smiling as he returns to the chat room and pitches back into concentration. His smile remains for the day, working and pressing through until the cut off hour and leaving without care, finally checking his phone.

He grins at the missed messages and calls.

so wanted. so loved.

What else would he be?

◦❀◦ Part IV ◦❀◦