[for uponinfinity] Rippled Reflections [2/4]

[admortems]

Part II ◦❀◦ It’s been two weeks and almost everything is back to normal.  His professors never noticed, how would they, uninvolved in the social and personal affairs of the students as they are.  They know Luhan as a star pupil, as the one with efficient work ethics and higher standards than most of his peers. They know Luhan as the avid individual that he is: hard working, strong willed, competitive to meet the needs of an end, and everything they might see as proper and good.  Luhan is polite, Luhan is kind, Luhan is thoughtful and he is excellence. Soojung doesn’t look at him as she sits, three desks down, and opens up her notes.  Luhan ignores her, knowing that she will come back, that she knows that just because of a slight failure of a simple relationship that nothing is truly wrong.  She knows that everything is alright.  She will understand. Hours spent in the library researching and taking notes and writing papers, pouring over books and ignoring the vibrations of his phone.  He politely declines those who stop by him, voices hushed and asking for company as they eat, work, play, do something aside from what interests him. Time spent where he might have chatted with those passing is instead distracting, searching for new venues, new outlets.  Zitao’s name flashes on his phone messages and Luhan ends up answering him in a timely fashion for once.  Zitao was always an energetic and overly friendly person, and his brighter inclusion to Luhan’s constant swell of social waves around himself have him smiling gently to himself.  He doesn’t occupy too much time though, staying on his phone as Luhan visits the messages when he can and gives the same reasons he provides automatically. I have to focus.  I have to work.  I am enough. Only when someone sits across from him and doesn't leave after he mutters a quiet “I’m busy, another time maybe” does he truly look up and still.  Yixing is frowning at him, leaning on his elbows across the table to him and his plump lower lip is held gently between his teeth.  His phone buzzes beside him, his cousin’s name flashing on the screen.  “Hi.” “Are you trying to become one with the library?” Yixing asks, his fingers gently lacing together over Luhan’s notes.  Pages upon pages of notes for classes and projects and reports that all close in on the side and he focuses on his breathing to see straight and clearly.  “I guarantee you, no matter how hard you try, you cannot merge yourself with a building.” “I just have a lot of work to do,” Luhan sighs.  He missed Yixing, he has since their brief drawback when he crossed the line that remained unspoken and Yixing jerked away from him.  He doesn’t want that.  He likes Yixing where he is, with him and by his side and the place where he will fall whenever he needs to. Yixing has always been there like that for him.  It’s where he belongs in Luhan’s life and it makes him smile kindly at him from over the table. “We’re in college, all of us have work to do.”  Yixing sighs, laying his head on the desk before Luhan and his soft brown eyes are so warm as they look at him, the caring and concern in them making Luhan feel safer.  “That doesn’t mean avoiding friends.” His eyes flicker and Luhan reaches over the table, closing his hand over one of Yixing’s and that flicker is there again, stronger this time.  “I’m not avoiding you,” he says gently. “It feels like it,” Yixing says and it’s almost too soft for Luhan to hear it.  He pretends he doesn’t but stores it away for the future, his thumb rubbing gently over the back of Yixing’s hand.  He takes a break that night and after an unnecessary amount of hesitancy, Yixing finally lets him touch him. Physical contact has always been a bit of a necessity, friendship not expanding easily unless there is the ability to touch, to feel, to express with words and action the depths of a connection to another person.  Luhan’s breathing doesn’t shudder and his nerves relax when he can touch, when he can see and feel and another never pulls away.  With Joonmyun, it was always so cordial.  With Yifan, it was controlled but indulgent.  With Jongin, it was everything all at once and never letting go to the point that Luhan fought to break the surface tension and draw in air. With Yixing, it’s always been balance, the two laughing at the same jokes as Minseok called them ‘weird brain twins’ and Yixing for so long never pulled away from his touch. He accepts, the most accepting and gentle person Luhan knows despite how he can lash out and vanish.  But he always comes back. Today is an exception as he lets Yixing curl up with him after studying, watching a movie curled around each other on the immaculate covers of Luhan’s bed, his laptop perched on the chair before them and the shitty computer speakers easy to speak over.  “You’re like a boomerang,” he says quietly, smiling at the flinch from Yixing as his words ghost over the back of Yixing’s neck and he shivers in Luhan’s arms. “I’m Australian?” Yixing asks, turning to him with wide eyes and Luhan laughs until his eyes water and his sides hurt. You always will come back to me. Love is a powerful thing, that which keeps so much of the world together.  There are wars fought for it and lives bleed until they end for it.  People go mad with it and it keeps some in the happiest moments they ever could be in just by a simple emotion.  Luhan loves Yixing, though not the way he imagines Yixing returns it.  No love is the same, this much Luhan learned easily a long time ago. “Stop looking at me like that,” Luhan sighs finally, leveling a look at Minseok over the table and dropping his fork.  Salad today with water and egg for protein enhancement as he calculates hours at the gym. “Like what?” Minseok asks.  He has sauce from his spaghetti smeared around his mouth and Luhan itches to fix it, to fix him.  But not everyone is perfect.  They don’t have the capacity to be so. “Like you’re worried I’m going to explode or something,” Luhan grumbles, going back to spearing his salad and ingesting vitamins and minerals and the construction of carbon molecules into substance his body can derive fuel from.  “I’m not going to spontaneously combust if that’s what’s got you giving yourself premature wrinkles.” “I just haven’t seen you,” Minseok says, his eyes dropping to his plate as he pushes around college grade cafeteria food.  “None of us have.” “I’m still here,” Luhan says, giving him a look.  Life is busy, people get preoccupied, his mind fills with other things than just his friends and a vibrant social life.  His world isn’t the crazy monotony of college parties and sports games.  Minseok is still watching him though and Luhan sighs, putting down his fork.  “Are you free tonight?”  One of those striking eyebrows raises on his face and Luhan grins.  “Want to play soccer?” 50.  100. 75 is the sequence of routine and work out and panting breaths that follow the stick of sweat to skin as Luhan lets himself breathe, the cold floor lying against his bare back as he looks up at the ceiling.  Plain and white and the only part in his room which lacks any of the personality that he has been expected to place there.  His phone beeps on his bedside table and he finally answers on time. It’s comfortable to get lunch with Zitao, Sehun tagging along and easy to talk to the younger boys.  Zitao is still just a freshman and Sehun likes to boast he is far more competent than he is as he sits and giggles at the maple syrup he’s used to draw on his plate with.  The two of them are a welcome change, mostly chatting together, Zitao never seeming to be one to stop talking and excited about everything Luhan never knew about. They’re funny, a refreshing change from the serious turn everything has seemed to have been swept into lately and Luhan settles in over the table with his coffee black and a smile to listen. “You should answer your phone more often,” Zitao says, pouring more sugar into his own cup of coffee as Sehun fidgets with the salt.  “It’s nice to hang out with you, even if we don’t get to do it unless it’s the weekend.  I know coming home or near home is kind of far.” “Nowhere is too far,” Luhan laughs, thinking of how it’s so simple to just get on a bus and travel to the place where he grew and lived for seventeen years and step back into the past.  “Besides, this isn’t that hard.  It’s not like we live out in California and I go to school in Montreal.” “Thank God,” Sehun laughs out, surprising him a bit and he flushes, coughing a bit and ducks towards the table.  Probably choking as Zitao begins to hit him vigorously on the back, sincere worry coloring his features. Luhan smiles, unable to stop his own laughter as the day goes on, as Sehun ends up talking as much as Zitao and both of them shut up whenever Luhan has something to say, Sehun listening as Zitao looks like he’s waiting for his turn to speak.  It’s a nice change, to see them and spend time with them.  He knew that Zitao looked up to him, saw him as an older brother figure most times, but it’s nice to be reminded. It’s nice to be admired.  Luhan is filled with warmth. ◦❀◦ “You’re home.” The statement is bland, meaningless and there is disappointment in her face despite how her son has returned to her.  The room is the same, seeming oddly muted as Luhan steps into it.  Flashes of the last time he was here, with frost painting the windows and warm breath against his cheek have him closing his eyes.  He drops his bag and leaves. It’s not often that he spends more time in the house in areas other than his room.  A house is meant to be lived in but Luhan doesn’t own this one, it is not his, not his to own or claim or mark as his property.  He doesn’t need a house, though one day he wants one to do with as he pleases.  Make it a reflection of himself. The dust on the mantelpiece irritates him but he pushes it to the back of his mind, keeping his eyes trained on the book in his lap and the soft sounds of his mother’s fingers gently tacking at the keyboard. “What are you reading?” she finally asks over dinner, casual quiet neutral conversation flowing between them as she doesn’t ask any questions about him and nor he to her.  Luhan blinks, sitting back properly in his chair as the furniture requires as well as the unspoken rules of the house. “Just a book,” Luhan explains, thinking of the book he had left in the living room.  He’s been getting a lot more extra reading material, slowly piling onto his desk, increasing and decreasing as he pours through it and new ones are handed to him with a soft smile that as glasses flash and do a shit job at hiding the concern that builds behind them. “For school?”  His mothers eyes linger on him and he wonders why she’s asking. “From Taeyeon,” he answers and expects the sharp intake of breathe he hears from his mother.  This isn’t something they talk about, among the vast sea of topics which are never touched upon, this became one just under a year ago.  When he was younger, it was different. Grow up and do not speak of such unpleasant things. So unpleasant. “What’s it about?”  The feigned interest in his mother’s voice as she looks away from him, doesn’t raise her eyes to see him, have that nasty slip down his throat and his stomach turns.  “You seemed so interested in it earlier.” He’s no longer hungry, the feeling that had swept earlier in to gnaw at him sated as he breathes in instead.  “It’s a psychology book,” he explains simply.  He doesn’t need to elaborate, her interest in the subject vague at best.  “Along the lines of personalities and aspects of perception.  It’s more of a philosophy book.” It’s mindless reading for the most part, the ideas mostly centering in his own head as he pours over them.  The tests and everything that had been given all move around and change and there’s no point in being tested when the whole thing will change.  The tests Luhan focuses on are academic, are cumulative and representations of ability. A personality type one or four or seven or all of them combined is just a method of categorization so that he can be ‘treated’ in a proper fashion.  He can see it already, the way his therapist looks at him and the confusion lines her eyes. His mother won’t look at him and the sour taste of the savory food spoils in his mouth as he rejects it.  Rejects. “I see,” his mother says and it’s nothing but distancing, drawing away from him.  His mother has always been a perfectionist, someone who looks for the best and is the best.  She has been meticulous, passing that habit onto her son as Luhan grew and developed.  Keep things clean and proper, never let it fail and fall into disrepair.  If it is broken, get rid of it. She never accepted failure and never let him be anything but the best and everything she taught him to be. He can’t breathe as the scrape of chairs against the floor signifies the end of dinner.  Zitao isn’t with them tonight, the sky clear outside and Sehun isn’t here to argue with his mother.  Jongin isn’t here to hold and tell him he’s perfect but Luhan doesn’t need him. Luhan doesn’t need them.  He doesn’t need them; he doesn’t need anything to keep himself strong and stable and walking and alive.  He only needs to rely on himself and take care of himself and believe in himself and love himself. such a wonderful boy, i’m so proud of you His feet pound against the staircase as he runs up it, breath sticking in his chest, the lights of the house flash before his eyes as his vision narrows.  Throat dry, he pauses, standing before the photograph half shadowed in the hall and his eyes rake over it.  The child in the photograph is five,  The man and woman in the picture are married.  The woman works as a quiet housewife who runs a small business on the side.  The man works as a top corporate representative and is allergic to animals. The boy smiles and likes to play soccer and believes in flying without machines. The woman is smiling with a fixed perfection about her face, her shoulders set back and elegant, hair pulled from her face as she stands beside her husband and her son in a beautiful gown.  She is stunning.  She is still stunning.  She will always be stunning. The man beside her smiles far more gently, with his own face and a cheerfulness radiates from him that fits with his eyes that seem to dance even in the lifeless picture.  His lips are the same as his son’s, the same life in the little boy’s large eyes and the slight curve of his smaller shoulders.  He’s incredibly handsome, a strange image to hold when he stands beside his wife in this picture but no longer now. He smiles here but the truth of it is burned into Luhan’s mind in an ugly twist of lips, horrid and cruel and viciously painful as they do nothing but pour emotion and never stop the floodgates of pain.  He smiles here but Luhan screams inside and his fingers lock into clawed hands as he steps back with the air in his lungs too hot. So handsome, so handsome so beautifully handsome but so weak. ”Never let them see you cry,” his mother had told him fiercely as she wiped the tears from his face with uncaring hands, mouth set in a stern line as her eyes bored into him.  ”Never let them see you weak.  Never give into them.  You are strong and you are the best.  Don’t fail.” Words from books that sit back in his dorm room at college splash across his mind and the words of accepting, of loving, of believing, and understanding that Luhan is everything he ever needs in life.  The man stares at him from the photograph before him and a sneer crawls over Luhan’s lips. He’s the failure, the ruined and the despicable.  There is no pride in putting a gun in your mouth and leaving a child and mother to live alone.  There is no pride in lying about love and trust and ripping it all from others for the point of what? Satisfaction? The words of a soft spoken voice are poison as they drift from memory, back from the bars where Luhan has put everything and kept it quiet, kept it organized kept it out of the way and he loathes them, loathes them with every inch of himself, turning with violence to scream silence into his room. It’s too hot, the rage that burns through him setting fire against his skin, under it and over him, burning from the inside and his fingernail scratch over his skin as he tears the torturous articles of clothing from himself.  Off off off and away as hands shake, heart too loud and the boom BOOM of concussive sound against his skull makes it hard to see or think. Routine of checking.  The muscles are still there, the definition the toning and the strength and perfection under his fingertips has him swallowing heavily, hands running along skin and sending reassurance into his veins and spidering into complex bliss.  He gasps, heart pounding and fighting the static that buzzes in his head as his eyes open and he sees what everyone else sees but never truly understands. For years, people have talked about him.  Even since the early days of school, when his face was far prettier than boyish, knees covered to keep from scraping and skin pale and flawless under the sun, he’s been discussed.  So pretty such a pretty boy so cute cute cute and that’s it. I’m a boy. It was all that could be seen for so long, the simple glance at his face and his physique and the way clothing fit him and it was pretty when he’s nothing so simple. His heart pounds, chest heaving with breath and hair tousled in the image of just fucked as his lips glisten and the man staring back at him from the mirror is breathtaking, his own stuttering in his chest.  Luhan knows he’s attractive, has know from the hands that have run over his skin, the lips that press and the confessions that spill from desperate lips of men and women alike, ending in whines as he gives them his attention when he wills it. I want you yes You’re so gorgeous yes Please let me. Everything now is perfect, the depth of the eyes staring back at him, alluring and passionate and exactly the image of that which all would be blessed to have upon them.  Luhan can have them any time for they are his and only truly his.  The beautiful and strong hands that aren’t too pretty, too delicate, or too rough slide in a path of seduction down his chest, his abdomen and stomach and the lurch in him has a heady feeling blooming along the dark haze of his mind, eyes so dark they’re black as they stare back at him. This is what they saw.  This is why they wanted him and Luhan is better than all of them. The way the light hits his skin is flawless.  The way his hair falls to his face is perfection.  The way his muscles tense and flex just beneath his skin, his body proportioned into the ideal style which nature seemed to understand with his creation.  Luhan isn’t a person, average and standard. Luhan is an Adonis and he can’t hold the breath and voiced sigh that escapes his lips as watches how gorgeously his face flushes, the light dusky rose against his cheeks the only possibly compliment for the way that a hunger and thirst rise so intense within him and his fingers dig lower. The voice and notes and sounds that spill from his lips are more beautiful than any symphony ever created by the hand of man. ◦❀◦ Ah surely I am young and fair, the Nymphs have loved me; and when I behold thy smiles I cannot tell thee what sweet hopes arise. ◦❀◦ Luhan is irritated. The sun is shining pleasantly on the campus outside through the windows, the campus returning truly to life as warm air wafts over the buildings and the heads of the students.  Spring has transitioned beautifully in from Winter and midterms are over and across from him Minseok is lying head down on the table. The phone and its black case sit and wait, silently still and the absence of anything has a strong irritation drawing so roughly against Luhan’s skin he could rip it from his bones.  He has messages from all the wrong people in it and even if Zitao loves and wants to see him and Sehun has an odd obsession with sending large blocks of laughing Korean symbols, he can’t bring himself to care.  He has more important things to be thinking about and occupying his mind with.  Things like the numbers of text messages all sitting unread with the number one beside them that are turning stale as the hours pass by. “Where the hell is he?” Minseok grunts at him and Luhan kicks him harshly under the table.  With a yelp and a harsh glare, Minseok straightens to face him and the dark circles under his eyes are so deep they seem to be permanently etched into his face.  “What?” “Have you seen Yixing?”  It’s been three days and not once as Luhan heard from his friend, the absence no longer explained by examinations and workloads considering that the last examination was Saturday and Luhan has yet to see his friend.  “I haven’t heard from him and he always contacts me.” “Maybe you should contact him, then,” Minseok says, looking exhausted as his reply comes out on the edge of grumpy and on the shores of indifferent.  Luhan kicks him again from under the table as Minseok’s head pillows over his books and Minseok kicks back this time, hitting Luhan square in the shin and earning a yelp of pain.  “Stop kicking me, I’m dying.” “You’re not dying,” Luhan sighs at him and the irritation grows, crawling deeper.  “What if Yixing is though?  I haven’t heard from him since Friday and what if he’s dead?  What if he died in his room from asphyxiating on a chip bag and we’ll never see him again.  We could have prevented this.” “Have you even messaged him?” Minseok groans across the table, shifting so he can look across at Luhan with the most pitiful judging look Luhan has ever seen.  “You could at least try to act like his best friend rather than just saying you are.” Luhan bares his teeth at Minseok in reply, his anger spiking and he grabs it in time, pushing back and keeping it stable.  “Yes, I messaged him.”  Five times.  “But he hasn’t messaged back.  His lights are off in his dorm room and he’s dead, Minseok.  The fuck do you know about being a best friend?” Eyebrows raise in response to this.  “I dunno, I seem to be doing a pretty good job of being your friend, even if you get confused where I fall in your ‘categorization’ tactic.”  He quotes the air as the speaks and Luhan wants to scoff at him for doing so.  He bites his tongue.  “Look, maybe he’s busy.” “He’s just finished up exams, he’s never too busy for me.” “For you,” Minseok repeats as he sifts and turns his head, chin resting on the table as he examines Luhan from across and Luhan swallows down the irk. “Yixing is always there for his friends,” Luhan reminds him and Minseok’s gaze flickers across the table.  “He’s just like that.  It doesn’t make sense for him to be absent like this.” “I’m sure when he finds out how worried you are, he’ll be touched,” Minseok muses, head jerking on the table as he speaks, jaw resting on the table so his whole head moves as he opens his mouth, almond eyes bleary with tired.  He yawns.  “Considering usually he’s the one who is always worried over you.  I’ll tell him when I see him later.” Luhan’s frowns sharply.  “You’re seeing him later?” “Yeah.”  Minseok is smirking, though he lets out a whine when Luhan kicks him in frustration.  “Ow, stop doing that.” “Why didn't you tell me?” Luhan demands, hot anger skittering up his arms and down the back of his neck. “It was more fun to watch you work yourself up,” Minseok says, smiling in bemusement.  “You’re cute when you’re angry like that.  It means you actually care enough about something to get bent out of shape about it.  Touching really.” Luhan’s temper flares at this.  “I care about a lot of things,” he snaps as Minseok just continues to smile at him pleasantly and obnoxiously entertained.  The sleep has fogged his mind and the pressure release from finals clearly has made him loopy.  “And I’m not cute.” “Damn precious,” Minseok says with a wide grin and kicks Luhan before Luhan can target him and earns a loud yell in return as pain flares up Luhan’s shin at the harsh contact of his foot.  “Yixing is meeting me after his dance practice and hanging out with some of the guys from the music department.” “Who?”  Luhan knows most everyone Yixing hangs out with aside from himself and Minseok, he just elects to not spend excessive amounts of time with them.  Since the episode of Yifan where Yixing apparently felt the need to take Luhan’s dating life into his own hands, Luhan can’t be too careful.  Yixing is a good person, but Luhan is beginning to question his judgment. He can’t blame him for Jongin.  Jongin was a pretty painted lie.  A shame, really. Luhan knows his friends, but as soon as Minseok mentions Yixing spending time with others in the music department, Luhan’s name draws up a blank.  It's a new field from the performance aspect with Yixing had been involved in and this time Luhan doesn’t know.  He doesn’t like being prioritized lower on the social scale. “Just some guys,” Minseok shrugs, his eyes fixed on Luhan and clearly enjoying his dislike of being denied the information he wants.  “Musicians, I think.  They do a lot of the concerts and stuff.  One of them is a singer but majoring in the composition and teaching field.” “Sounds like a bunch of divas.”  Luhan sits back in his chair, scowling as he imagines Yixing surrounded by a group of guys in too proper clothing, all talking about their talents and skills and pressuring his best friend into showing his own.  He imagines them targeting Yixing on his singing and his dancing and making him play guitar, telling him he’s not enough and that he has to improve.  He imagines Yixing’s face falling progressively with each comment and critique and he imagines the heart sinking feeling of realizing he’ll never be good enough to please them. The crippling feeling of Yixing standing alone after the other musicians have left, holding his guitar as the lifelessness of it all sinks into him and fills all the cracks in him and pushes out until there is nothing left. It makes him furious. “Yeah, sure,” Minseok says, completely unaware of what may be happening.  “All of the guys in the music department can be a little self boasting, but they’re musicians.  I’m pretty sure it comes with the packaging.” Luhan doesn’t like them already.  “I’m coming with you.” A slow blink.  “When?  What are we doing together?” “When you see him tonight,” Luhan clarifies as his mind sticks on Yixing and his sleepy eyes and laugh that fills the room.  “I’m coming with you.”  Minseok’s frown deepens. ◦❀◦ The first sound that reaches down the hallway is laughter.  It’s so loud, completely unrestrained, free and uncaring of who hears it or what they think.  The sound is happiness and life and far too loud as it piles together, one on top of the other.  It brings the unfamiliar halls of the music department to life in the later hours of the evening as the fluorescent lights brighten the hallway in sterile illumination. Seated at the chairs near large bay windows, the dark carpeting a contrast to the pale cream chairs, sits a group of boys all in a haphazard pattern together.  Two of them have guitars, one of them smiling so wide his dimples seem imbedded into his cheeks as the soft strumming of instrument strings slink along the sounds of singing and laughter.  The other man with a guitar is tall, excessively so and all long gangly limbs as he holds a guitar which looks dwarfed in comparison to himself, hat placed backwards on his head and with jeans fraying at the cuff.  His smile is so big it appears to break his face. The other men are smaller, singing and sitting together and no one notices as Minseok and Luhan approach, steps and arrival drowned out in the loud noise from the group as only one person among the party seems to have his mouth closed.  They are lost in their own world, their own happiness and their own connection.  Yixing smiles so brightly he shines. Luhan was wrong.  He doesn't dislike Yixing’s new friends, he hates them. The light look of surprise that blooms over Yixing’s face as he catches sight of Luhan and Minseok has Luhan smiling brightly, teeth flashing pretty as he strides to the circle of musicians.  They all turn and look, staggered reactions among a flock as Yixing pauses and Luhan raises his hand in greeting, stepping ahead of Minseok. “Luhan?”  Yixing sounds surprised, his face still open and Luhan feels a small rush of pride for surprising him. “You’re really hard to find when you don’t answer your phone,” Luhan says, standing by a chair hosting one of the new unnamed friends, face upturned to him and with pretty curved lips.  Luhan’s eyes flicker back to Yixing. A loud bark of a laugh comes from the man sitting opposite Yixing, his own snapback on properly facing as his mouth drops open in amusement.  “Yixing always forgets stuff like that though.”  Luhan doesn’t like him.  Yixing’s mouth quirks at the other man and earns a wide square smile in return.  “You can’t help it, but we like you anyway.” “There aren’t conditions for liking people, that’s stupid,” says the other guitarist, his voice surprisingly deep.  Closer, Luhan can see his face.  Now that he’s not laughing, Luhan can see him clearly and something twists in his gut.  He’s handsome, in a pretty sort of way that hits into him unpleasantly.  The stronger face outlined by large eyes that shine in wonder and full lips.  Lips like Yixing’s and he’s incredibly good looking.  The only flaw he has are the ears that stick out but even that, somehow, is endearing, the handsome look added with a dash of childish cute and the voice that spills out is the deepest and richest Luhan has ever hear. Stomach clenching rather than his hands, Luhan watches as the guitarist turns to Yixing with a pressed lip smile.  Yixing smiles in return and the warmth there leaves Luhan feeling horrifically cold.  “He’s just being honest.” “Like a dick,” says the guy beside Luhan and the handsome guitar player laughs so loudly and suddenly Luhan nearly jumps, the sound so explosive and unexpected.  He hates him, he hates him so much. Quieting, his laughter, Yixing finally adjusts his guitar and lets his eyes rest on his two long time friends.  “Luhan, these are some friends of mine.”  The back molars of his mouth feel like they’re crawling and his hands itch to ball into fists.  “I met them in the music classes this semester.”  He smiles as he introduces them, a light and warmth dancing in his eyes as he goes and specifies each one as if they mean so much to him and Luhan’s skin itches with irritation as Minseok stands beside him with aggravating calm. The man beside Luhan is Jongdae, who doesn’t look at him, just balls his hand into a fist and shakes it in the air once, a soft sure smile on his lips as he radiates indifferent caring.  The loud insulting one on the floor is Baekhyun and his wide mouth stretches into a rectangle when he’s designated, flashing Luhan a peace signed before laughing horrifically at himself.  The man beside him is Kyungsoo, whose mouth slides to the side in a smirk, fingers waving before he punches a still laughing Baekhyun beside him. Chanyeol is the one who plays guitar and has long legs and a jacket that slips off his shoulder, smile friendly and welcoming and warm as he looks at Luhan.  “Nice to meet you,” he says, cheeks rising into apples and eyes creasing in kindness as he waves a hand and absently runs his fingers along the strings of his guitar.  “We've heard a lot about you from Yixing.” “Have you?”  Luhan asks, tightness in his throat as Chanyeol turns to look at Yixing, smile still so kind and happy on his lips.  Yixing returns it and doesn’t look at him. look at me. “Can you not look like you’re about to kill someone?” Minseok says as they walk outside, the night air cooler as it hits their skin, the warmth from today and spring leaving hastily as the darkness descends.  “Seriously, it looks so damn strange on your face.  Like a weirdly cute but menacing serial killer.” “What the hell is he doing with them?” Luhan bursts out, anger snapping ahead of him as his stride picks up.  They had visited for about an hour, give or take, and Luhan wants to either sprint and slam soccer balls into goals, watching the impact of the ball fight through his anger or drown under the scalding water of a shower until he can’t feel his skin. “What are you talking about?”  The darkness casts and recasts over Minseok’s face, shadows sliding over his skin and concerned frown as they walk brusquely across the campus in a direction Luhan’s feet drive and his head ignores.  “They were nice.” “They were assholes,” Luhan snaps back, mind on the quipping remarks and the banter that stabbed at each other and brought laughs from their mouths.  Watched as Yixing laughed and laughed and it was so loud it beat against the walls and ears and pounded angrily into the patience that he tries to maintain.  “All they did was insult each other.” A light wind picks up, tugging and pulling at them, whipping hair across Minseok’s forehead and Luhan’s jacket to his chest.  “So you mean they acted like we do?” “We’re different.” Luhan tries to grab at it, the flaring head of his anger, his irritation, his hold around fingers soft and delicately tapered on hands small and pretty with his own.  It slips and his teeth clench.  “We’re different from people like Baekhyun and Jongdae and Chanyeol.” “I like them,” Minseok defends. “I don’t,” Luhan spits as the ghost of too loud laughter and a handsomely beautiful face flashes before his eyes, low voice screaming iron against the soft tissue of his brain.  “What does he see in him?” The concern is back on Minseok’s face, etched in the lines around his eyes which still dig with exhaustion and yet he follows Luhan across campus, over the paths and the sidewalks and the campus greens until they’re nearly at the athletic fields.  “Luhan, they weren’t that bad.” The soccer field is empty, vacant of the players that streak across it on legs of steel and muscles of titanium, exhilaration and excitement and life throbbing over the grassy terrain.  The night sky stretches above them, polluted with light but the stars are still there, twinkling in the darkness and every molecule in Luhan’s body is seized and tense as he feels the control beginning to slip around kind smiles and dimples pressing too deep into a face too soft and loving. He wants to rip it all down and paint it all in black, block out the stars and shatter the bulbs and pull it screaming into the abyss where no sound escapes. Watch it burn. ◦❀◦ Luhan had his first relationship when he was thirteen and in middle school and he thought that the correct thing was to date someone of the opposite sex.  He saw the girl who sat next to him in Algebra and knew she was pretty and somewhat intelligent and asked her out in the middle of October and she blushed at him before saying no. She said yes when he brought her flowers and told her he wasn’t worthless.  She said he looked pretty and he told her he wasn’t. After two weeks, Luhan realized his error and broke up with her.  When she cried he apologized and told her it wasn't him, it was because she was a girl and he didn’t like those.  She still cried and he walked away rather than try to explain that the idea of touching her revolted him.  He didn’t know how to talk to his mother about it, but considering the slander at the school and the rumors that always circulated when one person looks the way they do were enough. Luhan was on sports teams and neither weak nor unimpressive, strong in muscle and body and with trophies lining the small bookshelf in his room and in the parlor of the house.  Luhan was pretty as a boy but still masculine, still acted like the man he knew he was destined to become.  Stronger than his father, better than any father he might have asked for or wanted. His mother would nod in approval as he came home with top scores on the academic exams and the honor awards from classes.   His mother would smile when she had time to hear about his sports and could attend a game.  Luhan knew she wouldn't smile when he told her that all they had smeared his name with was true.  She had lowered her eyes and never said a word. “Can you tell me about your past?” is asked to him as the spring weather warms through the glass of the window panes and spills onto the floor in a glow of yellow and warm gold.  It spills against Luhan’s back as he sits and stares at the wall opposite him and his hands rest in gentle fists over his knees. Luhan, in his words, dated the co-captain of the soccer team that won at the state championships for almost six months.  The team co-captain, in his words, had Luhan suck him off in the locker rooms between practices when the word spread through school.  He never mentioned the hours of time spend together or the way he would lean in to press his lips to Luhan’s and whisper ‘please’ desperately. Eager little whore was thrown at him carelessly and his vision flashed red. No one touched Luhan after the co-captain was out of school for a week with a broken collarbone and came back with a still visible black eye while Luhan’s knuckles were wrapped for three days.  There was no suspension and one look had him never speaking a name, just nothing.  No one asked, and no one told. Never let them tell you what you can’t be or make you less than you are. The co-captain had never apologized but Luhan didn’t need it.  Watching him fail in the tryouts the next spring had been enough as Luhan lead the team and knew he was better than him even if he saw the contempt in some of the other people’s eyes.  Luhan took his place as he fell back and never improved.  Luhan moved on and became something better than him and never spoke to him again. “I don't want to talk about it,” Luhan says, voice flat as he looks at the wall and ignores the sunlight at his back.  His fingers unclench in his lap and flex, the feeling of tension slowly easing from them as the muscles and bone and tendons all move and work together to form functioning human hands that set them apart from every other species on the planet.  “It’s not important.” “Our past is what makes us who we are, Luhan.”  She’s being persuasive today, her hair parted on the wrong side and it makes him want to fix it, to fix her but there’s not point in fixing something that will never be perfect.  “It is what shapes us into the people we are today and who we will become.”  She pauses and a lock of hair falls into her face.  “Can you tell me about yours?” When Luhan was a senior in high school, he leaned over to his best friend after school at his house as they lay sprawled on Yixing’s bed and kissed him.  Yixing kissed back and buried his hands in Luhan’s hair and flushed so prettily Luhan wanted to forever hold this version of him.  Yixing had never really dated before and Luhan hardly counted the soccer team co-captain as anything but a sordid mistake. Yixing told him he loved him with his lips pressed to the curve of his jaw after Christmas and Luhan wondered what that felt like.  Luhan pressed his lips to Yixing’s forehead and whispered that he loved Yixing back and wondered if Yixing knew what that felt like.  In March, Luhan got accepted to every school he applied to and Yixing’s smile turned tight. “I told you I don’t want to talk about it,” Luhan tells her simply.  Her pen begins to tap against the edge of the clipboard irritatingly.  “It’s not interesting for me to talk about.” “Well, can you tell me about your family?”  She is persistent today, apparently tired of Luhan’s silence as he stares at the wall and the spring weather is too beautiful to stay inside from today but here he sits.  Luhan’s knee begins to bounce up and down gently.  “Your mother?” “She’s alive.” “Or your father?” “He’s dead.” When Luhan was four, his father used to pick him up and throw him in the air, screaming so loud as the ground flew away from him before dissolving into giggles as strong warm hands caught him again and spun him around.  He would laugh and shake with mirth as his father’s loud deep voice rang through the walls of the house and his eyes shone with a love Luhan always looked for and found. In the short hours between business and rest, his father would be the one that Luhan would seek out in the night when he awoke from nightmares, his mother then cradling him to her chest and rocking gently as his father stepped away to lock into the bathroom until the morning.  She would sing and the songs were so sweet he cried. Don’t cry.  Don’t let them see you cry. “What happened?”  The calmness, indifference, casualness in her voice makes it seem as if the information of the death of a major family member isn’t a shocking piece of information. “He died.”  Bitter stale and horrible rancid skates over his tongue, the soft satin and smell of flowers with the undertones of chemicals and formaldehyde stung against his nose and throat. “How?” When Luhan was five, he saw his father with tears down his face more times than he saw him smile and when he threw him into the air, there were no strong hands to catch him this time.  Luhan didn’t cry, teeth biting so hard into his fist it bled.  Luhan didn’t cry; his father did and he hated him. The next time Luhan was led up to the roof by his friend down the street, he screamed until he couldn’t see and his friend cried in panic. The flare of anger is back, Luhan’s foot slamming to the ground to keep his knee from bouncing, his hands clenching into fists fast as he whips his head to look at Taeyeon and glare.  “I keep telling you I don’t want to talk about it, so why do you keep asking me?”  Snapping with the venom that leaves a burn against his skin and others. The back of his father’s head had been hidden when he was laying down.  It didn’t matter.  Luhan could see every single one of his holes as he was riddled with them, like Swiss cheese of a person with more weaknesses than he had bones.  His mothers closed eyes and thin line of a mouth told him everything he needed to know to never be like. “I won’t,” was whispered into his hair and Luhan trusted and believed. After stiff cotton stifled him in mid July, he shook and promised his mother he would do his best as she frowned and wiped tears from his eyes.  He pushed it down and promised to never be like he had been and a wall fell down and Luhan was never let in again.  He’s kept that promise and been everything more.  He’s become the best that the first person never could be. “Luhan, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.” “Then I don’t need your help.”  He’s so sick of this.  Of everything, of the grating sessions and the calm questions which never seem to go anywhere and are never specific enough for him to answer because they all say that there’s something wrong with him.  The reason for him being here is because something is wrong with him but he still doesn’t know what. “Luhan, you don’t mean that.” FUCK.  “I don’t hate myself,” snaps out and harsh and vicious and this is so cyclical and idiotic it drags up his arms like iron nails digging sharp into his skin and piercing the bone.  “I am not unstable, I am not depressed, I don’t have problems with relationships or my parents or am suffering from an inability to deal with school work.” When Yixing received his acceptance letters, he sobbed over the phone at Luhan for an hour and Luhan couldn’t see him in person for three days.  Yixing never asked him why and they never talked about it.  Yixing would bury his face in Luhan’s chest when he needed to and Luhan never had to see the tears even as the catch in his throat burned a hole through to the acidic air outside him. They lasted until their first year of university, when Yixing got on campus and they were in separate dormitories and separate classes and their lives began to split.  Luhan came in with four classes advanced from AP credit and declared his double major before the end of the first semester.  Luhan was a member of the Dean’s List and already running for Student Government.  Yixing struggled through his first year seminars and dropped phone calls and dates. ”This isn’t working, is it?” Yixing had asked with his face pressed into Luhan’s back as Luhan read business reports on his bed every night and science and medical journals in his free time. Yixing didn’t cry in front of Luhan.  Nor did he see him for two weeks and after that his eyes were still rimmed with red.  At that time, Yixing loved him, but it wasn’t enough. “I know that,” Taeyeon speaks so carefully and easily and calmly and his stomach clenches up into his body as he tenses and everything stiffens, the muscles now strong at his shoulders and the excellence screaming in protest because of this wretched woman.  He is not fragile he will not break.  Skin crawling with years and years of being looked upon with delicacy and gentility and searching for the weakness that lines somewhere within the fabricated image of his body and the blood smears against everything that resides within him. “Then why are you still asking me questions?”  Demand, fierce hissing and controlled timber in deadly precision as hands don’t catch the fall and eyes never open again, screams are silent and Luhan is perfectly maintained, maintain, maintain. “Because I want to help.” The problem isn’t that there needs to be help given to him to make something better because there isn’t anything wrong with Luhan.  The issue instead resides in the flawed beasts which reside around him and beside him and which never, despite his constant courtesy of offering a chance and hope, fail. They fail to love as much as they should and see exactly how much is enough while Luhan strives and breaks to be. ◦❀◦ Yixing’s room light is on.  It’s shining in the night and the kkt messages in Luhan’s phone all have the number one beside them and are unread.  It’s been too many days past that he sees Yixing and Yixing is never really there.  It’s been too many days and Luhan wants his best friend back from the other man who plays guitar and laughs too loud and sets Luhan’s teeth on edge. The hard wood of the door sends jarring pains spiking through his wrist as he repeatedly slams a fist to the surface hard and fast.  Harder, faster more insistent and the anger building pulls the muscles of his face into a darker countenance until the door yanks back.  “Luhan!” is always said in surprise now, Yixing’s face in vague shock, his mouth open with his full bottom lip hanging in temptation and a light pink is on his cheeks. The feeling of being put aside for another doesn’t do well with him and Luhan misses his best friend.  He wants him back, and wants him to stay where he’s supposed to stay.  Luhan doesn’t like to share; only children were never very good at it anyway. “What?  Did you forget me too in your absent mindedness?” spills from his lips before he can stop it.  It’s low and Yixing’s face falls from surprise to shocked hurt as Luhan pushes past him and breathes out. “What are you talking about?  I didn’t forget you,” Yixing says and the sight of the empty room calms Luhan a little bit.  Seeing it invaded where he belongs and where is scared and just them would have been too much.  “You make it pretty hard to forget about you, even when people want to.” The tone in his voice drops and Luhan turns to look at him and hates this.  He hates fighting like this and he hates being bothered by this and he just wants things to go back and stop jerking in the wrong direction from where they’re supposed to go.  Yixing looks softer when Luhan takes him in, his hair getting long again and brushing just above his eyes.  He’s already wearing the low cut tanks that never leave much for the imagination where his shoulders and arms are exposed and naked.  The speaking is done more by his eyes than his mouth and Luhan can see the confusion, the exhaustion, and the complexity that is his best friend there. When did they stop understanding each other without words? “I miss you,” he says, because he does.  He misses Yixing and everything that they have together.  He misses how Yixing is always there, always the thing he leans to and sees as his other half, his support and the one person that will always love him even if he never really knew how to love Luhan properly.  He loves Luhan as best he can, and Luhan can’t blame him for that. It’s nice to be loved regardless. “I haven’t gone anywhere,” is the response that isn’t true and it burns through skin and fiber and Luhan winces in grief because the agony of Yixing being taken from him is not something he can cope well with.  “I’m still right here, Luhan.” “You’re not, though,” Luhan sighs, his voice wavering on the edges of annoyance and bitterness, the messages in his phone all sent and never read and it’s not the same.  “You're not there when I call, you never answer my messages, I barely see you at meals and if I do it's never just us anymore.”  The loud voices that lower and deepen and growl around him and shove as hands too large and a handsome beautiful face with too big ears pushes itself in front of him and smiles and Luhan is livid.  “You don’t spend any time with me anymore.” “You’re here right now,” Yixing say, very bluntly and the urge to yell in frustration is strong. “The only reason I’m here now is because I can never find you!”  Raised voices echo around the walls of a room and a home and shatter back to dig wounds that no eye can see but only a body can feel.  “I never even am able to just be with you anymore because you’re always with him!” What is it about him that has Yixing so deluded and so swept away?  What is it? “Him?”  The lines of his face furrow and there are no dimples pressing into cheeks when Yixing speaks with him.  Those occasionally glassy eyes widen.  “Are you jealous of Chanyeol?” Fire burns under skin at the word and is so raging hot the air shakes within him waiting to explode, burning him from the inside and the air shakes from the heat.  “What the fuck is it with him?”  Shock pulls eyes larger as a back stiffens rigid.  “What does he have Yixing?  What is it that fucking Chanyeol has that I don’t?” “He doesn’t-“ “Why are you leaving me for him?”  Panic mixes with rage in a deadly Molatov cocktail that spits fire and oil and ignites into a burning smash against ice.  “You’re abandoning me, your best friend for some music guy who sits and plays the guitar all day and talks about econ like it’s his life dream.”  The fire is reaching to the back of his throat, the flesh aching.  “You don’t even really know him that well!  I’ve known you for years, years, and you’re throwing me away for this imbecile.” When Yixing speaks, his voice is soft, the sound hushed in disbelief and after the deafening sound of his own voice shred to splinters, it’s like ice against skin.  “I’m not abandoning you,” speaks soft and almost reverent, cradling gently with words and delicate is what Yixing is, not himself.  He grimaces.  “Luhan, I’m not abandoning you.  I’m never abandoning you, I just am hanging out with him.  We’re friends.”  The word curls as a horrific lie in his stomach.  He sees the way Yixing looks, the way that oaf looks, the way the other boys all look and laugh. “Just friends?” Luhan snaps and Yixing lets out a short irritated breath at him.  It’s unexpected and Luhan isn’t used to Yixing getting this suddenly angry with him.  Something is wrong, there’s something wrong with him and Luhan doesn't have the patience to be understanding with him.  It’s all used up. “Yes, Luhan,” Yixing snaps and walks over to his desk.  “We’re just friends.  Just like I’m friends with Yifan and Baekhyun and Jongdae and Minseok and Jongin, I am friends with Chanyeol and hang out with him and spend time with him because that’s what friends do.”  Luhan’s name wasn’t in that list. “What about me?” Yixing’s eyes flash.  “What about you Luhan?  What is it that it’s always about you?” It stings, that stings and burns and Luhan’s throat closes up but he doesn’t know if it’s because of anger or pain.  “Am I not also a friend to you like all of them?”  Yixing’s eyes widen and Luhan realizes with a jerk in his chest and a cut in his breath.  He realizes what this is, what it’s always been.  “I’m not.” “Luhan,” is said with a sigh, Yixings eyes closing as he stands and look so many things at once and Luhan understands.  “Luhan, this isn’t a comparison game between you and them.  That isn’t fair, to them or to me or to you or to anyone.” He understands and with a few short movements is across the room with his arms around Yixing and he understands as Yixing stiffens against him, stilling in shock and apprehension and Luhan remembers and knows.  It suddenly makes sense.  The withdrawal and the hiding, the looks and concern and the way Yixing’s eyes flicker when they look at him.  “I know it isn’t.” The man in his arm shivers, hands coming to rest at his waist and warm, just like Yixing always has been, the kindness leaking from his pores as he walks among mortals and the love he felt always holding strong and true.  “You- what do you mean you know?”  Yixing makes to pull back but Luhan holds him close, exhaling out the stress and irritation that had gripped him.  “Luhan?” Yixing is still in love with him.  He never stopped, in the years that passed since they broke, Yixing has been feigning and pulling away and pushing others between them and only now when Luhan has been so distant, involved with dating others, has Yixing pulled away.  People pull themselves from the things they love to keep them safe, to keep themselves safe. Yixing was always the weaker one between the two of them.  Even when Luhan slipped and fell to him, Yixing was always the one that ended up in Luhan’s arms.  It didn’t work back when they were too young, when Yixing didn’t know, but Luhan isn’t unkind.  “I get it,” he speaks to the tensing skin of Yixing’s neck, feeling a sharp intake of breath and a shiver.  “I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”  His hand comes to tangle fingers in the soft brown hair at the back of Yixing’s head, cradling him against his chest, strong to stronger and closes his eyes, breathing in shower soap and tremors. Yixing’s hands shift at his sides, tugging the fabric and Luhan feels so calm, so at peace as he realizes and the serenity of enlightenment and knowing spreads through him softly with the spring breezes outside.  Yixing’s eyes are wide and confused and shimmering when Luhan pulls away just enough to look into the face of his once best friend and closest companion.  Yixing lets out a soft gasp that sings into Luhan’s ears as he tilts his head and feels the fullness of Yixing’s lips press against his in softness and reminiscent perfection. After all this time, the years passing and so much space and distance and confusion since this last occurred, Yixing still makes the same sound in the back of his throat, the same slight inclination of his head and his fingers still twitch at Luhan’s sides.  He still tastes the same, of pureness and too many things all at once but entirely Yixing and Luhan finds he missed it. His.  Always his and lips that he knows so well and deeply from having kissed over and over and over still against his. It’s okay, because Luhan knows, he understands that Yixing has been trying to find someone just as Luhan has been turning his eyes elsewhere.  The only part that Luhan forgot was that while he could look for something better, Yixing never could.  Park Chanyeol isn’t better than Luhan, he’s a distraction. There is no one like Luhan. But then a hard shove slams into his chest, the strength behind it sending him back, warmth ripped from his arms and from his lips as air sweeps in and senses sharpen in alarm.  Yixing is standing, breaths heavy and hair mussed, his pretty lips red and glistening as his eyes burn.  His chest heaves with air and he looks anything but calm.  Luhan frowns. “What the fuck?” Yixing breathes out, voice barely grating over a whisper but lacerated with tension.  “Luhan, what the fuck?” “I forgot,” Luhan says, apology in his voice as he takes a step forward and Yixing stumbles back.  “Yixing, I forgot.  I’m sorry.” “Forgot what?!” Yixing’s voice spikes high and loud and his eyes swim suddenly with water and he’s always been the weaker one, his emotions playing over his face so easily and never hidden deep within.  “Luhan, what the hell is wrong with you?” The tension that springs and coils around his chest brushes past because Yixing is confused and Luhan will deal with it later.  Focus and maintain.  “I forgot why I wasn’t like the others.  I forgot how you felt about me, what makes me different.”  I understand. “You-“ Yixing’s breath stops before it rushes back with a gasp.  “You think I’m- I’m in love with you, don’t you.”  He lets out a hoarse disbelieving laugh and it twines like razors.  “Are you fucking serious?” “It’s okay,” Luhan says and understanding gives him peace.  It always was far easier to accept and deal with something when he understood it, the hours spent outside of school and with the light burning late into the night as he fought to understand weeks before concepts were introduced and could breathe when others frowned in confusion.  “Yixing, I’m not mad.” “Why the fuck would you-“  Silence the mouth with his own and the sudden burst of pain against his jaw has him reeling back and eyes wide in astonishment. “Fuck you, Luhan.”  Yixing is crying, the tears streaking down his face as he stand and pours sensitivity to life out of himself in the center of his room that is too messy and disorganized.  “Just fuck you.  I’m Not in love with you!” “You don’t have to lie to me!” Luhan yells, because Yixing can't hear him, can’t hear himself. “You’re my best friend,” Yixing yells and Yixing so rarely yells the explosion of sound is like salvation.  “You’re my fucking best friend and I love you for that.”  The tears mar his face in an exposition of the wretched feelings he can never contain or control.  “Luhan, I do love you.”  He sobs and sobs and sobs and cannot understand the feelings in his heart and Luhan pities him even as his anger rages behind the bars he refuses to let it escape from because Yixing is being so stupid.  “Fuck.” “Chanyeol isn’t me,” Luhan reminds, gently and not taking another step forward because Yixing will break.  “He never will be.” The strong line of shoulders stiffens and a form goes rigid.  “Get out,” comes out low and eyes blaze.  “Get the fuck out of my room.” “Don’t lie to yourself, don’t do this.”  I understand everything now. “Get the Fuck out!”  The scream shatters the air and the loud footsteps slam over the floor and the door shakes as Luhan stands and closes his eyes in remorse as Yixing runs, leaving him in this broken sanctuary.  As he runs from the truth and everything Luhan finally realizes. He runs and, for now, Luhan lets him go. ◦❀◦ The phone buzzing against the desk is showing the wrong number, the name flashing on the screen the wrong one and it flashes and buzzes with angry insistency, demanding to be answered.  It is ignored as the pages of a book are turned instead and phrases of motivation and encouragement and philosophical rhetoric are absorbed into the soft gray tissue of the brain instead.  Internalizing and tuning out the obnoxious sound of fury from the other end of the phone that vibrates ferociously against the plywood. The last book placed into open hands was on self discovery and worth.  The words melt like wax against a flame and drip against his skin to plaster there and harden. “Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?” - Brigham Young The phone begins to shatter through the silence again and the sound of angry hornets resonates through the spaces of molecules and oxygen. Breathe in before the answer bar is swiped over the screen and eyes close in preparation, willing the heart to be calm and to keep from judgment.  It is not his fault. A roar of sound and explodes over the small speaker imbedded into the device and clashes horrifically with the melodies of classical sonata gently wafting from the music player on the desk.  “What the actual shitting fuck did you think you were doing?” He doesn’t understand and he cannot be held accountable for his words, his thoughts or his actions.  He must be forgiven.  He is at peace. “Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.” - Veronica A. Shoffstall “Yelling at me isn’t going to do anything except make your throat hurt, and you’re still sick from earlier this week,” Luhan says over the phone and leans back, his head gently coming to rest against the wall behind his bed as his eyes close.  Breathe deep and easy, fill lungs with life and love and acceptance.  He is learning, he is safe, he is patient.  “I did what I needed to do, what needed to be done.” “What needed- breaking into his room and kissing your best friend was necessary?  Really?  After everything you two have been through, that was what needed to be done?”  The voice that is still too loud pulls away as Luhan lets his hand drop from holding the phone to his ear, the sound sending a sharp pain through his skull from Minseok’s incorrigible misunderstanding.  “Luhan, do you have any idea what he’s been going through?” “I do.”  Yixing is in love with him.  It makes sense,  Luhan is the most important person Yixing has, the most stable and he understands why Yixing would love him.  He is supposed to love him, for if anyone can love Luhan, it is Yixing.  “Look, I get that you’re upset and that he might not have told you everything-“ “Yixing has barely told me anything.  He’s not talking to anyone right now.  Do you have any idea how upset he is right now?  How upset you have made him?”  Minseok sighs loud and angered.  It’s strange when Minseok gets angry, so very strange.  It’s almost as strange as Yixing, but Minseok’s anger is more contained, more centered.  Yixing is expression and Minseok is compressed and Luhan appreciates them both for what they are.  “Luhan, you’re not helping him by doing this.” “Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.” - Carl Gustav Jung “You’re not helping yourself by doing this either.” Close eyes and gently place the slip of paper, worn from use and yet carefully kept as clean as possible, the walls white and with perfectly leveled and hung picture frames.  It’s immaculate, floor clean and organized and everything exactly where it should be.  It’s all so ideal. “This isn’t about me,” Luhan sighs, placing the book in his hands to the side, resting on the bed beside him waiting to be devoured once more.  “This isn’t about you or me or anyone else.  This is about Yixing.” “Are you sure?” “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” - William James “Of course.” ◦❀◦ The house is gorgeous in the late spring, the sunlight hitting against the windows and when Luhan steps inside it is to the warmth from the outside filling him.  His mother doesn’t question his coming home.  His mother smiles and is beautiful in her dress and light cardigan with flowers embroidered down the front that matches the aroma that seems to cling to her like a dying lover. A dead unfulfilling lover that she cast away, replacing for another which cannot harm her in the same way. Luhan smiles at his reflection when he puts his bag away and barely has time to look about his room when the door is open and strong arms are wrapping around him as happiness seems to roll into him.  “You’re home!” Somehow, despite how the family gatherings were never perfect and occasionally his aunt would stare at his mother for too long and the conversation sometimes fell sour, it always makes him smile when his cousin is here.  Zitao talks for hours and fills the silence that Luhan doesn’t need to.  He listens with rapt attention as Luhan tells him about college life and his world and his friends. He gasps in all the right places, laughs at him and pouts when something sad happens.  Zitao is an excellent audience and Luhan never minds listening to him as he rambles about his own world and thoughts and relationships. “Where is Sehun?” has the younger boy biting his lip as he sinks further into the chair beside Luhan’s bed.  Though he knows the details, knows to never touch what is strictly forbidden, Zitao will occasionally tease and press the boundaries towards Luhan’s bed.  But he always draws back with a laugh and Luhan always forgives him. It’s impossible not to forgive a child for being who they are. “He’s busy today,” Zitao begins, his hands in his lap twining together gently as his eyes fall to them and Luhan notices the change absently, his hands gently taking his folded clothing for the weekend from his bag.  “He had other things to do.  Other… people to hang out with.” Luhan’s eyebrows rise on his face at his cousin.  “But you’re best friends.”  The light blush on those darker cheeks and the deeper bite of a lip has Luhan’s gaze lingering.  “I thought you were, at least.” “We are!”  Zitao is avid, eager and full of determination and enthusiasm.  He is all passion and wild and willing to prove he is as good as he wants to be and always manages to pick himself up when he’s fallen.  It’s incredibly cute and endearing.  His brightness and life around the words has Luhan’s mouth twitching in a smile.  “We are best friends, but he had to spend today with his family, his brother is doing something and he needed to be there for him.” “I sometimes forget he does other things than hang out with you,” Luhan muses and Zitao smiles. “He has his own life,” Zitao murmurs.  “I’m happy he lets me be such a big part of it.  Did you know he got his license last month?  Now we can drive too, though I never let him do so in my car.”  He laughs loudly and full of life.  “As if I’d let him ever drive my car when he’s barely had his license.” “And your car is like your baby,” Luhan reminds with amusement, his attention wandering as he watches Zitao with half focused eyes.  His mind is flashing over other things, over the books in his bag and the paper he’s nearly finished with and the electronic reading assignments and assessment he needs to submit before Thursday evening. Zitao doesn’t seem to notice that Luhan is mildly distracted though, instead still rambling on and on and on about everything he can, hands gesturing wildly in the air as he falls to half lie in the chair he’s in, Luhan eventually sprawled on the bed watching him. His eyes light up as he speaks, his smile ever present as he continues to speak about everything he can and pulls Luhan along with him.  He talks about his school, about the beginning aspects of being in university and how strange it will be that the year is nearing a close.  He talks about the martial arts club and Luhan scolds him for being so boasting of his skills. Conceit isn’t pretty, he tells Zitao.  Arrogance isn’t a virtue and hubris is repugnant.  Zitao apologizes and flushes cute. Luhan tells Zitao about his friends, about the failure of Joonmyun and Yifan and Jongin and how this summer he is applying for work in the city.  How he’s going to be working at one of the major businesses as an apprentice for stocks and sales and gaining valuable work experience. The interview is in a week and Luhan is prepared for anything that he may encounter and he is calm and controlled and prepare, meticulous details and confident in his abilities and himself. such a wonderful perfect and exceptional boy to make us all proud.  everyone will love you Zitao sits and listens and drinks it in with wide seeing eyes and Luhan glows and swells at it all.  He smiles and enjoys it, the relaxed calm of mutual conversation, mind musing and slowly taking in as Zitao talks about his roommate and Sehun visiting on the weekend, the dining food and how terrible it is but Sehun builds mountains out of it and laughs with him for hours, how the dorm beds are small but it doesn’t matter because it’s easy to curl up and nap together anyway. “It must be nice to have your best friend as your roommate,” Luhan comments when Zitao is talking about his intro to anthropology lecture and laughing because he needs coffee but can never drink the bitter liquid. Zitao blinks.  “Sehun isn’t my roommate.”  He looks briefly shocked and confused and Luhan files away the information just in case. “It’s good you like coffee though,” he says and snaps Zitao back to focus.  “I swear it’s the only thing that gets me through exams.  Thank god for Minseok and his obsession with it because otherwise I’d have to survive on the hellish stuff that the cafeteria gives us.” “You’re so lucky,” Zitao breathes and Luhan smiles because he’s happy. ◦❀◦ The therapist is sitting today with her hair in the old better styling and her nails are painted pink.  Luhan is wearing a light tee shirt and an easy fitting jacket.  He has on slacks and nice shoes and looks comfortably attractive and handsome.  There are no bags under his eyes from lack of sleep.  He is in control of all aspects in his life save for one which refuses to obey him. It’s been five days that Luhan has walked about campus talking to his friends and feeling oddly disconnected.  Yixing is talking to him again but never alone, and never meeting his eyes and Luhan is getting tired of waiting for him to just let go and to admit everything.  Minseok is watching him closer than ever and no matter how often Luhan tells him it’s under control he still nods with a slight bit of hesitancy. Soojung smiled at him and they talked during the time between classes.  Soojung understands and knows that it is okay.  Soojung laughs and is pretty and is fun and caring and intelligent enough to know that it wasn’t Luhan at fault after all and Luhan appreciates her. “Are you ready to talk to me today?” “I’m here, aren’t I?”  This is obvious and unnecessary and Luhan wishes he weren’t here but yet here he sits.  He is a creature of habit, occasionally tempted by the lure of spontaneity but overall he will repeat and perfect and continue. “What do you want to talk about today?”  she asks and it is a boring question.  “What is going on in your life?  Anything of interest?  You mentioned last week you were going home.  How was that?” “Home is home.”  The same house and the same rooms and the same clean and smell and environment that he grew up in and flourished and proved to all the people who said he couldn’t that he could and smashed it in their face.  “My mother was happy.  We had dinner together and I visited with my cousin.” “I didn’t know you have a cousin.”  She smiles and her teeth are artificially whitened.  Luhan can see it past her gums and into the dark hidden portrait that she has been projecting to make herself more acceptable to others.  She is weak as well and derision crawls over him like the stick of cat hair in an old woman’s home.  “I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed yourself.” “Home is a place where you are supposed to be enjoying yourself,” Luhan answers numb with the precision drilled into the answer.  Home is where you heart is.  Home is where you always find love and acceptance and smiles and warm food and happiness.  Home is home and love is where you find it.  “Of course I was happy to go home.” The portrait on the wall that looks with dead eyes and speaks of a painted lie that others will look at and believe. weakness. “What has happened this week?”   The questions aren’t waiting for him to take a breath today and he wants to growl.  “Anything new?” “Nothing much.”  The delayed answers on his phone from when they used to be so rapid and quick and easy conversation no longer so.  Yixing is ignoring him to spend his time with loud raucous and imperfecting assholes that joke and tease and waste their time.  The time spent with them is like the time wasted at the alcohol fogged parties he so despises.  “I’m just dealing with a few things.”  Shit. “Like what?”  She is curious.  “Academics?”  The pen scratches.  “Did you get a chance to read those books I gave you?” “They’re interesting.”  Avoid the questions that she wants to have answered.  It’s none of her business prying into him like this, trying to find the things that are wrong that no one else ever need to see.  No one needs to know that Yixing isn’t talking to him when he should be talking to him and how it makes his heart hurt in his chest because best friends don’t do this.  You don’t ignore the person you love, it hurts them.  “I’ve been taking my time with them.”  Being kinder today to keep her happy. “I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying them,” she says and she smiles and the walls are waving today and he doesn’t understand what she wants to hear and it irritates him.  “How are your friends?  Have you been seeing them as often as you thought you might?  I remember their concern when you and Jongin broke up.” The name is bitter and insignificant.  Even Soojung understands that Luhan is correct and that ending it was the good choice.  Jongin cries and collects and puts too much of himself into the hands of others.  He is a child in need of taking care of and Luhan is not a parent.  Soojung has come to realize this.  She knows he is fine.  They laughed and it’s okay and Luhan can’t help that Minseok doesn’t seem to know that he’s doing what is right for his best friend. Yixing is just being stupid. “They are okay,” Luhan answers.  “I’m trying to get Yixing to stop being an idiot.”  Stop talking.  Stop talking she doesn’t need to know no one needs to know. She leans forward in her chair, interested and he licks his lips.  “He’s in love with me.” “How do you know?” Ignorance cannot be hated when she doesn’t understand the situation.  “He always has been,” Luhan’s words feel flat in his mouth as the space of his mind flattens into the quiet plateau that calms and puts everything into the space between his inner consciousness and the vast expanse that extends higher than the universe in the night sky.  “He’s always been in love with me and he’s always been around me.  But he’s being an idiot right now because he won’t admit it.” “Then how do you know he loves you?” “I know.” “Because he acts like he is in love with you?” “Minseok doesn’t get it.” The expanse begins to darken, a smoke casting over it that is rimmed with red and crimson hues and he frowns.  “I seriously don't get it because he can see it and I can see it and Yixing is just ignoring it and projecting the fact that he can’t get over it onto other people and it’s just going to hurt him.  It would be better for everyone if he just let it out and admitted it.” “Do you want to date Yixing then?” Luhan laughs and it’s so absurd.  “I can’t date him, he’s my best friend.” “People have fallen in love with their best friends before.”  The history that is so clear as it flashes through the smoke and he looks up into it and watches himself and Yixing and their past flow together in the downward stream of a river of memories. “We already did that,” Luhan informs her.  “It didn’t work.” She blinks, obviously surprised at this piece of information.  They’ve been together for eight months.  This is the longest relationships he’s had since Yixing.  “Then why do you think he’s still in love with you now?”  Her eyebrows furrow.  “Are you in love with him, Luhan? “He’s supposed to love me.”  Luhan thinks of the hands that cling and the soft spoken words and the tears that run down his face and his own hands soothing them away with careful words and always holding, holding, holding.  Yixing who listens and who goes out of his way and drops everything when Luhan asks and Yixing who is to love Luhan because that’s how it is.  “I don’t get why he’s being so stubborn with me.” “Are you sure it’s Yixing that is supposed to love you and not yourself?” The sentence feels like being smacked in the face and Luhan physically startles at it, staring at her and affronted.  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “You tell me, Luhan.” ◦❀◦ “As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.” - Nic Sheff ◦❀◦ After four days and 300 text messages on kakao and too many dinner dates that were skipped or with the incorrect company, Luhan finds Yixing and sits across from him, taking his hands when Yixing immediately tries to get up and walk away.  “Please stay,” he asks and Yixing’s eyes falter.  “Please, Yixing, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have done what I did.”  I shouldn’t have kissed you if you weren’t ready for me too. Yixing’s eyes flicker as he sits back down and Luhan can breathe like a normal person.  An above average person.  Luhan can breathe like himself. It took a lot of time, a lot of effort with Minseok sitting with him and lying with the other on his bed as Minseok batted away his hands and tried to continue studying for his test the following morning, ignoring Luhan.  Minseok was terrible with that, never giving Luhan attention when he wanted it, instead focusing on other things.  It’s why Yixing was his favorite and the best one.  It took a lot, but finally Minseok sighed and gave in. “Just don’t hurt him again,” Minseok had said as he looked at Luhan and Luhan’s fingers curled into the bedspread on the shitty college bed.  “I don't think he can take it anymore.  And neither can you.” “I won’t,” Luhan promised.  Luhan keeps his promises.  He doesn’t hurt things unless they hurt him, there is no logic in that.  Why hurt something when it can love you instead?  Why do something that will ensure that you are despised and hated? Yixing is so often with Chanyeol and the other musical friends that Luhan has to grit his teeth and bare it.  At first, he balances, calling up Zitao and smiling as they meet for lunches, occasionally joined by Sehun who smiles and tries to pretend he doesn’t and talks too much about bubble teas with overflowing enthusiasm and has too many ideas about the world and what he can do with it.  Zitao always listens as Luhan checks his phone under the table. It’s hard, and Luhan doesn’t necessarily like it when it’s into Baekhyun’s or Jongdae’s side that Yixing curls into, laughing that high and gorgeous laugh as Chanyeol is too loud and his eyes are too bright.  There’s something about him that Luhan can’t see and he doesn’t trust him. Baekhyun watches him with sharp eyes as Luhan pulls Yixing to him and Yixing stiffens before melting to him and Luhan stares back in challenge.  Yixing doesn’t belong to any of them.  They don’t own him. So it is with surprise when they’re joined for dinner when Luhan knows Yixing is at a dance rehearsal and has no time, Baekhyun stepping to his side and hitting him in the elbow as he serves himself.  Baekhyun is a younger than him.  And shorter.  His eyes don’t match and his ears stick out.  He smiles and it’s cute. Men are not cute. “You know,” Baekhyun says after sucking in a breath and selecting pizza as his meal of choice.  “You’re really good looking.” The compliment surprises him and Luhan falters as he watches as Baekhyun deliberates between pepperoni and smothered cheese.  “I am?” Baekhyun laughs, too loud and his mouth stretches full as he turns to Luhan.  His eyes are squinted but they pierce through him and Luhan feels raw and exposed, a piece of meat lying before the sun and birds circling above waiting to dive and devour him in shreds and strips.  “Don’t act like you don’t know it.  No attractive person doesn’t know they’re attractive.  Take myself for example.” Baekhyun isn’t happy with himself.  Luhan can read it in the lines of his face and the way he constantly checks his appearance and fusses with everything.  The way he frowns and gets embarrassed in his actions and the things he does or says.  The way he looks to Kyungsoo or Chanyeol for confirmation that he’s funny or interesting.  “You think you’re pretty hot shit,” Luhan snickers at him, grabbing a pasta and passing on the extra sauce the woman behind the counter offers him. The gym is open until 1 am tonight and Luhan needs to go to keep his schedule exact. “I know I’m hot shit,” Baekhyun laughs as he follows Luhan.  “Anyway, I wanted to ask you something, mr. super handsome.” “That’s not patronizing at all,” Luhan drawls. “Sure it is,” Baekhyun is all laughter under his voice when he speaks just like Chanyeol is all eagerness and warmth and depth and Minseok is calm composure.  “I need to know when Yixing’s birthday is.” Luhan blinks.  “Why?” “Because I want to know,” Baekhyun says simply.  “You’re his best friend, or something from the way you glom onto him and don't share.  So you have to know.” “It’s October,” Luhan says, feeling irritation crawl up his skin.  Luhan doesn’t like Baekhyun all that much.  He’s more blunt about himself than Chanyeol might be, or how Jongdae at least has a degree of humility about his singing and irritated when insulted profusely.  “Why?” “Is it so weird to want to know when my friend’s birthday us?” Baekhyun is looking at him strangely, like he’s not sure where Luhan is coming from or like he can’t understand why he’s still there.  “Or are you just jealous I’m not asking when your birthday is.” “Funny,” Luhan remarks dryly, his eyes landing on the table and Yixing laughing and leaning into Chanyeol who smiles too big and everything about him is loud.  “You have two weeks to get me something or I’m disowning you.” Baekhyun sucks in air through his teeth.  “Glad I’m not your son then,” he says and then grins wide and humorously as if he is waiting for Luhan to laugh.  He lets himself do so, because it’s expected and easier than to have Baekhyun badgering him why he doesn’t laugh.  He’d rather just placate Baekhyun that inform him how much he despises his form of humor.  Baekhyun’s eyes linger on him when he shoves Jongdae to sit beside Yixing. Yixing smiles at him, pulling slightly away from Chanyeol who is watching him with a small lilt to his lips.  Luhan leans in and asks him how he is, how he’s doing, what his classes are like, if his back is okay after dance practice and Yixing’s eyes stay on him. Jongdae engages Baekhyun in a loud discussion as Chanyeol ends up sitting and just watching and contributing from the side.  Luhan eats half of his pasta before Yixing fusses and makes him eat the other half and Minseok arrives late, staring at Luhan’s arm around Yixing’s shoulders. When Luhan meets his eyes, he speaks without words that it’s fine and he has everything under control.  This is fine and he and Yixing are okay and just how they should be, or getting there.  He’s fixing this.  He’s bringing Yixing back. ◦❀◦ Yixing remembers Luhan’s birthday and calls him four times to ask him what he wants to do for it.  With a smile on his face, Luhan leans back in his desk chair and tells him he’s going home for his birthday and to come up with something else. Yixing tells him he’ll try before asking who else he wants and what he wants. Luhan wants his friends and he wants his health and he wants to not be force-fed cake.  He wants alcohol and he wants people having fun and joking and laughing with him.  “I want you, Yixing,” he says and there is a pause on the other end of the line before Yixing whispers okay and hangs up. The black cased phone on his desk beeps at 11:54 and Minseok’s name has the message stop it illuminated before it fades to black. ◦❀◦ When Luhan turned eighteen, he had a large party with his friends, Minseok and Yixing both there and at the time, with the help of one of his friends in university, they’d managed to get alcohol for the event.  It had been a fun night, laughing with his arm hooked around Yixing’s neck as the world really spun for the first time and he was drunk with exhilaration. Yixing had been accepted into university as well and they’d be going there together and he was happy.  He was so happy as he pressed his lips to Yixing’s and everything was dusted with the light rose that his mother’s wrists would smell of and the flowers set beside funeral caskets. When Luhan is four days from turning twenty one, he has a large party organized by Yixing and Minseok where Song Qian in the senior class lets the group of friends and others fill the apartment she shares with her friend.  There was a dinner which Luhan didn't pay for, Minseok smiling at him and shoving his wallet away before Luhan could open his mouth.  There is alcohol dripping down the sides of cups and Luhan isn’t a party person but this is exactly his style. There is laughing and joking and music he likes and people he likes and he has absolute power and freedom of the whole event.  The classes the following day are all in the afternoon and so the later draw of the evening doesn’t matter as he hooks his arm around Yixing’s neck and drags him away from playing beer pong with Chanyeol and Yixing laughs and laughs and never resists. It’s perfect, people smiling and laughing and praising him, small gifts and trinkets and well wishing mentions pressed into his hands because he deserves them and Yixing rests his head on Luhan’s shoulder while Minseok watches from afar and his eyes never leave Luhan’s.  It’s exactly as it should be.  Everything the way it is supposed to be until he turns to the side and presses his lips to the arc of Yixing’s cheek and everything freezes in that second of time. Yixing doesn’t move, rigid against him before he’s suddenly pulling away, pulling from Luhan so fast he doesn’t have time to do anything but snatch out and yank him back.  Don’t leave him you’re not allowed.  “Stop!”  Yixing is drunk, not knowing what he’s doing as he pushes away, fights against Luhan and shoves him back.  Yixing was always horrible at holding his alcohol and Luhan’s mouth sets into a thin line of disposition as his fingers close roughly around Yixing’s to stop him from striking.  “Luhan, let go.” If you work hard enough for it, you can do and get anything.  Hard work is always the bigger factor in success than luck. Yixing’s eyes squeeze shut as Luhan pulls him close.  Calm down, calm down, maintain the swim between his eyes and his ears as Yixing sways too close and Luhan knows Yixing wants him and all of this struggling and denial is just irritating.  “Yixing, stop fighting me.”  Words caress over skin flushed with alcohol and the pounding of a heart that throbs through the wrists his fingers are clenched around tightly. “Luhan, let go of me,” he hisses and those hazed eyes focus with such effort Luhan almost laughs.  He almost laughs but it chokes in his throat as the collar of his shirt tightens around his neck and he’s yanked back so hard the air is cut off and he can’t breathe for the sudden pain. “He said let go!” yells loudly into his ear and leaves it ringing, balance upset and head spinning as his vision blurs into static.  “So let him go!  What the hell is wrong with you that you can’t listen to someone?”  The grip at the back of his collar is choking him, the fabric of his shirt cutting off air and he wheezes trying to breathe as fire and anger spike through the burning liquor in his stomach and the storm that begins to rage in the vast space that expands through his mind and swims with water.  “You’re hurting him!” “You’re hurting me,” Luhan screams soundlessly at the furious brown eyes that are too sharp for how much alcohol that has been passed around.  They’re clear and harsh and the dig into his throat is like knives and it spikes through him with iron and mercury, acid slaughtering through everything as he tries to find his feet but the ground isn’t there.  “Let go, I can’t breathe.” Strong hands grip around him and pull him up straight, pushing him back until the light disappears and they’re cast into shadow and Luhan can smell clean and sweat and soap and cappuccinos and Luhan smiles because he knows.  He smirks because he recognizes, sneers as his eyes close and a laugh gurgles up from the vodkamix that sloshes in his lungs.  He can breathe with the release from around his neck but can’t inhale for laughing. He laughs and laughs and laughs until his back slams into the wall and it’s dark here among the shadows of the side room and he coughs as his laugh catches in his throat cruelly.  “Luhan, what the hell are you doing to him?” “He loves me,” Luhan smiles and doesn’t open his eyes to keep behind them where it’s safe and he doesn’t have to see.  Minseok can’t see him if Luhan can’t see him and the eyes are the window in the soul but Luhan’s is black.  Black and Red and White and Maintain maintain breathe in and remember you are perfect exactly as you are never let them see you CRY. “Luhan, stop it.  I don’t know what’s going on but you’re not thinking straight.” Flashing of medicines which fall from shelves as knees give out a floor rushes up to meet him.  The tile of the bathroom hard and cold as blood pours from his eyes rather than tears and he can’t see.  Screaming into nothing and he can’t. Stop. Shaking as his jaw unhinges and fingernails dig into skin, forming crimson moons that drip down his skin and there are no stars. “I’m FINE.”  His voice is too loud and the louder it becomes the greater the ax in his throat as it rips the words free.  He can’t see when he opens his eyes, the blinding over them fog and white and black and Minseok’s hair is messy on his head and his mouth red for Koolaid mixed poison.  “It’s fine. Go away, I don’t need you.” “Luhan!”  It’s his fucking birthday party and Minseok shoves him back against the wall to keep him from enjoying the only day where he is the center of everything and the best and everyone loves him because he’s him and it’s HIS.  “Please, I just want to help.” Operator.  Operator.  I can’t connect to the call please cut the line and never let them speak. “I don’t need help,” vicious as it spills from his mouth, the curling in his stomach worse than ever and he’s sick of this, the feeling of this injustice and cruelty volatile and chaotic.  “I am fine.  Everything is fine.  Nothing is wrong.” Minseok’s voice is cracking against the rocks of the ocean and Luhan stands above on the crags watching the waves pound.  “Yes it is!”  His eyes swim and he has so much emotion. Emotions make you weak, hold them and control them and you are strong. “Luhan, I’m worried about you and you need to tell me what is going on with you or I can’t help you with whatever it is you’re dealing with.”  Minseok’s concern is so cute. such a wonderful pretty talented boy, it’s such a shame Scream against the walls that sag as he begins to slip down and panic seizes through him as the wailing of sirens begins to build between his ears and swallow him alive. Not Again. “I just want to help you.” “I don’t need help!” Luhan screams, and the silence that follows rings louder than the high pitched ambulance siren in his head that pulls him back to white walls and his pulse pounding so hard it gags.  Hunching over he reaches out and wraps his fingers around live skin and flesh and digs in his point.  “Yixing is the one who is being the problem and it’s none of your fucking business.” “He’s my friend.”  Minseok is a rock and Luhan needs a hammer to break free.  “So are you and I don’t like seeing you like this.” “Fuck off,” Luhan hisses and the sky is black as his feet spread on the ground with a solid wall behind him.  “I’m perfectly fine and this isn’t your place to step into.” “I want it to be,” Minseok snaps back and he’s so funny.  His face is so funny when he’s angry and Luhan’s laughs echo in his mind before gurgling amid the slosh and the waves of bright red from the bottom of a solo cup.  “You’re drunk and I just want to stop seeing you like this it’s worrying me and it has been and I care about you.” please love me please love me please let me in and tell me i’m okay please accept me for who i am and don’t lock me out i just want to be okay Stop It He doesn’t listen to Minseok, finally yanking away after hissing at him and pushing so far into his personal space Minseok jerked way.  I don’t need you to worry about me, I need you to trust me when I tell you I am fine and leave it the fuck alone.  It’s harder to leave the party when he can’t walk straight and his balance is lost and everyone wants him to stay because it’s his party and his mouth hurts as he smiles. Drowning in red water that tastes like medicine and he gags around the putrid smell as it gargles down.  He can’t see anyone as he talks to then, faces blank and unrecognizable and he talks and talks and laughs and does and watches from the outside in and approves because he needs to approve of as he does exactly what he’s supposed to do. It’s 2am and the lights buzz in the bathroom as water drips down the walls.  It’s 2am and he’s not wearing sock and the floor is cold against his feet, breaths the only sound in the room aside from the steady drip drip drip down the walls and the sink holds stains of pink and brown and white and it’s revolting.  His face is pale and washed and the ends of his hair are wet and dripping as the rivulets of water carve down his neck down his chest down his arms down his skin and his eyes follow them hungry. Yixing wasn’t seen again for the evening and Luhan can feel the burn in his stomach as he looks at himself and the image blurs.  Hands flat on the counter of the bathroom and the sink before him rushing with water that steams, he grits his teeth and breathes heat. you look so good Burning through his veins as the world tilts and hands press against the wall beside the mirror and lean closer to see, to see and look and find what it is.  Eyes focus and blur and he can’t see as his breath fogs the mirror and the lights flicker and darkness consumes the outside and within. It’s 2am as he blinks and sees his face in the mirror.  It’s 2am and Luhan is 21 years old and he can’t hear the water or the hyperventilating breathing over the slam of his heart, the rush in his ears, and the sickening lurch from his stomach.  It’s 2am and he can taste the bitter lingering of the alcohol over the smothering sweet and the feel of fingers on his skin and the lush press of a plump bottom lip to his own.  Its 2am and the air is too hot and his skin is searing with molten melting wax as it slides away and Luhan can see himself and the image before him is without the porcelain skin and beautiful defined muscle. It’s black.  Black and red and white as muscles stretch in ribbons over bones and tendons and sinew tie it all together and in the center wisps the black that makes the bile rush to the back of his throat.  Fingers shaking so hard it’s violent tremors as balance tips and reality spins and the snap of dark soft brown eyes back to their twin lovers in the glass that tells no lies shows another. Warm smiles from a warm face as hands cradle his body and throw him high into the air.  Eyes that are his but aren’t and he knows them only from memory as they speak of affection and love and beg him to trust and lure him into the mouth of a gun between closed lips and Luhan screams as the trigger pulls. The rushing roar as knees give out, arms weak and shaking as a spine snaps and bows and everything inside lurches in revulsion, the bile rushing into his mouth at the image of himself on the ground with the back of his head open.  Pound against his skull and explode in a blur of light and sound as his body screeches and protests against everything and the rushing white of shattering porcelain comes up to meet him before red pours past his lips. The world goes black as gentle hands delicately wrap around his soul and whisper ‘hello’ in the space between his eyes where he opens and collapses. ○❂○ 76530. You want to know about me?  You want to know about my family?  About my history?  About my fucking past?  Okay, then.  You know what okay.  I don't care it doesn’t matter it’s a past and it’s messed up just like everyone else has a messed up past.  The difference is that I figured out how to grow up and learn how to deal with it and don’t wallow in it like some pathetic swine. When I was 5 years old my dad, who lied to me for 5 years, put a gun in his mouth and blew his head off.  I was 5 and my mom was working at home and he was a coward. Rather than dealing with everything that he was supposed to in his damn life, he was weak and pathetic and cried when it all got to be ‘too much’ and I swear my mother deserved so much better than him.  The only good thing he did was leave us inheritance that kept the house functioning and us alive. But he was such a coward.  He was running into problems at work, with his family, suffering from ‘issues’ which he never fucking dealt with and when it all got to be too much he didn’t stand up and take and deal with his shit he put a gun in his mouth and sent his brains against the walls. It’s pretty fucked up to blow out the back of your skull when your 5 year old kid will see it eventually. He was so weak, so pathetic even if he acted just a little okay.  But everything was a problem and every day he said he loved someone it was a fucking lie because if you love someone you don’t leave them and you don’t kill yourself and leave them.  tThat’s not strength that’s the ultimate weakness and it’s disgusting. It’s sick, that someone would let themselves get to be so fucked up.  It’s pathetic and poor and the fact that I have to even be associated with him, that his blood runs through my veins, tainting it, tainting me… I am not like him.  I am not weak and pathetic and I have spent my whole life doing everything I Can to never become as pathetic and frail and weak as the man that I have to refer as my father.  I’m nothing like him, nothing like that worthless spineless excuse for a person that abandoned everything for selfishness.  I hate him, the disgusting creature. I am nothing like my father and I never will be.  He was an abject failure and I am not.  I’m the best, I am everything that he isn’t and I, I am excellence. ◦❀◦ “You can’t build joy on a feeling of self-loathing.” - Ram Dass ◦❀◦ The feeling of exhaustion is so heavy set over his shoulders and into his bones that Luhan wants nothing more than to crawl back into his bed until the weekend.  It’s almost there, the time when he can leave campus and everything that is going wrong and he’s been ignoring and go home, get away and breathe and close his eyes without thinking. “You look tired.” “Because I am tired,” he replies and lets his head tilt back until it’s resting against the soft cushions of the couch. “Why are you so tired today?”  She sounds surprised.  Luhan can taste the sick in his mouth and feel the ache in his limbs from falling into bed at past two.  He doesn’t remember much, which has his fuzzy teeth on edge and his head throbbing painfully, and the fact that he can’t remember has him worried further. The messages on his phone make the sick rise again every time they stroll through his consciousness and he wants to throw it all away and up and cleanse himself from this madness.  Where Yixing’s texts are just I’m leaving and I can’t see you… for a while and Minseok’s are streams of anger and concern and the others in between are variations of why did you leave early? The fogged memory of water rushing over him and the violent taste of acid in his mouth is what Luhan remember as a soft voice whispered in his ear as everything spun in too many colors and not enough lines. “I was out with friends last night.”  The words feel dull and tasteless.  “For my birthday.” “Your birthday?” “It’s this weekend.”  Going home to silence and rest and peace and food and no talking and empty rooms and walls that whisper in silent criticism and he can never sit straight enough to avoid the fact that they’re always watching.  “I’m going home.” “Happy birthday.” The smile he gives her feels hollow as his stomach feels but without the lurch of nausea that follows inhaling.  She smiles and it looks like she’s trying to be kind, to be warm and sweet to him and it feels strange because she doesn’t know him so why does she care?  He’s fine.  “Thank you.” “What did you do with your friends?” Pieces come and drift but Luhan doesn’t want to piece them together.  Not yet, and not here with her watching him as he carefully tries to assemble them into something coherent and stable.  He’ll ask Song Qian later, then Soojung, and when some of the pieces are together he’ll as Minseok and wait patiently for whatever it is that the other man has got into his head to clear out. “We went out for dinner.  They paid.” “That was nice of them.”  She smiles and it’s too kind.  It’s as if she’s asking him to trust her, to put his faith in her, a woman he barely knows who he sees once a week to ‘chat’ with.  A woman who sees thousands of students a year and to her, he’s just another name on the time sheet. He’s more than that.  To her, to anyone.  “It was my birthday,” Luhan states.  “They did what they should have done.” “Paid for you?” “Celebrated me.”  The answer is obvious and Luhan shouldn’t expect her to surprise him now.  The books are all returned, read and with whatever notes he needed to take from them filed away in a composition notebook beside the now heavy and word laden journal that always resides on the side of his desk.  He wonders which journal will be full first; the one with information or the one with secrets.  “Why shouldn’t they?” “Because they’re your friends,” she says and her foot moves gently as a small frown creases over her face.  Luhan is too tired for this today; he doesn’t want to play mental gymnastics with trying to figure out what this woman wants him to say.  He doesn’t want to show how polite he is, she should understand that he’s fine and that what he did the previous night was probably also fine. His friends all overreact and whatever he did, Yixing will forgive him. Yixing always forgives him and Minseok will understand because that’s what he does. “I see.”  His skin crawls in revulsion and the hours tick down to when he gets on a bus Friday afternoon and leaves it all to close himself away and focus on breathing and listening to the sound of his heart to keep himself grounded.  He is enough.  He is okay. “Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a more satisfying and balanced life.” - Ellen Sue Stern It isn’t like Luhan hasn’t paid for his friends on their birthdays, remembered Christmas for his family or gone to concerts and performances and supported them.  He went to Yixing’s dance company showcase and is planning on going again at the end of the term.  Soojung is in a cappella and he told her he’ll go to her concert during the week before finals. It’s nice of him to do so, to go to their events and support them, to show them he cares about them and the things they do. “How are things with Yixing?” she asks, the topic changing with the smooth timbre of her voice and Luhan’s head has begun to pound once more.  “Have you been able to talk to him at all?” Eyes closed and bleeding red into his irises, Luhan watches as the vague images of the night previous begin to flash against the tapestry inside his mind, of watching his friends laugh and joke with him.  Watching as they all enjoyed themselves and Yixing smiled and was so close to his side, wrapped around him.  He watches as Yixing’s face falls and anger and pain streaks it and the writhing in his stomach stretches up fast into him as sickness infects deeper. “They’re fine,” he answers and knows he will make it so.  “I’ll make sure they are.”  He smiles, the reassuring note in his voice brighter and far more alive than he feels at the moment.  Her face creases in confusion for a moment, a brief flash of concern, but then she is speaking again. “I’m glad to hear that,” she says, smile pleasant and Luhan’s stomach crawls up his chest to escape. ◦❀◦ With two warm cups of top grade café brewed espresso based coffee from the early morning specialty shop off of campus, Luhan knocks on the door before him and waits.  He’s tired, but he needs to be here.  Luhan is aware of what is important and right now he needs to be here and waiting at close to seven thirty in the morning. The door opens and hair that is still damn and a shirt hastily pulled over it greets him with wide eyes.  “What the hell are you doing here?” is the first thing Luhan hears this morning that isn’t a clerk checking his café order. As an answer Luhan holds up the coffees, a small smile on his face as he peace offers.  The stream of text messages on his phone hadn’t been kind, nor had they been forgiving and understanding and Luhan knows it’s better to deal with matters like this in person.  Minseok eyes the coffee like it might bite him.  “Morning.” Those almond eyes narrow at him briefly before Minseok sighs and steps back, waving him in distractedly and Luhan walks into the clean and tidy room that he spends less time in that he thought.  “I brought you coffee.” “You brought me a peace offering,” Minseok modifies as he walks into the room after Luhan and gestures to the desk chair.  “Sit.”  Luhan does, placing the coffees on the desk beside the computer, open to emails and a messaging program.  Minseok doesn’t look at him, but instead continues to follow on his normal morning routines, fingers running through his hair to style it.  “Speak,” he says, attention split between his reflection and Luhan. Luhan licks his lips.  “About the other night,” he begins and Minseok scoffs, turning to him with a disbelieving look on his face. “If you are just here to apologize for the other night, you can get out now,” Minseok says, voice firm and hard. “But that’s why you’re upset,” Luhan says, frowning.  “Look, I know what happened upset you, I know that it was-“ “Do you?” Minseok cuts him off and the note in his voice is hard, biting, and significant.  Minseok isn’t the kind of person who talks a lot, far more of a listener, and so when he does talk, the habit is to listen.  Luhan snaps his mouth shut and listens.  “Do you really get why I’m upset?  Do you understand what happened and why I’m so angry with you right now?” “Yixi-“ “Whatever the fuck is going on with you and Yixing is something you need to figure out and figure out fast,” Minseok snaps at him, cutting him off as the breathing through his nose becomes audible and his seriousness piques.  “I don't know when it went back to the mess that it was Freshman year, but it’s worse and right now, neither of you are okay.” “What do you mean neither of us?”  Luhan frowns, his fingers curling around the coffee cup protectively. “That’s why I’m angry with you,” Minseok says, tone flat as he looks hard one last time before turning and walking over to open his closet, sorting through the clothing hanging there in color coded neatness.  Minseok is a bit of a clean freak, but Luhan rather likes that about him.  It’s something they have in common that he often forgets amidst everything else.  “You’re not talking to me.”  He sighs.  “You always talk to me, or Yixing, but now you can’t talk to him because of whatever it is that you two started up again and I hate being boxed out like this.” His fingers clench in the sweater in his hands as his eyes close and he sighs, sighs as if he’s lost and it’s not even past eight a.m.  “You’re not being boxed out,” Luhan tries to tell him but Minseok turns to him and his eyes pierce in the way only Minseok’s can. “No, I’m entirely sure I am considering you wont talk to me and Yixing now refuses to speak to me because he doesn’t trust me.  I’m your friend and I care about what is going on with you.”  Minseok agitatedly pulls the sweater on, over himself and over his chest and body that are slowly showing the signs of his involvement in more exercise.  Slowly showing the improvement that Luhan dragging him out at night to run around and vent his anger with soccer.  “I’m not your enemy in this.” “I know you’re not my enemy,” Luhan says after a long pause where his fingers are warmed, the smell of coffee wafts through the room, sending a darker richer and stronger tone over the space and Minseok’s hands smooth down his arms slowly. “Then stop acting like I am,” Minseok says, looking up and Luhan can’t read the look in his eyes either. ◦❀◦ The familiar scenery outside on the ride home had been soothing, the flash of landscape that was all the same and thus reassuring in its solidity keeps the breathing settled and the heart beating at a steady rhythm in his chest.  The fare for the trip wasn’t much, nothing like the taxi ride had been for winter break.  Luhan doesn’t think much of if after he steps out onto the greening lawn of his house, his home, and walks forward wanting nothing but to lie down and try to remember what it was like when he was three. Eighteen years is a long time to go back in history when a human lives only to be an average of seventy-nine. The house is far warmer when Luhan walks in, and it’s shocking when the walls aren’t bare and cold and he waits to hear the sound of his mother.  It’s warmer when as soon as he opens the door and steps over the welcome mat, Zitao is striding from the living room with a wide welcoming smile and wrapping him into an embrace.  “What are you doing here?” Luhan asks in surprise as Zitao pulls away, all smiles and happiness and life.  Over his shoulder, Luhan sees Sehun walk from the living room with his own lips upturned. “We’re your welcome home party,” Sehun says and it makes Luhan smile a bit more than he thought as Zitao takes his bag for him.  “Besides, we couldn’t come to your birthday party, so we had to figure out a way to make it up to you somehow.” “Why did you have it on a weekday?” Zitao complains, looking entirely put out about the whole affair of not being included in the age celebration of his cousin.  “I couldn’t come up and see you.  Who has a birthday party on a Wednesday night, anyway?  It’s the middle of the week.” “You’re still in the beginning stages where you have to adhere to early University times schedules,” Luhan laugh.  “Plus, I don’t turn twenty one officially until tomorrow.  There’s still time.” “At least we get to celebrate with you then,” Sehun says and Luhan’s mind ticks at the word ‘we’ as he looks at him.  He smiles and it’s bright and sweet as Zitao hoists his bag higher on his shoulder. It’s not as strange as Luhan thought it might be, to have Sehun and Zitao both in his room, Sehun sitting in the chair with his back straight as Zitao leans against the windowsill.  They laugh and chatter away, never seeming to run out of things to talk about and Sehun sits up straighter than Luhan remembered last.  He schools his face more than he did last time and when Zitao gets overly enthusiastic about the most recent cinema feature, he laughs at him and spends five minutes talking about Zitao’s face when he cries. “It’s horrible,” Sehun laughs and his voice starts out high and loud before he coughs loudly and it lowers so dramatically in pitch Luhan snorts into laughter himself. “Not as bad as yours,” Zitao grumbles, reaching over and slapping Sehun on the shoulder as Luhan finishes putting away some of the winter clothing he had brought back with him.  He’s not going to be needing it anyway.  “Besides, real men know how to cry.”  Hands stiffen over the clothing in his hands.  “It’s not like showing emotion is a bad thing.  Don’t hate me because I can at least express the full range of human emotion when your face is stuck on sour patch kid reactions.” The air in the room feels slightly thinner and his throat tightens just in the slightest way but the tension is enough to have Luhan putting away the sweaters slower than he might otherwise.  Sehun’s expression sours further before he scoffs and looks away, shaking his head.  Zitao immediately mimics the action and Luhan lets himself breathe as they two boys exchange a look and Zitao tries to hide his own triumphant amusement. “Luhan doesn’t cry though,” Sehun points out and this has Luhan turning to the two who sit in his room and breath his hair and watch him carefully.  “Luhan never cries.” “Luhan cries sometimes,” Zitao corrects and it twists deep and serpentine.  “Do you remember-“ “I don’t cry,” is harder out of his mouth than is perhaps typical but Luhan’s chest is iron.  Zitao’s words swallow down his throat.  “I haven’t cried in years.” Zitao looks shocked, in his youthful strong countenance with arms that are pieces of museum sculpted art and a physique hidden under overly fashionable clothing he shouldn’t be able to have on a college student’s budget.  Zitao stares at him and Sehun’s eyes are made of liquid attention.  “Why?” Zitao asks. Luhan almost laughs, the feeling of it garbling up into his throat and bloating to the point of suffocation.  Zitao is so aghast, so unaware of anything but his happier life that he sees through glasses of roses.  “Men don’t cry.” Never Let Them See You Cry The tracks of tears that carve down a face that so resembles his and the words that resonate of fractured hope and promises and the secret screams that desolate the plateau constructed out of numbers and schedules that is the foundation for the endless stretch inside his head.  The mind has no boundaries and there is always room for improvement until he finds exactly what’s missing. “See?” Sehun says, gesturing to Luhan and sitting back in the chair easily, relaxing back and a second later jerking forward as his back straights again.  His eyes flicker to Luhan.  “Luhan doesn’t cry and he’s much more manly than you are.” “You cry too,” Zitao shoots back and Luhan closes the drawer to his bureau so it fixes shut, looking up with a slow exhale to meet his own eyes in the mirror resting atop it.  Everything he is stares back and all of him is exposed.  There is no hiding when he knows himself better than anyone else possibly ever could. Only he knows his own secrets.  All of them.  Only he understands. “You’re so ugly when you cry,” Zitao continues and Luhan catches the reflection of Zitao just as he begins to mimic Sehun’s crying face, features scrunched up and lower lip jut out and whibbling.  A pathetic face and hideous before it crumples into laughter at Sehun’s pouting indignance and his laughter is so real, so pure, so whole and alive. Sehun’s deeper voice, the slight catch of his tongue over words and Zitao’s almost childish love and heart warm the room, breathing life back into the air and crowding into Luhan until his head spins.  They’re so happy, so easy with themselves, so rapturous to be the people that they are.  Zitao laughs and never hides how it disfigures his face and Sehun never stops fidgeting but isn’t upset by his obvious imperfections. Both of them are such tall, strong boys sitting in Luhan’s room and passing smiles and laughter and so comfortable to be with him.  Both handsome and admirable youths in their own manner, Zitao already succeeding so well in university as Sehun talks about his own endeavors as rising Valedictorian of his high school.  Zitao looks so fondly proud and Luhan’s insides thrash. It isn’t until late, when Luhan’s mother approaches the room with four soft knocks against the door and asks if the boys are staying for dinner that Zitao and Sehun take their leave, promising to see Luhan the next day.  “You better not be busy,” Sehun jokes before a light flush paints his cheeks, seconds before Zitao shoves him from the room with an arm draped close over his shoulders.  “We want to see you.” “I look forward to it,” Luhan says and his appetite is in the negative as he sits down to the right hand of his mother and stares at his plate of food. “Aren’t you hungry?”  The look in his mother’s eyes may be concern but he doesn’t want to see it.  The one person who should never be concerned about him like this is his mother, the one person who should never had done all that she did because of the failure of another.  She should never worry about him, no one should ever worry about him it doesn’t make sense he’s fine. The word sticks in his throat beside the first bite of his food and the smile on his lips stretches like plastic.  His mother smiles back though, and it’s enough.  He will tolerate it, for now. “Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.” - Iyanla Vanzant The silence that stretches through the house is loud, pressing against the walls and dripping from the ceiling.  It creeps over the floor and into the beds and down the stairs, swallowing up the panting breaths that fall from Luhan’s lips as the muscles of his stomach flex and tense.  58.  59.  60.  Firm and tone and define and fix it all where others can see.  He remembers the way that Jongin’s stomach had tensed under the brush of his fingertips and closes his eyes and blocks it out. He remembers the way Zitao’s strong arms wrapped around him in an effortless hug that was confident and sure and exhales sharply.  The eyes in his mind trace along the broad shoulders and the length of Sehun’s body and the way he laughs and is handsome without trying and he sucks in the dry air into himself to burn into the tissue of his lungs.  Pushing sweat from his face to slide into his bangs, Luhan stands and looks at the way the sweat glistens over his skin, marking it with an alluring sheen that others would murder for. Helen of Troy was what thousands of men fought and died over, all for the sake of her beauty and the glory of herself.  Helen of Troy was an icon. Luhan’s fingers brush against his scalp as he looks at the face in the mirror looking back at him.  He looks over the lines of muscles and bones that show beneath his skin and the way the light splays over him and the ability to dismiss the loud clamoring in his mind of the others that plague his vision. such a wonderful beautiful boy “I am,” speaks sweet and cloy, the voice ringing through the silence and settling to brush gently over the air just lingering over his skin.  “I have to be.” The slide of soap over skin washes away the impurities, the oil over skin and hands stroke over a body that is so well fashioned it makes eyes linger and mouths water and hearts pound.  Luhan knows, knows as he looks at himself in the mirror, the sound of the shower off and leaving a wet dripping punctuation to the late night sounds.  So young, so fair, so sweet as the face opposite him turns back and forth and hands press to his, separated by cold glass. Luhan isn’t Zitao, he isn’t Jongin and he isn’t Sehun.  He isn’t his father, nor his mother, and he isn’t the boy in the photograph in the hallway that stares out in isolated ignorance of the world and the way he will become.  “I’m better than he is,” Luhan says, watching the lips opposite him echo the words back to him and his breath jumps in his chest. Narrow of focus as fingers bend and press and water drips down the pale smooth skin, drawing eyes with it and the echo of the bathroom magnifies the world into infinity.  “Better than all of them.” “The concept of better isn’t something that is normal though,” speaks with sound and lips that echo through the cage of whiteness and dark hair sticks to pale skin so pretty. “That’s arrogance.” “It’s not arrogance if it’s true,” he tells his reflection and it smiles back at him, the confirmation of the statement warm as the press of lips against his own and the fading steam of the bathroom touches to his skin carefully.  “It’s never arrogance if you know how good you are.  That’s being confident, knowing yourself and knowing your worth.  How much you mean, like the quality of fine wine or the weight of diamond or crystal beside glass.” “Diamond.” The echoes of the psychological philosophies being to spin in the room, the notions of self and presence and purpose and life and meaning all dripping down the walls and tiles in the invisible streams of water.  They rush down and around him as he feels a smile pull over his lips and a smile shines back to him and shows nothing but the understanding he so hungers for. “It’s hard to understand.” “No one can understand you better than yourself.”  Luhan’s back straightens to the full potential and poise that pummels through him as the muscles in his heart perform their proper duties. “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” -  Mark Twain The darkness swallows deep, invading into the light that spills faintly through the window from the world outside and the waning of the moon in the sky above, light diminished.  From his bed, curled in blankets that cling to him and beg to be closer, his eyes seek out, strive to find and meet in a light shine which only stands out faintly from a dark silhouette.  Hands warm and familiar and gentle press to him as he keeps himself locked in the gaze, knowing he isn’t alone and that he is safe where he knows everything. It is impossible to love anyone else more than yourself was once spoken to him by dry lips and facial whiskers that spoke of too old and teeth slowly on the edges of decay.  He hated it, at the time, wanting to scream and shred and enunciate that no one understands but now he realizes. “Always there,” whispers just above the silence in the room with the walls as witness and as the cloud of sleep pulls in around like a shroud, those eyes never stray. ◦❀◦ When I behold thy smiles I cannot tell thee what sweet hopes arise.  When I extend my loving arms to thee thine also are extended me – thy smiles return my own.  When I was weeping, I have seen thy tears, and every sign I make thou cost return; and often thy sweet lips have seemed to move, that, peradventure words, which I have heard, thou hast returned. ◦◈◦ The span of ocean is water black pink yellow octagon and skies are nothing but crackling cosmic energy.  Earth is divning before and around and the stark spires of grass against the soil that sinks into foam are the standards which envelope into sublime.  Breath in liquid and exhale smoke as fingernails glow pink the closer a target gets.  One step that submerges into soft embraces that never touch, only puff air against and a door stands in the center of the field under the vibrant purple cosmic spectrum above that watches with eyes as stars. “Good morning,” speaks from the crow perched at the top of the doorframe, the house absent but it doesn’t need to be there.  House a structure of unnecessary proportions and the glass handle melts as a hand touches it, the door following quickly and a swimming sea of black opens beyond. “Where are you going?” asks the bird, its voice low and layered with seven as it cocks its head to the side and Luhan looks up into it’s shining doe eyes. “I have to find him,” slides off his tongue and he watches the words crawl through the air towards the bird as the clouds behind feathers of black tinge blue and soft cherry blossom pink.  “Is he here?  We need to talk and I’m late for the funeral.” “He’s dead,” the bird says, eyes closing in reverence as the black within the door swims and pulses, a soft hum crawling up the trim and trying to escape to him.  “He’s waiting for you.  He’s been waiting for a long time.” “When?”  Luhan asks, looking not at the bird but at the door as the grass beneath his bare feet begins to wither and shift, turning into the soft sands vibrating with the oceans roar. “On the third floor.”  Black crawls up from the door and swallows the bird, sucking it down as the voice remains and rebounds into itself.  The door before him shakes, the edges cracking and the liquid black and graphite writhes for him, gasping and murmuring.  Stretching out both hands, his arms bare and glistening in the red light of the suns, they press into the cold displacement of light and he breathes in as he steps forward and into the hallway.  A soft ghosting wind blows down and over him, caressing his skin and whispering. What is he doing here? Do we know him? He is so handsome, so fine, so pretty and beautiful.  Such a splendid creature never did we see nor shall we see again where do we find such creatures as this?  There is only one, none to match in splendor nor value, the quality above all else and so sought after that all weep when they cannot touch it.  Understand understand relate and compute is it enough can we but allow ourselves to touch him as this. “You can touch me,” speaks with his eyes and his lips but with no sounds and it falls into the whispering winds which wrap around him and coo gently; a mantle of assurance as the hall fills with doors, slowly the brass numbers seeping through the walnut and winking at him.  “Please touch me, I will not stop you.  I am meant to be touched and loved.” “Such love, we love,” the winds breathe in adoration.  “Love us, please, please love us.” “I don’t know you though,” he replies and the winds weep as they hold to him and cry their sorrow.  “How can I love you if I don’t know you and you don’t know me?” “We love, we love, we love, love, love, adore and hold and breathe and see and want, so much want, let us have you, let us take you apart and bleed into you.” NO screams and the thrash of Luhan’s limbs has the winds scattering, wailing their losses as his breaths stick of sweet marmalade and chocolate milk.  “You can’t have me,” he hisses and the crawl up his spine digs with metal fingers and nails of alcoholic breaths.  “You don’t know me.  No one-“ The door at the end of the hall swings open and breathes, a slow draw in and out.  Maintain the breath and hold it, carpet swelling and stretching closer to him and pulling him in.  Breathe in speaks the monotonous calming tone of the video recorder.  Open focus and echo into the space between his mind and his body, stretching up into the space within his mind as the exhale of the room that lies in wait drifts through him and removes the decay. can you imagine the distance between your eyes? Lavish and burgundy dark carpet cushions under his feet as steps guide down the hall, the doors whispering in curiosity and the space in his mind trails behind him as he wanders down, down, down towards the destiny. the distance may expand or change or metamorphosis into something which you never expect nor understand as you continue to maintain and breathe, breathe, breathe into me and let the bones soften to my touch. Inside the door.  Inside the door is a room.  Inside the room is a panel of glass with a reflective back that stares and waits, the frame around it waiting in high refined glory, hoping for someone to notice its magnificence. “Are you here?” it whispers in succulence and he walks on the flowers that litter the floor.  “Have you come to see me at last?” The man standing before him is young and breathtakingly beautiful, a soft delicate face that speaks of assurance and the life beyond the glass, eyes deep and shining set into his face and a perfectly curved nose.  His lips are parted, soft pale and pretty pinks as they shine and his skin is flawlessly painted onto him.  The stretch of his body is long and perfectly proportioned, the distance between hips that rise to his waist in flawless balance with the stretch of long legs. There has never been another more beautiful to his eyes and the lines of his body shimmer as if made of memories and wonder.  “You’ve come at last.”  He smiles and the flash of white teeth and the crease of his eyes are in good nature. Never before has Luhan seen someone ask this, the beautiful image staring back at him strong and bold and without seeing his hands are rising to the glass, the barrier between, and fingers stretched in longing.  He sees it, there in the eyes that meet his, the longing returned and the understood desire. “I’ve been waiting for you,” sighs past his lips in a confession of himself. “Why?” his laugh is so gorgeous, so beautiful on the air as his beautiful face crinkles in humor, the feeling issuing from him that of pure comprehension.  “I’ve always been here.  You just had to take me, Luhan.  You just had to see me.  I’ve been here for you the entire time.”  The smile is so beautiful, so warm.  “Are you ready?” Hands press against the glass and tears choke down his throat as the impossible separation pushes through him, the sudden sorrow reflected on the face before him as fingers match and fit against his perfectly on the glass so cruelly isolating them.  Hands that are the perfect hands, neither too pretty nor disfigured and the pound of his heart beats with the slam of Wagners percussive sequences as he sees and knows. “Are you?” “Yes,” he replies and the gentility about him is all he needs before the choke hold around his throat splinters and salted water leaks down and floods him.  “I am.  No one else could I be and neither shall I become for I am that which truly loves and understands you.”  Hands press harder, searching for the way to claim and to hold, to be held and everything is assembled into him.  “No one can see you like I can see you, because they aren’t you.” Luhan loves, he loves because he understands and he wants because he is wanted and the sharp conducting over his flesh is the only affirmation that he is alive.  “How?” “I see everything you are, know everything you are, just as you see and know everything about me.  There is no barrier, there is no secret between us because secrets cannot be kept from yourself.  You never lie to me, Luhan, nor I to you and we are everything.” Love.  The concept which has been branded into skin and charred against the fragile fabric of his sanity and his heart has never been as strong or validated as it is now.  Palms flat and desperate, a roar rips from the cells of his frame and the ripple of the glass stills time as his hands slip through. Warm and soft and all air vanishes as skin meets skin and it’s softer than the sweetest satin and silk, fitting perfectly and the beauty and strength of the other is without compare to any other living being. Lips so soft press to his, drinking him and flooding him, and it is a newfound addiction that is stronger than the most potent drugs as the space around them swallows, room disintegrating into nothing until all that is left is himself and Luhan in his arms, breathing against his skin.  “I see you,” whispers and soft hands cup his face, brush love and reality over the lines of his face and he returns it. “I see you and your beauty.  I see all of you as no one else can, all of you where no one else will.  The part of you that you cast away,” lips slide against skin but the words continue and his heart pounds into him so hard as it breaks with the force of devotion, “all that you saw once as inadequate and unsatisfactory but I love.  I love you in all of the possible ways and manners just as you love me and I will never, ever leave you, Luhan.” A rushing of the skies above and the seas below as the world revolves in primary and metallics around and within and everything and nothing is he himself and the love that he’s so hungered for and the understanding that he so needs.  “I am not alone,” crack between lips as a body slides over his and the inferno burns higher. “You are never alone for I will always love and be with you,” seeps against his skin with the lapping of waves and the essence of all shudders within him, as arousal screeches to the endless expanse.  Blaze under his skin wherever there is contact and eyes that see his entire being and Luhan is lost, lost, lost as he falls back and himself falls with him, drowning in the lips that perfectly fit to his devour him whole. A roar builds, rumbling from a chasm as it opens up beneath and consummates with a blast that demolishes all structure and high laughing as hands too large close around his sides, thumbs calloused against his naked skin and he looks down.  Down into the kind shining face and eyes that say trust me painted over the pupils and the booming loud laughter from an exquisite voice throws him up, the solid space flying away. I will catch you compresses against his ear drums and spills down his neck as wind rushes past his ears in a scream.  I will love you. Shackles of hands slam around his wrists as the open arms below him are not his own and drop. Luhan screams, the sound ripping through him as the jagged edges of rocks and cruel spikes rush up to meet him in an explosion of phobic nightmare.  Luhan screams as darkness engulfs him, slamming into him and the grip around his wrists tightens to torment and his back flies from the bed, mouth open in gaping terror as everything flashes white.  The light of the waning moon is the only witness as his screams echo into endless horror. ◦❀◦ “Were you okay last night?” asks over the breakfast table when Luhan’s eyes are itching with sleep and his fingers shake around his spoon. “What?” “I thought I heard you,” his mother’s eyes flicker as they fix on him.  “Are you having night terrors again?” The soft touch of perfect fingers against his skin and the rushing of betrayal as he plummets to his death surges through him. Luhan clears his throat, back straight in his chair at the table and looks to the food before him.  “No,” he says, a slight shake of his head.  “I’m fine.  I don’t know what you heard.”  She says nothing and when Luhan looks up again, her eyes are still upon him.  He smiles. “You must be hearing things mother,” he says, easy speaking as the throb of exhaustion pools at the back of his head. ◦❀◦ “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” - Thich Nhat Hanh ◦❀◦ It is an easier ride back to campus, his heart lighter as he brings back with him the memory of Zitao’s hugs that were perhaps a few too many and Sehun’s lingering goodbyes.  He has the remnants of the birthday cake his mother made for him and the soft hum under his skin of being another year older.  The progression of age has never been particularly significant, the body not changing from one day to the next shattering in disparity, but the visit home had been a good one and as he unlocks the door to his room and steps inside, it is with a smile. The phone in his pocket had been ignored for a long time and it isn’t until the hours had passed and the piles of school work for the week has diminished under Luhan’s hands and eyes that he notices the message notifications. Xing  4:37 -  Happy birthday!  Let me know when you get back on campus Xing  7:28 -  If you are too busy to see me tonight or get in too late, let me know? I want to sleep ;n; Xing  8:59 -  I hope you sleep well anyway.  And you had a good time at home. Minnie  9:04 -  Yixing really wants to talk to you.  Please? It takes Luhan another fifteen minutes before he finishes up the reading assignment for Friday and stretches, arms and muscles flexing and he relaxes with a sigh.  Two pieces of the leftover cake.  Two pieces of generosity.  Yixing sounds breathless and surprised when he answers the phone. “Where are you?” Luhan asks directly. “I think most people say hello before they begin making demands,” Yixing says as his breath catches and crackles over the line.  “Then again, you’ve never been most people, so I can’t really say I’m surprised.” “Apologies,” Luhan says, careful with the confections in his hands as he walks across campus towards Yixing’s room.  “Hello.  I hope you’re healthy, and I’m glad you’re alive.  Where are you?” Luhan waits outside of Yixing’s dorm with an idle expression as Yixing returns after a dance practice that ran late.  The collar of Yixing’s shirt is dark with sweat and it perspiration shines under the lights from the building as he walks up, hair fallen into his face.  “Happy birthday,” is said with a weak smile as he greets Luhan and is gifted with a smile.  “How does it feel to be older?” “Mature,” Luhan replies as the feeling of familiarity spreads through him.  Being with Yixing has always been familiar and calming, something he is used to and something he always returned to.  “And cold.” Yixing laugh and the sound is nice on the night air.  The conversation dies as Yixing unlocks the door to his room and flicks on the light.  It’s cleaner, by a fraction and Luhan blinks as he steps inside.  “Since when did you clean?” The laugh that answers him isn’t carefree but slightly guilty and has Luhan’s attention snapping.  “I, well, I wouldn’t call it clean.” The shoes by the door are organized and with their pairs.  The bed is made and the stacks of haphazard papers that usually strew over the desk are put into piles that look far less chaotic.  The floor is even missing the usual forgotten laundry.  Luhan laughs.  “You didn’t have to clean for me, I know you’re a slob.” He expects the shove back, but he doesn’t expect the flush on Yixing’s cheeks nor the averted eyes.  “I didn't clean for you,” he retorts and Luhan stops laughing. “Who are you cleaning for?”  Who do you care about?  Why?  Why are you treating them differently than you treat me? “Myself?” Yixing snaps and his eyes are harder when they meet Luhan’s before he sighs, shoulders dropping and turns away.  “Look, I don’t want to fight, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and talk a little.” “Talk about what?” What is there to talk about?  Everything is fine.  Yixing may have been a fool prior but he seems better, to have understood.  He’s here again and whatever transpired has or is resolving.  The drama is over. “About…”  Yixing’s gaze fixes on the window, unfocused as he trails away and a frown creases his face.  “About what happened last week.  About us and about what,” he shifts, “can’t happen again.” “What are you talking about?”  Laughter because this is ridiculous. “I’m talking about how you’ve been treating me,” Yixing speaks on eggshells.  “I’m just not-“ a wince “-I’m not able to take it.  Not right now, not with everything going on.  I’m your best friend, and you took advantage of me.” Hit hard and striking.  “What?” A heavy sigh and Yixing is pushing his hands into his hair to drag over his face.  “Look, I didn’t really want to get into this tonight, but I want to work this out because we’ve always been friends, and I want to keep that.  But I can’t trust you anymore.” Slam hard and break and Luhan isn’t smiling anymore.  “What do you mean you can’t trust me?”  It’s harsh and vivid.  “You can always trust me, you always have trusted me.”  Yixing hands cover his face as he breathes in deep and his shoulders shake.  “I’ve always been there for you and I will always be the one that you know and trust.  Who else do you have?” Who else could possibly replace him? “Are you-“ Yixing’s hands drop sharply from his face, back stiffening as he glowers in anger and then steps back, breathing.  “No, I was wrong I don’t want to talk about this now.  Happy Birthday, I’m glad you’re back.” “No,” Luhan is defiant.  “I want to talk about this now.  We are going to talk about this now.  Fuck that, you brought this up and we’re dealing with whatever it is that’s wrong with you right now.” Yixing lets out a horrifically disbelieving laugh that twists into Luhan as sparks dance at the edges of his vision.  “What’s wrong with me?” he almost stammers out, eyes wide in furious incomprehension.  “This isn’t what’s wrong with me, this is whatever is going on that you’re so wrapped up you don’t listen when I try to talk to you and tell you no!” “You’re being so stupid,” Luhan snaps.  His hands are fortunately empty as he throws one out in violent gesture of anger.  Yixing is always there, always loving and always understanding and never one to question him.  Yixing is the imperfect acceptance that Luhan thought he could bind himself to three years ago and realized he couldn’t a year later.  “I don’t get what you’re being so stubborn about and why you can’t just admit what you’re doing.” “What I’m doing,” Yixing half gasps. “You’re in love with me.”  Luhan is triumphant.  “Look, I’m sorry I know you don’t want to admit it but it’s alright, I understand and I’m only really sorry because I can’t love you back, not in the same way.  I love you, Yixing, I really do, but-“ “Why the fuck would I be in love with you?”  Yixing yells so loud and slams his fist down so hard that his desk shakes.  “I’m not in love with you, Luhan!” “Then why else would you be hanging out with-“ There is a loud knock on the door and both of them freeze.  Luhan’s chest burns and his breath heave with ash and smoke and Yixing shoves past him, face set in fury to answer.  “Is everything okay?” comes the demonically familiar voice and Luhan sees red. “Yes,” Yixing’s voice is gravel low.  “Fucking, fine.”  The look on Chanyeol’s face suggests he knows this to be a lie and as his eyes meet Luhan’s they darken and a look of challenging anger etches itself into his handsome face.  “Luhan was just visiting.”  His eyes are cold and burning when they meet with Luhan’s nostrils flared as he tries to maintain calm.  “He was just about to leave.” “We’re not done here,” Luhan growls, anger spiking as he watches Chanyeol step into the room as if he has more place to be here than Luhan, as if he is more the one to belong than Luhan when he doesn’t.  “Yixing.” “I think you are,” comes the low growl of Chanyeol’s voice as his hand rests gentle but solid against Luhan’s shoulder and his broad shoulders set.  “You can talk another time, Luhan.” Luhan’s lip curls in dislike as he steps away from the touch, the feeling of revulsion writhing in his stomach as Chanyeol’s eyes never leave him.  “You can never be what I am to him,” he spits and Yixing stiffens to a board beside him.  “Never.” “I hope not,” Chanyeol says, his voice sick against Luhan’s ears as blood bleeds into his vision, rage spiraling into his spine and through his core as Chanyeol’s hand pushes him back, pushes him away and Yixing doesn’t look at him at all when the door slams in his face. Blood seething and peaking at a boil, Luhan’s fist slams against the wood of the door before him and doesn’t stop the abuse until the lock clicks and it opens.  “Lu-“ “I fucking hate him,” Luhan blisters through the fires of his fury, charging into the room and beginning to pace frantically, exertion focusing him and his emotional spike.  Calm down, calm down, maintain, breathe and picture the space of the mind expanding into a sea of boiling and turbulent red.  “I fucking hate him so much and he has no right to behave like this.” “Nice to see you too,” Minseok says, closing the door quickly and walking over to Luhan with careful steps.  “And happy birthday, but I guess that’s not important right now.  What happened?” “I’m going to kill him,” Luhan hisses, turning to Minseok and the solid determination sets into his jaw like steel.  “I’m going to fucking kill that bastard.” “Okay, no,” Minseok says, hands coming to grab at Luhan’s arms and tug him to stay still.  “Because first of all that’s murder and second of all you’ll go to jail and I don’t really want you killing people and in jail.” Hard infuriated breaths through clenched teeth that do nothing to calm him.  Of all the people for Yixing to choose over him, he had to choose Chanyeol.  The one person who has the ability to make his skin crawl and his vision bleed red and acid to replace the blood in his veins, Yixing chose Chanyeol the man who parades with a fake face and a too loud laugh.  Too big and too much to ever be something true, Chanyeol is the worst and yet Yixing chose him. How dare he. “After everything, he ends up hanging out with that idiot over me and I don’t even understand what he sees in that asshole.”  Luhan is liquid fury. “Who?” Minseok is the emblem of concern, face melting into worry as his hands tighten around Luhan’s arms, keeping him from leaving and keeping him together.  “Luhan, who?  Is this about Yixing?” “Fuck him!” Luhan snaps out, feeling his blood pound in his body and drown in his ears.  “Fuck Yixing and his stupidity.  I’m tired of dealing with his obstinacy and his blindness.” “What happened?” “He keeps refusing anything I do!”  Luhan has tried to be kind, to be patient and understanding because he loves Yixing, has tried to be soft and kind when Yixing needs him most, when he needs to stay and understand and realize that Luhan is still there for him even if it’s not the way Yixing might want him to be.  Luhan loves Yixing and he is mine and he just wants the best for him, it just may not be himself.  “He’s just getting himself into a mess and I’m so sick of him doing this to me.” “Luhan, you’re shaking.” “I’m not hurting him and he acts like I’m causing all this pain and every time I try to reason, to help, to comfort him and show him I care, because I do, he pushes me away.  Then he abandons me and goes to hang out with those other assholes as if they’re anything as close to decent as myself.” “Luhan!” “Why doesn't he understand that I’m the best and trying to let him know I-“ Hands come to grip firmly around his face, jerking him to attention as his words throttle in his throat, clogging in shock as his eyes fly wide, staring back into panic and concern and fear.  “Luhan, stop!” Lips wet by a tongue as he stands froze, staring into the eyes of Minseok and everything within them is graphic and unrestrained as it opens to him.  The light brush of air from Minseok brushes against his skin and he can see the torment there as his temper chills to static.  “Luhan, you’re scaring me,” Minseok’s voice shakes as his fingers lessen their grip about his face, gently cradles him.  Luhan can feel the tremor in his body through the digits resting against his jaw. “Why?” he asks, watching and all of his on alert. “Because I care,” Minseok’s words crack from his throat as the unease swims inside him and the spirals of comprehension begin to twist the other way.  “Because I care about you, Luhan.  And I want to know how I can help.” “I don’t need you to help me.”  I never need anyone to help me. “But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to,” Minseok says and his voice is quiet and sensitive as the first fall of spring rains. Everything is bittersweet in the moments between. ◦❀◦ It’s freeing, to have the time slot usually set aside for an hour and today forgotten because there is no need.  Luhan closes his eyes and breathes in the feeling of freedom and relaxation as he lets his legs stretch over campus, walking in the sunshine and the sweet smells of the air and his phone stays vibrating against his thigh. He has nothing left to do today, no assignments that he needs to complete for the morning as they’re all finished and the afternoon is his to own and do with as he pleases.  Yixing isn’t going to call him and Luhan has decided to give him his space.  Minseok is busy and Soojung has other things on her mind at the moment.  Luhan is free to do whatever he wants, go wherever he wants, and speak whatever he wants or doesn’t want to do. The rupture in his schedule is a significant change to his usual adherence but it’s freeing rather than anxiety inducing.  The weather is so nice today, it’s a shame to waste it.  It’s a shame to waste the feeling of the sun warming his skin from the open air rather than through the suffocating windows as he is asked questions he cares not to answer. There is no one to answer today but himself.  He smiles as he sees Jongdae and Kyungsoo in the café and they start in surprise.  Luhan is in a good mood today, not much can bother him, even the boys who seem to hold nothing of real value to him aside from how they associate with Yixing.  Call themselves his friends, just as Yixing refers to them as such. He resists the urge to sneer at them as he makes to stand behind them in line.  “How are you today?” he asks.  “It’s been a long time since I saw you guys last.  I have been meaning to wish you luck for the upcoming choir performance this weekend.  As I heard it, you two are both performing solos in the Chamber Singers ensemble?” Jongdae’s eyes widen as Kyungsoo glances to his friend before those too large eyes shift back to him.  “Yeah,” Jongdae answers and shifts his weight.  Luhan’s phone tickles against his thigh again and his smile broadens in satisfaction.  “We’re both doing a few things.  Are you coming?  I didn’t think you went to the events like that.” Luhan laughs, stepping forward as the line for the café moves and they progress with it.  “Of course I go,” he says and one of Kyungsoo’s eyebrows raises in what Luhan can only surmise as surprise.  “I go every year, I just don’t know a ton of people in the choir.  I swear, the vespers this winter was the most gorgeous concert I have heard you guys do yet.  I never heard a tenor sound so sweet, Jongdae.”  He smiles and Jongdae looks pleasantly shocked. “Thanks,” he says, and Luhan is pleased.  Today is nicer than he could have imagined.  It’s nice to stand and chatter just a bit with the other boys who he now knows the names to, previously just faces on a stage and voices in a choir that occasionally stepped out.  He really only used to go to the musical performances because Yixing would take him, supporting the department he was in and the people Luhan never really met.  He always had a place to be. That’s part of the beauty of everything, of not knowing everyone but knowing just enough.  He may not particularly like Jongdae or Kyungsoo, but they’re far better blaise company than Baekhyun, who boasts to cover his tremulous insignificance, or Chanyeol who fabricates his whole existence of the good human. “Shouldn’t you get that?” Kyungsoo asks him, drawing Luhan from his thought to glance at the shorter man, nothing the small crease of concern between those dramatic eyebrows of his face.  Shocking, Kyungsoo’s face is shocking, too soft and malleable. “Excuse me?” Luhan asks, the polite speech rolling of his tongue automatically as he sits up a bit straighter and curls his fingers around the Americano on the small café table. “Your phone,” Jongdae supplies, gesturing to the phone on the table, black case protecting the device from harm as he shakes loudly on the table top.  “It’s been ringing and you haven’t answered it.” The number flashing on the screen is without a name as Luhan glances at it but he knows to whom it belongs.  He smiles gently at it before looking up at Jongdae and Kyungsoo.  “It’s not important,” he says, reaching out and swiping the screen to hang up on the call.  “I don’t recognize the number, anyway.” “If you’re sure,” Jongdae says, a note of hesitation in his voice as Luhan continues to smile up at them.  There is nothing to be concerned about any longer.  He doesn't need to go anymore.  Everything is alright. “I am,” Luhan tells them both and waves as they depart to their afternoon classes and lectures, taking a slow careful sip of his coffee.  The specific taste of altered espresso fills his mouth as he closes his eyes and savors the flavor on his tongue.  It’s bitter and refined, the hot tang pleasant and calming as the aroma of coffee and the chatter of students washes over him. He blends in easily, just another college student among the masses but really, he knows so much better than them.  He knows more and understands them all and knows them all, can see the weaknesses in them as he looks around and sees the chewed nails and pencil ends, the pens gnawed in mouths and the imperfections on skin and lines of stress and exhaustion.  Luhan looks around at all of them and sees a mass of people that he can read as easily as the words within a book. The phone buzzes once more, a notification of all the calls and messages waiting for him to check and see.  It’s 4:37 and Luhan finally sighs, coffee cup empty and spirits sated in relaxation as he finally opens his phone and checks it. SCS - Luhan, I thought we were going to be meeting today at 4pm.  I have you penciled in at this time.  I hope to see you. Smile. SCS - Luhan?  I have tried to call you a few times but there is no response.  Please let me know if you are coming or not. It widens. SCS - Luhan, please answer your phone.  I remember us making this appointment last week and you need to inform me of a cancellation. Broadens to a grin that engulfs his face and his soul. SCS - Luhan.  Answer your phone, please. It is with satisfaction that he opens the last message, typing back a quick To: SCS - I’m sorry, I guess I forgot.  I’ll see you next week?  Same time? and presses send. ◦❀◦ It’s quiet.  While the quiet is not something that would typically be refused, the calm and serenity often hard to find amid the constant activity that is found in university life, it is, now, grating.  It’s becoming obnoxiously mundane and neither the sounds of the horrific pop music that the other students obsess over and blast in their rooms nor the masterful creations of neither Vivaldi nor Mendelssohn can draw from the pierce of the silence against skin. The messages in his phone all rest with the number one beside them and Luhan’s irritation grows like a weed.  Yixing hasn’t spoken to him in four days, and giving him space has so begun to test Luhan’s nerves that his fingers itch to dig into something, ending up placing marks of red into his own arms, hidden by a longer sleeve.  The light in his room is occasionally on but the line rings out whenever Luhan tries it time and time again. He sees him in the dining hall but Yixing is never alone, surrounded by his other friends, the ones Luhan never really met and were never important enough and even if Yixing spots him he looks away.  It’s so childish and stupid Luhan feels an anger building in him time and time again, the refusal of Yixing to look at him.  His lips want to curl every time Yixing never looks back, but the other set of large round eyes harden as Chanyeol stares back, a line to his mouth and a ferocity about the set of his shoulders.  Luhan never gives him the justice of seeing him angered, turning to let Yixing make his poor decisions and reap the consequences. It’s what he wants, what Yixing doesn’t understand he’s putting himself into.  The only consolation Luhan has is that this won’t last, that Yixing will realize his error, find that Chanyeol could never be what he’s trying to replace.  Yixing will come back to him, and Luhan will be waiting with forgiveness.  Luhan is kind. Distraction is the only method, as Luhan’s mind wanders so do his feet, stretching over campus and he takes himself places he rarely bothered to visit.  Most time is spent within his thoughts, stretching under the sunlight or bothering Minseok when the other is free.  More and more time is Minseok slipping into the time that Yixing used to occupy, the space where Yixing used to be and Luhan finds he doesn’t mind, instead enjoying his company more and more even if Minseok can’t read him like Yixing could. “It’s not the end of this,” Luhan mutters, watching as he passes the buildings around him, the brickwork old and trimmed with white, pretty old buildings that rise and refine with time.  “He will come back.” of course he will come back. He nods slowly in agreement, feeling the light brush of the spring breeze through his hair and over his face.  and if he doesn’t, then it is his loss.  You don't need someone who can’t fully appreciate you.  like you should be appreciated and cared about. “The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.” - Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness “He’s confused,” mutters from his lips as he walks, mind on the way Yixing’s face fought with his own emotions and his thoughts.  The way Yixing never really pushed him away.  There was always something else that made him do so.  This isn’t his fault, and he will understand in the end. You can’t trust anyone though, whispers in his ear and Luhan’s mouth tilts down.  You can’t really trust anyone but yourself, and you know that deep down, you can only trust me. “I know that,” Luhan snaps harsh and the man in front of him starts and turns so fast Luhan nearly walks into him.  He steps back swiftly the slight buzzing that had begun to fill the noiselessness in his mind cutting off swiftly as he focuses on the person he’s nearly run into.  “I’m sorry, I was just-“ “Luhan?” Blinking in surprise at being addressed, it takes a moment before Luhan can pull his thoughts together and put a name with the face staring back at him.  “Joonmyun,” he says, stupefied.  He remembers almost everyone he legitimately meets and Joonmyun is no stranger to him.  “Hi.”  Though not unfamiliar with interacting with previous relationship partners, this feels more awkward than Luhan likes dealing with.  He and Joonmyun met and parted under… less than ideal circumstances and preconditions.  “How are you?” Perfunctory questions always standardize the coding of basic social interaction. “I’m great,” Joonmyun says and the true smile on his lips is something that Luhan isn’t familiar with.  He never saw Joonmyun smile at him like that, not when he knew him and saw him frequently.  Back when Joonmyun’s eyes always closed off and fell low and his shoulders were too stiff.  “I am doing really well, actually.”  His smile softens and Luhan stares, feeling strange and disconnected.  “How about you?”  Joonmyun’s eyes flicker over him, none of the strange lingering hunger and hollow glaze about them they once held.  “You look great, how have you been?” The sun is warm against the back of Luhan’s neck as he stands and stares at Joonmyun, the man he once dated and dropped and is spoken to with such warmth and familiarity that it’s jarring.  “I’m good,” comes out automatically, the call and response so ingrained into him from years of answering the questions the same way.  It’s not a lie, but neither is it entirely the truth.  “I’ve been good.”  Joonmyun looks fantastic.  He looks happy and alive and the sallow pale tint to his cheeks is missing.  He looks different, so different from how he had back in September sitting in the waiting room of the Student Counseling Center. “I’m glad to hear that.”  He’s still as polite as ever though, his book bag slung over his shoulder and his shirt collar folded ironed and prim under the light sweater he’s wearing.  Vaguely, Luhan remembers that he used to get cold, always cold, always so fast and he nearly scoffs at the memory.  “I’m actually just heading to the library to meet someone.”  He can’t stop smiling and it’s a disarming to see him so happy.  He was never this happy… before. In the fall, Joonmyun has been harder, more closed and more controlled, his back stiff and straight and his smiles tight with necessity.  That’s how he stands painted in Luhan’s mind, projected against the walls of it as they turn between the faces of everyone he knows.  Joonmyun was the one that loved the idea of him, the image and the concept and the thing that he saw but not actually Luhan.  Luhan knew that he could never love him like he should.  He could never love Luhan the way he was supposed to be loved. This isn’t Joonmyun, the same Joonmyun that stands before him.  This is relaxed and eased and Luhan is unbalanced. talk to him, he’s waiting.  say something.. “Are you?” Luhan asks, stepping forward and rushing a pleasantly surprised expression over his face as he comes to step to Joonmyun’s side.  “I was going in that direction as well.  We can go together.”  Friendly, nonchalant, relaxed and dignified. Joonmyun laughs, a light sound as the sun shines and the world continues to blossom into life.  “I could tell, considering you nearly walked into me.”  He begins to walk again, this time waiting for Luhan to walk with him.  “So how have you been?  What have you been up to?  I heard there was a rumor going around that you and the new dance student Jongin were dating.” Eyes that filled with tears, lost and confused and never, ever enough as the hands that once held him so close fell away from him and the loss dug too deep.  Never fought for, never actually worth keeping.  A cut of a knife through his throat to stop the sentiment from throttling him. You didn’t need him. he didn’t know, he didn’t see, he knew too much and he would have left.  The soft press of lips that cannot be seen skate against the shell of his ear and qualify him. “Ah,” Luhan says, suppressing the shiver and the knot in his chest at the mention of the younger man.  “We were dating.”  Joonmyun’s head tilts in interest and it’s so strange, so, so strange to be talking with him like this.  He and Joonmyun were never friends before, yet he behaves as if they were.  Mature.  Luhan respects that.  “But not anymore.  We broke up.  A few months ago.”  One month, three weeks, Jongin’s fingers clutched at his and he pulled them free, pulled himself free. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Joonmyun says, his voice actually sounding sincere and sad.  “I met him last fall; he seemed like a really nice guy.” “Looks can be deceiving,” Luhan says and Joonmyun’s steps falter so he adds, “he is nice, it just didn’t work out between us.” It just wasn’t working out between us. “Still, I’m sorry,” Joonmyun offers him a small smile, laced with sympathy. Sympathy and Luhan wants to push back, to step away because he doesn't need Joonmyun of all people feeling sympathetic for him.  “But I guess some things don’t work out.”  He laughs and it shocks Luhan because it’s so abrupt and unexpected by him.  “Just like we didn’t.  I suppose it’s all for the best.” “The best?”  The sunshine is too bright and Luhan has to squint at Joonmyun to see him through the haze.  “What are you talking about?”  Luhan is the best. “Joonmyun!” calls and Luhan jerks to look up at the approaching figure and lurching nausea drops so hard in his gut that he nearly steps back, almost falls away and staggers into the sudden flash of ringing in his ears. Joonmyun’s smile is so big, so bright, and so genuine that Luhan can’t see and nor can he swallow around the sandpaper that lines his mouth and throat and howls winds of anxiety into the hollow spaces between his bones.  “It lets us find people who we can be happier with,” he says before turning to Yifan as he approaches, looking curiously wary between Joonmyun and Luhan.  “You’re early.  I didn’t expect you for another ten minutes.” “I was let out of class early,” Yifan says and this is so, so, so, so, so wrong.  “What are you doing with Luhan?  I didn't know you two knew each other.” Yifan’s hand slips to Joonmyun’s back, sliding down to rest gently and comfortingly there and Luhan can feel the ghost of it resting at his own.  A phantom of the fall as Yifan’s eyes linger on him, holding none of the warmth and affection there previously in them.  The sunlight glimmers and Luhan’s vision begins to shake.  Joonmyun’s eyes are warm as they look at him, happy and resolved and he doesn’t look at Luhan with longing and desire; he looks at him with indifference. Hollow and empty is the space that fills all that which wants to be accepted and embraced.  you weren’t worth it to stay, to keep trying. “We used to,” Joonmyun says, looking up at Yifan and it reeks of affection and sticky sap.  “We were just catching up.”  He turns to look at Luhan as Yifan’s face creases in doubt.  “It’s been a while since we last talked.” “It has,” says Luhan’s mouth as he stands beside himself and stares in shock.  Joonmyun shifts closer to Yifan and they look strange together and incomplete but they are dismissing him as they stand together, two making a unit of one.  “I’m glad you’re well, Joonmyun.”  Paper words fly from numb lips and the mandatory exchange that is autopilot.  “I’ll see you around.” Smiles stretch over lips in mockery and disconnect as Luhan turns, the sunlight cold against him, scratching and strange and he walks away from them, from the sight of two artifacts of his past come back to plague him. Joonmyun, the nagging nothing that bothered and fussed and crawled after him and Yifan who was always just satisfactory falling together after he’s done with them is a cruel and sarcastic plot twist.  They would find each other after and return to sit before him in foolish happiness that will one day shatter and sink.  Luhan’s heart is hard as it pounds in his chest and beats drums of maddening rhythms to the inside of his skull. His mother stands over the sink, hands pressed to the rim of the counter on either side and gripping as her nails crack, splintering at the force as her face creases in anguish.  The shattered dishes on the floor lay a semblance of everything that is wrong and can never be prepared.  The light of water glistening on shower tiles as the faults line over skin and rise in defect from pores that clog with hate.  No sounds leaves a throat constricted with sobs as water spills down tears, the door shaking with pounding hands as it refuses to yield.  Isolation, isolation, isolation before a break down the center and his eyes roll back into his head to see the scattered pills behind on the blood stained carpet. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be drinking?” Mixing with multiple addiction factors was never advised.  Excessive usage may cause hemorrhaging, vertigo, and the feeling of ice and crawling up the skin and down your windpipe. Consult a doctor if symptoms should persist. Hands shake as they turn the brass of the door mechanisms, the click and the slide of a bolt the reassuring sounds of safety as steps back, grasping at strings to control the tremor in his limbs that spreads from the center out.  His fingers won’t work as he tries to hold the phone in his hands, head spinning as his breaths are too short, the air too thin as he tries to take in inside.  Blinking and blinking and blinking to see through the haze that begins to close in from the outer fringe. “You're always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.” - Diane Von Furstenberg breathe, Luhan. His lungs sear as air traps between oxygen molecules and methane gas, short fast hard stop.  “I’m fine,” he wheezes, the black spiking over his vision as the floor falls too close and too far and his steps don’t connect.  “I’m okay, I’m-“ The light on the desk flickers and he closes his eyes to block out and step back and fall into the space between his eyes as the panic attack increases and his hands stretch out for stabilization.  White substance crushed between fingers and a rush through veins as he tries to keep it together, keep it alive, keep it straight and real and the claw up his chest increases with his thundering pulse. Luhan, don’t fight it. The tearing sensation of his vocal chords splitting has the floor moving under him, falling, falling, falling forward until his hands hit and the pain jars up his arms so hard it blinds him. The phone clatters to the floor and the screen flashes as his spine spikes and his eyes widen before snapping shut.  “Stop.” hold it together, keep it together, never let them see you cry, never let them see how weak you are, never let them know what can hurt you. I will never hurt you. The burgeoning against his throat is almost painful as he coughs, the action racking through him in agony before he gasps out and the rushing of the ocean on the jagged rocks has his body locked as he looks- i will never hurt you, Luhan.  They eyes that meet his are worried, scared and flashing as his heart catches on the left ventricle over his love.  i will never let anyone hurt you.  i will never let them touch you like you’ve been burned before and you are my everything.  they know nothing of you. The air burns in their lungs as is transmuted into life and into the energy that keeps him functional.  The air burns but it burning proves his existence.  “I’m not sick.  They’re wrong.” you’re not sick, Luhan.  they just don’t understand you, not like you do, not like i do. It's easier to intake and expel, the smooth stretch of atmosphere expanding within him as Luhan stands and walks across the room, the haze around the edges of his vision allowing him to focus on the man who approaches him with the same assurance.  “They found each other.” good, he says, a slight smirk on his face.  they deserve each other.  you can do so much better.  you are so much better than them, Luhan.  you are worth so much more than their pitiful attempts to love you. The mirror tilts, the image swimming and Luhan shakes his head, his own voice sticking sharply as pain spikes through his temples.  It’s upset, the balance is upset and there’s so much wrong and he steps back, grimacing as a ringing begins to build in the depths of his skull.  “No.” stop fighting. “No!” just come to me.  i’m here, i always have been and i always will be.  loving you and holding you whether you realize and let yourself return to me or not. The yell almost drowns out the sharp pierce of his phone, the device shuddering in the floor as his blood pounds white hot in his veins and he sees the name and number looking up at him imploringly. “I need you,” he gasps into the receiver and is responded to with a sharp intake of breath.  “I need you, please.” “I’m coming,” rushes back to him as his knees give out. ◦❀◦ Zitao - Luhan are you free this weekend? To: Zitao - I’m busy. Zitao - :c but I wanted to see you! You should come visit soon.  Or we can come see you.  It’s not that hard for me to come out to you.  Sehun wants to see you too. To: Zitao - I have plans this week Zitao.  I can’t play with you and Sehun. Zitao - Okay.  Maybe another weekend then.  Cheer up~! ◦❀◦ It wasn’t what was expected.  That much is apparent in the way that Yixing looks frantic when he manages to crash through the door, eyes wide and hair a mess and sees Luhan. It wasn’t what Luhan wanted but there isn’t much choice when he can’t see or think and Yixing is here and that’s important.  That’s where he wants him.  That’s what he wanted all along. “What happened?” Yixing asks as he has Luhan with him, curled to and around and Luhan breathes because that’s what is important now.  “Luhan, what the hell happened.” “I fell,” is a lie.  It’s a lie and Luhan was told to never lie but this is something he needs to lie about. Yixing’s hands are gentle as they hold and Luhan closes his eyes to hold and keep and revel in this.  He knew Yixing would come back.  Yixing always comes back, always returns to him because he knows Luhan, he understands just enough and Luhan loves him so much for it.  “I don't think this is just you falling,” Yixing whispers and it ghosts over him and is so gentle and sweet and he missed him so much.  “I knew you weren’t eating enough.” “I’m eating fine,” Luhan protests, pushing back at this to look at Yixing.  His Yixing.  No one elses.  Yixing is here now, his name had flashed on the screen and Yixing had called him and come to him just like how he should have done and Luhan missed him so much he feels the clog of it in his throat.  “I am eating and sleeping and-“ “Then what happened?”  Yixing’s face is furrowed. Luhan, what happened to you?  why are you like this? “I don’t know,” speaks around the knot of confabulation that rests heavy on his tongue and earns a sigh.  “I don’t know I just sort of…” “Like in August?”  Freeze.  Stiffen to a board and everything zooms away to distance, Yixing so far from him even as he can feel his arms still holding around his body.  No.  Apology paints a face as Yixing shakes his head.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.” “No, you shouldn’t have,” Luhan agrees, the slow crackle of annoyance in his gut as Yixing’s expression turns to vexation.  “You really shouldn’t have.” “Have you been-“ “Why are you even bringing that up?”  Yixing should know better.  He knows not to talk about that, to talk about things that he doesn’t know about.  Yixing wasn’t there.  Yixing doesn’t know.  “It had nothing to do with you and nothing to do with this.  It’s none of your business.” “I just know that it hasn’t been easy since then,” Yixing sounds exhausted and irritable.  “That you’ve been-“ “That I’ve been what?” Luhan snaps.  Yixing is miles away now and Luhan doesn’t want him so far away, he wants him here, he wants him with him, he wants him now.  “What, Yixing?” “You’ve not been yourself.” even he doesn’t understand you “Shut UP!” ends in a screaming pitch and Yixing falls back and away from him so fast Luhan nearly screams again trying to reach for him to keep him close, to keep him here and with him.  Don’t leave me please don’t leave me I can’t let you go I need you and you’re already leaving me and I will die if you aren’t with me I missed you so much so so much and I can’t take it if you go away again you’re the most important and precious thing to me don’t abandon me, please please please please please. “I won’t abandon you,” whispers into his hair, tickling over the skin and warm.  Luhan doesn’t know when he closed his eyes, only that he can’t see.  He doesn’t know when Yixing wrapped his arms tighter, only that they’re what’s holding him right now.  He doesn’t know when he started speaking aloud everything that ran through his mind, only that Yixing heard him and knows what he’s said. “I’m not going to abandon you, but I need you to remember me sometimes.” it doesn’t work that way. “I always remember you.” ◦❀◦ “You’re okay?”  Minseok is skeptical.  Minseok is watching him, his eyes sharp and Luhan not for the first time likens him to the foxes that can see through everything, the spirits and demons and are unholy creatures that walk the earth.  Minseok is a superstition and Luhan believes in him on full moons and the times when he doesn’t mean to. “Of course we’re okay,” Luhan says idly, relaxing his shoulders as he sits down and picks over two hard boiled eggs.  Protein, nourish the body and soul, a golden treasure within a sea of white that cracks and bleeds into yellow purity when opened.  “Why wouldn’t we be okay?  We’re best friends.” “You weren’t okay for a while,” Minseok points out as Luhan cracks the shell and begins to peel away to the soft flesh beneath.  “Unless I was seeing something else.  Like you two being the same buddy-buddy you always were and just hiding it from me.  Sickos.” “Don’t be jealous because Yixing likes me more than he likes you,” Luhan is flippant with his answer, careless because everything is back the way it should be.  Everything is back to normal and Yixing is going to meet them in five minutes and sit down and lie half into Luhan with a sigh and breathe how much he loves without words.  Luhan will smile and everything will be as it should be.  Because that’s how it is, that’s how it is supposed to be and that’s how it will be.  “Jealousy is ugly.” “I’m pretty sure that is the most hypocritical thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth,” Minseok deadpans at him before sighing and sitting back in his chair, shaking open one of the newspapers that lined the entrance to the dining hall.  “Though I’m sure you’ve said far worse.” “I’m not a hypocrite, I’m an altruist.” Minseok fixes him with a look.  “That is the biggest piece of bullshit I have ever heard in my entire life.” “I think Baekhyun’s rationale for wearing tights under his jeans is the biggest piece of bullshit you will ever hear in your entire life, actually,” Yixing says, starting Luhan into a smile as he appears at his side.  He smiles and it’s warm and pleasant and fills him with the happiness and luster he had so been missing during Yixing’s absence.  “Morning.  Why are we awake?” “Nine o’clock classes,” Minseok mumbles around a bite of toast as Yixing flops beside Luhan.  He doesn't lean into him.  He lies on the table, face resting on the cold surface, looking at Minseok instead of Luhan and Luhan will tolerate this.  Today can be an off day.  “The life of being a mathematics major.” “Why do you willingly choose agony?” Yixing asks Minseok as his fingers spindle walk across the table to steal a piece of toast from Minseok’s plate.  He smiles playfully when Minseok glares at him for the theft.  “Are you a closet masochist?” “No,” Minseok says.  “You owe me a new toast.”  He flashes a brief look of amusement at Luhan and it’s easy, it’s like it had been, with the three of them just in perfect balance and ease and Luhan is okay.  This is okay. “You can have mine.”  No.  “I always get extra because Jongdae steals all of it anyway.”  No.  The too big smile, too soft and too much and too tall and too loud and too low and Luhan skin crawls as Chanyeol drops into the seat beside Yixing and offers his plate to Minseok.  “I don’t really care about toast anyway.  It’s just bread.” “Much appreciated,” Minseok says, smiling in return as he takes another piece of toast only to have it intercepted by Yixing.  “That was mine.” “No.”  Yixing is smile around his lazy bites of toast, lips stretch in pretty pink sleepy happy.  “It was Chanyeol’s.” Luhan can’t speak, can’t think through the angry mute that fit itself over everything, a glass sound barrier between himself and the table.  Watching as Yixing says hello, as Chanyeol smiles and speaks to him, to Luhan, to Minseok and smiles.  Watching as Yixing sits up, talking and alive in the morning and Chanyeol laughs too loudly and his face moves in every direction it shouldn’t.  Luhan’s veins pulse with acid as Yixing yawns and slips to the side, the wrong side, and his head pillows on Chanyeol’s shoulder, eyes slipping closed and everything that had been so right, back where it should be, is false. It’s all wrong.  So, so very wrong. “I’m coming with you,” Luhan says quickly, standing and abandoning most of his breakfast to barren waste as Minseok rises to go to his early morning history of mathematics lecture. A frown greets him, Yixing already dozing and Chanyeol with glasses fixed on his nose glancing up from the daily paper.  “Why?” “Company,” Luhan says, a bite to his words as he steps from the table and Yixing doesn't even notice. traitor. Minseok says nothing as they leave the dining hall.  He doesn’t say anything as they drop their dishes and unfinished food and walk out into the warm sunlight that sticks to skin and makes the fabric of Luhan’s jacket too warm but not warm enough.  “What happened in there?” “He’s a liar,” Luhan says, voice as stone as those that have built up from his gut to his heart.  “He’s a liar and a cheat.”  He turns to Minseok, and the tightness in his throat, around his eyes and the itching pain in all of those intensifies.  don’t let them see you cry.  don’t let them know you can break.  You are stone..  “I only have you left now.” Minseok doesn’t look shocked.  He looks sad. ◦❀◦ Rain is soft against the ground, a gentle reminder of the weather patterns and the way the earth breathes and lives.  Without rain there is no water and life and all that exists upon the earth would shrivel into nothing, perishing under the cruelty of the light source which makes existence possible.  Luhan stares out at the rain and considers the necessity of it compared to the way it makes girls complain about their hair and the wet soaks into his shoes, the basement classrooms and lecture halls all beginning to reek of mold. The pile of letters from his mailbox rest against the table in front of him, opened and with the words turning over and over in his head, striking back and down.  His fingers run over the smooth screen of his cell phone, untouched and unscarred despite being nearly a year old.  Immaculate, visual perfection as the data within increases and builds upon itself, a reflection of how something pure and empty can fill with complication in just a short period of time. There are five weeks and six days left until the end of the semester and Luhan watches as the rain patters on the tables outside of the café, lining the deck and better served for the sunshine and happy chatter of students.  Five weeks and six days and the letters before him promise of furthering his potential in a professional field that was predetermined prior to his contribution.  The options roll about in his mind and over his tongue, spinning through the architectural arch of his consciousness and plastering themselves with strings to the heavens that is his intellectual sanctuary. The appropriate choice is to call his mother, pick up the phone and press in the number long since automatic and speak with her in controlled and composed dialogue that all follows a standard and an approved mannerism.  The correct choice is to open up the web browser on the computer before him to examine accommodation and living space, a brief area of occupancy for when he is building the initial blocks of his future from the ground up. Study and work at everything to make him stand out from the millions of others in order to be selected as the prime candidate for award.  Expand and build upon that and make yourself perfect and desirable and be hand-picked to get into the highest collegiate experience he could strive for.  Excel and better and prove time and time again that nothing would stop and nothing is the barrier and the bar rises higher and higher. I have a boyfriend. Eyes turn down and indifference is directed at the wall of framed certifications, compliments, and marks of dedication and excellence.  Eyes stay down or only linger for the moments between an answer and he waits and waits for eyes to stay on him and never leave.  Don't leave. Looking around the cafe, it's too crowded with students, too many undergraduate specimen all retreating into the shelter of the building from the light rain outside, some complaining and others laughing at their distress over the water falling outside which ruins clothing and upsets appearance.  Luhan sits by the window in a chair with an empty partner and watches them all go about their humble lives as he observes them with cool composure. It doesn't matter if it's raining.  He knows what he looks like in the downpours with water running down his skin, making it rise to attention and the water sticking his clothing to his body.  He knows what he looks like at all times and in all circumstances and he knows exactly what he is.  Luhan's self awareness is something which he knows others will never possess because they never have had to dig so deep within themselves to utilize every ounce of their potential in order to become all of their self. Luhan is excellence.  Luhan is exposed utility and performance and superiority.  Luhan is the highest and the one who is looked upon with awe and reverence when he speaks. Respect. such a wonderful, beautiful, strangely special boy Stop it. His lips mouth the words as he pushes the voices that have begun to reach the tendrils of their influence from the caged bars at the dark recesses of his sanctuary, spilling in fog over the leveled ground of his internal thoughts.  They cannot be seen.  They cannot be known.  They are not beautiful. Minseok is late, not exceptionally late, but Luhan was early and punctuality is far more important than circumstance as the other man arrives, shaking water from an umbrella appropriately away from him.  Luhan watches him as he sits down and sights.  His hair is damp, shoulders also and the back edges of his bookbag dark with water and Luhan is reminded of a dinner table stretched before him with Zitao watching him and his mother and Sehun boasting of his views of the world. The dampness of the young man's hair as it lay upon his head is nothing like the way Minseok's is.  Minseok is older, wiser, more experienced and with the firm set of his mouth in a line.  Luhan's phone has sixteen messages that he hasn't opened and refuses to look at due to the loss of trust and value.  He forgives so much that only now does he discover the limit to his generosity. Xing - come listen to the open mic session at the den Xing - there are a lot of amazing musicians going to be playing and it would be really fun to see you there 'Fun' is not the appropriate adjective to describe a night in which Luhan watches and listens and is ignored out of stupidity.  He does not tolerate to excess and his tolerance is gone.  His eyes follow the line of water down the side of Minseok's neck and he misses low cut shirts and careless smiles with relaxed broad shoulders. it is weak to trust people to never leave you.  they always will “How do you do that?” Minseok asks, sighing gently as he reclines in his chair, raising a strong eyebrow at Luhan over the small table. “Do what?” “Look like you walked out a magazine.”  Minseok sighs, brushing his bangs gently from his eyes.  In the window beside then, their reflections mimic them and Minseok’s coppery colored hair, freshly touched up, is radiant.  He looks well dressed, but every day Minseok is well dressed.  Luhan appreciates that, even if on some days, it oddly makes him look childish in appearance, his facial structure not assisting.  “Or something.  Did you even shower?” “I always shower,” Luhan informs him, picking up the letters and sliding them into a perfectly placed pile.  Subject 1, subject 2, subject 3, subject far from home and secluded in an office and breathing stale recycled air.  This is his future.  “Showering is clean.  It’s what normal people do.  What civilized people do.” “Yixing must be extremely civilized,” Minseok says and Luhan’s mouth tightens.  It takes a moment, but Minseok seems to realize his error as his face falters and his eyes close for longer than the standard blink. “I just am naturally flawless,” Luhan pushes past the boulder between them, between the third chair that is invisible and unfilled.  The reflection in the window is just of two people.  Minseok’s reflective self is watching Luhan, the same mimicking expression on his lips as his knee bounces gently.  Luhan can see his own reflection in the glass beside him, face turned to him and eyes piercing as they evaluate him at his profile. flaws and that are flawless. It speaks with lips unmoving and Luhan’s thumb runs along the seam of the paper in his lap, mouth pressing as he pulls up Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique.  your imperfections make you what you are and I love them Minseok laughs, loud and free and Luhan’s jaw tightens as the replica beside him turns sharply to his own Minseok, glaring in anger and teeth flashing in the light.  The strings rise higher as the woodwinds play over them.  “Please excuse me for suggesting otherwise,” he replies and it satiates the building sound of percussion that crescendos between Luhan’s temples.  In the space between his eyes, between his fingers, between his ribs and in the center cavity of his lungs. “You are forgiven,” Luhan says, hands gently folding the letters and thinking of plumbing and dramatic movement and the distant look in his mother’s eyes every time she asks how he has been and why he hasn’t reported back with an early graduation and high position job yet.  “I can permit that you make mistakes.” “How magnanimous of you,” Minseok says, dry as his fingers begin to tap a tempo opposite to the one in Luhan’s ears.  “I am so glad to be in your good books.” “Right now, you’re at the top of the list.”  Luhan’s breathing follows the pattern of natural progression, the expansion and deflation and the pull of the stars over the sky every night as he looks at Minseok. One best friend who abandoned out of idiocy, a love which has been rent and placed beyond repair.  Trust broken and strewn beneath him, looking down at the shattered pieces of something once beautiful.  He misses, he longs for, but the boomerang of Yixing in his life has been cracked and no longer returns to him complete and with the warm smiles.  Yixing forgot how to love him and Luhan regrets the loss for his friend. I told you he never would understand. There are three sets of eyes on him as he looks at Minseok’s poorly hidden astonishment.  I warned you.  you didn’t listen to me, you fool. “So I’m your best friend now?”  Minseok is hesitant, like if he suggests something out of the norm, Luhan will cast him down to the rocks along side the porcelain shattered face of Yixing, lips made of glass and cracked along the glaze.  Luhan nods, slowly and purposefully to ensure that Minseok completely comprehends.  This is not a small matter.  The look of serious understanding is reassuring and Luhan’s heart beats gently with a new calm and peace in his chest as Minseok looks at him and Luhan thinks about how he’s been there too. Aside from Yixing, there has also been Minseok, and now Luhan considers it with three eyes watching him and the walls and faceless strangers who he may know but hasn’t the time stand in buzzing sound of witness.  There has always been Minseok, and perhaps it was time Luhan thought about what that always meant. “I don’t know if I should be honored or scared,” Minseok laughs and their rapport has never changed nor does Luhan expect it too.  Luhan expects Minseok to be just as he always has been; stable, strong, and the person to talk to when his words vomit forth before he can stop them.  Spilling words of red onto a clean tiled floor and painting Minseok in crimson massacre. He cleans himself later and comes back immaculate.  It is a precious cycle. do you really want to trust him? asks from the side as wide doe eyes that are set in a face mistakenly called pretty and delicate as a maiden.  do you really think you can trust him? “Both,” Luhan replies and Minseok laughs again. The rain cascades down and washes the world of all of it’s sins, the dirt and grime fading form the walls and the ground, carcasses of animals used for food or for mindless slaughter erode and the filth nourishes the soil as it runs black with ruin. ◦❀◦ It’s easy to ignore the absence by filling it with other more important things.  The messages grow to twenty two and then stop, the phone lying silent and never buzzing aside from the constant informing updates from Zitao about his day, what he’s eating, and exactly how stupid Sehun’s face is.  They make Luhan smile as he writes business style emails and researches apartments and housing for the time span of three months, the light burning late into the night as his bed remains unmade. come to sleep whispers and wraps around his shoulders with the mist-like tranquility of temptation.  come wrap yourself in rest and dreams and let me hold you once again. Luhan is no longer tired, always working and always dedicated, the focus of his life and the next progression of himself into the word beyond academics occupying his time.  When not committed to his new relationship with his future, he is sitting for hours with a man shorter and quieter than himself, quietly checking and chatting between pages of final term papers and cups of Minseok’s own made coffee. Minseok makes the best coffee, always bringing an extra for Luhan and it is always black without cream or sugar.  He always remembers exactly what it is Luhan likes and always smiles at him regardless of whether thanks it provided or withheld. how long will he remember though? Shut up. how long until he forgets how to care? The phone rings on the desk and Luhan ignores it, the black case shielding the fragile technology strong and protecting from a harder life than it will ever see.  It rings and buzzes and the name flashing across the screen finally draws Luhan’s attention as he looks over and the sink in him is not from seeing the right name, but the wrong one. “Good evening,” he says, bringing the phone to his ear and answering the call.  To ignore these calls is unwise, always demanding explanation and recompense. “It’s too late to be evening, but I appreciate the sentiment.”  Formal hits like a landslide and his back straightens automatically in the chair he sits in.  “Have you decided if you’re visiting this weekend or next?” “I can’t,” Luhan hedges around the topic, wanting to extend the time as much as possible.  He doesn’t need to take an unnecessary trip out to distract himself from far more important affairs.  He has priorities.  He has duties. take care of yourself.  who else is going to take care of you if not yourself?  no one else knows how. Block out the sound and the creep along his skin.   “Why?”  Demanding information and explanation and the reason behind action which is not prior approved.  Explain the behavior which you have just exhibited.  Immediately.  “Are you behind on school work?” “I’m looking for an apartment.”  Calm composure and assurance, depicting control of his life and everything within so no one else has to concern themselves.  Lest of all the one who never needed to be burdened with in the first place.  “A place to stay during the summer while I’m fulfilling my internships.” “You got an internship?”  Surprise.  It’s always said with such surprise.  “Why didn’t you tell me before?  You should tell me about these things, Luhan. Where is it?” “It’s just a base internship position,” Luhan says, trying to push down the grating feeling and the creep along his arms as it moves closer and closer to his vital organs, pressing into the skin and sinking into him unforgiving.  “Nothing like a full time position and I’m getting experience more than money.” “You couldn’t find a paid internship?”  His mother doesn’t sound impressed, she doesn’t sound approving of this.  It was always hard to do so, despite the sports medals and soccer championship trophies and the high listing marks that placed him as Valedictorian.  The straight line of fives on his AP tests and the honors awards and glowing recommendations from teachers and faculty.  “I thought they offered paid internships.  I know Zitao has one at one of the art museums in the city.”  He isn’t Zitao.  “And I think Sehun is getting a job at one of the dance studios.  The one Yixing used to work at, tutoring over the summer vacations.  Didn’t he used to help out with the younger classes once he moved up in a class?” Luhan’s mouth tastes of copper, the metallic sting sliding down his throat as his lip pulses with the beats of his heart.  “Yes,” he answers and his throat is so tight it’s hard to swallow.  “He did.” “Where is it?”  Never enough. you are always enough whispers into his ear and ghosts with faint lips down the side of his neck, slipping with fingers of smoke beneath the fabric of his collar to spindle down the skin of his shoulders, his back, check, and tickle just at the thin hair of his navel.  you will always be enough for me.  I never need you to be anyone else but Luhan.  anyone else but Mine. “In the city.” “You’re going to have to commute.”  Fault.  Failure.  Issue and problem and incompetency.  “You don’t have a car.” “That’s why I am going to look at apartments in the city this weekend,” Luhan answers, trying to speak through the cough that stops in his throat and itches horribly.  Let me out, let me free, retch me to the floor and destroy through the hate.  “I’m going to be looking at something reasonable and the stipend for the internship should cover the expense.  I don’t need to commute.”  I am competent.  “I’ll be fine.” “If you are getting an apartment, wouldn’t it be wise to share?”  Luhan’s mother’s voice neither rises in pitch nor lowers in concern.  “You would save money and it would give you some split on utilities and expense.  Getting an apartment on your own seems incredibly impractical Luhan.” “I have it under control,” Luhan informs her, his fingers tightening on his phone, hearing the plastic creak under his fingers.  “I know what I'm doing mother, you don’t have to worry about me.” A heavy sigh sounds through the phone and blows through him, leaving him a hollow shell with a curling smog around his skeleton.  “I always end up worrying, Luhan.” “I’m an adult,” Luhan tells her, keeping his voice level and stable, emphasizing his maturity and his point.  “I can take care of myself.  You don’t have to concern yourself.” “Sometimes I still think you’re that little boy though,” his mother says, her voice softer. such a wonderful, pretty, silly little boy “I can’t see you as anything else in my mind every now and then.” The heavy weight of all of his blood in his body is the only thing Luhan can feel when he hands up, placing his phone on the desk and hearing the ominous hum of the world around him swirling into a low pitched growl. It grows from the space around him, base up until it shakes the rooms and he can’t hear anything over it, the screen of the computer before him displaying the rental apartments for one and in prime locations toward internships with ‘valuable experience’ for his ‘future’. You are worth more than this licks into his skin and over his teeth, sucking him dry and pulling his eyes closed.  it’s late, come to bed.  come rest and come just lie and breathe. With a violent shake of his head that nearly sends him tipping out of the chair, unbalancing as he wrenches to the side, hands slamming to the edge of the desk and gripping so hard his knuckles hurt, Luhan grits his teeth and blocks.  Blocks it out and blocks it down, pack, pack, pack away behind the bars and hide it forever. No one can know.  No one can see.  This is for his eyes only. A high loud and free laughter gurgles up from somewhere and spills like the rain for the day before, drizzling down the room as Luhan’s eyes search for the sound before realizing it’s him. The phone rings.  The name is familiar. “Hello?” Yixing’s voice is so sweet and Luhan pulls himself to it with a desperation when he answers back, “Luhan.” ◦❀◦ For the summer, Yixing is going to be working in New York City, living with Chanyeol and Baekhyun in their apartment and teaching at one of the dance academies there for performance art.  Considering that Yixing currently attends an all encompassing university with the dance department sectioned mostly among the middle ranks, being asked to join a dance conservatory is a very exceptional opportunity.  He got the job through Jongin who has some friends and contacts at the school. He will be staying there for the whole summer, telling Luhan this excitedly over a late night snack of French fries and cola and Luhan can’t eat anything as his appetite has left him when Yixing sat down. Yixing never asked him how he was, how he’s been, why he hasn’t been talking, what happened, or why he answered his phone.  Yixing hasn’t done anything to show that he even cares that it’s Luhan he’s talking to. Yixing is living with Chanyeol and Baekhyun in the city and never even asked him. “Why did you call me?’”  Luhan asks, in the middle of Yixing musing over dance routines and schedules with a French fry pressed to his lips.  Yixing blinks at him, stilling. “What?” “Why did you even call me tonight?”  Anger, possibly unwarranted but Luhan feels it anyway as it slides down into him hot and thorned.  Yixing is supposed to talk to him, not at him.  Yixing is supposed to understand he’s upset.  “Why did you call me instead of Minseok or Jongdae or Kyungsoo or Jongin or Taemin or Yifan?  Why me?” Yixing frowns, hand slowly lowering the food from his mouth as his eyes focus and his speech dies in the air.  “Why wouldn’t I call you?”  He licks his lips and Luhan can’t read his face.  “What about you?”  the tone is accusatory and Luhan tenses, waiting for a blow.  “You haven’t picked up all week?  Did all my messages get swallowed or something?  You’re hardly one to talk when you’ve been ignoring me.” He has no right.  “I haven’t been ignoring you,” he snaps across the table and Yixing sits back so fast, his previous happy mood dashed as his arms cross over his chest. Psychology 101 and philosophical analysis of human body nature displays that the crossing of the arms over the chest is a symbolic maneuver of defense, creating a barrier between the body and an assailant and Luhan is the superior in this relationship.  Yixing cuts him off, again, and Luhan’s temper flares, again. “I have had things to do,” Luhan snaps, palms splaying flat on the table surface as he sits with back straight and posture rising him in the chair. Power. Pride. Confidence. Correction. “I’ve been busy, Yixing.  I’m a busy man.” “I’m your friend,” Yixing reminds him and the lack of specification slams too hard and too deep and Luhan’s five year old is wailing inside holding the broken bone of his arm to his chest.  He is alone all over again, the power and light of warmth blocked away as arms cross over a chest and block him out.  “I sometimes think you forget that about me.” Make him stay, show him you care, accept him and love him even if you can’t love him as much as he loves you and in the end, Luhan is still betrayed, still left to lie and shatter by himself.  It’s a horrific vicious cycle and he misses him, he misses Yixing and his warmth and the way it was when Yixing was his and there and belonged with him.  He wants it back and it makes him livid. “How could I possibly forget that?” Luhan’s voice is too loud for the indoor cafeteria with students stacked and sitting around eating food in their pajamas like the barely above grade animals they are.  “If anything, you’re the one who keeps forgetting me.  I never see you anymore, never can spend time with you anymore without someone else getting in the way, stealing you from me.” Too far but he can’t stop.  He’s tried and Yixing just doesn’t get it.  Break it before it can break him. I told you not to trust him.  look what happened. “Stealing me?”  Aghast and staring with wide eyes, those plush lips open in disbelief and Luhan wants to seal them shut so they can never be shared.  Never let him cheat on that which they once had that was so precious and so pure.  Yixing never understood, he realizes, and it hurts more than he ever wants to admit. Luhan hates pain, hates the necessity to grit through it and push through and never let anyone see it even as it winds so tight within that he nearly cracks in two.  He hates it so much, and he hates being exposed. Hands flat on the table and breathe through his nose and push it all down. There is no bottom, just down, down, down. “Yes,” hisses between his teeth.  “Or are you just willing to leave me and go spend time with your new friends and boyfriend and forget that I’m here.” The eyes across from Luhan are narrowed into slits, shoulders rising and falling in anger as Yixing tries to keep his breathing in check and his jaw clenches and unclenches.  It’s oddly satisfying, seeing him this pissed because it mean’s he’s paying attention, he’s listening, he’s seeing him and it’s delicious as much as he wants to throw up.  “Fuck you,” he bites out and Luhan wants it again. “I’m sorry, what?” Luhan is snide, cruel and scathing as he leans across the table, all twisted smiles.  He’s won, he’s figured it out and he’s unveiled the sickness that Yixing has fallen into.  He’s discovered the truth and it makes it all so much more viciously perfect.  “Upset that I’m right?  That you’re the one who has been fucking up and now that I’m calling you out on it you can’t tell me that you haven’t been avoiding me, that you’re fucking around with Chanyeol and playing with Baekhyun and Jongdae and whoever the fuck it is to just try to find something else that will distract you.”  Yixing’s teeth are bared behind his lips.  “Or is it because you finally realize that they will never be me and that’s what has you so angry and you just can’t take it because you know they will never be me.” The screeching slam and clatter of the chair over the floor is like a saw on the ears and jerks Luhan back, his own chair skidding as Yixing stands so fast his chair goes flying, crashing to the floor and the whole dining hall falls silent as they turn to look.  Yixing is panting with the effort not to do something, the muscles along his bare arms tense as his hands are clenched into fists and his fury fuels Luhan with life.  “You’re right,” he growls, voice low and terrible and Luhan wants him, this focus on him like this.  To see that he is right.  “They never will be you.” “Exactly,” Luhan says, waiting for the turn and for the collapse and for the return, the broken sigh from Yixing and he lets go and stops fighting.  He waits for Yixing to admit he was wrong. He watches instead as Yixing steps back, head shaking quietly and the glisten of mist hovers over his eyes, not the fog that is so familiar with them that Luhan knows is just from him venturing back into his own mind.  Yixing steps back, head shaking and eyes glassy with unshed tears and the victorious roar that resounds within Luhan begins to fade, wither into a forlorn whine.  “I’m done,” Yixing says, and his voice cracks on the last shade of the word as he walks, steps fast and hard over the ground and leaves. He watches as it all falls apart before him and he hasn’t taken a breath yet the seconds tick on and he stares into the space where Yixing once stood and almost came back but left. It feels like forever and Luhan’s hands shake on the table, quivering on the plywood and plastic surface and can hear nothing but the soft crying of the wind as it blows through him and beyond the windows. He was supposed to come back.  Yixing was supposed to understand and once Luhan make it plain to him, it would all fall back into place.  Yixing would come back and be with him and everything would go back to how it was supposed to be.  Everything should have fixed itself. The French fries lie on the table half eaten and incomplete and Luhan’s hand alternate between violent shaking and absolute stillness as he takes out his phone and briefly stares at his own white face in the black screen before activating it into life.  His own eyes look back, and he sees in them pain, pain that scares him so deep he has yet to truly breathe in. Legs work automatically as his fury remains crystallized in his chest and he stands, waiting for the pick up on the other end. you didn’t need him says the figure that walks along in stride with him as his steps push him fast through the open space of the dining hall.  you never needed him.  he never really was there for you.  he never really loved you, Luhan. Balling his fist at his side to keep from smashing it through the paned glass at his side, into the face which watches him and haunts him as he wakes every morning waiting for the sound of day and hearing nothing. The phone rings and rings and rings out and again and again and again connects to voice mail as a heart beats with the frantic panic of a caged bird, locked in the path of fire, against the wires of its cage.  Fingers clench and unclench into fists as steps pound harder and harder and harder over the turf and there is no direction that he knows, wind whipping over his skin and through his hair and tearing over him and through him, trying to shred him apart.  Knives manifest in the basic respiratory tract and slide in for internal bleeding and the darkness outside is black and swallows up light in greedy hunger as he runs and runs and can’t hear over the sound of his frantic breaths. The phone against his ear disconnects once more as the vast expanse of a field, a mimicry of the stable ground and foundation in the sanctuary of himself, spans before him and with the stars blinking at him in surprised, everything tips and he plummets down to slam into unforgiveness and shatters. The phone buzzes in his hand and the dry hack against his lungs is all that answers the lover when their frantic and terrified voice sounds over the line. “I’m okay,” falls past his lips, dry with cold as the grass slides into him and the chilled earth offers him no warmth or love or protection.  The sky only watches and judges as he hurts and breathes through the pain with broken lungs. “Where are you?” His eyes close. sleep.  just rest with me.  let go and stop fighting.  you wanted Yixing to stop fighting, now it’s your turn. please… ◦❀◦ Minseok is looking at him over the edge of the bed, his eyes rimmed in red and hair falling into his face from lack of styling.  He hasn’t been doing much to style lately, instead focusing more on his studies as Luhan balances with circus strength between all the ropes of his world.  “I’m here,” Minseok says and the bindings around Luhan’s chest constrict.  “Luhan, I’m here.  I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, but I am here for you.” The greatest way to tell a person you love them is by saying ‘I am here for you.’ Are you going to tell him?  Are you going to talk to him?  Are you going to show how weak you are?  Are you flawless and perfection, are you going to let him love you?  What if he wants to?  What if he wants you to?  Do you want him to? “Yixing isn’t talking to me,” Luhan tells Minseok, who is neither his best friend but he is more than a friend, the definition hazed.  Luhan just doesn't know what yet, he has to be categorized and factioned into a space which makes sense and keeps order.  “At all.  He hasn’t been answering my calls or my messages.” Minseok’s eyes soften and his shoulders drop.  Sympathy.  Caring.  Noticing and watching as his hands lie just barely touching on the edge of the desk.  Luhan is on the bed, sitting with knees apart and elbows resting on them, bowed and feeling the weight of everything pressing down between the shoulder blades of his back. He’s so tired. “Are you really surprised?” Minseok asks, and his voice is gentle, quiet and soothing and Luhan listens to him.  Listens because it’s sweet.  Sweet like his mother’s voice when she sang to him when he couldn’t sleep, sweet like the smell of fresh cut flowers and the sweet of a Brahm’s violin sonata played in the den over gentle piano accompaniment.  “Are you really surprised he’s backing off so much?” “I miss him,” Luhan admits.  And he does.  He misses Yixing and his humor, his ease and his fun.  He misses having him there, constant and at his side and with a smile so ready to brighten the room.  Yixing who calls people out on their stupidity and yet laughs at his own because he knows when to admit he’s wrong.  “I miss him.  A lot.” “Well, I don’t think he’s going to be incredibly keen on just walking back in and letting bygones be bygones,” Minseok sighs, his eyes still gentle as they take in Luhan before him.  “But he misses you, too.”  A gentle kind smile that means more than it speaks.  Minseok of the never many words.  “I know he does.” “You’ve talked to him.”  Luhan doesn’t ask; he states.  Because he knows, how could he not think that Yixing and Minseok would talk?  Quiet and away from him because of Yixing’s own cowardice and it hurts him so to think of the two of them shutting him out. “I have,” Minseok admits.  “And he’s not happy, not with anything going on right now.  But I know he misses you.  He wants his best friend back just as much as you want him.” “I want him back,” Luhan says, the odd feeling of not seeing Yixing in so long clinging to him and making him cold.  “I just want things to be better, to not be fighting like this.” The look on Minseok’s face isn’t sympathy, and he doesn’t pity Luhan.  It’s better that way, where Minseok sees that Luhan isn’t below him, that he sees and understands the situation.  “You’re going to have to be the one to talk to him,” Minseok says.  “This is between you two.  And it’s been going on for a while, ever since…”  He trails off. Tension creeps back around Luhan’s head, settling with pincers in the soft tissue at the back of his ears as he watches Minseok and carefully observes him.  “Since what?” he asks, throat constricting.  Minseok wets his lips, a long intake of breath rather than answering him immediately and it’s stretching the elastic of his tolerance.  “Since what, Minseok?” “Since August,” Minseok says and the walls fall down.  Minseok’s eyes widen as Luhan pulls away, back straight and expression closing off, cutting him out.  They don’t talk about this.  Yixing knew not to talk about this, even at the worst of times, and Minseok should know better than to bring it up. Yixing understood.  Yixing just was there when he needed him, after everything and only a few times did he bring up the one time it all went wrong. “August doesn’t matter,” Luhan says, the ice in his voice chilling his own mouth, slipping down into his stomach to spread and freeze through him, turning to liquid rock.  Stable, hard, and resilient.  Solid.  “It has nothing to do with anything and it’s not important in this.  Not at all.” “It is, though,” Minseok insists and Luhan’s jaw tightens, clenches hard as his teeth grind together in near pain.  “Ever since the end of the summer and your-“ “Stop,” Luhan’s hands are balled into fists, resting on his knees as he looks at Minseok and wills him to stop talking.  They don't talk about this; they never talk about this.  Not of how the summer spiraled down, how the last internship failed and how he was left home with nothing but the suffocation and slip of white capsules to numb him against his will.  Prescription for healing when they did nothing but make it all worse.  “Stop it, now.” “You can’t not talk about this,” Minseok says, his voice more and more urgent, pushing and pressing and he’s never been as gentle, never as understanding and able to comprehend him.  Not like the others, not like anyone, no one can but- breathe, Luhan, and remember that i am here.  always have been and always will be and i do. His body is so rigid the slightest touch will break it, fracture it into aggression and he won’t have the restraint to stop the damage it incurs.  “I don't want to talk about this with you.” “Why not?” Minseok’s exasperation hits, him sitting back and his exmotion lacing over his face.  “Luhan, if you can’t talk to me about this, and I know you haven’t talked to Yixing about this, and who the fuck knows if you talked to your therapist about this-“ “I have.”  Lies stain his teeth black.  “So it’s not your concern.  She doesn’t think it’s an issue and neither should you and this, whatever it is you’re inferring, has nothing to do with what happened in August.” Panic crippling his body to the floor as the pills shook between his fingers and his vision swam in Technicolor savagery.  The cry of an ambulance as his heart faltered and weakened only to fight to escape through the cage of his pectoral muscles and ribs.  The paralyzing feeling of his eyes tilting back when all he needed to do was see and the rushing nothing that filled his head, the empty space that needed to be filled and the inability to speak anything but meaningless babble.  Eyes looking at him and never seeing as white masks fit over mouths and there was no connection, no comfort to be had. At the age of seven Luhan was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.  At the age of twenty Luhan was placed on medication after his mother stepped in during his summer internship believing him to be suffering from abnormal levels of stress.  At 12:54 in the morning Luhan suffered the most severe anxiety attack of his life and collapsed with his head slamming into the wall and fingernail welts running up his thighs. They do not talk about August.  It is the epitome of taboo.  His hands ball into fists, the anger and irritation at the reminder of his head splitting open and watching everything spill from his chest replays over his eyes, blocking out Minseok, the room, everything.  Instead, all that is there is the gaping chasm of his open torso, the screams of everything he knows, and the raw truth of Luhan. Paint the walls white and cover up the stains of grime and filth that lie just beneath the surface. such a beautiful boy and wonderful and talented and worthless because in the end, i can never love you enough for me to stay.  you were never enough to make me want to stay.  poor, helpless, pitiful child “It’s not like I’m asking you because I'm trying to hurt you,” Minseok’s tone rises, insistent and prying deeper, trying to reach through the hands already closed around him, lifting him higher and higher from the ground and Luhan’s teeth clench so hard as he tries not to scream.  “I just am worried.” “Why?”  Answer me. “Because I care!”  Wrong. “Why?”  Answer me. “I’m your friend!  I want to help you and be there for you when you need me and I can’t do that when you don’t let me in!”  Wrong.  Minseok’s eyes are pleading and his tone is breaking and Luhan can’t focus over the squeezing of his insides.  The black wash of recollection is by far the most bitter thing in his mouth, the bile rising and rising until he feels it pressing against the back of his throat and it closes up.  “Luhan, I want to be there for you.” “Then be there!”  The explosion is a roar, a rip and tear and everything spills in a crack of his voice thundering through his room, the desk and lap shaking as his vision swims in smoke and vermillion.  “Listen to me when I say I’m okay, and stop judging me for my actions.  I.  Am not.  A bad.  Person!” Tears streaming down a three years olds face curled on the ground, shaking and shivering as the bone of his arm lies in agonized fracture and the one protector in his life cradles him and whispers kindness.  Tears streaming down a face as the protector cries and breaks just as the bone had but inside and far more dangerously, one month later he never cries again as instead wailing rises between small ears and imbeds into bone. “I know you’re not a bad person!”  Minseok doesn’t touch him, just sits as Luhan looms, standing tall and menacing and majestic as the dawn before him, alive and breathing the fires of the sun as his power surges.  “You have never been a bad person.  I don't ever think that of you.”  Appease.  “I have never thought that about you.”  Reconcile.  “I never could think that about you.” Almond eyes widen as they implore for kindness, for forgiveness and for Luhan to please, please, please accept. “I don’t want to lose you too,” slips past dry lips and Minseok’s eyes widen as they look at him before they soften and Luhan crumples, exhausted to the floor.  Need me. anyone would be a fool not to need and want you. Shattering and shuddering inhale. anyone would be fool not to love that which you are. Lungs clench around the breath and hands come to rest with gentle affection on his shoulders, pulling him tremulously forward until his face is pressed into the crook of a neck smelling of soap and coffee and reception.  The breath chokes out as warm strong hands sooth over his back and hold him, his own hands grip into the front of a shirt and he lets himself lean more than he’s never done before. let me break and love me anyway i do ◦❀◦ Part III ◦❀◦