wild eyed turning ’til we’re running from it
pairing: minseok/sehun
length:6839
rating: pg13
warnings: alcohol use
summary:Sehun’s bucket list takes him to Tokyo and coincidentally, Minseok.
a/n: originally written for ohunlimited here. title from beach house's "take care". thanks a ton to j and t for helping me out when i whined a ton. padlet of inspiration here
Sehun half stumbles off the plane, ushered through immigration and to bag pick up. When he walks outside, he’s enveloped in a muggy heat, the setting sun casting an orange glow over the city.
The people bustling around jostle him, but he doesn’t notice. He’s too busy taking everything in, he’s too busy trying not to miss anything.
He’s made it.
Sehun’s in Tokyo.
“Amazing,” he breathes. Sehun clutches the handle of his suitcase in one hand; he stumbles into someone with the next step. Immediately his mind goes blank, he can’t remember any of the Japanese he’s been working hard to study.
“Ah um,” He’s met with dark almond eyes, “Sorry.” Sehun reverts to Korean, but there’s a flash of remembrance. He repeats himself in Japanese.
“Don’t worry about it,” the man replies in Korean. Sehun’s ears prick with the familiar language. “Do you need help getting anywhere?” He asks when Sehun doesn’t move. The man is a head shorter than him, small, but he seems well built. His hair is a light brown color, shaved on the sides, and spiked everywhere else. One of the straps of his overalls is undone, and he’s wearing this ugly bright yellow shirt.
But it suits him, and Sehun is moderately intrigued.
Vaguely attracted.
“Um,” Sehun reaches into his back pocket, “I’m trying to get to this place? I’m supposed to stay here, but my friend hasn’t been picking up.” He shows the other the piece of paper where he'd written an address. The kanji clumsily transcribed.
“Ah,” he says after reading it, “I know exactly where this is. I’m living here too.”
Sehun finds himself overjoyed, cracking a smile.
“That’s pretty--”
The man smiles, “A real coincidence, huh?”
He thinks he imagines the man’s eyes flashing silver for a second. Liquid metallic, Sehun rubs at his tired eyes.
A trick of the sun.
Soon enough, Sehun finds himself sitting on the back of a electric blue motorcycle, holding onto a stranger that smells faintly of coffee and something else he can’t place. Slight musk, something like jasmine too. The visor on the helmet he was given matches the stranger’s.
Months ago Sehun had graduated, a two year degree at a technical school. A night job as a bartender had paid for it all. And countless of drunks ruining his shoes. He’d met Jonghyun, a man four years his senior who seemed to have too much time on his hands.
“I sing,” a vague answer to an attempt at conversation by Sehun.
“I live in Japan most of the time,” he’d said after a drink, gunmetal gray hair in disarray.
“I’ve been thinking of visiting once I finish school,” Sehun said after he filled a drink for another customer.
“Yeah? I own a building in Ikebukuro. Well kinda,” his smile was more of a smug twitch of his lips, “but a few other people live there too. You can come check it out.”
He’d left a business card, right side up, an address written on one of the bar’s napkins. Sehun had tucked it away, only remembering it after he’d bought a one way ticket to Tokyo.
">Great doesn't even begin to describe the gorgeous room Sehun is given. It's set in the front of the house, allowing any direct sunlight to stream in. There are a few potted plants inside here too, a small ivy plant reaches towards the window.. The white on white walls making the room appear even larger.
Sehun never wants to leave.
“This room used to belong to Yixing,” Minseok mutters, “but he moved back home a few months ago. I hope you like it.”
“I adore it.”
“Jonghyun said you don’t have to pay rent yet, unless you stay over a month or get a job in the near future.”
Sehun nods, plopping down onto the bed. The ceiling is speckled with glow in the dark stars.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Minseok’s bare foot toes at the wood flooring, “That’s fine,” he pauses, pulling at an earlobe, “you’ll figure it out."
❇︎
Sehun meets the other resident of the house after a loud crashing startles him out of bed. He groggily checks his watch, it’s 5am. He’s been in Japan now for a week, and has yet to meet Juhyun. All he knows is that she’s Korean.
And nocturnal.
Sehun pokes his head out of his room, and he catches a glimpse of her long fluttering hair. It falls in cascades around her bare shoulders, but she barely glances at Sehun. He suddenly feels like he has vertigo, as if he’s standing at the top of a building looking down. He collapses inside of his room; the dizziness subsides as his still foggy mind tries to figure out why he’s sprawled on the floor.
Juhyun’s eyes were entrancing, as if they were dark pools pulling him in. She had smiled briefly, a flash of teeth.
When he tries to stand up, he can’t. His limbs feel heavy. If he were fully awake, Sehun might have panicked by now.
He feels the prickling of fear for a second, but he reasons that maybe he’s still dreaming.
Sehun, eventually, is able to stand up, but he pushes the incident from his mind. He dresses casually, and heads downstairs.
“So, any plans today?” Minseok asks, immediately placing a glass of orange juice in front of Sehun.
He accepts it gratefully, “ I want to get one of those crepe things.”
“Anything else?”
Sehun likes the bright pink shirt Minseok has on today with his white trousers. He looks softer, smaller. He reminds Sehun of strawberries and cream. “Hm, I don’t know.”
Minseok’s face lights up, “I know a perfect place.”
“Do you have any work or…” Sehun feels a little bit rude, as if he’d intruding.
“No,” his answer is casual, “ the work I do is very laid back. I’m self employed.”
He changes the subject too quickly for Sehun to ask him any further questions. He makes sure to tread carefully after that, Sehun doesn't want to push. It's not his place.
Minseok teases Sehun when he finds out that most of the things on his ‘Tokyo Bucket List’ are food.
He promises to show him everything there is to see in and around Ikebukuro. They end up in clothing shops, on a not so hot afternoon, filled to the brim with colorful eccentric clothing.
“Do you shop here?” Sehun asks picking up a yellow mesh shirt. Minseok is eyeing a band tshirt.
“Sometimes.”
Sehun watches the people going by, they’re dressed similarly to Minseok. He’s fascinated by their taste in fashion.
“Seoul seems so boring compared to all of this,” Sehun gestures vaguely, “don’t you think?”
Minseok doesn’t answer right away. Sehun watches him, “I mean--”
“You’re not looking in the right places,” his reply is completely ambiguous, holding too many secrets with the way his mouth quirks, “but you’re right,” Minseok pauses easily switching to Japanese, “Seoul can be boring. Alienating even.”
❇︎
It seems like Minseok is much more happy to take Sehun around the city. He's grateful for the unfiltered kindness. The lights are dim inside the bar they’ve stopped at.
And yet, Minseok's eyes sparkle with a kind of iridescent glow. They’re flashing silver again,but they’re more of a stormy gray this time. Sehun drags his hands down the sides of his face.
"Why do your eyes do that?"
"What?" Minseok looks at him curiously, knowing.
"They change colors, constantly."
"Hm, what's your theory?" He taps his fingers on the table, as if challenging him.
Sehun fingers at the rim of his cup, "Are you-" His words slur slightly, he leans in, "a humanoid?"
A year ago the very mention would have been outrageous, completely left field. Sehun watches the way the interfaces of the city flicker sometimes. This whole city is a facade, straddling the edge of reality and hyperreality
.Circuits instead of humans.
Minseok's tinkling laugh surprises Sehun.
"No robotics," Minseok leans in, "but I'm not completely human either."
The light from the overhanging 'open' sign glints off his teeth.
Sehun mumbles, "Then what are you?"
"Hm," Minseok cocks his head slightly, chin pointing upward, "My parents weren't my real parents. Sometimes," he takes out a pocket knife.
"What are you doing?" Sehun sits up straighter. He wants to demand, but he bites his tongue.
"Watch," Minseok takes the pointed end and pricks the tip of his ring finger. Sehun watches a small dot of blood bubble up. Minseok licks his finger, and then shows it to Sehun.
"I dont--"
"It healed immediately."
Sehun takes the other's hand into his own; he turns it in different ways to see if he can spot any kind of mark on his finger. Nothing is there besides the little grooves that make up Minseok’s unique fingerprint.
"Are you a vampire or something?" Sehun eyes him warily.
Minseok's laughter fills his ears again.
"No," Minseok says, "I'm not. But I've met one before."
Sehun takes a long gulp from his glass, signaling for another drink.
"I'm not that drunk," Sehun pats his warm cheeks, "am I?"
"No," Minseok takes a sip from his own glass, eyeing Sehun, "I'll show you tomorrow."
Sehun nods, entirely unsure of what's going on. His stomach growls suddenly.
"Let's get some food," Minseok pays for their drinks and drags Sehun out of the bar with him.
Minseok's hand feels clammy on his wrist.
Sehun half stumbles behind Minseok into Mutekiya, a ramen shop still bustling with people.
"What time is it?" Sehun realizes he forgot to put his watch on this morning.
Yesterday morning now?
"Its only 12am," Minseok finds them a table, "what do you want to eat?"
"Hm," Sehun looks at the menu, trying to read the various things. He stops trying when he realizes he’s having a hard time reading the names of the food, "You choose."
"I'm glad you trust me," Minseok teases. They sip on their water while waiting for their food.
Sehun watches Minseok's sleepy eyes, the way his small hands use his straw to poke the ice cubes in his water.
"Do you ever think about moving back to Korea?" Sehun has never asked this before, not in the few weeks they've known each other.
"Yes," Minseok replies easily, "it's not like I'm running away."
"Oh, alright," Sehun's eyes light up when his bowl of ramen is placed in front of him. The broth is kind of reddish, he takes his spoon and sips it carefully. It's spicy and thick, it slides pleasantly down his throat.
"Good?"
"Delicious," Sehun smiles, messily slurping the noodles into his mouth.
They’re in the front yard of the house the next morning, Minseok is barefoot on the grass. He’s showing Sehun how to stretch properly and work the kinks out of his muscles. Sehun peeks at him curiously, watching the tips of his fingers turning pink from the sunlight illuminating them; the tops of Minseok's ears match too.
They’re sitting in the grass after they stretch, Sehun gently pulling at the green blades of grass. His hand slips and it cuts him.
Sehun hisses, immediately attaching his mouth to the shallow wound. It always stings too much, the faint taste of sweat and iron coat his tongue.
“Let me see that,” Minseok pulls his hand away, inspecting Sehun’s palm. Minseok's hands are much rougher than his.
His mind wanders to what Minseok had said about his work.
Sehun doesn’t know anything really concrete about Minseok.
He doesn’t push it though. Sehun is good with these kinds of things, reading people that is. It's what years of watching and being an outsider does to you. He can tell that Minseok isn't the type to easily open up, regardless of trust. His natural way of interactions.
The air surrounding Minseok begins to crackle, as if a contained sort of electricity is running over the top of his skin. Sehun feels the press of his soft warm lips, and he freezes. Minseok looks at him from under his lashes, and he smiles. Shining silver eyes, pupils blown. Sehun can't bring it in himself to be scared.
“All better,” Minseok says.
Sehun marvels at his hand, the skin where the grass had cut is fine. His mind flashes to last night when Minseok had pricked himself. He hadn’t felt the same buzzing then.
“Human skin needs a little bit of extra help.”
Sehun mulls over Minseok’s choice of words. A ladybug lands on his hand, spindly legs and bright red, it flutters away after a few seconds.
“You’re not human.”
“In a sense.”
“In a sense?”
“I’m as human as human can be, but not as human as I’m supposed to be. Not by your standards.”
Sehun’s mind is trying to make a sense of the older’s words. He can’t, they’re knotted up, rattling inside his head.
Minseok’s grin is impish. His teeth gleaming.
“I was born into a good family, but sometimes good is perceived in different ways. Sometimes good means sacrifices. and I think,” he pauses, his smile not reaching his eyes, “I got the short end of the stick. As far as being human goes.”
“Minseok--”
“Sorry, I’m not making any sense am I?”
Sehun shakes his head, dark hair falling into his eyes, “Not really, no.”
Minseok clears his throat and glances away, “I’m not good with this talking thing, but um--”
“Try.”
“I--I’ve never really told anyone, outside of the seelie folk I know," Minseok laughs. Sehun notices the way he keeps running his hands over the grass, nervously so. One of Minseok’s bracelets catches briefly on the blades.
“Some people say that there are children taken away, in the night and replaced. The replacement children don’t usually make it. They’re unwanted--”
“And you were a replacement?” Sehun can’t quite bring himself to not believe Minseok. There’s a light breeze that ruffles their hair, Sehun briefly closes his eyes.
“Mhm, I wasn’t supposed to live very long. Changelings, don’t make it usually.”
“And your real family, did they--”
“No, they usually disappear. My replacement family...they could tell I wasn’t completely theirs.”
“How did you find out?”
Minseok meets his eyes finally, but he blushes. Sehun can’t help the slight stuttering that happens in his chest, his heart doing a four step beat.
“Someone else told me, when I came here. I was introduced to Jonghyun, and he set me up with my work--”
“I see.”
“I wanted to find myself. Find out what it meant to be a fey, to have been born out of the seelie court.”
He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to take all of this. Seelie means faeries, goblins sprites--the sort of creatures that exist in fairy tales.
Sehun is at a loss. He goes back and tries to process everything up until this point. He thinks back to when he’d met Jonghyun, and how Minseok appeared to him. There’s a certain pulsating electricity that rolls off of them in subtle ways. Sehun sometimes feels like his atoms are being rearranged when Minseok gets closer, but it isn’t a bad thing.
If he forgets, he doesn’t feel.
He’s hyper ware of Minseok, and that increases the feeling. The sense that there is much more to the world than he could ever imagine.
He is but a speck on this vast planet.
“I always thought faeries were of the tinkerbell variety,” Sehun pretends to joke.
“I--” Minseok laughs, “do you want to see something?” he asks, pulling Sehun out of his thoughts. Sehun nods, cracking a smile.
“I was going to wait, but, here,” Minseok pulls something out of his pocket.
“An onion?” Sehun’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“No,” he cups whatever it is in his hands, “watch.”
The air around them begins to vibrate, Sehun sees the faint heatwaves rising off the street when he looks up briefly, a car passes by, distant laughter.
Something begins to poke out of the brown lump, tender green, almost white. Too fragile.
“It’s a tulip bulb,” Minseok says smiling, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow, “in the seventeenth century, the Dutch created an entire economy around them. It collapsed, but at one point the cost of a bulb was about the same as a house--”
Sehun starts giggling, shoulders shaking slightly. He starts laughing hard enough that he ends up on his back.
Instead of questioning Sehun, Minseok lays down beside him.
“Do you think,” Sehun begins, his mind working slowly to make sense of the day’s events. The sky is a robin egg blue, the sun is the yolky middle, and the soft white clouds lazily pass by. Sehun let's his lids slip close, breathing in deeply. He notices the heavy smell of impending summer rain.
“Do you think,” Sehun starts again, “I mean--do you ever think how strange everything is.”
“Sometimes,” Minseok replies, “I thought you were one of us when I bumped into you.”
Sehun remains quiet, his pulse speeds up, there’s the distant rushing of blood in his ears.
“When I was seven, I overheard my mom talking to our neighbor. She said something that shocked me--” Sehun clamps his mouth. He tries to subdue the impending heat of his nose stuffing up,but his eyes remain dry. He swallows.
“You don’t have to--” Minseok turns to him, eyes searching. Sehun keeps facing towards the sky.
“She just mentioned how she always felt uneasy around me. I always tried my hardest to make her happy, to show her the best of me,” Sehun takes a shuddering breath, “I used to pretend I was a was a faerie, an alien, “ he pauses with a slight laugh, “maybe, I was the next superman.”
Minseok doesn’t interrupt him, but Sehun finally turns to meet his eyes.
“I just reminded her too much of dad--I’m just human, sorry,” his laugh is hollow.
Sehun doesn’t know why he’s baring himself like this.
Sehun isn’t sure why he’s chosen to let himself show the cracks, rip himself open. Unlike Minseok, he did run away. He ran away from Seoul, he ran away from all of the things he couldn’t deal with.
He was just too--
Sehun was tired of trying, he was tired of the static life he was living. Here, no one knows him. There isn’t a darkness shrouding him, painfully reminding him. He was never going to be enough.
But the people he’s supposed to count on don’t deserved him. This, this--Sehun is starting to learn.
Sehun is sewing himself back together, stitch by stitch.
“This is for you,” Minseok takes Sehun’s hand and gently places the bulb there, “I mean, I don’t know. You can take care of it if you’d like.”
“Thanks,” Sehun feels unexpected relief wash over him, “I guess,” he adds with an airy laugh.
Minseok later helps him find a container, and they nestle the bulb deep inside a bed of damp soil. He instructs Sehun in how to care for the new flower.
❇︎
Sehun finds himself sitting on the edge of the windowsill, the Tokyo Tower flickers suddenly.
It’s a Friday night.
“Do you think there’ll be a power outage?”
“Why do you say so?” Minseok walks over, pulling the cardigan he had worn earlier off.
“The tower’s light seems unstable.”
Minseok leans his hand on the sill, tilting his body weight outwards. Sehun panics briefly when he sees Minseok pitch forward much too far.
“No, not really,” Minseok turns to him, “don’t worry too much.”
Sehun nods, looking across the skyline. The sun has already dipped low under the horizon, the city is pulsating with life.
“So what do people do in love hotels, beside you know…”Sehun trails off.
One of the items on his list is, ‘go to a love hotel. sex optional’, because Sehun’s never really been in love.
He doesn’t know if he really wants to, if the slight speeding of his pulse means something else.
And he still isn’t convinced that sex means love, but that’s another lifetime to reconsider.
“I wouldn’t know,” Minseok’s laughter always sounds like it’s bubbling up and spilling over, “I’ve only been to one a few times.”
“Really?” Sehun’s curiosity gets the better of him, “with who?”
Minseok blushes, “Well--”
“Sorry if it’s too personal--I didn’t mean--”
“It’s okay,” he says easily, clearing his throat, “His name was Lu Han. He was--”
Sehun watches the emotions that skitter across the other’s face, slowly morphing into his signature impish smirk.
“He was on a business trip, but he was married.”
Sehun may be too many years still too young, but he knows what heartbreak looks like, and he’s sure that Minseok’s heart must still ache.
Human or not, fully human, what is a human after all?
Truly, really, this form of existence that Minseok inhabits, is it really that different from Sehun’s own?
Sehun looks outside the window again, this city never seems to sleep. It’s on an endless loop, with a beginning and an ending being barely distinguishable from each other.
Minseok’s eyes follow the line of traffic down below, Sehun sees the light reflecting in his eyes.
He’s just as human as Sehun.
“Don’t you ever feel like running away?” Sehun finally asks. He wants to comfort Minseok, but he isn’t sure how.
“I’m not running away,” Minseok had said only a week ago, but it felt like an eternity ago now. A completely different lifetime. A different meaning, another context.
“I don’t want to do that,” he says turning to face Sehun again.
And Sehun thinks again, constantly reminded, that Minseok is one giant contradiction. Someone made up of vastly different parts, ideologies completely jarringly, different.
Minseok can make flowers bloom, but he lives in the heart of city full of circuitry and steel.
Sehun doesn’t know when it happens, but he finds himself curled against the warmth of Minseok’s body. The older has his fingers entangled in his hair, carefully pulling at the strands, stroking Sehun’s head, lightly scratching at his scalp.
He presses his nose against Minseok’s chest, breathing softly, and inhaling the sweet smell of jasmine. The whirring of the air conditioning is soothing white noise.
He wonders what Minseok is thinking about.
Is he thinking about Lu Han?
“Try to sleep Sehun,” Minseok whispers into his hair a moment later, “sleep.”
“I can’t.”
Minseok sighs, “You’re always restless at night, I hear you tossing and turning sometimes. Juhyun told me she hears you talking in your sleep sometimes too.”
Sehun is more or less shocked that Juhyun is even aware of his existence, much less mention anything about his sleep pattern to Minseok. Her existence seems ephemeral.
“I do sleep--”
“Sleep now, yeah?” Minseok runs his fingertips down Sehun’s temples.
“Only if you promise to rest too,” Sehun counters, “you’re more like a ghost sometimes.”
Sehun doesn’t mention how he hears Minseok in the kitchen late into the night.
Minseok doesn’t reply, “I feel like I’ve known you forever,” his words solemn, “is that--do you get that feeling?”’
“Maybe--” he doesn’t know how to reply really. But Sehun feels it too. This is easy. There are absolutely no pretenses involved. It’s as if they’re both starting a clean slate, and meeting eachother was a second chance.
He decides not to answer, because words--words are fluid and there’s no real way for them to verbalize such a notion.
Sehun evens out his breathing, keeping the window open isn’t enough to cool the room.
And Sehun refuses to move, because he’s too comfortable.
He wants to cling to this strand of time for as long as possible. Sehun hears the faint thumping of Minseok’s heart. The distant horn of a car.
He somehow drifts off to sleep.
❇︎
“You’re kind of like momotarou,” Sehun takes a sip from his tea. They’re inside of a tea house, apparently one of Minseok’s favorites. Sehun can see why, the entire place resembles a greenhouse. There are tendrils of various ivy that curl around the structure, as if holding the beams together. Splashes of pinks, purples, oranges, and blue against the lush greenery. It smells cool inside, like damp earth.
“You know that story?” Minseok peeks at him curiously behind his mug. The warm tea is pleasant, because compared to outside, it’s cool where they’re sitting.
“Yeah, the little boy who came from inside a peach?”
“Yeah,” Minseok diverts his eyes, sipping again at his tea. Sehun tastes a few leaves on his tongue, the mint peach tea he’s drinking is slightly bitter.
They sit in silence until Minseok places his empty cup down.
“I don’t think I grew up to be a fine young boy,” Minseok’s laughter sounds more like shattering glass, “at least not in their eyes.”
Minseok’s eyes are liquid gold, not from some strange magic, one that Sehun doesn’t think he’ll ever understand, but from the sun’s rays. Sehun reaches his hand over, touching his fingertips to Minseok’s wrist. He feels the pulse there.
“You grew up to be better,” Sehun is too late to catch the words that snag as they fall from his lips. He clears his throat, “I guess.” He smiles crookedly.
“Hm,” Minseok lazily traces along the creases of his palm. Sehun shivers at the touch.
“Maybe.”
❇︎
“Do you want to come with me tonight?”
Sehun is sitting on the floor in the living room with his back against the couch, and a book he found under the small coffee table.
“Where to?” Sehun stretches his feet out in front of him.
“Work,” Minseok says simply.
Sehun agrees. He wants to get to know yet another side of Kim Minseok.
“You work at a club?” Sehun catches himself yelling above the music. They’re surrounded by a multitude of bodies, moving as if they were one to the music pulsating throughout. Minseok is walking in front of him, pushing through the people. He’s dressed in bright clothing again, this time a tie-dye shirt hangs off of his small frame. Sehun on the other hand had opted for a simple black shirt and too tight jeans.
“Not exactly,” Minseok yells back, “just try not to get lost.” He holds his hand out for Sehun to take a hold of. They continue onward, despite the room being completely packed.
They make it to an inconspicuous door, the kind you only notice if you already know it’s there. Slipping inside, Sehun wonders briefly why he never bothers to ask Minseok to thoroughly explain things.
Sehun trusts easily, but Minseok is reassuring nonetheless. Astoundingly concrete.
“People with one of these,” Minseok holds up a card, “come through here. They’re from the Seelie court. Or once were.”
“And you--” Sehun lets the question hang, they’re walking through a carpeted hallway.
“I help them settle in. Find a home.”
They make it to another entryway, but this time there’s only a curtain.
“This is kind of sketchy,” Sehun jokes, hearing music streaming from the other side, people break into laughter, “I mean, you know--”
“Yet, here you are,” Minseok teases back.
“Here I am,” Sehun wonders what he’d be doing if he had stayed home.
Empty rooms, deafening silence.
Immediately upon walking through, Sehun feels the air change around them. His entire body feels lighter.
“When there are too many of us together, our auras mix and create a sort of concentrated…” Minseok trails off, “magic? Something like that.”
“Is that why I feel weird?” Sehun steadies himself by placing his hand on a near wall.
“If it gets too much, we can leave. I only have to be here a little while to make my rounds.”
Sehun sees a group of shimmering bodies flutter by, “Rounds?”
“I just need to check in with everyone and then talk to anyone that’s been acting out. Stay close.”
Sehun nods, but he can’t feel it, “Okay.”
Sehun finds himself face to face with iridescent skin and a sharp pointy smile. They’re holding his face in their hands, long nails digging slightly into his cheeks.
“Drink,” their voice is tinny, and their lips press into his. Sehun’s mouth is flooded with a thick liquid that tastes like the sweetest berries. It dribbles down the side of his mouth. He feels slightly euphoric.
“What are you doing Zitao?”
“Letting your friend taste some of my wine.”
“Try not to do that, okay? It’s too strong for him, he’s already affected by being surrounded by so many of us.”
Sehun spins his head around, but he feels like his body is suspended in water.
“Minseok?” Sehun feels like his body is not his own.
“Hey,” Minseok is a mess of colors bending towards him, “let’s get some air.”
“Don’t go,” Zitao whines.
“You can talk to Sehun next time, okay?” Minseok's voice is gentle but stern.
Zitao whines indignantly, but they leave. Sehun is entranced by the shimmering of their body.
“Who was that?”
Minseok’s eyebrows are furrowed together, but Sehun doesn’t know why.
“That was Zitao, a sprite.”
“I thought--” Sehun watches the way Minseok’s hand moves when he talks, fingering at the bracelet on his hand, “I--um, I thought they were supposed to be small.”
“Not in the least bit,” Minseok turns to him, tilting his face upwards, “let’s get you outside.”
Sehun’s body still doesn’t feel like his own, “How long will I feel like this?”
“Hopefully in an hour you’ll be fine,” Minseok pulls him through the hallway and out of the club. They’re standing on the sidewalk outside, it’s wet. The smell of rain still thick in the air.
“What Zitao gave you to drink is blackberry wine.”
“Wine--is good.”
“Humans aren’t supposed to drink it. Zitao,is new. They didn’t know...I’m sorry.”
Sehun sways, pressing the palms of his hands into Minseok’s chest, “Don’t be, I let them. It was,” his tongue darts out to lick at the corner of his mouth, he hums closing his eyes, “delicious.”
“Hm, yeah,but,” Minseok’s hands are strong when they steady him, “it’s too strong for humans.”
“Ah--” Sehun sways, he can see Orion’s belt clearly from where he’s standing, Jupiter is near the full moon. Something tilts and he’s suddenly on his back. There’s a dull pain at the base of his skull.
“Are you okay?” Minseok is bending down, hovering above him.
When did he learn to fly?
Minseok’s eyes are brighter than Sehun remembers; he reaches up and rubs his hands along the shaved side of Minseok’s head. Soft, soft, soft.
“You’re really pretty,” Sehun muses, everything is a thousand times much clearer suddenly. He feels like melting his bones down and starting over.
"Want to go home?"
The younger shakes his head, "No, not really."
"What do you want to do then?"
"Let's go..." there's an odd cold feeling spreading to each of his limbs, "let's--"
Sehun feels something wet pooling at the corners of his eyes, sliding down and spilling into the shell of his ears. His voice comes out cracked, "I--what's this?" He touches his fingertips to his eyes, completely confused by the wetness there.
"You're crying," his voice barely a whisper.
"Why?" Sehun sits up too fast, he feels like he did when he accidentally made eye contact with Juhyun.
His mind is clearer now, but not muddled like it was before.
Minseok doesn't give him an answer. He crouches down and places his arms around Sehun. The material of his shirt feels scratchy under Sehun's chin.
Sehun begins to sob.
An entire flood is opened up, wails from deep inside are dragged out by the gesture. Minseok only holds him, rubbing circles into his back.
He can't stop, there are shudders wracking through his body, and he cries.
His eyes won't stop leaking, and his voice won't come back to him.
Sehun mourns.
There's bitterness and regret, and pent up frustrated hate. Rotten and decaying, these feelings seep out of him and into the night. They blacken everything around him.
But there's relief in the aftertaste of it all.
Sehun is rejoicing. He is living and breathing, completely and utterly alive. He's hiccuping, burying his face into Minseok's soaked shoulder.
A tumultuous show of emotions have ravaged him from the inside out.
He feels cleansed.
"Sorry," Sehun mumbles when he's finished, "I never--"
Minseok pushes the hair away from his face, drying Sehun's face with the hem of his shirt.
"I hope 'crying in a dark alley at 4am because a sprite gave me faerie wine' was on your bucket list," Minseok is quietly teasing him.
"Was that really because of the--"
"Only about ten percent of the reason," Minseok whispers.
There's group of motorcyclists that whip by.
"Do you think--" Minseok hesitates, "do you think you're done running away now?"
Sehun closes his eyes, "No."
He doesn't think he's strong enough yet. He's not sure if he can face the demons that have been chasing him for as long as he can remember. The dark shadowy figures that seem to lurk at the edges of his consciousness.
"That's okay," he pauses, "I don't think I am either," Minseok's words are a confession.
Sehun wants to ask, if they'll ever be strong enough to face the things that have haunted them for so long.
But he chooses to smile instead. His face feels tight from where his tears dried. He finally stands up, feeling the back of his thighs to check for wetness.
"There's one more thing on my list."
"What's that?"
"To go up to the Tokyo Tower."
Minseok hooks his arm around Sehun's waist, "Yeah? I think we can do that."
The sun is beginning to peek out over the horizon when they make it to the top of the tower. Minseok had smiled secretively when he'd shown Sehun a back door. Hundreds of stairs later, they're at the top. Neon lights are beginning to turn off. A part of the city is going to sleep, while the other half is beginning to stir.
Sehun's throat begins to close up again, and he wants to curse himself for feeling like this.
He is alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Breathing, thrumming with life. Minseok is warm on his side, squeezing his waist. He’s overwhelmed.
"If you stick around," Minseok breaks the silence as the sun ascends higher. The steel skeletons of buildings, old and new are painted in orange, pink, and yellow. "You can see the cherry blossom trees in the spring."
Sehun toes at the railing, one of his laces has come undone.
“Can we get breakfast?” Sehun has forty eight hours to decide if he wants to stay where he is. Because time seems to slip by, much too fast. The clock is finally turning.
“Yeah,” Minseok’s eyes are dancing with a smile all their own.
Surviving.
Surviving means sometimes, sometimes you have to run away.
❇︎
Spring breezes in quietly, gently.
Sehun is sitting on the porch watching Minseok turn the ground to ready it for the pansies Zitao gave them.
Its chilly where the sun's rays can't reach. Sehun sips at his tea, Minseok has been teaching him about herbs.
But floral teas are becoming Sehun's preference.
"Try some," Sehun walks over to Minseok.
He places the rim of the mug to the older's lips when he turns.
"Hmm," Minseok closes his eyes, "green tea, chrysanthemum, and--" he looks at Sehun, eyes smiling, "jasmine."
Sehun smiles proudly, "Do you like it?"
"Yes," Minseok reaches up, bumping his nose with Sehun's," Perfect."
"You forgot one though," Sehun gestures for Minseok to sip the tea again.
He's silent as he lets the tea sit in his mouth, Adam's apple bobbing when he finally swallows.
"Peach?"
"Just a hint," Sehun says, "for courage."
Things are beginning to take shape, soon, soon, soon.
The metallic glow of Minseok’s eyes as he presses in to wrap his arms around Sehun never cease to catch him off guard.
Sehun--Sehun doesn’t completely understand, and he doesn’t push for more than he’s allotted. But Minseok gives him his all.
Minseok gives him everything in his power.
There’s the promise of rain again, and the earthy smell of life spills into his senses that much more.
“I was thinking of going to Seoul in the summer,” Sehun is the first to break away, “I think--do you think it’s a good idea?”
Minseok plops down on the ground, pulling Sehun with him.
“Yes, do--do you--” he keeps his eyes down, “Do you want me to come with you?”
“Only--”Sehun tries to keep the surprise out of his voice, “only if you want.”
Minseok nods, “I’ll bring some faerie dust, just in case.”
“Okay,” Sehun likes this, “I’ve already made a list of things to do.”
Minseok turns away, laughing.
They end up on their backs, watching the rain clouds gather, until a few cold raindrops usher them inside. They listen to the rain pelting the rooftop.
Sometimes Sehun still catches himself looking over his shoulder. There are nights when he can’t sleep at all.
And the radiance of Minseok’s smile, the warmth of the sun spilling onto his skin, Sehun takes strength in these reassurances.
Everyday is a clean slate. A new start.
Alive, alive.
❇︎
a/n: kinda hard to write tbh. pls comment ^^
length:6839
rating: pg13
warnings: alcohol use
summary:Sehun’s bucket list takes him to Tokyo and coincidentally, Minseok.
a/n: originally written for ohunlimited here. title from beach house's "take care". thanks a ton to j and t for helping me out when i whined a ton. padlet of inspiration here
Sehun half stumbles off the plane, ushered through immigration and to bag pick up. When he walks outside, he’s enveloped in a muggy heat, the setting sun casting an orange glow over the city.
The people bustling around jostle him, but he doesn’t notice. He’s too busy taking everything in, he’s too busy trying not to miss anything.
He’s made it.
Sehun’s in Tokyo.
“Amazing,” he breathes. Sehun clutches the handle of his suitcase in one hand; he stumbles into someone with the next step. Immediately his mind goes blank, he can’t remember any of the Japanese he’s been working hard to study.
“Ah um,” He’s met with dark almond eyes, “Sorry.” Sehun reverts to Korean, but there’s a flash of remembrance. He repeats himself in Japanese.
“Don’t worry about it,” the man replies in Korean. Sehun’s ears prick with the familiar language. “Do you need help getting anywhere?” He asks when Sehun doesn’t move. The man is a head shorter than him, small, but he seems well built. His hair is a light brown color, shaved on the sides, and spiked everywhere else. One of the straps of his overalls is undone, and he’s wearing this ugly bright yellow shirt.
But it suits him, and Sehun is moderately intrigued.
Vaguely attracted.
“Um,” Sehun reaches into his back pocket, “I’m trying to get to this place? I’m supposed to stay here, but my friend hasn’t been picking up.” He shows the other the piece of paper where he'd written an address. The kanji clumsily transcribed.
“Ah,” he says after reading it, “I know exactly where this is. I’m living here too.”
Sehun finds himself overjoyed, cracking a smile.
“That’s pretty--”
The man smiles, “A real coincidence, huh?”
He thinks he imagines the man’s eyes flashing silver for a second. Liquid metallic, Sehun rubs at his tired eyes.
A trick of the sun.
Soon enough, Sehun finds himself sitting on the back of a electric blue motorcycle, holding onto a stranger that smells faintly of coffee and something else he can’t place. Slight musk, something like jasmine too. The visor on the helmet he was given matches the stranger’s.
Months ago Sehun had graduated, a two year degree at a technical school. A night job as a bartender had paid for it all. And countless of drunks ruining his shoes. He’d met Jonghyun, a man four years his senior who seemed to have too much time on his hands.
“I sing,” a vague answer to an attempt at conversation by Sehun.
“I live in Japan most of the time,” he’d said after a drink, gunmetal gray hair in disarray.
“I’ve been thinking of visiting once I finish school,” Sehun said after he filled a drink for another customer.
“Yeah? I own a building in Ikebukuro. Well kinda,” his smile was more of a smug twitch of his lips, “but a few other people live there too. You can come check it out.”
He’d left a business card, right side up, an address written on one of the bar’s napkins. Sehun had tucked it away, only remembering it after he’d bought a one way ticket to Tokyo.
">Great doesn't even begin to describe the gorgeous room Sehun is given. It's set in the front of the house, allowing any direct sunlight to stream in. There are a few potted plants inside here too, a small ivy plant reaches towards the window.. The white on white walls making the room appear even larger.
Sehun never wants to leave.
“This room used to belong to Yixing,” Minseok mutters, “but he moved back home a few months ago. I hope you like it.”
“I adore it.”
“Jonghyun said you don’t have to pay rent yet, unless you stay over a month or get a job in the near future.”
Sehun nods, plopping down onto the bed. The ceiling is speckled with glow in the dark stars.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Minseok’s bare foot toes at the wood flooring, “That’s fine,” he pauses, pulling at an earlobe, “you’ll figure it out."
❇︎
Sehun meets the other resident of the house after a loud crashing startles him out of bed. He groggily checks his watch, it’s 5am. He’s been in Japan now for a week, and has yet to meet Juhyun. All he knows is that she’s Korean.
And nocturnal.
Sehun pokes his head out of his room, and he catches a glimpse of her long fluttering hair. It falls in cascades around her bare shoulders, but she barely glances at Sehun. He suddenly feels like he has vertigo, as if he’s standing at the top of a building looking down. He collapses inside of his room; the dizziness subsides as his still foggy mind tries to figure out why he’s sprawled on the floor.
Juhyun’s eyes were entrancing, as if they were dark pools pulling him in. She had smiled briefly, a flash of teeth.
When he tries to stand up, he can’t. His limbs feel heavy. If he were fully awake, Sehun might have panicked by now.
He feels the prickling of fear for a second, but he reasons that maybe he’s still dreaming.
Sehun, eventually, is able to stand up, but he pushes the incident from his mind. He dresses casually, and heads downstairs.
“So, any plans today?” Minseok asks, immediately placing a glass of orange juice in front of Sehun.
He accepts it gratefully, “ I want to get one of those crepe things.”
“Anything else?”
Sehun likes the bright pink shirt Minseok has on today with his white trousers. He looks softer, smaller. He reminds Sehun of strawberries and cream. “Hm, I don’t know.”
Minseok’s face lights up, “I know a perfect place.”
“Do you have any work or…” Sehun feels a little bit rude, as if he’d intruding.
“No,” his answer is casual, “ the work I do is very laid back. I’m self employed.”
He changes the subject too quickly for Sehun to ask him any further questions. He makes sure to tread carefully after that, Sehun doesn't want to push. It's not his place.
Minseok teases Sehun when he finds out that most of the things on his ‘Tokyo Bucket List’ are food.
He promises to show him everything there is to see in and around Ikebukuro. They end up in clothing shops, on a not so hot afternoon, filled to the brim with colorful eccentric clothing.
“Do you shop here?” Sehun asks picking up a yellow mesh shirt. Minseok is eyeing a band tshirt.
“Sometimes.”
Sehun watches the people going by, they’re dressed similarly to Minseok. He’s fascinated by their taste in fashion.
“Seoul seems so boring compared to all of this,” Sehun gestures vaguely, “don’t you think?”
Minseok doesn’t answer right away. Sehun watches him, “I mean--”
“You’re not looking in the right places,” his reply is completely ambiguous, holding too many secrets with the way his mouth quirks, “but you’re right,” Minseok pauses easily switching to Japanese, “Seoul can be boring. Alienating even.”
❇︎
It seems like Minseok is much more happy to take Sehun around the city. He's grateful for the unfiltered kindness. The lights are dim inside the bar they’ve stopped at.
And yet, Minseok's eyes sparkle with a kind of iridescent glow. They’re flashing silver again,but they’re more of a stormy gray this time. Sehun drags his hands down the sides of his face.
"Why do your eyes do that?"
"What?" Minseok looks at him curiously, knowing.
"They change colors, constantly."
"Hm, what's your theory?" He taps his fingers on the table, as if challenging him.
Sehun fingers at the rim of his cup, "Are you-" His words slur slightly, he leans in, "a humanoid?"
A year ago the very mention would have been outrageous, completely left field. Sehun watches the way the interfaces of the city flicker sometimes. This whole city is a facade, straddling the edge of reality and hyperreality
.Circuits instead of humans.
Minseok's tinkling laugh surprises Sehun.
"No robotics," Minseok leans in, "but I'm not completely human either."
The light from the overhanging 'open' sign glints off his teeth.
Sehun mumbles, "Then what are you?"
"Hm," Minseok cocks his head slightly, chin pointing upward, "My parents weren't my real parents. Sometimes," he takes out a pocket knife.
"What are you doing?" Sehun sits up straighter. He wants to demand, but he bites his tongue.
"Watch," Minseok takes the pointed end and pricks the tip of his ring finger. Sehun watches a small dot of blood bubble up. Minseok licks his finger, and then shows it to Sehun.
"I dont--"
"It healed immediately."
Sehun takes the other's hand into his own; he turns it in different ways to see if he can spot any kind of mark on his finger. Nothing is there besides the little grooves that make up Minseok’s unique fingerprint.
"Are you a vampire or something?" Sehun eyes him warily.
Minseok's laughter fills his ears again.
"No," Minseok says, "I'm not. But I've met one before."
Sehun takes a long gulp from his glass, signaling for another drink.
"I'm not that drunk," Sehun pats his warm cheeks, "am I?"
"No," Minseok takes a sip from his own glass, eyeing Sehun, "I'll show you tomorrow."
Sehun nods, entirely unsure of what's going on. His stomach growls suddenly.
"Let's get some food," Minseok pays for their drinks and drags Sehun out of the bar with him.
Minseok's hand feels clammy on his wrist.
Sehun half stumbles behind Minseok into Mutekiya, a ramen shop still bustling with people.
"What time is it?" Sehun realizes he forgot to put his watch on this morning.
Yesterday morning now?
"Its only 12am," Minseok finds them a table, "what do you want to eat?"
"Hm," Sehun looks at the menu, trying to read the various things. He stops trying when he realizes he’s having a hard time reading the names of the food, "You choose."
"I'm glad you trust me," Minseok teases. They sip on their water while waiting for their food.
Sehun watches Minseok's sleepy eyes, the way his small hands use his straw to poke the ice cubes in his water.
"Do you ever think about moving back to Korea?" Sehun has never asked this before, not in the few weeks they've known each other.
"Yes," Minseok replies easily, "it's not like I'm running away."
"Oh, alright," Sehun's eyes light up when his bowl of ramen is placed in front of him. The broth is kind of reddish, he takes his spoon and sips it carefully. It's spicy and thick, it slides pleasantly down his throat.
"Good?"
"Delicious," Sehun smiles, messily slurping the noodles into his mouth.
They’re in the front yard of the house the next morning, Minseok is barefoot on the grass. He’s showing Sehun how to stretch properly and work the kinks out of his muscles. Sehun peeks at him curiously, watching the tips of his fingers turning pink from the sunlight illuminating them; the tops of Minseok's ears match too.
They’re sitting in the grass after they stretch, Sehun gently pulling at the green blades of grass. His hand slips and it cuts him.
Sehun hisses, immediately attaching his mouth to the shallow wound. It always stings too much, the faint taste of sweat and iron coat his tongue.
“Let me see that,” Minseok pulls his hand away, inspecting Sehun’s palm. Minseok's hands are much rougher than his.
His mind wanders to what Minseok had said about his work.
Sehun doesn’t know anything really concrete about Minseok.
He doesn’t push it though. Sehun is good with these kinds of things, reading people that is. It's what years of watching and being an outsider does to you. He can tell that Minseok isn't the type to easily open up, regardless of trust. His natural way of interactions.
The air surrounding Minseok begins to crackle, as if a contained sort of electricity is running over the top of his skin. Sehun feels the press of his soft warm lips, and he freezes. Minseok looks at him from under his lashes, and he smiles. Shining silver eyes, pupils blown. Sehun can't bring it in himself to be scared.
“All better,” Minseok says.
Sehun marvels at his hand, the skin where the grass had cut is fine. His mind flashes to last night when Minseok had pricked himself. He hadn’t felt the same buzzing then.
“Human skin needs a little bit of extra help.”
Sehun mulls over Minseok’s choice of words. A ladybug lands on his hand, spindly legs and bright red, it flutters away after a few seconds.
“You’re not human.”
“In a sense.”
“In a sense?”
“I’m as human as human can be, but not as human as I’m supposed to be. Not by your standards.”
Sehun’s mind is trying to make a sense of the older’s words. He can’t, they’re knotted up, rattling inside his head.
Minseok’s grin is impish. His teeth gleaming.
“I was born into a good family, but sometimes good is perceived in different ways. Sometimes good means sacrifices. and I think,” he pauses, his smile not reaching his eyes, “I got the short end of the stick. As far as being human goes.”
“Minseok--”
“Sorry, I’m not making any sense am I?”
Sehun shakes his head, dark hair falling into his eyes, “Not really, no.”
Minseok clears his throat and glances away, “I’m not good with this talking thing, but um--”
“Try.”
“I--I’ve never really told anyone, outside of the seelie folk I know," Minseok laughs. Sehun notices the way he keeps running his hands over the grass, nervously so. One of Minseok’s bracelets catches briefly on the blades.
“Some people say that there are children taken away, in the night and replaced. The replacement children don’t usually make it. They’re unwanted--”
“And you were a replacement?” Sehun can’t quite bring himself to not believe Minseok. There’s a light breeze that ruffles their hair, Sehun briefly closes his eyes.
“Mhm, I wasn’t supposed to live very long. Changelings, don’t make it usually.”
“And your real family, did they--”
“No, they usually disappear. My replacement family...they could tell I wasn’t completely theirs.”
“How did you find out?”
Minseok meets his eyes finally, but he blushes. Sehun can’t help the slight stuttering that happens in his chest, his heart doing a four step beat.
“Someone else told me, when I came here. I was introduced to Jonghyun, and he set me up with my work--”
“I see.”
“I wanted to find myself. Find out what it meant to be a fey, to have been born out of the seelie court.”
He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to take all of this. Seelie means faeries, goblins sprites--the sort of creatures that exist in fairy tales.
Sehun is at a loss. He goes back and tries to process everything up until this point. He thinks back to when he’d met Jonghyun, and how Minseok appeared to him. There’s a certain pulsating electricity that rolls off of them in subtle ways. Sehun sometimes feels like his atoms are being rearranged when Minseok gets closer, but it isn’t a bad thing.
If he forgets, he doesn’t feel.
He’s hyper ware of Minseok, and that increases the feeling. The sense that there is much more to the world than he could ever imagine.
He is but a speck on this vast planet.
“I always thought faeries were of the tinkerbell variety,” Sehun pretends to joke.
“I--” Minseok laughs, “do you want to see something?” he asks, pulling Sehun out of his thoughts. Sehun nods, cracking a smile.
“I was going to wait, but, here,” Minseok pulls something out of his pocket.
“An onion?” Sehun’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“No,” he cups whatever it is in his hands, “watch.”
The air around them begins to vibrate, Sehun sees the faint heatwaves rising off the street when he looks up briefly, a car passes by, distant laughter.
Something begins to poke out of the brown lump, tender green, almost white. Too fragile.
“It’s a tulip bulb,” Minseok says smiling, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow, “in the seventeenth century, the Dutch created an entire economy around them. It collapsed, but at one point the cost of a bulb was about the same as a house--”
Sehun starts giggling, shoulders shaking slightly. He starts laughing hard enough that he ends up on his back.
Instead of questioning Sehun, Minseok lays down beside him.
“Do you think,” Sehun begins, his mind working slowly to make sense of the day’s events. The sky is a robin egg blue, the sun is the yolky middle, and the soft white clouds lazily pass by. Sehun let's his lids slip close, breathing in deeply. He notices the heavy smell of impending summer rain.
“Do you think,” Sehun starts again, “I mean--do you ever think how strange everything is.”
“Sometimes,” Minseok replies, “I thought you were one of us when I bumped into you.”
Sehun remains quiet, his pulse speeds up, there’s the distant rushing of blood in his ears.
“When I was seven, I overheard my mom talking to our neighbor. She said something that shocked me--” Sehun clamps his mouth. He tries to subdue the impending heat of his nose stuffing up,but his eyes remain dry. He swallows.
“You don’t have to--” Minseok turns to him, eyes searching. Sehun keeps facing towards the sky.
“She just mentioned how she always felt uneasy around me. I always tried my hardest to make her happy, to show her the best of me,” Sehun takes a shuddering breath, “I used to pretend I was a was a faerie, an alien, “ he pauses with a slight laugh, “maybe, I was the next superman.”
Minseok doesn’t interrupt him, but Sehun finally turns to meet his eyes.
“I just reminded her too much of dad--I’m just human, sorry,” his laugh is hollow.
Sehun doesn’t know why he’s baring himself like this.
Sehun isn’t sure why he’s chosen to let himself show the cracks, rip himself open. Unlike Minseok, he did run away. He ran away from Seoul, he ran away from all of the things he couldn’t deal with.
He was just too--
Sehun was tired of trying, he was tired of the static life he was living. Here, no one knows him. There isn’t a darkness shrouding him, painfully reminding him. He was never going to be enough.
But the people he’s supposed to count on don’t deserved him. This, this--Sehun is starting to learn.
Sehun is sewing himself back together, stitch by stitch.
“This is for you,” Minseok takes Sehun’s hand and gently places the bulb there, “I mean, I don’t know. You can take care of it if you’d like.”
“Thanks,” Sehun feels unexpected relief wash over him, “I guess,” he adds with an airy laugh.
Minseok later helps him find a container, and they nestle the bulb deep inside a bed of damp soil. He instructs Sehun in how to care for the new flower.
❇︎
Sehun finds himself sitting on the edge of the windowsill, the Tokyo Tower flickers suddenly.
It’s a Friday night.
“Do you think there’ll be a power outage?”
“Why do you say so?” Minseok walks over, pulling the cardigan he had worn earlier off.
“The tower’s light seems unstable.”
Minseok leans his hand on the sill, tilting his body weight outwards. Sehun panics briefly when he sees Minseok pitch forward much too far.
“No, not really,” Minseok turns to him, “don’t worry too much.”
Sehun nods, looking across the skyline. The sun has already dipped low under the horizon, the city is pulsating with life.
“So what do people do in love hotels, beside you know…”Sehun trails off.
One of the items on his list is, ‘go to a love hotel. sex optional’, because Sehun’s never really been in love.
He doesn’t know if he really wants to, if the slight speeding of his pulse means something else.
And he still isn’t convinced that sex means love, but that’s another lifetime to reconsider.
“I wouldn’t know,” Minseok’s laughter always sounds like it’s bubbling up and spilling over, “I’ve only been to one a few times.”
“Really?” Sehun’s curiosity gets the better of him, “with who?”
Minseok blushes, “Well--”
“Sorry if it’s too personal--I didn’t mean--”
“It’s okay,” he says easily, clearing his throat, “His name was Lu Han. He was--”
Sehun watches the emotions that skitter across the other’s face, slowly morphing into his signature impish smirk.
“He was on a business trip, but he was married.”
Sehun may be too many years still too young, but he knows what heartbreak looks like, and he’s sure that Minseok’s heart must still ache.
Human or not, fully human, what is a human after all?
Truly, really, this form of existence that Minseok inhabits, is it really that different from Sehun’s own?
Sehun looks outside the window again, this city never seems to sleep. It’s on an endless loop, with a beginning and an ending being barely distinguishable from each other.
Minseok’s eyes follow the line of traffic down below, Sehun sees the light reflecting in his eyes.
He’s just as human as Sehun.
“Don’t you ever feel like running away?” Sehun finally asks. He wants to comfort Minseok, but he isn’t sure how.
“I’m not running away,” Minseok had said only a week ago, but it felt like an eternity ago now. A completely different lifetime. A different meaning, another context.
“I don’t want to do that,” he says turning to face Sehun again.
And Sehun thinks again, constantly reminded, that Minseok is one giant contradiction. Someone made up of vastly different parts, ideologies completely jarringly, different.
Minseok can make flowers bloom, but he lives in the heart of city full of circuitry and steel.
Sehun doesn’t know when it happens, but he finds himself curled against the warmth of Minseok’s body. The older has his fingers entangled in his hair, carefully pulling at the strands, stroking Sehun’s head, lightly scratching at his scalp.
He presses his nose against Minseok’s chest, breathing softly, and inhaling the sweet smell of jasmine. The whirring of the air conditioning is soothing white noise.
He wonders what Minseok is thinking about.
Is he thinking about Lu Han?
“Try to sleep Sehun,” Minseok whispers into his hair a moment later, “sleep.”
“I can’t.”
Minseok sighs, “You’re always restless at night, I hear you tossing and turning sometimes. Juhyun told me she hears you talking in your sleep sometimes too.”
Sehun is more or less shocked that Juhyun is even aware of his existence, much less mention anything about his sleep pattern to Minseok. Her existence seems ephemeral.
“I do sleep--”
“Sleep now, yeah?” Minseok runs his fingertips down Sehun’s temples.
“Only if you promise to rest too,” Sehun counters, “you’re more like a ghost sometimes.”
Sehun doesn’t mention how he hears Minseok in the kitchen late into the night.
Minseok doesn’t reply, “I feel like I’ve known you forever,” his words solemn, “is that--do you get that feeling?”’
“Maybe--” he doesn’t know how to reply really. But Sehun feels it too. This is easy. There are absolutely no pretenses involved. It’s as if they’re both starting a clean slate, and meeting eachother was a second chance.
He decides not to answer, because words--words are fluid and there’s no real way for them to verbalize such a notion.
Sehun evens out his breathing, keeping the window open isn’t enough to cool the room.
And Sehun refuses to move, because he’s too comfortable.
He wants to cling to this strand of time for as long as possible. Sehun hears the faint thumping of Minseok’s heart. The distant horn of a car.
He somehow drifts off to sleep.
❇︎
“You’re kind of like momotarou,” Sehun takes a sip from his tea. They’re inside of a tea house, apparently one of Minseok’s favorites. Sehun can see why, the entire place resembles a greenhouse. There are tendrils of various ivy that curl around the structure, as if holding the beams together. Splashes of pinks, purples, oranges, and blue against the lush greenery. It smells cool inside, like damp earth.
“You know that story?” Minseok peeks at him curiously behind his mug. The warm tea is pleasant, because compared to outside, it’s cool where they’re sitting.
“Yeah, the little boy who came from inside a peach?”
“Yeah,” Minseok diverts his eyes, sipping again at his tea. Sehun tastes a few leaves on his tongue, the mint peach tea he’s drinking is slightly bitter.
They sit in silence until Minseok places his empty cup down.
“I don’t think I grew up to be a fine young boy,” Minseok’s laughter sounds more like shattering glass, “at least not in their eyes.”
Minseok’s eyes are liquid gold, not from some strange magic, one that Sehun doesn’t think he’ll ever understand, but from the sun’s rays. Sehun reaches his hand over, touching his fingertips to Minseok’s wrist. He feels the pulse there.
“You grew up to be better,” Sehun is too late to catch the words that snag as they fall from his lips. He clears his throat, “I guess.” He smiles crookedly.
“Hm,” Minseok lazily traces along the creases of his palm. Sehun shivers at the touch.
“Maybe.”
❇︎
“Do you want to come with me tonight?”
Sehun is sitting on the floor in the living room with his back against the couch, and a book he found under the small coffee table.
“Where to?” Sehun stretches his feet out in front of him.
“Work,” Minseok says simply.
Sehun agrees. He wants to get to know yet another side of Kim Minseok.
“You work at a club?” Sehun catches himself yelling above the music. They’re surrounded by a multitude of bodies, moving as if they were one to the music pulsating throughout. Minseok is walking in front of him, pushing through the people. He’s dressed in bright clothing again, this time a tie-dye shirt hangs off of his small frame. Sehun on the other hand had opted for a simple black shirt and too tight jeans.
“Not exactly,” Minseok yells back, “just try not to get lost.” He holds his hand out for Sehun to take a hold of. They continue onward, despite the room being completely packed.
They make it to an inconspicuous door, the kind you only notice if you already know it’s there. Slipping inside, Sehun wonders briefly why he never bothers to ask Minseok to thoroughly explain things.
Sehun trusts easily, but Minseok is reassuring nonetheless. Astoundingly concrete.
“People with one of these,” Minseok holds up a card, “come through here. They’re from the Seelie court. Or once were.”
“And you--” Sehun lets the question hang, they’re walking through a carpeted hallway.
“I help them settle in. Find a home.”
They make it to another entryway, but this time there’s only a curtain.
“This is kind of sketchy,” Sehun jokes, hearing music streaming from the other side, people break into laughter, “I mean, you know--”
“Yet, here you are,” Minseok teases back.
“Here I am,” Sehun wonders what he’d be doing if he had stayed home.
Empty rooms, deafening silence.
Immediately upon walking through, Sehun feels the air change around them. His entire body feels lighter.
“When there are too many of us together, our auras mix and create a sort of concentrated…” Minseok trails off, “magic? Something like that.”
“Is that why I feel weird?” Sehun steadies himself by placing his hand on a near wall.
“If it gets too much, we can leave. I only have to be here a little while to make my rounds.”
Sehun sees a group of shimmering bodies flutter by, “Rounds?”
“I just need to check in with everyone and then talk to anyone that’s been acting out. Stay close.”
Sehun nods, but he can’t feel it, “Okay.”
Sehun finds himself face to face with iridescent skin and a sharp pointy smile. They’re holding his face in their hands, long nails digging slightly into his cheeks.
“Drink,” their voice is tinny, and their lips press into his. Sehun’s mouth is flooded with a thick liquid that tastes like the sweetest berries. It dribbles down the side of his mouth. He feels slightly euphoric.
“What are you doing Zitao?”
“Letting your friend taste some of my wine.”
“Try not to do that, okay? It’s too strong for him, he’s already affected by being surrounded by so many of us.”
Sehun spins his head around, but he feels like his body is suspended in water.
“Minseok?” Sehun feels like his body is not his own.
“Hey,” Minseok is a mess of colors bending towards him, “let’s get some air.”
“Don’t go,” Zitao whines.
“You can talk to Sehun next time, okay?” Minseok's voice is gentle but stern.
Zitao whines indignantly, but they leave. Sehun is entranced by the shimmering of their body.
“Who was that?”
Minseok’s eyebrows are furrowed together, but Sehun doesn’t know why.
“That was Zitao, a sprite.”
“I thought--” Sehun watches the way Minseok’s hand moves when he talks, fingering at the bracelet on his hand, “I--um, I thought they were supposed to be small.”
“Not in the least bit,” Minseok turns to him, tilting his face upwards, “let’s get you outside.”
Sehun’s body still doesn’t feel like his own, “How long will I feel like this?”
“Hopefully in an hour you’ll be fine,” Minseok pulls him through the hallway and out of the club. They’re standing on the sidewalk outside, it’s wet. The smell of rain still thick in the air.
“What Zitao gave you to drink is blackberry wine.”
“Wine--is good.”
“Humans aren’t supposed to drink it. Zitao,is new. They didn’t know...I’m sorry.”
Sehun sways, pressing the palms of his hands into Minseok’s chest, “Don’t be, I let them. It was,” his tongue darts out to lick at the corner of his mouth, he hums closing his eyes, “delicious.”
“Hm, yeah,but,” Minseok’s hands are strong when they steady him, “it’s too strong for humans.”
“Ah--” Sehun sways, he can see Orion’s belt clearly from where he’s standing, Jupiter is near the full moon. Something tilts and he’s suddenly on his back. There’s a dull pain at the base of his skull.
“Are you okay?” Minseok is bending down, hovering above him.
When did he learn to fly?
Minseok’s eyes are brighter than Sehun remembers; he reaches up and rubs his hands along the shaved side of Minseok’s head. Soft, soft, soft.
“You’re really pretty,” Sehun muses, everything is a thousand times much clearer suddenly. He feels like melting his bones down and starting over.
"Want to go home?"
The younger shakes his head, "No, not really."
"What do you want to do then?"
"Let's go..." there's an odd cold feeling spreading to each of his limbs, "let's--"
Sehun feels something wet pooling at the corners of his eyes, sliding down and spilling into the shell of his ears. His voice comes out cracked, "I--what's this?" He touches his fingertips to his eyes, completely confused by the wetness there.
"You're crying," his voice barely a whisper.
"Why?" Sehun sits up too fast, he feels like he did when he accidentally made eye contact with Juhyun.
His mind is clearer now, but not muddled like it was before.
Minseok doesn't give him an answer. He crouches down and places his arms around Sehun. The material of his shirt feels scratchy under Sehun's chin.
Sehun begins to sob.
An entire flood is opened up, wails from deep inside are dragged out by the gesture. Minseok only holds him, rubbing circles into his back.
He can't stop, there are shudders wracking through his body, and he cries.
His eyes won't stop leaking, and his voice won't come back to him.
Sehun mourns.
There's bitterness and regret, and pent up frustrated hate. Rotten and decaying, these feelings seep out of him and into the night. They blacken everything around him.
But there's relief in the aftertaste of it all.
Sehun is rejoicing. He is living and breathing, completely and utterly alive. He's hiccuping, burying his face into Minseok's soaked shoulder.
A tumultuous show of emotions have ravaged him from the inside out.
He feels cleansed.
"Sorry," Sehun mumbles when he's finished, "I never--"
Minseok pushes the hair away from his face, drying Sehun's face with the hem of his shirt.
"I hope 'crying in a dark alley at 4am because a sprite gave me faerie wine' was on your bucket list," Minseok is quietly teasing him.
"Was that really because of the--"
"Only about ten percent of the reason," Minseok whispers.
There's group of motorcyclists that whip by.
"Do you think--" Minseok hesitates, "do you think you're done running away now?"
Sehun closes his eyes, "No."
He doesn't think he's strong enough yet. He's not sure if he can face the demons that have been chasing him for as long as he can remember. The dark shadowy figures that seem to lurk at the edges of his consciousness.
"That's okay," he pauses, "I don't think I am either," Minseok's words are a confession.
Sehun wants to ask, if they'll ever be strong enough to face the things that have haunted them for so long.
But he chooses to smile instead. His face feels tight from where his tears dried. He finally stands up, feeling the back of his thighs to check for wetness.
"There's one more thing on my list."
"What's that?"
"To go up to the Tokyo Tower."
Minseok hooks his arm around Sehun's waist, "Yeah? I think we can do that."
The sun is beginning to peek out over the horizon when they make it to the top of the tower. Minseok had smiled secretively when he'd shown Sehun a back door. Hundreds of stairs later, they're at the top. Neon lights are beginning to turn off. A part of the city is going to sleep, while the other half is beginning to stir.
Sehun's throat begins to close up again, and he wants to curse himself for feeling like this.
He is alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Breathing, thrumming with life. Minseok is warm on his side, squeezing his waist. He’s overwhelmed.
"If you stick around," Minseok breaks the silence as the sun ascends higher. The steel skeletons of buildings, old and new are painted in orange, pink, and yellow. "You can see the cherry blossom trees in the spring."
Sehun toes at the railing, one of his laces has come undone.
“Can we get breakfast?” Sehun has forty eight hours to decide if he wants to stay where he is. Because time seems to slip by, much too fast. The clock is finally turning.
“Yeah,” Minseok’s eyes are dancing with a smile all their own.
Surviving.
Surviving means sometimes, sometimes you have to run away.
❇︎
Spring breezes in quietly, gently.
Sehun is sitting on the porch watching Minseok turn the ground to ready it for the pansies Zitao gave them.
Its chilly where the sun's rays can't reach. Sehun sips at his tea, Minseok has been teaching him about herbs.
But floral teas are becoming Sehun's preference.
"Try some," Sehun walks over to Minseok.
He places the rim of the mug to the older's lips when he turns.
"Hmm," Minseok closes his eyes, "green tea, chrysanthemum, and--" he looks at Sehun, eyes smiling, "jasmine."
Sehun smiles proudly, "Do you like it?"
"Yes," Minseok reaches up, bumping his nose with Sehun's," Perfect."
"You forgot one though," Sehun gestures for Minseok to sip the tea again.
He's silent as he lets the tea sit in his mouth, Adam's apple bobbing when he finally swallows.
"Peach?"
"Just a hint," Sehun says, "for courage."
Things are beginning to take shape, soon, soon, soon.
The metallic glow of Minseok’s eyes as he presses in to wrap his arms around Sehun never cease to catch him off guard.
Sehun--Sehun doesn’t completely understand, and he doesn’t push for more than he’s allotted. But Minseok gives him his all.
Minseok gives him everything in his power.
There’s the promise of rain again, and the earthy smell of life spills into his senses that much more.
“I was thinking of going to Seoul in the summer,” Sehun is the first to break away, “I think--do you think it’s a good idea?”
Minseok plops down on the ground, pulling Sehun with him.
“Yes, do--do you--” he keeps his eyes down, “Do you want me to come with you?”
“Only--”Sehun tries to keep the surprise out of his voice, “only if you want.”
Minseok nods, “I’ll bring some faerie dust, just in case.”
“Okay,” Sehun likes this, “I’ve already made a list of things to do.”
Minseok turns away, laughing.
They end up on their backs, watching the rain clouds gather, until a few cold raindrops usher them inside. They listen to the rain pelting the rooftop.
Sometimes Sehun still catches himself looking over his shoulder. There are nights when he can’t sleep at all.
And the radiance of Minseok’s smile, the warmth of the sun spilling onto his skin, Sehun takes strength in these reassurances.
Everyday is a clean slate. A new start.
Alive, alive.
❇︎
a/n: kinda hard to write tbh. pls comment ^^