Oh, Rati - Oneshot (3/5)
Title: Oh, Rati
Chapters: oneshot
Pairings: Sehun/Luhan
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, romance, angst
Warnings (SPOILER WARNINGS! highlight to see): explicit content, violence, incest, character death
Summary: Sehun leaves his land in search of adventure, and finds a little too much of it in a neighbouring village where he meets a veiled enchantress that has hips too sinful to be legal.
a/n: i'd really advise against reading the warnings if you want to enjoy this thing at all lol. set in some fictional time/place idk where they have kingdoms and such.
this is a rati and it’s a metaphor for sehun’s dick. nah i’m just kidding. or am i.
45,000 WORDS LONG have fun
After walking for a few minutes in silence, they came up to a green tent, a medium sized one that was slightly smaller than Sehun’s own, and that was where Luhan lead him inside, hurriedly and without thinking twice. The interior was beautiful, with golden pillows and intricate carpets lying around everywhere, not to mention a few large shrines and painted dressing screens that rivalled the most lavish ones they had at their palace.
"Where are we?" Sehun asked. The scent inside this place was almost like in his own. The idyllic smells that verged on pulling him to sleep.
"This is my tent," Luhan said proudly, leading Sehun over to sit on a red mat by a short table that had a large bowl of water on it.
He forced Sehun to sit still there while he walked around and gathered things that were in shelves and baskets, dumping the bags from their raid onto the floor, forgotten. Sehun watched him concentrate, putting back a few things as he changed his mind and pulled out something else, like he wanted everything to be perfect and wasn't going to hurry so that he would mess something up. He pouted a couple times, and Sehun surveyed him with intrigue. Luhan was a weird character. Lovely, but very unusual.
After a few minutes of roaming around, Luhan came back to him with his arms brimming with things. Sehun could see a white cloth, several jars, and a small, black box, among other supplies that he couldn’t really identify.
"Luhan, really. This is nothing. You don't have to do this.”
“I know you’re a healer and my attempt at fixing you up will probably look really pathetic and amateur-like, but please let me help you. I feel really bad, and I wouldn’t want you to waste your time by having you heal yourself. So please...”
Sehun saw a requisition in Luhan’s eyes that had him unwilling to fight him on the matter, and just nodded while Luhan laid out the assortment of things he’d brought over, aligning them neatly next to each other. Sehun was curious, he’d admit that. Since Sehun wasn’t a healer, he really had no clue how he was supposed to heal up a cut like this, even if it was simple. The choking incident had been luck; the trivial things were the ones that could blow his cover. He wondered how Luhan would try to fix him. Did he have some routine that had been passed down to him through his family? His mother patching him up when he’d been a kid, perhaps?
Luhan was opening a few vials and smelling them, then stopping them up again with their respective corks. When he was done with the vials he moved on to the jars, looking inside and analyzing the contents according to Sehun’s cuts, it seemed. Whether the salve would do or if he needed something stronger.
The dancer ended up just grabbing Sehun’s limp hand and sticking it into the bowl of water on the table, making Sehun bend forward and support himself on the floor with his free arm in a rather uncomfortable position. He was stroking Sehun’s hand in the water, probably removing all the sand and grime, and when he pulled it out he checked the condition of it quickly before he wrapped it in the white cloth he’d fetched.
Sehun sat there watching the boy work, his face twisted in concentration and his arms hesitantly grabbing a multitude of things randomly at random before putting them down again, like he couldn’t decide what to do next. Luhan sat himself closer to Sehun, almost in his lap, and Sehun held his breath as Luhan placed Sehun’s hand in his lap, patting it lightly as if to dry it, before he opened up the cloth to see to the wound.
Sehun almost had to laugh at the grimace that graced Luhan’s features as he caught sight of how messy and bloody the injury still looked, sighing to himself.
“I’m so sorry about this. I really thought I’d be able to keep you from harm today.”
“Did you forget that I was the one who tumbled off the horse?” Sehun uttered incredulously, raising his eyebrows. “Honestly now...”
“Anything that happens to you in my village is my fault,” Luhan said with a serious face. “You’re our responsibility.”
“Forgive me, but that’s ridiculous.”
“It’s our policy.”
“You should change it.” Sehun picked his hand up from Luhan’s lap and flexed it slightly, wincing at the sting. “I hurt myself everywhere; whether it’s in your village or somewhere else, it’s still my own fault.”
Luhan grabbed his hand and forced it back down in his lap, reaching for a jar and screwing the lid open. “Don’t do that, you’ll make it bleed more.”
“I’m a healer, remember? I think I’ll survive.” He reached out and tapped Luhan’s chin up with his pointer finger, hoping he’d lighten up and stop stressing out so much over his little wound.
Luhan looked up at him at the touch, his eyes wide. He froze then, blinking a few times and looking like he’d forgotten just about everything he’d been about to do. Sehun held his eyes in amusement, satisfied with just being able to look into those deep brown orbs for a while. It was a healing practice in itself, he could swear by that.
Colour crept over Luhan’s dusty pale cheeks, giving him a lick of life that exhibited him as something slightly more human than the ethereal beauty Sehun constantly saw. Confidence with a little hitch. It was refreshing.
Luhan swallowed thickly and returned his gaze to the jar he was holding, sticking his fingers in it. He looked distracted, and it made Sehun feel rather smug.
“Keep still while I apply this, okay?” Luhan told him, hovering his yellow-covered fingertips over Sehun’s bloody hand.
“Okay, doctor,” Sehun agreed, pulling the corner of his mouth up in amusement. Luhan blushed even more at that, keeping his eyes based and quickly rubbing the ointment over Sehun’s wound, trying not to linger too long lest it would start to sting.
“Does it hurt?” He asked in concern, looking up from his task.
“No, you’re very gentle,” Sehun assured him, staying as still as he possibly could for Luhan, who was dragging his fingers over Sehun’s palm now, trying not to make a mess. It did string, slightly, but Sehun wouldn’t tell Luhan that. He’d felt much worse.
When Luhan had finished, he grabbed for a long strip of bandage, pulling it tightly around Sehun’s hand and making sure to fasten it securely. He inspected the final result, and after staring at it for a while, he pulled back and seemed to approve of his work.
“Not bad,” Sehun said, impressed. He certainly couldn’t have done any better. “I should appoint you as my assistant healer.”
Luhan smiled, pulling all the things back into his arms and walking off to put them away. “Are the wages high?" He called from his shelves. "You’d have to match what I earn as a dancer.”
“I’d triple it. Name the price, marigold.”
Luhan snorted when hearing his nickname. “There is none. I don’t get paid for dancing,” he turned around and bit his tongue playfully for Sehun to see. It lit a small spark in him that had butterflies frolicking around in his stomach.
“What do you get from it then?” Sehun leaned his weary head in his good hand. He had a pretty nice view of Luhan from where he was sitting. Quite a flattering angle. He could see every bend and curve, every bit of elegance.
“Safety in the village, shelter, food, pride...joy,” Luhan listed while tapping his lips with a finger. “You know...everything I need.”
“That’s not too bad. Afraid I can’t match it though...becoming my partner would essentially just mean you’d follow me around while I travel. Can’t promise any of the things you just said.”
“Shame. I’ll just have to keep dancing for you, then. Or dragging you out to endanger your life”
“And treating my battle wounds later. Like this life-threatening thing.” He held up his bandaged hand, looking at it gravely. Luhan nodded in agreement.
There was a short silence as Luhan walked back over to sit across from him, perching down on his knees with his hands in his lap. Sehun noticed he was slightly fidgety, playing with some of the rings on his fingers and biting his lower lip in an underlying disquiet. The outside of the tent had grown dark long ago as the evening crept in, and Luhan looked beautiful in that lighting. Well, he looked beautiful in every lighting, but the gentle glow of the lanterns set a calm and warm feeling around them, making everything seem so much more dreamy than usual. Sehun had this crazy urge he really wanted to act on, but he didn’t know if he should. He probably shouldn't, but it was there, loud and persistent, raking at his ears and mouth and eyes all at once, like a sweltering sandstorm.
He was about to lean over on his hand and relax more, but just as he tried to, Luhan’s quiet voice spoke up between them.
“I was so lonely here...before you came...” Luhan's lips were barely moving, and Sehun wondered how he managed to utter a sound at all. He was looking down at the floor, or maybe down into his hands, but definitely not locking eyes with Sehun himself.
“What do you mean?” He asked with a short laugh. “Aren’t you everyone’s favourite? The way they speak of you and look at you I would have thought you were the lover of everyone here, men and women alike.”
Luhan chuckled, glancing towards Sehun. “It would seem so, wouldn’t it?” He nodded his head slightly, taking a deep breath. “Truth is, everybody likes me, but nobody really likes me, you know?” He said sadly, his mouth stretched into a taught smile, but his eyes shining with suppressed emotion. “I’m loved by everybody in general, and that’s great and all, but it’s mostly superficial. I put on enticing shows and look pretty, and people appreciate it, but none of them know the real me, or even try to get to know the real me. Chen is the only one who wanted to meet the person under the clan mascot. He’s there for me when I’m weak, not only when I’m shining at my brightest. It’s a little meaningless to be liked by everyone if those people are nowhere to be found when you really need a helping hand. They’ll just leave you in the dust and look away while you pick up the pieces, trying to grasp each shard without hurting your hand.”
Sehun frowned, feeling his stomach churn painfully, unsettling every nerve in his body. “Has...has something happened that I don’t know about?”
Luhan shrugged, his eyes glued to his feet that dipped in and out of the blanket he was sitting on. “The caravanners,” Luhan said with a deep sigh. He paused for a second, biting his lip. Sehun could see the tension on his forehead, and watched as it spread out over the rest of his face. “They came one day to raid the village...in the dead of night. It was dark, and the moon was hidden behind storm clouds--”
“Luhan! There you are!” Both of them looked up in alert at the call of a new voice, and Sehun saw a head peeking into the tent entrance, none other than Chen, Luhan's best friend, who looked distressed and antsy. "The Chief says that one of our horses are missing; do you know anything about this? It's the fast one that Suho likes to ride..."
"It'll come back," Luhan just said, shrugging his lean shoulders where he sat, ever so slightly deflated.
Chen eyed him with a narrowed look, his forehead creased. He reminded Sehun of Yixing in every way; tone of voice, expression, and posture. "What did you do?"
"Nothing..." Sehun watched Luhan feign innocence, staying still and keeping himself calm so as not to reveal anything. He didn't know if it worked or not, but Chen sighed, then pulled back out of the tent, leaving the cloth flapping behind him. It was really getting dark out. Sehun couldn't believe they'd been gone for so long; the travel on horse had felt so short with Luhan by his side (well, in front of him, while Sehun tried to match his pace, but still).
When Chen was out, Luhan grinned and shook his head to himself, his tousled, blond hair falling out of the headdress.
"Keeping secrets from your best friend, huh?" Sehun asked, pulling one eyebrow up at him. He didn't know what compelled Luhan to refrain from telling Chen about his exciting little escapades, and in turn show them to Sehun, a mere stranger, but he was sure he had his reasons. It would be a little weird if he understood Luhan one hundred percent already, after all.
Luhan kept smiling to himself, like he’d normally be caught doing, picking at the material of his skirt. His long, black lashes were brushing idly against the pale skin of his upper cheeks, and his lips looked so pink and plump.
"Can I give you another secret to keep?" Sehun asked, deciding right then and there that he didn't want to waste any more time. Time was precious. Luhan, too, was rather precious. "Well, it doesn't have to be a secret, but I'm sure your village would prefer if it were."
Luhan looked like he was going to ask what it was, but instead he just waited for Sehun to tell him, his face expectant and his wandering fingers stilling. If Sehun had been planning on telling him anything, he would have told him then. But he didn't plan on telling him anything. Instead, Sehun held his gaze unwaveringly, taking a deep breath to himself and gathering his courage bit by bit, like he was winding a ball of yarn. He leaned forward slowly, so that Luhan could easily back away, until he was merely a few mere inches away from Luhan's face. The smaller's eyes were on him now, wide and questioning, as Sehun felt Luhan's breath on his very lips, warming and almost burning every stretch of his flesh.
He reached out and pulled the thin cloth off of Luhan's head, and was relieved when the other boy didn't protest, but rather sat just as still as before, his eyes searching for Sehun's but Sehun's own being busy focused on his slightly open mouth.
Sehun snaked a secure hand over the back of Luhan's neck for control, finally switching his eyes up to meet Luhan's searching ones, and that was when he decided to lean forwards, sucking in air as he planted lips fast against Luhan's own, pressing in hard because he was sparked by need.
Luhan sat there silently with his eyes wide open, like a frozen statue, but Sehun closed his eyes and pressed in further, confident he could make Luhan relax. A few heartbeats later, and a few vague peeks from Sehun, he saw Luhan slacken and lean into him, letting his eyes flutter shut. Sehun just stayed there with the innocent kiss, enjoying the feeling of Luhan's soft lips against his own. They hadn't been lying to him, that was for sure. They were tender and warm everything else he'd imagined, resting still against him. He could smell Luhan now that he was so close. He had a slightly earthy smell, though that was probably just from their trip through the wild terrain today, and he also smelled some kind of sweet, like honeycomb or nectar, even though neither of the two things seemed to exist in their land. He felt like this fictive thing that Sehun had the pleasure of indulging in seconds before he disappeared.
Sehun realized how long he'd been kissing him for and quickly pulled back, a small smack dragging through the silence. He watched Luhan's eyes open slowly, looking almost dazed and confused, and he let go of the boy's thin neck, sitting back in his seat on the floor while garnering his self-control. Sehun hadn't noticed he'd leaned on his scraped up hand while he'd been in the middle of the kiss, but he noticed now as the faint stinging resonated over his flesh and made him flex his fingers.
"What was..." Luhan started, trailing off as his eyes unfocused. He looked so dainty, all lost for words. "What was that for?"
Sehun didn't really know. It had felt right, so he'd done it, but he couldn’t think of an intelligent way to phrase that. "Just felt like something I ought to do," he explained, feeling slightly embarrassed now that his actions had really caught up to him. Was it wrong of him to kiss Luhan? Should he have refrained? Had he broken some sort of treaty between their lands or something? He shouldn’t have. There wasn’t any as far as Sehun was aware. Maybe he was just overthinking.
Luhan blinked, bringing a hand up to touch his lips. "Oh...I see..."
"I really like you," Sehun continued, unable to stop himself now that the invisible dam had sort of been broken, letting all kinds of feelings flow through. "I like you a lot."
Luhan appeared to have come back to his senses a little more, and smiled politely at him from where he sat, still touching his lips with his hand. Sehun liked to consider that an affirmative, that he'd liked it himself, more or less. He really didn't need Luhan to say anything else to understand him.
Just as he was about to dive in for a second helping of those wonderful lips, the dancer's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth equally so, making Sehun pull back.
"What is it?"
"My sickle," Luhan just said. "I forgot it on the ground by the horses. It will ruin if I don't clean it, with all that blood...it will rust."
He sprang up from the ground after that, faster than Sehun had ever imagined he could, and he only watched as the boy made his way over to the tent entrance, pulling the flap aside with a quick swipe.
"Shall I come with you?" Sehun offered nimbly, getting up on his own feet and feeling weird as he stood on them, the weight feeling odd after sitting still for so long, like his limbs had fallen asleep.
"No, it's fine," Luhan assured him with a smile, waving his hand dismissively. "I'll be right back."
And with that, Luhan exited, leaving the tent flaps open and swaying in the wind for a second time. Sehun, however, wasn't too keen on letting him go out alone when it was so dark, the evening having dragged into night as the purple and red from the sky melded into umber shades of black and blue. It wasn't good for anyone to be out alone so late.
He realized, as he got outside, that his sense of direction was horrible, and his memory was faring no better. He couldn't remember where they'd come from after they'd left their horses. Luhan had lead him away so stealthily and quickly that it was almost useless to try and rediscover the path, but just when he was about to give up and return inside the tent, he swore he saw a piece of red in the distance, which reminded of Luhan's fiery attire.
He stepped in that direction, picking his feet up and trying not to lose the glint of red, which was hurrying ahead of him. It had to be Luhan; only Luhan was that fast and sharp at corners, something Sehun had learned the very second he'd 'stolen' his pouch of money on his first day there.
They continued for a little while, and Sehun questioned whether Luhan really was heading back to the horses at all, because the walk felt so long a dreary, but then he saw them in the distance, the little stable or horses that they'd spend so much time with earlier that day. Luhan was heading up to them, slowed down now, but a voice from the left stopped him, as well as Sehun, in his tracks. It was loud and angry, cutting through the cooling air. Sehun spotted a few sacks of rice to his side, and dove behind them, not wanting to be seen.
"Were you with him?"
"With who?" Came Luhan’s reply, after the pause of a few seconds.
"The stranger."
They were speaking his language, Sehun noticed, and that was weird. Was his language more common here than he’d thought? Sehun had initially assumed it was only an issue of politeness that compelled them to speak to him in his own tongue, but maybe it was a second language. His kingdom had a lot of influence after all.
"What does it matter to you?" Luhan challenged, and Sehun felt a knot tighten in his stomach, because that probably wasn't the right thing to say. There was a man to Luhan's left. He could barely make him out in the darkness, but the moonlight caught his daunting profile.
And Sehun was right, because he heard a suppressed whimper, like Luhan didn't want to give the man the satisfaction of seeming weak, and saw Luhan being yanked up by the collar, the man speaking straight into his face now.
"You were supposed to dance today, Xiao Lu. You were supposed to dance for me and the rest of our clan's warriors, like you always do at this time of the week. We fight for our people; show some goddamn respect!"
"You never fight, you liar!" Luhan spat in the man's face, trying to twist and shove himself out of the brute's hold. "We're a peaceful village; nobody ever comes to take you on! So what if I don't dance for you one lousy week?"
A ringing slap could be heard throughout the air, and Luhan's head was thrown backwards by the force of the man's hand, his own coming up to clutch at his abused cheek. Sehun could see his face from where he was standing, shocked and wide-eyed. Sehun was frozen to the ground, completely unable to move, even if he wanted to so badly.
"Don't you dare talk back to me, you little tramp." The man shook Luhan as he spoke, only inches away from his face. "You might be the Chief's favourite, but you should never forget your rank. Without a mother and father in our ancestry tree, you're worth nothing here. You're a cast-away baby from a pair of leeching nomads, and don't you ever forget it."
With those last words, the man threw Luhan to the ground with little care and started walking away as if nothing had happened. Luhan lay there completely still for a little while, during which Sehun was completely paralyzed to his spot behind the bags of rice, until Luhan's chest started hitching and sobbing could be heard coming from his direction.
This made Sehun spring to life, with a spritz of panic saturating him. He bolted from his hiding place, making for the lifeless-looking body on the ground that was laying at an odd angle.
"Luhan!" He shouted. He got down on his knees next to him as soon as he made it there, looking over him quickly to make sure he was okay. He seemed alright, but he had a blaring red mark on his cheek where he'd been hit, and he looked so distraught, his eyes were so terrifyingly wide, like he had no idea what was going on. "What was that all about?" Sehun hissed in a whisper, looking down into Luhan's tear-soaked face. It was a horribly painful sight.
Luhan just shook his head, covering his face with his hands as he wept, growing louder and louder by the second. Sehun didn't want anyone to wake from the commotion so that they'd notice Luhan like this, so he shushed the boy gently and looked around himself in a quick turn, hooking his arms under Luhan's legs and back and lifting him up to his chest, then forcing his knees to straighten all the way up to a standing position. He felt the weight, but his arm muscles refused to even let him sink slightly, and he held him tight without another thought.
The painful sound of Luhan crying accompanied Sehun the whole way back to the dancer's tent. It was the only place he could think to take him; the only place that would perhaps make Luhan feel safe. He ignored his surroundings more this time around, only focused on reaching the end of the path where the green tent could be seen.
Luhan wasn't that heavy, but Sehun's arms were tired by now, and by the time he reached his hut, he was sore and his biceps were screaming bloody murder at him. He hadn't trained in so long, like he used to back at the palace. He'd gotten lazy and caught up in frolicking around with Luhan, even though he couldn't think of a better way to spend his days.
As soon as he got in, he spotted what must have been Luhan's bed in the corner, and walked over to lay him down. He was supposed to just lay him down and then walk away, try to find his own tent, maybe, or to alert someone lf what had happened, but he was so tired when he bent over that he felt himself sinking down alongside the boy, and ended up lying next to him on the bed, panting heavily from running with him in his arms at full speed.
He pulled Luhan closer to him at a last attempt to make everything better, keeping a hand on his back and one by his head, trying to make sure he was lying comfortably and wasn't in any sort of pain. The tension in Luhan’s face dissipated slightly as time wore by, and after a few minutes of lying there, every trace of worry was vanished.
Sehun closed his eyes for a second, swallowing a few deep breaths down to calm himself. When he listened for Luhan's faint crying and didn't hear any, he noticed that Luhan had fallen asleep in his arms, still like a ragdoll.
He breathed a sigh of relief, one that sent a tremor throughout his whole body. He didn't know what had just happened, but at least Luhan was safe, and the thought of keeping him safe in his own arms was very calming, for some reason. Not that Sehun was the best caretaker, but it felt nice to try. It also felt like his duty. Soon, Sehun felt himself drift off too, his lids the weight if a thousand tonnes, next to Luhan's gentle puffs of air and warm skin.
*
The morning came to him with a bang, and not just metaphorically, as something heavy and bulky was thrown onto his stomach, making him groan and jolt awake with a painful start. He realized Luhan wasn’t lying beside him like he had last night, and looked up to find his energetic face above him instead, grinning down like the Cheshire cat.
“Open your present, Mister.” Luhan pointed to the bag resting on Sehun’s lower abdomen, looking almost excruciatingly excited.
Sehun, he corrected Luhan in his head automatically, but was too disoriented to say it out loud. His mind was still groggy and his vision was a mess, and his mouth felt like he hadn't had anything to drink for a thousand years, more dry than the desert which surrounded them.
It was upon further inspection that Sehun noticed Luhan was wearing several golden chains and necklaces with precious gems and sparkling stones in them, and he had more of it pouring out of the brown bag he was holding in a tight fist. That was one of the bags they’d snatched from the bandits yesterday, and so was the one rested on Sehun’s stomach at that very moment, weighing down on him and making him need to relieve his bladder urgently.
He shifted, stretching his limbs as he sat up, and opened the bag. Inside, there were several hard, flat objects. They looked like books, mostly. A few papers, which had illegible writing on them and looked rather crumbled, as well as an old compass or two. Sehun frowned, and Luhan let out a roaring laugh.
“Looks like it’s not your lucky day.” He held out his own bag in Sehun’s face, shaking it a little. It clinked with sharp, metal sounds. “I’ll share mine with you, though. My neck is full and so are my hands.” He demonstrated his jewellery-covered wrists, turning them around so that the gold and silver clinked.
Luhan was acting as if he hadn't been hit yesterday; hadn't cried or showed any form of weakness. Confusion gripped at Sehun's body. He found himself only half-heartedly reaching for the sack Luhan was presenting him with, wondering if he'd errands everything. Should he let it slide? Should he ask him about it? He didn't know what would be better, but watching Luhan prance around with ‘happy’ painting his face made his insides melt, and he didn't want to see the frown back, so he played along, catching a crown that Luhan suddenly threw at him.
"I have no idea where they stole that, but you can be our king now," Luhan laughed, sitting down across from Sehun on the bed, where he meddled with a few of his own gems. He seemed to be in such a good mood, like the spirit of someone else had taken him on, using his body as a vessel. "A crown fit for a king! Try it on; let's see how majestic you look."
Sehun's complied with a wry smile, pulling the golden thing onto his head. It was a lot heavier than it looked, and way more uncomfortable. It was like sticking a brick on your head and trying to pretend it made you feel important. This must be how Kai felt every day.
"Hmm, I don't think you'd make a good king," Luhan mused, pursing his lips as he eyed the shiny object.
"How about a prince?" Sehun asked with a sly grin, cocking the crown to the side a little. "This could easily be a prince's crown. Princes have crowns too, you know."
"No, you don't look like a prince either." Luhan shook his head stubbornly, chewing on his lower lip. "I like you better without that thing on.”
Sehun took the crown off and plopped it on Luhan's head instead, before the other could move away, the heavy thing sinking far down on his little head, stopping only above his ears.
"You'd make a good prince," Sehun noted, snorting at how big it looked on him. "But then again, you suit all jewellery. I bet the person who invented jewellery made it with you in mind."
Luhan blushed, pulling the crown off his head quickly. “You say so many weird things.”
“I know.”
After a few more minutes of fooling around and pretending to be lavish sultans from a far off land, Luhan asked Sehun to carry a couple of the bags out for him, saying they had places they needed to be rather than in their hands.
“They’re not for us,” Luhan said solemnly, passing by a cluster of tents down a slope from his own.
It was a beautifully sunny day that day, the blaring thing right in the middle of the sky as they trotted over the hot ground. Sehun still didn’t understand why Luhan didn’t wear shoes, and wondered if he didn’t feel any pain on the soles of his feet, because the ground did get quite hot, and they walked over rocks and rubble a lot. But maybe this, like so many other things about Luhan, might be better off left as a mystery. Sehun had confidence that he’d be able to discover every fact about him with time anyways; that he didn’t need to prompt Luhan or ask him incessant questions to get the information he sought. Sehun preferred taking things slow...excluding the kiss they’d shared last night, of course. He was looking forward to all the uncovering and learning more than anything else; it was the major reason as to why he was still there in that particular village, when in reality he had only planned one night’s stay before he headed off to somewhere bigger and better.
They slid down a little hill, Sehun having some difficulties with it and almost getting his pants caught in a root or two, but once down they approached a small group of kids that were playing with some form of paint, their hands yellow and green and red, much alike all of their immediate surroundings.
“Tao!” Luhan called, holding his bags out, and one of the children turned around, starting to run up to them while wiping his colourful hands off on the backside of his pants. His parents were going to love that.
He was eyeing the brown bags they were holding the whole time with a rather curious stare, like he was itching to touch them. Luhan took Sehun’s bags too and held them all out to the boy, Tao accepting them into his arms with slight difficulty.
“Give them to your mama and her sister, okay? Say you found it by the water’s edge like last time.”
Tao nodded dutifully, turning around to head back, but before he made the full turn, he faced back to Sehun and stuck his tongue out at him, then broke into a run to get away.
Sehun ground his teeth together, feeling inexplicably irate. “That little...”
“He’s only joking,” Luhan assured him with a mollifying grip to his shoulder thanks to those long, slender fingers of his, expressive eyes glinting at him, and Sehun had to let it go. He was pretty sure he wanted to pulverize the little rascal regardless, because he was annoying and ungrateful and just really beyond Sehun’s level of patience, but he let Luhan pull him away from the little pit where the children were playing, glaring after all of them as his only means of rebuttal all the while.
*
The days passed quickly after that. Time tended to behave in such a way when he was with Luhan; it was like the fundamental rule of his existence. The dancer took him horseback riding further east the next day, galloping through wind and sand and stopping to admire the view from the top of a mesa, where they could see unknown land for miles that Sehun had yet to explore or even consider was in existence. Luhan took him to the marketplace another day, giving him a bit of the local currency and letting him buy whatever he wanted. Sehun settled for food, mostly (oh heaven up above, did these people make delicious food), but he also got himself some lighter clothes, such as a thin, cotton tunic and a pair of stiff, black breeches, which Luhan claimed were the most high-class piece of clothing they had. Sehun was getting pretty temperate in his sheep skins after all. He learned that Luhan's favourite colour was bright red, that he liked oats the most (even though Sehun found them to be a very bland food, and had expected Luhan to pick something more spicy), and that he'd been dancing ever since he could remember; his main source of happiness. He'd even gotten to know Chen, Luhan's best friend, and boy was he a force to be reckoned with. His mouth ran a mile a minute, almost like Luhan's, and he was constantly cracking jokes, his voice loud and boisterous in the calm air. He couldn't even sit still for a second.
And the days continued like that, filled with Luhan, sun, sand, and fun; more fun than he'd had in his entire life. Already after the first day, Sehun had known he hadn't made a mistake in coming there. It must have been fate, or some derivative of it, because everything felt so right and pieced together, like he'd walked into his future in one lucky go, having it stare him right in his face. And it was great. There hadn't even been an incident that had endangered anyone's lives that Sehun had been called on to fix, such as last time, which he was eternally grateful for. If anything, that was the only flaw in his perfect paradise; the fact that he was one big, walking lie. But aside from that, the only real drawback so far, he felt, was that he and Luhan hadn't spoken about their kiss since it had happened, so it was like it had never really happened at all. Sehun was actually starting to question of it had, if it wasn't just one of his dreams kind of bleeding over into reality a little too much, but he stubbornly claimed that he remembered the feel and taste of Luhan's lips far too well for it to all have been a figment of his imagination. You don't just dream things like that.
At some part of the month it came to the point where Luhan was going to dance again, and that meant a big party. The village held a lot of parties, for many occasions, sometimes even with no occasions, and Sehun always enjoyed them because it meant Luhan would transform into a twirling star and show the whole world what he was good at.
They were watching him dance by the fire that eve, heat radiating from the performance and loud roars erupting from the crowd as per usual. Sehun was eating from an assortment of dishes that had been placed on his seating mat, a colourful range of curry stew, peppers, rice, and pork, but of course, it was almost impossible to concentrate on the food when he had such a divine thing shaking his hips right before his eyes. He ended up getting very messy, his food missing his mouth a lot of times and also slipping from his fingers and to the floor, which he tried to hide by burying it in the sand.
He managed to clean up with a spare cloth in the end, just in time for Luhan's performance to finish. This made him happy, because he was very much looking forward to spending alone time with the boy under the firelight, talking to him or walking somewhere with him, whatever Luhan decided to do. He knew he would enjoy it.
He was about to run off to try to locate the dancer, when he was met with something rather large blocking his way out of the spectator circle, a rather rectangular frame to say the least. He looked up, and towering above him stood none other than the man whose profile he'd seen the night Luhan had been hurt; beaten, more like, after the marks he'd left. It was definitely him. The man who had slapped Luhan and thrown him to the ground like he was a hunter tenderizing or disposing of a slab of meat. Sehun clenched his teeth automatically, casting the man an ugly glare. The man in question, however, didn't seem to flinch, and just started talking to him like they were new business associates, ready to hit things off with a formal start.
"Hello. I don't think we've met before." The man held a long arm out, offering his rather abnormally large hand to Sehun. "Wufan," he said, short and to the point, with no extra effort to sound excited added in the mix. It was hard to stay positive and restrained around this man.
Sehun hesitated for a long second before he took it, clasping it firmly in his own grip, as if challenging him. He felt a terribly threatening aura from this fellow, and that was saying a lot, since Sehun wasn't superstitious or spiritual in the slightest. But he really did feel something sinister there, though it could just be his own imagination. He thought back to the time when this man had slapped Luhan and yelled at him, and decided that no, this Wufan character definitely was some form of sinister, if not immediate evil then a distant cousin of it.
"Sehun," he said after a while, or mumbled, rather, because he really didn't want to keep talking to this man if he could help it. He felt like their confrontation would end in him doing something stupid, and he didn't particularly want to sit around and wait for that to happen.
"Enjoying your stay?" Wufan asked, continuing with his staccato sentences, and still holding Sehun's hand in his firm grip. It seemed like he was presenting polished manners but Sehun knew better. He frowned, though he still nodded to signify that he was. "Good. Found some fun things to do to occupy your time?"
Just then Sehun noticed a flash of red in the crowd, a whimsical flicker of it, and automatically he turned his head around to see Luhan standing next to some woman, talking to her with a sweet smile and an engaged expression. He always wore red a lot more than the other colours; he had an incredible bias towards his favourite colour, that was no secret. Sehun had gradually grown accustomed to turning his head whenever he spotted any shade of it, because the chance that it was Luhan was very high. Wufan, who was standing next to Sehun, followed his gaze, his lips curving up into a prominent smirk.
“He’s pretty bendy, if you know what I mean," Wufan whispered to him, sending Sehun an obnoxious wink to accompany it, and then nodding in Luhan's direction.
“No. No, I don’t," Sehun pressed out flatly, feeling his chest tighten and his stomach churn uncomfortably. He knew Luhan was flexible, anyone could see that when he danced, but Wufan definitely wasn't talking about his dancing.
He was about to raise his voice and ask Wufan what his deal was, when he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find himself face to face with Chen, who was grinning from ear to ear like he was a farmer who had been predicted a year's worth of fertile land.
"Sehun, my man," he greeted, hitting Sehun hard on the shoulder with irreconcilable strength. Sehun smiled at him with effort, still more or less held tight by the other man he was talking to.
Wufan, however, finally let go of his hand, which was feeling rather numb and had also turned very pale for his complexion, and then just started walking away, heading out of the sea of people surrounding them.
Chen snorted when he was gone, gazing after him. "What were you talking to Wufan for?"
Sehun shrugged, fumbling with his fingers. He suddenly felt relieved that Chen was there, because there was something he really wanted to ask him. Though he didn't know if asking would be very comfortable for either of them, or if he even had the right to. He decided to take the plunge regardless, because his restlessness was killing him, and he almost felt his pork from earlier make an appearance reversed from his stomach.
"Mind if we go somewhere more private?" Sehun asked, already looking for a direction that might lead them to a quiet area where they could talk safely.
"Hey now, I don't get cosy with people until the second date," lectured Chen, waving his index in front of Sehun's unmoving face.
Sehun rolled his eyes at him, grabbing Chen's arm and pulling him away from the packed circle of people. "This is serious," he said while he was still walking, trying to get out of there as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure how serious what he wanted to get off his chest really was, but in his mind it was pretty blaring and prominent right at that moment, so the bustling and noise of the people around him didn’t do him any good.
"Oh,” he just heard Chen say, and he could hear him trudge after the pull of his hand. Sehun wasn’t a very commanding person by nature, but he was sure Chen would forgive him.
There was a rather vacant area behind two navy tents a little away from the central gathering place, all that was there to overhear them being two large cattle. Sehun slowed to a halt and let go of Chen’s arm, finally, running a hand through his hair and eyeing the secluded area. He felt anxious and bothered, and a part of him was really distraught. He realized slowly that he didn’t know Luhan as well as he had hoped, and that there were still many loopholes and gaps of information that he hadn’t filled in yet.
"What's Luhan's relationship with Wufan?" He asked, massaging his tense jaw with his hand and avoiding the other male’s eyes by instinct. He was already feeling uncomfortable, and he hadn’t even asked for the information he really sought yet.
"Why do you ask?"
Sehun sighed, sparing a glance in Chen’s direction that was rather pained. "Just answer me."
"Um...none?” Chen tried, scratching his head, clearly noticing Sehun was serious now. “At least not that I know of. Luhan doesn't really like him, I don't think."
"Has he slept with him?" Sehun asked before he could stop himself, feeling the words burn bitter at the tip of his tongue.
Chen frowned. "Whoa there, what's with the weird questions?"
Sehun sighed again, feeling he needed to sit down, and found purchase on a small stool that stood by the cattle fodder. The area stank of manure, but he didn't care. Chen walked a little closer to him, looking down with worry in his eyes.
"Wufan found it in him to suggestively tell me Luhan was bendy. And he wasn't talking about his air splits."
"Oh, gotcha." Chen laughed to himself a little, a rather reassuring sound, folding his arms loosely. He looked up at Sehun again with a calm smile. "Don't worry. Kris is all talk and no action; he hasn't come within five feet of our Luhan, I can assure you of that."
"Are you sure?" Sehun pushed, almost like he didn't believe him. He really ought to believe him; this was Luhan’s best friend they were talking about, and he was a rather nice guy, but Sehun still had the red light blinking in his head like it was trying to tell him something was off.
"Look, Luhan is no harlot. He may have the hips of a sinful siren, but he sure doesn't give his body away. So I suppose you could say that Luhan too is all talk and no action, in a sense. As far as I know he's as pure as the snow of the northern mountain ranges. From what he's told me, and least. Luhan doesn't lie to me, and I don't lie to him either. It's like the unspoken best friend rule. Why am I telling you all of this anyways?" Chen said abruptly, looking up at him. Sehun shrugged, not sure himself. "Ah, right." He raised a finger in the air. "It's because I think you like him." Chen wiggled his eyebrows then, and Sehun felt his heart speed up and his cheeks redden more than a tad. "You have as good a chance as anyone; perhaps a little more. I say go for it."
"I don't like him," Sehun mumbled.
"You're a terrible liar, Healer. Almost as terrible as you are a dancer."
"Hey!"
"Don't worry though...I think Luhan really sees something in you. He hasn't been hanging out with a person this much since, well...me."
Sehun stopped thinking then, his eyes widening. He hadn’t thought about that. "I'm sorry,” he tried, realizing the rather self-absorbed nature of his actions over the past few weeks. “I didn't mean to impose--"
"Nonsense,” Chen waved him off, his smile creases showing. He too, like Luhan, was always happy. There must be something in the water there. “Luhan and my friendship goes way back, so you keeping him entertained for a little while doesn't irk me in the slightest."
Sehun managed to send him a grateful smile from his seat, but his mind was already racing with thoughts of Luhan, like it tended to do. Of how he missed him already, how much he wanted to know every single detail of his life and not miss a single moment of it, how much he wanted him oh so badly to be his and nobody else’s--
“Just so you know...if brains were dynamite, Wufan wouldn’t even be able to blow his own nose,” Chen commented, and Sehun felt himself bark out a short laugh as his head fell back. “He really isn’t a threat, if that’s what you think.”
“I don’t really know what I think...” Sehun said honestly. Was he feeling threatened by Wufan? Or was he just scared of his general presence, by how violent and domineering his persona was? Either way, he wasn’t too fond of him.
“It’s alright. Just ignore him and you’ll be fine. I’ve ignored him for the past decade or so.” Sehun felt something lift off his chest and he had an odd sense of relief course through him. So maybe he was just a little paranoid, but it was nice to confirm it with a credible source regardless. “I’m sure Luhan is looking for you right about now,” Chen interrupted his thoughts with, and Sehun found himself nodding. “Why don’t you go find him?”
*
Finding Luhan wasn’t all that hard, especially not when he just made it his mission to spot any hint of red within a ten mile radius, because he saw him as soon as he got back to the populated area, standing and looking out over the outskirts of the village, into the open terrain where there was endless nothingness and darkening skies. He seemed deep in thought, and Sehun didn’t really want to interrupt him, so he just walked up silently and stood by his side, trying to figure out what exactly it was Luhan was staring at.
“Where were you? I was looking for you, you know,” Luhan spoke up, and Sehun was forced to look into those brilliant eyes of his while still trying to digest his lulling voice, which never failed to capture his unwavering attention.
“Just with Chen...uh...talking,” He kicked himself mentally for lacking skills when it came to impromptu speech, but hoped it didn’t come out too patchy. “He was asking me some stuff about my kingdom...and yeah.”
“I see,” Luhan said, taking a quick pause before swiftly asking. “Do you want to go somewhere?”
“Where?” Sehun tried to find out, but should have expected the vague answer he got.
“I’ll take you.”
<< >>
Chapters: oneshot
Pairings: Sehun/Luhan
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, romance, angst
Warnings (SPOILER WARNINGS! highlight to see): explicit content, violence, incest, character death
Summary: Sehun leaves his land in search of adventure, and finds a little too much of it in a neighbouring village where he meets a veiled enchantress that has hips too sinful to be legal.
a/n: i'd really advise against reading the warnings if you want to enjoy this thing at all lol. set in some fictional time/place idk where they have kingdoms and such.
this is a rati and it’s a metaphor for sehun’s dick. nah i’m just kidding. or am i.
45,000 WORDS LONG have fun
After walking for a few minutes in silence, they came up to a green tent, a medium sized one that was slightly smaller than Sehun’s own, and that was where Luhan lead him inside, hurriedly and without thinking twice. The interior was beautiful, with golden pillows and intricate carpets lying around everywhere, not to mention a few large shrines and painted dressing screens that rivalled the most lavish ones they had at their palace.
"Where are we?" Sehun asked. The scent inside this place was almost like in his own. The idyllic smells that verged on pulling him to sleep.
"This is my tent," Luhan said proudly, leading Sehun over to sit on a red mat by a short table that had a large bowl of water on it.
He forced Sehun to sit still there while he walked around and gathered things that were in shelves and baskets, dumping the bags from their raid onto the floor, forgotten. Sehun watched him concentrate, putting back a few things as he changed his mind and pulled out something else, like he wanted everything to be perfect and wasn't going to hurry so that he would mess something up. He pouted a couple times, and Sehun surveyed him with intrigue. Luhan was a weird character. Lovely, but very unusual.
After a few minutes of roaming around, Luhan came back to him with his arms brimming with things. Sehun could see a white cloth, several jars, and a small, black box, among other supplies that he couldn’t really identify.
"Luhan, really. This is nothing. You don't have to do this.”
“I know you’re a healer and my attempt at fixing you up will probably look really pathetic and amateur-like, but please let me help you. I feel really bad, and I wouldn’t want you to waste your time by having you heal yourself. So please...”
Sehun saw a requisition in Luhan’s eyes that had him unwilling to fight him on the matter, and just nodded while Luhan laid out the assortment of things he’d brought over, aligning them neatly next to each other. Sehun was curious, he’d admit that. Since Sehun wasn’t a healer, he really had no clue how he was supposed to heal up a cut like this, even if it was simple. The choking incident had been luck; the trivial things were the ones that could blow his cover. He wondered how Luhan would try to fix him. Did he have some routine that had been passed down to him through his family? His mother patching him up when he’d been a kid, perhaps?
Luhan was opening a few vials and smelling them, then stopping them up again with their respective corks. When he was done with the vials he moved on to the jars, looking inside and analyzing the contents according to Sehun’s cuts, it seemed. Whether the salve would do or if he needed something stronger.
The dancer ended up just grabbing Sehun’s limp hand and sticking it into the bowl of water on the table, making Sehun bend forward and support himself on the floor with his free arm in a rather uncomfortable position. He was stroking Sehun’s hand in the water, probably removing all the sand and grime, and when he pulled it out he checked the condition of it quickly before he wrapped it in the white cloth he’d fetched.
Sehun sat there watching the boy work, his face twisted in concentration and his arms hesitantly grabbing a multitude of things randomly at random before putting them down again, like he couldn’t decide what to do next. Luhan sat himself closer to Sehun, almost in his lap, and Sehun held his breath as Luhan placed Sehun’s hand in his lap, patting it lightly as if to dry it, before he opened up the cloth to see to the wound.
Sehun almost had to laugh at the grimace that graced Luhan’s features as he caught sight of how messy and bloody the injury still looked, sighing to himself.
“I’m so sorry about this. I really thought I’d be able to keep you from harm today.”
“Did you forget that I was the one who tumbled off the horse?” Sehun uttered incredulously, raising his eyebrows. “Honestly now...”
“Anything that happens to you in my village is my fault,” Luhan said with a serious face. “You’re our responsibility.”
“Forgive me, but that’s ridiculous.”
“It’s our policy.”
“You should change it.” Sehun picked his hand up from Luhan’s lap and flexed it slightly, wincing at the sting. “I hurt myself everywhere; whether it’s in your village or somewhere else, it’s still my own fault.”
Luhan grabbed his hand and forced it back down in his lap, reaching for a jar and screwing the lid open. “Don’t do that, you’ll make it bleed more.”
“I’m a healer, remember? I think I’ll survive.” He reached out and tapped Luhan’s chin up with his pointer finger, hoping he’d lighten up and stop stressing out so much over his little wound.
Luhan looked up at him at the touch, his eyes wide. He froze then, blinking a few times and looking like he’d forgotten just about everything he’d been about to do. Sehun held his eyes in amusement, satisfied with just being able to look into those deep brown orbs for a while. It was a healing practice in itself, he could swear by that.
Colour crept over Luhan’s dusty pale cheeks, giving him a lick of life that exhibited him as something slightly more human than the ethereal beauty Sehun constantly saw. Confidence with a little hitch. It was refreshing.
Luhan swallowed thickly and returned his gaze to the jar he was holding, sticking his fingers in it. He looked distracted, and it made Sehun feel rather smug.
“Keep still while I apply this, okay?” Luhan told him, hovering his yellow-covered fingertips over Sehun’s bloody hand.
“Okay, doctor,” Sehun agreed, pulling the corner of his mouth up in amusement. Luhan blushed even more at that, keeping his eyes based and quickly rubbing the ointment over Sehun’s wound, trying not to linger too long lest it would start to sting.
“Does it hurt?” He asked in concern, looking up from his task.
“No, you’re very gentle,” Sehun assured him, staying as still as he possibly could for Luhan, who was dragging his fingers over Sehun’s palm now, trying not to make a mess. It did string, slightly, but Sehun wouldn’t tell Luhan that. He’d felt much worse.
When Luhan had finished, he grabbed for a long strip of bandage, pulling it tightly around Sehun’s hand and making sure to fasten it securely. He inspected the final result, and after staring at it for a while, he pulled back and seemed to approve of his work.
“Not bad,” Sehun said, impressed. He certainly couldn’t have done any better. “I should appoint you as my assistant healer.”
Luhan smiled, pulling all the things back into his arms and walking off to put them away. “Are the wages high?" He called from his shelves. "You’d have to match what I earn as a dancer.”
“I’d triple it. Name the price, marigold.”
Luhan snorted when hearing his nickname. “There is none. I don’t get paid for dancing,” he turned around and bit his tongue playfully for Sehun to see. It lit a small spark in him that had butterflies frolicking around in his stomach.
“What do you get from it then?” Sehun leaned his weary head in his good hand. He had a pretty nice view of Luhan from where he was sitting. Quite a flattering angle. He could see every bend and curve, every bit of elegance.
“Safety in the village, shelter, food, pride...joy,” Luhan listed while tapping his lips with a finger. “You know...everything I need.”
“That’s not too bad. Afraid I can’t match it though...becoming my partner would essentially just mean you’d follow me around while I travel. Can’t promise any of the things you just said.”
“Shame. I’ll just have to keep dancing for you, then. Or dragging you out to endanger your life”
“And treating my battle wounds later. Like this life-threatening thing.” He held up his bandaged hand, looking at it gravely. Luhan nodded in agreement.
There was a short silence as Luhan walked back over to sit across from him, perching down on his knees with his hands in his lap. Sehun noticed he was slightly fidgety, playing with some of the rings on his fingers and biting his lower lip in an underlying disquiet. The outside of the tent had grown dark long ago as the evening crept in, and Luhan looked beautiful in that lighting. Well, he looked beautiful in every lighting, but the gentle glow of the lanterns set a calm and warm feeling around them, making everything seem so much more dreamy than usual. Sehun had this crazy urge he really wanted to act on, but he didn’t know if he should. He probably shouldn't, but it was there, loud and persistent, raking at his ears and mouth and eyes all at once, like a sweltering sandstorm.
He was about to lean over on his hand and relax more, but just as he tried to, Luhan’s quiet voice spoke up between them.
“I was so lonely here...before you came...” Luhan's lips were barely moving, and Sehun wondered how he managed to utter a sound at all. He was looking down at the floor, or maybe down into his hands, but definitely not locking eyes with Sehun himself.
“What do you mean?” He asked with a short laugh. “Aren’t you everyone’s favourite? The way they speak of you and look at you I would have thought you were the lover of everyone here, men and women alike.”
Luhan chuckled, glancing towards Sehun. “It would seem so, wouldn’t it?” He nodded his head slightly, taking a deep breath. “Truth is, everybody likes me, but nobody really likes me, you know?” He said sadly, his mouth stretched into a taught smile, but his eyes shining with suppressed emotion. “I’m loved by everybody in general, and that’s great and all, but it’s mostly superficial. I put on enticing shows and look pretty, and people appreciate it, but none of them know the real me, or even try to get to know the real me. Chen is the only one who wanted to meet the person under the clan mascot. He’s there for me when I’m weak, not only when I’m shining at my brightest. It’s a little meaningless to be liked by everyone if those people are nowhere to be found when you really need a helping hand. They’ll just leave you in the dust and look away while you pick up the pieces, trying to grasp each shard without hurting your hand.”
Sehun frowned, feeling his stomach churn painfully, unsettling every nerve in his body. “Has...has something happened that I don’t know about?”
Luhan shrugged, his eyes glued to his feet that dipped in and out of the blanket he was sitting on. “The caravanners,” Luhan said with a deep sigh. He paused for a second, biting his lip. Sehun could see the tension on his forehead, and watched as it spread out over the rest of his face. “They came one day to raid the village...in the dead of night. It was dark, and the moon was hidden behind storm clouds--”
“Luhan! There you are!” Both of them looked up in alert at the call of a new voice, and Sehun saw a head peeking into the tent entrance, none other than Chen, Luhan's best friend, who looked distressed and antsy. "The Chief says that one of our horses are missing; do you know anything about this? It's the fast one that Suho likes to ride..."
"It'll come back," Luhan just said, shrugging his lean shoulders where he sat, ever so slightly deflated.
Chen eyed him with a narrowed look, his forehead creased. He reminded Sehun of Yixing in every way; tone of voice, expression, and posture. "What did you do?"
"Nothing..." Sehun watched Luhan feign innocence, staying still and keeping himself calm so as not to reveal anything. He didn't know if it worked or not, but Chen sighed, then pulled back out of the tent, leaving the cloth flapping behind him. It was really getting dark out. Sehun couldn't believe they'd been gone for so long; the travel on horse had felt so short with Luhan by his side (well, in front of him, while Sehun tried to match his pace, but still).
When Chen was out, Luhan grinned and shook his head to himself, his tousled, blond hair falling out of the headdress.
"Keeping secrets from your best friend, huh?" Sehun asked, pulling one eyebrow up at him. He didn't know what compelled Luhan to refrain from telling Chen about his exciting little escapades, and in turn show them to Sehun, a mere stranger, but he was sure he had his reasons. It would be a little weird if he understood Luhan one hundred percent already, after all.
Luhan kept smiling to himself, like he’d normally be caught doing, picking at the material of his skirt. His long, black lashes were brushing idly against the pale skin of his upper cheeks, and his lips looked so pink and plump.
"Can I give you another secret to keep?" Sehun asked, deciding right then and there that he didn't want to waste any more time. Time was precious. Luhan, too, was rather precious. "Well, it doesn't have to be a secret, but I'm sure your village would prefer if it were."
Luhan looked like he was going to ask what it was, but instead he just waited for Sehun to tell him, his face expectant and his wandering fingers stilling. If Sehun had been planning on telling him anything, he would have told him then. But he didn't plan on telling him anything. Instead, Sehun held his gaze unwaveringly, taking a deep breath to himself and gathering his courage bit by bit, like he was winding a ball of yarn. He leaned forward slowly, so that Luhan could easily back away, until he was merely a few mere inches away from Luhan's face. The smaller's eyes were on him now, wide and questioning, as Sehun felt Luhan's breath on his very lips, warming and almost burning every stretch of his flesh.
He reached out and pulled the thin cloth off of Luhan's head, and was relieved when the other boy didn't protest, but rather sat just as still as before, his eyes searching for Sehun's but Sehun's own being busy focused on his slightly open mouth.
Sehun snaked a secure hand over the back of Luhan's neck for control, finally switching his eyes up to meet Luhan's searching ones, and that was when he decided to lean forwards, sucking in air as he planted lips fast against Luhan's own, pressing in hard because he was sparked by need.
Luhan sat there silently with his eyes wide open, like a frozen statue, but Sehun closed his eyes and pressed in further, confident he could make Luhan relax. A few heartbeats later, and a few vague peeks from Sehun, he saw Luhan slacken and lean into him, letting his eyes flutter shut. Sehun just stayed there with the innocent kiss, enjoying the feeling of Luhan's soft lips against his own. They hadn't been lying to him, that was for sure. They were tender and warm everything else he'd imagined, resting still against him. He could smell Luhan now that he was so close. He had a slightly earthy smell, though that was probably just from their trip through the wild terrain today, and he also smelled some kind of sweet, like honeycomb or nectar, even though neither of the two things seemed to exist in their land. He felt like this fictive thing that Sehun had the pleasure of indulging in seconds before he disappeared.
Sehun realized how long he'd been kissing him for and quickly pulled back, a small smack dragging through the silence. He watched Luhan's eyes open slowly, looking almost dazed and confused, and he let go of the boy's thin neck, sitting back in his seat on the floor while garnering his self-control. Sehun hadn't noticed he'd leaned on his scraped up hand while he'd been in the middle of the kiss, but he noticed now as the faint stinging resonated over his flesh and made him flex his fingers.
"What was..." Luhan started, trailing off as his eyes unfocused. He looked so dainty, all lost for words. "What was that for?"
Sehun didn't really know. It had felt right, so he'd done it, but he couldn’t think of an intelligent way to phrase that. "Just felt like something I ought to do," he explained, feeling slightly embarrassed now that his actions had really caught up to him. Was it wrong of him to kiss Luhan? Should he have refrained? Had he broken some sort of treaty between their lands or something? He shouldn’t have. There wasn’t any as far as Sehun was aware. Maybe he was just overthinking.
Luhan blinked, bringing a hand up to touch his lips. "Oh...I see..."
"I really like you," Sehun continued, unable to stop himself now that the invisible dam had sort of been broken, letting all kinds of feelings flow through. "I like you a lot."
Luhan appeared to have come back to his senses a little more, and smiled politely at him from where he sat, still touching his lips with his hand. Sehun liked to consider that an affirmative, that he'd liked it himself, more or less. He really didn't need Luhan to say anything else to understand him.
Just as he was about to dive in for a second helping of those wonderful lips, the dancer's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth equally so, making Sehun pull back.
"What is it?"
"My sickle," Luhan just said. "I forgot it on the ground by the horses. It will ruin if I don't clean it, with all that blood...it will rust."
He sprang up from the ground after that, faster than Sehun had ever imagined he could, and he only watched as the boy made his way over to the tent entrance, pulling the flap aside with a quick swipe.
"Shall I come with you?" Sehun offered nimbly, getting up on his own feet and feeling weird as he stood on them, the weight feeling odd after sitting still for so long, like his limbs had fallen asleep.
"No, it's fine," Luhan assured him with a smile, waving his hand dismissively. "I'll be right back."
And with that, Luhan exited, leaving the tent flaps open and swaying in the wind for a second time. Sehun, however, wasn't too keen on letting him go out alone when it was so dark, the evening having dragged into night as the purple and red from the sky melded into umber shades of black and blue. It wasn't good for anyone to be out alone so late.
He realized, as he got outside, that his sense of direction was horrible, and his memory was faring no better. He couldn't remember where they'd come from after they'd left their horses. Luhan had lead him away so stealthily and quickly that it was almost useless to try and rediscover the path, but just when he was about to give up and return inside the tent, he swore he saw a piece of red in the distance, which reminded of Luhan's fiery attire.
He stepped in that direction, picking his feet up and trying not to lose the glint of red, which was hurrying ahead of him. It had to be Luhan; only Luhan was that fast and sharp at corners, something Sehun had learned the very second he'd 'stolen' his pouch of money on his first day there.
They continued for a little while, and Sehun questioned whether Luhan really was heading back to the horses at all, because the walk felt so long a dreary, but then he saw them in the distance, the little stable or horses that they'd spend so much time with earlier that day. Luhan was heading up to them, slowed down now, but a voice from the left stopped him, as well as Sehun, in his tracks. It was loud and angry, cutting through the cooling air. Sehun spotted a few sacks of rice to his side, and dove behind them, not wanting to be seen.
"Were you with him?"
"With who?" Came Luhan’s reply, after the pause of a few seconds.
"The stranger."
They were speaking his language, Sehun noticed, and that was weird. Was his language more common here than he’d thought? Sehun had initially assumed it was only an issue of politeness that compelled them to speak to him in his own tongue, but maybe it was a second language. His kingdom had a lot of influence after all.
"What does it matter to you?" Luhan challenged, and Sehun felt a knot tighten in his stomach, because that probably wasn't the right thing to say. There was a man to Luhan's left. He could barely make him out in the darkness, but the moonlight caught his daunting profile.
And Sehun was right, because he heard a suppressed whimper, like Luhan didn't want to give the man the satisfaction of seeming weak, and saw Luhan being yanked up by the collar, the man speaking straight into his face now.
"You were supposed to dance today, Xiao Lu. You were supposed to dance for me and the rest of our clan's warriors, like you always do at this time of the week. We fight for our people; show some goddamn respect!"
"You never fight, you liar!" Luhan spat in the man's face, trying to twist and shove himself out of the brute's hold. "We're a peaceful village; nobody ever comes to take you on! So what if I don't dance for you one lousy week?"
A ringing slap could be heard throughout the air, and Luhan's head was thrown backwards by the force of the man's hand, his own coming up to clutch at his abused cheek. Sehun could see his face from where he was standing, shocked and wide-eyed. Sehun was frozen to the ground, completely unable to move, even if he wanted to so badly.
"Don't you dare talk back to me, you little tramp." The man shook Luhan as he spoke, only inches away from his face. "You might be the Chief's favourite, but you should never forget your rank. Without a mother and father in our ancestry tree, you're worth nothing here. You're a cast-away baby from a pair of leeching nomads, and don't you ever forget it."
With those last words, the man threw Luhan to the ground with little care and started walking away as if nothing had happened. Luhan lay there completely still for a little while, during which Sehun was completely paralyzed to his spot behind the bags of rice, until Luhan's chest started hitching and sobbing could be heard coming from his direction.
This made Sehun spring to life, with a spritz of panic saturating him. He bolted from his hiding place, making for the lifeless-looking body on the ground that was laying at an odd angle.
"Luhan!" He shouted. He got down on his knees next to him as soon as he made it there, looking over him quickly to make sure he was okay. He seemed alright, but he had a blaring red mark on his cheek where he'd been hit, and he looked so distraught, his eyes were so terrifyingly wide, like he had no idea what was going on. "What was that all about?" Sehun hissed in a whisper, looking down into Luhan's tear-soaked face. It was a horribly painful sight.
Luhan just shook his head, covering his face with his hands as he wept, growing louder and louder by the second. Sehun didn't want anyone to wake from the commotion so that they'd notice Luhan like this, so he shushed the boy gently and looked around himself in a quick turn, hooking his arms under Luhan's legs and back and lifting him up to his chest, then forcing his knees to straighten all the way up to a standing position. He felt the weight, but his arm muscles refused to even let him sink slightly, and he held him tight without another thought.
The painful sound of Luhan crying accompanied Sehun the whole way back to the dancer's tent. It was the only place he could think to take him; the only place that would perhaps make Luhan feel safe. He ignored his surroundings more this time around, only focused on reaching the end of the path where the green tent could be seen.
Luhan wasn't that heavy, but Sehun's arms were tired by now, and by the time he reached his hut, he was sore and his biceps were screaming bloody murder at him. He hadn't trained in so long, like he used to back at the palace. He'd gotten lazy and caught up in frolicking around with Luhan, even though he couldn't think of a better way to spend his days.
As soon as he got in, he spotted what must have been Luhan's bed in the corner, and walked over to lay him down. He was supposed to just lay him down and then walk away, try to find his own tent, maybe, or to alert someone lf what had happened, but he was so tired when he bent over that he felt himself sinking down alongside the boy, and ended up lying next to him on the bed, panting heavily from running with him in his arms at full speed.
He pulled Luhan closer to him at a last attempt to make everything better, keeping a hand on his back and one by his head, trying to make sure he was lying comfortably and wasn't in any sort of pain. The tension in Luhan’s face dissipated slightly as time wore by, and after a few minutes of lying there, every trace of worry was vanished.
Sehun closed his eyes for a second, swallowing a few deep breaths down to calm himself. When he listened for Luhan's faint crying and didn't hear any, he noticed that Luhan had fallen asleep in his arms, still like a ragdoll.
He breathed a sigh of relief, one that sent a tremor throughout his whole body. He didn't know what had just happened, but at least Luhan was safe, and the thought of keeping him safe in his own arms was very calming, for some reason. Not that Sehun was the best caretaker, but it felt nice to try. It also felt like his duty. Soon, Sehun felt himself drift off too, his lids the weight if a thousand tonnes, next to Luhan's gentle puffs of air and warm skin.
*
The morning came to him with a bang, and not just metaphorically, as something heavy and bulky was thrown onto his stomach, making him groan and jolt awake with a painful start. He realized Luhan wasn’t lying beside him like he had last night, and looked up to find his energetic face above him instead, grinning down like the Cheshire cat.
“Open your present, Mister.” Luhan pointed to the bag resting on Sehun’s lower abdomen, looking almost excruciatingly excited.
Sehun, he corrected Luhan in his head automatically, but was too disoriented to say it out loud. His mind was still groggy and his vision was a mess, and his mouth felt like he hadn't had anything to drink for a thousand years, more dry than the desert which surrounded them.
It was upon further inspection that Sehun noticed Luhan was wearing several golden chains and necklaces with precious gems and sparkling stones in them, and he had more of it pouring out of the brown bag he was holding in a tight fist. That was one of the bags they’d snatched from the bandits yesterday, and so was the one rested on Sehun’s stomach at that very moment, weighing down on him and making him need to relieve his bladder urgently.
He shifted, stretching his limbs as he sat up, and opened the bag. Inside, there were several hard, flat objects. They looked like books, mostly. A few papers, which had illegible writing on them and looked rather crumbled, as well as an old compass or two. Sehun frowned, and Luhan let out a roaring laugh.
“Looks like it’s not your lucky day.” He held out his own bag in Sehun’s face, shaking it a little. It clinked with sharp, metal sounds. “I’ll share mine with you, though. My neck is full and so are my hands.” He demonstrated his jewellery-covered wrists, turning them around so that the gold and silver clinked.
Luhan was acting as if he hadn't been hit yesterday; hadn't cried or showed any form of weakness. Confusion gripped at Sehun's body. He found himself only half-heartedly reaching for the sack Luhan was presenting him with, wondering if he'd errands everything. Should he let it slide? Should he ask him about it? He didn't know what would be better, but watching Luhan prance around with ‘happy’ painting his face made his insides melt, and he didn't want to see the frown back, so he played along, catching a crown that Luhan suddenly threw at him.
"I have no idea where they stole that, but you can be our king now," Luhan laughed, sitting down across from Sehun on the bed, where he meddled with a few of his own gems. He seemed to be in such a good mood, like the spirit of someone else had taken him on, using his body as a vessel. "A crown fit for a king! Try it on; let's see how majestic you look."
Sehun's complied with a wry smile, pulling the golden thing onto his head. It was a lot heavier than it looked, and way more uncomfortable. It was like sticking a brick on your head and trying to pretend it made you feel important. This must be how Kai felt every day.
"Hmm, I don't think you'd make a good king," Luhan mused, pursing his lips as he eyed the shiny object.
"How about a prince?" Sehun asked with a sly grin, cocking the crown to the side a little. "This could easily be a prince's crown. Princes have crowns too, you know."
"No, you don't look like a prince either." Luhan shook his head stubbornly, chewing on his lower lip. "I like you better without that thing on.”
Sehun took the crown off and plopped it on Luhan's head instead, before the other could move away, the heavy thing sinking far down on his little head, stopping only above his ears.
"You'd make a good prince," Sehun noted, snorting at how big it looked on him. "But then again, you suit all jewellery. I bet the person who invented jewellery made it with you in mind."
Luhan blushed, pulling the crown off his head quickly. “You say so many weird things.”
“I know.”
After a few more minutes of fooling around and pretending to be lavish sultans from a far off land, Luhan asked Sehun to carry a couple of the bags out for him, saying they had places they needed to be rather than in their hands.
“They’re not for us,” Luhan said solemnly, passing by a cluster of tents down a slope from his own.
It was a beautifully sunny day that day, the blaring thing right in the middle of the sky as they trotted over the hot ground. Sehun still didn’t understand why Luhan didn’t wear shoes, and wondered if he didn’t feel any pain on the soles of his feet, because the ground did get quite hot, and they walked over rocks and rubble a lot. But maybe this, like so many other things about Luhan, might be better off left as a mystery. Sehun had confidence that he’d be able to discover every fact about him with time anyways; that he didn’t need to prompt Luhan or ask him incessant questions to get the information he sought. Sehun preferred taking things slow...excluding the kiss they’d shared last night, of course. He was looking forward to all the uncovering and learning more than anything else; it was the major reason as to why he was still there in that particular village, when in reality he had only planned one night’s stay before he headed off to somewhere bigger and better.
They slid down a little hill, Sehun having some difficulties with it and almost getting his pants caught in a root or two, but once down they approached a small group of kids that were playing with some form of paint, their hands yellow and green and red, much alike all of their immediate surroundings.
“Tao!” Luhan called, holding his bags out, and one of the children turned around, starting to run up to them while wiping his colourful hands off on the backside of his pants. His parents were going to love that.
He was eyeing the brown bags they were holding the whole time with a rather curious stare, like he was itching to touch them. Luhan took Sehun’s bags too and held them all out to the boy, Tao accepting them into his arms with slight difficulty.
“Give them to your mama and her sister, okay? Say you found it by the water’s edge like last time.”
Tao nodded dutifully, turning around to head back, but before he made the full turn, he faced back to Sehun and stuck his tongue out at him, then broke into a run to get away.
Sehun ground his teeth together, feeling inexplicably irate. “That little...”
“He’s only joking,” Luhan assured him with a mollifying grip to his shoulder thanks to those long, slender fingers of his, expressive eyes glinting at him, and Sehun had to let it go. He was pretty sure he wanted to pulverize the little rascal regardless, because he was annoying and ungrateful and just really beyond Sehun’s level of patience, but he let Luhan pull him away from the little pit where the children were playing, glaring after all of them as his only means of rebuttal all the while.
*
The days passed quickly after that. Time tended to behave in such a way when he was with Luhan; it was like the fundamental rule of his existence. The dancer took him horseback riding further east the next day, galloping through wind and sand and stopping to admire the view from the top of a mesa, where they could see unknown land for miles that Sehun had yet to explore or even consider was in existence. Luhan took him to the marketplace another day, giving him a bit of the local currency and letting him buy whatever he wanted. Sehun settled for food, mostly (oh heaven up above, did these people make delicious food), but he also got himself some lighter clothes, such as a thin, cotton tunic and a pair of stiff, black breeches, which Luhan claimed were the most high-class piece of clothing they had. Sehun was getting pretty temperate in his sheep skins after all. He learned that Luhan's favourite colour was bright red, that he liked oats the most (even though Sehun found them to be a very bland food, and had expected Luhan to pick something more spicy), and that he'd been dancing ever since he could remember; his main source of happiness. He'd even gotten to know Chen, Luhan's best friend, and boy was he a force to be reckoned with. His mouth ran a mile a minute, almost like Luhan's, and he was constantly cracking jokes, his voice loud and boisterous in the calm air. He couldn't even sit still for a second.
And the days continued like that, filled with Luhan, sun, sand, and fun; more fun than he'd had in his entire life. Already after the first day, Sehun had known he hadn't made a mistake in coming there. It must have been fate, or some derivative of it, because everything felt so right and pieced together, like he'd walked into his future in one lucky go, having it stare him right in his face. And it was great. There hadn't even been an incident that had endangered anyone's lives that Sehun had been called on to fix, such as last time, which he was eternally grateful for. If anything, that was the only flaw in his perfect paradise; the fact that he was one big, walking lie. But aside from that, the only real drawback so far, he felt, was that he and Luhan hadn't spoken about their kiss since it had happened, so it was like it had never really happened at all. Sehun was actually starting to question of it had, if it wasn't just one of his dreams kind of bleeding over into reality a little too much, but he stubbornly claimed that he remembered the feel and taste of Luhan's lips far too well for it to all have been a figment of his imagination. You don't just dream things like that.
At some part of the month it came to the point where Luhan was going to dance again, and that meant a big party. The village held a lot of parties, for many occasions, sometimes even with no occasions, and Sehun always enjoyed them because it meant Luhan would transform into a twirling star and show the whole world what he was good at.
They were watching him dance by the fire that eve, heat radiating from the performance and loud roars erupting from the crowd as per usual. Sehun was eating from an assortment of dishes that had been placed on his seating mat, a colourful range of curry stew, peppers, rice, and pork, but of course, it was almost impossible to concentrate on the food when he had such a divine thing shaking his hips right before his eyes. He ended up getting very messy, his food missing his mouth a lot of times and also slipping from his fingers and to the floor, which he tried to hide by burying it in the sand.
He managed to clean up with a spare cloth in the end, just in time for Luhan's performance to finish. This made him happy, because he was very much looking forward to spending alone time with the boy under the firelight, talking to him or walking somewhere with him, whatever Luhan decided to do. He knew he would enjoy it.
He was about to run off to try to locate the dancer, when he was met with something rather large blocking his way out of the spectator circle, a rather rectangular frame to say the least. He looked up, and towering above him stood none other than the man whose profile he'd seen the night Luhan had been hurt; beaten, more like, after the marks he'd left. It was definitely him. The man who had slapped Luhan and thrown him to the ground like he was a hunter tenderizing or disposing of a slab of meat. Sehun clenched his teeth automatically, casting the man an ugly glare. The man in question, however, didn't seem to flinch, and just started talking to him like they were new business associates, ready to hit things off with a formal start.
"Hello. I don't think we've met before." The man held a long arm out, offering his rather abnormally large hand to Sehun. "Wufan," he said, short and to the point, with no extra effort to sound excited added in the mix. It was hard to stay positive and restrained around this man.
Sehun hesitated for a long second before he took it, clasping it firmly in his own grip, as if challenging him. He felt a terribly threatening aura from this fellow, and that was saying a lot, since Sehun wasn't superstitious or spiritual in the slightest. But he really did feel something sinister there, though it could just be his own imagination. He thought back to the time when this man had slapped Luhan and yelled at him, and decided that no, this Wufan character definitely was some form of sinister, if not immediate evil then a distant cousin of it.
"Sehun," he said after a while, or mumbled, rather, because he really didn't want to keep talking to this man if he could help it. He felt like their confrontation would end in him doing something stupid, and he didn't particularly want to sit around and wait for that to happen.
"Enjoying your stay?" Wufan asked, continuing with his staccato sentences, and still holding Sehun's hand in his firm grip. It seemed like he was presenting polished manners but Sehun knew better. He frowned, though he still nodded to signify that he was. "Good. Found some fun things to do to occupy your time?"
Just then Sehun noticed a flash of red in the crowd, a whimsical flicker of it, and automatically he turned his head around to see Luhan standing next to some woman, talking to her with a sweet smile and an engaged expression. He always wore red a lot more than the other colours; he had an incredible bias towards his favourite colour, that was no secret. Sehun had gradually grown accustomed to turning his head whenever he spotted any shade of it, because the chance that it was Luhan was very high. Wufan, who was standing next to Sehun, followed his gaze, his lips curving up into a prominent smirk.
“He’s pretty bendy, if you know what I mean," Wufan whispered to him, sending Sehun an obnoxious wink to accompany it, and then nodding in Luhan's direction.
“No. No, I don’t," Sehun pressed out flatly, feeling his chest tighten and his stomach churn uncomfortably. He knew Luhan was flexible, anyone could see that when he danced, but Wufan definitely wasn't talking about his dancing.
He was about to raise his voice and ask Wufan what his deal was, when he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find himself face to face with Chen, who was grinning from ear to ear like he was a farmer who had been predicted a year's worth of fertile land.
"Sehun, my man," he greeted, hitting Sehun hard on the shoulder with irreconcilable strength. Sehun smiled at him with effort, still more or less held tight by the other man he was talking to.
Wufan, however, finally let go of his hand, which was feeling rather numb and had also turned very pale for his complexion, and then just started walking away, heading out of the sea of people surrounding them.
Chen snorted when he was gone, gazing after him. "What were you talking to Wufan for?"
Sehun shrugged, fumbling with his fingers. He suddenly felt relieved that Chen was there, because there was something he really wanted to ask him. Though he didn't know if asking would be very comfortable for either of them, or if he even had the right to. He decided to take the plunge regardless, because his restlessness was killing him, and he almost felt his pork from earlier make an appearance reversed from his stomach.
"Mind if we go somewhere more private?" Sehun asked, already looking for a direction that might lead them to a quiet area where they could talk safely.
"Hey now, I don't get cosy with people until the second date," lectured Chen, waving his index in front of Sehun's unmoving face.
Sehun rolled his eyes at him, grabbing Chen's arm and pulling him away from the packed circle of people. "This is serious," he said while he was still walking, trying to get out of there as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure how serious what he wanted to get off his chest really was, but in his mind it was pretty blaring and prominent right at that moment, so the bustling and noise of the people around him didn’t do him any good.
"Oh,” he just heard Chen say, and he could hear him trudge after the pull of his hand. Sehun wasn’t a very commanding person by nature, but he was sure Chen would forgive him.
There was a rather vacant area behind two navy tents a little away from the central gathering place, all that was there to overhear them being two large cattle. Sehun slowed to a halt and let go of Chen’s arm, finally, running a hand through his hair and eyeing the secluded area. He felt anxious and bothered, and a part of him was really distraught. He realized slowly that he didn’t know Luhan as well as he had hoped, and that there were still many loopholes and gaps of information that he hadn’t filled in yet.
"What's Luhan's relationship with Wufan?" He asked, massaging his tense jaw with his hand and avoiding the other male’s eyes by instinct. He was already feeling uncomfortable, and he hadn’t even asked for the information he really sought yet.
"Why do you ask?"
Sehun sighed, sparing a glance in Chen’s direction that was rather pained. "Just answer me."
"Um...none?” Chen tried, scratching his head, clearly noticing Sehun was serious now. “At least not that I know of. Luhan doesn't really like him, I don't think."
"Has he slept with him?" Sehun asked before he could stop himself, feeling the words burn bitter at the tip of his tongue.
Chen frowned. "Whoa there, what's with the weird questions?"
Sehun sighed again, feeling he needed to sit down, and found purchase on a small stool that stood by the cattle fodder. The area stank of manure, but he didn't care. Chen walked a little closer to him, looking down with worry in his eyes.
"Wufan found it in him to suggestively tell me Luhan was bendy. And he wasn't talking about his air splits."
"Oh, gotcha." Chen laughed to himself a little, a rather reassuring sound, folding his arms loosely. He looked up at Sehun again with a calm smile. "Don't worry. Kris is all talk and no action; he hasn't come within five feet of our Luhan, I can assure you of that."
"Are you sure?" Sehun pushed, almost like he didn't believe him. He really ought to believe him; this was Luhan’s best friend they were talking about, and he was a rather nice guy, but Sehun still had the red light blinking in his head like it was trying to tell him something was off.
"Look, Luhan is no harlot. He may have the hips of a sinful siren, but he sure doesn't give his body away. So I suppose you could say that Luhan too is all talk and no action, in a sense. As far as I know he's as pure as the snow of the northern mountain ranges. From what he's told me, and least. Luhan doesn't lie to me, and I don't lie to him either. It's like the unspoken best friend rule. Why am I telling you all of this anyways?" Chen said abruptly, looking up at him. Sehun shrugged, not sure himself. "Ah, right." He raised a finger in the air. "It's because I think you like him." Chen wiggled his eyebrows then, and Sehun felt his heart speed up and his cheeks redden more than a tad. "You have as good a chance as anyone; perhaps a little more. I say go for it."
"I don't like him," Sehun mumbled.
"You're a terrible liar, Healer. Almost as terrible as you are a dancer."
"Hey!"
"Don't worry though...I think Luhan really sees something in you. He hasn't been hanging out with a person this much since, well...me."
Sehun stopped thinking then, his eyes widening. He hadn’t thought about that. "I'm sorry,” he tried, realizing the rather self-absorbed nature of his actions over the past few weeks. “I didn't mean to impose--"
"Nonsense,” Chen waved him off, his smile creases showing. He too, like Luhan, was always happy. There must be something in the water there. “Luhan and my friendship goes way back, so you keeping him entertained for a little while doesn't irk me in the slightest."
Sehun managed to send him a grateful smile from his seat, but his mind was already racing with thoughts of Luhan, like it tended to do. Of how he missed him already, how much he wanted to know every single detail of his life and not miss a single moment of it, how much he wanted him oh so badly to be his and nobody else’s--
“Just so you know...if brains were dynamite, Wufan wouldn’t even be able to blow his own nose,” Chen commented, and Sehun felt himself bark out a short laugh as his head fell back. “He really isn’t a threat, if that’s what you think.”
“I don’t really know what I think...” Sehun said honestly. Was he feeling threatened by Wufan? Or was he just scared of his general presence, by how violent and domineering his persona was? Either way, he wasn’t too fond of him.
“It’s alright. Just ignore him and you’ll be fine. I’ve ignored him for the past decade or so.” Sehun felt something lift off his chest and he had an odd sense of relief course through him. So maybe he was just a little paranoid, but it was nice to confirm it with a credible source regardless. “I’m sure Luhan is looking for you right about now,” Chen interrupted his thoughts with, and Sehun found himself nodding. “Why don’t you go find him?”
*
Finding Luhan wasn’t all that hard, especially not when he just made it his mission to spot any hint of red within a ten mile radius, because he saw him as soon as he got back to the populated area, standing and looking out over the outskirts of the village, into the open terrain where there was endless nothingness and darkening skies. He seemed deep in thought, and Sehun didn’t really want to interrupt him, so he just walked up silently and stood by his side, trying to figure out what exactly it was Luhan was staring at.
“Where were you? I was looking for you, you know,” Luhan spoke up, and Sehun was forced to look into those brilliant eyes of his while still trying to digest his lulling voice, which never failed to capture his unwavering attention.
“Just with Chen...uh...talking,” He kicked himself mentally for lacking skills when it came to impromptu speech, but hoped it didn’t come out too patchy. “He was asking me some stuff about my kingdom...and yeah.”
“I see,” Luhan said, taking a quick pause before swiftly asking. “Do you want to go somewhere?”
“Where?” Sehun tried to find out, but should have expected the vague answer he got.
“I’ll take you.”
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