{split ii} rough draft
[!!!] make sure to read the post before this one! sorry for the confusion~
rough draft
in which sehun is a liar and lu han is naive enough to believe him.
“So, tell me about yourself.”
Sehun looked up from the rim of brown left by the coffee in his mug, where the drink had originally started before he drank some of it. “Me?”
Lu Han smiled. “Yeah... is there anyone else?”
“Oh,” Sehun said, laughing nervously. “Sorry, I’m kind of... out of it. I didn’t sleep very much last night.”
“Why’s that?” Lu Han asked.
“I was up studying,” Sehun explained in a clipped manner, and Lu Han nodded as if he understood completely.
Then again, Sehun thought, he probably did.
“But, yeah... about me... well, my name is Oh Sehun. I’m nineteen... and I’m in college,” he started, trying to wrack his brain for more interesting tidbits about himself. “I’ve had about ten dogs in my entire life. That’s mostly because my family owned several dogs at a time, getting more to replace the ones that died or ran away. My whole family really loves dogs, but I’m the only one who actually puts it into practice.”
“Do you want to be a veterinarian or something?” Lu Han asked, and Sehun clenched his jaw. He couldn’t count on his two hands and feet how many times he’d gotten that question after mentioning his love for dogs.
The answer was no, but he was going to just run with it this time.
“Yes!” Sehun replied with feigned enthusiasm. Lu Han raised his eyebrows, mimicking Sehun’s excitement, until Sehun frowned and so did he. “Unfortunately, it’s the reason why I don’t really speak to my father anymore.”
“Why?” Lu Han asked.
Sehun shrugged. “It’s not what he wanted me to do. He wants me to be a doctor, so when I told him I wanted to be an animal doctor, I thought that would be enough to make him proud. Instead, he said that my aspiration was useless, and therefore I was useless.” He paused to see Lu Han’s reaction - his mouth parted in a shocked expression, the space between his eyebrows crinkled slightly - then nodded and continued. “He apologized later, but I didn’t accept it. What he said hurt, and it still hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han said, his voice soft and genuinely apologetic. “Wow, I don’t know what I’d do if my dad said that to me. We’re really close, even though we’ve had our disagreements.”
As he tried to fight off the guilt of the elaborate lie he’d just spun, he raised an eyebrow at Lu Han’s words. On the inside, he was dumbfounded because, from what he read, it sounded like there was a lot of mutual resentment between Lu Han and his father. “Like what?” Sehun asked, although he already knew.
“Well, I had my mind set on leaving home - China, if you hadn’t guessed - since my final year of high school,” Lu Han explained. “I lived in a really small town outside of Beijing, and my parents were so strict with me that I hadn’t ventured into Beijing on my own, for leisure, until I was about sixteen. It was a wonder they even let me go to college, much less in the city... but because it was one of the best colleges in the country, they didn’t want to pass it up, I guess. So knowing that, imagine my dad’s reaction when I tell him I want to leave China altogether. I figure that he thought the best way to get me to stay was to set this unrealistic goal - graduate college with the highest-possible grade-point average - but I battled for four years to reach it. And now, here I am.”
“And you’re still close with your father after all of that?” Sehun asked.
Lu Han nodded. “He was proud, actually, after all of those years. I think he got accustomed to the idea, but, of course, he still wanted me to stay... but he also wanted me to succeed, so there was that slippery slope, you know? But he was proud, because I worked hard for something that I really wanted and I achieved and I became the man he wanted me to be. He drove me to the airport a few months after graduation and cried and almost didn’t let me go through the security checkpoint, but he did after I promised to call the moment I got to Korea. And then I called every day after that.” He smiled warmly and Sehun felt his stomach tie itself into knots.
“That’s sweet,” Sehun said quietly, thinking of the second entry he read from Lu Han’s diary. “There’s another reason that my father and I don’t speak, too.”
Lu Han’s smile faded again, turned itself into an empathetic frown. “What’s that?”
“I...” Sehun laughed. “I can’t say it here. Never mind.”
“No one’s listening, except for me,” Lu Han said, gesturing around at the other patrons with their headphones connected to their MacBooks and nestled into their ears. “Go ahead.”
Sehun sighed and let his shoulders slump. It took so much to lie. “My dad doesn’t like me because I’m gay.”
Lu Han gasped and Sehun pursed his lips.
It wasn’t a lie, per se, but the fact that Sehun’s father - or anyone, for that matter - knew about it was.
Sehun could feel his ancestors glaring at him for painting his father in such an unscrupulous light.
“Wow. We have more in common than I thought,” Lu Han said with an ironic smile. “My dad doesn’t know but I’m sure if he did, he’d be really upset. I don’t even want to think of how my mother would react.” Lu Han let out an incredulous laugh. “I think my mom would die if she knew. She’s been planning my wedding since I was an infant.”
Sehun responded to Lu Han’s comments with a mumbling sort of laugh and took in a mouthful of his lukewarm coffee. They were both silent for quite some time, only the dulcet tones of the music playing faintly through the speakers of the cafe putting some sound between them.
“Did... did I make this awkward by confessing that?” Lu Han asked suddenly, and Sehun blinks in confusion. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything. This isn’t a date or anything, just because we both said that... you know.”
“No, I know that,” Sehun said quickly, smiling and nodding his head. “Obviously it’s not a date, we’re just two strangers talking over coffee.”
“Hopefully, we won’t be strangers for too long,” Lu Han said, and Sehun nearly swallowed his tongue. “I’ve... never met anyone quite like myself - not saying that no one like me exists, of course, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet anyone that erred away from what our parents thinks is right until today. So I think you’d be nice to keep around.”
Sehun sipped his coffee, trying to settle his increasingly-uneasy stomach. He’d initially asked Lu Han out, on a whim, because he’d been attracted to him since they met for that short period of time, not remembering until after the fact that he’d gone through his diary and what trouble that could be. He’d hoped that after their coffee outing, that would be the last time they’d see each other - but Lu Han had hinted at making an active effort to make sure that wasn’t the case.
Sehun was terrified, but enthralled all at the same time.
Sehun had problems with telling the truth. He’d been a liar for as long as he could remember, and he couldn’t help it. It didn’t make him feel good to lie, but he continued to do it because it kept him out of trouble - at least, until the other person found out that he was lying. Then he was trapped.
Sehun frequently did things that landed him in the position to lie - sometimes it was something immoral, sometimes it was something his parents would frown upon him doing, sometimes it was the wrong thing to do altogether. Once, his mother walked in on him kissing Kim Jongin, his lab partner for grade ten chemistry. Sehun lied and said that Jongin forced himself onto him, which got Jongin banished from their house and in trouble with school officials. Jongin was confused - after all, the kiss was truly consensual, and if anyone initiated it, it was Sehun - but Jongin also knew Sehun’s parents would have him sent to a correctional academy if he convinced them of that. That was the only time one of Sehun’s lies reached such heights and he vowed to never let it happen again.
But by ‘not letting it happen again’ he meant he’d never blame someone else of something so treacherous when he lied, not that he’d never lie again. He couldn’t not lie; he didn’t know how to function without it.
Lying was the way he got away with things he couldn’t. His parents were very traditional, so he knew from very early on that there were a lot of things he would want to do but couldn’t because of his parents.
Therefore, he had to manipulate. And the habit just... stuck. He promised to let the habit break but kept pushing that day back because he always had something he needed to lie about.
In this case, he was lying for two reasons: one, he was guilty for invading Lu Han’s privacy and needed a way to cope with that guilt, and two, he decided to use the information he knew to somehow, someway, manipulate Lu Han into liking him.
Sehun thought he was really basic in terms of looks, and, obviously, his personality wasn’t much to look at - and Lu Han was the complete opposite, with his betrayingly cute face paired with attractive features that made all of Sehun hurt when he looked at him, and his quiet, endearing personality. There was no way that Lu Han would like someone like him, unless Sehun gave him reason to.
His “reason” would have to be his slew of made-up daddy issues and the fact that he was into guys - and it seemed to be working, since Lu Han gave Sehun a call a few days after they met for coffee.
“Xiaobai, guo lai!” The little white dog glanced over her shoulder then scampered back to her owner, leaping into his outstretched arms.
“She understands Chinese?” Sehun asked, smiling as Xiaobai smothered Lu Han’s face with wet kisses.
“I think that’s the only phrase she knows, because I usually only speak Korean with her,” Lu Han said as they continued their stroll through the park. “I’m pretty sure she only remembers it because it rhymes. It’s like a little song to her, I guess.”
“Guo lai,” Sehun repeated to himself. “Did I pronounce it the right way?”
Lu Han scoffed. “You pronounced it perfectly. Do you know what it means?”
“I’m guessing since she ran to you after you said it, it means ‘come here,’” Sehun said, and Lu Han chuckled.
“Correct,” Lu Han said. “I’ll teach you Chinese if you teach me Korean.”
“Your Korean is very good, though,” Sehun countered. “I wouldn’t have anything to teach you.”
“Ah, I can always stand to learn more,” Lu Han said. He glanced over at Sehun and smiled. “Or maybe I’m just making excuses to be around you. I don’t know.”
Sehun gulped, his face burning bright red. “Why would you ever want to do that?” he asked, voice soft. He half-hoped Lu Han didn’t hear him.
“I just like having people around,” Lu Han answered, and even though Sehun refused to look at him he could see the smile in his voice. “Let’s sit for a while.”
Lu Han left Sehun’s side and sat down on a bench on the side of the walkway, putting Xiaobai at his feet and allowing her to roam. Sehun soon joined him, and the two sat in silence for a few moments.
“So, tell me,” Lu Han said, making himself comfortable on the bench with his legs crossed and arms slung behind the backrest. “Have you ever dated anyone?”
Sehun laughed, but he didn’t mean to. Lu Han laughed with him anyways. “No, not really,” he said. “It was kind of impossible, you know, living with my parents and all. But now that I’m in college, I still haven’t dated anyone. I guess I’m still scared of getting caught.”
“Hm,” Lu Han remarked with a nod. “It makes sense. You’re still young, anyway, so you don’t need to worry yourself about dating. But then, I guess I can’t talk because I was with someone when I was as old as you are.”
Sehun idly kicked his foot in the dirt of the walkway, starting up a cloud of dust. “Really?”
“Yeah... he, and the fact that we had to sneak around and hardly see each other, was part of the reason for me wanting to leave China,” Lu Han said. “It wasn’t a healthy relationship. Unlike me, he was also attracted to women... so in order to keep his parents thinking he wasn’t gay - and he wasn’t, since he liked girls, too. But you know, they wouldn’t acknowledge that - he would ‘date’ girls while he was with me. I knew about it, and I tried to understand, but it got kind of hard to when he was actively having sex with them and everything. I don’t think his parents needed proof like that. So...” He sighed and looked over at Sehun. “I need to stop unloading on you, I’m sorry.”
“No, I don’t mind it,” Sehun said. “I’m sorry that that had to happen to you.”
“Eh, it’s my own fault,” Lu Han said. “He was a few years older than me, more experienced... I wanted someone like him so I rolled over and let him do what he did because it meant keeping him around. I don’t know what I expected.” He smiled and Sehun felt his skin prickle with goosebumps. “Which is why I suggest you hold off until you’re older and more experienced yourself. Don’t end up like me.”
“Have you dated since you moved to Korea?” Sehun asked.
Lu Han started to shake his head, then nodded instead. “Not dating in the sense that it usually means, but... I’ve seen a few people. We realized, time and time again, that we’re better as friends. So we’re friends now,” Lu Han said. “But I’m always open. I like having a special person in my life.”
They were silent again for a while, save for the sound of Xiaobai yip-yipping at another dog who ran past her in pursuit of his bouncy ball. Sehun watched Lu Han stare over at Xiaobai and smile as the dog pounced after the larger one, only to fall on her four paws to no avail.
“Is there a reason why you asked if I’ve ever dated before?” Sehun asked.
Lu Han glanced at Sehun out of the corner of his eye then looked back to Xiaobai. “No. What reason would I have, other than to make small talk?”
Sehun shrugged. “That’s what I was wondering,” he murmured, half-smiling as Lu Han laughed at his response.
The two continued to meet for weeks after that, until they found themselves walking into something beyond friendship. Sehun was overcome with guilt each time they met, when Lu Han kissed him for the first time, when Lu Han took him to meet his friends and he introduced Sehun as his boyfriend.
He was guilty because he was in this predicament under mostly-false pretenses, but he wasn’t willing to back out of it until he had reason to.
{iii}
rough draft
in which sehun is a liar and lu han is naive enough to believe him.
“So, tell me about yourself.”
Sehun looked up from the rim of brown left by the coffee in his mug, where the drink had originally started before he drank some of it. “Me?”
Lu Han smiled. “Yeah... is there anyone else?”
“Oh,” Sehun said, laughing nervously. “Sorry, I’m kind of... out of it. I didn’t sleep very much last night.”
“Why’s that?” Lu Han asked.
“I was up studying,” Sehun explained in a clipped manner, and Lu Han nodded as if he understood completely.
Then again, Sehun thought, he probably did.
“But, yeah... about me... well, my name is Oh Sehun. I’m nineteen... and I’m in college,” he started, trying to wrack his brain for more interesting tidbits about himself. “I’ve had about ten dogs in my entire life. That’s mostly because my family owned several dogs at a time, getting more to replace the ones that died or ran away. My whole family really loves dogs, but I’m the only one who actually puts it into practice.”
“Do you want to be a veterinarian or something?” Lu Han asked, and Sehun clenched his jaw. He couldn’t count on his two hands and feet how many times he’d gotten that question after mentioning his love for dogs.
The answer was no, but he was going to just run with it this time.
“Yes!” Sehun replied with feigned enthusiasm. Lu Han raised his eyebrows, mimicking Sehun’s excitement, until Sehun frowned and so did he. “Unfortunately, it’s the reason why I don’t really speak to my father anymore.”
“Why?” Lu Han asked.
Sehun shrugged. “It’s not what he wanted me to do. He wants me to be a doctor, so when I told him I wanted to be an animal doctor, I thought that would be enough to make him proud. Instead, he said that my aspiration was useless, and therefore I was useless.” He paused to see Lu Han’s reaction - his mouth parted in a shocked expression, the space between his eyebrows crinkled slightly - then nodded and continued. “He apologized later, but I didn’t accept it. What he said hurt, and it still hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han said, his voice soft and genuinely apologetic. “Wow, I don’t know what I’d do if my dad said that to me. We’re really close, even though we’ve had our disagreements.”
As he tried to fight off the guilt of the elaborate lie he’d just spun, he raised an eyebrow at Lu Han’s words. On the inside, he was dumbfounded because, from what he read, it sounded like there was a lot of mutual resentment between Lu Han and his father. “Like what?” Sehun asked, although he already knew.
“Well, I had my mind set on leaving home - China, if you hadn’t guessed - since my final year of high school,” Lu Han explained. “I lived in a really small town outside of Beijing, and my parents were so strict with me that I hadn’t ventured into Beijing on my own, for leisure, until I was about sixteen. It was a wonder they even let me go to college, much less in the city... but because it was one of the best colleges in the country, they didn’t want to pass it up, I guess. So knowing that, imagine my dad’s reaction when I tell him I want to leave China altogether. I figure that he thought the best way to get me to stay was to set this unrealistic goal - graduate college with the highest-possible grade-point average - but I battled for four years to reach it. And now, here I am.”
“And you’re still close with your father after all of that?” Sehun asked.
Lu Han nodded. “He was proud, actually, after all of those years. I think he got accustomed to the idea, but, of course, he still wanted me to stay... but he also wanted me to succeed, so there was that slippery slope, you know? But he was proud, because I worked hard for something that I really wanted and I achieved and I became the man he wanted me to be. He drove me to the airport a few months after graduation and cried and almost didn’t let me go through the security checkpoint, but he did after I promised to call the moment I got to Korea. And then I called every day after that.” He smiled warmly and Sehun felt his stomach tie itself into knots.
“That’s sweet,” Sehun said quietly, thinking of the second entry he read from Lu Han’s diary. “There’s another reason that my father and I don’t speak, too.”
Lu Han’s smile faded again, turned itself into an empathetic frown. “What’s that?”
“I...” Sehun laughed. “I can’t say it here. Never mind.”
“No one’s listening, except for me,” Lu Han said, gesturing around at the other patrons with their headphones connected to their MacBooks and nestled into their ears. “Go ahead.”
Sehun sighed and let his shoulders slump. It took so much to lie. “My dad doesn’t like me because I’m gay.”
Lu Han gasped and Sehun pursed his lips.
It wasn’t a lie, per se, but the fact that Sehun’s father - or anyone, for that matter - knew about it was.
Sehun could feel his ancestors glaring at him for painting his father in such an unscrupulous light.
“Wow. We have more in common than I thought,” Lu Han said with an ironic smile. “My dad doesn’t know but I’m sure if he did, he’d be really upset. I don’t even want to think of how my mother would react.” Lu Han let out an incredulous laugh. “I think my mom would die if she knew. She’s been planning my wedding since I was an infant.”
Sehun responded to Lu Han’s comments with a mumbling sort of laugh and took in a mouthful of his lukewarm coffee. They were both silent for quite some time, only the dulcet tones of the music playing faintly through the speakers of the cafe putting some sound between them.
“Did... did I make this awkward by confessing that?” Lu Han asked suddenly, and Sehun blinks in confusion. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything. This isn’t a date or anything, just because we both said that... you know.”
“No, I know that,” Sehun said quickly, smiling and nodding his head. “Obviously it’s not a date, we’re just two strangers talking over coffee.”
“Hopefully, we won’t be strangers for too long,” Lu Han said, and Sehun nearly swallowed his tongue. “I’ve... never met anyone quite like myself - not saying that no one like me exists, of course, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet anyone that erred away from what our parents thinks is right until today. So I think you’d be nice to keep around.”
Sehun sipped his coffee, trying to settle his increasingly-uneasy stomach. He’d initially asked Lu Han out, on a whim, because he’d been attracted to him since they met for that short period of time, not remembering until after the fact that he’d gone through his diary and what trouble that could be. He’d hoped that after their coffee outing, that would be the last time they’d see each other - but Lu Han had hinted at making an active effort to make sure that wasn’t the case.
Sehun was terrified, but enthralled all at the same time.
Sehun had problems with telling the truth. He’d been a liar for as long as he could remember, and he couldn’t help it. It didn’t make him feel good to lie, but he continued to do it because it kept him out of trouble - at least, until the other person found out that he was lying. Then he was trapped.
Sehun frequently did things that landed him in the position to lie - sometimes it was something immoral, sometimes it was something his parents would frown upon him doing, sometimes it was the wrong thing to do altogether. Once, his mother walked in on him kissing Kim Jongin, his lab partner for grade ten chemistry. Sehun lied and said that Jongin forced himself onto him, which got Jongin banished from their house and in trouble with school officials. Jongin was confused - after all, the kiss was truly consensual, and if anyone initiated it, it was Sehun - but Jongin also knew Sehun’s parents would have him sent to a correctional academy if he convinced them of that. That was the only time one of Sehun’s lies reached such heights and he vowed to never let it happen again.
But by ‘not letting it happen again’ he meant he’d never blame someone else of something so treacherous when he lied, not that he’d never lie again. He couldn’t not lie; he didn’t know how to function without it.
Lying was the way he got away with things he couldn’t. His parents were very traditional, so he knew from very early on that there were a lot of things he would want to do but couldn’t because of his parents.
Therefore, he had to manipulate. And the habit just... stuck. He promised to let the habit break but kept pushing that day back because he always had something he needed to lie about.
In this case, he was lying for two reasons: one, he was guilty for invading Lu Han’s privacy and needed a way to cope with that guilt, and two, he decided to use the information he knew to somehow, someway, manipulate Lu Han into liking him.
Sehun thought he was really basic in terms of looks, and, obviously, his personality wasn’t much to look at - and Lu Han was the complete opposite, with his betrayingly cute face paired with attractive features that made all of Sehun hurt when he looked at him, and his quiet, endearing personality. There was no way that Lu Han would like someone like him, unless Sehun gave him reason to.
His “reason” would have to be his slew of made-up daddy issues and the fact that he was into guys - and it seemed to be working, since Lu Han gave Sehun a call a few days after they met for coffee.
“Xiaobai, guo lai!” The little white dog glanced over her shoulder then scampered back to her owner, leaping into his outstretched arms.
“She understands Chinese?” Sehun asked, smiling as Xiaobai smothered Lu Han’s face with wet kisses.
“I think that’s the only phrase she knows, because I usually only speak Korean with her,” Lu Han said as they continued their stroll through the park. “I’m pretty sure she only remembers it because it rhymes. It’s like a little song to her, I guess.”
“Guo lai,” Sehun repeated to himself. “Did I pronounce it the right way?”
Lu Han scoffed. “You pronounced it perfectly. Do you know what it means?”
“I’m guessing since she ran to you after you said it, it means ‘come here,’” Sehun said, and Lu Han chuckled.
“Correct,” Lu Han said. “I’ll teach you Chinese if you teach me Korean.”
“Your Korean is very good, though,” Sehun countered. “I wouldn’t have anything to teach you.”
“Ah, I can always stand to learn more,” Lu Han said. He glanced over at Sehun and smiled. “Or maybe I’m just making excuses to be around you. I don’t know.”
Sehun gulped, his face burning bright red. “Why would you ever want to do that?” he asked, voice soft. He half-hoped Lu Han didn’t hear him.
“I just like having people around,” Lu Han answered, and even though Sehun refused to look at him he could see the smile in his voice. “Let’s sit for a while.”
Lu Han left Sehun’s side and sat down on a bench on the side of the walkway, putting Xiaobai at his feet and allowing her to roam. Sehun soon joined him, and the two sat in silence for a few moments.
“So, tell me,” Lu Han said, making himself comfortable on the bench with his legs crossed and arms slung behind the backrest. “Have you ever dated anyone?”
Sehun laughed, but he didn’t mean to. Lu Han laughed with him anyways. “No, not really,” he said. “It was kind of impossible, you know, living with my parents and all. But now that I’m in college, I still haven’t dated anyone. I guess I’m still scared of getting caught.”
“Hm,” Lu Han remarked with a nod. “It makes sense. You’re still young, anyway, so you don’t need to worry yourself about dating. But then, I guess I can’t talk because I was with someone when I was as old as you are.”
Sehun idly kicked his foot in the dirt of the walkway, starting up a cloud of dust. “Really?”
“Yeah... he, and the fact that we had to sneak around and hardly see each other, was part of the reason for me wanting to leave China,” Lu Han said. “It wasn’t a healthy relationship. Unlike me, he was also attracted to women... so in order to keep his parents thinking he wasn’t gay - and he wasn’t, since he liked girls, too. But you know, they wouldn’t acknowledge that - he would ‘date’ girls while he was with me. I knew about it, and I tried to understand, but it got kind of hard to when he was actively having sex with them and everything. I don’t think his parents needed proof like that. So...” He sighed and looked over at Sehun. “I need to stop unloading on you, I’m sorry.”
“No, I don’t mind it,” Sehun said. “I’m sorry that that had to happen to you.”
“Eh, it’s my own fault,” Lu Han said. “He was a few years older than me, more experienced... I wanted someone like him so I rolled over and let him do what he did because it meant keeping him around. I don’t know what I expected.” He smiled and Sehun felt his skin prickle with goosebumps. “Which is why I suggest you hold off until you’re older and more experienced yourself. Don’t end up like me.”
“Have you dated since you moved to Korea?” Sehun asked.
Lu Han started to shake his head, then nodded instead. “Not dating in the sense that it usually means, but... I’ve seen a few people. We realized, time and time again, that we’re better as friends. So we’re friends now,” Lu Han said. “But I’m always open. I like having a special person in my life.”
They were silent again for a while, save for the sound of Xiaobai yip-yipping at another dog who ran past her in pursuit of his bouncy ball. Sehun watched Lu Han stare over at Xiaobai and smile as the dog pounced after the larger one, only to fall on her four paws to no avail.
“Is there a reason why you asked if I’ve ever dated before?” Sehun asked.
Lu Han glanced at Sehun out of the corner of his eye then looked back to Xiaobai. “No. What reason would I have, other than to make small talk?”
Sehun shrugged. “That’s what I was wondering,” he murmured, half-smiling as Lu Han laughed at his response.
The two continued to meet for weeks after that, until they found themselves walking into something beyond friendship. Sehun was overcome with guilt each time they met, when Lu Han kissed him for the first time, when Lu Han took him to meet his friends and he introduced Sehun as his boyfriend.
He was guilty because he was in this predicament under mostly-false pretenses, but he wasn’t willing to back out of it until he had reason to.
{iii}