The Floating World [2]
The sun has fallen once and risen once since the citizens gathered at the Facility to get injected with the Perfect Solution, and Lu Han is nowhere to be found.
The rest of the Intelligentsia are blissfully unaware, it seems, that one of their own is missing, and that’s fine, Wu Fan thinks, because he doesn’t intend on letting them know until he’s sure he knows where Lu Han is. There was much to be determined, however, before he could begin tracking him down.
“Zitao,” Wu Fan says into his headset. He releases the button and glances over the list again, looking for any discrepancies. It would have been so much simpler if the vehicle identification numbers were in a specific order, rather than randomized and thrown together so that when a situation like this arose, it made resolving it even more difficult.
“Yes, sir,” came Zitao’s voice, tinny in his earpiece.
“Can you come to my office? I have an assignment for you,” Wu Fan says, and Zitao doesn’t need to answer because no sooner than when the words leave his mouth is the door opening behind him.
“How can I help, sir?” Zitao asks obediently.
Wu Fan turns his chair in Zitao’s direction and hands him a print version of the VIN database on his computer screen. “I need you to head down to the garage and take inventory on the vehicles. The ones that are highlighted are the vehicles that were approved for use and signed off by me earlier in the day. Do a count on the ones that are still there and report back to me immediately afterward.”
“Yes, sir,” Zitao says, nodding and rushing out of the room. Wu Fan sighs and sits back in his seat; it’s very possible that Zitao’s findings will be his only hope.
Zitao finds himself checking and rechecking his work, making sure he’s marked down the correct identification numbers and hasn’t missed one due to carelessness. No matter how many times he checks, though, he ends up with the same results.
He goes back to Wu Fan’s office with shaky hands. Part of him is sure he’s done his job correctly - perhaps Wu Fan knew that the numbers were off and wanted a second opinion - but the rest of him knows Wu Fan to be very abrasive, almost unapologetically so, towards his lessors. He’s erred on Wu Fan’s good side so far, and he’s not quite sure he can handle being on his bad side.
“Sir,” Zitao says upon entering Wu Fan’s office. Wu Fan turns to look at him and he gulps. “I’ve done what you told me, but I’m coming up short one car... I can’t figure out if I overlooked one of the approved vehicles or what --”
“What’s the VIN of the missing vehicle?” Wu Fan asks, spinning around to face his computer.
Zitao blinks in surprise. “I-It’s I287HG49ST,” he reads from the list. “One of the larger vehicles.”
Zitao flinches as Wu Fan slams his palms down in frustration against the desk. “I’ve been entering that same VIN all day. That vehicle exists, I know it does, but this stupid database keeps telling me it doesn’t,” Wu Fan says through gritted teeth. “I’m about ready to uproot the whole thing and put it into the incinerator.”
“May I ask... why you’re looking for this vehicle?” Zitao asks cautiously.
He only hears Wu Fan huffing and puffing through his nose for a few beats before he turns in his chair again, jaw clenched. “Lu Han is missing. A vehicle is missing. I’m under suspicion that Lu Han has that vehicle - no, I know he does - and I’m also sure I know where he’s headed. I can’t send anyone out unless I know where he is, exactly,” Wu Fan says. “Each vehicle has a tracker for this very reason --”
“I don’t mean to cut you off, sir,” Zitao says, “but if you can’t find the VIN... do you suppose the tracker’s been destroyed?” Wu Fan stares at him in a way that lets him know he thinks he’s on to something. “This isn’t to say that it was destroyed purposefully... maybe there was an accident. Or, maybe it wasn’t an accident. A suicide, perhaps.”
“A destroyed tracker wouldn’t wipe the VIN from the database,” Wu Fan says.
“It would, sir,” Zitao says. “Before my promotion to apprentice, I worked on the installation of those trackers. The VIN has almost nothing to do with the vehicle itself... it’s used in conjunction with the license plate numbers but the VIN pertains to the tracker. Once that’s gone, everything’s gone... and there’s no other way to track down a missing vehicle than to search on your own or leave it alone.”
Wu Fan begins to tap his foot, a nervous habit. “Alright,” he says, “another - temporary - promotion is coming down the pipeline for you.”
Zitao’s eyes widen. “What?”
“You’re going to try and find a way to clock back the system to early yesterday morning,” Wu Fan says. “Once you do that, search the VIN and see if you can find anything.”
“Sir, I don’t think --”
“You’re going to try,” Wu Fan says. He stands up and gestures to his seat. “Sit. I’ll be back once I transfer your duties to some of your colleagues.”
Wu Fan brushes past Zitao and shuts the door. Zitao wills his frozen legs to move toward Wu Fan’s chair and get to work on what might be the most impossible task he’s been faced with.
“Do you know how to read a map?” Lu Han asks.
Sehun has his eyes squeezed shut, one hand clutching his seat and the other clutching the latch on the door. He doesn’t like the way the van’s bumping around as they move slowly up the mountain, and he dislikes even more the fact that if something goes wrong the van could very well topple over and send them rolling to their deaths. He opens one of his eyes slightly and peers at Lu Han, who is alternating between looking at the road ahead and at Sehun’s face while he laughs.
“It’s not funny,” Sehun mumbles.
“Well, do you?” Lu Han asks.
“Sort of,” Sehun says, cringing as Lu Han revs up the motor to get them over a large, exposed tree root. “Why?”
“I’m going to need you to relax and open the glove box in front of you,” Lu Han says. “There’s a map of the mountain, and while we can’t really pinpoint where we are, we can get an idea of how close we are to the summit.”
Then what’s the point? Sehun wants to ask, but instead he keeps his eyes closed and reaches blindly in front of him for the handle of the glove box. Once he finds it, he pulls it open and feels around for the map; this proves to be harder than he predicted so he opens his eyes and finds it. Lu Han glances at him and snorts, and Sehun slides down in his seat and blocks the view through the windshield with the open map.
“What am I looking for?” Sehun asks.
“Nothing,” Lu Han says, and Sehun glares at him as Lu Han brings the van to a halt and puts on the emergency brake. He stares ahead, squinting at the top of the mountain. “We’re about two thousand feet from the summit.”
“You - you figured out just by looking? So you really made me get this map out for nothing?” Sehun barks.
“I was trying to get you to calm down,” Lu Han says. “I’m just as nervous as you are but what good is it going to do if I’m white-knuckling the whole way up?” He looks at Sehun and smiles. “Do you want to drive?”
Sehun shakes his head frantically. “If I had it my way, I’d just walk,” he mumbles.
“Hm, you seemed pretty confident speeding off with my van yesterday,” Lu Han remarks, releasing the emergency brake. The van lurches backward and Sehun tenses up again. He breathes a sigh of relief when Lu Han presses the gas and they continue their ascension.
Sehun looks at the map again, using Lu Han’s off-the-cuff calculation to try and find their location. He uses the legend at the bottom of the map to measure out two thousand feet from the top of the mountain downward and realizes that it’s not as far as it sounds.
He measures two thousand feet again and again all the way down the mountain’s other side, however, and frowns. Lu Han said it was faster going down than it was going up, but that side of the mountain was steeper, it seemed, and now he can see how much more driving they’ll have to do once they reach the base. He tries to tell himself that it’ll all be worth it, eventually, but the anticipation is starting to get to him.
The sun is setting when they finally reach the summit, which is surprisingly flat compared to what Sehun had had in mind. After a quick look-around, they come to the conclusion that there’s no shelter like the cavern they slept in the night previous, so they’ll have to use the van instead.
Lu Han seems antsy as they roll out their sleeping bags in the back of the van, and while Sehun wants to ask why he’s acting strangely, he doesn’t because he’s not sure he wants to know. Sehun has a feeling it has something to do with Lu Han being paranoid, as Sehun was, that the Intelligentsia are watching them. He can’t imagine that having an Intelligentsia vehicle in plain view is doing much to help that paranoia.
Lu Han waits for Sehun to finish setting up his sleep area before they get out of the van from the back doors to sit and eat. Lu Han warms up their meal on his hotplate and Sehun gazes out at the horizon, taking in the purples and oranges of the sunset.
“I’ve never been to the top before,” Sehun says suddenly, and Lu Han looks at him. “I’ve never been farther than maybe a half-mile up the mountain, much less at the top.”
Lu Han’s quiet, as if he doesn’t know how to respond. “Neither have I,” he says finally, adjusting the knob on the hotplate.
“I hope we never have to come to the top of this mountain again,” Sehun says.
“Why’s that?” Lu Han asks.
“Why would we have to leave the safe haven, so far away from here, if not for a bad reason?” Sehun inquires. “Coming here again would mean going back to the New World, back to unhappiness... but would we be able to feel that unhappiness? They’d definitely stick us with the needle the moment we stepped foot into the city.”
“I agree with you,” Lu Han says. “I hope this is the first and last time we see the top of this mountain.”
The two were silent after that, even as they ate and as the sunset glow was replaced by moonlight. Lu Han took it upon himself to dispose of their trash and put the hotplate away once it had cooled, then came back to Sehun’s side.
“Is there a reason why you defected?” Lu Han asks.
Sehun hesitates, then nods. “It’s not as profound as your reason, but yes. There were several reasons, but... I think this one was the main reason.”
“Can I ask what it is?” Lu Han asks, and Sehun nods again.
“When I read the notice, all that stood out to me was the fact that it mentioned the Romance Prohibition Act alongside a perfect solution for reinforcing it,” Sehun said. “I knew that didn’t sound like something I wanted to be a part of... so I started to think of alternatives. When it came down to it, my only two choices were killing myself or making a run for it. I didn’t want to die, so I ran instead.” Lu Han watches Sehun’s jaw clench and says nothing. “But that isn’t the main reason. The main reason is that I’m eighteen years old and I’ve never experienced a love that wasn’t for my mother and father. It’s selfish, I guess, but I didn’t want to be forced to give that up.”
Sehun glances at Lu Han, who gives him a small smile. “That’s a good reason,” Lu Han says with a nod. “I think it’s more profound than my reason. My reason is based on morals and ethics and yours is about your own feelings. I think that beats my reasoning in terms of profundity.” Sehun shrugs and draws his knees up to his chest as a cool breeze sweeps over them. “I wish I could go back to that period of my life, though. Not knowing what being in love feels like is part of the fun of being young.”
Sehun sighs. “You’ve loved someone before?”
“Plenty of times,” Lu Han says. “So, plenty of times I’ve had my heart broken in turn. Sometimes finding out what love is has its downsides... like they always say, ‘what comes up must come down.’”
“But the in-between must be fun,” Sehun says. “I had a friend back at the city who was in love with one of our mutual friends. Watching the build-up was... exciting, I guess, and when they got together, I was both happy for them and jealous because I hadn’t found someone like that. But they were older than me, so that’s probably why.”
“How much older?” Lu Han asks.
“Two years,” Sehun replies. “Maybe it’s a coming-of-age thing, a rite of passage that I’m too young for.”
“I don’t know about that,” Lu Han says. “I think you can fall in love at your age, but you just understand it better when you’re older and more experienced. You learn what you should and shouldn’t do when you love someone else, you learn how to maintain it, how to not let little disagreements be the thing that tears everything apart... younger kids thrive on the dramatic aspect. It makes them think that they’re really, really serious about their relationship - I’d know, I’ve been in that place before myself - but it’s really one of the most dangerous things you can do.”
“You’ve done something like that before?” Sehun asks.
Lu Han laughs. “Oh yeah, more times than I can count,” he says.
“And you broke up because of it?” Sehun asks, and Lu Han nods. “Did you break it off, or did she?”
“She...” Lu Han clears his throat and Sehun waits for him to answer, but it never comes.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to talk about it,” Sehun says. “It’s not my business anyway.”
“No, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s just that you’ve put me in an awkward place,” Lu Han says with a nervous laugh. “There’s no... she, there’s never been a she...”
Sehun gives Lu Han an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I should know better than to assume.”
“It’s fine,” Lu Han says, waving him off. “You wouldn’t have known otherwise. But to answer your question, it was me who broke it off. I was young and dumb and, like I said, it made me feel like I was a serious, relationship-having adult. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized I wasn’t.” Lu Han is thoughtfully silent for a few moments, until he shrugs and smiles at Sehun. “Really, though? You haven’t had even a meaningless high school girlfriend?”
Sehun shakes his head slightly. “Nope.”
Lu Han gives him a knowing look. “Ah. I think I get it.”
“I’m really sleepy,” Sehun says, feigning a yawn and stretching his arms above his head. “You wouldn’t mind if I went to sleep now, would you?”
“No, no, do what you want,” Lu Han says. “I’m sorry if I end up waking you up when I turn in myself.”
“I sleep like a rock. Don’t worry about it,” Sehun remarks as he gets up, and Lu Han chuckles a bit. Sehun opens the back doors of the van and climbs inside, fully intending to curl up in his sleeping bag and not wake up until he needs to.
He’s not even that tired, but that topic was starting to wear him out.
Zitao’s eyes are heavy with sleep and his slumped shoulders ache, but he refuses to give up - mostly because Wu Fan would never let him do that even if he tried. He doesn’t know how to tell Wu Fan that what he wants is absolutely impossible; the database isn’t like a computer hard drive, and everything that does get backed up at the end of the day is in a different database that he can’t access from this computer.
He’s also not the computer whiz Wu Fan wants him to be, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try.
Wu Fan is sitting behind him, in a couch, watching so intently that Zitao can feel it without even looking. He takes this as an opportunity to use body language to tell Wu Fan he’s had enough for the day, that he needs to rest and he’ll continue in the morning.
“Tired?” Wu Fan asks, and Zitao nods. Wu Fan gets up from the couch and puts his hands on the thicker parts of Zitao’s shoulders, then rubs circles into them gently. “Does that feel better?”
“A bit,” Zitao says, rolling his stiff neck. “I need to lay down, I think.”
“I think most everyone has gone home by now,” Wu Fan says, kneading Zitao’s shoulders with the rest of his fingers. “You can spend the night with me.”
“Wu Fan...” Zitao mutters. He looks up and back at Wu Fan, who only smiles. “We almost got caught last time. It’s only because you’re, well, you that we didn’t end up in trouble.”
“You worry far too much about consequences,” Wu Fan says, spinning the chair so that Zitao is facing him. “Look at who you’ve got by your side.”
“That doesn’t matter to the highers-up,” Zitao says, “especially in my case. We may be in the same social class but I’m very, very low on the ladder compared to you.”
“I’d never let them hurt you,” Wu Fan says, dragging his thumb along the curve of Zitao’s cheek.
“You’re not so powerful that you can stop them,” Zitao shoots back.
Wu Fan rolls his eyes and pulls Zitao to his feet. “Fine, if you don’t want to go home with me, you don’t have to.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to --” Zitao is silenced by a slender finger to his lips.
“You can go home alone, but there’s no way I can spend all day around you and not do more than just stare,” Wu Fan says, his voice low. Zitao feels his heart stammer in his chest, the way it always does and possibly always will do when Wu Fan gets this way with him.
“In your office, though?” Zitao asks.
“There have been wilder places,” Wu Fan says, and Zitao feels himself color. Wu Fan’s hands find their way to Zitao’s waist and he pulls him closer, then kisses him softly. Zitao can never hold back once that happens, and he puts his hands on either side of Wu Fan’s face and deepens the kiss. Soon, the two are walking blindly toward the couch, and Wu Fan is putting Zitao to sit before he goes to the door and locks it.
Zitao has to remind himself before they even get started that he needs to keep quiet, because he’s almost positive that was part of the reason why they’d almost gotten caught the last time. It’s something that Zitao hates but it drives Wu Fan insane in a good way so he’s not sure he knows how to stop it completely.
He’ll just pretend that the space outside of Wu Fan’s office is filled with his colleagues and co-workers; that should be enough to keep him silent.
Wu Fan returns and resumes kissing Zitao, expertly working away at buttons and zippers with one hand while the other cradles the back of Zitao’s head. Their lips only leave each other’s when Wu Fan whispers for Zitao to stand and put his hands against the back of the couch and his knees on the seat.
Zitao’s fingers curl into the leather upholstery as Wu Fan enters him, slowly, gently, one hand on his hip and the other on his waist, his lips to Zitao’s ear, whispering things that Zitao can’t even hear but understands anyway. Wu Fan’s whispers turn into hot puffs of breath and teeth lightly dragging along the shell and lobe of his ear, while Zitao is clenching onto the couch and reaching back to tangle his fingers in Wu Fan’s hair.
Wu Fan pulls out and away without warning and sits down, dragging Zitao into his lap. Zitao places his hands on Wu Fan’s shoulders as the older man guides him back to where he was and needs to be, their eyes perpetually locked.
It’s Zitao’s turn to give, and he rocks his hips back and forth until Wu Fan emits a groan that tells him he’s doing it right. Wu Fan presses kisses wherever he can reach, across Zitao’s chest and collarbones, up his neck, his chin, his lips, until they’re both panting and clutching each other and fighting to keep quiet.
“I love you,” Wu Fan mumbles between kisses, dragging his fingernails down Zitao’s back.
Zitao replies with an “I love you too” as he tries to catch his breath. The irony hits him all too quickly - they lived in a world where people were being inoculated with a chemical that took away their ability to love, while the two of them were possibly the only two still making love.
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