[for swabluu] Chasing Dreams, Chasing You
Title: Chasing Dreams, Chasing You
For: swabluu
Pairing: Luhan/Sehun
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,344
Summary: Luhan has left and now that they have met again, Luhan tries to patch it all up.
Author's Note: Hello, recipient. I have another thing for you, but I never finished it on time. When I do finish it, I hope you’d get to read it. It is way better than this, istg. I’d link you when it’s done. ♥ I chose your third prompt (the one you love the most) and I hope I’ve given it enough justice. :)
Thank you to HJ, WF, CM for reading through this until I deemed it worthy of submission and DJ and JJ for being there when I wrote this in a very short span of time. I would have gone cray-cray without you guys. I love you. ♥
A young man stares at the dilapidated walls of the low-end motel room he has rented for the night. The rust-stained window panes rattle as the rain drops hit them in hard, inconsistent beats. He worries his lips as his eyes darts towards the worn out wall clock hanging by the door. He shifts a little; he lies himself down the less than comfortable bed and forces himself to sleep.
He gets up almost immediately afterward because he hears creaking outside his door. He forces the hope lighting his insides up to cool down-but to no avail. He walks to his door to peak, only for his heart to crack a tiny bit when he realizes no one is there.
Stop it. Don’t be dumb, Luhan, he tells himself as he makes his way back to the bed. The sheets feel odd and rough to him-living in a city far away from your home is very different, after all. It makes him feel empty and lost, and honestly, he doesn’t know what he wants to do anymore.
Get a grip, he imagines his best friend telling him. Minseok has always understood how he felt and Luhan feels so confused without his rational best friend’s occasional wake up calls.
He grabs his old phone off the table to fiddle with it. His fingers automatically dial a number he has tried to forget again and again, yet never seems to be able to really do it.
Luhan’s hand falls limply to his side, gripping the smartphone loosely. He lets out a sigh and looks up at the ceiling, searching for answers he knows he’ll never get.
He has chosen this path and to be honest, it is not the shining, shimmering future he envisioned it to be. Here he is, sitting in a motel room, staring at the walls at the early hours of the morning, thinking of what could have been, should have been, would have been. He’s juggled measly jobs regularly-he’s done construction work, been a janitor, served coffee and tea until the wee hours in the morning. He has gotten a secretarial job for a while until his parents found him and he has had to change his identity and go into hiding again.
“This is awful,” Luhan groans into his hands, as regret starts hammering into his heart. His back hunches, his shoulders sag and there is a pull at his stomach that he can never put into words.
“I shouldn’t have.”
But you did, he hears him respond in his head and Luhan can only hope he can bury himself underneath cheap pillows and dirty sheets.
He falls asleep that night with his phone on his ear and the dial tone numbing his heart.
The next day he wakes up to the humidity of noon and the banging on his door. Housekeep says it is a few hours till he needs to go, so Luhan gathers all his belongings and starts looking for another job. It’s a little sad, he thinks, because this isn’t what he expected when he flew here that fateful day two years ago.
This isn’t what he promised-he had been promised a bright future and for this, he had left. To open another door, you would have to close one is what he convinced himself, but he is beginning to think that this isn’t particularly true.
In the dark is where he left him and he isn’t sure if he would ever find him again.
Luhan isn’t sure if he wanted to find him, either.
After job hunting for five days, he lands an interview. Having a soft, pretty face has its perks, Luhan figures. He grabs a cup of coffee on the way to the interview to fill the emptiness his nerves left in his stomach. It’s almost empty when he gets to the company and he finishes by the time the receptionist asks him to take the farthest elevator, and ride up till the 25th floor.
The farthest elevator happens to be a glass one and Luhan suddenly wishes he didn’t grab that venti cup of coffee. He has never been very fond of heights, after all. He gets in and presses the button for the 25th floor.
Luhan happens to be a masochistic bastard, so he glances down. He feels his blood go cold, his palms sweat and his heart beat fast. It almost feels like when he first saw him-almost. It’s a tiny bit different, but he isn’t really sure what makes it different.
He just knows it is.
The elevator takes him high and it reminds him of every moment he spent in love-the clammy hands, shaking knees-all of which are simply physical manifestations of the rush within, a rush he had always wanted to hold on to, so he basks in the glory of the fear and the nerves until the bell rings and the elevator door opens.
“Fifth door to the right-”
Luhan stops at a frosted glass door. The name on the plate hanging by it makes his heart drop to the floor, but he trods on. He pushes the door and there, across him, sits a pale boy forced to look like a man, eyes crinkling just as it did two years ago.
“Hello, hyung.”
“Hi, Sehun.”
“It’s been long, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Luhan murmurs and he lifts his eyes to meet the smiling ones of the boy he loved, the boy he left for his dreams. His breath catches because the years haven’t been harsh to Sehun.
He still looks so beautiful.
“How have you been, Luhan? I see you changed your name.”
Luhan keeps his eyes at his hands as Sehun talks to him about the years that passed.
“Jongin’s a professional dancer now; you must have heard of it already. I worked hard too, hyung, but dancing is not something I want to be a profession-not something I could have as a profession, not when I have a line of hotels to run. I still dance, though. For now, I’m happy with how I am right, since I can still do what I love doing the most. Are you happy recently, hyung?”
Luhan looks up to find unreadable eyes on him. Somehow, he knows he couldn’t lie. Sehun will know, if he did.
So he tells the truth.
“No, I am not happy at all.”
“I thought that was the case. It’s quite difficult to run away from your parents, isn’t it?”
“Why are you doing this, Sehun?” Luhan asks warily but Sehun decides to ignore his question.
“Imagine my surprise when I saw your resume on my desk three days ago, hyung.”
Luhan watches as the younger boy gets up off his chair, walks to the front of his desk and leans his weight on it.
“The boy who left two years ago, no note, no goodbye, no explanation, whatsoever,” Sehun smiles at him and Luhan thinks the bitter smile on the younger’s face makes him ten times older.
“This isn’t exactly how I expected to see you again, hyung.”
“Sehun, let me expl-”
“Hyung, you vanished for two years. No anything. I hope running away from us isn’t as difficult as running away from your family. Now, please take a seat. Let’s just proceed with the interview.”
“Sehun, I need you to hear me out.”
“Luhan. You had two years to explain.”
“I tried, Sehun. I really did.”
“Well, good job for trying. Please sit down, so we can start the interview.”
Luhan grabs another cup of coffee before he plants himself just outside Sehun’s office building. He sits patiently, watching cars pass by and people walk by until sometime late in the afternoon, when everything is quiet and still. A random thought goes through his mind, and somehow, despite being in a city where dreams come true, he feels so little, so insignificant, so unimportant.
A limousine parks in front of the building and Luhan perks up. This only means one thing; Sehun is about to come down from his perch high up in this nest made of concrete and glass. Luhan waits and the younger boy appears in front of the elegant glass doors. Luhan holds on to Sehun’s arm and when the boy glances back at him, Luhan sees the boy he left two years ago-innocence, happiness and beauty rolled into one. His chest aches because he left; he shattered this hopeful boy who believed in him.
Luhan doesn’t like the feeling it leaves in him so he blurts out an explanation. If Sehun listens, then he’d get a chance to fix everything-not that he can fix it, but at least make things better between them.
“Sehun, I-”
“Hyung, I really don’t need to hear anything from you. Please do not make a sce-”
“I need you to listen, Oh Sehun, and I swear I am not below making a scene. Will you please just stop and listen to me for a while?”
Sehun stops walking and signals to his chauffer, who takes his suitcase. The tall boy relaxes into Luhan’s grip, but doesn’t look at the older boy.
Luhan takes this as a signal to continue, so he does.
“I left because I didn’t want you to wait, to hope-I see I did the wrong thing and I wanted to explain but I was never able to call. I wanted to explain, Sehun. I really did. But if I call, they’d find me. They would, you know they would. Sehun, please understand. I ran away for us.”
“Are you done, hyung?”
“Sehun, please look at me.”
“I have a meeting at the borders. I am running late. You know how precious time is for us, don’t you, Luhan?”
“Sehun, listen to me please.”
“I believe you have nothing more to say. You’d hear from me if we are taking you for the job.”
“May I, at least, get your number?”
Sehun pulls his arm from Luhan’s grip and takes a calling card. He scribbles a number hands it to Luhan.
“That is my private number. Don’t give it out.”
Sehun doesn’t wait for Luhan to respond; he gets in the limousine and the chauffer drives off, leaving Luhan on the curb, staring at the card on his hand. He stays there for several minutes before walking away with a slight skip on his step.
Later, he thinks, I’d call him to explain more. I have a lot of time to make up for.
When he gets himself a hotel room, he immediately calls the number Sehun gave him. A few tries and Sehun picks up with a promise of a call when he lands.
For the first time in two years, it doesn’t matter to Luhan, even if all he has are tattered pillows and cheap bed sheets because tonight, Luhan sleeps with a blanket of excitement and hope wrapped around him. He can’t wait for tomorrow, because Sehun is within reach.
Sehun watches the phone light up for the third time tonight. Luhan (no one else would call this number; only his parents know about this number, but they never really call) has been relentlessly calling all night long, and Sehun’s starting to wonder if he should really pick up. He watches as the phone vibrates on the desk and he decides to pick it up.
“Hello,” he says, voice neatly folded at the seams, sewn with pain and a tiny bit of anger.
The thought of Luhan angers him. Why did he have to leave? Everything has been going okay but then one day, he’s just gone. He didn’t trust Sehun enough to tell him where he’d go, nor did he love Sehun enough to give him a decent goodbye.
“Luhan, I am about to fly out of the country. I’d call you when I land, okay?” Sehun lies through gritted teeth, the fingers of his free hand balling into a fist while the hand holding his phone tightens its grip on it.
Sehun ends the call and stares at the phone he bought with Luhan when they were younger. Luhan is still using his, Sehun remembers seeing it on the other’s hand when he dropped in for the interview. It clears the anger in his muscles and makes him nostalgic (and a little sad) because all he wants to know is where did all that go?
He looks up to find his butler watching him, as if waiting for orders. Sehun sends him a questioning glance and gets a small shake of the head in response.
He gets up and heads to the window of his office at home, the moon shining through it. He stares at the silver white glow it sets on everything in view and Sehun wonders why he has always been scared of the dark when it looks this peaceful.
Peaceful never meant happiness, he realizes. It may be peaceful for a day, but that will never assure one of a happy future and Sehun has learnt this the hard way.
“Everything was peaceful before he left,” Sehun whispers under his breath. “Now, he shows up and-No. It will not happen again.”
Sehun pushes a glass pane open and stares at the ground. It is a long way down; it’s almost like falling in love. It’s a long way down, but when you fall, there isn’t exactly anything to hold on to-you can’t slow the fall down, nor can you stop it.
It will only stop when someone is lying on the ground, broken and unable to move.
“Please get me a new one,” Sehun mutters without looking at his butler as he throws the phone out of the window. He watches as it falls down very quickly. “Get me a new number too. Send it to my parents tomorrow.”
He walks away from the window and heads to his bedroom to sleep the night away.
“Do not let Luhan into my office ever again.”
For: swabluu
Pairing: Luhan/Sehun
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,344
Summary: Luhan has left and now that they have met again, Luhan tries to patch it all up.
Author's Note: Hello, recipient. I have another thing for you, but I never finished it on time. When I do finish it, I hope you’d get to read it. It is way better than this, istg. I’d link you when it’s done. ♥ I chose your third prompt (the one you love the most) and I hope I’ve given it enough justice. :)
Thank you to HJ, WF, CM for reading through this until I deemed it worthy of submission and DJ and JJ for being there when I wrote this in a very short span of time. I would have gone cray-cray without you guys. I love you. ♥
A young man stares at the dilapidated walls of the low-end motel room he has rented for the night. The rust-stained window panes rattle as the rain drops hit them in hard, inconsistent beats. He worries his lips as his eyes darts towards the worn out wall clock hanging by the door. He shifts a little; he lies himself down the less than comfortable bed and forces himself to sleep.
He gets up almost immediately afterward because he hears creaking outside his door. He forces the hope lighting his insides up to cool down-but to no avail. He walks to his door to peak, only for his heart to crack a tiny bit when he realizes no one is there.
Stop it. Don’t be dumb, Luhan, he tells himself as he makes his way back to the bed. The sheets feel odd and rough to him-living in a city far away from your home is very different, after all. It makes him feel empty and lost, and honestly, he doesn’t know what he wants to do anymore.
Get a grip, he imagines his best friend telling him. Minseok has always understood how he felt and Luhan feels so confused without his rational best friend’s occasional wake up calls.
He grabs his old phone off the table to fiddle with it. His fingers automatically dial a number he has tried to forget again and again, yet never seems to be able to really do it.
Luhan’s hand falls limply to his side, gripping the smartphone loosely. He lets out a sigh and looks up at the ceiling, searching for answers he knows he’ll never get.
He has chosen this path and to be honest, it is not the shining, shimmering future he envisioned it to be. Here he is, sitting in a motel room, staring at the walls at the early hours of the morning, thinking of what could have been, should have been, would have been. He’s juggled measly jobs regularly-he’s done construction work, been a janitor, served coffee and tea until the wee hours in the morning. He has gotten a secretarial job for a while until his parents found him and he has had to change his identity and go into hiding again.
“This is awful,” Luhan groans into his hands, as regret starts hammering into his heart. His back hunches, his shoulders sag and there is a pull at his stomach that he can never put into words.
“I shouldn’t have.”
But you did, he hears him respond in his head and Luhan can only hope he can bury himself underneath cheap pillows and dirty sheets.
He falls asleep that night with his phone on his ear and the dial tone numbing his heart.
The next day he wakes up to the humidity of noon and the banging on his door. Housekeep says it is a few hours till he needs to go, so Luhan gathers all his belongings and starts looking for another job. It’s a little sad, he thinks, because this isn’t what he expected when he flew here that fateful day two years ago.
This isn’t what he promised-he had been promised a bright future and for this, he had left. To open another door, you would have to close one is what he convinced himself, but he is beginning to think that this isn’t particularly true.
In the dark is where he left him and he isn’t sure if he would ever find him again.
Luhan isn’t sure if he wanted to find him, either.
After job hunting for five days, he lands an interview. Having a soft, pretty face has its perks, Luhan figures. He grabs a cup of coffee on the way to the interview to fill the emptiness his nerves left in his stomach. It’s almost empty when he gets to the company and he finishes by the time the receptionist asks him to take the farthest elevator, and ride up till the 25th floor.
The farthest elevator happens to be a glass one and Luhan suddenly wishes he didn’t grab that venti cup of coffee. He has never been very fond of heights, after all. He gets in and presses the button for the 25th floor.
Luhan happens to be a masochistic bastard, so he glances down. He feels his blood go cold, his palms sweat and his heart beat fast. It almost feels like when he first saw him-almost. It’s a tiny bit different, but he isn’t really sure what makes it different.
He just knows it is.
The elevator takes him high and it reminds him of every moment he spent in love-the clammy hands, shaking knees-all of which are simply physical manifestations of the rush within, a rush he had always wanted to hold on to, so he basks in the glory of the fear and the nerves until the bell rings and the elevator door opens.
“Fifth door to the right-”
Luhan stops at a frosted glass door. The name on the plate hanging by it makes his heart drop to the floor, but he trods on. He pushes the door and there, across him, sits a pale boy forced to look like a man, eyes crinkling just as it did two years ago.
“Hello, hyung.”
“Hi, Sehun.”
“It’s been long, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Luhan murmurs and he lifts his eyes to meet the smiling ones of the boy he loved, the boy he left for his dreams. His breath catches because the years haven’t been harsh to Sehun.
He still looks so beautiful.
“How have you been, Luhan? I see you changed your name.”
Luhan keeps his eyes at his hands as Sehun talks to him about the years that passed.
“Jongin’s a professional dancer now; you must have heard of it already. I worked hard too, hyung, but dancing is not something I want to be a profession-not something I could have as a profession, not when I have a line of hotels to run. I still dance, though. For now, I’m happy with how I am right, since I can still do what I love doing the most. Are you happy recently, hyung?”
Luhan looks up to find unreadable eyes on him. Somehow, he knows he couldn’t lie. Sehun will know, if he did.
So he tells the truth.
“No, I am not happy at all.”
“I thought that was the case. It’s quite difficult to run away from your parents, isn’t it?”
“Why are you doing this, Sehun?” Luhan asks warily but Sehun decides to ignore his question.
“Imagine my surprise when I saw your resume on my desk three days ago, hyung.”
Luhan watches as the younger boy gets up off his chair, walks to the front of his desk and leans his weight on it.
“The boy who left two years ago, no note, no goodbye, no explanation, whatsoever,” Sehun smiles at him and Luhan thinks the bitter smile on the younger’s face makes him ten times older.
“This isn’t exactly how I expected to see you again, hyung.”
“Sehun, let me expl-”
“Hyung, you vanished for two years. No anything. I hope running away from us isn’t as difficult as running away from your family. Now, please take a seat. Let’s just proceed with the interview.”
“Sehun, I need you to hear me out.”
“Luhan. You had two years to explain.”
“I tried, Sehun. I really did.”
“Well, good job for trying. Please sit down, so we can start the interview.”
Luhan grabs another cup of coffee before he plants himself just outside Sehun’s office building. He sits patiently, watching cars pass by and people walk by until sometime late in the afternoon, when everything is quiet and still. A random thought goes through his mind, and somehow, despite being in a city where dreams come true, he feels so little, so insignificant, so unimportant.
A limousine parks in front of the building and Luhan perks up. This only means one thing; Sehun is about to come down from his perch high up in this nest made of concrete and glass. Luhan waits and the younger boy appears in front of the elegant glass doors. Luhan holds on to Sehun’s arm and when the boy glances back at him, Luhan sees the boy he left two years ago-innocence, happiness and beauty rolled into one. His chest aches because he left; he shattered this hopeful boy who believed in him.
Luhan doesn’t like the feeling it leaves in him so he blurts out an explanation. If Sehun listens, then he’d get a chance to fix everything-not that he can fix it, but at least make things better between them.
“Sehun, I-”
“Hyung, I really don’t need to hear anything from you. Please do not make a sce-”
“I need you to listen, Oh Sehun, and I swear I am not below making a scene. Will you please just stop and listen to me for a while?”
Sehun stops walking and signals to his chauffer, who takes his suitcase. The tall boy relaxes into Luhan’s grip, but doesn’t look at the older boy.
Luhan takes this as a signal to continue, so he does.
“I left because I didn’t want you to wait, to hope-I see I did the wrong thing and I wanted to explain but I was never able to call. I wanted to explain, Sehun. I really did. But if I call, they’d find me. They would, you know they would. Sehun, please understand. I ran away for us.”
“Are you done, hyung?”
“Sehun, please look at me.”
“I have a meeting at the borders. I am running late. You know how precious time is for us, don’t you, Luhan?”
“Sehun, listen to me please.”
“I believe you have nothing more to say. You’d hear from me if we are taking you for the job.”
“May I, at least, get your number?”
Sehun pulls his arm from Luhan’s grip and takes a calling card. He scribbles a number hands it to Luhan.
“That is my private number. Don’t give it out.”
Sehun doesn’t wait for Luhan to respond; he gets in the limousine and the chauffer drives off, leaving Luhan on the curb, staring at the card on his hand. He stays there for several minutes before walking away with a slight skip on his step.
Later, he thinks, I’d call him to explain more. I have a lot of time to make up for.
When he gets himself a hotel room, he immediately calls the number Sehun gave him. A few tries and Sehun picks up with a promise of a call when he lands.
For the first time in two years, it doesn’t matter to Luhan, even if all he has are tattered pillows and cheap bed sheets because tonight, Luhan sleeps with a blanket of excitement and hope wrapped around him. He can’t wait for tomorrow, because Sehun is within reach.
Sehun watches the phone light up for the third time tonight. Luhan (no one else would call this number; only his parents know about this number, but they never really call) has been relentlessly calling all night long, and Sehun’s starting to wonder if he should really pick up. He watches as the phone vibrates on the desk and he decides to pick it up.
“Hello,” he says, voice neatly folded at the seams, sewn with pain and a tiny bit of anger.
The thought of Luhan angers him. Why did he have to leave? Everything has been going okay but then one day, he’s just gone. He didn’t trust Sehun enough to tell him where he’d go, nor did he love Sehun enough to give him a decent goodbye.
“Luhan, I am about to fly out of the country. I’d call you when I land, okay?” Sehun lies through gritted teeth, the fingers of his free hand balling into a fist while the hand holding his phone tightens its grip on it.
Sehun ends the call and stares at the phone he bought with Luhan when they were younger. Luhan is still using his, Sehun remembers seeing it on the other’s hand when he dropped in for the interview. It clears the anger in his muscles and makes him nostalgic (and a little sad) because all he wants to know is where did all that go?
He looks up to find his butler watching him, as if waiting for orders. Sehun sends him a questioning glance and gets a small shake of the head in response.
He gets up and heads to the window of his office at home, the moon shining through it. He stares at the silver white glow it sets on everything in view and Sehun wonders why he has always been scared of the dark when it looks this peaceful.
Peaceful never meant happiness, he realizes. It may be peaceful for a day, but that will never assure one of a happy future and Sehun has learnt this the hard way.
“Everything was peaceful before he left,” Sehun whispers under his breath. “Now, he shows up and-No. It will not happen again.”
Sehun pushes a glass pane open and stares at the ground. It is a long way down; it’s almost like falling in love. It’s a long way down, but when you fall, there isn’t exactly anything to hold on to-you can’t slow the fall down, nor can you stop it.
It will only stop when someone is lying on the ground, broken and unable to move.
“Please get me a new one,” Sehun mutters without looking at his butler as he throws the phone out of the window. He watches as it falls down very quickly. “Get me a new number too. Send it to my parents tomorrow.”
He walks away from the window and heads to his bedroom to sleep the night away.
“Do not let Luhan into my office ever again.”