you're here pt.i [exo]
title: you're here [pt. i]
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: pg-13
pairing(s): xiuhan, lukai, xiuyeol
summary: would we have changed?
a/n: sort of a sequel to want u back, expanding on that universe and all that. but this can also be a stand-alone. hopefully gonna get the second part up tmrw or the day after that.
[part one] [ part two]
Their workplaces are across the road from each other, and their apartment complexes are mere blocks away from each other. They’re in the same circle of friends so they see each other at gatherings on the weekends and birthday parties.
And they’re still friends.
They haven’t had a chance to really spend time as just friends since it ended between them, other than that one night at the club, but it’s only because neither of them have had time for it. They’re both busy-Minseok wants to make partner before the year is over and Luhan is bogged down with pending deadlines for at least seven different articles. Their careers are at the forefront of their lives, and maybe that’s why ending the relationship was good for both of them.
There just wasn’t time to be in love.
Minseok is on his lunch break, stepping up to the cash register to pay for his bento box when a hand pops up in front of him, stopping him from handing his card to the cashier. A familiar voice chirps behind him, “Together, please,” and Minseok rolls his eyes with a smile as he watches Luhan come into view beside the lawyer, handing over his own card to the cashier who, unfazed, rings Minseok’s bento and Luhan’s sashimi bowl up.
He steps to the side as soon as his bento is paid for and grins quietly to himself, heading out of the restaurant without waiting for Luhan. The weather is nice enough to eat outside, and Minseok heads for the tables around the fountain a little ways into the plaza. He doesn’t stop grinning as he hears rushed footsteps behind him, that same voice laughing his name, and all of it is followed by a hand on his shoulder.
“Can you walk any faster?” Luhan huffs, out of breath and smiling.
“I can,” Minseok says. “But I wanted you to catch up to me.”
Luhan’s smile broadens, teeth flashing. “Let’s eat together,” he says, hand sliding from Minseok’s shoulder down to the lawyer’s arm, tugging Minseok towards an empty bench.
“Only because you paid,” Minseok relents.
Luhan laughs.
They met in college.
Luhan, sports writer for the university’s paper, dipping in and out of the library with his laptop for some quiet time to finish his articles, and Minseok, a law student, forgoing sleep like every other law student and trying to cram in a last few hours of review before his next exam. Minseok was always in the library, and Luhan frequented the library enough to notice that the other man was always in the library. They start talking one day when Luhan trips on a snag in the carpet and falls onto the table Minseok is occupying, sending the Bible-sized textbooks Minseok has stacked up higher than either of their heights into collapse across all of Minseok’s organized notes.
From there on, it was Luhan sneaking in hot chocolate during Minseok’s many all-nighters at the library; it was Minseok proof-reading Luhan’s articles when the Luhan’s actual editor was quarantined with a horrible case of stomach flu; it was locking Wufan out of his shared dorm with Luhan and movie marathons for two nights straight; it was stealing Baekhyun’s lab reports and hiding them in Kyungsoo’s underwear drawer; it was getting Junmyeon drunk enough to cry about how his hamster was killed by a bicycle when he was seven.
It was Luhan refusing to tell Minseok where he hid Minseok’s notes for the mock trial because Minseok has already reviewed them enough, has already memorized them, and Minseok needs to sleep because he hasn’t slept for a week and Luhan knows that the only way Minseok will lose tomorrow is if he passes out on the mock floor. It was Minseok stealing Luhan’s laptop and changing the password so Luhan couldn’t edit his final article anymore because it was fine and perfect the way it was and seven different editors had already told Luhan so.
It was soccer games, one-on-one, late at night and early in the morning on the green beside their dorm building. It was midnight walks around campus when Luhan couldn’t sleep because he was homesick. It was their first kiss in the tiny coffee shop nestled into the crook between the arts and business buildings. It was all the kisses that followed-light kisses on the stairwell in between classes, deep kisses in the dorm hallway, teasing kisses behind the coffee shop, heavy kisses in either of their dorms when their roommates were out, soft kisses before either of them had exams, playful kisses before and after soccer games.
Luhan brings fried dumplings and an entire strawberry cake one Saturday, and Minseok presses play on the movie playlist he has waiting for both of them on his laptop. They sprawl out in front of Minseok’s new TV, mounted on the wall of the lawyer’s living room. The first movie starts with Luhan on one end of the couch, the entire platter of dumplings in his lap and Minseok on the other end, half the cake sliced on the plate beside him.
By the end of the fifth movie, they’re both on the floor, Minseok on his stomach, the tail of a dumpling hanging out of his mouth, Luhan lying on his back with his head pillowed on the arch of Minseok’s back, chewing thoughtfully at the tip of a strawberry. All the movies Minseok have queued are action-comedies and whenever Minseok laughs, Luhan can feel the vibrations through the back of his head. Midway through the third movie, Luhan remembers catching a glance of Minseok’s gums flashing as his eyes vanish, and after that, Luhan doesn’t recall what the fourth and fifth movies even were.
“Where’d you get the cake?” Minseok says, after they call it quits with the eighth movie because their eyes were starting to hurt. They’re lying side by side now, still on the floor, but with their heads cushioned on throw pillows from the couch. Empty plates and bottles of iced tea and soda litter the space around them.
“A new café,” Luhan says, and turns his head to meet the other man’s gaze.
Minseok grins. “Take me there?”
“Maybe,” Luhan replies with a wink that has the lawyer smacking the editor with the empty dumpling carton.
They move in together after graduation, an apartment right in between Minseok’s law firm and Luhan’s publishing agency. They have sex together for the first time the night they move in-blankets spread on the floor, rooms with no furniture yet, boxes upon boxes of their belongings up against the walls, no lights because they haven’t bothered plugging in any of the lamps. Neither of them is a virgin and it’s not awkward and they aren’t nervous, but somehow it’s far from heavy and passionate.
It’s them.
Playful, and fumbling here and there-there’s as much laughter as there are gasps and sighs, there’re as many grins as there are moans and whines, and they smile as much as they kiss and touch.
They have to start unpacking immediately the next day. They have to be awake early in the morning to supervise the rest of the furniture coming in. They’re both starting their first real jobs ever in less than a week, and they both have to prepare for that. They should have fallen asleep as soon as they finished, but neither of them does. They stay awake, a tangle of sweaty limbs and sated bodies, Minseok’s cheek over Luhan’s heartbeat, Luhan’s fingers in Minseok’s hair.
“Let’s paint it orange,” Minseok says.
“By ourselves?” asks Luhan. He kisses Minseok’s lips.
“Sure,” Minseok skims fingertips over Luhan’s ribs, and the other man shivers closer. “We can have Wufan paint the ceiling.”
Luhan grins and kisses Minseok again.
There’s a new associate at Minseok’s firm who’s been assigned to Minseok as a mentee of sorts. Park Chanyeol is a good few heads towering over Minseok, cheerful, eager to learn and work and unfazed by any sort of attempts to haze him made by the nastier associates in the workplace. He’s easy to teach, gets his work done, doesn’t bother Minseok with useless questions, and apparently is friends with Baekhyun and Jongdae back from their middle school. He transferred to this firm to be closer to his older sister who’d just given birth.
“Niece?” Minseok echoes, when Chanyeol excitedly shows the older man pictures from his laptop.
“Doesn’t she look like me, hyung?” Chanyeol asks, and his grin is so wide and warm that it doesn’t make a mark in Minseok’s mind how just a few days ago, it was sunbaenim.
“She does,” Minseok says. “Her ears are bigger than her head too.”
Chanyeol’s laugh is deep and full. “Hey-hyung,” and Chanyeol draws the word out, wrinkling his nose and squeezing Minseok’s shoulder.
Minseok stands up, heading out of the younger man’s cubicle. “Get back to work,” he says playfully.
Kim Jongin is a new reviewer for the arts section, in charge of all the new weekly releases and chart-toppers. Luhan needs to tell Zitao about how Baekhyun can’t go for coffee with him next Tuesday, so the editor-in-chief drops by Jongin’s cubicle because that’s where Zitao’s tall, dark head is usually found during lunch breaks these days. Zitao is immersed in the dance video Jongin is playing for him, and somehow, as Luhan slips in, he gets pulled into it too.
Zitao ends up leaving in a rush, remembering that he has to send in a copy of the interview before half past noon. The dance video has long since ended by that time, but somehow Luhan ends up staying for the rest of the break, too yanked into a conversation with Jongin about the upcoming soccer season, a new dance show on television, albums coming out from five different artists they both follow, and whether those two IT staff downstairs are really dating or not.
Jongin tells Luhan that he knows Sehun too-that he, Sehun, and Zitao all went to the same dance academy in university before Sehun branched off to become a choreographer and Zitao and Jongin headed off into journalism. He’s four years younger than Luhan, and Luhan feels every single year the longer they talk, but somehow that’s what has Luhan smiling back so easily whenever Jongin laughs.
The fights start two years in.
There’s nothing special about them. They fight like any young couple trying to jumpstart their careers, both of them excelling in their respective fields and hungry for promotion. Minseok soon becomes recognized as the best of the associates, numerous partners wanting him for their own. Luhan’s articles soon become the most read-well-written and hardly ever in need for editing. Both of them are hardly at the apartment anymore, staying at their offices to work through the weekends in hopes that their sunbaes will look even more kindly down on them.
Luhan stops making hot chocolate for Minseok when the lawyer comes home exhausted from a trial-stops dropping by the law firm with a change of clothes and coffee when Minseok needs to pull all-nighters researching for a case there. Minseok no longer makes time to proof-read Luhan’s articles, insisting that Luhan has his own editor for that now-doesn’t hear Luhan insisting back, hurt, that he still wants Minseok’s own opinion on it before he sends the draft in.
They don’t have time for dates. They’re too tired to have sex. They’re too angry at each other to kiss. Minseok spends more time at the office. Luhan spends more time holed up in the bedroom with his laptop. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, Wufan and Junmyeon-their friends start to take sides. They struggle through it for a third year until one night when tempers are running high again, and the worst fight they’ve ever had happens. A lamp is broken, Minseok’s laptop screen is shattered, wine gets all over one of Luhan’s printed drafts, they’re both screaming at each other’s faces, and they have furious, rutting, hurtful sex on the same floor they had their first time on.
Both of them leave the apartment as soon as they get their clothes on.
Minseok spends the night at Baekhyun’s. Luhan spends the night at Wufan’s.
They both return to the apartment the next morning to pack.
“You have somewhere to stay?” Luhan asks, kneeling in front of his half-filled suitcase in the middle of their bedroom. They’ve decided to start with their clothes, and work on the furniture after things have settled down further-after they’ve both figured out more permanent living situations. Right now, they just need to be far apart-they need time away from each other before they can come back and sort the details.
They shouldn’t have started life together so soon after school. Being in love in the real world, they’ve found, is vastly different than being in love on campus-in a dorm-in the hallways-on the stairwell-in that little café next to the library.
Minseok is sitting beside him, one of Luhan’s sweaters in his arms. He folds it hurriedly, licking his lips and swallowing dryly-he doesn’t want to be caught too deep in thought. He’s afraid to think too much right now anyway. The lawyer places the sweater neatly into Luhan’s suitcase. “Kyungsoo’s,” he says. “He has an extra room.” He watches Luhan reach up and pull the next batch of clothes from the shelf, a spilling of sweatpants and jeans. “I guess you’re staying with Wufan.”
Luhan stills slightly, the tumble of clothes in his lap. Minseok silently reaches for a few pairs of jeans, and starts folding them again for the suitcase. “Yeah,” Luhan says finally, getting to work on the sweatpants. Minseok keeps his eyes lowered. He doesn’t want to meet Luhan’s gaze-doesn’t quite feel up to seeing how calm Luhan’s expression is if it’s anything like the journalist’s even tone. He wonders if Luhan is hurting too and just trying to hide it beneath layers and layers of colorlessness or if Luhan was just waiting for this to be over since last year when they first started really fighting.
It’s late afternoon by the time they both finish packing, and they walk to their cars together.
Luhan loads Minseok’s suitcase into the lawyer’s car, standing silently as Minseok gets into the driver’s seat and closes the door with the window down. They’re on different schedules (after all, wasn’t that part of the problem), and Minseok knows that they won’t bump into each other again as they get the rest of their belongings in the apartment sorted out. They’ll probably sell all the furniture or leave it with the landlord because each piece holds too many memories. They’ll both want to start over.
Luhan leans into the window, face breaths away from Minseok’s.
And Minseok meets Luhan’s eyes, begging in his mind-begging with every fiber of his being-for Luhan to stop looking back at Minseok with a gaze filled with regret. Minseok wants to scream for Luhan that just looking at Minseok doesn’t do anything-that Minseok can’t get out of this car and unpack and stay forever and fix things unless Luhan says so. Luhan’s eyes say everything that isn’t coming out of the journalist’s mouth, and Minseok wishes that they could both just pretend those thoughts were said out loud.
hold me back
i can’t
“Minseok-ah-” Luhan says, one hand outstretched towards the lawyer’s face.
Minseok shakes his head and pulls away, pushing Luhan back out by the shoulder. He closes the window, and the last he sees before he pulls out the driveway is Luhan running both hands over his face.
“Oof,” and Minseok gets faceful of Luhan’s shirt and tie, nearly toppling over backwards from the force. Luhan’s arms encircle around him, though, pushing him back and steadying him. The journalist is laughing, and Minseok feels like kicking him in the shins for pulling something like this right at the front entrance of the firm. Luckily, no one on Minseok’s floor is passing by, and Minseok tugs Luhan by the arm to the side so they don’t block the way of any passersby.
“You’re in a hurry,” Luhan says, grinning and mood seemingly heightened from nearly being the cause of Minseok’s cracked skull.
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday,” Minseok says, rubbing at his eyes and punching Luhan in the arm. “I want lunch.”
“Court next week?” Luhan asks, and holds up the large, brown paper bag-greasy at the bottom and warm to the touch. Minseok feels like he might faint from just the sight of it, gripping Luhan’s elbow even tighter and dragging the journalist to the nearest bench. At this point, he doesn’t care that they’re still near enough to the firm that Minseok’s colleagues will probably see him stuffing his face with corndogs and fries and possibly a burger if Luhan really wanted to treat the lawyer.
Minseok plops down onto the bench and peers into the bag.
“You’re my lord and savior,” Minseok says, pulling out a burger.
Luhan somehow already has half the carton of fries in his mouth before he sits down next to Minseok. He downs the mouthful with a gulp of iced tea from the jumbo cup he retrieves from the bag. “I know,” he says, and holds the burger for the lawyer so Minseok can get started on the corndog.
They don’t see hide and hair of each other for nearly a year until Yixing’s birthday party.
It’s at Junmyeon’s giant house because the rest of them prefer apartments, except for Wufan, who also has a giant house, but they’d used that for Yixing’s birthday party the year before. Minseok looks a little too good for Luhan’s liking. Minseok looks terrific, teasing Sehun, laughing with Zitao, chatting with Baekhyun, flirting with Wufan and Jongdae, hugging Yixing, catching up with Junmyeon. Luhan is glad that Minseok looks healthy and happy, but there’s a niggling part of the journalist that somehow didn’t want that.
Somehow, Luhan wanted some sort of visible way to tell if Minseok had spent even just a little time torn apart and broken after they’d ended.
Luhan doesn’t want to be the only one who spent nights at the bar, lost in thought and trying to blur those thoughts with alcohol. He doesn’t want to be the only one whose performance at work suffered because he was tossing and turning, sleepless and stressed and he just couldn’t stop thinking. He doesn’t want to be the only one who kept imagining different scenarios-different ways their last day at the apartment together could’ve gone. He doesn’t want to be the only one who relived every argument they’d ever had, wondering where exactly it went wrong and where he could’ve stopped it.
Luhan doesn’t want Minseok to be happy without him.
selfish
“Buy you a drink?” Luhan sidles up to Minseok at Junmyeon’s home bar.
The lawyer raises both eyebrows, something that might be a smile playing on small lips. “They’re free,” Minseok says, and bumps his shoulder into Luhan’s.
Luhan smiles back, and they’re friends again.
Minseok wins at court that week, so he calls Luhan out for a game to thank him for the burger and corndog and fries.
Soccer is the one thing that hasn’t changed between them-the one thing that will never change between them, and Minseok takes comfort in the familiarity. They play in the small park between their apartment complexes until it gets dark, and then they sit at one of the benches that line the sidewalk. Minseok holds the ball between his feet, rolling it back and forth absently as Luhan tells him about Kim Jongin, a hoobae who happens to be Zitao and Sehun’s friend from school. Minseok tells Luhan about how Chanyeol managed to break every machine in the copy room in less than two days.
“IT must hate him,” Luhan says, bending over and lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe the perspiration dripping into his eyes. Minseok catches a flash of skin before Luhan lets his shirt fall back down.
“He’s good at that kind of stuff,” Minseok meeting Luhan’s eyes with a grin. “He never forgets his passwords or gets locked out or anything.”
“Just not copiers,” Luhan raises his eyebrows.
Minseok laughs. “Just not copiers.”
Silence falls on them then, a comfortable quiet while they sit there and let their breaths even out. Minseok nudges the ball across the small space between their feet and Luhan catches it with the tips of his sneakers, dribbling it in place for a moment before rolling it back to the lawyer. They sit like that and roll the ball between them, back and forth in wordlessness, for a peaceful while as night-joggers and the occasional couple pass them by on the park pathway. When Luhan has the ball between his feet again, he kicks it up into his arms and places it between them on the bench, holding it until it won’t roll off.
“D’you like him?” Luhan asks, head tilted, looking Minseok in the eyes.
Minseok places a hand on the ball, and the side of his thumb is mere millimeters away from the tip of Luhan’s forefinger. “A little,” Minseok says simply. He grins at Luhan then. “I like all my hoobaes.”
Luhan bites his lip playfully and smacks Minseok’s chest. The lawyer laughs.
“Sehunie’s shown me pictures of Kim Jongin, Luhan-ah,” Minseok says with purposefully narrowed eyes and now it’s Luhan’s turn to laugh, incredulous. “Don’t make me into the only sunbae here with less than honorable intentions.”
“I like all my hoobaes too.” Luhan shrugs, smiling.
Minseok rolls his eyes, making sure to paint the disbelief clear and blatant over his face. Their gazes touch again. The light from the streetlamps illuminate Luhan’s face against the stark darkness of the night. Minseok can see drops of perspiration slide down the sides of Luhan’s face, clinging to the hair above his ears and matted against his forehead. There are crinkles at the corners of Luhan’s eyes from how he’s grinning at Minseok, eyes curved into half moons as he lowers his gaze for a moment to stifle the laugh that seems to keep bubbling up in him.
“Park Chanyeol, huh?” Luhan eggs on again, once the laughter seems to have subsided enough to let the journalist speak. Everything in Luhan’s tone is playful-utterly at ease, utterly open, and Minseok supposes that they really are just friends now.
“Don’t look him up,” Minseok says, a hand on Luhan’s arm. Luhan’s pulled out his phone, tossing it back and forth in his hands, grin cheeky and teasing on his lips.
Luhan snorts. “I’m not sixteen.”
Minseok snorts back. “You got carded again last Saturday. Wufan told me.”
“Like you didn’t too-last Friday,” Luhan snipes. “Baekhyun told me.”
The lawyer throws an air punch towards Luhan’s face, and the journalist playfully dodges, swinging back and catching Minseok’s wrist. It’s only then that Minseok realizes they’ve somehow gravitated closer to each other on the bench, until the soccer ball in between them is balanced in both of their laps. The ball is pressing into Minseok’s stomach and he’s close enough to count Luhan’s lower lashes.
He watches as Luhan’s Adam’s apple bobs, the journalist’s tongue flickering out over his lips and then they’re apart again-far apart-at opposite ends of the bench with the ball safely in between them.
Luhan lets go of Minseok’s wrist.
“So,” Luhan says, and the atmosphere is still familiar but it’s suddenly no longer comfortable. Luhan isn’t looking at Minseok anymore. “You like him?”
Minseok looks at Luhan anyway-looks at the side of the journalist’s face, Luhan’s silhouette against the dark shadow of the surrounding trees. “I guess.”
but i still love you
They have sex again for the first time in a year and seven months when they bump into each other at a club. They have sex in Luhan’s new car before Minseok has to hurry back so Kyungsoo and Baekhyun don’t say anything, but he knows that his friends can smell Luhan on him. It’s not supposed to mean anything, and it happens again a week later-this time when they marathon movies late into the night, and Luhan naturally falls into Minseok’s bed.
Catching drinks together at the bar near Luhan’s house, and they’re tipsy, fucking on the floor of Luhan’s living room. Soccer games on weekend afternoons and they fuck in Minseok’s shower. Hanging out at Luhan’s apartment and Luhan fucks Minseok bent over his kitchen counter. Sneaking off during a party at Jongdae’s house and they have sex in the back of Minseok’s car. It’s comfortable and it doesn’t mean anything more than it should. It means as much as Luhan bringing Minseok his favorite burgers when the lawyer hasn’t eaten in twenty-four hours because a trial is coming up. It means as much as Minseok waiting for Luhan to finish work so they can go for drinks together on a Friday night.
It means they’re something to each other that can’t be explained in words, and it hurts too much to try to explain it even to themselves so they don’t.
(maybe they’re in love but this is the real world, and it wasn’t enough the first time-it won’t be enough the second, third, fourth time)
[ next]
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: pg-13
pairing(s): xiuhan, lukai, xiuyeol
summary: would we have changed?
a/n: sort of a sequel to want u back, expanding on that universe and all that. but this can also be a stand-alone. hopefully gonna get the second part up tmrw or the day after that.
[part one] [ part two]
Their workplaces are across the road from each other, and their apartment complexes are mere blocks away from each other. They’re in the same circle of friends so they see each other at gatherings on the weekends and birthday parties.
And they’re still friends.
They haven’t had a chance to really spend time as just friends since it ended between them, other than that one night at the club, but it’s only because neither of them have had time for it. They’re both busy-Minseok wants to make partner before the year is over and Luhan is bogged down with pending deadlines for at least seven different articles. Their careers are at the forefront of their lives, and maybe that’s why ending the relationship was good for both of them.
There just wasn’t time to be in love.
Minseok is on his lunch break, stepping up to the cash register to pay for his bento box when a hand pops up in front of him, stopping him from handing his card to the cashier. A familiar voice chirps behind him, “Together, please,” and Minseok rolls his eyes with a smile as he watches Luhan come into view beside the lawyer, handing over his own card to the cashier who, unfazed, rings Minseok’s bento and Luhan’s sashimi bowl up.
He steps to the side as soon as his bento is paid for and grins quietly to himself, heading out of the restaurant without waiting for Luhan. The weather is nice enough to eat outside, and Minseok heads for the tables around the fountain a little ways into the plaza. He doesn’t stop grinning as he hears rushed footsteps behind him, that same voice laughing his name, and all of it is followed by a hand on his shoulder.
“Can you walk any faster?” Luhan huffs, out of breath and smiling.
“I can,” Minseok says. “But I wanted you to catch up to me.”
Luhan’s smile broadens, teeth flashing. “Let’s eat together,” he says, hand sliding from Minseok’s shoulder down to the lawyer’s arm, tugging Minseok towards an empty bench.
“Only because you paid,” Minseok relents.
Luhan laughs.
They met in college.
Luhan, sports writer for the university’s paper, dipping in and out of the library with his laptop for some quiet time to finish his articles, and Minseok, a law student, forgoing sleep like every other law student and trying to cram in a last few hours of review before his next exam. Minseok was always in the library, and Luhan frequented the library enough to notice that the other man was always in the library. They start talking one day when Luhan trips on a snag in the carpet and falls onto the table Minseok is occupying, sending the Bible-sized textbooks Minseok has stacked up higher than either of their heights into collapse across all of Minseok’s organized notes.
From there on, it was Luhan sneaking in hot chocolate during Minseok’s many all-nighters at the library; it was Minseok proof-reading Luhan’s articles when the Luhan’s actual editor was quarantined with a horrible case of stomach flu; it was locking Wufan out of his shared dorm with Luhan and movie marathons for two nights straight; it was stealing Baekhyun’s lab reports and hiding them in Kyungsoo’s underwear drawer; it was getting Junmyeon drunk enough to cry about how his hamster was killed by a bicycle when he was seven.
It was Luhan refusing to tell Minseok where he hid Minseok’s notes for the mock trial because Minseok has already reviewed them enough, has already memorized them, and Minseok needs to sleep because he hasn’t slept for a week and Luhan knows that the only way Minseok will lose tomorrow is if he passes out on the mock floor. It was Minseok stealing Luhan’s laptop and changing the password so Luhan couldn’t edit his final article anymore because it was fine and perfect the way it was and seven different editors had already told Luhan so.
It was soccer games, one-on-one, late at night and early in the morning on the green beside their dorm building. It was midnight walks around campus when Luhan couldn’t sleep because he was homesick. It was their first kiss in the tiny coffee shop nestled into the crook between the arts and business buildings. It was all the kisses that followed-light kisses on the stairwell in between classes, deep kisses in the dorm hallway, teasing kisses behind the coffee shop, heavy kisses in either of their dorms when their roommates were out, soft kisses before either of them had exams, playful kisses before and after soccer games.
Luhan brings fried dumplings and an entire strawberry cake one Saturday, and Minseok presses play on the movie playlist he has waiting for both of them on his laptop. They sprawl out in front of Minseok’s new TV, mounted on the wall of the lawyer’s living room. The first movie starts with Luhan on one end of the couch, the entire platter of dumplings in his lap and Minseok on the other end, half the cake sliced on the plate beside him.
By the end of the fifth movie, they’re both on the floor, Minseok on his stomach, the tail of a dumpling hanging out of his mouth, Luhan lying on his back with his head pillowed on the arch of Minseok’s back, chewing thoughtfully at the tip of a strawberry. All the movies Minseok have queued are action-comedies and whenever Minseok laughs, Luhan can feel the vibrations through the back of his head. Midway through the third movie, Luhan remembers catching a glance of Minseok’s gums flashing as his eyes vanish, and after that, Luhan doesn’t recall what the fourth and fifth movies even were.
“Where’d you get the cake?” Minseok says, after they call it quits with the eighth movie because their eyes were starting to hurt. They’re lying side by side now, still on the floor, but with their heads cushioned on throw pillows from the couch. Empty plates and bottles of iced tea and soda litter the space around them.
“A new café,” Luhan says, and turns his head to meet the other man’s gaze.
Minseok grins. “Take me there?”
“Maybe,” Luhan replies with a wink that has the lawyer smacking the editor with the empty dumpling carton.
They move in together after graduation, an apartment right in between Minseok’s law firm and Luhan’s publishing agency. They have sex together for the first time the night they move in-blankets spread on the floor, rooms with no furniture yet, boxes upon boxes of their belongings up against the walls, no lights because they haven’t bothered plugging in any of the lamps. Neither of them is a virgin and it’s not awkward and they aren’t nervous, but somehow it’s far from heavy and passionate.
It’s them.
Playful, and fumbling here and there-there’s as much laughter as there are gasps and sighs, there’re as many grins as there are moans and whines, and they smile as much as they kiss and touch.
They have to start unpacking immediately the next day. They have to be awake early in the morning to supervise the rest of the furniture coming in. They’re both starting their first real jobs ever in less than a week, and they both have to prepare for that. They should have fallen asleep as soon as they finished, but neither of them does. They stay awake, a tangle of sweaty limbs and sated bodies, Minseok’s cheek over Luhan’s heartbeat, Luhan’s fingers in Minseok’s hair.
“Let’s paint it orange,” Minseok says.
“By ourselves?” asks Luhan. He kisses Minseok’s lips.
“Sure,” Minseok skims fingertips over Luhan’s ribs, and the other man shivers closer. “We can have Wufan paint the ceiling.”
Luhan grins and kisses Minseok again.
There’s a new associate at Minseok’s firm who’s been assigned to Minseok as a mentee of sorts. Park Chanyeol is a good few heads towering over Minseok, cheerful, eager to learn and work and unfazed by any sort of attempts to haze him made by the nastier associates in the workplace. He’s easy to teach, gets his work done, doesn’t bother Minseok with useless questions, and apparently is friends with Baekhyun and Jongdae back from their middle school. He transferred to this firm to be closer to his older sister who’d just given birth.
“Niece?” Minseok echoes, when Chanyeol excitedly shows the older man pictures from his laptop.
“Doesn’t she look like me, hyung?” Chanyeol asks, and his grin is so wide and warm that it doesn’t make a mark in Minseok’s mind how just a few days ago, it was sunbaenim.
“She does,” Minseok says. “Her ears are bigger than her head too.”
Chanyeol’s laugh is deep and full. “Hey-hyung,” and Chanyeol draws the word out, wrinkling his nose and squeezing Minseok’s shoulder.
Minseok stands up, heading out of the younger man’s cubicle. “Get back to work,” he says playfully.
Kim Jongin is a new reviewer for the arts section, in charge of all the new weekly releases and chart-toppers. Luhan needs to tell Zitao about how Baekhyun can’t go for coffee with him next Tuesday, so the editor-in-chief drops by Jongin’s cubicle because that’s where Zitao’s tall, dark head is usually found during lunch breaks these days. Zitao is immersed in the dance video Jongin is playing for him, and somehow, as Luhan slips in, he gets pulled into it too.
Zitao ends up leaving in a rush, remembering that he has to send in a copy of the interview before half past noon. The dance video has long since ended by that time, but somehow Luhan ends up staying for the rest of the break, too yanked into a conversation with Jongin about the upcoming soccer season, a new dance show on television, albums coming out from five different artists they both follow, and whether those two IT staff downstairs are really dating or not.
Jongin tells Luhan that he knows Sehun too-that he, Sehun, and Zitao all went to the same dance academy in university before Sehun branched off to become a choreographer and Zitao and Jongin headed off into journalism. He’s four years younger than Luhan, and Luhan feels every single year the longer they talk, but somehow that’s what has Luhan smiling back so easily whenever Jongin laughs.
The fights start two years in.
There’s nothing special about them. They fight like any young couple trying to jumpstart their careers, both of them excelling in their respective fields and hungry for promotion. Minseok soon becomes recognized as the best of the associates, numerous partners wanting him for their own. Luhan’s articles soon become the most read-well-written and hardly ever in need for editing. Both of them are hardly at the apartment anymore, staying at their offices to work through the weekends in hopes that their sunbaes will look even more kindly down on them.
Luhan stops making hot chocolate for Minseok when the lawyer comes home exhausted from a trial-stops dropping by the law firm with a change of clothes and coffee when Minseok needs to pull all-nighters researching for a case there. Minseok no longer makes time to proof-read Luhan’s articles, insisting that Luhan has his own editor for that now-doesn’t hear Luhan insisting back, hurt, that he still wants Minseok’s own opinion on it before he sends the draft in.
They don’t have time for dates. They’re too tired to have sex. They’re too angry at each other to kiss. Minseok spends more time at the office. Luhan spends more time holed up in the bedroom with his laptop. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, Wufan and Junmyeon-their friends start to take sides. They struggle through it for a third year until one night when tempers are running high again, and the worst fight they’ve ever had happens. A lamp is broken, Minseok’s laptop screen is shattered, wine gets all over one of Luhan’s printed drafts, they’re both screaming at each other’s faces, and they have furious, rutting, hurtful sex on the same floor they had their first time on.
Both of them leave the apartment as soon as they get their clothes on.
Minseok spends the night at Baekhyun’s. Luhan spends the night at Wufan’s.
They both return to the apartment the next morning to pack.
“You have somewhere to stay?” Luhan asks, kneeling in front of his half-filled suitcase in the middle of their bedroom. They’ve decided to start with their clothes, and work on the furniture after things have settled down further-after they’ve both figured out more permanent living situations. Right now, they just need to be far apart-they need time away from each other before they can come back and sort the details.
They shouldn’t have started life together so soon after school. Being in love in the real world, they’ve found, is vastly different than being in love on campus-in a dorm-in the hallways-on the stairwell-in that little café next to the library.
Minseok is sitting beside him, one of Luhan’s sweaters in his arms. He folds it hurriedly, licking his lips and swallowing dryly-he doesn’t want to be caught too deep in thought. He’s afraid to think too much right now anyway. The lawyer places the sweater neatly into Luhan’s suitcase. “Kyungsoo’s,” he says. “He has an extra room.” He watches Luhan reach up and pull the next batch of clothes from the shelf, a spilling of sweatpants and jeans. “I guess you’re staying with Wufan.”
Luhan stills slightly, the tumble of clothes in his lap. Minseok silently reaches for a few pairs of jeans, and starts folding them again for the suitcase. “Yeah,” Luhan says finally, getting to work on the sweatpants. Minseok keeps his eyes lowered. He doesn’t want to meet Luhan’s gaze-doesn’t quite feel up to seeing how calm Luhan’s expression is if it’s anything like the journalist’s even tone. He wonders if Luhan is hurting too and just trying to hide it beneath layers and layers of colorlessness or if Luhan was just waiting for this to be over since last year when they first started really fighting.
It’s late afternoon by the time they both finish packing, and they walk to their cars together.
Luhan loads Minseok’s suitcase into the lawyer’s car, standing silently as Minseok gets into the driver’s seat and closes the door with the window down. They’re on different schedules (after all, wasn’t that part of the problem), and Minseok knows that they won’t bump into each other again as they get the rest of their belongings in the apartment sorted out. They’ll probably sell all the furniture or leave it with the landlord because each piece holds too many memories. They’ll both want to start over.
Luhan leans into the window, face breaths away from Minseok’s.
And Minseok meets Luhan’s eyes, begging in his mind-begging with every fiber of his being-for Luhan to stop looking back at Minseok with a gaze filled with regret. Minseok wants to scream for Luhan that just looking at Minseok doesn’t do anything-that Minseok can’t get out of this car and unpack and stay forever and fix things unless Luhan says so. Luhan’s eyes say everything that isn’t coming out of the journalist’s mouth, and Minseok wishes that they could both just pretend those thoughts were said out loud.
hold me back
i can’t
“Minseok-ah-” Luhan says, one hand outstretched towards the lawyer’s face.
Minseok shakes his head and pulls away, pushing Luhan back out by the shoulder. He closes the window, and the last he sees before he pulls out the driveway is Luhan running both hands over his face.
“Oof,” and Minseok gets faceful of Luhan’s shirt and tie, nearly toppling over backwards from the force. Luhan’s arms encircle around him, though, pushing him back and steadying him. The journalist is laughing, and Minseok feels like kicking him in the shins for pulling something like this right at the front entrance of the firm. Luckily, no one on Minseok’s floor is passing by, and Minseok tugs Luhan by the arm to the side so they don’t block the way of any passersby.
“You’re in a hurry,” Luhan says, grinning and mood seemingly heightened from nearly being the cause of Minseok’s cracked skull.
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday,” Minseok says, rubbing at his eyes and punching Luhan in the arm. “I want lunch.”
“Court next week?” Luhan asks, and holds up the large, brown paper bag-greasy at the bottom and warm to the touch. Minseok feels like he might faint from just the sight of it, gripping Luhan’s elbow even tighter and dragging the journalist to the nearest bench. At this point, he doesn’t care that they’re still near enough to the firm that Minseok’s colleagues will probably see him stuffing his face with corndogs and fries and possibly a burger if Luhan really wanted to treat the lawyer.
Minseok plops down onto the bench and peers into the bag.
“You’re my lord and savior,” Minseok says, pulling out a burger.
Luhan somehow already has half the carton of fries in his mouth before he sits down next to Minseok. He downs the mouthful with a gulp of iced tea from the jumbo cup he retrieves from the bag. “I know,” he says, and holds the burger for the lawyer so Minseok can get started on the corndog.
They don’t see hide and hair of each other for nearly a year until Yixing’s birthday party.
It’s at Junmyeon’s giant house because the rest of them prefer apartments, except for Wufan, who also has a giant house, but they’d used that for Yixing’s birthday party the year before. Minseok looks a little too good for Luhan’s liking. Minseok looks terrific, teasing Sehun, laughing with Zitao, chatting with Baekhyun, flirting with Wufan and Jongdae, hugging Yixing, catching up with Junmyeon. Luhan is glad that Minseok looks healthy and happy, but there’s a niggling part of the journalist that somehow didn’t want that.
Somehow, Luhan wanted some sort of visible way to tell if Minseok had spent even just a little time torn apart and broken after they’d ended.
Luhan doesn’t want to be the only one who spent nights at the bar, lost in thought and trying to blur those thoughts with alcohol. He doesn’t want to be the only one whose performance at work suffered because he was tossing and turning, sleepless and stressed and he just couldn’t stop thinking. He doesn’t want to be the only one who kept imagining different scenarios-different ways their last day at the apartment together could’ve gone. He doesn’t want to be the only one who relived every argument they’d ever had, wondering where exactly it went wrong and where he could’ve stopped it.
Luhan doesn’t want Minseok to be happy without him.
selfish
“Buy you a drink?” Luhan sidles up to Minseok at Junmyeon’s home bar.
The lawyer raises both eyebrows, something that might be a smile playing on small lips. “They’re free,” Minseok says, and bumps his shoulder into Luhan’s.
Luhan smiles back, and they’re friends again.
Minseok wins at court that week, so he calls Luhan out for a game to thank him for the burger and corndog and fries.
Soccer is the one thing that hasn’t changed between them-the one thing that will never change between them, and Minseok takes comfort in the familiarity. They play in the small park between their apartment complexes until it gets dark, and then they sit at one of the benches that line the sidewalk. Minseok holds the ball between his feet, rolling it back and forth absently as Luhan tells him about Kim Jongin, a hoobae who happens to be Zitao and Sehun’s friend from school. Minseok tells Luhan about how Chanyeol managed to break every machine in the copy room in less than two days.
“IT must hate him,” Luhan says, bending over and lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe the perspiration dripping into his eyes. Minseok catches a flash of skin before Luhan lets his shirt fall back down.
“He’s good at that kind of stuff,” Minseok meeting Luhan’s eyes with a grin. “He never forgets his passwords or gets locked out or anything.”
“Just not copiers,” Luhan raises his eyebrows.
Minseok laughs. “Just not copiers.”
Silence falls on them then, a comfortable quiet while they sit there and let their breaths even out. Minseok nudges the ball across the small space between their feet and Luhan catches it with the tips of his sneakers, dribbling it in place for a moment before rolling it back to the lawyer. They sit like that and roll the ball between them, back and forth in wordlessness, for a peaceful while as night-joggers and the occasional couple pass them by on the park pathway. When Luhan has the ball between his feet again, he kicks it up into his arms and places it between them on the bench, holding it until it won’t roll off.
“D’you like him?” Luhan asks, head tilted, looking Minseok in the eyes.
Minseok places a hand on the ball, and the side of his thumb is mere millimeters away from the tip of Luhan’s forefinger. “A little,” Minseok says simply. He grins at Luhan then. “I like all my hoobaes.”
Luhan bites his lip playfully and smacks Minseok’s chest. The lawyer laughs.
“Sehunie’s shown me pictures of Kim Jongin, Luhan-ah,” Minseok says with purposefully narrowed eyes and now it’s Luhan’s turn to laugh, incredulous. “Don’t make me into the only sunbae here with less than honorable intentions.”
“I like all my hoobaes too.” Luhan shrugs, smiling.
Minseok rolls his eyes, making sure to paint the disbelief clear and blatant over his face. Their gazes touch again. The light from the streetlamps illuminate Luhan’s face against the stark darkness of the night. Minseok can see drops of perspiration slide down the sides of Luhan’s face, clinging to the hair above his ears and matted against his forehead. There are crinkles at the corners of Luhan’s eyes from how he’s grinning at Minseok, eyes curved into half moons as he lowers his gaze for a moment to stifle the laugh that seems to keep bubbling up in him.
“Park Chanyeol, huh?” Luhan eggs on again, once the laughter seems to have subsided enough to let the journalist speak. Everything in Luhan’s tone is playful-utterly at ease, utterly open, and Minseok supposes that they really are just friends now.
“Don’t look him up,” Minseok says, a hand on Luhan’s arm. Luhan’s pulled out his phone, tossing it back and forth in his hands, grin cheeky and teasing on his lips.
Luhan snorts. “I’m not sixteen.”
Minseok snorts back. “You got carded again last Saturday. Wufan told me.”
“Like you didn’t too-last Friday,” Luhan snipes. “Baekhyun told me.”
The lawyer throws an air punch towards Luhan’s face, and the journalist playfully dodges, swinging back and catching Minseok’s wrist. It’s only then that Minseok realizes they’ve somehow gravitated closer to each other on the bench, until the soccer ball in between them is balanced in both of their laps. The ball is pressing into Minseok’s stomach and he’s close enough to count Luhan’s lower lashes.
He watches as Luhan’s Adam’s apple bobs, the journalist’s tongue flickering out over his lips and then they’re apart again-far apart-at opposite ends of the bench with the ball safely in between them.
Luhan lets go of Minseok’s wrist.
“So,” Luhan says, and the atmosphere is still familiar but it’s suddenly no longer comfortable. Luhan isn’t looking at Minseok anymore. “You like him?”
Minseok looks at Luhan anyway-looks at the side of the journalist’s face, Luhan’s silhouette against the dark shadow of the surrounding trees. “I guess.”
but i still love you
They have sex again for the first time in a year and seven months when they bump into each other at a club. They have sex in Luhan’s new car before Minseok has to hurry back so Kyungsoo and Baekhyun don’t say anything, but he knows that his friends can smell Luhan on him. It’s not supposed to mean anything, and it happens again a week later-this time when they marathon movies late into the night, and Luhan naturally falls into Minseok’s bed.
Catching drinks together at the bar near Luhan’s house, and they’re tipsy, fucking on the floor of Luhan’s living room. Soccer games on weekend afternoons and they fuck in Minseok’s shower. Hanging out at Luhan’s apartment and Luhan fucks Minseok bent over his kitchen counter. Sneaking off during a party at Jongdae’s house and they have sex in the back of Minseok’s car. It’s comfortable and it doesn’t mean anything more than it should. It means as much as Luhan bringing Minseok his favorite burgers when the lawyer hasn’t eaten in twenty-four hours because a trial is coming up. It means as much as Minseok waiting for Luhan to finish work so they can go for drinks together on a Friday night.
It means they’re something to each other that can’t be explained in words, and it hurts too much to try to explain it even to themselves so they don’t.
(maybe they’re in love but this is the real world, and it wasn’t enough the first time-it won’t be enough the second, third, fourth time)
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