[sehun/lu han] iced americanos (and an extra shot of you)
iced americanos (and an extra shot of you)
sehun/lu han
pg-13, 8,000w
In which the subway can bring you anywhere you want. Lu Han is in pursuit of inspiration, Oh Sehun is a whirlwind of colors that paint a painting beyond inspiring and Lu Han eventually gets lost in his own feelings - which was out of the itinerary he was promised.
(originally written for feixing for kpop-ficmix here, remix of we were destined to explode.)
Lu Han quietly wipes the dust off the plastic cover of his drink cup, sized venti. The whole cabinet is filled with plastic Starbucks takeout cups of different shapes and sizes: the top row is filled by venti cups for hot beverages and the bottom row is occupied by tall cups for iced beverages. He even has a divider to separate the cups with the covers for whipped cream and those without. It’s not an obsession, he thinks, it’s just necessity. His job requires more than heavy doses of sugar and syrup and a cabinet full of empty cups. It requires way, way more than that. His friends marvel at his collection of coffee cups, they’d say, but Lu Han’d snarl in defense because he hates coffee. The only drinks he has in Starbucks are anything but drinks with coffee in them.
He pads back to his room with a steaming cup of instant hot chocolate (thanks to his assistant), and plops on his chair weakly, sniffling as he adjusts the loose cardigan around his body. He’d just finished with his eighty-paged short story that was supposed to be due last night, but managed to get it pushed back by a day (thanks to his assistant). With a scowl, he realizes he should be thankful for his assistant for a lot of things. He sends the draft to the editor weakly and almost falls asleep on the table when the phone rings.
Jesus. He’d been working in complete silence for three days and nights without sleep, and he’d instructed everyone to leave him alone until he’s done with the story and now he’s jumping up at the sound of his ringtone.
“Hello,” he mumbles grouchily.
“Good morning to you too, Lu Han,” Yixing, his assistant chirps from over the line, “I hope you’re done with your draft?”
“I wouldn’t pick your call up if I hadn’t,” Lu Han says tiredly. “Thanks for refilling my hot chocolate supply; anyway, I thought I finished the stack in the cupboard.”
“I’m in Hong Kong anyway,” Yixing chuckles, “you like that brand, don’t you?”
“Mmm,” Lu Han hums. “Come back soon. I’m done with this and I’m bored.”
“There are four more days,” Yixing replies. “I’m coming home soon.”
When Lu Han ends the call, he’s reminded of why Yixing’s overseas. Everyone is entitled to one trip on the subway, they call it, and the subway can take you anywhere you want. Anywhere. You get to stay there for thirty days, and you take the subway back. But the catch is that, well, you only get to do that once. Lu Han had asked why Yixing wanted to leave so quickly, come on, we’re not even thirty, but Yixing had shoved his jackets into his luggage with a resigned smile. “It’s better to see and explore the world when I’m still mobile and young,” he had explained, “and meet new people while I’m at it. I’m not going to wait until I turn sixty before I leave; nobody would want to befriend someone who’s all wrinkly and retired.”
Lu Han stares at the blue mark on his left shoulder. All citizens had to get that injection for the blue mark - it signifies that you haven’t taken your one ride yet and it’d magically disappear after you get on the train. He traces the spot absentmindedly, and stares at his cooling cup of hot chocolate and wonders if Yixing makes sense or not.
Sadly, he does.
The day Yixing returns is the day Lu Han packs a month’s worth of clothes and a bag full of shoes into his two luggage bags.
“What are you doing,” Yixing breathes when he pulls his luggage up the step outside Lu Han’s apartment and Lu Han shrugs.
“It’s my turn,” he huffs as he tosses a notebook into his bag and tries to tug the zipper around the bag, “my turn for an adventure.”
Yixing tosses packets of instant beverages onto the dining table with a roll of his eyes although Lu Han knows he’s not angry. Yixing would never be. That’s why Lu Han had insisted for Yixing to be his manager from the very start (he had threatened to quit the job when his boss has offered to switch Yixing for another… ‘better’, quoted, manager). He only watches as Lu Han cards his fingers through his hair hastily and pulls his luggage behind him. Tossing the car keys at Yixing, he grins. “Take me to the subway, Xing.”
Lu Han is a writer hired by one of the big-name publishers in Beijing, China, at the young age of twenty-one because he was a high school dropout with no passion except for writing stories of people who didn’t exist in his free time. Now he’s standing at the platform of the subway station, luggage bumping into his foot as he walks towards the edge of the platform. There are other people at the station, and he sees many pairs of eyes that reflect the look in his own. Fear, uncertainty, curiosity.
He wonders how these people ended up here - were they kicked out of their home, did they run away from home, did they crave for adventure like Lu Han or were they just curious about the world like Yixing? The loud bell of the arrival of the train knocks Lu Han out of his reverie as Yixing waves to him from the car park.
“Passengers, please proceed to the departure room to fill in your destination forms if you haven’t. The train will depart in thirty minutes. ”
Lu Han grabs his luggage as he trudges towards the departure room.
When he’s in there, he sees people who choose their destinations with excited whispers, America, Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Belgium. With a start, he realizes that he has no idea where he wants to go.
He knows, for sure, that there are people who plan their first trip since young, filling up walls with pictures of metal-wrought bridges, of flower-dusted streets. Some parents help their children in planning for their ideal trip, while the rest collect pictures from magazines and snapshots of documentaries and decide on their dream escape.
Lu Han stands in front of the giant electronic board after majority of the crowd has dispersed. On it are displayed the names of every country in the world. He could go to 新加坡 or 美国 at a touch and he could even go to 南极洲 if he so desired. Instead of choosing and picking a real destination, Lu Han is quite the fervent believer of fate. He closes his eyes and reaches his hand out blindly to the board, and when his fingertips touch the cold glass pane, he opens his eyes.
“你选择了韩国. 希望你路程顺利.”
(You have chosen Korea. We hope you have a successful trip.)
The attendant on the train takes his luggage at the door and informs him that they’ll help him keep those and wake him up when he’s at his destination. Lu Han nods gratefully and takes the window seat in a middle compartment of the long, long train. He imagines Yixing driving home now, lips curled up in a soft sigh as he packs the packets of coffee into the airtight boxes that Lu Han has in his cupboards. When the train shifts and moves into high speeds, Lu Han closes his eyes and pretends he’s flying in the sky. The conversations around him, in excited Mandarin slowly die out as he drifts off to sleep.
The same attendant wakes him up later, although Lu Han doesn’t know how much time has passed. He looks around and some of the people here earlier have already got down, it seems, and he groans a little inside because he didn’t get to see how it was, getting off at countries all over the world. He looks out of the window beside him and is met with blue skies and white, translucent clouds and he wonders how on earth is this Korea, because all he knows about Korea is their flamboyant food streets and incredible nightclubs. He gets up and listens to his joints pop satisfyingly before walking with the attendant out of the train. The sight that greets him is wonderful.
“Welcome to Seoul, Korea,” the attendant announces with a pleasant smile. “We hope you have a great time, and we’ll see you in a month!”
Lu Han wonders how many countries and cities these attendants have been to, but he shakes his head. It’s too much. “Thank you,” he says instead, and takes his luggage back from her hands.
The brochure stuffed into his luggage states that he could approach the help counter at the airports all over the world if he needed help getting around the destination country. Lu Han knows no Korean at all - okay, maybe only annyeonghaseyo from the article on languages published a few years ago, and saranghaeyo from JJ Lin’s song, but he figures those two probably won’t get him far enough to have food and a roof over his head for this one month.
He walks aimlessly until he finds a bright yellow signboard that says Chinese, 中文 and Lu Han speeds up happily.
“Hi,” he says in Chinese, and the middle-aged lady from behind the counter looks up, disinterested, flipping through a magazine idly.
“Translator or tour guide?” She asks after demanding for Lu Han’s identification card, finally putting her magazine down and tapping on the computer slowly. Lu Han’s friendly smile falters at her lack of professionalism, being a very professional pro himself.
“Translator, I guess. I’m fine with walking around by myself.”
“Well, what do you know? We only have one trainee left - but don’t worry, he’s trained in both translating and bringing people around. Trainees are not as professional as the real ones, though,” she says helpfully, and Lu Han grimaces at the irony. She yells into the room at the back in quick Korean and there are noises before a boy stumbles his way out of the room, hair messy and shoelaces undone on one shoe.
“Oh Sehun,” the lady introduces with a wry smile, “he’s our last trainee untaken here. Have fun!”
Sehun is a lanky boy with a long torso and a head of bleached grey hair. Lu Han mildly wonders if he’ll look better in other hair colors, but the thought flies away as quick as it came because Sehun looks Lu Han up and down and looks away. He mumbles something to the lady, who smiles and shrugs. Lu Han files the unfamiliar line into his head in case he picks up Korean in the near future, because who know what this boy might be saying about him right now?
“Let’s go,” Sehun says, in surprisingly accurate Chinese, and he doesn’t bother to look at Lu Han for a second time or offer to help him take his luggage bags. He walks too fast for Lu Han’s liking because his legs are longer than Lu Han’s are and his walking speed is insane. Lu Han tries hard to catch up but fails to do so eventually, and he stops halfway through the road outside, panting with his bags on the floor.
“Oh Sehun!” He yells, punctuating the unfamiliar syllables and finds that Sehun’s name sticks on the tip of his tongue. Sehun turns around, rolls his eyes and walks back to where Lu Han had stopped. “You walk too fast, wait for me,” Lu Han says with a frown.
“But why walk slowly, when there’s so much in the world to see?” Sehun only says, dark eyes looking into Lu Han’s eyes and Lu Han realizes this is the first thing Sehun has said to him while looking at him straight.
The first place Sehun brings Lu Han to in Seoul is Starbucks. Lu Han is a little miffed about Sehun making decisions on his own and making Lu Han follow him blindly. Okay, so Sehun didn’t really tell Lu Han to follow him, but wasn’t he supposed to ensure that Lu Han is guided and safe and comfortable in Seoul? Lu Han grimaces at the Starbucks signboard wearily. But Lu Han had followed him anyway, because his level of Korean would guarantee that he would land up with a job here in Korea, maybe washing dirty dishes illegally in the kitchens of restaurants, if he were to get lost.
He looks around the café, and sees the many couples scattered around the place. The simplicity of the aura of love in the place is stirring something inside of Lu Han, and if Yixing was here, he’d shake his head with a smile. (“Your writer instincts are bubbling again, aren’t they?” Yixing would say, and Lu Han would only admit because there is no point in disagreeing with Yixing because Yixing is always right.) He suddenly remembers a line from one of his favorite books and shivers.
“小心. 要照顾你的心.”
(Be careful. Take care of your heart.)
Sehun gestures (not very politely) for Lu Han to take a seat while he goes to join the queue for the coffee, and if Lu Han had watched, he’d have seen that Sehun skips the queue all the way to the front. But he doesn’t, and he’s surprised when Sehun returns with two cups of (- ew, is that one caramel frappe?) coffee.
He’s about to take one but Sehun’s hand interrupts his motion and Sehun chooses the taller cup of the two. Lu Han scowls, but he sees the shade of the drink and he knows it’s Americano (the drink he loathes the most), so he doesn’t say anything. Lu Han doesn’t like caramel or coffee, so he finds himself staring at the cup of frappe with a frown. The whipped cream is collapsing slightly under the weight of all the caramel syrup the barista had dribbled on top. “What,” Sehun says, “do you not drink coffee?”
Lu Han thinks about his collection of Starbucks cups at home, and remembers all the looks people had given him when he announced that he had never touched a drop of coffee from Starbucks. The boy in front of him right now is annoying and haughty and Lu Han wants to smash his pretty face into a rock but he doesn’t. He wraps a hand around the drink and holds it up, already daring himself to take a sip.
“No,” Lu Han replies. “I do.”
Suddenly, a tall boy wearing the Starbucks apron walks over and whacks the back of Sehun’s head with a wet towel, and when his eyes flicker to Lu Han, his mouth forms a cute little o shape. “Hi,” he says in Korean, “my name is Zitao.”
Lu Han thanks all gods that he’s been at several (enough) Asian author conferences and book launches to know what this line means. “Hi,” Lu Han replies, stuttering over the foreign language and Sehun blinks at the exchange before saying something to Zitao in Korean.
“Lu Han, my assigned tourist,” Sehun says in Chinese, gesturing at Lu Han with his hand, “he’s Chinese, by the way. Lu Han, this is Zitao. He works here, and he let me cut the queue just now, thank you.”
Zitao stares at Lu Han with a wide grin and Lu Han feels the pressure to take a sip of the coffee. He doesn’t like caramel, or coffee, but the green straw is already nudging at his lips. But before he can say anything, though, Zitao holds a hand up. “Wait, you’re Chinese?” He says in Chinese. Lu Han’s eyes widen almost comically. “I am, too! Wow, are you enjoying Korea yet? Anyway, Sehun! You didn’t say thanks when I gave you your drinks, you prick!”
Sehun sets his cup down and Lu Han realizes it’s already empty. He grabs Lu Han’s drink and grabs Lu Han’s wrist with his other hand and Lu Han has to scramble to get his bags before Sehun drags them away. “Thanks for the drinks, ge, but we’re going first.”
“Oww,” Lu Han hisses when Sehun finally lets go of his wrist. “What was that for?!”
Sehun doesn’t say anything, only looks into the sky as he sighs. “I need to get you checked in so you can leave all your bags there,” he mutters.
“I was waiting for this from like, three hours ago and I thought you were going to make me sleep on the streets or something,” Lu Han bites back. Sehun gives him a long stare.
The hotel’s windows are facing the huge shopping district of Gangnam. Lu Han’s not rich, but he’s not exactly poor, but he’s absolutely positive Sehun wants him to use up all of the money he has in his bank on this trip. Sehun had ordered a fancy-looking dish for Lu Han for his dinner in the hotel, claiming that he had other duties to carry out in the airport so he couldn’t stay. Lu Han had scowled when Sehun dials for the room service, that he ‘didn’t need Sehun here anyway’, and Sehun had rolled his eyes before the receptionist picked up.
When he’s had his fill (calling the receptionist thrice to make sure that his set of spicy rice cakes weren’t made too spicy was kind of embarrassing, but), Lu Han turns his laptop on and sees one email from Yixing. Lu Han sighs exasperatedly, wondering if he should give Yixing a call. The email is short. I’ve edited and submitted your second draft, it says. Lu Han rubs his eyes in fatigue and wonders how he had spent the day forgetting the fact that yes, he’s a writer, and he’s on a vacation that nobody knew about. Thanks, Xing, is what he sends back before he plops back onto the bed.
Lu Han wakes up thinking about all the deadlines he has to meet and how he wanted his column to look like in the weekly entertainment tabloid. His eyelids fly open, and what greets him isn’t the smell of the brand of tea Yixing makes him in the morning, but a strange mix of freshly washed sheets and air freshener. He looks down, and his blankets are white instead of blue like his at home. “Oh shit,” he moans sadly, “I’m in Korea. I dreamt about work. I am so tragic.”
It’s nine, and he had actually half-expected Sehun to barge through the door or something, but when it’s nine-thirty and Lu Han already has his hair nicely done and his breath fresh and Sehun is nowhere to be seen. He wonders if he should call him, but decides against it. It’s not like Lu Han can’t survive in here without Sehun or something, right?
He can’t. Lu Han’s at the subway station of Gangnam, eyes trained worriedly on the huge subway rail map on one of the big notice boards. He can’t read Korean well and he can’t ask other people because he doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t even know where to go. The rail lines are long and there are so many stops and Lu Han really, really doesn’t know where is where. He hadn’t even planned for this trip.
The morning crowd rushes by him to other places and for once, he wishes he wasn’t staying at Gangnam because that place is ridiculously bustling and noisy all times of the day. In the midst of typical office wear, Lu Han spots a head of grey. “Sehun!” Lu Han calls (almost) desperately and waves his hands in the air when Sehun turns to look curiously. Their eyes meet for a moment. Sehun points at the exit and Lu Han tries not to die under the stampede as he makes his way out.
“Why were you there,” Sehun says, “shouldn’t you be at the hotel if you were going to get lost in Seoul?”
Lu Han’s chest bubbles with anger and he has to chew on his bottom lip for a while before he inhales and speaks. “You didn’t come over earlier, so I thought you didn’t want to bring me around. I thought I would be able to handle the language barrier, but then now I realize that… I can’t.”
Sehun looks sufficiently guilty for a moment and a part of Lu Han whoops in triumph. “I’m sorry,” Sehun says quietly. If Lu Han wasn’t anticipating it, he’d have lost it with the loud sounds of the train arrival and hurried footsteps. “I’m not… used to this. Following people around. Someone your age.”
“Wait, how old do I look like?” Lu Han asks.
“Seventeen?” Sehun replies. Lu Han’s jaw drops and Sehun laughs frantically. “No, when I first met you, I thought you were nearer to my age but I just settled for seventeen as a guess.”
Lu Han recovers his composure soon later, clearing his throat and dropping his voice to a whisper. “I’m older than that,” he says. “Maybe you should add five years to that. No, wait, six.”
Sehun looks positively horrified that Lu Han can’t help but laugh at his face.
After spending seven days in Seoul with Sehun, Lu Han has come to a conclusion that Sehun isn’t as bad as he initially thought. Sehun’d pick him up in the morning with a shabby-looking motorbike (but hey, at least it’s something), and they’d spend the day gallivanting at Myeongdong, their evenings lounging around in Dongdaemun in a bid to get the best street food they both can find, and their nights lying under the night sky on some random rooftop because hey, they’re young.
“My stomach is going to explode,” Lu Han breathes, as his soft exhale leaves a gentle spiral in the dark sky as Sehun rolls over.
“Your fault for ordering another serving of deokbokki. I told you, didn’t I, I said you wouldn’t finish -”
“Shut up,” Lu Han says, whining, and covers his face with his hands. “Seoul has good food. Better than Beijing.”
“I’ve never been to Beijing,” Sehun replies, his voice soft, and Lu Han turns over. Sehun is staring at the sky with large eyes, and from Lu Han’s view he can see the way the stars are reflected in Sehun’s eyes. They’re beautiful. Sehun jerks from his train of thought and turns to face Lu Han. “Were you staring at me?” He asks, jokingly, “I know I’m good looking. My mom told me that when I was three days old.”
“I can’t believe you’re younger than me,” Lu Han cries, kicking Sehun in the shin, albeit lightly, “you sound like those eloquent cheesy old people I meet in writer conferences. Did you lie about your age?”
“Such is life, Lu Han,” Sehun says, waving his arm across Lu Han’s face, “you don’t get to choose who you meet, who you befriend, nor who you fall in love with. You can only choose to be who you want, and I think… that’s how we can change all of those that we can’t choose.”
“有时 你的眼神好像星光：美丽得耀眼，一瞬间眨了眨却不见了。”
(Like stars, the way your eyes glimmer
Like stars, they fade away in an instant.)
“Do you… want to go to Beijing?” Lu Han ventures and Sehun turns so that his back is facing Lu Han.
“Do you… believe in the one?” Sehun suddenly asks after a moment of silence, entirely disregarding Lu Han’s earlier question. Lu Han is about to retort, but he knows better than to.
Lu Han looks at his back instead.
“You know, that one person for one lifetime. Isn’t that incredibly boring?” Sehun continues.
Lu Han wants to open his mouth, to reply and tell Sehun about how he does believe, believe in true love and soulmates and all forms of ridiculous romantic notions, wants to tell him that he lives because people believe in this, that he makes money out of this, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he just keeps his eyes locked on Sehun’s back, watching as the tense muscles contract and relax as Sehun breathes. He doesn’t dare to say anything because he’s afraid he might say something he’ll regret, and that Sehun might leave him alone. He doesn’t know why the thought of spending days in Seoul without Sehun scares him, but it does, and he knows better than to question.
“I think it’s silly, committing to one person forever. I’m afraid of commitment,” Sehun finally says.
Lu Han watches as the muscles in Sehun’s back relax entirely.
He’s afraid, too.
Day twelve marks the very first time Lu Han has ever got onto a rollercoaster ride. Sehun looks unfazed, but his eyes do light up in amusement when Lu Han’s hands shake on his thighs as they put on the buckles of their seats. “I paid for your ticket,” Lu Han says, miserably, “if I puke, I trust you to take me to the hospital, that’s the least you can do as a fellow human being, Oh Sehun.”
Sehun chuckles, but says nothing until he sees sweat forming at Lu Han’s hairline.
“Why, are you seriously scared of heights?” Sehun asks, laughter in his voice.
Lu Han is indeed afraid of heights, but he’s not going to admit it there and then. He shakes his head even as his stomach drops when the voice over the loudspeaker announces that the ride will start in three! -
The world plunges, and Lu Han can’t feel his feet any longer as the wind keeps slapping his hair onto his face. His stomach lurches, and he clutches at Sehun’s hands involuntarily when they’re high up in the air, legs dangling in empty space. He can hear Sehun laughing if he focuses, but all he can think of is how warm Sehun’s hand feels in his. His eyes are squeezed shut, and his teeth are chattering as the ride slowly lowers itself back to the ground.
Sehun doesn’t comment about his reaction when they get off the ride, just watches quietly as Lu Han vomits his lunch out into the drain. But, he holds Lu Han’s hand in his, and only leads him towards the safer rides.
The day ends with a very pretty sunset with Lu Han squealing on the carousel, a bored Sehun beside him. Sehun looks grouchy, and stares at the tempting rides resentfully, but he never lets go of Lu Han’s hand, even after they hop off the carousel and hop on the bus home.
Day fifteen is the day Lu Han has his first taste of authentic Korean soju in Korea. Lu Han had insisted that Sehun’s a minor and that there is no way in hell Lu Han will let him drink, but Sehun had rolled his eyes and insisted back that his birthday has long passed and he’s now legal, but Lu Han remains skeptical as the cashier takes Sehun’s ID over to verify and only when she returns it with a smile does Lu Han finally cave in.
“Lu Han,” Sehun says, after three emptied glass bottles of soju, “when are you going back?”
Lu Han’s brain is fuzzy and all he can think about is how it would sound like if Sehun were to call him hyung instead. He giggles and lets the dark thought settle deep down, and hiccups. “Do your math, infant,” he drawls, “if it’s day fifteen today, it means I have another fifteen.”
Sehun doesn’t reply, and Lu Han lets the empty silence sink into his subconscious mind hazily.
Soju tastes bitter, he mentally notes. Tell Yixing to never buy it.
Mornings at Starbucks become a daily routine; with Zitao slipping them free drinks even as he grumbles aloud and updates his weibo:
“世界对我来说没有不可能. 用我当咖啡机器的朋友,也就当然有可能.”
(There is nothing impossible in the world to me.
That's why friends who treat me as a coffee machine are also a possibility.)
Lu Han likes to tick Zitao off by reading his weibo updates out loud, but Zitao just pretends not to hear and adds an extra shot of caffeine into Lu Han’s decaf drinks the next time he gets one.
Sometimes, Zitao talks to Lu Han when Sehun is late or at the washroom. His words hold underlying concerns and worries. He talks about people, who are just fleeting by nature, talks about people who practically have wings, who will never settle down. He claims that it’s just something he thinks about a lot, but he clams up when Sehun arrives, leaves a sad smile towards Lu Han’s direction and goes back to the counter.
Lu Han thinks he understands, but he chooses not to.
Day twenty-two marks the start of Lu Han’s end.
Or so he thinks.
Sehun looks increasingly distant as they trudge on the days reluctantly, Lu Han ticking the days off from his monthly scheduler and Sehun watching on grumpily, and Lu Han never got a chance to ask why before Sehun morphs his face into a mask of indifference.
“Do you have a plan today?”
Lu Han looks up from his Nintendo DS, and with a start, realizes that it’s the first thing Sehun’s said to him all day. It vaguely reminds him of the first time he met, and a bad vibe strikes him. He shakes his head instead of questioning Sehun’s behavior.
“Then follow me.”
At night, Sehun brings Lu Han to the Namsan Tower. It’s a beautiful night, the sky bright with stars that twinkle of sealed secrets and wishes that never came true. Lu Han has grown used to the way his heart flips when he is around Sehun, a steady drumming that sends his world into overdrive. He registers the way Sehun slings an arm across his shoulders as an anchor, processes lingering looks as a sign of mutual want. He allows Sehun to drag him into a cable car cabin, physically too tired to fight against him and mentally too jumbled to remember his fear of heights.
Then he realizes he is riding in a cable car.
“Sehun,” he starts off in a small voice, hand already a death grip on the hand bar. Sehun turns to look at him, eyes bright, before the light dims down as he notices the way Lu Han is shaking.
“Oh my god, you are afraid of heights,” Sehun stutters. Lu Han is about to shake that off and tell him no, to say something like I just need someone to hold on to for a while, but then -
Sehun kisses him. Sehun crowds Lu Han into a corner of the cable car cabin and kisses him. It begins as just a chaste meeting between lips, pressure against pressure, but soon morphs into something more, teeth knocking into soft skin and tongues invading personal space. Lu Han continues shaking, little tremors that vibrate underneath his skin, but for an entirely different reason than his fear of heights.
When they pull away, Lu Han dares himself to look into Sehun’s eyes but there’s something in Sehun’s eyes that scares him, as Sehun rubs a finger over and over against the bruise on his neck.
“I - This means nothing, you know that right?” Sehun’s voice is pitched a little too high to be entirely truthful, but there’s an adamant look in his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah of course,” Lu Han replies, even as he feels his heart flip turn flip turn flip turn. After all, it was impossible to fall in love in such a short period of time, wasn’t it? This was just all ridiculous infatuation.
When they get off the cable car and walk down the sides of the mountain in silence, Lu Han realizes that they haven’t put their locks around the fence at the peak of the mountain, but he recalls that those are for lovers.
“爱像一座很高的瀑布，而我只是一艘失去控制的小船 - 跌到谷地才能够停下来 。”
(If love was a waterfall, then I’m just a tiny boat out of control, only stopping when I hit rock bottom.)
The bus ride back home is silent and Lu Han is afraid to breathe too loudly. It meant nothing, he chants mentally, all the way back to the hotel, it meant nothing.
Sehun doesn’t say bye or wave like he usually does as a farewell greeting and Lu Han watches from his door as Sehun turns into another corridor until the elevator tings and the sounds of footsteps fade off to nothing.
It meant nothing.
As he pulls the blankets over his head, he thinks of the many possibilities of the kiss meaning something, but it only adds on to the ache in his heart. Nothing, Lu Han, he chides as he drifts off to sleep, nothing.
Sehun is magic in Lu Han’s eyes because Lu Han is in love with Sehun.
Lu Han knows the way love is supposed to feel like because he’s an author and he lives to phrase love into pretty parentheses and heart-wrenching one-liners and he knows that love is an exaggeration in its own way because everything feels and seems magical and perfect. Sehun makes his world magical simply because Lu Han is in love with him.
He is in love with the way Sehun smiles at him, with the side of his mouth twisted up, almost unevenly. He is in love with the way Sehun touches him, soft brushes of fingertips against bare skin. He likes the way Sehun talks, every word seemingly hiding another meaning.
Admitting it doesn’t mean it makes any sense, because Lu Han knows Sehun wouldn’t stay with him, as much as he wishes he would. He thinks of Zitao’s frequent advice, and knows that he’s done wrong.
There is a small part of him that however, still decides to hold on.
Day twenty-eight. They go to Insa-dong right in the morning. Sehun says it’s amazing there, a blend of tradition and freedom, and Lu Han just nodded and followed. Sehun could say marijuana was fantastic, and Lu Han’d agree; Sehun could say that he had three arms, and Lu Han would still love him.
Sehun’s hand bumps into Lu Han’s as they walk down the street, knuckles brushing knuckles. Lu Han grasps the miniscule chance to hold Sehun’s hands in his. Sehun turns to look at him, and the look in his eyes reads do you understand how this will end. Lu Han only grabs his hand tighter, and avoids Sehun’s stern gaze because he knows.
Sehun buys a small Rubik’s Cube from one the vendors there, a worn-out piece with the colours almost chipping.
“A memory of Korea.”
A memory of me.
“I’ll never forget Korea.”
I’ll never forget you.
The last night that Lu Han spends in Korea is easily the most memorable one if he were to rank them all, although he can’t deny the tight constricting feeling in his chest as he looks at Sehun. All of these had happened too sudden, too fast and when you accelerate, it’s hard to come to a sudden stop. Lu Han had come to Korea out of curiosity and a thirst for adventure, and looking at Sehun’s lazy demeanor, he’s far from ‘adventure’, but he’s brought Lu Han’s heart to new heights and new lows, and Lu Han stares at his empty notebook bitterly.
Initially, he had brought his notebook to jot down feelings - emotions? Things he see in Korea to bring back as mementos and to inspire him to write something new, but when he holds the pen in his hands, all that runs through his head is Sehun and he finds it hard to think of anything coherent at all. Sighing, he throws the notebook back into his luggage and wallows in misery for his job. This vacation had made him abandon too many priorities and reservations.
“Lu Han?”
Lu Han turns to face the door of the room and is slightly surprised at the sight of Sehun. “What are you doing here? It’s late,” Lu Han says, crossing his legs on the bed. Sehun avoids Lu Han’s gaze but sits on his bed without a word.
“Noona sent your boarding pass for tomorrow over,” Sehun says quietly, handing a piece of paper over. It’s the flight information for tomorrow. Lu Han gulps as quietly as he can, but his hands shake when he sets the paper down.
“Thank you, Sehun,” Lu Han says, voice as shaky as his hands, “for everything. I thought you were an asshole when we first met, and I still do think you’re an asshole, but thank you for taking care of me and showing me how beautiful Korea can be, Oh Sehun, thank you.” Thank you for giving me a taste of love. I’m a writer, and I’ve never felt love, and I know you’ll never be mine even if I asked, but thanks for the sneak peek.
Sehun looks apprehensive for a moment, dangling a leg over the edge of the bed, and keeps his eyes locked on the fluorescent ceiling lights above their heads. “I… don’t want you to leave with high hopes, Lu Han,” he begins. Lu Han has a bad feeling about what’s about to come. “I might’ve gave you false hopes during these few weeks, but please don’t take them the wrong way.”
Lu Han’s stomach does a weird lurch and he suddenly remembers what Zitao had told him - what Zitao had always tried to drill into his head, what Zitao had told him to be careful of. People who are just fleeting by nature, people who practically have wings, who will never settle down. Lu Han has lived twenty-odd years, and has written people like this in his books, and today is the first time he’s experiencing it first-hand - experiencing it as the person who’s left behind when wings take the other person away high into the sky, when all that you’re left with is stray feathers and a whole sad bag of memories.
Sehun clicks his tongue and meets Lu Han’s eyes for the first time that night. He scoots closer to Lu Han, and Lu Han’s heart is hammering in his chest and he can’t hear anything over the sound of pounding blood in his ears - “I’m sorry,” Sehun whispers, but his hands are cold as he wraps an arm over Lu Han’s waist.
Don’t do this, Lu Han wants to say, you’re a fucking liar.
The last night Lu Han spends in Korea is the most memorable one. The sex, in Lu Han’s defence, was initiated by Sehun, okay, and Lu Han thinks that there’s a certain irony in the fact that one of his last memory of Sehun; strong, free-spirited Sehun, is of him naked, bruises dug into fragile hipbones and crescent shaped dents marring his smooth, tanned skin. Lu Han will always remember the way his name had left Sehun’s lips, broken and in pieces, as he rolls his hips against his again. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the warmness of Sehun’s skin, remembers the way it had burn when he had touched, sending fire down his veins.
“I love you,” Lu Han had uttered, out of sheer desperation as he clung onto Sehun like Sehun would dissipate into the wind if he let go, eyes rimmed with quiet tears but Sehun keeps quiet and shifts so that his back is facing Lu Han. He doesn’t say the words back, and Lu Han knows better than to expect, but he always does, for some reason, and it hurts more than he thought it would.
Lu Han will also never forget the sensation of waking up alone, hands desperately clinging on to a pillow as if it was Sehun.
The sun shines bright down onto Lu Han and he watches as his shadow pool around his shoes like a puddle of vacuum as he steps out of the hotel building. Day thirty is the day Lu Han would have to take the subway back home, back to Yixing, back to Beijing, back to writing and churning out stories of clichéd romance and back to a life without Sehun. He should be excited - heck, he used to be excited thinking about going home, but the feeling of leaving here feels horrible.
He tugs his luggage behind him as he trudges along the road to the station.
“I’ll always love you,” is what Sehun says before Lu Han walks into the station. Sehun, who’d suddenly appeared with his hair messed up and panting. Anger fizzes through Lu Han. He’s angry at how selfish Sehun is, selfish enough to confess like that right before they part. His heart burns in his chest, out of anger or out of pain, he isn’t sure anymore. But he doesn’t lash out at Sehun. Instead, he cups Sehun’s head in his hands and presses their forehead together. He says nothing, and lets the little moment last in between the breath they share and when he pulls away, Sehun’s face is morphed into something like a cross of shock and wonder.
Lu Han momentarily feels proud for inciting such a reaction, but it falls again when he realizes that this is it. He’s leaving for real and there is no way in hell is he ever going to come back to his place. He wonders if he should ask Sehun to come over to Beijing to play someday, but that is entirely unfair because Sehun is never one to be bound to something or someone solely. He’s a free spirit, wild and untameable and Lu Han doesn’t want to break the spell.
“Bye,” Lu Han says, hands waving in the air and a smile hanging confidently on his face as he steps into the train. Sehun’s eyes are unwavering but he doesn’t smile back as he waves.
“Bye,” Sehun replies.
The train drives away and Lu Han’s eyes are on Sehun until the train takes a turn and the station is jerked out of his sight.
(Lu Han will always love Sehun, and Sehun will always love Lu Han, but this where the similarities end. Sehun will grow to love more; will learn to accommodate many others into his heart. It doesn’t matter if he loves the subsequent people more, less or equal to the degree in which he loves Lu Han, he will love others, and his heart will never belong to one. He cannot be tied down, not to a place, and certainly not to a person, he’s too free-spirited for that. Lu Han however, will forever long for someone who is unable to give his whole heart to him, forever wait for a train that is never going to come.)
The years come and go. Lu Han finds that the critics who used to pick on his flaws are now better receptive of his work, and more people are beginning to say that his works are full of emotion and feelings and when asked how Lu Han obtained his inspiration, Lu Han only smiled, tired creases beside his eyes, and shakes his head. “Secret,” he’d say with a glint in his eyes, but the real answer is that he’s still living off his feelings for Sehun. For a scary moment, he wonders if they air this channel in Korea, but he realizes that it wouldn’t matter. If they did, he doubts Sehun’d care, either.
You’d think the years would have washed Lu Han free of his feelings for Sehun, but the sad truth is that Lu Han couldn’t ever bring himself to forget Sehun nor throw his vacation to the back of his head. It continues to haunt every second he breathes - the things they could’ve been, the love that could’ve been there. Yet Lu Han knows it’s never possible, so he sits up at 3AM sometimes, shaken awake rudely by a sweet dream and he runs to his desk, head dizzy with the images of Sehun and himself, and with shaking hands, type out even more stories.
Yixing would watch on with worried lines on his forehead as Lu Han works his ass off in the dead of the night but Lu Han would look up through his glasses and insists that he’s fine, it’s his job. Yixing would sigh and exclaim that he doesn’t care anymore, but whenever Lu Han falls asleep on the desk, he’d find himself on his bed, blankets snug over him and a cup of tea on the desk waiting for whenever he woke up.
The empty notebook he’d brought to Korea remains empty with inspiration, but the sight of it alone gives Lu Han a rush of feelings so strong it hurts to breathe. He’d given the notebook special glory of being on his shelf full of Starbucks cups, because Starbucks makes him think of Sehun too.
He’s so tragic.
He’s in a bubble tea café beside the Beijing National Stadium one day, sitting lazily while waiting for Yixing to rush here from the hotel so they could catch a soccer match - that they’ll be late for if Yixing doesn’t reach in ten minutes.
Over the sounds of ice being finely blended in the machines and over customers’ fussy orders, the door of the café swings open with soft tinkling from the bells tied to the top of the glass doors and Lu Han, out of boredom, looks up from his cup of milk tea and when he sees Sehun, he has to sit up straight to avoid choking on a pearl.
Sehun is with another boy - tan, about his height, and the other boy has an arm over Sehun’s shoulders and they’re chatting, laughing amiably and Lu Han realizes, with bitter resentment, that Sehun is busy being happy when Lu Han was mulling in his own pool of misery.
Lu Han waits for Sehun and the boy to sit down before he grabs a pen and rips a page from his notebook to scribble some words furiously on and stands up. Lu Han doesn’t deny that his heart did a skip when Sehun laughed but he grits his teeth and pushes his shades up with a hand. He slips the piece of paper onto their table and breezes past them and out of the café, and before he turns into the stadium, he sees Yixing, so he runs away, Yixing in tow.
Sehun eyes the piece of paper with narrowed eyes.
“Look at it,” the other boy says, and Sehun unfolds the paper. “It’s in Japanese?”
“Jongin,” Sehun says, voice trembling, “you’re stupid,” he says. “This is Chinese.”
Sehun stands up and dashes out of the café, the piece of paper clenched tightly in his hand as his heart beats fast and hard. As the match starts, the crowd inside and outside the café clears, and Sehun doesn’t see anyone anymore. He slips the piece of paper into the back pocket of his jeans, and hopes Jongin doesn’t question the whole issue.
Sure enough, Jongin eyes him with curious eyes as Sehun takes his seat again, but he says nothing although he notices the disappearance of the paper from earlier. Sehun sips his drink in complete silence, eyes locked onto the sky outside the window and his heart clenches a little. Beijing. He should’ve known better than to agree when Jongin had suggested that they go to Beijing for a vacation, of all places. He didn’t think much - hell, he didn’t even recall, very honestly, but now he knows.
He had let Lu Han go again. They had been so close - so very close, within Sehun’s reach, but he had slipped away again, much to Sehun’s dismay. The sheer reality dawns on Sehun and the piece of paper in his pocket almost burns in disappointment.
A memory of China, the piece of paper says, in messy Chinese handwriting.
You’ll never forget China, too.
Sehun knows he won’t.
a/n: wow. oh god. never though i'd get a day where i really remix this fic lmao this was my first favorite hunhan fic giggles i hope i did it justice (i think i didn't) and thank you everyone for encouraging me and for pretending you didn't know this was me @____@ ♥
sehun/lu han
pg-13, 8,000w
In which the subway can bring you anywhere you want. Lu Han is in pursuit of inspiration, Oh Sehun is a whirlwind of colors that paint a painting beyond inspiring and Lu Han eventually gets lost in his own feelings - which was out of the itinerary he was promised.
(originally written for feixing for kpop-ficmix here, remix of we were destined to explode.)
Lu Han quietly wipes the dust off the plastic cover of his drink cup, sized venti. The whole cabinet is filled with plastic Starbucks takeout cups of different shapes and sizes: the top row is filled by venti cups for hot beverages and the bottom row is occupied by tall cups for iced beverages. He even has a divider to separate the cups with the covers for whipped cream and those without. It’s not an obsession, he thinks, it’s just necessity. His job requires more than heavy doses of sugar and syrup and a cabinet full of empty cups. It requires way, way more than that. His friends marvel at his collection of coffee cups, they’d say, but Lu Han’d snarl in defense because he hates coffee. The only drinks he has in Starbucks are anything but drinks with coffee in them.
He pads back to his room with a steaming cup of instant hot chocolate (thanks to his assistant), and plops on his chair weakly, sniffling as he adjusts the loose cardigan around his body. He’d just finished with his eighty-paged short story that was supposed to be due last night, but managed to get it pushed back by a day (thanks to his assistant). With a scowl, he realizes he should be thankful for his assistant for a lot of things. He sends the draft to the editor weakly and almost falls asleep on the table when the phone rings.
Jesus. He’d been working in complete silence for three days and nights without sleep, and he’d instructed everyone to leave him alone until he’s done with the story and now he’s jumping up at the sound of his ringtone.
“Hello,” he mumbles grouchily.
“Good morning to you too, Lu Han,” Yixing, his assistant chirps from over the line, “I hope you’re done with your draft?”
“I wouldn’t pick your call up if I hadn’t,” Lu Han says tiredly. “Thanks for refilling my hot chocolate supply; anyway, I thought I finished the stack in the cupboard.”
“I’m in Hong Kong anyway,” Yixing chuckles, “you like that brand, don’t you?”
“Mmm,” Lu Han hums. “Come back soon. I’m done with this and I’m bored.”
“There are four more days,” Yixing replies. “I’m coming home soon.”
When Lu Han ends the call, he’s reminded of why Yixing’s overseas. Everyone is entitled to one trip on the subway, they call it, and the subway can take you anywhere you want. Anywhere. You get to stay there for thirty days, and you take the subway back. But the catch is that, well, you only get to do that once. Lu Han had asked why Yixing wanted to leave so quickly, come on, we’re not even thirty, but Yixing had shoved his jackets into his luggage with a resigned smile. “It’s better to see and explore the world when I’m still mobile and young,” he had explained, “and meet new people while I’m at it. I’m not going to wait until I turn sixty before I leave; nobody would want to befriend someone who’s all wrinkly and retired.”
Lu Han stares at the blue mark on his left shoulder. All citizens had to get that injection for the blue mark - it signifies that you haven’t taken your one ride yet and it’d magically disappear after you get on the train. He traces the spot absentmindedly, and stares at his cooling cup of hot chocolate and wonders if Yixing makes sense or not.
Sadly, he does.
The day Yixing returns is the day Lu Han packs a month’s worth of clothes and a bag full of shoes into his two luggage bags.
“What are you doing,” Yixing breathes when he pulls his luggage up the step outside Lu Han’s apartment and Lu Han shrugs.
“It’s my turn,” he huffs as he tosses a notebook into his bag and tries to tug the zipper around the bag, “my turn for an adventure.”
Yixing tosses packets of instant beverages onto the dining table with a roll of his eyes although Lu Han knows he’s not angry. Yixing would never be. That’s why Lu Han had insisted for Yixing to be his manager from the very start (he had threatened to quit the job when his boss has offered to switch Yixing for another… ‘better’, quoted, manager). He only watches as Lu Han cards his fingers through his hair hastily and pulls his luggage behind him. Tossing the car keys at Yixing, he grins. “Take me to the subway, Xing.”
Lu Han is a writer hired by one of the big-name publishers in Beijing, China, at the young age of twenty-one because he was a high school dropout with no passion except for writing stories of people who didn’t exist in his free time. Now he’s standing at the platform of the subway station, luggage bumping into his foot as he walks towards the edge of the platform. There are other people at the station, and he sees many pairs of eyes that reflect the look in his own. Fear, uncertainty, curiosity.
He wonders how these people ended up here - were they kicked out of their home, did they run away from home, did they crave for adventure like Lu Han or were they just curious about the world like Yixing? The loud bell of the arrival of the train knocks Lu Han out of his reverie as Yixing waves to him from the car park.
“Passengers, please proceed to the departure room to fill in your destination forms if you haven’t. The train will depart in thirty minutes. ”
Lu Han grabs his luggage as he trudges towards the departure room.
When he’s in there, he sees people who choose their destinations with excited whispers, America, Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Belgium. With a start, he realizes that he has no idea where he wants to go.
He knows, for sure, that there are people who plan their first trip since young, filling up walls with pictures of metal-wrought bridges, of flower-dusted streets. Some parents help their children in planning for their ideal trip, while the rest collect pictures from magazines and snapshots of documentaries and decide on their dream escape.
Lu Han stands in front of the giant electronic board after majority of the crowd has dispersed. On it are displayed the names of every country in the world. He could go to 新加坡 or 美国 at a touch and he could even go to 南极洲 if he so desired. Instead of choosing and picking a real destination, Lu Han is quite the fervent believer of fate. He closes his eyes and reaches his hand out blindly to the board, and when his fingertips touch the cold glass pane, he opens his eyes.
“你选择了韩国. 希望你路程顺利.”
(You have chosen Korea. We hope you have a successful trip.)
The attendant on the train takes his luggage at the door and informs him that they’ll help him keep those and wake him up when he’s at his destination. Lu Han nods gratefully and takes the window seat in a middle compartment of the long, long train. He imagines Yixing driving home now, lips curled up in a soft sigh as he packs the packets of coffee into the airtight boxes that Lu Han has in his cupboards. When the train shifts and moves into high speeds, Lu Han closes his eyes and pretends he’s flying in the sky. The conversations around him, in excited Mandarin slowly die out as he drifts off to sleep.
The same attendant wakes him up later, although Lu Han doesn’t know how much time has passed. He looks around and some of the people here earlier have already got down, it seems, and he groans a little inside because he didn’t get to see how it was, getting off at countries all over the world. He looks out of the window beside him and is met with blue skies and white, translucent clouds and he wonders how on earth is this Korea, because all he knows about Korea is their flamboyant food streets and incredible nightclubs. He gets up and listens to his joints pop satisfyingly before walking with the attendant out of the train. The sight that greets him is wonderful.
“Welcome to Seoul, Korea,” the attendant announces with a pleasant smile. “We hope you have a great time, and we’ll see you in a month!”
Lu Han wonders how many countries and cities these attendants have been to, but he shakes his head. It’s too much. “Thank you,” he says instead, and takes his luggage back from her hands.
The brochure stuffed into his luggage states that he could approach the help counter at the airports all over the world if he needed help getting around the destination country. Lu Han knows no Korean at all - okay, maybe only annyeonghaseyo from the article on languages published a few years ago, and saranghaeyo from JJ Lin’s song, but he figures those two probably won’t get him far enough to have food and a roof over his head for this one month.
He walks aimlessly until he finds a bright yellow signboard that says Chinese, 中文 and Lu Han speeds up happily.
“Hi,” he says in Chinese, and the middle-aged lady from behind the counter looks up, disinterested, flipping through a magazine idly.
“Translator or tour guide?” She asks after demanding for Lu Han’s identification card, finally putting her magazine down and tapping on the computer slowly. Lu Han’s friendly smile falters at her lack of professionalism, being a very professional pro himself.
“Translator, I guess. I’m fine with walking around by myself.”
“Well, what do you know? We only have one trainee left - but don’t worry, he’s trained in both translating and bringing people around. Trainees are not as professional as the real ones, though,” she says helpfully, and Lu Han grimaces at the irony. She yells into the room at the back in quick Korean and there are noises before a boy stumbles his way out of the room, hair messy and shoelaces undone on one shoe.
“Oh Sehun,” the lady introduces with a wry smile, “he’s our last trainee untaken here. Have fun!”
Sehun is a lanky boy with a long torso and a head of bleached grey hair. Lu Han mildly wonders if he’ll look better in other hair colors, but the thought flies away as quick as it came because Sehun looks Lu Han up and down and looks away. He mumbles something to the lady, who smiles and shrugs. Lu Han files the unfamiliar line into his head in case he picks up Korean in the near future, because who know what this boy might be saying about him right now?
“Let’s go,” Sehun says, in surprisingly accurate Chinese, and he doesn’t bother to look at Lu Han for a second time or offer to help him take his luggage bags. He walks too fast for Lu Han’s liking because his legs are longer than Lu Han’s are and his walking speed is insane. Lu Han tries hard to catch up but fails to do so eventually, and he stops halfway through the road outside, panting with his bags on the floor.
“Oh Sehun!” He yells, punctuating the unfamiliar syllables and finds that Sehun’s name sticks on the tip of his tongue. Sehun turns around, rolls his eyes and walks back to where Lu Han had stopped. “You walk too fast, wait for me,” Lu Han says with a frown.
“But why walk slowly, when there’s so much in the world to see?” Sehun only says, dark eyes looking into Lu Han’s eyes and Lu Han realizes this is the first thing Sehun has said to him while looking at him straight.
The first place Sehun brings Lu Han to in Seoul is Starbucks. Lu Han is a little miffed about Sehun making decisions on his own and making Lu Han follow him blindly. Okay, so Sehun didn’t really tell Lu Han to follow him, but wasn’t he supposed to ensure that Lu Han is guided and safe and comfortable in Seoul? Lu Han grimaces at the Starbucks signboard wearily. But Lu Han had followed him anyway, because his level of Korean would guarantee that he would land up with a job here in Korea, maybe washing dirty dishes illegally in the kitchens of restaurants, if he were to get lost.
He looks around the café, and sees the many couples scattered around the place. The simplicity of the aura of love in the place is stirring something inside of Lu Han, and if Yixing was here, he’d shake his head with a smile. (“Your writer instincts are bubbling again, aren’t they?” Yixing would say, and Lu Han would only admit because there is no point in disagreeing with Yixing because Yixing is always right.) He suddenly remembers a line from one of his favorite books and shivers.
“小心. 要照顾你的心.”
(Be careful. Take care of your heart.)
Sehun gestures (not very politely) for Lu Han to take a seat while he goes to join the queue for the coffee, and if Lu Han had watched, he’d have seen that Sehun skips the queue all the way to the front. But he doesn’t, and he’s surprised when Sehun returns with two cups of (- ew, is that one caramel frappe?) coffee.
He’s about to take one but Sehun’s hand interrupts his motion and Sehun chooses the taller cup of the two. Lu Han scowls, but he sees the shade of the drink and he knows it’s Americano (the drink he loathes the most), so he doesn’t say anything. Lu Han doesn’t like caramel or coffee, so he finds himself staring at the cup of frappe with a frown. The whipped cream is collapsing slightly under the weight of all the caramel syrup the barista had dribbled on top. “What,” Sehun says, “do you not drink coffee?”
Lu Han thinks about his collection of Starbucks cups at home, and remembers all the looks people had given him when he announced that he had never touched a drop of coffee from Starbucks. The boy in front of him right now is annoying and haughty and Lu Han wants to smash his pretty face into a rock but he doesn’t. He wraps a hand around the drink and holds it up, already daring himself to take a sip.
“No,” Lu Han replies. “I do.”
Suddenly, a tall boy wearing the Starbucks apron walks over and whacks the back of Sehun’s head with a wet towel, and when his eyes flicker to Lu Han, his mouth forms a cute little o shape. “Hi,” he says in Korean, “my name is Zitao.”
Lu Han thanks all gods that he’s been at several (enough) Asian author conferences and book launches to know what this line means. “Hi,” Lu Han replies, stuttering over the foreign language and Sehun blinks at the exchange before saying something to Zitao in Korean.
“Lu Han, my assigned tourist,” Sehun says in Chinese, gesturing at Lu Han with his hand, “he’s Chinese, by the way. Lu Han, this is Zitao. He works here, and he let me cut the queue just now, thank you.”
Zitao stares at Lu Han with a wide grin and Lu Han feels the pressure to take a sip of the coffee. He doesn’t like caramel, or coffee, but the green straw is already nudging at his lips. But before he can say anything, though, Zitao holds a hand up. “Wait, you’re Chinese?” He says in Chinese. Lu Han’s eyes widen almost comically. “I am, too! Wow, are you enjoying Korea yet? Anyway, Sehun! You didn’t say thanks when I gave you your drinks, you prick!”
Sehun sets his cup down and Lu Han realizes it’s already empty. He grabs Lu Han’s drink and grabs Lu Han’s wrist with his other hand and Lu Han has to scramble to get his bags before Sehun drags them away. “Thanks for the drinks, ge, but we’re going first.”
“Oww,” Lu Han hisses when Sehun finally lets go of his wrist. “What was that for?!”
Sehun doesn’t say anything, only looks into the sky as he sighs. “I need to get you checked in so you can leave all your bags there,” he mutters.
“I was waiting for this from like, three hours ago and I thought you were going to make me sleep on the streets or something,” Lu Han bites back. Sehun gives him a long stare.
The hotel’s windows are facing the huge shopping district of Gangnam. Lu Han’s not rich, but he’s not exactly poor, but he’s absolutely positive Sehun wants him to use up all of the money he has in his bank on this trip. Sehun had ordered a fancy-looking dish for Lu Han for his dinner in the hotel, claiming that he had other duties to carry out in the airport so he couldn’t stay. Lu Han had scowled when Sehun dials for the room service, that he ‘didn’t need Sehun here anyway’, and Sehun had rolled his eyes before the receptionist picked up.
When he’s had his fill (calling the receptionist thrice to make sure that his set of spicy rice cakes weren’t made too spicy was kind of embarrassing, but), Lu Han turns his laptop on and sees one email from Yixing. Lu Han sighs exasperatedly, wondering if he should give Yixing a call. The email is short. I’ve edited and submitted your second draft, it says. Lu Han rubs his eyes in fatigue and wonders how he had spent the day forgetting the fact that yes, he’s a writer, and he’s on a vacation that nobody knew about. Thanks, Xing, is what he sends back before he plops back onto the bed.
Lu Han wakes up thinking about all the deadlines he has to meet and how he wanted his column to look like in the weekly entertainment tabloid. His eyelids fly open, and what greets him isn’t the smell of the brand of tea Yixing makes him in the morning, but a strange mix of freshly washed sheets and air freshener. He looks down, and his blankets are white instead of blue like his at home. “Oh shit,” he moans sadly, “I’m in Korea. I dreamt about work. I am so tragic.”
It’s nine, and he had actually half-expected Sehun to barge through the door or something, but when it’s nine-thirty and Lu Han already has his hair nicely done and his breath fresh and Sehun is nowhere to be seen. He wonders if he should call him, but decides against it. It’s not like Lu Han can’t survive in here without Sehun or something, right?
He can’t. Lu Han’s at the subway station of Gangnam, eyes trained worriedly on the huge subway rail map on one of the big notice boards. He can’t read Korean well and he can’t ask other people because he doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t even know where to go. The rail lines are long and there are so many stops and Lu Han really, really doesn’t know where is where. He hadn’t even planned for this trip.
The morning crowd rushes by him to other places and for once, he wishes he wasn’t staying at Gangnam because that place is ridiculously bustling and noisy all times of the day. In the midst of typical office wear, Lu Han spots a head of grey. “Sehun!” Lu Han calls (almost) desperately and waves his hands in the air when Sehun turns to look curiously. Their eyes meet for a moment. Sehun points at the exit and Lu Han tries not to die under the stampede as he makes his way out.
“Why were you there,” Sehun says, “shouldn’t you be at the hotel if you were going to get lost in Seoul?”
Lu Han’s chest bubbles with anger and he has to chew on his bottom lip for a while before he inhales and speaks. “You didn’t come over earlier, so I thought you didn’t want to bring me around. I thought I would be able to handle the language barrier, but then now I realize that… I can’t.”
Sehun looks sufficiently guilty for a moment and a part of Lu Han whoops in triumph. “I’m sorry,” Sehun says quietly. If Lu Han wasn’t anticipating it, he’d have lost it with the loud sounds of the train arrival and hurried footsteps. “I’m not… used to this. Following people around. Someone your age.”
“Wait, how old do I look like?” Lu Han asks.
“Seventeen?” Sehun replies. Lu Han’s jaw drops and Sehun laughs frantically. “No, when I first met you, I thought you were nearer to my age but I just settled for seventeen as a guess.”
Lu Han recovers his composure soon later, clearing his throat and dropping his voice to a whisper. “I’m older than that,” he says. “Maybe you should add five years to that. No, wait, six.”
Sehun looks positively horrified that Lu Han can’t help but laugh at his face.
After spending seven days in Seoul with Sehun, Lu Han has come to a conclusion that Sehun isn’t as bad as he initially thought. Sehun’d pick him up in the morning with a shabby-looking motorbike (but hey, at least it’s something), and they’d spend the day gallivanting at Myeongdong, their evenings lounging around in Dongdaemun in a bid to get the best street food they both can find, and their nights lying under the night sky on some random rooftop because hey, they’re young.
“My stomach is going to explode,” Lu Han breathes, as his soft exhale leaves a gentle spiral in the dark sky as Sehun rolls over.
“Your fault for ordering another serving of deokbokki. I told you, didn’t I, I said you wouldn’t finish -”
“Shut up,” Lu Han says, whining, and covers his face with his hands. “Seoul has good food. Better than Beijing.”
“I’ve never been to Beijing,” Sehun replies, his voice soft, and Lu Han turns over. Sehun is staring at the sky with large eyes, and from Lu Han’s view he can see the way the stars are reflected in Sehun’s eyes. They’re beautiful. Sehun jerks from his train of thought and turns to face Lu Han. “Were you staring at me?” He asks, jokingly, “I know I’m good looking. My mom told me that when I was three days old.”
“I can’t believe you’re younger than me,” Lu Han cries, kicking Sehun in the shin, albeit lightly, “you sound like those eloquent cheesy old people I meet in writer conferences. Did you lie about your age?”
“Such is life, Lu Han,” Sehun says, waving his arm across Lu Han’s face, “you don’t get to choose who you meet, who you befriend, nor who you fall in love with. You can only choose to be who you want, and I think… that’s how we can change all of those that we can’t choose.”
“有时 你的眼神好像星光：美丽得耀眼，一瞬间眨了眨却不见了。”
(Like stars, the way your eyes glimmer
Like stars, they fade away in an instant.)
“Do you… want to go to Beijing?” Lu Han ventures and Sehun turns so that his back is facing Lu Han.
“Do you… believe in the one?” Sehun suddenly asks after a moment of silence, entirely disregarding Lu Han’s earlier question. Lu Han is about to retort, but he knows better than to.
Lu Han looks at his back instead.
“You know, that one person for one lifetime. Isn’t that incredibly boring?” Sehun continues.
Lu Han wants to open his mouth, to reply and tell Sehun about how he does believe, believe in true love and soulmates and all forms of ridiculous romantic notions, wants to tell him that he lives because people believe in this, that he makes money out of this, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he just keeps his eyes locked on Sehun’s back, watching as the tense muscles contract and relax as Sehun breathes. He doesn’t dare to say anything because he’s afraid he might say something he’ll regret, and that Sehun might leave him alone. He doesn’t know why the thought of spending days in Seoul without Sehun scares him, but it does, and he knows better than to question.
“I think it’s silly, committing to one person forever. I’m afraid of commitment,” Sehun finally says.
Lu Han watches as the muscles in Sehun’s back relax entirely.
He’s afraid, too.
Day twelve marks the very first time Lu Han has ever got onto a rollercoaster ride. Sehun looks unfazed, but his eyes do light up in amusement when Lu Han’s hands shake on his thighs as they put on the buckles of their seats. “I paid for your ticket,” Lu Han says, miserably, “if I puke, I trust you to take me to the hospital, that’s the least you can do as a fellow human being, Oh Sehun.”
Sehun chuckles, but says nothing until he sees sweat forming at Lu Han’s hairline.
“Why, are you seriously scared of heights?” Sehun asks, laughter in his voice.
Lu Han is indeed afraid of heights, but he’s not going to admit it there and then. He shakes his head even as his stomach drops when the voice over the loudspeaker announces that the ride will start in three! -
The world plunges, and Lu Han can’t feel his feet any longer as the wind keeps slapping his hair onto his face. His stomach lurches, and he clutches at Sehun’s hands involuntarily when they’re high up in the air, legs dangling in empty space. He can hear Sehun laughing if he focuses, but all he can think of is how warm Sehun’s hand feels in his. His eyes are squeezed shut, and his teeth are chattering as the ride slowly lowers itself back to the ground.
Sehun doesn’t comment about his reaction when they get off the ride, just watches quietly as Lu Han vomits his lunch out into the drain. But, he holds Lu Han’s hand in his, and only leads him towards the safer rides.
The day ends with a very pretty sunset with Lu Han squealing on the carousel, a bored Sehun beside him. Sehun looks grouchy, and stares at the tempting rides resentfully, but he never lets go of Lu Han’s hand, even after they hop off the carousel and hop on the bus home.
Day fifteen is the day Lu Han has his first taste of authentic Korean soju in Korea. Lu Han had insisted that Sehun’s a minor and that there is no way in hell Lu Han will let him drink, but Sehun had rolled his eyes and insisted back that his birthday has long passed and he’s now legal, but Lu Han remains skeptical as the cashier takes Sehun’s ID over to verify and only when she returns it with a smile does Lu Han finally cave in.
“Lu Han,” Sehun says, after three emptied glass bottles of soju, “when are you going back?”
Lu Han’s brain is fuzzy and all he can think about is how it would sound like if Sehun were to call him hyung instead. He giggles and lets the dark thought settle deep down, and hiccups. “Do your math, infant,” he drawls, “if it’s day fifteen today, it means I have another fifteen.”
Sehun doesn’t reply, and Lu Han lets the empty silence sink into his subconscious mind hazily.
Soju tastes bitter, he mentally notes. Tell Yixing to never buy it.
Mornings at Starbucks become a daily routine; with Zitao slipping them free drinks even as he grumbles aloud and updates his weibo:
“世界对我来说没有不可能. 用我当咖啡机器的朋友,也就当然有可能.”
(There is nothing impossible in the world to me.
That's why friends who treat me as a coffee machine are also a possibility.)
Lu Han likes to tick Zitao off by reading his weibo updates out loud, but Zitao just pretends not to hear and adds an extra shot of caffeine into Lu Han’s decaf drinks the next time he gets one.
Sometimes, Zitao talks to Lu Han when Sehun is late or at the washroom. His words hold underlying concerns and worries. He talks about people, who are just fleeting by nature, talks about people who practically have wings, who will never settle down. He claims that it’s just something he thinks about a lot, but he clams up when Sehun arrives, leaves a sad smile towards Lu Han’s direction and goes back to the counter.
Lu Han thinks he understands, but he chooses not to.
Day twenty-two marks the start of Lu Han’s end.
Or so he thinks.
Sehun looks increasingly distant as they trudge on the days reluctantly, Lu Han ticking the days off from his monthly scheduler and Sehun watching on grumpily, and Lu Han never got a chance to ask why before Sehun morphs his face into a mask of indifference.
“Do you have a plan today?”
Lu Han looks up from his Nintendo DS, and with a start, realizes that it’s the first thing Sehun’s said to him all day. It vaguely reminds him of the first time he met, and a bad vibe strikes him. He shakes his head instead of questioning Sehun’s behavior.
“Then follow me.”
At night, Sehun brings Lu Han to the Namsan Tower. It’s a beautiful night, the sky bright with stars that twinkle of sealed secrets and wishes that never came true. Lu Han has grown used to the way his heart flips when he is around Sehun, a steady drumming that sends his world into overdrive. He registers the way Sehun slings an arm across his shoulders as an anchor, processes lingering looks as a sign of mutual want. He allows Sehun to drag him into a cable car cabin, physically too tired to fight against him and mentally too jumbled to remember his fear of heights.
Then he realizes he is riding in a cable car.
“Sehun,” he starts off in a small voice, hand already a death grip on the hand bar. Sehun turns to look at him, eyes bright, before the light dims down as he notices the way Lu Han is shaking.
“Oh my god, you are afraid of heights,” Sehun stutters. Lu Han is about to shake that off and tell him no, to say something like I just need someone to hold on to for a while, but then -
Sehun kisses him. Sehun crowds Lu Han into a corner of the cable car cabin and kisses him. It begins as just a chaste meeting between lips, pressure against pressure, but soon morphs into something more, teeth knocking into soft skin and tongues invading personal space. Lu Han continues shaking, little tremors that vibrate underneath his skin, but for an entirely different reason than his fear of heights.
When they pull away, Lu Han dares himself to look into Sehun’s eyes but there’s something in Sehun’s eyes that scares him, as Sehun rubs a finger over and over against the bruise on his neck.
“I - This means nothing, you know that right?” Sehun’s voice is pitched a little too high to be entirely truthful, but there’s an adamant look in his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah of course,” Lu Han replies, even as he feels his heart flip turn flip turn flip turn. After all, it was impossible to fall in love in such a short period of time, wasn’t it? This was just all ridiculous infatuation.
When they get off the cable car and walk down the sides of the mountain in silence, Lu Han realizes that they haven’t put their locks around the fence at the peak of the mountain, but he recalls that those are for lovers.
“爱像一座很高的瀑布，而我只是一艘失去控制的小船 - 跌到谷地才能够停下来 。”
(If love was a waterfall, then I’m just a tiny boat out of control, only stopping when I hit rock bottom.)
The bus ride back home is silent and Lu Han is afraid to breathe too loudly. It meant nothing, he chants mentally, all the way back to the hotel, it meant nothing.
Sehun doesn’t say bye or wave like he usually does as a farewell greeting and Lu Han watches from his door as Sehun turns into another corridor until the elevator tings and the sounds of footsteps fade off to nothing.
It meant nothing.
As he pulls the blankets over his head, he thinks of the many possibilities of the kiss meaning something, but it only adds on to the ache in his heart. Nothing, Lu Han, he chides as he drifts off to sleep, nothing.
Sehun is magic in Lu Han’s eyes because Lu Han is in love with Sehun.
Lu Han knows the way love is supposed to feel like because he’s an author and he lives to phrase love into pretty parentheses and heart-wrenching one-liners and he knows that love is an exaggeration in its own way because everything feels and seems magical and perfect. Sehun makes his world magical simply because Lu Han is in love with him.
He is in love with the way Sehun smiles at him, with the side of his mouth twisted up, almost unevenly. He is in love with the way Sehun touches him, soft brushes of fingertips against bare skin. He likes the way Sehun talks, every word seemingly hiding another meaning.
Admitting it doesn’t mean it makes any sense, because Lu Han knows Sehun wouldn’t stay with him, as much as he wishes he would. He thinks of Zitao’s frequent advice, and knows that he’s done wrong.
There is a small part of him that however, still decides to hold on.
Day twenty-eight. They go to Insa-dong right in the morning. Sehun says it’s amazing there, a blend of tradition and freedom, and Lu Han just nodded and followed. Sehun could say marijuana was fantastic, and Lu Han’d agree; Sehun could say that he had three arms, and Lu Han would still love him.
Sehun’s hand bumps into Lu Han’s as they walk down the street, knuckles brushing knuckles. Lu Han grasps the miniscule chance to hold Sehun’s hands in his. Sehun turns to look at him, and the look in his eyes reads do you understand how this will end. Lu Han only grabs his hand tighter, and avoids Sehun’s stern gaze because he knows.
Sehun buys a small Rubik’s Cube from one the vendors there, a worn-out piece with the colours almost chipping.
“A memory of Korea.”
A memory of me.
“I’ll never forget Korea.”
I’ll never forget you.
The last night that Lu Han spends in Korea is easily the most memorable one if he were to rank them all, although he can’t deny the tight constricting feeling in his chest as he looks at Sehun. All of these had happened too sudden, too fast and when you accelerate, it’s hard to come to a sudden stop. Lu Han had come to Korea out of curiosity and a thirst for adventure, and looking at Sehun’s lazy demeanor, he’s far from ‘adventure’, but he’s brought Lu Han’s heart to new heights and new lows, and Lu Han stares at his empty notebook bitterly.
Initially, he had brought his notebook to jot down feelings - emotions? Things he see in Korea to bring back as mementos and to inspire him to write something new, but when he holds the pen in his hands, all that runs through his head is Sehun and he finds it hard to think of anything coherent at all. Sighing, he throws the notebook back into his luggage and wallows in misery for his job. This vacation had made him abandon too many priorities and reservations.
“Lu Han?”
Lu Han turns to face the door of the room and is slightly surprised at the sight of Sehun. “What are you doing here? It’s late,” Lu Han says, crossing his legs on the bed. Sehun avoids Lu Han’s gaze but sits on his bed without a word.
“Noona sent your boarding pass for tomorrow over,” Sehun says quietly, handing a piece of paper over. It’s the flight information for tomorrow. Lu Han gulps as quietly as he can, but his hands shake when he sets the paper down.
“Thank you, Sehun,” Lu Han says, voice as shaky as his hands, “for everything. I thought you were an asshole when we first met, and I still do think you’re an asshole, but thank you for taking care of me and showing me how beautiful Korea can be, Oh Sehun, thank you.” Thank you for giving me a taste of love. I’m a writer, and I’ve never felt love, and I know you’ll never be mine even if I asked, but thanks for the sneak peek.
Sehun looks apprehensive for a moment, dangling a leg over the edge of the bed, and keeps his eyes locked on the fluorescent ceiling lights above their heads. “I… don’t want you to leave with high hopes, Lu Han,” he begins. Lu Han has a bad feeling about what’s about to come. “I might’ve gave you false hopes during these few weeks, but please don’t take them the wrong way.”
Lu Han’s stomach does a weird lurch and he suddenly remembers what Zitao had told him - what Zitao had always tried to drill into his head, what Zitao had told him to be careful of. People who are just fleeting by nature, people who practically have wings, who will never settle down. Lu Han has lived twenty-odd years, and has written people like this in his books, and today is the first time he’s experiencing it first-hand - experiencing it as the person who’s left behind when wings take the other person away high into the sky, when all that you’re left with is stray feathers and a whole sad bag of memories.
Sehun clicks his tongue and meets Lu Han’s eyes for the first time that night. He scoots closer to Lu Han, and Lu Han’s heart is hammering in his chest and he can’t hear anything over the sound of pounding blood in his ears - “I’m sorry,” Sehun whispers, but his hands are cold as he wraps an arm over Lu Han’s waist.
Don’t do this, Lu Han wants to say, you’re a fucking liar.
The last night Lu Han spends in Korea is the most memorable one. The sex, in Lu Han’s defence, was initiated by Sehun, okay, and Lu Han thinks that there’s a certain irony in the fact that one of his last memory of Sehun; strong, free-spirited Sehun, is of him naked, bruises dug into fragile hipbones and crescent shaped dents marring his smooth, tanned skin. Lu Han will always remember the way his name had left Sehun’s lips, broken and in pieces, as he rolls his hips against his again. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the warmness of Sehun’s skin, remembers the way it had burn when he had touched, sending fire down his veins.
“I love you,” Lu Han had uttered, out of sheer desperation as he clung onto Sehun like Sehun would dissipate into the wind if he let go, eyes rimmed with quiet tears but Sehun keeps quiet and shifts so that his back is facing Lu Han. He doesn’t say the words back, and Lu Han knows better than to expect, but he always does, for some reason, and it hurts more than he thought it would.
Lu Han will also never forget the sensation of waking up alone, hands desperately clinging on to a pillow as if it was Sehun.
The sun shines bright down onto Lu Han and he watches as his shadow pool around his shoes like a puddle of vacuum as he steps out of the hotel building. Day thirty is the day Lu Han would have to take the subway back home, back to Yixing, back to Beijing, back to writing and churning out stories of clichéd romance and back to a life without Sehun. He should be excited - heck, he used to be excited thinking about going home, but the feeling of leaving here feels horrible.
He tugs his luggage behind him as he trudges along the road to the station.
“I’ll always love you,” is what Sehun says before Lu Han walks into the station. Sehun, who’d suddenly appeared with his hair messed up and panting. Anger fizzes through Lu Han. He’s angry at how selfish Sehun is, selfish enough to confess like that right before they part. His heart burns in his chest, out of anger or out of pain, he isn’t sure anymore. But he doesn’t lash out at Sehun. Instead, he cups Sehun’s head in his hands and presses their forehead together. He says nothing, and lets the little moment last in between the breath they share and when he pulls away, Sehun’s face is morphed into something like a cross of shock and wonder.
Lu Han momentarily feels proud for inciting such a reaction, but it falls again when he realizes that this is it. He’s leaving for real and there is no way in hell is he ever going to come back to his place. He wonders if he should ask Sehun to come over to Beijing to play someday, but that is entirely unfair because Sehun is never one to be bound to something or someone solely. He’s a free spirit, wild and untameable and Lu Han doesn’t want to break the spell.
“Bye,” Lu Han says, hands waving in the air and a smile hanging confidently on his face as he steps into the train. Sehun’s eyes are unwavering but he doesn’t smile back as he waves.
“Bye,” Sehun replies.
The train drives away and Lu Han’s eyes are on Sehun until the train takes a turn and the station is jerked out of his sight.
(Lu Han will always love Sehun, and Sehun will always love Lu Han, but this where the similarities end. Sehun will grow to love more; will learn to accommodate many others into his heart. It doesn’t matter if he loves the subsequent people more, less or equal to the degree in which he loves Lu Han, he will love others, and his heart will never belong to one. He cannot be tied down, not to a place, and certainly not to a person, he’s too free-spirited for that. Lu Han however, will forever long for someone who is unable to give his whole heart to him, forever wait for a train that is never going to come.)
The years come and go. Lu Han finds that the critics who used to pick on his flaws are now better receptive of his work, and more people are beginning to say that his works are full of emotion and feelings and when asked how Lu Han obtained his inspiration, Lu Han only smiled, tired creases beside his eyes, and shakes his head. “Secret,” he’d say with a glint in his eyes, but the real answer is that he’s still living off his feelings for Sehun. For a scary moment, he wonders if they air this channel in Korea, but he realizes that it wouldn’t matter. If they did, he doubts Sehun’d care, either.
You’d think the years would have washed Lu Han free of his feelings for Sehun, but the sad truth is that Lu Han couldn’t ever bring himself to forget Sehun nor throw his vacation to the back of his head. It continues to haunt every second he breathes - the things they could’ve been, the love that could’ve been there. Yet Lu Han knows it’s never possible, so he sits up at 3AM sometimes, shaken awake rudely by a sweet dream and he runs to his desk, head dizzy with the images of Sehun and himself, and with shaking hands, type out even more stories.
Yixing would watch on with worried lines on his forehead as Lu Han works his ass off in the dead of the night but Lu Han would look up through his glasses and insists that he’s fine, it’s his job. Yixing would sigh and exclaim that he doesn’t care anymore, but whenever Lu Han falls asleep on the desk, he’d find himself on his bed, blankets snug over him and a cup of tea on the desk waiting for whenever he woke up.
The empty notebook he’d brought to Korea remains empty with inspiration, but the sight of it alone gives Lu Han a rush of feelings so strong it hurts to breathe. He’d given the notebook special glory of being on his shelf full of Starbucks cups, because Starbucks makes him think of Sehun too.
He’s so tragic.
He’s in a bubble tea café beside the Beijing National Stadium one day, sitting lazily while waiting for Yixing to rush here from the hotel so they could catch a soccer match - that they’ll be late for if Yixing doesn’t reach in ten minutes.
Over the sounds of ice being finely blended in the machines and over customers’ fussy orders, the door of the café swings open with soft tinkling from the bells tied to the top of the glass doors and Lu Han, out of boredom, looks up from his cup of milk tea and when he sees Sehun, he has to sit up straight to avoid choking on a pearl.
Sehun is with another boy - tan, about his height, and the other boy has an arm over Sehun’s shoulders and they’re chatting, laughing amiably and Lu Han realizes, with bitter resentment, that Sehun is busy being happy when Lu Han was mulling in his own pool of misery.
Lu Han waits for Sehun and the boy to sit down before he grabs a pen and rips a page from his notebook to scribble some words furiously on and stands up. Lu Han doesn’t deny that his heart did a skip when Sehun laughed but he grits his teeth and pushes his shades up with a hand. He slips the piece of paper onto their table and breezes past them and out of the café, and before he turns into the stadium, he sees Yixing, so he runs away, Yixing in tow.
Sehun eyes the piece of paper with narrowed eyes.
“Look at it,” the other boy says, and Sehun unfolds the paper. “It’s in Japanese?”
“Jongin,” Sehun says, voice trembling, “you’re stupid,” he says. “This is Chinese.”
Sehun stands up and dashes out of the café, the piece of paper clenched tightly in his hand as his heart beats fast and hard. As the match starts, the crowd inside and outside the café clears, and Sehun doesn’t see anyone anymore. He slips the piece of paper into the back pocket of his jeans, and hopes Jongin doesn’t question the whole issue.
Sure enough, Jongin eyes him with curious eyes as Sehun takes his seat again, but he says nothing although he notices the disappearance of the paper from earlier. Sehun sips his drink in complete silence, eyes locked onto the sky outside the window and his heart clenches a little. Beijing. He should’ve known better than to agree when Jongin had suggested that they go to Beijing for a vacation, of all places. He didn’t think much - hell, he didn’t even recall, very honestly, but now he knows.
He had let Lu Han go again. They had been so close - so very close, within Sehun’s reach, but he had slipped away again, much to Sehun’s dismay. The sheer reality dawns on Sehun and the piece of paper in his pocket almost burns in disappointment.
A memory of China, the piece of paper says, in messy Chinese handwriting.
You’ll never forget China, too.
Sehun knows he won’t.
a/n: wow. oh god. never though i'd get a day where i really remix this fic lmao this was my first favorite hunhan fic giggles i hope i did it justice (i think i didn't) and thank you everyone for encouraging me and for pretending you didn't know this was me @____@ ♥