{exo} In Remnants of Spring (3/3)
title: In Remnants of Spring
pairing: Xiumin/girl!Luhan, instance of Xiumin/girl!Sehun, girl!Luhan/Yixing, side! girl!Suho/Kris
word count: 21,346
rating: R
warning(s): (highlight to see) instances of character death, gore
summary: Luhan isn’t one to play Russian roulette with fate, but she takes her chances anyway. Maybe it’s because of the fact that she keeps finding herself falling in love for the same person more than once.
(part 2)
[IV - Goodbye to Romance]
Forever is an awfully long time and time has a way of changing things.
Minseok touches the tiny hands clutching the end of his sleeve with his own small ones, a reassuring smile directed toward the teary-eyed girl. “Come on now Luhan, I won’t leave you. I’m just going to the bathroom.”
Luhan pouts, eyes welling with tears, her grasp on his sleeve tightening as if she was holding on for dear life. “It’s not because I’m annoying?”
His eyes widen at her conclusion and his face fills with as much disbelief a five-year old can hold. “No, why would I be annoyed with you? We’re friends, right?”
His words ease her tension a bit, so her grip on his sleeve loosens up. “So you’ll stay with me?” She sniffs. She doesn’t know what’s up, but after dreaming of a woman that she feels is an older version of herself watching the news and crying out her heartbreak from finding out that someone had died (she doesn’t know why either, but something tells her that the person the news was referring to was Minseok), she just didn’t want to let her friend go out of her sight, for fear of having him leave her to cope with her frustrations all alone. “You won’t just disappear when I’m not around, right?”
“Of course.” He answers back, his smile evident in his voice.
“You promise?”
He nods. “I promise.”
“Forever and ever?” her voice rises at the last syllable, and he chuckles at the sudden change in intonation.
“Sure. Forever and ever.”
✉
She is fifteen when she suddenly remembers.
Everything comes down on her in a rush, and she feels overwhelmed with all the memories that she almost faints, knees buckling under her while she’s walking. But she doesn’t fall, as she feels hands wrap around her shoulders, firm in their resolution to keep her from tumbling down. Her head still hurts, but she regains focus and she peers up to see Minseok looking down at her with utmost concern, eyebrows creasing together with worry.
“Hey, are you alright?” he asks her, voice gentle. She nods and gives him a small smile, doubting that he remembers. “I’m just really hungry, I guess.” He helps her regain her balance, fingers curled protectively around her shoulders and despite all those lifetimes, she still feels the same.
She stands straighter and fixes the creases on her uniform to distract herself from the warmth of her shoulders, right where he touched her. Really, she shouldn’t be bothered by that right now, seeing as his touches were as familiar as the back of her palm since they practically grew up together (shared lifetimes together, even), but she still just couldn’t help being affected by everything he does.
He smiles cheekily at her. “I bet you’re breeding elephants in your stomach.” She hits him lightly on the arm with a pout, and he just laughs it off and pats her head lightly. They start walking again, this time without saying anything. But there wasn’t an ocean of awkward silence between them, but comfortable spaces of a calming quiet.
“Hey Minseok… Do you believe in reincarnation? That maybe after death, we’ll get to live again and meet the people we knew back in our previous lives?” she suddenly asks him moments later, and he looks back at her with wide eyes.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” he touches the back of his hand to her forehead, and she suddenly turns stiff under his touch. “It’s not likely of you to take things seriously, are you sick?”
She feels her cheeks start to burn, and she swats his hand away, turning her back to him so he wouldn’t see her face. She starts walking faster, sneakers tapping against the concrete pavement as she gets ahead of him. “Damn you Kim Minseok, I was trying to be smart and philosophical.”
He laughs that adorable laugh of his that she had always loved, and she couldn’t help but smile because his laughter was everything to her and it was contagious. Luhan could hear his footsteps as he lightly jogs to catch up with her, backpack bobbing up and down as both of the straps of his bag are slung over his shoulders. “Nah, I like the usual you better.”
She feels her heart thundering in her chest, but she excuses it as a symptom caused by her nervousness, since it’s their first day in high school anyway.
✉
It was during the day of their field trip. They were going to the museum. She was ecstatic.
Minseok looks at the painting in front of him, not fully understanding how one thing is considered as art and how another is considered as merely an attempt to be artistic. He sighs and turns his head to the side just a little bit, so she wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t “dissecting” the painting and “interpreting its parts” like she’s told him.
Luhan’s eyebrows are knitted in concentration, her chin resting atop the side of a fisted hand-the genuine pose of a philosopher. Minseok almost laughs because she looks like she’s investigating a crime scene, when all she is actually doing was looking at a painting of a road with stop signs getting smaller and smaller along the sides as the distance from the foreground increased. He doesn’t even know if it’s a painting: it was simply a drawing, really, with black paint as the medium for tracing the lines instead of a pencil or a marker. The only splash of color was the red from the stop signs, but that couldn’t have been any good, either.
Most of their classmates are huddled around the tour guide a few meters behind them, who’s saying something about artists gaining recognition for their work by either following the norms of artistry and being good at it or going directly against the convention and setting about a new artistic revolution. But all of this just goes right through Minseok’s ear as he isn’t paying attention to the technicalities, because to him, none of all those paintings compare to the majestic piece of artistry that is the girl right next to him. But really, he isn’t the type to say it out loud even if he’s been thinking of that for a long time already.
“There’s something romantic about it, isn’t there? Like, at the foreground, those lines are far apart from each other, but as it goes on further, they get closer and closer together, until they’re intersecting at one point, right there in the background.” She tells him in a quiet voice that he almost jumps out of his skin, forgetting that she isn’t one of the statues on display, carved out of wax or marble into perfection.
He scratches the back of his head, searching for an answer. “I think it’s nothing but tragic, really.” She gives him a puzzled look, not seeing how he is making his point. “I mean, even if they’re intersecting as we see it, in reality, they’re not. They’ll forever be parallel lines that go on and on but never actually meet.”
Luhan shakes her head with a small smile that goes unnoticed. “Don’t drag your pessimism into this, boy. This doesn’t work the way you do math.”
“I’m not!” he protests, voice rising. He stops himself short as she gives him a look. ‘It’s just that…” he looks back at the artwork hung on the wall, realizing that there may be implications that he could no longer explain nor understand. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. “Sometimes, the truth isn’t always in the way you want it to be.”
They turned to look into each other’s eyes right at the same moment, and in an instant, there is an unspoken understanding in those looks; an unspoken agreement that they, at least, aren’t like those lines in the painting.
This is the point where they intersect.
“Hey, are you wearing make-up? That’s eyeliner right, there, isn’t it?” Minseok points out, breaking the spell binding the two of them together.
Luhan touches her cheeks, embarrassed. Well it’s not like she had every intention for him to notice that she put in some effort to look good today. And she definitely didn’t have the idea that he’ll tell her how she looks pretty for the first time just because she wore a bit of makeup. It’s not like she cares in looking good in front of him. “Nah, it’s just my eyelashes. They’re naturally like that.” She hides her smile behind pursed lips.
✉
Minseok taps his foot against the marble-tiled floor outside the women’s bathroom of the museum. He doesn’t mind waiting, especially since he’s waiting for Luhan, but still, it was tiring. Especially since almost thirty minutes have already passed.
After a few seconds, she finally comes rushing out of the bathroom, looking around in panic. “Where are the others?”
“The bus already left.” Minseok declares, not a hint of sadness in his tone. Maybe because he himself told their teacher that it’s okay if the class goes ahead without them. Or maybe because he tried to point out every inconvenience the whole class will experience if they kept on waiting for them.
Luhan’s face falls at this realization, and she hangs her head in apology. She blames her mom for cooking as if there was a feast the previous night. “I thought they’d all be waiting for us…” she says, not mentioning her problem with indigestion in embarrassment, but it was already that damn obvious. Minseok doesn’t respond, and she’s afraid that he’s gotten mad at her, but when she looks up at him, he is smiling.
He beams down at her like she means the world to him, and a part of her aches, remembering the time he smiled at her like that a lifetime ago for one last time, before he disappeared without preamble. That was when he died without her by his side to hold his hand throughout the turbulence until the world shifted and they fell. “It’s okay, I don’t mind waiting. Let’s go home?” he says, offering her his hand.
This time though, unlike in the previous one, she holds his hand and smiles back at him, hoping to convey that if he had his world built around her, then he, in turn, is her world.
✉
Bad luck befalls them the moment they get out.
The moment they step out of the museum’s metal doors, it starts raining hard, droplets looking as if they’re boring holes through the umbrellas of some passers-by. The shelter provided by the sloped roof of the building is the only thing that’s keeping them dry for now, but even that wouldn’t last for long.
Minseok turns to face Luhan, expression turning into that of dismay. “Uhm… do you have an umbrella?”
Luhan looks back at him, perturbed. “God Minseok, you know that you could never trust me with things like this. Maybe we should just run out and try to get to the bus station. If we hurry, we could get on the last bus home before it leaves.”
Her reassurance was definitely all that he needed to hear.
“On three?” he tightens his grip around her hand protectively.
She squeezes back, trying to reassure him that it’s okay, because even if this wasn’t the perfect weather, this is still the most perfect day, anyway. “On three.” She nods.
The moment Minseok says “three” she pushes the front soles of her feet downward and sprints to the right, hand still enclosed in his. They’re soaking wet when they arrive at the bus stop, but fate seems to have other plans, for they see the bus meters away from them, almost disappearing from view as the gap in-between increases.
“I saw a convenience store when we passed by a while ago,” she says over the rain, straining to be heard as the drumming of the droplets against the asphalt get louder and louder. “We could seek shelter there.” Minseok just nods and follows her lead; too disappointed to argue because this isn’t going the way he wanted it to be.
The girl by the counter looks at them weirdly, popping the gum in her mouth. But then she seems to think better of this and just shrugs, continuing to flip through the magazine she’s been reading.
Luhan sits down on one of the unoccupied tables as Minseok walks by the shelves, scouring for good food. In the end, he winds up coming back with two cups of instant ramyun and two bottles of water. The couple who’s eating in a table near theirs gives them odd looks, but he just shrugs them off.
They eat silently, probably mulling over the fact that they would probably have a hard time getting home since transportation isn’t available at the moment and walking seems to be the best alternative, when Luhan, for all that she’s worth, peeks up at him through her fringe.
He almost chokes on his noodles seeing the black smudges under her eye. So that’s why those people have been giving them strange looks. “Hey, you’ve… got some dirt under your eyes.” He tries to say it casually.
“Where, here?” she rubs the spot under her eyes and the stain spreads even further that she now resembles a raccoon. Minseok fights the urge to laugh, biting down his lip.
“Ah, here, let me help you.” He takes out a handkerchief from his pocket-already wet from the rain-and wipes it over the blackened spots on her face. The gesture seems so oddly sweet and romantic that Luhan stiffens in her seat, not wanting to ruin the moment by saying the wrong thing or doing something appropriately dumb.
He peers at her eyes and just focuses his gaze at her, and to other people, she must have been just some girl with smudged eyeliner and wet, unruly hair, but to him, she was the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. And in that second of spur-of-the-moment decisions that he couldn’t do so much against, he tilts his head forward and closes the distance between their lips.
Maybe it wasn’t bad luck after all.
✉
Luhan isn’t one to expect, knowing that nothing good happens out of waiting for something that will probably never happen, but she’ll be lying if she says that she didn’t expect her relationship with Minseok to transcend to the next level after what happened the previous day.
But when they meet again on the way to school that morning, nothing changes, Luhan feels dumb to have thought it meant anything. Minseok greets her the same way-with a pinch on the cheek and a ruffling of the hair; and doesn’t say anything about the kiss in the convenience store and the hand-holding that followed on their way home with a silence that stretched between them that wasn’t stifling, yet still existed because they didn’t know of the words to say.
But she could sense an underlying tone to his movement and the way his lips would quiver as if about to say something but couldn’t, as if there was an external physical force restraining him from opening his lips. And really, this wasn’t the first time this had happened, but Luhan still doesn’t know how to tell him that she wants to acknowledge whether or not they’re a step further off their friendship.
She shrugs it off for now, a weight lifted off her shoulders but still a problem left in storage because she doesn’t want things between them to be awkward. Maybe it was something he wasn’t ready to talk about it either, so Luhan has to wait to see what might happen next, because she herself doesn’t know what to do about it. But it was okay, because she’s been waiting for such a long time - what more this time?
So they put it off for some time until the days turn into weeks, weeks into months and eventually years that she could hardly even remember the reason why she’s ever thought they could even be more than what they are right now. But sometimes there are the easy smiles and the looks they share across the room, and they come to approach a common point in the middle of empty spaces and unsaid words sitting at the end of their tongues. These are the times when she knows that she doesn’t even need to ask anymore.
✉
The day when they find out the results of their college entrance exams is the point wherein they start to drift far apart from each other.
“You won’t come with me to Seoul?” Minseok asks after finding out that Luhan will enroll in their town’s local college even though she passed the exam in the national university. Even if things went differently and Minseok ended up not liking her more than as a friend, they’ve been around each other for years now that he just couldn’t imagine a life without her constant presence, even if it means staying as her best friend.
Luhan looks down, not wanting to meet his eyes for fear that she wouldn’t be able to say no to anything he says. “I couldn’t possibly leave this place. I-my family needs me. So I can’t leave. I just… couldn’t.” But really, it’s a lie, because even if her parents wouldn’t allow her, she could do anything to leave. Even back in those previous lifetimes, in all those instances, she always could have walked away instead, but she didn’t.
But even when she thought she could always wait for him, this time, she knows she couldn’t anymore. Not when she knows that he couldn’t even say what he really meant. Maybe because she’s tired of it all. Maybe because she wants to try if they really are meant for each other, since there’s that belief that two people will still end up together no matter what happens if they’re really meant to be. Maybe because she wants him to take the initiative and make a move this time. So she decided to find the alternative instead; even if it meant a life without him.
Minseok touches Luhan’s shoulder lightly, the distance between them an awkward space of emptiness that he doesn’t know how to close the gap between. “But won’t you come with me? I could convince your parents, it wouldn’t be that hard, really.”
Luhan bites her bottom lip, fighting back tears. Fighting back the urge to not let go. It’s so easy to say yes, but she’s come to the point where she doesn’t even know if she wants to say yes anymore. “You wouldn’t need me there, anyway. And I’ll be okay here. This is where I belong.”
And then, there was the question that she never thought she’d hear from him. “But what about us?”
Luhan pulls back, looking up at him with an unreadable expression. “Us? What is there to us? What are we, really? Childhood friends who casually kiss each other?” There’s too much bitterness in her voice that she doesn’t even recognize her voice as the emotion laces her usual tone.
“I-“ Minseok starts, but he doesn’t get to finish. This isn’t what he wanted-this isn’t the way things are supposed to be.
“We were never really anything more than best friends, right?” Luhan says, tone gentle despite the bitter smile on her face. “You never asked if we could be more than that, and I would never say yes to a question that’s never been asked. So there’s no need for you to feel sorry.”
Minseok feels at lost. “But you’ll wait for me, right?”
Luhan doesn’t give him an answer and walks away instead; steps deliberately slow as if waiting for him to catch up. But he doesn’t know this, so he just stands there in the middle of their usual rendezvous place-the top of the stairs a few meters from their houses; the point where their fates intersect-knowing that he’s fucked up. He’s always been waiting for the best moment to tell her, and now that he’s belatedly realized that it’s passed, he figures that there really isn’t a perfect time for anything, and that each of those moments could have been the best moment, if only he decided before it was too late.
“Please… wait.” He whispers into the air, but the wind doesn’t carry his voice with it, just the sadness clinging to every crevice, but without the tears spilling.
Luhan doesn’t look back at him, and he likes to think that it’s because she’d be waiting for him someplace else.
This time the sparks were gone, and the only things they left were the burn marks that might heal over time but would never disappear, and the sting of what had been and what could have been leaving a pricking pain that would always be there, but they would eventually get used to.
✉
Luhan doesn’t show up on the bus stop on the day that Minseok leaves for Seoul, even when all of their other friends did. Even Yixing, who tends to forget everything after a minute has passed is there, a sleepy smile on his face and white earphones hanging tangled around his neck.
Minseok looks out the window of the vehicle, smiling and waving at the people he’s known for years but is leaving for who knows until when. His eyes scan both ways the road goes, looking for a familiar shock of tousled, mousy brown hair but sees none. His smile falters, but he keeps it up until the bus’s engine rumbles to a start and sets off. Up until the last minute, he’s convincing himself that this was for the best, but he knows in his heart that this isn’t right.
Luhan looks away from where she’s standing hidden behind a brick wall meters from them, heart heavy but eyes surprisingly dry for someone who is seeing the person she is pining for leave. She closes her eyes when she hears the distant, mechanical whirr of the vehicle coming to life, not wanting to hurt herself more by seeing him leave.
At exactly 8:00 AM, the bus leaves, carrying Minseok and Luhan’s hopes with it.
✉
Hey, Minseok,
Delete.
Luhan stares at the blank message field she’s been trying to fill but keeps on constantly deleting. She tries again, fingers typing with urgency. Dear Minseok. Too formal. Delete.
Hey you idiot, I
Delete.
I love you. I never got to say this before you left, but just so you know, I love you.
11:21AM. Message saved to drafts.
I miss you. Please come back.
Sending cancelled.
Just come back.
Her thumb hovers over the send button.
✉
The day their paths meet once more is the month Luhan opens a bookstore.
It’s been five months since her wedding and seven years since that time, and just when she thinks everything’s okay-that the regrets of the past would never come back to haunt her again-he shows up at the counter just like that, never having really changed somehow despite the fact that no attempts of regaining communication had been made by both parties.
She blinks, not fully being able to believe that the person who she’s wanted to see the most back then is now standing in front of her, eyes unchanging and expression openly saying that he wants to tell her a lot of things, but he just doesn’t know where to start.
But the difference is, things aren’t the same as they were in the past anymore.
After seven years, numerous failed blind dates set up by a friend and zero attempts of getting in a relationship with another, there he is, right at the point where he left from, still struggling to find the right words to say.
And there she is, in a space parallel to his, moving forward, moving on. Keeping up and constantly forging ahead.
“So I heard you got married. To Yixing.” He starts by way of introduction. There’s a small smile forcefully trying to tug at his lips, but Luhan knows that this isn’t the smile he genuinely gives; this isn’t the smile that she’s fallen in love with over and over again. “Congratulations on your wedding, even though my greetings might have been a little too late.” Even if he tries, it’s obvious that he isn’t happy about it, but he doesn’t sound sarcastic like the way Luhan would’ve thought all these years; just sad.
You’re always late, Luhan wants to say in response, but she bites back her tongue. “Thank you.” She responds, a little too coldly for her liking. “I heard you’re spearheading the recreation of that old park in Seoul.” You know, that one you’ve always told me about back then. The one where you said you’d take me to, because that’s where your father proposed to your mother. “So congratulations on that, too.” She tries to smile, but her expression cracks. The mask almost falters, but she doesn’t know how she’s able to keep it up.
Minseok nods and mumbles his thanks, eyes seeming to be searching something lost within the depths of Luhan’s irises. She clears her throat, feeling dryness clog up on it. “So, what can I help you with?” It’s awkward addressing him like this: business-like and mature, devoid of all familiarity and hidden grins from stories that they usually recount. But she doesn’t want to think about that, because she thinks she’d feel even more conscious of the growing void stretching out between them.
“I told you to wait for me, didn’t I?” Minseok finally says, voice cracking, and there’s that sadness again, both in his eyes and his voice. “Why couldn’t you?” he isn’t blaming her, just simply asking. But she could feel the hurt underlying his words, a sense of dismay from a betrayal.
She swallows down the lump in her throat along with all the guilt, leaving stubborn traces along the sides of her tongue. “I never told you that I would.”
Minseok looks at her as if he’d been slapped, the pain of a time that can never be brought back again resurfacing and clouding up the present.
He clenches his hands into fists, and she’s known him for such a long time to recognize the gesture he makes when he is fighting away tears. The guilt gnaws on Luhan, because even though she remembers being hurt because of him in their previous lives, it was nothing compared to the pain of seeing Minseok suffering in front of her eating her heart out. “But why?”
She looks away from him, seeing dust motes floating, highlighted by the rays of the sun filtering through the open windows. “People get tired of waiting too, Minseok.” But you’ll never know because you’ve never waited as long as I have. “And for me, I’ve grown tired seven years back.”
But that isn’t true, says the deleted messages and the unsent ones.
She’s lying, adds the birthday gifts stocked up somewhere in the dumpsters. She missed you.
Can’t you see? Screams the calls he’s received from an unregistered number, dropped right after a greeting.
Minseok looks down at his hands. Maybe he should’ve said something back then. Maybe he should have taken the risk of asking her even if meant they are to be met with awkwardness, because now, the tension between them is even more constricting than the unease he felt with the thought of being rejected.
She’s not sure how they ended up this way-back to square one, but somehow even worse, with a few steps backwards to boot. If only things went differently, this wouldn’t have been the case, but it doesn’t. Maybe because Yixing was the one who asked, not him. Maybe because it was Yixing who had been staying by her side when she needed someone instead of Minseok. Maybe because he was the closest thing she could have that was remotely related to Minseok and the history they shared. Maybe because he was there at the right place, at the right time. Maybe because he had said the right words, at the exact moment she felt like losing her balance. But the truth is she’s not really sure.
This is the beginning of the point where they will never truly meet again as they have hoped before.
“One last thing, then… Did you marry him just because you wanted to forget me? Or get even with me?” Minseok asks, not sure of what he wants to hear in return, anyway.
Luhan shakes her head, more of to clear her own mind and convince herself that she’s made the right decision rather than as an answer to Minseok’s question. She does love Yixing, there is no question to that. But it couldn’t be compared to the lifetimes of desire she has pent up in her heart, crying out for Minseok. She clenches her fists against her sides, because she’s already made her decision; there wasn’t supposed to be any turning back now. But when Minseok suddenly showed up, she could feel her resolve crumbling, worries skittering across her mind; a voice she recognizes as her own whispering against her ear, asking whether she made the right decision.
Inhale, exhale. A single “no” was her answer. No explanations, no flashbacks filtered in monochrome or reasons to back up for what she says. Minseok waits awhile to see whether she’ll add anything, whether she was just thinking of the right thing to say.
But she doesn’t say anything even after a few seconds, and he realizes that that was her answer. And that maybe she doesn’t regret it at all.
So he walks out of the door, carrying the broken pieces of his heart with him, this moment another one of the bittersweet memories he associates with recollections of Luhan-the girl he has loved, and always will. Until the very end.
He knows that his story isn’t one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but if there was one thing in his life that feels as if it’s been ripped off of some cliché angst-induced film that he regrets the most, it’s that even if he had the ability to say anything he wants, he didn’t have the guts to say the right thing, to the right person, at the right time.
There’s that part of him that knows that Luhan might have left everything, would’ve agreed to come with him, if only he had asked the right question and said the right words. But he doubts that part now, because he doesn’t know just how much she’s changed for the past seven years.
But even if he had the chance, he wouldn’t. Because he doesn’t want to ruin her life any further by stealing her away from Yixing. Because he knows that it was Yixing who filled in all the gaps that he has left unfilled.
As Luhan watches his retreating back from the glass panels beside her, the silhouette of his shadow fading against the ash-colored concrete as he walks farther and farther away from her and out of her life, she feels hot tears streaming down her cheeks-tears that she doesn’t know she’s been holding back.
Minseok never looks back. Not even once.
[V - Once in Summer]
Do you think about the past, too? Like, what could have happened if you hadn’t let go?
Luhan looks up from the vase filled with purple lilacs when the door of the flower shop she works in opens to reveal a face she thought she’d never see in this lifetime. But fate has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, for when she felt like there was no hope for them to meet at almost twenty-eight years of her existence in this lifetime, he shows up, clad in denim pants and a plain blue shirt underneath a gray hoodie.
The bells suspended over the door chime as the door is pushed open, but she doesn’t hear its tinkling sound, because at that moment, there was only him, her, and the spaces separating them from each other, growing smaller and smaller with every step he’s taking.
He smiles at her, revealing pink gums and rows of small teeth - a smile that she’s always loved seeing. She smiles back almost immediately, before she even realizes what she’s doing; an involuntary mechanism that she could hardly get rid of.
“Do you have irises? I mean the flower, not the part of the eye.” Was the first thing that comes out of his mouth with an awkward laugh as the next one, and she likes to think that there is a hint of recognition as he lays his eyes on her, a faint gleam from the brown pools that are his eyes.
“I-“she starts to say, but immediately catches herself and stops. “Of course, of course.” She politely tells him to wait a moment and he nods, offering another smile. Her breath hitches, but she opens the door behind her before he could notice, and she is welcomed with a room filled with fresh flowers still in large plastic bins half-filled with water. She stops to inhale the mixed scents of the flora surrounding her, trying to calm the wild beating of her heart.
She almost picks out the wrong type of flower in her confusion but manages to steer herself away from uncertainty. She plucks out a single iris from the bunch to show him as a sample, and she remembers a particular scene, one where she slides open the wooden door of her room leading to the balcony to get some fresh air and is greeted by a boy holding a single flower. She shakes her head as if the motion could chase her thoughts away. He couldn’t possibly remember, could he?
The smile that he greets her with once she comes out of the door is brighter than the smiles she remembers that it almost blinds her, and she feels her heart clench. How could she ever stop herself from falling for that smile?
“Here you go,” she hands him the flower, and their fingers graze by each other when he reaches out for the stalk. She feels some sort of electric shock go through her body that she is momentarily paralyzed, and the next thing she knows is that he is looking at her through concerned eyes, asking her if she is alright. “I’m fine,” she waves the question away.
She clears her throat and tries for the usual voice she uses to talk to when selling a product, all business-like but not losing the pretenses of being friendly. “Anyway, if you need more, I still have a dozen at the back. There’s a discount if you buy a bouquet, you see.” She says, partly failing at her attempt because she comes out sounding like she’s telling him something about herself instead of being nonchalant.
“Nah, I think one’s enough. A single flower conveying everything you want to say is better than a bouquet of flowers that could only pass on the gesture of romanticism and not what you feel.” His smile doesn’t falter even if the tone of his voice has changed into a serious one, and somehow, she has the feeling that he’s saying those words to her directly, as if he wants her to understand something but he couldn’t say it yet.
He puts the iris to his nose, closing his eyes as he inhales its smell. He gives it an appreciative look before looking back at her, as if searching for something in her eyes. Is he waiting for her to ask something? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“So… who’s the lucky girl?” she brings herself to say, because who knows, this Minseok might be slightly different from the ones in their previous lives; this Minseok might want her to ask everything about his life and he’ll quickly give answers that aren’t either cut short or mysterious.
The smile he gives her says a lot, because it seems like she’s hit the jackpot and he’s just really happy for her. She might have asked the right question, then.
He hands her back the flower. “I think I’ve just found her.” The answer hits her like a wave, and somehow she’s confused because she isn’t sure if she’s just imagining things. Is she dreaming, or did he really recognize her?
“Do you…” she gulps, choosing her words carefully, not wanting him to think of her as someone who’s a little loose on the edges, hallucinating of lifetimes gone and past when she has no proof but her memory: a memory that no one else could see through-no one else but her. “Do you... remember?
He laughs, not the sarcastic laugh she’s once heard or the mad cackling he does in a distorted nightmare she used to have of him that usually disturbs her sleep at night, but just the right kind of laugh-the type of laugh that makes her smile in return. “Of course I remember.” And she remembers to breathe, letting out a loud exhale of a breath she hasn’t remembered holding. “Why would you think I’d go here instead of anywhere else?”
He holds her left hand and slips a silver band through her ring finger, where he believes it’s supposed to belong, gleaming like a star that has found its way back home. “And I’m sorry it took me this long to say it, but I like you, too. I always have.”
This time, she feels like everything was worth it. This time, she feels satisfied. Out of the five different lifetimes she’s lived in, this is undeniably her favorite, and given the chance, she would always want to relive it. Because this is the one where she loved him (well clearly, she always had), and he loved her back-really showed that he loved her back; this is the one where they really might have the chance to end up together, not just a face in someone’s memory, ready to disappear in a lapse.
Of course she doesn’t know that this is the last lifetime she has the chance to live in, but even if she does, her thoughts never would have changed, because this is when she felt alive the most.
pairing: Xiumin/girl!Luhan, instance of Xiumin/girl!Sehun, girl!Luhan/Yixing, side! girl!Suho/Kris
word count: 21,346
rating: R
warning(s): (highlight to see) instances of character death, gore
summary: Luhan isn’t one to play Russian roulette with fate, but she takes her chances anyway. Maybe it’s because of the fact that she keeps finding herself falling in love for the same person more than once.
(part 2)
[IV - Goodbye to Romance]
Forever is an awfully long time and time has a way of changing things.
Minseok touches the tiny hands clutching the end of his sleeve with his own small ones, a reassuring smile directed toward the teary-eyed girl. “Come on now Luhan, I won’t leave you. I’m just going to the bathroom.”
Luhan pouts, eyes welling with tears, her grasp on his sleeve tightening as if she was holding on for dear life. “It’s not because I’m annoying?”
His eyes widen at her conclusion and his face fills with as much disbelief a five-year old can hold. “No, why would I be annoyed with you? We’re friends, right?”
His words ease her tension a bit, so her grip on his sleeve loosens up. “So you’ll stay with me?” She sniffs. She doesn’t know what’s up, but after dreaming of a woman that she feels is an older version of herself watching the news and crying out her heartbreak from finding out that someone had died (she doesn’t know why either, but something tells her that the person the news was referring to was Minseok), she just didn’t want to let her friend go out of her sight, for fear of having him leave her to cope with her frustrations all alone. “You won’t just disappear when I’m not around, right?”
“Of course.” He answers back, his smile evident in his voice.
“You promise?”
He nods. “I promise.”
“Forever and ever?” her voice rises at the last syllable, and he chuckles at the sudden change in intonation.
“Sure. Forever and ever.”
✉
She is fifteen when she suddenly remembers.
Everything comes down on her in a rush, and she feels overwhelmed with all the memories that she almost faints, knees buckling under her while she’s walking. But she doesn’t fall, as she feels hands wrap around her shoulders, firm in their resolution to keep her from tumbling down. Her head still hurts, but she regains focus and she peers up to see Minseok looking down at her with utmost concern, eyebrows creasing together with worry.
“Hey, are you alright?” he asks her, voice gentle. She nods and gives him a small smile, doubting that he remembers. “I’m just really hungry, I guess.” He helps her regain her balance, fingers curled protectively around her shoulders and despite all those lifetimes, she still feels the same.
She stands straighter and fixes the creases on her uniform to distract herself from the warmth of her shoulders, right where he touched her. Really, she shouldn’t be bothered by that right now, seeing as his touches were as familiar as the back of her palm since they practically grew up together (shared lifetimes together, even), but she still just couldn’t help being affected by everything he does.
He smiles cheekily at her. “I bet you’re breeding elephants in your stomach.” She hits him lightly on the arm with a pout, and he just laughs it off and pats her head lightly. They start walking again, this time without saying anything. But there wasn’t an ocean of awkward silence between them, but comfortable spaces of a calming quiet.
“Hey Minseok… Do you believe in reincarnation? That maybe after death, we’ll get to live again and meet the people we knew back in our previous lives?” she suddenly asks him moments later, and he looks back at her with wide eyes.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” he touches the back of his hand to her forehead, and she suddenly turns stiff under his touch. “It’s not likely of you to take things seriously, are you sick?”
She feels her cheeks start to burn, and she swats his hand away, turning her back to him so he wouldn’t see her face. She starts walking faster, sneakers tapping against the concrete pavement as she gets ahead of him. “Damn you Kim Minseok, I was trying to be smart and philosophical.”
He laughs that adorable laugh of his that she had always loved, and she couldn’t help but smile because his laughter was everything to her and it was contagious. Luhan could hear his footsteps as he lightly jogs to catch up with her, backpack bobbing up and down as both of the straps of his bag are slung over his shoulders. “Nah, I like the usual you better.”
She feels her heart thundering in her chest, but she excuses it as a symptom caused by her nervousness, since it’s their first day in high school anyway.
✉
It was during the day of their field trip. They were going to the museum. She was ecstatic.
Minseok looks at the painting in front of him, not fully understanding how one thing is considered as art and how another is considered as merely an attempt to be artistic. He sighs and turns his head to the side just a little bit, so she wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t “dissecting” the painting and “interpreting its parts” like she’s told him.
Luhan’s eyebrows are knitted in concentration, her chin resting atop the side of a fisted hand-the genuine pose of a philosopher. Minseok almost laughs because she looks like she’s investigating a crime scene, when all she is actually doing was looking at a painting of a road with stop signs getting smaller and smaller along the sides as the distance from the foreground increased. He doesn’t even know if it’s a painting: it was simply a drawing, really, with black paint as the medium for tracing the lines instead of a pencil or a marker. The only splash of color was the red from the stop signs, but that couldn’t have been any good, either.
Most of their classmates are huddled around the tour guide a few meters behind them, who’s saying something about artists gaining recognition for their work by either following the norms of artistry and being good at it or going directly against the convention and setting about a new artistic revolution. But all of this just goes right through Minseok’s ear as he isn’t paying attention to the technicalities, because to him, none of all those paintings compare to the majestic piece of artistry that is the girl right next to him. But really, he isn’t the type to say it out loud even if he’s been thinking of that for a long time already.
“There’s something romantic about it, isn’t there? Like, at the foreground, those lines are far apart from each other, but as it goes on further, they get closer and closer together, until they’re intersecting at one point, right there in the background.” She tells him in a quiet voice that he almost jumps out of his skin, forgetting that she isn’t one of the statues on display, carved out of wax or marble into perfection.
He scratches the back of his head, searching for an answer. “I think it’s nothing but tragic, really.” She gives him a puzzled look, not seeing how he is making his point. “I mean, even if they’re intersecting as we see it, in reality, they’re not. They’ll forever be parallel lines that go on and on but never actually meet.”
Luhan shakes her head with a small smile that goes unnoticed. “Don’t drag your pessimism into this, boy. This doesn’t work the way you do math.”
“I’m not!” he protests, voice rising. He stops himself short as she gives him a look. ‘It’s just that…” he looks back at the artwork hung on the wall, realizing that there may be implications that he could no longer explain nor understand. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. “Sometimes, the truth isn’t always in the way you want it to be.”
They turned to look into each other’s eyes right at the same moment, and in an instant, there is an unspoken understanding in those looks; an unspoken agreement that they, at least, aren’t like those lines in the painting.
This is the point where they intersect.
“Hey, are you wearing make-up? That’s eyeliner right, there, isn’t it?” Minseok points out, breaking the spell binding the two of them together.
Luhan touches her cheeks, embarrassed. Well it’s not like she had every intention for him to notice that she put in some effort to look good today. And she definitely didn’t have the idea that he’ll tell her how she looks pretty for the first time just because she wore a bit of makeup. It’s not like she cares in looking good in front of him. “Nah, it’s just my eyelashes. They’re naturally like that.” She hides her smile behind pursed lips.
✉
Minseok taps his foot against the marble-tiled floor outside the women’s bathroom of the museum. He doesn’t mind waiting, especially since he’s waiting for Luhan, but still, it was tiring. Especially since almost thirty minutes have already passed.
After a few seconds, she finally comes rushing out of the bathroom, looking around in panic. “Where are the others?”
“The bus already left.” Minseok declares, not a hint of sadness in his tone. Maybe because he himself told their teacher that it’s okay if the class goes ahead without them. Or maybe because he tried to point out every inconvenience the whole class will experience if they kept on waiting for them.
Luhan’s face falls at this realization, and she hangs her head in apology. She blames her mom for cooking as if there was a feast the previous night. “I thought they’d all be waiting for us…” she says, not mentioning her problem with indigestion in embarrassment, but it was already that damn obvious. Minseok doesn’t respond, and she’s afraid that he’s gotten mad at her, but when she looks up at him, he is smiling.
He beams down at her like she means the world to him, and a part of her aches, remembering the time he smiled at her like that a lifetime ago for one last time, before he disappeared without preamble. That was when he died without her by his side to hold his hand throughout the turbulence until the world shifted and they fell. “It’s okay, I don’t mind waiting. Let’s go home?” he says, offering her his hand.
This time though, unlike in the previous one, she holds his hand and smiles back at him, hoping to convey that if he had his world built around her, then he, in turn, is her world.
✉
Bad luck befalls them the moment they get out.
The moment they step out of the museum’s metal doors, it starts raining hard, droplets looking as if they’re boring holes through the umbrellas of some passers-by. The shelter provided by the sloped roof of the building is the only thing that’s keeping them dry for now, but even that wouldn’t last for long.
Minseok turns to face Luhan, expression turning into that of dismay. “Uhm… do you have an umbrella?”
Luhan looks back at him, perturbed. “God Minseok, you know that you could never trust me with things like this. Maybe we should just run out and try to get to the bus station. If we hurry, we could get on the last bus home before it leaves.”
Her reassurance was definitely all that he needed to hear.
“On three?” he tightens his grip around her hand protectively.
She squeezes back, trying to reassure him that it’s okay, because even if this wasn’t the perfect weather, this is still the most perfect day, anyway. “On three.” She nods.
The moment Minseok says “three” she pushes the front soles of her feet downward and sprints to the right, hand still enclosed in his. They’re soaking wet when they arrive at the bus stop, but fate seems to have other plans, for they see the bus meters away from them, almost disappearing from view as the gap in-between increases.
“I saw a convenience store when we passed by a while ago,” she says over the rain, straining to be heard as the drumming of the droplets against the asphalt get louder and louder. “We could seek shelter there.” Minseok just nods and follows her lead; too disappointed to argue because this isn’t going the way he wanted it to be.
The girl by the counter looks at them weirdly, popping the gum in her mouth. But then she seems to think better of this and just shrugs, continuing to flip through the magazine she’s been reading.
Luhan sits down on one of the unoccupied tables as Minseok walks by the shelves, scouring for good food. In the end, he winds up coming back with two cups of instant ramyun and two bottles of water. The couple who’s eating in a table near theirs gives them odd looks, but he just shrugs them off.
They eat silently, probably mulling over the fact that they would probably have a hard time getting home since transportation isn’t available at the moment and walking seems to be the best alternative, when Luhan, for all that she’s worth, peeks up at him through her fringe.
He almost chokes on his noodles seeing the black smudges under her eye. So that’s why those people have been giving them strange looks. “Hey, you’ve… got some dirt under your eyes.” He tries to say it casually.
“Where, here?” she rubs the spot under her eyes and the stain spreads even further that she now resembles a raccoon. Minseok fights the urge to laugh, biting down his lip.
“Ah, here, let me help you.” He takes out a handkerchief from his pocket-already wet from the rain-and wipes it over the blackened spots on her face. The gesture seems so oddly sweet and romantic that Luhan stiffens in her seat, not wanting to ruin the moment by saying the wrong thing or doing something appropriately dumb.
He peers at her eyes and just focuses his gaze at her, and to other people, she must have been just some girl with smudged eyeliner and wet, unruly hair, but to him, she was the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. And in that second of spur-of-the-moment decisions that he couldn’t do so much against, he tilts his head forward and closes the distance between their lips.
Maybe it wasn’t bad luck after all.
✉
Luhan isn’t one to expect, knowing that nothing good happens out of waiting for something that will probably never happen, but she’ll be lying if she says that she didn’t expect her relationship with Minseok to transcend to the next level after what happened the previous day.
But when they meet again on the way to school that morning, nothing changes, Luhan feels dumb to have thought it meant anything. Minseok greets her the same way-with a pinch on the cheek and a ruffling of the hair; and doesn’t say anything about the kiss in the convenience store and the hand-holding that followed on their way home with a silence that stretched between them that wasn’t stifling, yet still existed because they didn’t know of the words to say.
But she could sense an underlying tone to his movement and the way his lips would quiver as if about to say something but couldn’t, as if there was an external physical force restraining him from opening his lips. And really, this wasn’t the first time this had happened, but Luhan still doesn’t know how to tell him that she wants to acknowledge whether or not they’re a step further off their friendship.
She shrugs it off for now, a weight lifted off her shoulders but still a problem left in storage because she doesn’t want things between them to be awkward. Maybe it was something he wasn’t ready to talk about it either, so Luhan has to wait to see what might happen next, because she herself doesn’t know what to do about it. But it was okay, because she’s been waiting for such a long time - what more this time?
So they put it off for some time until the days turn into weeks, weeks into months and eventually years that she could hardly even remember the reason why she’s ever thought they could even be more than what they are right now. But sometimes there are the easy smiles and the looks they share across the room, and they come to approach a common point in the middle of empty spaces and unsaid words sitting at the end of their tongues. These are the times when she knows that she doesn’t even need to ask anymore.
✉
The day when they find out the results of their college entrance exams is the point wherein they start to drift far apart from each other.
“You won’t come with me to Seoul?” Minseok asks after finding out that Luhan will enroll in their town’s local college even though she passed the exam in the national university. Even if things went differently and Minseok ended up not liking her more than as a friend, they’ve been around each other for years now that he just couldn’t imagine a life without her constant presence, even if it means staying as her best friend.
Luhan looks down, not wanting to meet his eyes for fear that she wouldn’t be able to say no to anything he says. “I couldn’t possibly leave this place. I-my family needs me. So I can’t leave. I just… couldn’t.” But really, it’s a lie, because even if her parents wouldn’t allow her, she could do anything to leave. Even back in those previous lifetimes, in all those instances, she always could have walked away instead, but she didn’t.
But even when she thought she could always wait for him, this time, she knows she couldn’t anymore. Not when she knows that he couldn’t even say what he really meant. Maybe because she’s tired of it all. Maybe because she wants to try if they really are meant for each other, since there’s that belief that two people will still end up together no matter what happens if they’re really meant to be. Maybe because she wants him to take the initiative and make a move this time. So she decided to find the alternative instead; even if it meant a life without him.
Minseok touches Luhan’s shoulder lightly, the distance between them an awkward space of emptiness that he doesn’t know how to close the gap between. “But won’t you come with me? I could convince your parents, it wouldn’t be that hard, really.”
Luhan bites her bottom lip, fighting back tears. Fighting back the urge to not let go. It’s so easy to say yes, but she’s come to the point where she doesn’t even know if she wants to say yes anymore. “You wouldn’t need me there, anyway. And I’ll be okay here. This is where I belong.”
And then, there was the question that she never thought she’d hear from him. “But what about us?”
Luhan pulls back, looking up at him with an unreadable expression. “Us? What is there to us? What are we, really? Childhood friends who casually kiss each other?” There’s too much bitterness in her voice that she doesn’t even recognize her voice as the emotion laces her usual tone.
“I-“ Minseok starts, but he doesn’t get to finish. This isn’t what he wanted-this isn’t the way things are supposed to be.
“We were never really anything more than best friends, right?” Luhan says, tone gentle despite the bitter smile on her face. “You never asked if we could be more than that, and I would never say yes to a question that’s never been asked. So there’s no need for you to feel sorry.”
Minseok feels at lost. “But you’ll wait for me, right?”
Luhan doesn’t give him an answer and walks away instead; steps deliberately slow as if waiting for him to catch up. But he doesn’t know this, so he just stands there in the middle of their usual rendezvous place-the top of the stairs a few meters from their houses; the point where their fates intersect-knowing that he’s fucked up. He’s always been waiting for the best moment to tell her, and now that he’s belatedly realized that it’s passed, he figures that there really isn’t a perfect time for anything, and that each of those moments could have been the best moment, if only he decided before it was too late.
“Please… wait.” He whispers into the air, but the wind doesn’t carry his voice with it, just the sadness clinging to every crevice, but without the tears spilling.
Luhan doesn’t look back at him, and he likes to think that it’s because she’d be waiting for him someplace else.
This time the sparks were gone, and the only things they left were the burn marks that might heal over time but would never disappear, and the sting of what had been and what could have been leaving a pricking pain that would always be there, but they would eventually get used to.
✉
Luhan doesn’t show up on the bus stop on the day that Minseok leaves for Seoul, even when all of their other friends did. Even Yixing, who tends to forget everything after a minute has passed is there, a sleepy smile on his face and white earphones hanging tangled around his neck.
Minseok looks out the window of the vehicle, smiling and waving at the people he’s known for years but is leaving for who knows until when. His eyes scan both ways the road goes, looking for a familiar shock of tousled, mousy brown hair but sees none. His smile falters, but he keeps it up until the bus’s engine rumbles to a start and sets off. Up until the last minute, he’s convincing himself that this was for the best, but he knows in his heart that this isn’t right.
Luhan looks away from where she’s standing hidden behind a brick wall meters from them, heart heavy but eyes surprisingly dry for someone who is seeing the person she is pining for leave. She closes her eyes when she hears the distant, mechanical whirr of the vehicle coming to life, not wanting to hurt herself more by seeing him leave.
At exactly 8:00 AM, the bus leaves, carrying Minseok and Luhan’s hopes with it.
✉
Hey, Minseok,
Delete.
Luhan stares at the blank message field she’s been trying to fill but keeps on constantly deleting. She tries again, fingers typing with urgency. Dear Minseok. Too formal. Delete.
Hey you idiot, I
Delete.
I love you. I never got to say this before you left, but just so you know, I love you.
11:21AM. Message saved to drafts.
I miss you. Please come back.
Sending cancelled.
Just come back.
Her thumb hovers over the send button.
✉
The day their paths meet once more is the month Luhan opens a bookstore.
It’s been five months since her wedding and seven years since that time, and just when she thinks everything’s okay-that the regrets of the past would never come back to haunt her again-he shows up at the counter just like that, never having really changed somehow despite the fact that no attempts of regaining communication had been made by both parties.
She blinks, not fully being able to believe that the person who she’s wanted to see the most back then is now standing in front of her, eyes unchanging and expression openly saying that he wants to tell her a lot of things, but he just doesn’t know where to start.
But the difference is, things aren’t the same as they were in the past anymore.
After seven years, numerous failed blind dates set up by a friend and zero attempts of getting in a relationship with another, there he is, right at the point where he left from, still struggling to find the right words to say.
And there she is, in a space parallel to his, moving forward, moving on. Keeping up and constantly forging ahead.
“So I heard you got married. To Yixing.” He starts by way of introduction. There’s a small smile forcefully trying to tug at his lips, but Luhan knows that this isn’t the smile he genuinely gives; this isn’t the smile that she’s fallen in love with over and over again. “Congratulations on your wedding, even though my greetings might have been a little too late.” Even if he tries, it’s obvious that he isn’t happy about it, but he doesn’t sound sarcastic like the way Luhan would’ve thought all these years; just sad.
You’re always late, Luhan wants to say in response, but she bites back her tongue. “Thank you.” She responds, a little too coldly for her liking. “I heard you’re spearheading the recreation of that old park in Seoul.” You know, that one you’ve always told me about back then. The one where you said you’d take me to, because that’s where your father proposed to your mother. “So congratulations on that, too.” She tries to smile, but her expression cracks. The mask almost falters, but she doesn’t know how she’s able to keep it up.
Minseok nods and mumbles his thanks, eyes seeming to be searching something lost within the depths of Luhan’s irises. She clears her throat, feeling dryness clog up on it. “So, what can I help you with?” It’s awkward addressing him like this: business-like and mature, devoid of all familiarity and hidden grins from stories that they usually recount. But she doesn’t want to think about that, because she thinks she’d feel even more conscious of the growing void stretching out between them.
“I told you to wait for me, didn’t I?” Minseok finally says, voice cracking, and there’s that sadness again, both in his eyes and his voice. “Why couldn’t you?” he isn’t blaming her, just simply asking. But she could feel the hurt underlying his words, a sense of dismay from a betrayal.
She swallows down the lump in her throat along with all the guilt, leaving stubborn traces along the sides of her tongue. “I never told you that I would.”
Minseok looks at her as if he’d been slapped, the pain of a time that can never be brought back again resurfacing and clouding up the present.
He clenches his hands into fists, and she’s known him for such a long time to recognize the gesture he makes when he is fighting away tears. The guilt gnaws on Luhan, because even though she remembers being hurt because of him in their previous lives, it was nothing compared to the pain of seeing Minseok suffering in front of her eating her heart out. “But why?”
She looks away from him, seeing dust motes floating, highlighted by the rays of the sun filtering through the open windows. “People get tired of waiting too, Minseok.” But you’ll never know because you’ve never waited as long as I have. “And for me, I’ve grown tired seven years back.”
But that isn’t true, says the deleted messages and the unsent ones.
She’s lying, adds the birthday gifts stocked up somewhere in the dumpsters. She missed you.
Can’t you see? Screams the calls he’s received from an unregistered number, dropped right after a greeting.
Minseok looks down at his hands. Maybe he should’ve said something back then. Maybe he should have taken the risk of asking her even if meant they are to be met with awkwardness, because now, the tension between them is even more constricting than the unease he felt with the thought of being rejected.
She’s not sure how they ended up this way-back to square one, but somehow even worse, with a few steps backwards to boot. If only things went differently, this wouldn’t have been the case, but it doesn’t. Maybe because Yixing was the one who asked, not him. Maybe because it was Yixing who had been staying by her side when she needed someone instead of Minseok. Maybe because he was the closest thing she could have that was remotely related to Minseok and the history they shared. Maybe because he was there at the right place, at the right time. Maybe because he had said the right words, at the exact moment she felt like losing her balance. But the truth is she’s not really sure.
This is the beginning of the point where they will never truly meet again as they have hoped before.
“One last thing, then… Did you marry him just because you wanted to forget me? Or get even with me?” Minseok asks, not sure of what he wants to hear in return, anyway.
Luhan shakes her head, more of to clear her own mind and convince herself that she’s made the right decision rather than as an answer to Minseok’s question. She does love Yixing, there is no question to that. But it couldn’t be compared to the lifetimes of desire she has pent up in her heart, crying out for Minseok. She clenches her fists against her sides, because she’s already made her decision; there wasn’t supposed to be any turning back now. But when Minseok suddenly showed up, she could feel her resolve crumbling, worries skittering across her mind; a voice she recognizes as her own whispering against her ear, asking whether she made the right decision.
Inhale, exhale. A single “no” was her answer. No explanations, no flashbacks filtered in monochrome or reasons to back up for what she says. Minseok waits awhile to see whether she’ll add anything, whether she was just thinking of the right thing to say.
But she doesn’t say anything even after a few seconds, and he realizes that that was her answer. And that maybe she doesn’t regret it at all.
So he walks out of the door, carrying the broken pieces of his heart with him, this moment another one of the bittersweet memories he associates with recollections of Luhan-the girl he has loved, and always will. Until the very end.
He knows that his story isn’t one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but if there was one thing in his life that feels as if it’s been ripped off of some cliché angst-induced film that he regrets the most, it’s that even if he had the ability to say anything he wants, he didn’t have the guts to say the right thing, to the right person, at the right time.
There’s that part of him that knows that Luhan might have left everything, would’ve agreed to come with him, if only he had asked the right question and said the right words. But he doubts that part now, because he doesn’t know just how much she’s changed for the past seven years.
But even if he had the chance, he wouldn’t. Because he doesn’t want to ruin her life any further by stealing her away from Yixing. Because he knows that it was Yixing who filled in all the gaps that he has left unfilled.
As Luhan watches his retreating back from the glass panels beside her, the silhouette of his shadow fading against the ash-colored concrete as he walks farther and farther away from her and out of her life, she feels hot tears streaming down her cheeks-tears that she doesn’t know she’s been holding back.
Minseok never looks back. Not even once.
[V - Once in Summer]
Do you think about the past, too? Like, what could have happened if you hadn’t let go?
Luhan looks up from the vase filled with purple lilacs when the door of the flower shop she works in opens to reveal a face she thought she’d never see in this lifetime. But fate has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, for when she felt like there was no hope for them to meet at almost twenty-eight years of her existence in this lifetime, he shows up, clad in denim pants and a plain blue shirt underneath a gray hoodie.
The bells suspended over the door chime as the door is pushed open, but she doesn’t hear its tinkling sound, because at that moment, there was only him, her, and the spaces separating them from each other, growing smaller and smaller with every step he’s taking.
He smiles at her, revealing pink gums and rows of small teeth - a smile that she’s always loved seeing. She smiles back almost immediately, before she even realizes what she’s doing; an involuntary mechanism that she could hardly get rid of.
“Do you have irises? I mean the flower, not the part of the eye.” Was the first thing that comes out of his mouth with an awkward laugh as the next one, and she likes to think that there is a hint of recognition as he lays his eyes on her, a faint gleam from the brown pools that are his eyes.
“I-“she starts to say, but immediately catches herself and stops. “Of course, of course.” She politely tells him to wait a moment and he nods, offering another smile. Her breath hitches, but she opens the door behind her before he could notice, and she is welcomed with a room filled with fresh flowers still in large plastic bins half-filled with water. She stops to inhale the mixed scents of the flora surrounding her, trying to calm the wild beating of her heart.
She almost picks out the wrong type of flower in her confusion but manages to steer herself away from uncertainty. She plucks out a single iris from the bunch to show him as a sample, and she remembers a particular scene, one where she slides open the wooden door of her room leading to the balcony to get some fresh air and is greeted by a boy holding a single flower. She shakes her head as if the motion could chase her thoughts away. He couldn’t possibly remember, could he?
The smile that he greets her with once she comes out of the door is brighter than the smiles she remembers that it almost blinds her, and she feels her heart clench. How could she ever stop herself from falling for that smile?
“Here you go,” she hands him the flower, and their fingers graze by each other when he reaches out for the stalk. She feels some sort of electric shock go through her body that she is momentarily paralyzed, and the next thing she knows is that he is looking at her through concerned eyes, asking her if she is alright. “I’m fine,” she waves the question away.
She clears her throat and tries for the usual voice she uses to talk to when selling a product, all business-like but not losing the pretenses of being friendly. “Anyway, if you need more, I still have a dozen at the back. There’s a discount if you buy a bouquet, you see.” She says, partly failing at her attempt because she comes out sounding like she’s telling him something about herself instead of being nonchalant.
“Nah, I think one’s enough. A single flower conveying everything you want to say is better than a bouquet of flowers that could only pass on the gesture of romanticism and not what you feel.” His smile doesn’t falter even if the tone of his voice has changed into a serious one, and somehow, she has the feeling that he’s saying those words to her directly, as if he wants her to understand something but he couldn’t say it yet.
He puts the iris to his nose, closing his eyes as he inhales its smell. He gives it an appreciative look before looking back at her, as if searching for something in her eyes. Is he waiting for her to ask something? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“So… who’s the lucky girl?” she brings herself to say, because who knows, this Minseok might be slightly different from the ones in their previous lives; this Minseok might want her to ask everything about his life and he’ll quickly give answers that aren’t either cut short or mysterious.
The smile he gives her says a lot, because it seems like she’s hit the jackpot and he’s just really happy for her. She might have asked the right question, then.
He hands her back the flower. “I think I’ve just found her.” The answer hits her like a wave, and somehow she’s confused because she isn’t sure if she’s just imagining things. Is she dreaming, or did he really recognize her?
“Do you…” she gulps, choosing her words carefully, not wanting him to think of her as someone who’s a little loose on the edges, hallucinating of lifetimes gone and past when she has no proof but her memory: a memory that no one else could see through-no one else but her. “Do you... remember?
He laughs, not the sarcastic laugh she’s once heard or the mad cackling he does in a distorted nightmare she used to have of him that usually disturbs her sleep at night, but just the right kind of laugh-the type of laugh that makes her smile in return. “Of course I remember.” And she remembers to breathe, letting out a loud exhale of a breath she hasn’t remembered holding. “Why would you think I’d go here instead of anywhere else?”
He holds her left hand and slips a silver band through her ring finger, where he believes it’s supposed to belong, gleaming like a star that has found its way back home. “And I’m sorry it took me this long to say it, but I like you, too. I always have.”
This time, she feels like everything was worth it. This time, she feels satisfied. Out of the five different lifetimes she’s lived in, this is undeniably her favorite, and given the chance, she would always want to relive it. Because this is the one where she loved him (well clearly, she always had), and he loved her back-really showed that he loved her back; this is the one where they really might have the chance to end up together, not just a face in someone’s memory, ready to disappear in a lapse.
Of course she doesn’t know that this is the last lifetime she has the chance to live in, but even if she does, her thoughts never would have changed, because this is when she felt alive the most.