The Yellow Letters (4/9)
TITLE : THE YELLOW LETTERS (4/9)
PAIRING : KRISHAN
RATING : PG/ PG-13
WORD COUNT : 24K
It’s been a month and a half since Luhan joined SM to fill a temporary absence. But it already feels like he has been there forever. He has a way about him that makes him fit and meld into the little niches and crevices of the company and its people. At any given day he can be seen discussing sneaker styles with Amber in great depth, pulling pranks on staff with Kyuhyun, pouring over sheets of music with Kyungsoo, taking a million selcas with Sehun, comparing heights with SooYoung, or helping Key shop online for designer clothes. Kris can’t imagine what it was like without Luhan forever fluttering around the edges of his vision wherever he goes.
Right now he is kneeling on the floor and tying together a pair of shoelaces with a look of great concentration while the owner of the said shoelaces is busy frowning at his laptop screen. Kris hides a smirk behind a cough and turns his attention back to his vocal instructor. His comeback song is a love ballad in Mandarin, a completely different style, an unknown side of Kris, the management says. No electro pop, no dub step, no dance melodies, no auto tune, just Kris and his voice exposed for the whole world to prod and take apart.
“You will have to train your voice a lot more. Take more time off dance practice and spend it learning to modulate your voice to the correct tone.”
Kris nods. But to him, who had been thrust into a life of using his vocal codes for something other than informal freestyle rap battles with his friends, modulating his voice sounds like a foreign concept no matter how many times he has heard it in the last 2 years.
There is a loud crashing noise and a string of curse words that Kris understands well despite his lacking Korean skills (They were one of the first things Chanyeol had ever taught him when he had arrived in the country.) Kris looks around to see Kyungsoo sprawled across the ground along with the chair he was sitting on and a pile of files. Kris can’t help but laugh even as he rushes over to help Kyungsoo up. He hisses like a cat at Kris and this makes Kris drop the chair again as he clutches his stomach laughing.
“You did this!” he points an accusing finger, a trail of paperclips hanging from one ear. “I know you did this!”
“But! I was all the way there with seonsaeng-nim!”
“Maybe. But you did this. Or this was somehow your fault, I just know it. I can feel it!” Kyungsoo states adamantly.
“You can feel it?” Kris raises an eyebrow at him. “It is like a weird tickling feeling on your shoulder blades? Because that could just be your tiny, narrow shoulder trying to grow out and become manlier, you-”
Kyungsoo shrieks and lunges at him and Kris laughs as he fends off the attacks easily. He is calling Kyungsoo ‘pocket-sized minion’ when he sees that Luhan had been watching all this from a safe distance. And by now Kris is used to the way there is a pleasant hammering in his chest and stars in the air every time Luhan directs a smile at him and only him. But, sadly, this doesn’t stop him from getting distracted by the brilliance of that smile long enough to be pummeled down to the ground by a hysterical Kyungsoo.
Chen has become friends with Floofy. It’s possibly the most horrible that could ever happen to anyone. Now I have a dog, that I don’t even own, who pees in all my plants and a cat that shreds all my Manchester United posters and yowls like a banshee in the middle of the night when he gets bored and they are friends. The horror.
Kris jams a cap over his hooded sweatshirt and walks out of the back entrance of his apartment.
Myeongdong is a perpetually alive part of the city and the night has barely begun but nobody recognizes him -because nobody expects to recognize him in a tiny barely noticeable stationary shop tucked into a hidden corner of a street end. He picks up a few pencils with bobble heads on them because he knows Kyungsoo likes them and some memo pads with pink unicorns on them for Yixing. He is rounding the corner of a book shelf decorated with smiling Dragons when he bumps into someone.
His first instinct is to hunch down, make his height less conspicuous and pull down the brim of him cap. This is one of the few places that EunHyuk lets him come alone, and he doesn’t want that taken away because of one single fan account.
“jwoesonghammida. Wait- kris?”
Kris looks up in recognition and then does a dramatic shushing motion. Luhan raises an eyebrow at him. “Umm.. there is nobody but us here to hear me…”
“Oh, yeah. But still”
“What are you even doing here?”
Kris looks longingly over Luhan’s head to the neatly stacked writing paper and envelopes in the shelf right behind him. The Blue paper sits there placidly framed by some yellow and pink ones. He just waves his pencils and memo pads in Luhan’s face. “Just some stuff- for Kyungsoo and Yixi- wait what are you doing here?”
Luhan looks unnaturally startled by the question. He messes with his bangs and half looks over his shoulder before he stops himself. “I was just..you know.. buying some stuff…you know, umm hot chocolate. Yeah, hot chocolate. Helps me sleep well.” He nods is vigorously and his hair fluffs up and down with the motions.
Kris narrows his eyes at him contemplatively. “Hot chocolate? In a… stationary shop?” Luhan turned a bright shade of red at this. “ is EunHyuk hyung making you follow me or something?”
“HAH! As if! They don’t pay me well enough for stuff like that.” Luhan scoffs. “I’m pretty sure he is wrapped up in blankets skyping with Donghae right now.”
Kris laughs at this, agreeing. Luhan knows them all so well despite his short time period at the company.
“You know us all so well.” A thought occurs to him. “But… I don’t think we know you half as well as you know about us..?” it’s an open ended questions, an invitation to speak.
Luhan’s smile is enigmatic as he fiddles with some Hello Kitty stickers. When he finally looks up at Kris his eyes are full of something that seems to beg him to understand. “You probably know a lot more than you think you do,” is his only reply.
“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” -Neil Gaiman
There is a different shine in your eyes when you speak about basketball. Sometimes I wonder whether your eyes would have been less sad if you were playing basketball in school like you originally planned to instead of ending up alone on a stage.
Alone. Kris thinks. The life of a solo artist is always lonely. No matter how many stage directors and makeup artists and managers are constantly fluttering around him in the end he has to go up on that stage all alone. Nobody to cover it up if he makes a mistake, nobody to laugh with and hug when he wins a triple crown. But lately, he thinks, the stage hasn’t felt like a battlefield he needs to conquer all on his own. Luhan is always in the background ready to mutter familiar Mandarin words into his ears when the Korean fails him, or he is somewhere behind a fluttering curtain making monkey faces and duck noises at him. It’s terrifying and wonderful how much he has gotten used to all that. Even now he takes a look at the time and folds away his yellow letter watching the door to his practice room expectantly.
It’s 12.45 am on a Tuesday and he can almost smell the coffee already. He scratches at his elbow and wonders whether he should start practicing on his own.
He is lying on the floor, eyes closed and listening to the guide track for the comeback song that he has 2 more months to master. The door swishes open softly and closes again. The smell of coffee permeates the air and he feels a warmth settles next to him and he still keeps on listening. Kyungsoo’s voice over the light piano chords seeps into the night air and Kris loves this, loves the feeling of being quite and steady and alone without really being alone.
It’s 1am on a Tuesday night Luhan is right there next to him as he had been every single night for the past two weeks. Ever since that first time when he taught Kris how to twist his body just right to the beat of Growl (and then they had bumped into each other in that shop) Luhan had begun to pop in on his practice sessions every night - with a extra mug of coffee and a little something he has noticed that day that will help Kris dance better. At the beginning both Luhan and Kris would act surprised at finding each other there so late into the night but Kris likes it better now that they both have given up on that pretense.
Kris knows that Luhan will come and Luhan knows that Kris will be waiting for him.
It’s an unspoken arrangement that begins when the dead of the night begins and one that dissolves away to polite distances and smiles across rooms when the sun rises. Kris doesn’t mind. In a world where all his actions are governed by contracts and strict guidelines he loves the feeling of having something just to himself while the rest of the world sleeps. Something undefined, untold but understood, something that has the potential to be much more.
“It’s beautiful.” Luhan sighs when the last notes melds into the night air and fades.
“Kyungsoo’s voice can make anything sound angelic. He should be on stage instead of in the fine print in album credits.” Kris muses.
He feels more than sees Luhan’s head turn towards him. “I think it will sound better with your voice. That’s why Kyungsoo wrote it for you. The song needs something a little more rough and deep than what Kyungsoo can manage.”
You are special, Kris remembers.
The next night when Luhan comes with the 2 usual cups of extra-large coffee he finds Yixing lying on the ground on his stomach and Kris kneeling over him. His face darkens and then clears so fast that Kris wonders whether he imagined it.
“Sorry. Am I interrupting something?” his voice is casual, too casual.
Kris looks down at the way he is practically sitting on top of Yixing’s butt, confusedly, before it occurs to him. “Umm.. OH. NO. Like no. I was just-was trying to-”
“What Kris is trying to say, in his bumbling, elementary-school-kid way,” Yixing intones calmly from the polished floor. “Is that I have a back injury and I aggravated it before trying to do a backflip…because, well, because I lost a stupid bet and Kris was helping me with the pain.”
“Back massage.” Kris adds. He is torn between moving away from Yixing and staying right where he is - he doesn’t like the momentary darkness that took over Luhan’s face but he doesn’t like leaving Yixing to deal with his torn back alone either.
“Oh, ok. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Nah. I’ll be alright in a bit. Might as well make some use of the dustbin lids that Kris calls his hands.” Yixing has always been like this- worrying about everybody else but himself, downplaying his own injuries and fatigue so that others won’t worry about him. Kris pats his head affectionately.
“Well…ok, then. I’ll get going.” Kris’ head snaps up at this but before he can ask anything, before he can protest Luhan is placing the two coffee cups on the ground and backing away. “You guys can have these. My treat.”
Kris blinks at the door that is swishing close and Yixing twists his head up to look him, questioningly. He looks like he is about to say something serious but then he just shrugs. “Eh, free coffee.”
The next day EunHyuk hyung informs him that Luhan is home sick and assigns him a translator from the writing team. The girl stands a little too close to him and translates every single thing correctly with no mistakes and she doesn’t hide behind stage props and make duck noises at him when he is trying to concentrate on getting ready to perform. Kris doesn’t like her one single bit. In fact he might even hate her a little bit.
When they leave KBS music bank after a special stage with Ailee, the fan girls gathered outside shout out for Luhan.
“Kris Oppa! Kris oppa, where is translator oppa today?”
“Didn’t sasaeum-oppa* come today?”
Kris smiles at the ground at these words. He is well aware of the number of pictures that have popped up on Naver and Weibo of him and Luhan together - the two of them at the airport, getting out of the van at the company, sharing ear buds before recordings, whispering to each other on reality shows. Kris is pretty sure there is a hefty amount of fan fiction revolving around the two of them around too, which he’d rather not think about really.
“Bring back saseum-oppa! We miss saseum-oppa!” one little girl demands from EunHyuk hyung who rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath while slamming the door of the van close. Kris smiles a little more brightly than usual at the girl who shouts this, and she clutches her heart in an overly dramatic manner and starts fanning herself vigorously. You and me both, buddy, you and me both, he thinks to himself.
On the drive back he swipes Luhan’s mobile number from EunHyuk’s phone trying not to feel too ashamed about not having it already after all this time.
There is no yellow letter in his stack of fan mail today but he barely notices as he heads straight to the privacy of his bed room. There are traces of makeup left on his face and it’s starting to feel really, really scratchy but there is a something he has to do first. His thoughts feel scattered and his limbs feel displaced and there is something under his skin that is clawing to get out. He settles for pulling his t-shirt off his body and plopping down on his bed. And then he dials.
The first time it rings till it goes to voicemail Kris pouts like somebody took away Christmas. The second time this happens he kicks at his duvet covers, annoyed. By the fourth time he is worried sick out of his mind.
Luhan picks up after two rings the fifth time he calls with an irritable “Yeoboseyo?”
Kris’ mind is thrown into an utter panic. All this time he worried about whether or not Luhan will pick up he did not think, not even once, what he will actually say to him if he does pick up. He could ask after his health, or maybe why he didn’t come today, oh wait, he already knows why, maybe, maybe he could ask whether he likes Amber’s new haircut, ugh, no who cares about that, or he could just ask what’s up with the way Luhan’s eyes shine, like could shinning eyes be illegal, no, wait, that was weir-
“YEO-BO-SE-YO? Who is this? Calling and not even talking. Yeoboseyo?”
“oh, umm…” Kris says, intelligently.
Silence on the other end and then, softly, softly, uncertainly, “Kris?”
“Umm… yes?”
More silence.
Kris is mere inches away from having a mental breakdown when laughter explodes from the other end of the line. His turbulent world settles immediately and he stops chewing violently on his poor pillowcase.
“Normal people start with ‘hello’, you know.”
“I’ve heard before that I don’t exactly fall under the ‘normal people’ category.”
“Mmmm…. I have heard Kyungsoo mention that a couple of hundred times too.”
If it was anybody else on the phone, Kris would have put his swag voice on and teasingly said ‘that’s because Soo is jealous of my fabulousness.’ But this is Luhan, and with Luhan -who has held him steady when waves of fan girls threaten to drown him, there is no need for any of that.
Three hours later, his hand is aching from holding the phone up and the battery alert is making threatening noises when he finally puts down the phone. Kris had started talking with all the things Luhan missed by staying home that day and then the conversation had dissolved into...even Kris is not sure what they talked about for so long, but they talked. They talked until Luhan’s voice got progressively scratchier and they talked until Kris learned to fill empty silences with words. Kris doesn’t realize how big his smile is until he catches sight of it in the bathroom mirror.
If this keep going on, he thinks, this thing, these moments they have won’t remain unnamed and undefined for much longer. He will have to give these feelings a name and names have too much power. And he is not sure if he can handle all that will come with naming this feeling -not to mention the inexplicable sense of guilt that paws at him for even admitting this to himself.
I like your voice. There’s something about the way you talk, like you are someone who is unsure, unconfident of his words and at the same time someone who knows well that his words can drive people crazy with want. It’s the strangest combination of humility and arrogance, of uncertainty and superiority and it gets inside my head. It’s heady and addictive and I always end up wanting more.
The next day Luhan is back at work, his voice a bit scratchy and nasal but except for that he is completely fine. He is welcomed back as if he had been away for months and Kris can’t even get close to him because of all the people who are dragging away Luhan for this and that.
When Kris finally runs into him at the company café, after his Korean lessons, Luhan detaches himself from Taeyeon and walks up to him. His nose is red and his un-styled hair falls haphazardly about his eyes. Kris thinks some people are just born this way - beautiful in ways words were never meant to explain.
“Are you feeling better now?” he lowers his voice to ask. I want to know if you are really okay.
“Yeah, much better, thanks.” You made me feel better.
“Oh, okay. Good to know. Take your medicine on time.” I don’t know why, but I worry.
“yes, eomma.” Luhan’s smile is teasing. “How was my temporary replacement?” did you miss me?
“She was alright.” She’s not like you. I don’t think anybody can ever be.
Luhan nods, Kris thinks that maybe he understands. Before he can say anything else, Sehun is there, aegyo face switched on, clinging on to them whining for Samgyupsal treats because he has a stomach like a bottomless pit.
It’s amazing how Luhan looks so soft and yielding at first sight but he manages to command you attention and draw your eyes in a way that is found rarely in people. Across the table from him Luhan is telling Sehun something or other about football with such intensity that he doesn’t notice Kyungsoo tipping the whole of the salt shaker into his glass of water - maybe Kyungsoo finally found out who was behind the whole tying-his-shoelaces incident.
“Careful.” Kris is startled out of his reverie into blinking at Yixing. “You are letting ‘the gay’ show.” His voice is light and teasing but his eyes are stern. Among the many other contradictory things in the Kpop industry is the issue of an idol’s sexuality. The fans were allowed to make you fall in love with men in five million fics, you were allowed (even encouraged) to be extremely touchy-feely with other idols on screen. But it was all supposed to end there. You were not supposed to let those touches make your stomach erupt into a hundred butterflies and in every show they only asked you about what kinds of girl your ideal type was.
Kris lowers his eyes to the table top. Yixing knows too many of his secrets. He knows that Kris lies to fans about his favourite colour, that he spends nearly 45 minutes in front of the mirror before sleep every night, he knows that Kris is terrified of cats and he knows that Kris’ stomach only flutters when Sehun or Henry curls up to him on the dance floor even as it lies completely still and unmoved when Victoria sits on his lap.
Luhan is not looking at him but underneath the table a foot lightly taps once, twice, thrice against his ankle and then settles there- warm and comforting and just there. Kris thinks of things that are yellow. The food arrives, the chatter ebbs and flows, the world moves on, and Kris shreds his napkin into a million microscopic pieces as he wonders whether a person can fall in love with two people at the same time: one, unseen, unknown but achingly familiar and bright and the other- warm, alive, right in front of him and equally bright.
my thoughts cannot move an inch
without bumping into
some piece of you
and i cannot stop
myself from
constantly falling
into you.
PAIRING : KRISHAN
RATING : PG/ PG-13
WORD COUNT : 24K
It’s been a month and a half since Luhan joined SM to fill a temporary absence. But it already feels like he has been there forever. He has a way about him that makes him fit and meld into the little niches and crevices of the company and its people. At any given day he can be seen discussing sneaker styles with Amber in great depth, pulling pranks on staff with Kyuhyun, pouring over sheets of music with Kyungsoo, taking a million selcas with Sehun, comparing heights with SooYoung, or helping Key shop online for designer clothes. Kris can’t imagine what it was like without Luhan forever fluttering around the edges of his vision wherever he goes.
Right now he is kneeling on the floor and tying together a pair of shoelaces with a look of great concentration while the owner of the said shoelaces is busy frowning at his laptop screen. Kris hides a smirk behind a cough and turns his attention back to his vocal instructor. His comeback song is a love ballad in Mandarin, a completely different style, an unknown side of Kris, the management says. No electro pop, no dub step, no dance melodies, no auto tune, just Kris and his voice exposed for the whole world to prod and take apart.
“You will have to train your voice a lot more. Take more time off dance practice and spend it learning to modulate your voice to the correct tone.”
Kris nods. But to him, who had been thrust into a life of using his vocal codes for something other than informal freestyle rap battles with his friends, modulating his voice sounds like a foreign concept no matter how many times he has heard it in the last 2 years.
There is a loud crashing noise and a string of curse words that Kris understands well despite his lacking Korean skills (They were one of the first things Chanyeol had ever taught him when he had arrived in the country.) Kris looks around to see Kyungsoo sprawled across the ground along with the chair he was sitting on and a pile of files. Kris can’t help but laugh even as he rushes over to help Kyungsoo up. He hisses like a cat at Kris and this makes Kris drop the chair again as he clutches his stomach laughing.
“You did this!” he points an accusing finger, a trail of paperclips hanging from one ear. “I know you did this!”
“But! I was all the way there with seonsaeng-nim!”
“Maybe. But you did this. Or this was somehow your fault, I just know it. I can feel it!” Kyungsoo states adamantly.
“You can feel it?” Kris raises an eyebrow at him. “It is like a weird tickling feeling on your shoulder blades? Because that could just be your tiny, narrow shoulder trying to grow out and become manlier, you-”
Kyungsoo shrieks and lunges at him and Kris laughs as he fends off the attacks easily. He is calling Kyungsoo ‘pocket-sized minion’ when he sees that Luhan had been watching all this from a safe distance. And by now Kris is used to the way there is a pleasant hammering in his chest and stars in the air every time Luhan directs a smile at him and only him. But, sadly, this doesn’t stop him from getting distracted by the brilliance of that smile long enough to be pummeled down to the ground by a hysterical Kyungsoo.
Chen has become friends with Floofy. It’s possibly the most horrible that could ever happen to anyone. Now I have a dog, that I don’t even own, who pees in all my plants and a cat that shreds all my Manchester United posters and yowls like a banshee in the middle of the night when he gets bored and they are friends. The horror.
Kris jams a cap over his hooded sweatshirt and walks out of the back entrance of his apartment.
Myeongdong is a perpetually alive part of the city and the night has barely begun but nobody recognizes him -because nobody expects to recognize him in a tiny barely noticeable stationary shop tucked into a hidden corner of a street end. He picks up a few pencils with bobble heads on them because he knows Kyungsoo likes them and some memo pads with pink unicorns on them for Yixing. He is rounding the corner of a book shelf decorated with smiling Dragons when he bumps into someone.
His first instinct is to hunch down, make his height less conspicuous and pull down the brim of him cap. This is one of the few places that EunHyuk lets him come alone, and he doesn’t want that taken away because of one single fan account.
“jwoesonghammida. Wait- kris?”
Kris looks up in recognition and then does a dramatic shushing motion. Luhan raises an eyebrow at him. “Umm.. there is nobody but us here to hear me…”
“Oh, yeah. But still”
“What are you even doing here?”
Kris looks longingly over Luhan’s head to the neatly stacked writing paper and envelopes in the shelf right behind him. The Blue paper sits there placidly framed by some yellow and pink ones. He just waves his pencils and memo pads in Luhan’s face. “Just some stuff- for Kyungsoo and Yixi- wait what are you doing here?”
Luhan looks unnaturally startled by the question. He messes with his bangs and half looks over his shoulder before he stops himself. “I was just..you know.. buying some stuff…you know, umm hot chocolate. Yeah, hot chocolate. Helps me sleep well.” He nods is vigorously and his hair fluffs up and down with the motions.
Kris narrows his eyes at him contemplatively. “Hot chocolate? In a… stationary shop?” Luhan turned a bright shade of red at this. “ is EunHyuk hyung making you follow me or something?”
“HAH! As if! They don’t pay me well enough for stuff like that.” Luhan scoffs. “I’m pretty sure he is wrapped up in blankets skyping with Donghae right now.”
Kris laughs at this, agreeing. Luhan knows them all so well despite his short time period at the company.
“You know us all so well.” A thought occurs to him. “But… I don’t think we know you half as well as you know about us..?” it’s an open ended questions, an invitation to speak.
Luhan’s smile is enigmatic as he fiddles with some Hello Kitty stickers. When he finally looks up at Kris his eyes are full of something that seems to beg him to understand. “You probably know a lot more than you think you do,” is his only reply.
“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” -Neil Gaiman
There is a different shine in your eyes when you speak about basketball. Sometimes I wonder whether your eyes would have been less sad if you were playing basketball in school like you originally planned to instead of ending up alone on a stage.
Alone. Kris thinks. The life of a solo artist is always lonely. No matter how many stage directors and makeup artists and managers are constantly fluttering around him in the end he has to go up on that stage all alone. Nobody to cover it up if he makes a mistake, nobody to laugh with and hug when he wins a triple crown. But lately, he thinks, the stage hasn’t felt like a battlefield he needs to conquer all on his own. Luhan is always in the background ready to mutter familiar Mandarin words into his ears when the Korean fails him, or he is somewhere behind a fluttering curtain making monkey faces and duck noises at him. It’s terrifying and wonderful how much he has gotten used to all that. Even now he takes a look at the time and folds away his yellow letter watching the door to his practice room expectantly.
It’s 12.45 am on a Tuesday and he can almost smell the coffee already. He scratches at his elbow and wonders whether he should start practicing on his own.
He is lying on the floor, eyes closed and listening to the guide track for the comeback song that he has 2 more months to master. The door swishes open softly and closes again. The smell of coffee permeates the air and he feels a warmth settles next to him and he still keeps on listening. Kyungsoo’s voice over the light piano chords seeps into the night air and Kris loves this, loves the feeling of being quite and steady and alone without really being alone.
It’s 1am on a Tuesday night Luhan is right there next to him as he had been every single night for the past two weeks. Ever since that first time when he taught Kris how to twist his body just right to the beat of Growl (and then they had bumped into each other in that shop) Luhan had begun to pop in on his practice sessions every night - with a extra mug of coffee and a little something he has noticed that day that will help Kris dance better. At the beginning both Luhan and Kris would act surprised at finding each other there so late into the night but Kris likes it better now that they both have given up on that pretense.
Kris knows that Luhan will come and Luhan knows that Kris will be waiting for him.
It’s an unspoken arrangement that begins when the dead of the night begins and one that dissolves away to polite distances and smiles across rooms when the sun rises. Kris doesn’t mind. In a world where all his actions are governed by contracts and strict guidelines he loves the feeling of having something just to himself while the rest of the world sleeps. Something undefined, untold but understood, something that has the potential to be much more.
“It’s beautiful.” Luhan sighs when the last notes melds into the night air and fades.
“Kyungsoo’s voice can make anything sound angelic. He should be on stage instead of in the fine print in album credits.” Kris muses.
He feels more than sees Luhan’s head turn towards him. “I think it will sound better with your voice. That’s why Kyungsoo wrote it for you. The song needs something a little more rough and deep than what Kyungsoo can manage.”
You are special, Kris remembers.
The next night when Luhan comes with the 2 usual cups of extra-large coffee he finds Yixing lying on the ground on his stomach and Kris kneeling over him. His face darkens and then clears so fast that Kris wonders whether he imagined it.
“Sorry. Am I interrupting something?” his voice is casual, too casual.
Kris looks down at the way he is practically sitting on top of Yixing’s butt, confusedly, before it occurs to him. “Umm.. OH. NO. Like no. I was just-was trying to-”
“What Kris is trying to say, in his bumbling, elementary-school-kid way,” Yixing intones calmly from the polished floor. “Is that I have a back injury and I aggravated it before trying to do a backflip…because, well, because I lost a stupid bet and Kris was helping me with the pain.”
“Back massage.” Kris adds. He is torn between moving away from Yixing and staying right where he is - he doesn’t like the momentary darkness that took over Luhan’s face but he doesn’t like leaving Yixing to deal with his torn back alone either.
“Oh, ok. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Nah. I’ll be alright in a bit. Might as well make some use of the dustbin lids that Kris calls his hands.” Yixing has always been like this- worrying about everybody else but himself, downplaying his own injuries and fatigue so that others won’t worry about him. Kris pats his head affectionately.
“Well…ok, then. I’ll get going.” Kris’ head snaps up at this but before he can ask anything, before he can protest Luhan is placing the two coffee cups on the ground and backing away. “You guys can have these. My treat.”
Kris blinks at the door that is swishing close and Yixing twists his head up to look him, questioningly. He looks like he is about to say something serious but then he just shrugs. “Eh, free coffee.”
The next day EunHyuk hyung informs him that Luhan is home sick and assigns him a translator from the writing team. The girl stands a little too close to him and translates every single thing correctly with no mistakes and she doesn’t hide behind stage props and make duck noises at him when he is trying to concentrate on getting ready to perform. Kris doesn’t like her one single bit. In fact he might even hate her a little bit.
When they leave KBS music bank after a special stage with Ailee, the fan girls gathered outside shout out for Luhan.
“Kris Oppa! Kris oppa, where is translator oppa today?”
“Didn’t sasaeum-oppa* come today?”
Kris smiles at the ground at these words. He is well aware of the number of pictures that have popped up on Naver and Weibo of him and Luhan together - the two of them at the airport, getting out of the van at the company, sharing ear buds before recordings, whispering to each other on reality shows. Kris is pretty sure there is a hefty amount of fan fiction revolving around the two of them around too, which he’d rather not think about really.
“Bring back saseum-oppa! We miss saseum-oppa!” one little girl demands from EunHyuk hyung who rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath while slamming the door of the van close. Kris smiles a little more brightly than usual at the girl who shouts this, and she clutches her heart in an overly dramatic manner and starts fanning herself vigorously. You and me both, buddy, you and me both, he thinks to himself.
On the drive back he swipes Luhan’s mobile number from EunHyuk’s phone trying not to feel too ashamed about not having it already after all this time.
There is no yellow letter in his stack of fan mail today but he barely notices as he heads straight to the privacy of his bed room. There are traces of makeup left on his face and it’s starting to feel really, really scratchy but there is a something he has to do first. His thoughts feel scattered and his limbs feel displaced and there is something under his skin that is clawing to get out. He settles for pulling his t-shirt off his body and plopping down on his bed. And then he dials.
The first time it rings till it goes to voicemail Kris pouts like somebody took away Christmas. The second time this happens he kicks at his duvet covers, annoyed. By the fourth time he is worried sick out of his mind.
Luhan picks up after two rings the fifth time he calls with an irritable “Yeoboseyo?”
Kris’ mind is thrown into an utter panic. All this time he worried about whether or not Luhan will pick up he did not think, not even once, what he will actually say to him if he does pick up. He could ask after his health, or maybe why he didn’t come today, oh wait, he already knows why, maybe, maybe he could ask whether he likes Amber’s new haircut, ugh, no who cares about that, or he could just ask what’s up with the way Luhan’s eyes shine, like could shinning eyes be illegal, no, wait, that was weir-
“YEO-BO-SE-YO? Who is this? Calling and not even talking. Yeoboseyo?”
“oh, umm…” Kris says, intelligently.
Silence on the other end and then, softly, softly, uncertainly, “Kris?”
“Umm… yes?”
More silence.
Kris is mere inches away from having a mental breakdown when laughter explodes from the other end of the line. His turbulent world settles immediately and he stops chewing violently on his poor pillowcase.
“Normal people start with ‘hello’, you know.”
“I’ve heard before that I don’t exactly fall under the ‘normal people’ category.”
“Mmmm…. I have heard Kyungsoo mention that a couple of hundred times too.”
If it was anybody else on the phone, Kris would have put his swag voice on and teasingly said ‘that’s because Soo is jealous of my fabulousness.’ But this is Luhan, and with Luhan -who has held him steady when waves of fan girls threaten to drown him, there is no need for any of that.
Three hours later, his hand is aching from holding the phone up and the battery alert is making threatening noises when he finally puts down the phone. Kris had started talking with all the things Luhan missed by staying home that day and then the conversation had dissolved into...even Kris is not sure what they talked about for so long, but they talked. They talked until Luhan’s voice got progressively scratchier and they talked until Kris learned to fill empty silences with words. Kris doesn’t realize how big his smile is until he catches sight of it in the bathroom mirror.
If this keep going on, he thinks, this thing, these moments they have won’t remain unnamed and undefined for much longer. He will have to give these feelings a name and names have too much power. And he is not sure if he can handle all that will come with naming this feeling -not to mention the inexplicable sense of guilt that paws at him for even admitting this to himself.
I like your voice. There’s something about the way you talk, like you are someone who is unsure, unconfident of his words and at the same time someone who knows well that his words can drive people crazy with want. It’s the strangest combination of humility and arrogance, of uncertainty and superiority and it gets inside my head. It’s heady and addictive and I always end up wanting more.
The next day Luhan is back at work, his voice a bit scratchy and nasal but except for that he is completely fine. He is welcomed back as if he had been away for months and Kris can’t even get close to him because of all the people who are dragging away Luhan for this and that.
When Kris finally runs into him at the company café, after his Korean lessons, Luhan detaches himself from Taeyeon and walks up to him. His nose is red and his un-styled hair falls haphazardly about his eyes. Kris thinks some people are just born this way - beautiful in ways words were never meant to explain.
“Are you feeling better now?” he lowers his voice to ask. I want to know if you are really okay.
“Yeah, much better, thanks.” You made me feel better.
“Oh, okay. Good to know. Take your medicine on time.” I don’t know why, but I worry.
“yes, eomma.” Luhan’s smile is teasing. “How was my temporary replacement?” did you miss me?
“She was alright.” She’s not like you. I don’t think anybody can ever be.
Luhan nods, Kris thinks that maybe he understands. Before he can say anything else, Sehun is there, aegyo face switched on, clinging on to them whining for Samgyupsal treats because he has a stomach like a bottomless pit.
It’s amazing how Luhan looks so soft and yielding at first sight but he manages to command you attention and draw your eyes in a way that is found rarely in people. Across the table from him Luhan is telling Sehun something or other about football with such intensity that he doesn’t notice Kyungsoo tipping the whole of the salt shaker into his glass of water - maybe Kyungsoo finally found out who was behind the whole tying-his-shoelaces incident.
“Careful.” Kris is startled out of his reverie into blinking at Yixing. “You are letting ‘the gay’ show.” His voice is light and teasing but his eyes are stern. Among the many other contradictory things in the Kpop industry is the issue of an idol’s sexuality. The fans were allowed to make you fall in love with men in five million fics, you were allowed (even encouraged) to be extremely touchy-feely with other idols on screen. But it was all supposed to end there. You were not supposed to let those touches make your stomach erupt into a hundred butterflies and in every show they only asked you about what kinds of girl your ideal type was.
Kris lowers his eyes to the table top. Yixing knows too many of his secrets. He knows that Kris lies to fans about his favourite colour, that he spends nearly 45 minutes in front of the mirror before sleep every night, he knows that Kris is terrified of cats and he knows that Kris’ stomach only flutters when Sehun or Henry curls up to him on the dance floor even as it lies completely still and unmoved when Victoria sits on his lap.
Luhan is not looking at him but underneath the table a foot lightly taps once, twice, thrice against his ankle and then settles there- warm and comforting and just there. Kris thinks of things that are yellow. The food arrives, the chatter ebbs and flows, the world moves on, and Kris shreds his napkin into a million microscopic pieces as he wonders whether a person can fall in love with two people at the same time: one, unseen, unknown but achingly familiar and bright and the other- warm, alive, right in front of him and equally bright.
my thoughts cannot move an inch
without bumping into
some piece of you
and i cannot stop
myself from
constantly falling
into you.