BLACK DAY 11: I Love You, Baby, But I Know You Don't Understand
Title: I Love You, Baby, But I Know You Don't Understand
Written by: metafictionally
A remix of " Your Lips Pressed To My Neck" by officiallykris
Pairing: Lu Han/Yixing
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Yixing has always been very good at keeping secrets.
The process of falling in love with Lu Han is a slow one, but the process of realization-the moment of realization, really-is instantaneous. It slams through Yixing's body like a sonic boom, rattling him down to his bones, because he looks over at Lu Han and the strength of it is claws sinking into his stomach and holding tight. It aches.
The room is loud and pulsing with adrenaline, the thrum of it running through each of their bodies in near synchronization. Yixing can hear the individual voices-Jongdae's piercing laughter and the soothing rhythm of Minseok's voice, Wu Fan and Tao in conversation across the room-but none of it sounds like words. None of it sounds like anything Yixing can make sense of, because he can't make sense of anything, not when this creature is making a home in his abdominal cavity.
Lu Han, though.
Yixing watches as Lu Han flops onto the couch and presses his face into the pillow, his back moving with the rhythm of his breathing, erratic. It looks like sex. It looks like Lu Han spread out on his stomach, his face sweaty, hair sticking to his temples and a blissed-out grin on his face.
It's adrenaline, Yixing reminds himself. He takes a seat next to the couch, his back against it, and rests his forehead against his knees. Inhale, exhale. Let your heartbeat settle.
Everything is so normal, even though there's a part of Yixing that is thrashing and crying out-protesting the sudden realization that he wants to lick his way up from between Lu Han's collarbones, tasting the sweat of his exertions, and the realization that he wants, just as strongly, to curl against Lu Han's back and press kisses to the nape of his neck.
He doesn't realize he's trembling until Lu Han rests a hand atop his head. He says nothing, but despite everything, Lu Han's presence is soothing enough that Yixing relaxes. His shoulders stop shaking, his breathing evens out. The warm weight of Lu Han's palm against the top of his head-and then the back of his neck, when his hand slides downward-makes Yixing wonder if he can't live with this. The lovecreature can make its home in his stomach if it wants to, that's fine, and Yixing will nourish it, but he can live with this.
No one ever needs to know.
Yixing has been in love before, but it has never been with his best friend.
Oh, that's not to say he hasn't ever been attracted to Lu Han. Yixing has eyes, after all, and he can see that Lu Han is beautiful, even with his silly laugh and the scar that tugs at the lower edge of his bottom lip. Yixing has even thought of what it might be like to sleep with Lu Han, to see that thin body spread out on his mattress, spine arched, hips canted-although Yixing also knows he's likely the only one of them who thinks of that, no matter how strongly they all agree that Lu Han is pretty. Wu Fan, after all, is not the one who gets caught staring at the strip of skin exposed just above the waistband of Lu Han's sweatpants. Jongdae is not the one who sometimes touches himself in the shower and thinks about girls with long hair and faces too similar to Lu Han's for Yixing to be entirely comfortable, even as he comes so hard he has to stifle himself. Yixing does all of these things-but he hasn't always been in love with Lu Han.
Once upon a time, they were just friends. Once upon a time, Yixing didn't try to assign relative weight to every touch Lu Han gave him, or every smile, or every whisper into his ear. Once upon a time he didn't feel his stomach twist every time Lu Han smiled at someone else. Once upon a time, Yixing could go to practice with Lu Han and not immediately have to jerk off in the bathroom afterwards.
But at some point, that changed. Yixing isn't really sure when. He isn't really sure it matters.
Even without all of this, Yixing would still be exhausted. Fame takes its toll on him, physically, emotionally-he wears himself down with long hours in the practice room, longer hours on flights and in airports and in hotel rooms with sheets too scratchy to truly be comfortable. He learns how to nap in one-minute increments: in line for immigration, on someone's shoulder in the company van, between takes filming this or that interview or this or that variety show.
Yixing learns, but that doesn't mean he gets used to it.
They're moving too fast for most anything to catch up to them, but when it does, it comes over him all at once and leaves him shaking. There are nights, mostly nights when they're overseas, where Yixing can't do anything other than curl up in a ball and try to catch his breath despite the fact that it just won't come.
When he looks up Lu Han is in front of him, reaching out to take Yixing's trembling fingers in his own. That's always been it-that's all Lu Han has to do for Yixing to breathe easier.
"You're okay," Lu Han says, smiling just a little. "I've got you."
It almost hurts, really. Yixing is so in love with him, and Lu Han just says things like I've got you and drives that knife a little deeper into Yixing's chest. It is getting easier to breathe, but that doesn't mean it doesn't ache with every beat of his heart. "You don't have to do this," he says, half annoyance and half appreciation-because Lu Han is his best friend, after all.
The way Lu Han smiles at him is the way a best friend does-sly secrets, amusement, genuine affection. "You're awful at taking care of yourself," he says, squeezing Yixing's hands. "So I'm okay with taking over that job sometimes."
It's the best that Yixing can do to offer a shaky smile in return and pretend like there's no guilt gnawing at the lining of his stomach. To pretend like he doesn't want, more than anything, to curl his hand around the back of Lu Han's mouth and lick that secretive smile right out from under his tongue. Yixing just accepts Lu Han's hands and pulls himself up.
But by the time Lu Han is asleep, Yixing's stomach still hasn't settled, and he stares at the ceiling and wonders how long he can go on like this.
Yixing has always been good at keeping secrets, but he's only human, in the end.
Only, apparently he's not as good as he thought he was.
In California, Yixing catches Jongdae's eye in the makeup mirror and Jongdae is making this face at him, somewhere between worry and sympathy. It doesn't make sense, because it isn't like Yixing has done anything terribly embarrassing lately, and he certainly hasn't incurred duizhang's wrath (at least not that he knows of), so there's no reason for Jongdae to be making that face. Unless, of course-
"I know," Jongdae says.
Yixing tenses so fast that the makeup artist almost stabs him in the eye with her pencil, and between muttered apologies in alternating Mandarin and English, Yixing stares wide-eyed at Jongdae. But Jongdae won't catch his eye again, and he doesn't speak to Yixing until they're just about to go onstage-then, he pretends like nothing had happened at all.
Even later, Tao rests a hand on his shoulder and says, "I'm sorry," and Yixing doesn't even have to ask what he's talking about. Yixing has always been good at keeping secrets, but apparently not when that secret is the fact that he's in love with his best friend.
"It'll be okay, you know," Tao adds, smiling in that sweet, hesitant way he has when he's not entirely sure that what he's saying is the truth. But it's good of him to try, even if he's an open book, so Yixing returns the smile with a tight one of his own and shrugs his shoulders slightly.
"Will it?" he asks aloud.
The question is rhetorical, and Yixing is thankful that Tao doesn't answer. Thankful, but also a little scared, because now that the question has been voiced it can never be un-voiced and Yixing doesn't know that he can live with that kind of uncertainty.
Maybe Yixing has always been halfway in love with Lu Han. Maybe he just never expected the realization to hurt this badly.
In Seoul, Yixing makes a mistake.
He goes out to a club in Itaewon, which is far from home-where he's less likely to be noticed-and he dances until he can't feel his body anymore, until he's drenched in sweat and he's sure his heart is beating in rhythm with the music. That isn't the mistake. The mistake is that he drinks too much. The mistake is that he dances with an American, a tourist, probably, who isn't really Yixing's type anyway, and then he kisses him outside the club, where there are too many eyes and too many people who are keenly interested in what Zhang Yixing does in his down time. Or who.
The photos turn up a day later, and SM Entertainment stifles them with brutal efficiency. That doesn't mean that they don't haul Yixing down to the main offices for a conversation with the public relations department that feels less like a chat and more like an evisceration.
When he gets back to the dorm, Lu Han is sitting on the couch. He has a copy of the photo in his hands-one of the better ones, where Yixing's jawline is defined, his cheekbone too, and only the shadow over his eyes and nose was enough for SM to sell the idea that it wasn't really him.
"What were you thinking?" Lu Han asks. He looks up at Yixing and he looks hurt, and Yixing can't do that. He can't do hurt right now.
"I wasn't," he says shortly, drawing into himself a bit. Building up a wall that even Lu Han's eyes can't break through. "It was stupid. Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry about it," Lu Han repeats. When he laughs it sounds like broken glass, like he can't quite believe that Yixing would even ask such a thing of him. Yixing can't really believe it either, but he has to, because if he doesn't then he has to acknowledge-again-the reality of how much Lu Han means to him, how much Lu Han's opinion means to him, and that would hurt more than Yixing is willing to bear.
"In the whole time I've known you," Lu Han says, "I've never seen you act like this."
Yixing knows he doesn't just mean the photograph. He means the strange silences and the way Yixing's body sometimes shies away from Lu Han's touch, before Yixing's mind can convince it that he has to act natural. He means the way that Yixing doesn't sleep in Lu Han's bed as often, and doesn't invite Lu Han to sleep in his. The way the darkness between them, when they lie in their hotel room beds, has become a wick burning down, and only Yixing can feel it.
"Trust me," Yixing says, "it's a new development." His voice is so bitter that it startles Lu Han, who puts the photo down on the table and stands up to face Yixing.
"Talk to me," Lu Han demands.
All at once, it feels like too much. It's too much-the way Lu Han touches him, sometimes, and the way Yixing's entire body electrifies at it. The way that a look from Lu Han is enough to have Yixing half hard, but all it takes is a downward tilt of his head and the set of his jaw to make Yixing want to cry. Lu Han means so much to him, so fucking much, and Yixing has born the weight of it for this long, but suddenly it feels as though he couldn't take a single step more without being crushed by it.
"I don't want to," Yixing says. He says it, but the words are already rising up out of him, uncontrollable. "Sometimes I feel like my stomach is going to explode from all of the things I don't want to talk to you about, but I would rather let my stomach explode than-" Than what, Yixing? "Because I love you, Xiao Lu. I don't want to hurt you. I can accept hurting myself, but I can't accept hurting you."
"I know that, Yixing-"
"No," Yixing says. "I love you. Don't you get it? I love you."
The air between them is still and silent, and the words are too heavy. They feel even heavier now, spoken aloud, than they had when they were silent and weighing on Yixing's chest. Lu Han's eyes are wide, startled, and Yixing almost can't believe that Lu Han never knew.
"I'm going to bed," he says. He leaves the room before Lu Han can respond.
They give Yixing a few nights off, around his birthday-both a privilege and a punishment all rolled into one. Yixing thinks he should appreciate it, but he doesn't.
Time off means time to think, and Yixing doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to think about what it means that Lu Han hasn't spoken to him outside company-mandated pleasantries ever since their argument that night. What it means that Lu Han hasn't touched him since, that the door to Yixing's room has stayed firmly closed no matter how many hours Yixing spends staring at it in hopes that Lu Han will come through. He has been clinging to their schedules, practice concert practice interview practice concert, to provide him with distractions-and absent that, Yixing feels himself slipping.
He goes up to the practice rooms, the older ones, more likely to be vacant at this hour. If no one else can provide Yixing with a distraction, he will provide one for himself.
The soundproofing in the room is cracking in places, giving Yixing's music an uncomfortable, tinny quality when it reverberates through the space. Still, it's loud enough to get into his bones, and that's what Yixing needs. His shoes stick to the floor in places as he runs through MAMA's choreography, again and again, wondering how long it will take before his heart syncs up with the beat. His muscles are stiff and protest the exertion-it's been days since the last time Yixing stretched out properly, and it doesn't take long before his frame starts aching. His knee creaks, his back pinching with every turn. It hurts, but it's almost good, so Yixing keeps going.
He doesn't know how long it's been, when he collapses on the floor in a sweaty, exhausted pile of limp muscle and strained ligaments. His hair is sticking to his face, and he can feels his legs twitching, neurons firing off commands for movements Yixing is no longer trying to execute. The shaking will set in soon.
"You need to keep better hydrated."
There's a tentative quality in Lu Han's voice that Yixing isn't used to. He closes his eyes for a long moment before he forces himself into a sitting position, arms wrapped tight around his legs-as if maybe holding them close will keep them from trembling so badly. Yixing shouldn't be surprised-Lu Han has long since been voted the one to come collect Yixing when the members decide, collectively, that he's had enough.
"I'm fine," Yixing says, looking up to meet Lu Han's gaze in the mirror. It's a lie. Yixing is not fine. Nothing has been fine for a while, but Yixing is good at keeping secrets, even from himself.
Lu Han's fingers curl into fists at his sides, a gesture of useless frustration. Yixing knows the feeling-all he wants is to reach out and hold on to Lu Han, to cling, really, the way he used to, before all of this. Before he admitted to himself that maybe, his sometime desire to crawl inside Lu Han's skin was built on something other than simple friendship. The distance between them-the length of the practice room-feels like an eternity.
"You'll always be my best friend," Lu Han says, his voice soft and very clear.
Oh, and Yixing can read between the lines. He will always be Lu Han's best friend. He will never be anything more.
Yixing holds Lu Han's gaze for a long time, until Lu Han looks away, down at the scuffed floor near the toes of his shoes. Something feels fractured inside of him, something that has nothing to do with the ache in his muscles or the twinges of pain traveling up and down his spine.
"Okay," Yixing says. It's not okay. But it will have to be.
Written by: metafictionally
A remix of " Your Lips Pressed To My Neck" by officiallykris
Pairing: Lu Han/Yixing
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Yixing has always been very good at keeping secrets.
The process of falling in love with Lu Han is a slow one, but the process of realization-the moment of realization, really-is instantaneous. It slams through Yixing's body like a sonic boom, rattling him down to his bones, because he looks over at Lu Han and the strength of it is claws sinking into his stomach and holding tight. It aches.
The room is loud and pulsing with adrenaline, the thrum of it running through each of their bodies in near synchronization. Yixing can hear the individual voices-Jongdae's piercing laughter and the soothing rhythm of Minseok's voice, Wu Fan and Tao in conversation across the room-but none of it sounds like words. None of it sounds like anything Yixing can make sense of, because he can't make sense of anything, not when this creature is making a home in his abdominal cavity.
Lu Han, though.
Yixing watches as Lu Han flops onto the couch and presses his face into the pillow, his back moving with the rhythm of his breathing, erratic. It looks like sex. It looks like Lu Han spread out on his stomach, his face sweaty, hair sticking to his temples and a blissed-out grin on his face.
It's adrenaline, Yixing reminds himself. He takes a seat next to the couch, his back against it, and rests his forehead against his knees. Inhale, exhale. Let your heartbeat settle.
Everything is so normal, even though there's a part of Yixing that is thrashing and crying out-protesting the sudden realization that he wants to lick his way up from between Lu Han's collarbones, tasting the sweat of his exertions, and the realization that he wants, just as strongly, to curl against Lu Han's back and press kisses to the nape of his neck.
He doesn't realize he's trembling until Lu Han rests a hand atop his head. He says nothing, but despite everything, Lu Han's presence is soothing enough that Yixing relaxes. His shoulders stop shaking, his breathing evens out. The warm weight of Lu Han's palm against the top of his head-and then the back of his neck, when his hand slides downward-makes Yixing wonder if he can't live with this. The lovecreature can make its home in his stomach if it wants to, that's fine, and Yixing will nourish it, but he can live with this.
No one ever needs to know.
Yixing has been in love before, but it has never been with his best friend.
Oh, that's not to say he hasn't ever been attracted to Lu Han. Yixing has eyes, after all, and he can see that Lu Han is beautiful, even with his silly laugh and the scar that tugs at the lower edge of his bottom lip. Yixing has even thought of what it might be like to sleep with Lu Han, to see that thin body spread out on his mattress, spine arched, hips canted-although Yixing also knows he's likely the only one of them who thinks of that, no matter how strongly they all agree that Lu Han is pretty. Wu Fan, after all, is not the one who gets caught staring at the strip of skin exposed just above the waistband of Lu Han's sweatpants. Jongdae is not the one who sometimes touches himself in the shower and thinks about girls with long hair and faces too similar to Lu Han's for Yixing to be entirely comfortable, even as he comes so hard he has to stifle himself. Yixing does all of these things-but he hasn't always been in love with Lu Han.
Once upon a time, they were just friends. Once upon a time, Yixing didn't try to assign relative weight to every touch Lu Han gave him, or every smile, or every whisper into his ear. Once upon a time he didn't feel his stomach twist every time Lu Han smiled at someone else. Once upon a time, Yixing could go to practice with Lu Han and not immediately have to jerk off in the bathroom afterwards.
But at some point, that changed. Yixing isn't really sure when. He isn't really sure it matters.
Even without all of this, Yixing would still be exhausted. Fame takes its toll on him, physically, emotionally-he wears himself down with long hours in the practice room, longer hours on flights and in airports and in hotel rooms with sheets too scratchy to truly be comfortable. He learns how to nap in one-minute increments: in line for immigration, on someone's shoulder in the company van, between takes filming this or that interview or this or that variety show.
Yixing learns, but that doesn't mean he gets used to it.
They're moving too fast for most anything to catch up to them, but when it does, it comes over him all at once and leaves him shaking. There are nights, mostly nights when they're overseas, where Yixing can't do anything other than curl up in a ball and try to catch his breath despite the fact that it just won't come.
When he looks up Lu Han is in front of him, reaching out to take Yixing's trembling fingers in his own. That's always been it-that's all Lu Han has to do for Yixing to breathe easier.
"You're okay," Lu Han says, smiling just a little. "I've got you."
It almost hurts, really. Yixing is so in love with him, and Lu Han just says things like I've got you and drives that knife a little deeper into Yixing's chest. It is getting easier to breathe, but that doesn't mean it doesn't ache with every beat of his heart. "You don't have to do this," he says, half annoyance and half appreciation-because Lu Han is his best friend, after all.
The way Lu Han smiles at him is the way a best friend does-sly secrets, amusement, genuine affection. "You're awful at taking care of yourself," he says, squeezing Yixing's hands. "So I'm okay with taking over that job sometimes."
It's the best that Yixing can do to offer a shaky smile in return and pretend like there's no guilt gnawing at the lining of his stomach. To pretend like he doesn't want, more than anything, to curl his hand around the back of Lu Han's mouth and lick that secretive smile right out from under his tongue. Yixing just accepts Lu Han's hands and pulls himself up.
But by the time Lu Han is asleep, Yixing's stomach still hasn't settled, and he stares at the ceiling and wonders how long he can go on like this.
Yixing has always been good at keeping secrets, but he's only human, in the end.
Only, apparently he's not as good as he thought he was.
In California, Yixing catches Jongdae's eye in the makeup mirror and Jongdae is making this face at him, somewhere between worry and sympathy. It doesn't make sense, because it isn't like Yixing has done anything terribly embarrassing lately, and he certainly hasn't incurred duizhang's wrath (at least not that he knows of), so there's no reason for Jongdae to be making that face. Unless, of course-
"I know," Jongdae says.
Yixing tenses so fast that the makeup artist almost stabs him in the eye with her pencil, and between muttered apologies in alternating Mandarin and English, Yixing stares wide-eyed at Jongdae. But Jongdae won't catch his eye again, and he doesn't speak to Yixing until they're just about to go onstage-then, he pretends like nothing had happened at all.
Even later, Tao rests a hand on his shoulder and says, "I'm sorry," and Yixing doesn't even have to ask what he's talking about. Yixing has always been good at keeping secrets, but apparently not when that secret is the fact that he's in love with his best friend.
"It'll be okay, you know," Tao adds, smiling in that sweet, hesitant way he has when he's not entirely sure that what he's saying is the truth. But it's good of him to try, even if he's an open book, so Yixing returns the smile with a tight one of his own and shrugs his shoulders slightly.
"Will it?" he asks aloud.
The question is rhetorical, and Yixing is thankful that Tao doesn't answer. Thankful, but also a little scared, because now that the question has been voiced it can never be un-voiced and Yixing doesn't know that he can live with that kind of uncertainty.
Maybe Yixing has always been halfway in love with Lu Han. Maybe he just never expected the realization to hurt this badly.
In Seoul, Yixing makes a mistake.
He goes out to a club in Itaewon, which is far from home-where he's less likely to be noticed-and he dances until he can't feel his body anymore, until he's drenched in sweat and he's sure his heart is beating in rhythm with the music. That isn't the mistake. The mistake is that he drinks too much. The mistake is that he dances with an American, a tourist, probably, who isn't really Yixing's type anyway, and then he kisses him outside the club, where there are too many eyes and too many people who are keenly interested in what Zhang Yixing does in his down time. Or who.
The photos turn up a day later, and SM Entertainment stifles them with brutal efficiency. That doesn't mean that they don't haul Yixing down to the main offices for a conversation with the public relations department that feels less like a chat and more like an evisceration.
When he gets back to the dorm, Lu Han is sitting on the couch. He has a copy of the photo in his hands-one of the better ones, where Yixing's jawline is defined, his cheekbone too, and only the shadow over his eyes and nose was enough for SM to sell the idea that it wasn't really him.
"What were you thinking?" Lu Han asks. He looks up at Yixing and he looks hurt, and Yixing can't do that. He can't do hurt right now.
"I wasn't," he says shortly, drawing into himself a bit. Building up a wall that even Lu Han's eyes can't break through. "It was stupid. Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry about it," Lu Han repeats. When he laughs it sounds like broken glass, like he can't quite believe that Yixing would even ask such a thing of him. Yixing can't really believe it either, but he has to, because if he doesn't then he has to acknowledge-again-the reality of how much Lu Han means to him, how much Lu Han's opinion means to him, and that would hurt more than Yixing is willing to bear.
"In the whole time I've known you," Lu Han says, "I've never seen you act like this."
Yixing knows he doesn't just mean the photograph. He means the strange silences and the way Yixing's body sometimes shies away from Lu Han's touch, before Yixing's mind can convince it that he has to act natural. He means the way that Yixing doesn't sleep in Lu Han's bed as often, and doesn't invite Lu Han to sleep in his. The way the darkness between them, when they lie in their hotel room beds, has become a wick burning down, and only Yixing can feel it.
"Trust me," Yixing says, "it's a new development." His voice is so bitter that it startles Lu Han, who puts the photo down on the table and stands up to face Yixing.
"Talk to me," Lu Han demands.
All at once, it feels like too much. It's too much-the way Lu Han touches him, sometimes, and the way Yixing's entire body electrifies at it. The way that a look from Lu Han is enough to have Yixing half hard, but all it takes is a downward tilt of his head and the set of his jaw to make Yixing want to cry. Lu Han means so much to him, so fucking much, and Yixing has born the weight of it for this long, but suddenly it feels as though he couldn't take a single step more without being crushed by it.
"I don't want to," Yixing says. He says it, but the words are already rising up out of him, uncontrollable. "Sometimes I feel like my stomach is going to explode from all of the things I don't want to talk to you about, but I would rather let my stomach explode than-" Than what, Yixing? "Because I love you, Xiao Lu. I don't want to hurt you. I can accept hurting myself, but I can't accept hurting you."
"I know that, Yixing-"
"No," Yixing says. "I love you. Don't you get it? I love you."
The air between them is still and silent, and the words are too heavy. They feel even heavier now, spoken aloud, than they had when they were silent and weighing on Yixing's chest. Lu Han's eyes are wide, startled, and Yixing almost can't believe that Lu Han never knew.
"I'm going to bed," he says. He leaves the room before Lu Han can respond.
They give Yixing a few nights off, around his birthday-both a privilege and a punishment all rolled into one. Yixing thinks he should appreciate it, but he doesn't.
Time off means time to think, and Yixing doesn't want to do that. He doesn't want to think about what it means that Lu Han hasn't spoken to him outside company-mandated pleasantries ever since their argument that night. What it means that Lu Han hasn't touched him since, that the door to Yixing's room has stayed firmly closed no matter how many hours Yixing spends staring at it in hopes that Lu Han will come through. He has been clinging to their schedules, practice concert practice interview practice concert, to provide him with distractions-and absent that, Yixing feels himself slipping.
He goes up to the practice rooms, the older ones, more likely to be vacant at this hour. If no one else can provide Yixing with a distraction, he will provide one for himself.
The soundproofing in the room is cracking in places, giving Yixing's music an uncomfortable, tinny quality when it reverberates through the space. Still, it's loud enough to get into his bones, and that's what Yixing needs. His shoes stick to the floor in places as he runs through MAMA's choreography, again and again, wondering how long it will take before his heart syncs up with the beat. His muscles are stiff and protest the exertion-it's been days since the last time Yixing stretched out properly, and it doesn't take long before his frame starts aching. His knee creaks, his back pinching with every turn. It hurts, but it's almost good, so Yixing keeps going.
He doesn't know how long it's been, when he collapses on the floor in a sweaty, exhausted pile of limp muscle and strained ligaments. His hair is sticking to his face, and he can feels his legs twitching, neurons firing off commands for movements Yixing is no longer trying to execute. The shaking will set in soon.
"You need to keep better hydrated."
There's a tentative quality in Lu Han's voice that Yixing isn't used to. He closes his eyes for a long moment before he forces himself into a sitting position, arms wrapped tight around his legs-as if maybe holding them close will keep them from trembling so badly. Yixing shouldn't be surprised-Lu Han has long since been voted the one to come collect Yixing when the members decide, collectively, that he's had enough.
"I'm fine," Yixing says, looking up to meet Lu Han's gaze in the mirror. It's a lie. Yixing is not fine. Nothing has been fine for a while, but Yixing is good at keeping secrets, even from himself.
Lu Han's fingers curl into fists at his sides, a gesture of useless frustration. Yixing knows the feeling-all he wants is to reach out and hold on to Lu Han, to cling, really, the way he used to, before all of this. Before he admitted to himself that maybe, his sometime desire to crawl inside Lu Han's skin was built on something other than simple friendship. The distance between them-the length of the practice room-feels like an eternity.
"You'll always be my best friend," Lu Han says, his voice soft and very clear.
Oh, and Yixing can read between the lines. He will always be Lu Han's best friend. He will never be anything more.
Yixing holds Lu Han's gaze for a long time, until Lu Han looks away, down at the scuffed floor near the toes of his shoes. Something feels fractured inside of him, something that has nothing to do with the ache in his muscles or the twinges of pain traveling up and down his spine.
"Okay," Yixing says. It's not okay. But it will have to be.