[fic] Heart in Your Mouth
Author ofolivesnginger
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Kris/Luhan
Rating: NC17
Words: 8391
Summary: Among the fan gifts is a ring box, amid the ring box is a torn up picture, and along the way somewhere we all had to cut our losses.
A/N: I couldn't stop thinking about relationships that go down the drain due to bad communication, and got to wondering why there's no talking. I thought if I mapped it out down to the root I'd be somewhat eased from frustration. Krishan was the subject because well. ┐(ﾟ～ﾟ)┌ I still don't know whether there's anything that justifiably just "can't be said". Nevertheless. This was fun!! Ended up being another one of my AU mashes, inspired by many things. Enjoy ♡♡
Among the fan gifts is a little velvet box, navy blue wrapping with silver text sealed on the cover. HEARTS ON FIRE, with the little half flower logo on top. It’s a ring box.
Luhan panics for a little bit before opening it. During the fansign right before his last birthday, Jongin was face to face handed an engagement ring, and the fan was this close to dropping to her knees right on the stage before the security came and took her aside. Luhan was one away from Jongin, between them sat Yixing who was caught up trying to hear this fan’s name, and he could see Jongin’s face past Yixing’s shoulders. Before every ring box is a wave of guilt, from feeling immensely burdensome, and a following wave of anger, at the inconsideration.
Luhan’s hanging on the edge of his bed when he opens it, and a flurry of paper tidbits falls onto his mattress.
There are two pieces that float off under the bed and a few that fall right side up, and one of them happens to be the part of the puzzle with Luhan’s face. When he bends down to pick up the ones that fell, he finds a corner piece where the old film camera dated the picture: 09/07/2008. When he looks into the box itself, there’s an alka seltzer tablet slotted in where the missing ring should be. Luhan pulls out a little slip of paper from the slit under the tablet, and it feels awfully like pulling the strip out of a fortune cookie.
“For that acerbic mouth of yours”, says the crooked writing. Luhan shakes his head, chuckling a little.
The dorm door opens. Hyunkyun comes in with another two boxes of things and gift bags hanging off his arm, pausing at the door when he sees Luhan still sorting through his new pile of belongings. Luhan looks like he’s trying to piece something together on his palm, holding his hand straight out. “Hyung,” he says, looking awfully suspicious hunched over a small pile of paper bits, looking like he’s trying to rule the smirk off his face. “Do you have some tape?”
His eyes go wide for a second, trying to read the kid. “Uh--yeah, I’ll grab some after I set this stuff down. What you got there?”
“Nothing really, just a picture. Where did you say these things came from?”
“Office says the post came with a batch from China a few days ago, why?”
Luhan’s eyes go wide for a split second, then he breaks into a grin and shakes his head. Hyunkyun watches him look down, and pluck the little palmful of secret in his hand with his fingers.
If Luhan’s not wrong--and there’s almost no chance he is at this point--Kris finally went back to Guangzhou this summer. Finally, after four whole years of avoiding China, like he’s afraid he’ll get swallowed by the ground of his hometown. Step one foot outside of North America and there’ll be a cataclysm, obviously. He probably still didn’t get over it, and went most likely ‘cause his grandparents, Luhan vaguely remembers them, were getting antsy and old and wanted to see their Yifan tall and healthy and handsome like the pictures.
And so Kris would have found pictures if he dug around a little, stuff like what he sent him. If he didn’t keep any, his parents definitely would’ve, packed them in little film bound pages in these thick volumes of leather bound albums, all chronologically arranged. Kris probably saw him when he flipped through and tore his part of the picture off and tore up Luhan’s half to present this statement.
Luhan taped it back together roughly. Every edge was now straight except the one on the left, where there was another half of the picture that was torn off. He doesn’t remember when this is taken until he has to recall the date and the year. It was probably during the mid-summer festival or somewhere around that, when they wandered into Tiananmen when the weather was just bearable. In the photo Luhan’s eating an ice cream cone, got it all over his mouth, and there’s a hand to his left and he doesn’t know what’s on the right side. He was in the white undershirt of their school uniform.
He knew it was Kris for sure from the alka seltzer. Only he’s crazy enough to do something like this. It’s hard to find someone with such ugly writing too, so there’s that. The last time they talked to each other was during holidays in ‘10, when Luhan received a postcard from Canada with a cartoonized snow globe holding a little red house and a big evergreen inside, placed on a cartoon table with cartoon garlands under a Merry X’mas!. It’s the kinda thing you’d expect to find at airport souvenir stores mailed out last minute before a flight somewhere. There’s four or five short lines on the back to write a message on, and Kris wasn’t going anywhere but his scrawl could’ve been the scrawl of some airport rusher. “Good to hear you’re doing good.” Yeah, except Luhan hasn’t said anything in two years. “Who do you think you are? Little dipshit. -Wu Yifan” Luhan never did write back, since even though there’s a shared dorm mailbox and the whole mess in it is free grabs, other places didn’t work that way, and he didn’t exactly have a return address. Kris knew Luhan was alive and well, though. It’s kind of hard not to given that just a year or two later he debuted.
Somehow Luhan knows this isn’t Kris trying to catch up again. It’s because lately they’ve been getting these questions about dating, and for some reason the shows all think Luhan is the perfect target when someone like Joonmyun would probably give a more entertaining reaction. It started on Beatles’ Code where he was pretty much interrogated, how old were you when, where were you when, what happened when. All these magazines and varieties kept pressing it, and finally during one show where they asked if Luhan still bittersweetly thought of his exes from time to time, Luhan straightened his back and hardened his expression dramatically. “Wu suo wei.” Doesn’t matter anyway. “The past is the past and it doesn’t matter to me anymore, I’m a man with a tough heart now, people from the past are dead to me.” That’s all said for teasing, of course; it was their second show after M’s return to China, and the fluency of words tumbling out of Luhan’s mouth at a cue is refreshing, and his tongue fell loose and his jokes remained lighthearted. Maybe Kris caught the segment on TV and felt offended.
It takes Luhan one day to stop feeling that inkling of smitten and get offended right back at Kris. First of all because he tore up his picture, then his acid humor, and then somehow the suggestion that Luhan needs to correct himself when it comes to some caustic feelings he holds towards certain things. The whole thing’s just a bad joke, the kind that ostensibly makes you laugh but deep down stabs knives into scabbed wounds. Not that it hurts him or anything, the reality of the past and the shit pile he and Kris’ connections became. It just sickened him, how Kris is deliberately digging it up, jabbing at all these points that would have been sore, had once been sore. Torn pictures, fake ring boxes. It’s ugly.
Hyunkyun wouldn’t let him do it so he doesn’t tell Hyunkyun. Luhan manipulates the duizhang into dragging the manager out, because he knows Hyunkyun’s too much a worrywart to let Yixing onto the streets by himself. Zitao is napping, and Luhan finds Jongdae reading on the living room couch and mistakes him for Zitao’s brother, asking for his help in a whiny mandarin before realizing he’d caught the wrong person.
In the end he takes an afternoon phoning up old acquaintances, and he gets the number he came for.
Right before dinner, Luhan checks the time and sends his text. ?, is all he writes. He had to be careful still, he knew. At the end of dinner Luhan checks his phone and there it is, a reply.
Who is this??
little dipshit
Kris’ response comes in english. james...? whyre you texting my china number just go on renren
who’s james?
who are you? im going to block you
wu yifan are you a frickin moron? its lh
The next text takes a while to get here. Lu Han? really?
yeah, really. you finally gonna bow down to me now or sell my number?
oppa? jinja? comes the reply in korean, but jinja is misspelt, missing that doubled consonant. Luhan shakes his head down at the screen.
man fuck off
wow, bitter ): this is bad for your public image
This sharply brings Luhan right back to why he’s here in the first place. He’s writing his response when another text comes: i’m so holding this as blackmail against you
What a dumb thing to say. If Kris wanted to ruin Luhan’s career he’s got a whole stock of things that’d blow up in scandals. Luhan sighs, already exasperated. I got your christmas card. thanks.
and you didn’t bother to write back?
uh, yeah, cuz friends are luhan’s seasonal accessories, right? china is so last year.
‘Cause Luhan’s long ditched you and the rest of the past for the pop star fame, right? What’s a hometown anyway when no nooks or crannies of its alleyways want to spare you a place to call home. Kris you should know, right? It’s always been like this, so damn easy to slip up and bite at each other like they haven’t been out of contact for years, like there shouldn’t be some frontier of politeness that’s come out of this estrangement. He hates their passive aggressive arguments but he can’t stop. Luhan sends the message and wonders if he’s inked the whole mood of the conversation, but he doesn’t give a damn what happens to the two of them after this, he just has this bone to pick. Kris’ reply takes some time, but eventually it comes.
what, have i said something wrong?
It nicks him, and in an instant Luhan’s stirred. what the fuck do you think, he slams, and quickly deletes the sentence. He doesn’t want to get into a fight, that isn’t his purpose, but if he’d thought anything about it then it probably would have ended in a fight anyway. A year long delayed fight, and he feels like he’s back in ‘08 with an empty suitcase on his bed, with Kris at the door, except this time around they’re shouting at each other. Dont you dare say I left willingly. Don’t you dare tell me I should feel guilty for it. You gain some, you lose some. Nothing is ideal. No decision is easy.
No. i’m going to sleep. do whatever you want, wu yifan. don’t send me things, it’s creepy. if you sell my number i’ll get rid of it. don’t buy our albums, don’t follow my band, if you hold grudges then just get away from me. i’m a national idol now, sorry, i don’t have time for friends.
Luhan shuts his phone off after this, at least for the whole night, but in the morning he turns it on and finds that Kris didn’t respond. He would be stepping foot into Seoul via ICN two days later when Kris messages him again while he’s checking his wechat feed. It’s a picture of an egg pancake--it’s with a jolt that Luhan realizes Kris is in beijing. On the round sheet is the chopped spring onion sprinkled in the shape of a smiley, and below it the maroon barbeque sauce writes in thick lines, “SORRY”. Luhan’s scowl is so deep his manager has to tell him to mind his expression, but in all truth he’s not in any mood to entertain this type of vapid humor from Kris first thing after getting off a plane. Another few days later, Luhan goes to pee in the middle of the night, and comes back into the pitch black room he shares with Yixing to find his phone screen alit with a message. He doesn’t read it until he’s already opened it, and when his eyes adjust to the glow, he wished he hadn’t looked.
Sad. )))))”;
Are you drunk? He hasn’t even sent it yet when another message comes.
You messed me up real bad, you know
Luhan sits with his phone in his hands and his hands in his lap, back hunched and eyes dizzied by the burst of colors behind his eyelids. He sits with Yixing sleeping behind him, until it’s so quiet he can hear him breathe. Then he clicks the phone open again and lights up half the room with the incandescent glare.
Ok. is all he types.
It’s 2013. Okay. Time went on. Sorry friend.
But the reality is that Beijing of 08 could not be tossed out of mind for either of them. To Kris, who walked in on this northern lifestyle so abruptly, Luhan would end up against his will becoming the image of ‘The Beijing boy’ for him, which at the end of everything he’d carry back with him when he runs home with his tail tucked between his legs. They’d just keep getting thrown together haphazardly until Kris one day voluntarily tacked onto Luhan’s charm wherever he decided to go. The raw truth is that back then before they even warmed to each other as friends, they brewed this certain tension nothing tangible could measure, and they never really did warm up to each other. It was more magnetism than heat, the two of them. For Kris, though, Luhan was on fire.
The whole summer was about feeling, fiery sensations. Kris played with Beijing Boy and Beijing Boy played back. It was about the two of them caught in a stichomythia, a you-poke-I-prod. Luhan was intense. It had that strung up ferocity like surface tension, or tightened violin strings, or a bead of sweat on the verge of rolling down his forehead; Kris watching the sweat drop, under the dim light of the restaurant washroom, or arcade screen, or movie theatre…
Luhan had a girlfriend back then. On the flight to Canada that’s all he thought about, looking at his loosely curled palm on the little convertible table. Kris didn’t see her often, but from what he’s glimpsed, he can only conclude that Luhan was with her because, where he was, he deserved her, and where she was she deserved him. Kris only figured this out years later; the idea of entitlement didn’t really consciously register in their heads at 18. Luhan was the first in the grade to dye his hair to any degree, cropped short and spiked up most of the time, dark coal brows, soccer captain, nothing like the flower boy he is now on camera. The way he held himself almost overshadowed Kris, but not quite, Kris himself wasn’t incompetent. It was a summer of this kind of friction, like two stones constantly rubbing past each other.
This one time during a good round of poker Luhan half pulled his cock out, got the zipper down and everything, and yelled at Kris to suck it, you little bitch, and apparently that was the most humiliating thing any guy could get ordered to do. It was funny because a few hours later they’d all huddled around the laptop and desktop in Luhan’s room and jacked off together to Japanese porn, and very early on Kris glanced over at Luhan right beside him and found him looking back, and that was just the sort of consolidation he’d been looking for. Nobody had been paying attention to them. Luhan looked back at the screen, and he grabbed Kris’ hand and wrapped it around his cock. Luhan stopped looking at the screen and closed his eyes and threw his head back.
They’d keep giving each other handjobs all throughout the summer, and Kris blew Luhan a few times, but they never actually fucked. If you looked at the two of them side by side in a picture--back against the Tiananmen square during some festival, Luhan licking up an ice cream and Kris drinking a bottle of coke--they’d just look like any two guy friends. That’s mostly what they were, though things did once or twice get a little complicated, like the time they made out, or the time Kris caught him alone in the parking lot.
That time was close to the end of things, when they all started to collect themselves in preparation for college. Kris was biking around the neighborhood after dinner when he rode past an empty parking lot and caught sight of him sitting on one of the big stone pedestals all by himself. He propped his bike and walked to him, hands stuck in his parka’s pockets. The conversation went something like,
“Yo,” Kris had greeted first, and Luhan didn’t even look over, jaw clenched and shoulders tensed. Then Kris asked him, “What’s the matter?”
“Just piss off.”
“Easy, I’m just asking a question.”
Luhan looked startled, head snapping over, and he leaned over to glance around Kris like he was looking for the rest of the people. Kris was taken aback somewhat by the fact that Luhan was expecting a crowd.
“What’s the problem?” And then Luhan told him,
“Hey, why don’t you go pack your bags and get the shit out of Beijing, huh?”
And at this point Luhan had realized he’d said too much, but Kris already caught on. Luhan didn’t get into university, his mom was whispering across the dinner table to his aunt just an hour ago. That school celebrity next door? Yeah, he lost his soccer scholarship because of his bad grades, but he never put his heart into studying. Guess he is just a school grass, huh. Don’t say that, Kris said, although he didn’t know about any of this. Luhan didn’t look like the type of person who had problems, but Kris knew then, looking at him washed sickly yellow under the lamplight, that they were both the same damn idiot. Internalizing self esteem issues until the lid can’t hold anymore. He didn’t know how Luhan got to tearing up, just sitting there somehow actually letting himself be watched while he teetered on the edge of a meltdown. Kris had pulled a hand out of his pocket but Luhan smacked his arm away, looking to the ground where a drop of his tear finally fell. Kris tried to reach again but Luhan thrashed, but the third time he wrapped an arm over Luhan’s shoulder, Luhan held completely still for him, head lodged into the duck fluff of the parka. His shoulders jerked, and Kris patted down his back the way his mother used to do to set him to sleep. Slowly, at some point he can’t remember, Kris slid his other arm around Luhan too and gently with his large hands cradled his head, and it was like Luhan couldn’t even feel it.
The other instance of blurred lines happened a week before Kris left the continent, and it was probably the last time Kris and Luhan really talked with each other. Kris walked into Luhan’s room with news on the tip of his tongue, but what he saw was Luhan sitting on the floor with a pile of manga spread out in front of him being separated into piles, and a big red suitcase on his bed. “What’re you doing?” Luhan stood up, and at that time he pulled his face into a full blown smirk, and if Kris had been a little less attracted and a little more attentive he might have seen through it earlier.
“Going to Korea to get famous.”
He looked to his poster on the wall for the briefest moment, and Kris followed his gaze to the big poster in the corner, where five guys he’s come to know as DBSK stand side by side with abnormally long legs and smoky eyes. Luhan was watching him, and he watched Kris’ eyes fall on the poster. There were four posters over Luhan’s walls and three of them are Man U, flaming red, squeezing the popstars into an inconspicuous corner, screaming for attention. Kris didn’t look at them. He took his eyes back and set them right back on Luhan, who was waiting. “Like those guys?”
Luhan replied, too quickly, almost defensively, “Yeah like them, what’s wrong with that?” and he was still watching Kris. Waiting for him to pick up the cue, he’d outright dropped it, he couldn’t get any closer to just making Kris read it from paper. What’s wrong with it. Tell me what’s wrong with it. Tell me all the things wrong with doing something like this, tell me I have three humongous posters about soccer and a passion. Tell me I gotta fucking suck up my pride and stay behind another year and try again. But then Kris looked back and he just chuckled a little, he said,
“Not bad. Good luck.”
“What?”
“What? I said--I mean, what else can I say?” But Kris knew he could say more. Things like I really do believe you’ll succeed no matter where you go. There was a lump in his throat. Luhan didn’t answer, just sat down on the bed, toppling over a pile of the books.
“I came here to tell you my...mom. Mom finally packed up for Canada and asked if I wanted to come along. I don’t know--Like I know It’s the only chance I’ll ever get to get away before my dad makes me feel even more indebted to him. But--”
“What’s there to consider? Just go.”
“Just go.”
“You’ve been wanting to get out of his leash for years now, haven’t you?”
Kris chewed on his lip, then he looked away. Luhan was about to get back to his books when he spoke again.
“If you, if you decide to. Then I’ll go--”
“Fucking christ, Yifan, don’t make this so difficult. Leave, go to Canada, what’s there to lose, right?”
And they were standing there, facing each other. They were watching each other trying to measure every breath that comes out, every little trickle of breath which might have seized the whisper of a word the other dares not speak aloud. They were standing there looking right into each other, and it’s hardly been a minute since he’s spoken, but in their heads they were already counting losses on their fingers. This was the curse on the kids who didn’t know how to ask for what they wanted to ask for. Who never thought they had the right to ask for what they wanted, or to want what they wanted, or deserved it. It was just that one moment of mutual understanding, that they were both waiting for the other, and great things could happen if one of them took a chance. Then the magic was lost, they’d missed it. And it was it.
“Okay.” Kris said, and he went to Canada with his mother.
Luhan packed his bags, marched across the boarding gates, and never looked back.
The next time they meet is a month later, backstage to the Music Billboard Charts interview, renewed for their second year of debut. They’d finished the first half of it, the actual interview part, and there’s going to be a twenty minute break before part two with the games. Luhan wanders into the washroom, locks himself in a stall, sits down with his pants down and sighs. He’s scrolling on his phone when another set of feet walks in, soft on the tiles. The guy stops by the sink, and Luhan feels a little self conscious shitting in a deadly silent washroom, but not quite yet. The guy sets a bunch of bling down on the counter and turns on the tap. Luhan doesn’t hear the third pair of feet until the tap’s off, and until the first guy’s pumping the soap.
“Hey.”
“Oh hey.”
And then he freezes ice cold. Slowly Luhan looks up from his phone, straight ahead at the aquamarine blue of the stall, like he’s trying to see past the solid pane of wood. His eyes are bug wide, breath held. It’s Kris, the guy at the sink. It’s been four years but he would never mistake that voice. It makes no sense, but here it is.
“One of the girls spilled a whole can of powder on me in the change room.”
“Damn.” Kris laughs. He still sounds the same, sorta bashful, sorta snide.
“Gotta run, need to vacuum the shit up.”
“Alright, see you.”
They’re left alone again. Luhan is hyper aware of the fact that he would only have a few seconds before Kris starts to notice the silence from his stall, and Kris must have already seen his feet to know there’s someone in there. Luhan’s heart is seizing up, and he’s going through a list of options as fast as doing roll call. Kris has settled back onto his heels in front of the sink, probably fixing his hair. Through the crack, Luhan sees his hunched figure, the back of his head bleached a bright blond, black blazer and black jeans. He’s realized that there’s only one option, and he’s running out of time, and he has to get out of there at some point before the next segment starts.
It’s the thought that he’s afraid of a confrontation that jolts him out of it, gets him pulling the toilet paper, flushing the toilet. He stands there, in front of the door, and there’s an awful three seconds of silence before he moves to fasten his belt. Luhan feels the air tense up; even his own actions sound so deliberated. Kris must have caught on to the strangeness, because he starts to hold still too, not even little shifts in his stiff pose. Luhan closes his eyes and counts to three, and on three he unbolts the lock and swings the door open.
Their eyes meet in the mirror.
The door swings, all the way. Luhan stands in the arch of the door, hands by his sides, and Kris stands with his hands frozen, like he’s about to attach a wristband, and their eyes seal on each other in the mirror. Luhan wants to look away, just a first reaction to hide from some kind of guilt, but he tells himself not to cave.
Kris snaps the bracelet on, and it’s loud. He moves to turn around, and Luhan takes the two seconds he gets to draw in a huge breath and hold it again while Kris takes him in. Kris looks completely different with dyed hair. He’s thinner, less of an athlete as before, taller than he used to be, but he hasn’t grown nearly as much as Luhan had. He’s paler. He’s well dressed, so much more than before. He has a name tag.
“Luhan.”
It takes a moment, then he nods. “Yeah.”
Luhan walks over the the sink, one beside where Kris is frozen staring down at the dark roots of his hair. He washes his hands with not quite haste, but he’s definitely not taking his time. He keeps his eyes down the whole time, rinsing, drying, tossing the paper towel. He’s on his way to the door when Kris calls again. “Luhan.”
Luhan turns around. He doesn’t know what expression he’s wearing right now, maybe fear, maybe hostility, but it stops Kris short from what he wanted to say.
“Did you know I was gonna be here?”
“I’m on an internship here, I took a...broadcasting major, hey, are you--”
He hears Yixing’s voice outside suddenly, coming closer, calling for him in that dazed way, and he looks down at the phone for the time. He holds up a hand, “Look, I need to talk to you too, but I don’t have the time for this right now. Send me your address,” he waves his phone, “ok? It’s another two weeks until we leave, I’ll try to.” He takes a deep breath. “Ok? Later.”
He turns to go, and-- “Luhan.”
“What?”
Kris opens his mouth but nothing comes out, and a moment later he shakes his head. “No, nevermind, go.”
Luhan throws him one last glance, before he’s rushing out and down the hall.
It would be near the time Kris stopped counting two weeks that Luhan finally shows up at his door, and Kris physically double takes the moment he gets the door open.
Luhan’s in a navy janitor jumpsuit, the edge of his white tee peeking out from beneath the collar at his neck, and the lanyard with a name tag and a microscopic picture of someone with black hair. Luhan’s in a matching janitor cap, and more ridiculously underneath is a white shower cap hiding his chestnut hair. It reminds him of the ones cafeteria ladies wear with the face masks. He’s holding a white mask in one hand, one gloved hand, and in the other is a Nike drawstring bag with neon green strings. On his feet are black rubber boots. Luhan’s panting, harshly in the empty hallway while he stands, lips pulled back a little over his teeth trying to gain his breath. His cheeks are pinked from the cold outside.
“Did you run here?” Is what Kris chooses to say. He’d just gotten up though, so it makes more sense, and plus it’s seven in the morning and the sun’s barely up in autumn. Luhan makes a face at him, then pushes Kris out of the way, hurrying to get away from the huge panes of glass that lines the hallway, even if it’s the twelfth floor up.
“What the hell do you think?” He’s trying to kick off his boots, holding himself up against the wall with his knuckles, trying not to let his gloves touch the wall. “No, exo-m has three private vans so its members can get around town walking.”
He tosses his gloves into his boots, and rubs his hands like they feel gross. He sets his cap down too, then rips the white plastic off his head. His hair’s a total mess, spiked up at the bangs, and Luhan runs his fingers through it and lets it stay flipped up like that. Kris is still a little stunned, following while he walks into the room, wishing he was in something more decent.
“Where’d you tell them you were going?”
“Everyone else went out shopping. I just said I wanted to visit an old friend.”
Luhan throws the bag on the couch Kris’ got, and by now it’s obvious it’s the only thing that belongs to him in everything he’d brought with him today. He strips the sides of the jumpsuit off his shoulders, pulls his arms free, and ties the sleeves at his waist. He spins around, arms on his hip.
“Then what’s this whole thing for?” Kris gestures at his getup, even though Luhan can’t see him. Luhan looks down at the loose pants, stamps his feet on the floor.
“So I had this genius idea, this morning I just walked right out of SM’s front doors with these two huge trash bags, and it was like magic. Everybody just backed the hell away.” He looks up, the triumphant grin fading a little. “I had to make sure absolutely none of them tailed my car again this time, I mean. Obviously you’re not just some old friend.”
At the last part, Kris looks down at the rug half his foot is standing on, and he crosses his arms. Kris bites his bottom lip, chews on it a little. “Well, that depends on you.” He says softly, peering up at Luhan. Luhan doesn’t move, just wets his lips and shifts his weight onto the other leg.
“I know you have things to say, alright. Let’s save it for after breakfast. Can you whip something up? I haven’t eaten in like fifteen hours.”
Kris whips something up with some eggs, scrambles it with some celery. He cuts a handful of cowpeas down to bits and fries that with a sprinkle of ground beef. There’s leftover rice in the cooker he sticks in the microwave. He gets the urge to tell Luhan to get away from the table since he’s sitting right in front of the rotating machine, but he hasn’t been paying attention to Kris at all, reading over something on his phone.
They eat with the radio softly in the background. It’s not epicurean, but Luhan eats like he’s a neglected child, and it’s almost slovenly if he didn’t have that crisp edge about him all the time. Kris peeks at him throughout, taking note of the little things, the couple of pimples on his forehead, stubble, and that cut on his bottom lip he still remembers. He watches Luhan eat from across him, so caught up he forgets to feed himself. Luhan’s got his head down, and picks up a piece of celery, about to eat it.
“Tell me I’m not going crazy.”
Luhan stops. He closes his mouth, staring at Kris waiting.
“Don’t you ever think, like, this was all just supposed to happen? Like after all this now there’ll be some moral of the story?”
Kris has his head tilted, brows knit and borderline maniacal, like he’s ready to launch into explaining some complex math theorem. He doesn’t look like he’s going to be eating anymore, but Luhan’s still hungry, and he keeps quiet as he chews, staring back at Kris who looks beyond lost.
“Did it ever nag at you too afterwards? So many goddamn years I spent wondering, what if I’m not--or what if I had done that, or done this.”
“No.”
Luhan chances looking up, and Kris looks destroyed. He looks back into his bowl.
“What does it matter what could’ve happened, or what didn’t happen?” He takes his time chewing. “Focus on yourself in the present, and trust yourself in the future. How else can you get through everything.”
Kris laughs a little, a bubble of a laughter. He looks down at his food, at his hand, softly rapping the chopsticks together with a finger. “There was not one day where I could trust myself if it meant that I was still thinking about you, Luhan.”
For a moment Luhan looks away, down at the table counter, and he closes his eyes like it pains him. He keeps eating. Kris watches him try to gather the diced up beans with his chopsticks, and he picks the plate up and scrapes the last of it all into Luhan’s bowl.
“Don’t you think we did the right thing, though? if we stayed this all would have blown to shit anyway. We had to figure ourselves out a little more, we had to leave--”
“Look, this isn’t--” he gestures wildly at everything around them, and when he turns he’s cut off mid sentence, caught by the sight of something. Kris watches Luhan hop off the stool and run to a living room window with the blinds drawn up, peering outside quickly before letting it down. He comes back, dusting off his hands. “This isn’t any easier, okay? Look around you, man. I’m not here because of chance, this was not the right thing, Yifan. Fuck, anybody knows how to run away.”
Luhan’s done eating now, and he stands up abruptly, stacking the plates and bowls on top of each other. He walks around him to the sink, sets the plates down, and grips the edge of the counter with his back turned, head down. The radio runs by itself quietly, unobtrusively, until Luhan reaches over and shuts it off.
“Do you wanna know what it was?”
Kris’ head snaps over, staring into the shirt on his back. “We all hated ourselves, but we loved ourselves more than anything. My ego couldn’t see me on my knees mopping up my own failure, and your ego couldn’t see you accepting your father’s help.” Luhan takes a few deep breaths. “You didn’t know anything, okay, don’t give me that bullshit. You--we just took a reckless chance and it happened to work out fine. I knew it back then and I know it even better now. We were too scared so we ran away, that’s all it was.”
There’s a solid minute where no one speaks.
“If you knew,” his voice dwindles, until he’s nearly whispering, “then why did you tell me to go?”
Luhan snaps around, and he looks appalled, marching over and slamming his hands down on the table, “Me? Me.”
His fists are clenched, knuckles white and digging into the wood of the table, trembling just the slightest like he’s trying to hold himself together. At first Kris braces himself for an explosion, staring right back into Luhan’s bewildered eyes, but then Luhan lets go on the table and straightens like he’s too tired to stand. “Me.”
He turns away, a hand on his waist, lips pulled in behind his teeth and his mouth breaks open on a gasp of air. Luhan looks away and wipes a hand down his face. Kris thinks he’s crying, but he can’t be sure. “You know what I did, Wu Yifan,” he says, still holding his face in his hand. “I spent five hours. I sat there on the floor for five hours, waiting for someone to come stop me.”
Kris watches Luhan try to blink the wetness gathered in the frame of his eyes. He can’t watch him anymore, it’s getting to him too, and he clenches his teeth tight. Luhan drops his hand, and it hangs loosely by his side, and Kris’ first reaction is to reach across the table and grab it, wrapping his own hand around Luhan’s cold fingers. Luhan doesn’t move, doesn’t even look back, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.
“You did it though, didn’t you? I knew you would, I’m serious.” Kris grinds past his teeth, trying to get himself to smile. “Whatever you wanted to do I knew you would always be able to succeed.”
Luhan turns back. He wraps his hand around Kris’, and Kris lifts his head, to be faced with a crippling resignation he’s seen on Luhan before. Luhan sits onto the table, legs hanging off with his torso turned to face him.
“Yeah, look at what we’ve got now.” He leans in, until their foreheads are inches apart. “We finally have our peace. I’m cozy in here.”
He pulls up their joined hand, opens up Kris’ fist and guides his palm over his own beating heart. He smiles down at Kris’ wide eyes, the way he once couldn’t, and the certainty in his words wracks Kris so completely that his next words take the punch home:
What happened to our freedom?
Kris stands up, pulls Luhan to him, and Luhan loses balance and falls with his back onto the table. Upside down like this Kris holds Luhan’s face fumbles to kiss him, neck craned just to reach him, where he’s tilting to let their lips mash together. Kris gets himself to the other side and pins Luhan down to the table, thighs pressed harshly together, hands trying to bare his chest, rip the layers between them. Luhan throws his arms around Kris’ neck, madly kissing as he’s pulled upright with Kris’ hips between his heated thighs. With his shirt half stripped Luhan’s
carried out the kitchen, set down onto the bed.
Kris claws open the knot at his waist, rips down the pants, strips him of his boxers. He pulls Luhan’s bare thighs to his own, propped on his knees holding Luhan by his ankles right before he spreads him like he’s always dreamed of. Kris is shaken by how little Luhan’s changed, from what little he remembers of his naked body the few times he has glimpsed it, always one piece at a time, not like this. He holds both their erections in one hand, rolling them in his big hand, fucking up against Luhan in his palm.
“Fuck,” Luhan’s hips jerk, and he rolls the spasm all the way up his torso, arching till his skin stretch over his bones. Luhan doesn’t know where to put his hands, grappling the bedsheets, crumbling it in his fists.
“What do you want?”
“Go get a condom. Go.”
Kris takes him on his back. Luhan holds his legs up while Kris stretches him, neither of them really know what they’re doing. Kris doesn’t know how to measure Luhan’s feelings while he pushes in as slowly as he can manage, and Luhan’s decided to not make a face or make a sound, breathing through his teeth with his eyes closed. “This okay?” he whispers, head dropped to the curve of Luhan’s neck, and Luhan hisses quietly but he nods, almost a little feverish. Kris works himself in further every push, until he’s in to the hilt, and then Luhan lets go of his breath. Kris rubs him down, massaging his muscles loose. He leans down and holds him, just breathes him in.
The room is cold. In the midst of fucking Kris rolls Luhan onto his knees, chest to back, but Luhan whines from the wind on his stomach and collapses. Kris fucks him right into the mattress, Luhan’s cock pressed between his sliding body and the sheets. Luhan flips until he’s on top, then flips back to the strip on the sheets warmed in the shape of their backs. Luhan bucks, and he stretches and he keens, gasps, moans, says Kris’ name in that choked whisper. He comes barely touched, and Kris licks it off his stomach after. He comes back with a warm wet towel, but Luhan’s already asleep, so he picks the comforter up from the floor and drapes it over both of him. Kris pulls Luhan close, an arm around his shoulders.
At five in the afternoon, Kris shakes Luhan awake by the shoulders. “Your alarm went off.”
Luhan takes the phone from his hand, rubs at his eyes, and shuts off the ringing. He sits on the edge of the bed, feet lifted off the cold floorboards, his back to Kris, so he doesn’t see him, just hears when he says, “what’s the alarm for?”
“I have a ride coming in half an hour.”
“Oh, ok. When did you even get to…”
Luhan turns around slowly, searching for Kris’ gaze. He looks at him with barely a face, just stares silently, and the moment it looks like everything has registered in Kris, Luhan shakes his head and turns himself back. “Luhan, did you come here just to sleep with me?”
Luhan bends, leaning on the tip of his toes to grab his boxer off the floor. “What, you think I came here to propose?”
He pulls on his boxers, snapping the elastic. Luhan rounds the foot of the bed, and walks past Kris without looking at him, swiping his shirt from the floor. When he straightens, he catches Kris’ face, and it makes him frown back. “What, what is it now?” He throws his shirt on, yanking it over his head. He stands straight, staring back at Kris with the same sort of provocative grimace.
“Nothing. Just. Just get dressed, ok.”
“Listen, If I can’t--” Luhan doesn’t finish his sentence. He stands there glaring bitterly for a couple of seconds, and he’s still so much asleep that he looks like he’s gonna fall over, all five foot eight of him. “I’m just trying to take what I can get. Is that not allowed?”
Kris looks torn, trying to come up with a response. Luhan knows he must have known just as a gut feeling that Luhan didn’t go looking for reconciliation the way he hoped they would, but Kris probably never crystallized his thoughts as sharply as Luhan verbalised it. He knew by reason that this was as far as anything could have gone today, but it’s winding to hear the reality dissected like this.
“If you won’t do it, then just don’t come back the next time. You know what, I was actually going to say--you should get over me, Kris.”
Kris stares. His chest is so tight he can’t pull the breaths to speak.
“I can’t guarantee you anything, I’m just here because I’m selfish.” He chuckles lightly. “You can move on and find your fulfilment, or you can stay because I won’t let you go. You know what I can and what I’ll never be able to give you. I’m sure don’t need to say any more, you can choose, Kris.”
Almost right as he finishes his sentence, Luhan’s phone buzzes. He picks up the last of his clothes, the overalls, slides the sleeves on. Kris follows him to the sofa, to the door, where he puts on his boots and hat but leaves everything else in his bag. In the little corner of space before the door, Luhan’s side is pressed into him, and he still smells like Kris’ bed, like their bodies on Kris’ bed, so warm in this sort of shadowed cold of the cramped entryway. With both hands full, Luhan turns around a last time, looking up at him gently.
“When you get rid of my number, don’t go sell it. I will get angry.”
Luhan backs out of the threshold, standing with the meter of space between them. He nods once, wordlessly, and then turns down the hallway, rubber boots crunching on the asphalt. Kris watches him turn down the hall without another glance back. He waits until the elevator rings. He waits until the elevator comes back up again. He waits until Luhan’s running out the front door, ‘till he’s being absorbed by the van in the parking lot before stepping back in and closing the door.
Three days later, Luhan’s in the middle of getting his hair done backstage when his phone lights up with a message from Kris.
The only thing he can see in the preview is a shrunken picture, and it’s too dark to make out what it is. He peeks at his stylist in the mirror, making sure she’s focused on getting him curled before sliding the message open.
He brings the phone closer and squints. Kris’ face is the largest part of the picture; from the background he looks like he’s at some kind of party. The lights in the place is dimmed, and there’s a big TV screen in the back, glaring white due to the contrast outlining a few silhouettes. Kris is smiling stupid and gummy in the badly captured selfie. Guess who I get to hang out with at the station, Luhan reads.
A moment later his phone buzzes again, and he gets another picture, this time taken against a bathroom sink, of a clear plastic water bottle. There’s an autograph scrawled in black Sharpie across the body of the thing, and Luhan’s trying to figure it out when another message comes in. Yu Quan!! Luhan almost loses it. He’s about to shoot something back when he stops himself, setting his phone down and sinking into his seat like he just remembered. He doesn’t end up replying to it. Despite this, two days later Kris sends him another picture at another odd time of day.
He’s at a lake somewhere, or a river, and it’s night. The moon’s big and bright on the surface of the water, and there are red lanterns glowing faintly in the far back, probably from a park or a community center. Kris is holding two hawthorn skewers in the hand he’s holding out in front of the camera. One of them is missing the top piece. Let me treat you, almighty Lu-ye, says the accompanying caption. Luhan’s just about to go to sleep, slid into his blanket and everything already, and Yixing who’s lying on his side on the other bed asks him what’s making him shake his head. He catches something like “no sense of humor” before Luhan switches off the desklamp and plugs his phone in to charge on the nightstand.
The third picture comes a week after the last one, and this time it doesn’t take Luhan much to tell where Kris is. Luhan’s eating breakfast in the cafeteria when this one arrives. It’s day time in the picture--it’s actually right at sunrise. Kris is standing near the top of a segment of the Great Wall, wrapped in a puffy coat and scarf, hands stuck in his pockets. Below him the wall is so steep it disappears right into the thin fog at the bottom, and rises up again following the little hills. Kris’ hair is a mess, and he’s in the process of turning over when the picture was taken, by whom Luhan doesn’t know. From his profile, lit by the sun on the horizon, Kris is smiling. Let’s not run away this time, okay?
Luhan drops the piece of cucumber he picked up, but he only briefly glances over before looking back to his phone. His face is stretching painfully against his will, frowning deeper every second he stares at Kris’ idiotic grin in the picture. The screen goes black. Luhan scoffs, gaze lost somewhere past the table. Across him, Sehun’s watching curiously. What are you looking at? You’re always on your phone these days, he says. Eat your breakfast, brat, Luhan tells him, kicking him under the table. Sehun catches Luhan’s ankles, but Luhan slips through, and he steps both feet over Sehun’s sneakers. Sehun gives up, going back to his stir-fry, and Luhan turns the screen back on, types in his password, looks at the message for another while.
He types something quickly, but he halts over the send button. Luhan closes his eyes, sighs long and loud, shaking his head. He wipes the dust off his screen with his thumb and zooms into the picture again.
“Dammit.”
He deletes what he wrote, starts again. This time he’s wearing a helpless grin when he sends it.
Fin.
a/n: fuck. ISTG I swore to myself this was not going to have a happy ending correcting angst is compulsive now i dont even know where the last part cAME FROM
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Kris/Luhan
Rating: NC17
Words: 8391
Summary: Among the fan gifts is a ring box, amid the ring box is a torn up picture, and along the way somewhere we all had to cut our losses.
A/N: I couldn't stop thinking about relationships that go down the drain due to bad communication, and got to wondering why there's no talking. I thought if I mapped it out down to the root I'd be somewhat eased from frustration. Krishan was the subject because well. ┐(ﾟ～ﾟ)┌ I still don't know whether there's anything that justifiably just "can't be said". Nevertheless. This was fun!! Ended up being another one of my AU mashes, inspired by many things. Enjoy ♡♡
Among the fan gifts is a little velvet box, navy blue wrapping with silver text sealed on the cover. HEARTS ON FIRE, with the little half flower logo on top. It’s a ring box.
Luhan panics for a little bit before opening it. During the fansign right before his last birthday, Jongin was face to face handed an engagement ring, and the fan was this close to dropping to her knees right on the stage before the security came and took her aside. Luhan was one away from Jongin, between them sat Yixing who was caught up trying to hear this fan’s name, and he could see Jongin’s face past Yixing’s shoulders. Before every ring box is a wave of guilt, from feeling immensely burdensome, and a following wave of anger, at the inconsideration.
Luhan’s hanging on the edge of his bed when he opens it, and a flurry of paper tidbits falls onto his mattress.
There are two pieces that float off under the bed and a few that fall right side up, and one of them happens to be the part of the puzzle with Luhan’s face. When he bends down to pick up the ones that fell, he finds a corner piece where the old film camera dated the picture: 09/07/2008. When he looks into the box itself, there’s an alka seltzer tablet slotted in where the missing ring should be. Luhan pulls out a little slip of paper from the slit under the tablet, and it feels awfully like pulling the strip out of a fortune cookie.
“For that acerbic mouth of yours”, says the crooked writing. Luhan shakes his head, chuckling a little.
The dorm door opens. Hyunkyun comes in with another two boxes of things and gift bags hanging off his arm, pausing at the door when he sees Luhan still sorting through his new pile of belongings. Luhan looks like he’s trying to piece something together on his palm, holding his hand straight out. “Hyung,” he says, looking awfully suspicious hunched over a small pile of paper bits, looking like he’s trying to rule the smirk off his face. “Do you have some tape?”
His eyes go wide for a second, trying to read the kid. “Uh--yeah, I’ll grab some after I set this stuff down. What you got there?”
“Nothing really, just a picture. Where did you say these things came from?”
“Office says the post came with a batch from China a few days ago, why?”
Luhan’s eyes go wide for a split second, then he breaks into a grin and shakes his head. Hyunkyun watches him look down, and pluck the little palmful of secret in his hand with his fingers.
If Luhan’s not wrong--and there’s almost no chance he is at this point--Kris finally went back to Guangzhou this summer. Finally, after four whole years of avoiding China, like he’s afraid he’ll get swallowed by the ground of his hometown. Step one foot outside of North America and there’ll be a cataclysm, obviously. He probably still didn’t get over it, and went most likely ‘cause his grandparents, Luhan vaguely remembers them, were getting antsy and old and wanted to see their Yifan tall and healthy and handsome like the pictures.
And so Kris would have found pictures if he dug around a little, stuff like what he sent him. If he didn’t keep any, his parents definitely would’ve, packed them in little film bound pages in these thick volumes of leather bound albums, all chronologically arranged. Kris probably saw him when he flipped through and tore his part of the picture off and tore up Luhan’s half to present this statement.
Luhan taped it back together roughly. Every edge was now straight except the one on the left, where there was another half of the picture that was torn off. He doesn’t remember when this is taken until he has to recall the date and the year. It was probably during the mid-summer festival or somewhere around that, when they wandered into Tiananmen when the weather was just bearable. In the photo Luhan’s eating an ice cream cone, got it all over his mouth, and there’s a hand to his left and he doesn’t know what’s on the right side. He was in the white undershirt of their school uniform.
He knew it was Kris for sure from the alka seltzer. Only he’s crazy enough to do something like this. It’s hard to find someone with such ugly writing too, so there’s that. The last time they talked to each other was during holidays in ‘10, when Luhan received a postcard from Canada with a cartoonized snow globe holding a little red house and a big evergreen inside, placed on a cartoon table with cartoon garlands under a Merry X’mas!. It’s the kinda thing you’d expect to find at airport souvenir stores mailed out last minute before a flight somewhere. There’s four or five short lines on the back to write a message on, and Kris wasn’t going anywhere but his scrawl could’ve been the scrawl of some airport rusher. “Good to hear you’re doing good.” Yeah, except Luhan hasn’t said anything in two years. “Who do you think you are? Little dipshit. -Wu Yifan” Luhan never did write back, since even though there’s a shared dorm mailbox and the whole mess in it is free grabs, other places didn’t work that way, and he didn’t exactly have a return address. Kris knew Luhan was alive and well, though. It’s kind of hard not to given that just a year or two later he debuted.
Somehow Luhan knows this isn’t Kris trying to catch up again. It’s because lately they’ve been getting these questions about dating, and for some reason the shows all think Luhan is the perfect target when someone like Joonmyun would probably give a more entertaining reaction. It started on Beatles’ Code where he was pretty much interrogated, how old were you when, where were you when, what happened when. All these magazines and varieties kept pressing it, and finally during one show where they asked if Luhan still bittersweetly thought of his exes from time to time, Luhan straightened his back and hardened his expression dramatically. “Wu suo wei.” Doesn’t matter anyway. “The past is the past and it doesn’t matter to me anymore, I’m a man with a tough heart now, people from the past are dead to me.” That’s all said for teasing, of course; it was their second show after M’s return to China, and the fluency of words tumbling out of Luhan’s mouth at a cue is refreshing, and his tongue fell loose and his jokes remained lighthearted. Maybe Kris caught the segment on TV and felt offended.
It takes Luhan one day to stop feeling that inkling of smitten and get offended right back at Kris. First of all because he tore up his picture, then his acid humor, and then somehow the suggestion that Luhan needs to correct himself when it comes to some caustic feelings he holds towards certain things. The whole thing’s just a bad joke, the kind that ostensibly makes you laugh but deep down stabs knives into scabbed wounds. Not that it hurts him or anything, the reality of the past and the shit pile he and Kris’ connections became. It just sickened him, how Kris is deliberately digging it up, jabbing at all these points that would have been sore, had once been sore. Torn pictures, fake ring boxes. It’s ugly.
Hyunkyun wouldn’t let him do it so he doesn’t tell Hyunkyun. Luhan manipulates the duizhang into dragging the manager out, because he knows Hyunkyun’s too much a worrywart to let Yixing onto the streets by himself. Zitao is napping, and Luhan finds Jongdae reading on the living room couch and mistakes him for Zitao’s brother, asking for his help in a whiny mandarin before realizing he’d caught the wrong person.
In the end he takes an afternoon phoning up old acquaintances, and he gets the number he came for.
Right before dinner, Luhan checks the time and sends his text. ?, is all he writes. He had to be careful still, he knew. At the end of dinner Luhan checks his phone and there it is, a reply.
Who is this??
little dipshit
Kris’ response comes in english. james...? whyre you texting my china number just go on renren
who’s james?
who are you? im going to block you
wu yifan are you a frickin moron? its lh
The next text takes a while to get here. Lu Han? really?
yeah, really. you finally gonna bow down to me now or sell my number?
oppa? jinja? comes the reply in korean, but jinja is misspelt, missing that doubled consonant. Luhan shakes his head down at the screen.
man fuck off
wow, bitter ): this is bad for your public image
This sharply brings Luhan right back to why he’s here in the first place. He’s writing his response when another text comes: i’m so holding this as blackmail against you
What a dumb thing to say. If Kris wanted to ruin Luhan’s career he’s got a whole stock of things that’d blow up in scandals. Luhan sighs, already exasperated. I got your christmas card. thanks.
and you didn’t bother to write back?
uh, yeah, cuz friends are luhan’s seasonal accessories, right? china is so last year.
‘Cause Luhan’s long ditched you and the rest of the past for the pop star fame, right? What’s a hometown anyway when no nooks or crannies of its alleyways want to spare you a place to call home. Kris you should know, right? It’s always been like this, so damn easy to slip up and bite at each other like they haven’t been out of contact for years, like there shouldn’t be some frontier of politeness that’s come out of this estrangement. He hates their passive aggressive arguments but he can’t stop. Luhan sends the message and wonders if he’s inked the whole mood of the conversation, but he doesn’t give a damn what happens to the two of them after this, he just has this bone to pick. Kris’ reply takes some time, but eventually it comes.
what, have i said something wrong?
It nicks him, and in an instant Luhan’s stirred. what the fuck do you think, he slams, and quickly deletes the sentence. He doesn’t want to get into a fight, that isn’t his purpose, but if he’d thought anything about it then it probably would have ended in a fight anyway. A year long delayed fight, and he feels like he’s back in ‘08 with an empty suitcase on his bed, with Kris at the door, except this time around they’re shouting at each other. Dont you dare say I left willingly. Don’t you dare tell me I should feel guilty for it. You gain some, you lose some. Nothing is ideal. No decision is easy.
No. i’m going to sleep. do whatever you want, wu yifan. don’t send me things, it’s creepy. if you sell my number i’ll get rid of it. don’t buy our albums, don’t follow my band, if you hold grudges then just get away from me. i’m a national idol now, sorry, i don’t have time for friends.
Luhan shuts his phone off after this, at least for the whole night, but in the morning he turns it on and finds that Kris didn’t respond. He would be stepping foot into Seoul via ICN two days later when Kris messages him again while he’s checking his wechat feed. It’s a picture of an egg pancake--it’s with a jolt that Luhan realizes Kris is in beijing. On the round sheet is the chopped spring onion sprinkled in the shape of a smiley, and below it the maroon barbeque sauce writes in thick lines, “SORRY”. Luhan’s scowl is so deep his manager has to tell him to mind his expression, but in all truth he’s not in any mood to entertain this type of vapid humor from Kris first thing after getting off a plane. Another few days later, Luhan goes to pee in the middle of the night, and comes back into the pitch black room he shares with Yixing to find his phone screen alit with a message. He doesn’t read it until he’s already opened it, and when his eyes adjust to the glow, he wished he hadn’t looked.
Sad. )))))”;
Are you drunk? He hasn’t even sent it yet when another message comes.
You messed me up real bad, you know
Luhan sits with his phone in his hands and his hands in his lap, back hunched and eyes dizzied by the burst of colors behind his eyelids. He sits with Yixing sleeping behind him, until it’s so quiet he can hear him breathe. Then he clicks the phone open again and lights up half the room with the incandescent glare.
Ok. is all he types.
It’s 2013. Okay. Time went on. Sorry friend.
But the reality is that Beijing of 08 could not be tossed out of mind for either of them. To Kris, who walked in on this northern lifestyle so abruptly, Luhan would end up against his will becoming the image of ‘The Beijing boy’ for him, which at the end of everything he’d carry back with him when he runs home with his tail tucked between his legs. They’d just keep getting thrown together haphazardly until Kris one day voluntarily tacked onto Luhan’s charm wherever he decided to go. The raw truth is that back then before they even warmed to each other as friends, they brewed this certain tension nothing tangible could measure, and they never really did warm up to each other. It was more magnetism than heat, the two of them. For Kris, though, Luhan was on fire.
The whole summer was about feeling, fiery sensations. Kris played with Beijing Boy and Beijing Boy played back. It was about the two of them caught in a stichomythia, a you-poke-I-prod. Luhan was intense. It had that strung up ferocity like surface tension, or tightened violin strings, or a bead of sweat on the verge of rolling down his forehead; Kris watching the sweat drop, under the dim light of the restaurant washroom, or arcade screen, or movie theatre…
Luhan had a girlfriend back then. On the flight to Canada that’s all he thought about, looking at his loosely curled palm on the little convertible table. Kris didn’t see her often, but from what he’s glimpsed, he can only conclude that Luhan was with her because, where he was, he deserved her, and where she was she deserved him. Kris only figured this out years later; the idea of entitlement didn’t really consciously register in their heads at 18. Luhan was the first in the grade to dye his hair to any degree, cropped short and spiked up most of the time, dark coal brows, soccer captain, nothing like the flower boy he is now on camera. The way he held himself almost overshadowed Kris, but not quite, Kris himself wasn’t incompetent. It was a summer of this kind of friction, like two stones constantly rubbing past each other.
This one time during a good round of poker Luhan half pulled his cock out, got the zipper down and everything, and yelled at Kris to suck it, you little bitch, and apparently that was the most humiliating thing any guy could get ordered to do. It was funny because a few hours later they’d all huddled around the laptop and desktop in Luhan’s room and jacked off together to Japanese porn, and very early on Kris glanced over at Luhan right beside him and found him looking back, and that was just the sort of consolidation he’d been looking for. Nobody had been paying attention to them. Luhan looked back at the screen, and he grabbed Kris’ hand and wrapped it around his cock. Luhan stopped looking at the screen and closed his eyes and threw his head back.
They’d keep giving each other handjobs all throughout the summer, and Kris blew Luhan a few times, but they never actually fucked. If you looked at the two of them side by side in a picture--back against the Tiananmen square during some festival, Luhan licking up an ice cream and Kris drinking a bottle of coke--they’d just look like any two guy friends. That’s mostly what they were, though things did once or twice get a little complicated, like the time they made out, or the time Kris caught him alone in the parking lot.
That time was close to the end of things, when they all started to collect themselves in preparation for college. Kris was biking around the neighborhood after dinner when he rode past an empty parking lot and caught sight of him sitting on one of the big stone pedestals all by himself. He propped his bike and walked to him, hands stuck in his parka’s pockets. The conversation went something like,
“Yo,” Kris had greeted first, and Luhan didn’t even look over, jaw clenched and shoulders tensed. Then Kris asked him, “What’s the matter?”
“Just piss off.”
“Easy, I’m just asking a question.”
Luhan looked startled, head snapping over, and he leaned over to glance around Kris like he was looking for the rest of the people. Kris was taken aback somewhat by the fact that Luhan was expecting a crowd.
“What’s the problem?” And then Luhan told him,
“Hey, why don’t you go pack your bags and get the shit out of Beijing, huh?”
And at this point Luhan had realized he’d said too much, but Kris already caught on. Luhan didn’t get into university, his mom was whispering across the dinner table to his aunt just an hour ago. That school celebrity next door? Yeah, he lost his soccer scholarship because of his bad grades, but he never put his heart into studying. Guess he is just a school grass, huh. Don’t say that, Kris said, although he didn’t know about any of this. Luhan didn’t look like the type of person who had problems, but Kris knew then, looking at him washed sickly yellow under the lamplight, that they were both the same damn idiot. Internalizing self esteem issues until the lid can’t hold anymore. He didn’t know how Luhan got to tearing up, just sitting there somehow actually letting himself be watched while he teetered on the edge of a meltdown. Kris had pulled a hand out of his pocket but Luhan smacked his arm away, looking to the ground where a drop of his tear finally fell. Kris tried to reach again but Luhan thrashed, but the third time he wrapped an arm over Luhan’s shoulder, Luhan held completely still for him, head lodged into the duck fluff of the parka. His shoulders jerked, and Kris patted down his back the way his mother used to do to set him to sleep. Slowly, at some point he can’t remember, Kris slid his other arm around Luhan too and gently with his large hands cradled his head, and it was like Luhan couldn’t even feel it.
The other instance of blurred lines happened a week before Kris left the continent, and it was probably the last time Kris and Luhan really talked with each other. Kris walked into Luhan’s room with news on the tip of his tongue, but what he saw was Luhan sitting on the floor with a pile of manga spread out in front of him being separated into piles, and a big red suitcase on his bed. “What’re you doing?” Luhan stood up, and at that time he pulled his face into a full blown smirk, and if Kris had been a little less attracted and a little more attentive he might have seen through it earlier.
“Going to Korea to get famous.”
He looked to his poster on the wall for the briefest moment, and Kris followed his gaze to the big poster in the corner, where five guys he’s come to know as DBSK stand side by side with abnormally long legs and smoky eyes. Luhan was watching him, and he watched Kris’ eyes fall on the poster. There were four posters over Luhan’s walls and three of them are Man U, flaming red, squeezing the popstars into an inconspicuous corner, screaming for attention. Kris didn’t look at them. He took his eyes back and set them right back on Luhan, who was waiting. “Like those guys?”
Luhan replied, too quickly, almost defensively, “Yeah like them, what’s wrong with that?” and he was still watching Kris. Waiting for him to pick up the cue, he’d outright dropped it, he couldn’t get any closer to just making Kris read it from paper. What’s wrong with it. Tell me what’s wrong with it. Tell me all the things wrong with doing something like this, tell me I have three humongous posters about soccer and a passion. Tell me I gotta fucking suck up my pride and stay behind another year and try again. But then Kris looked back and he just chuckled a little, he said,
“Not bad. Good luck.”
“What?”
“What? I said--I mean, what else can I say?” But Kris knew he could say more. Things like I really do believe you’ll succeed no matter where you go. There was a lump in his throat. Luhan didn’t answer, just sat down on the bed, toppling over a pile of the books.
“I came here to tell you my...mom. Mom finally packed up for Canada and asked if I wanted to come along. I don’t know--Like I know It’s the only chance I’ll ever get to get away before my dad makes me feel even more indebted to him. But--”
“What’s there to consider? Just go.”
“Just go.”
“You’ve been wanting to get out of his leash for years now, haven’t you?”
Kris chewed on his lip, then he looked away. Luhan was about to get back to his books when he spoke again.
“If you, if you decide to. Then I’ll go--”
“Fucking christ, Yifan, don’t make this so difficult. Leave, go to Canada, what’s there to lose, right?”
And they were standing there, facing each other. They were watching each other trying to measure every breath that comes out, every little trickle of breath which might have seized the whisper of a word the other dares not speak aloud. They were standing there looking right into each other, and it’s hardly been a minute since he’s spoken, but in their heads they were already counting losses on their fingers. This was the curse on the kids who didn’t know how to ask for what they wanted to ask for. Who never thought they had the right to ask for what they wanted, or to want what they wanted, or deserved it. It was just that one moment of mutual understanding, that they were both waiting for the other, and great things could happen if one of them took a chance. Then the magic was lost, they’d missed it. And it was it.
“Okay.” Kris said, and he went to Canada with his mother.
Luhan packed his bags, marched across the boarding gates, and never looked back.
The next time they meet is a month later, backstage to the Music Billboard Charts interview, renewed for their second year of debut. They’d finished the first half of it, the actual interview part, and there’s going to be a twenty minute break before part two with the games. Luhan wanders into the washroom, locks himself in a stall, sits down with his pants down and sighs. He’s scrolling on his phone when another set of feet walks in, soft on the tiles. The guy stops by the sink, and Luhan feels a little self conscious shitting in a deadly silent washroom, but not quite yet. The guy sets a bunch of bling down on the counter and turns on the tap. Luhan doesn’t hear the third pair of feet until the tap’s off, and until the first guy’s pumping the soap.
“Hey.”
“Oh hey.”
And then he freezes ice cold. Slowly Luhan looks up from his phone, straight ahead at the aquamarine blue of the stall, like he’s trying to see past the solid pane of wood. His eyes are bug wide, breath held. It’s Kris, the guy at the sink. It’s been four years but he would never mistake that voice. It makes no sense, but here it is.
“One of the girls spilled a whole can of powder on me in the change room.”
“Damn.” Kris laughs. He still sounds the same, sorta bashful, sorta snide.
“Gotta run, need to vacuum the shit up.”
“Alright, see you.”
They’re left alone again. Luhan is hyper aware of the fact that he would only have a few seconds before Kris starts to notice the silence from his stall, and Kris must have already seen his feet to know there’s someone in there. Luhan’s heart is seizing up, and he’s going through a list of options as fast as doing roll call. Kris has settled back onto his heels in front of the sink, probably fixing his hair. Through the crack, Luhan sees his hunched figure, the back of his head bleached a bright blond, black blazer and black jeans. He’s realized that there’s only one option, and he’s running out of time, and he has to get out of there at some point before the next segment starts.
It’s the thought that he’s afraid of a confrontation that jolts him out of it, gets him pulling the toilet paper, flushing the toilet. He stands there, in front of the door, and there’s an awful three seconds of silence before he moves to fasten his belt. Luhan feels the air tense up; even his own actions sound so deliberated. Kris must have caught on to the strangeness, because he starts to hold still too, not even little shifts in his stiff pose. Luhan closes his eyes and counts to three, and on three he unbolts the lock and swings the door open.
Their eyes meet in the mirror.
The door swings, all the way. Luhan stands in the arch of the door, hands by his sides, and Kris stands with his hands frozen, like he’s about to attach a wristband, and their eyes seal on each other in the mirror. Luhan wants to look away, just a first reaction to hide from some kind of guilt, but he tells himself not to cave.
Kris snaps the bracelet on, and it’s loud. He moves to turn around, and Luhan takes the two seconds he gets to draw in a huge breath and hold it again while Kris takes him in. Kris looks completely different with dyed hair. He’s thinner, less of an athlete as before, taller than he used to be, but he hasn’t grown nearly as much as Luhan had. He’s paler. He’s well dressed, so much more than before. He has a name tag.
“Luhan.”
It takes a moment, then he nods. “Yeah.”
Luhan walks over the the sink, one beside where Kris is frozen staring down at the dark roots of his hair. He washes his hands with not quite haste, but he’s definitely not taking his time. He keeps his eyes down the whole time, rinsing, drying, tossing the paper towel. He’s on his way to the door when Kris calls again. “Luhan.”
Luhan turns around. He doesn’t know what expression he’s wearing right now, maybe fear, maybe hostility, but it stops Kris short from what he wanted to say.
“Did you know I was gonna be here?”
“I’m on an internship here, I took a...broadcasting major, hey, are you--”
He hears Yixing’s voice outside suddenly, coming closer, calling for him in that dazed way, and he looks down at the phone for the time. He holds up a hand, “Look, I need to talk to you too, but I don’t have the time for this right now. Send me your address,” he waves his phone, “ok? It’s another two weeks until we leave, I’ll try to.” He takes a deep breath. “Ok? Later.”
He turns to go, and-- “Luhan.”
“What?”
Kris opens his mouth but nothing comes out, and a moment later he shakes his head. “No, nevermind, go.”
Luhan throws him one last glance, before he’s rushing out and down the hall.
It would be near the time Kris stopped counting two weeks that Luhan finally shows up at his door, and Kris physically double takes the moment he gets the door open.
Luhan’s in a navy janitor jumpsuit, the edge of his white tee peeking out from beneath the collar at his neck, and the lanyard with a name tag and a microscopic picture of someone with black hair. Luhan’s in a matching janitor cap, and more ridiculously underneath is a white shower cap hiding his chestnut hair. It reminds him of the ones cafeteria ladies wear with the face masks. He’s holding a white mask in one hand, one gloved hand, and in the other is a Nike drawstring bag with neon green strings. On his feet are black rubber boots. Luhan’s panting, harshly in the empty hallway while he stands, lips pulled back a little over his teeth trying to gain his breath. His cheeks are pinked from the cold outside.
“Did you run here?” Is what Kris chooses to say. He’d just gotten up though, so it makes more sense, and plus it’s seven in the morning and the sun’s barely up in autumn. Luhan makes a face at him, then pushes Kris out of the way, hurrying to get away from the huge panes of glass that lines the hallway, even if it’s the twelfth floor up.
“What the hell do you think?” He’s trying to kick off his boots, holding himself up against the wall with his knuckles, trying not to let his gloves touch the wall. “No, exo-m has three private vans so its members can get around town walking.”
He tosses his gloves into his boots, and rubs his hands like they feel gross. He sets his cap down too, then rips the white plastic off his head. His hair’s a total mess, spiked up at the bangs, and Luhan runs his fingers through it and lets it stay flipped up like that. Kris is still a little stunned, following while he walks into the room, wishing he was in something more decent.
“Where’d you tell them you were going?”
“Everyone else went out shopping. I just said I wanted to visit an old friend.”
Luhan throws the bag on the couch Kris’ got, and by now it’s obvious it’s the only thing that belongs to him in everything he’d brought with him today. He strips the sides of the jumpsuit off his shoulders, pulls his arms free, and ties the sleeves at his waist. He spins around, arms on his hip.
“Then what’s this whole thing for?” Kris gestures at his getup, even though Luhan can’t see him. Luhan looks down at the loose pants, stamps his feet on the floor.
“So I had this genius idea, this morning I just walked right out of SM’s front doors with these two huge trash bags, and it was like magic. Everybody just backed the hell away.” He looks up, the triumphant grin fading a little. “I had to make sure absolutely none of them tailed my car again this time, I mean. Obviously you’re not just some old friend.”
At the last part, Kris looks down at the rug half his foot is standing on, and he crosses his arms. Kris bites his bottom lip, chews on it a little. “Well, that depends on you.” He says softly, peering up at Luhan. Luhan doesn’t move, just wets his lips and shifts his weight onto the other leg.
“I know you have things to say, alright. Let’s save it for after breakfast. Can you whip something up? I haven’t eaten in like fifteen hours.”
Kris whips something up with some eggs, scrambles it with some celery. He cuts a handful of cowpeas down to bits and fries that with a sprinkle of ground beef. There’s leftover rice in the cooker he sticks in the microwave. He gets the urge to tell Luhan to get away from the table since he’s sitting right in front of the rotating machine, but he hasn’t been paying attention to Kris at all, reading over something on his phone.
They eat with the radio softly in the background. It’s not epicurean, but Luhan eats like he’s a neglected child, and it’s almost slovenly if he didn’t have that crisp edge about him all the time. Kris peeks at him throughout, taking note of the little things, the couple of pimples on his forehead, stubble, and that cut on his bottom lip he still remembers. He watches Luhan eat from across him, so caught up he forgets to feed himself. Luhan’s got his head down, and picks up a piece of celery, about to eat it.
“Tell me I’m not going crazy.”
Luhan stops. He closes his mouth, staring at Kris waiting.
“Don’t you ever think, like, this was all just supposed to happen? Like after all this now there’ll be some moral of the story?”
Kris has his head tilted, brows knit and borderline maniacal, like he’s ready to launch into explaining some complex math theorem. He doesn’t look like he’s going to be eating anymore, but Luhan’s still hungry, and he keeps quiet as he chews, staring back at Kris who looks beyond lost.
“Did it ever nag at you too afterwards? So many goddamn years I spent wondering, what if I’m not--or what if I had done that, or done this.”
“No.”
Luhan chances looking up, and Kris looks destroyed. He looks back into his bowl.
“What does it matter what could’ve happened, or what didn’t happen?” He takes his time chewing. “Focus on yourself in the present, and trust yourself in the future. How else can you get through everything.”
Kris laughs a little, a bubble of a laughter. He looks down at his food, at his hand, softly rapping the chopsticks together with a finger. “There was not one day where I could trust myself if it meant that I was still thinking about you, Luhan.”
For a moment Luhan looks away, down at the table counter, and he closes his eyes like it pains him. He keeps eating. Kris watches him try to gather the diced up beans with his chopsticks, and he picks the plate up and scrapes the last of it all into Luhan’s bowl.
“Don’t you think we did the right thing, though? if we stayed this all would have blown to shit anyway. We had to figure ourselves out a little more, we had to leave--”
“Look, this isn’t--” he gestures wildly at everything around them, and when he turns he’s cut off mid sentence, caught by the sight of something. Kris watches Luhan hop off the stool and run to a living room window with the blinds drawn up, peering outside quickly before letting it down. He comes back, dusting off his hands. “This isn’t any easier, okay? Look around you, man. I’m not here because of chance, this was not the right thing, Yifan. Fuck, anybody knows how to run away.”
Luhan’s done eating now, and he stands up abruptly, stacking the plates and bowls on top of each other. He walks around him to the sink, sets the plates down, and grips the edge of the counter with his back turned, head down. The radio runs by itself quietly, unobtrusively, until Luhan reaches over and shuts it off.
“Do you wanna know what it was?”
Kris’ head snaps over, staring into the shirt on his back. “We all hated ourselves, but we loved ourselves more than anything. My ego couldn’t see me on my knees mopping up my own failure, and your ego couldn’t see you accepting your father’s help.” Luhan takes a few deep breaths. “You didn’t know anything, okay, don’t give me that bullshit. You--we just took a reckless chance and it happened to work out fine. I knew it back then and I know it even better now. We were too scared so we ran away, that’s all it was.”
There’s a solid minute where no one speaks.
“If you knew,” his voice dwindles, until he’s nearly whispering, “then why did you tell me to go?”
Luhan snaps around, and he looks appalled, marching over and slamming his hands down on the table, “Me? Me.”
His fists are clenched, knuckles white and digging into the wood of the table, trembling just the slightest like he’s trying to hold himself together. At first Kris braces himself for an explosion, staring right back into Luhan’s bewildered eyes, but then Luhan lets go on the table and straightens like he’s too tired to stand. “Me.”
He turns away, a hand on his waist, lips pulled in behind his teeth and his mouth breaks open on a gasp of air. Luhan looks away and wipes a hand down his face. Kris thinks he’s crying, but he can’t be sure. “You know what I did, Wu Yifan,” he says, still holding his face in his hand. “I spent five hours. I sat there on the floor for five hours, waiting for someone to come stop me.”
Kris watches Luhan try to blink the wetness gathered in the frame of his eyes. He can’t watch him anymore, it’s getting to him too, and he clenches his teeth tight. Luhan drops his hand, and it hangs loosely by his side, and Kris’ first reaction is to reach across the table and grab it, wrapping his own hand around Luhan’s cold fingers. Luhan doesn’t move, doesn’t even look back, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.
“You did it though, didn’t you? I knew you would, I’m serious.” Kris grinds past his teeth, trying to get himself to smile. “Whatever you wanted to do I knew you would always be able to succeed.”
Luhan turns back. He wraps his hand around Kris’, and Kris lifts his head, to be faced with a crippling resignation he’s seen on Luhan before. Luhan sits onto the table, legs hanging off with his torso turned to face him.
“Yeah, look at what we’ve got now.” He leans in, until their foreheads are inches apart. “We finally have our peace. I’m cozy in here.”
He pulls up their joined hand, opens up Kris’ fist and guides his palm over his own beating heart. He smiles down at Kris’ wide eyes, the way he once couldn’t, and the certainty in his words wracks Kris so completely that his next words take the punch home:
What happened to our freedom?
Kris stands up, pulls Luhan to him, and Luhan loses balance and falls with his back onto the table. Upside down like this Kris holds Luhan’s face fumbles to kiss him, neck craned just to reach him, where he’s tilting to let their lips mash together. Kris gets himself to the other side and pins Luhan down to the table, thighs pressed harshly together, hands trying to bare his chest, rip the layers between them. Luhan throws his arms around Kris’ neck, madly kissing as he’s pulled upright with Kris’ hips between his heated thighs. With his shirt half stripped Luhan’s
carried out the kitchen, set down onto the bed.
Kris claws open the knot at his waist, rips down the pants, strips him of his boxers. He pulls Luhan’s bare thighs to his own, propped on his knees holding Luhan by his ankles right before he spreads him like he’s always dreamed of. Kris is shaken by how little Luhan’s changed, from what little he remembers of his naked body the few times he has glimpsed it, always one piece at a time, not like this. He holds both their erections in one hand, rolling them in his big hand, fucking up against Luhan in his palm.
“Fuck,” Luhan’s hips jerk, and he rolls the spasm all the way up his torso, arching till his skin stretch over his bones. Luhan doesn’t know where to put his hands, grappling the bedsheets, crumbling it in his fists.
“What do you want?”
“Go get a condom. Go.”
Kris takes him on his back. Luhan holds his legs up while Kris stretches him, neither of them really know what they’re doing. Kris doesn’t know how to measure Luhan’s feelings while he pushes in as slowly as he can manage, and Luhan’s decided to not make a face or make a sound, breathing through his teeth with his eyes closed. “This okay?” he whispers, head dropped to the curve of Luhan’s neck, and Luhan hisses quietly but he nods, almost a little feverish. Kris works himself in further every push, until he’s in to the hilt, and then Luhan lets go of his breath. Kris rubs him down, massaging his muscles loose. He leans down and holds him, just breathes him in.
The room is cold. In the midst of fucking Kris rolls Luhan onto his knees, chest to back, but Luhan whines from the wind on his stomach and collapses. Kris fucks him right into the mattress, Luhan’s cock pressed between his sliding body and the sheets. Luhan flips until he’s on top, then flips back to the strip on the sheets warmed in the shape of their backs. Luhan bucks, and he stretches and he keens, gasps, moans, says Kris’ name in that choked whisper. He comes barely touched, and Kris licks it off his stomach after. He comes back with a warm wet towel, but Luhan’s already asleep, so he picks the comforter up from the floor and drapes it over both of him. Kris pulls Luhan close, an arm around his shoulders.
At five in the afternoon, Kris shakes Luhan awake by the shoulders. “Your alarm went off.”
Luhan takes the phone from his hand, rubs at his eyes, and shuts off the ringing. He sits on the edge of the bed, feet lifted off the cold floorboards, his back to Kris, so he doesn’t see him, just hears when he says, “what’s the alarm for?”
“I have a ride coming in half an hour.”
“Oh, ok. When did you even get to…”
Luhan turns around slowly, searching for Kris’ gaze. He looks at him with barely a face, just stares silently, and the moment it looks like everything has registered in Kris, Luhan shakes his head and turns himself back. “Luhan, did you come here just to sleep with me?”
Luhan bends, leaning on the tip of his toes to grab his boxer off the floor. “What, you think I came here to propose?”
He pulls on his boxers, snapping the elastic. Luhan rounds the foot of the bed, and walks past Kris without looking at him, swiping his shirt from the floor. When he straightens, he catches Kris’ face, and it makes him frown back. “What, what is it now?” He throws his shirt on, yanking it over his head. He stands straight, staring back at Kris with the same sort of provocative grimace.
“Nothing. Just. Just get dressed, ok.”
“Listen, If I can’t--” Luhan doesn’t finish his sentence. He stands there glaring bitterly for a couple of seconds, and he’s still so much asleep that he looks like he’s gonna fall over, all five foot eight of him. “I’m just trying to take what I can get. Is that not allowed?”
Kris looks torn, trying to come up with a response. Luhan knows he must have known just as a gut feeling that Luhan didn’t go looking for reconciliation the way he hoped they would, but Kris probably never crystallized his thoughts as sharply as Luhan verbalised it. He knew by reason that this was as far as anything could have gone today, but it’s winding to hear the reality dissected like this.
“If you won’t do it, then just don’t come back the next time. You know what, I was actually going to say--you should get over me, Kris.”
Kris stares. His chest is so tight he can’t pull the breaths to speak.
“I can’t guarantee you anything, I’m just here because I’m selfish.” He chuckles lightly. “You can move on and find your fulfilment, or you can stay because I won’t let you go. You know what I can and what I’ll never be able to give you. I’m sure don’t need to say any more, you can choose, Kris.”
Almost right as he finishes his sentence, Luhan’s phone buzzes. He picks up the last of his clothes, the overalls, slides the sleeves on. Kris follows him to the sofa, to the door, where he puts on his boots and hat but leaves everything else in his bag. In the little corner of space before the door, Luhan’s side is pressed into him, and he still smells like Kris’ bed, like their bodies on Kris’ bed, so warm in this sort of shadowed cold of the cramped entryway. With both hands full, Luhan turns around a last time, looking up at him gently.
“When you get rid of my number, don’t go sell it. I will get angry.”
Luhan backs out of the threshold, standing with the meter of space between them. He nods once, wordlessly, and then turns down the hallway, rubber boots crunching on the asphalt. Kris watches him turn down the hall without another glance back. He waits until the elevator rings. He waits until the elevator comes back up again. He waits until Luhan’s running out the front door, ‘till he’s being absorbed by the van in the parking lot before stepping back in and closing the door.
Three days later, Luhan’s in the middle of getting his hair done backstage when his phone lights up with a message from Kris.
The only thing he can see in the preview is a shrunken picture, and it’s too dark to make out what it is. He peeks at his stylist in the mirror, making sure she’s focused on getting him curled before sliding the message open.
He brings the phone closer and squints. Kris’ face is the largest part of the picture; from the background he looks like he’s at some kind of party. The lights in the place is dimmed, and there’s a big TV screen in the back, glaring white due to the contrast outlining a few silhouettes. Kris is smiling stupid and gummy in the badly captured selfie. Guess who I get to hang out with at the station, Luhan reads.
A moment later his phone buzzes again, and he gets another picture, this time taken against a bathroom sink, of a clear plastic water bottle. There’s an autograph scrawled in black Sharpie across the body of the thing, and Luhan’s trying to figure it out when another message comes in. Yu Quan!! Luhan almost loses it. He’s about to shoot something back when he stops himself, setting his phone down and sinking into his seat like he just remembered. He doesn’t end up replying to it. Despite this, two days later Kris sends him another picture at another odd time of day.
He’s at a lake somewhere, or a river, and it’s night. The moon’s big and bright on the surface of the water, and there are red lanterns glowing faintly in the far back, probably from a park or a community center. Kris is holding two hawthorn skewers in the hand he’s holding out in front of the camera. One of them is missing the top piece. Let me treat you, almighty Lu-ye, says the accompanying caption. Luhan’s just about to go to sleep, slid into his blanket and everything already, and Yixing who’s lying on his side on the other bed asks him what’s making him shake his head. He catches something like “no sense of humor” before Luhan switches off the desklamp and plugs his phone in to charge on the nightstand.
The third picture comes a week after the last one, and this time it doesn’t take Luhan much to tell where Kris is. Luhan’s eating breakfast in the cafeteria when this one arrives. It’s day time in the picture--it’s actually right at sunrise. Kris is standing near the top of a segment of the Great Wall, wrapped in a puffy coat and scarf, hands stuck in his pockets. Below him the wall is so steep it disappears right into the thin fog at the bottom, and rises up again following the little hills. Kris’ hair is a mess, and he’s in the process of turning over when the picture was taken, by whom Luhan doesn’t know. From his profile, lit by the sun on the horizon, Kris is smiling. Let’s not run away this time, okay?
Luhan drops the piece of cucumber he picked up, but he only briefly glances over before looking back to his phone. His face is stretching painfully against his will, frowning deeper every second he stares at Kris’ idiotic grin in the picture. The screen goes black. Luhan scoffs, gaze lost somewhere past the table. Across him, Sehun’s watching curiously. What are you looking at? You’re always on your phone these days, he says. Eat your breakfast, brat, Luhan tells him, kicking him under the table. Sehun catches Luhan’s ankles, but Luhan slips through, and he steps both feet over Sehun’s sneakers. Sehun gives up, going back to his stir-fry, and Luhan turns the screen back on, types in his password, looks at the message for another while.
He types something quickly, but he halts over the send button. Luhan closes his eyes, sighs long and loud, shaking his head. He wipes the dust off his screen with his thumb and zooms into the picture again.
“Dammit.”
He deletes what he wrote, starts again. This time he’s wearing a helpless grin when he sends it.
Fin.
a/n: fuck. ISTG I swore to myself this was not going to have a happy ending correcting angst is compulsive now i dont even know where the last part cAME FROM