Everything You Can Remember in Thirty Seconds is Yours to Keep
title: Everything You Can Remember in Thirty Seconds is Yours To Keep
pairing: kris/luhan
length: threeshot
genre: romance, fantasy, sci-fi
rating: PG-13
note: i wanted to try something something dystopia and something something krishan and something something every movie that i have ever loved.
summary: you don't choose the things you believe in. they choose you.
"No, please, no. You don't understand, I want to do this. This is all just a dream and there’s only one way to find out. I’ll wake up and I’ll see you waiting for me, just like always because this is a dream." Yifan's voice trembles--violin strings quivering in the midst of a typhoon. Shadows are falling on him, obscuring tear-soaked cheeks and the profile of the one who--given enough time--he could have loved better. The breathing breeze is cold. The gun on his hand is cold. The muzzle on his right temple is cold.
Wu Yifan is shaking inside a room of broken glass and broken hearts.
Perhaps the dark has no space for someone as uptight, organized, controlled, as strict and callous as Yifan is. Perhaps, perhaps he should have never played hopscotch with fate, cheated on destiny and tried to alter the inevitable. Clocks had been adjusted, doors locked, petals plucked, profiles examined, swings pushed, umbrellas opened, streets roamed, empty milk cartons thrown, goodbyes spoken, hellos forgotten, and Yifan should know better than anyone else that you can stop the minutes, but never the sun from edging closer and closer down the horizon. Footsteps shuffle forward. Yifan raises a hand--as a warning and as a plea.
"Don't come any closer." Don't come any closer not tell me I’m right and this is just another dream. Don't come any closer not spin the top and if it halts, remember I'll make everything alright again.
Don't come any closer not please stop me, I need you to.
Had Yifan pulled the trigger a second too late, the gun would be nothing more than a thud against the marble floor. Had he pulled it a second too early, he wouldn't have seen what loss is like.
The top halts.
--
"You don't choose the things you believe in. They choose you."
--
This is 2082.
This is a time when everything is explainable, a year for emotions to be categorized in neurons and electrons. The population has reduced in vastly, the children are laughing less, conversations never last longer than fifteen minutes. Cars aren't deemed harmful to the environment anymore. The city is a bubble in itself--protected by black metals and smiling lips, people with too much time cradled over their palms and people with time slipping in between fingers like grains of sand. Everyone, from the janitor whose trousers are drenched in water and bleach, to the satin-covered lady strutting down a shopping mall, to infants crying their hellos for the world to hear, to the government officials heaving behind monochrome tuxedos, are sheltered from unnatural death with the help of PreCrime--an organization catered for the not yets and the not quites.
Stripping it down to the core, PreCrime is comprised of individuals dedicated to predicting and preventing murders hours before they take place. Lives had been saved by Yifan's team and if things operate smoothly like they have been for three years now, then no one in the city would have to have their chests gutted, the very breath robbed off them through knives and posion, bullets and sharp edges.
Yifan enters the air-conditioned observation deck after going past retina scans, identity checks. Blasts of artificial air hits him, matching the rhythm of Yixing's monotonous reports. Holograms are suspended on the atmosphere--painting spaces green and blue, images of horrid scenes flash for eyes to feast on. This is standard operating procedure. "Kim Jongin. Myeongdong area. A crime of passion. Time of murder is twenty-one, thirty-nine o'clock. Three hours, forty-one minutes until the future. Here are the projected cuts from the PreCogs. This is case number eight hundred thirty three."
It's better not to think of them as human. It's better not to think of them at all. Yifan once advised a fidgeting Yixing, fighting the desire to peek at the bodies floating below them. Months, years ago, they've been nothing more than struggling and curious people who tried to make ends meet.
On the hologram--an opened mouth blurred by the camera's movements, a wine bottle pounding on thick, brown hair, a tanned man's angry snarl, glassy wide eyes, silhouettes on the walls merging into one. Colors smudging and hues pulsing vibrantly. Yifan rubs his hands together, operating holograms and scenes by a flick of his wrist, the twisting of his fingers, marginal movements of his palms. Images respond by freezing, rewinding, changing camera angles. "Get the team, we have another murder to prevent."
--
Kyungsoo is Jongin's core. When the atmosphere chokes him with all its unidentified particles, when situations threaten to tip him over the edge, when self-motivation and mirrors aren't enough to remind him of who he is and what he's worth, Kyungsoo would always be waiting for him. Perpetually two steps behind, gum-showing smiles and butterfly touches, have you eaten yets and let me fix your ties. Kyungsoo is four years of kisses, twenty-four hours of bliss.
Jongin squeezes his lids shut.
Partially muted by his bedroom's door, he could decipher the sound of banging cabinets, zippers moving. Lately, fear and confusion have been clouding Jongin's mind, raining down fat droplets of questions and theories that lead to negative ideas. Kyungsoo has been acting weird; shying away from hugs, talking of vacations and a month for himself. In a pocket of Jongin's mind, the notion of Kyungsoo needing his breathing space rattles his nerves, shifting the line dividing the things Jongin believes in and the things he refuses to accept.
It's just that I'm starting to feel suffocated. I understand that you're not too comfortable being without me now, but Jongin I. Can't. Breathe. I look there and you're there. I do this and you're beside me. I inhale and I swear to god, I'm taking a piece of you into my lungs. Not that it's a bad thing. It's just really, really suffocating. Let me be for a month. I'll be back.
To diminish echoes of Kyungsoo's monologue the day before, Jongin covers both ears. Incomplete silence, waves and frequencies sliding through the gaps between skin and skin. This is when and where he slips, loosing his grip on reality by standing up and heading over to the living room. Don't go, don't go. You won't come back, I know. You're mine. You can't be anything else.
"Kyungsoo?"
Kyungsoo is standing in the center of the living room where kisses were shared, promises stored and tucked into moldy sofa seats. Something in Jongin stirs awake as he cages Kyungsoo in his arms. He wishes Kyungsoo didn't have to struggle in his embrace, but he does and it leads to Jongin gripping Kyungsoo's waist, the nape of his neck. His lover smells of honey and dandelions in spring. Kyungsoo's shivers and reddening eyes entertain the creature Jongin wished didn't existed inside him. He delights in the obvious display of vulnerability. Greed, need, desperation, obsession forces nails to dig deeper, into Kyungsoo's flesh. "You can't. You can't leave me, I won't allow you to."
--
Wu Yifan, Huang Zitao and Kim Jongdae slither like snakes behind tree trunks.
The scent of musk and the earth in June envelopes Yifan whose eyes are set on the closed white door before him. The scene is the exact duplicate of the one they watched three hours ago--clear windows showcasing walking strangers, the flickering light bulb overhead, loud, angry words travelling from someone's mouth to the other. Watches are examined; fifty-nine seconds into the future. Yifan nods. The static drops.
Zitao runs, barges the front door open. Yifan enters first, his comrades tagging along behind him. He's greeted by discarded piles of clothes, two figures wrestling over the coach and the darker-skinned man's grip is tight on a wine bottle. Yifan dives forward, body weight slamming on the man's back, without any wasted movement, he flattens Jongin to the ground. The bottle breaks. Arms are knotted behind his back. Jongdae helps Do Kyungsoo stand up, assesses the damage. Zitao aids Yifan in pinning Jongin down as the retina scanner's bright blues illuminate Jongin's eyes.
Yifan's watch reads--Identity verified: Kim Jongin.
"Mr. Kim Jongin, you are under arrest for the future murder of Do Kyungsoo."
--
The PreCrime has done it again.
For the past years, a government-funded organization has saved citizens from unwanted accidents. Since the founded date of PreCrime, the mortality rate has decreased by ninety per cent nationwide.
If it wasn't for PreCrime, I would have been shot three times in the chest.
PreCrime saved my life.
Shaded by television's reds, his index finger inches down the red button. Darkness surrounds, silence rings. Cornered by walls too wide and tall to feel safe in, Wu Yifan groans and runs out of his house. Even at this age, the streets are never friendly towards citizens with their ears deafened by the lack of sounds, tongues wrung dry with words not yet spoken. In his black tank top and gray sweat pants, Yifan runs and sprints. He jogs past dazed pedestrians, too-fast cars and too-slow traffic lights. Yifan runs until his chest burns with the effort of breathing, until his clothes are glued to his skin by sweat, until only the thoughts of moving forward lingers on his brain. Wind bites into his pores. He is in love with The City because it's the easiest place to pretend.
Tonight is another night fusing into his routines. Daylight catches him in his duties--saving lives, stitching pieces of scenes into something coherent. However, when the sun sets, Yifan is in another cosmo. A place where there's nothing else to do but to run-even if he doesn't know what he's running towards, or what he's running away from.
--
Darkness, nothing but cold and pure and condensed darkness.
And light, a sliver of gold that may or may not be from a street lamp. Flesh. Soft skin, lips moving to whisper. Cupped hands.
Twirl. Spin. Twirl. Wobble. Stop.
Luhan leans away from the tree’s gaping hole and picks up the steady metal top from the ground, dropping it inside his pocket.
Seoul functions through fuels, luminous neon, crisp cash transferred underneath ash cascading from drowsy cashiers, bartenders, low-rate prostitutes reeking of men never their lovers. This type of universe never held the puppet strings drawing Luhan closer. Evasive and blunt. Reckless and anxious. This world is rotating in a perpetual paradox. Whistling a tune from his childhood, Luhan walks forward without a set destination.
Luhan is Chinese.
Luhan is rich.
Luhan is never what he seems to be, just like the rest of us.
Had Luhan turned left for no apparent reason than to change his direction, he would have collided into the heaving Wu Yifan and maybe then, their story wouldn't have ended so quickly.
--
It rains on a Monday--polished shoes sloshing puddles collected on sidewalks, gray skies shadowing brimming avenues. It rains at around five in the afternoon and Yifan is dry and warm because this is what Yifan is all about; he soaks in announcements, schedules, reports, weather forecasts because he's smart enough to realize he's going to need them sooner rather than later. It rains near the PreCrime headquarters, his colleagues ambling for shelter while he's safe under his yellow umbrella, hours after closing case number eight hundred thirty-five.
It rains on a Monday and Luhan is drenched.
Can I? The skinny boy's eyes seems like they're pleading. Now, Yifan only speaks in holograms and codes and he would be fracturing his own routine if he doesn't start driving home in ten minutes, but, but, but there's a boy shivering before him, causing Yifan to remember that there's such a thing as moral obligation and proper conduct. So he takes off the facade, approaches the trembling figure and huddles him under his umbrella. Yifan's being very careful: a touch is enough for a splintered porcelain to pulverize. "You should have listened to the morning news. You should have went inside a shop where you will be warm."
Expectations are something Yifan relies on. Instead of a reply, an apology, the boy reaches for Yifan's left wrist and places two fingers on a certain spot--checking for a pulse. This is not what Yifan expected. This is wrong and this, this should not have happened. On the sidewalk, raindrops fall because they're always landing on places where they're not wanted. The boy presses his fingers deeper. Yifan feels his own pulse through the touch of the boy's skin. This is a first.
"You're human." A declaration, a statement, a flame burning out whatever there is to doubt.
"Of course. What did you think I was?"
"An android. Gosh, you're so tall and stiff and your face looks edited. Oh no, Oh my god, you got surgery right, right? I mean, wow, that certainly clears it all up, doesn't it? I'm Luhan by the way, and I wanted to get a surgery but come on! Those things take hours to do and months to be okay. There's just too many things I could have done during those time, don't you think?"
Yifan glares. "Do not casually tell your name to people you meet on the street. You are liable for other information others might steal from you after that. People are dangerous."
The boy named Luhan cocks his head to side, his lower lips a victim of his grazing teeth. "But you're not a stranger on the street anymore, right? We're talking and you sound like one of those official people. You can't possibly be threatening. At least, you don't look threatening to me."
And there's something else, something childish and mischievous on Luhan's face. His words flimsy fabric shrouding secrets Yifan would one day unearth. But for now, they stand under Yifan's yellow umbrella long enough for their breathing to fall in sync. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Luhan bites his lower lip. Yifan pictures his shelves at home--rows of fat books dictating histories of neighboring countries, ruined empires and forgotten kings, the shaping and reshaping of technology, gadgets, man-made wonders of the world. Luhan fidgets. Yifan knows he's yet to read a book about communicating with drenched strangers after work hours. Tension coils around his throat, forces Yifan to spill syllables or else he'll drown in them. "Coffee shop. Citizens like going to coffee shops, I've seen the statistics. Do you want me to accompany you?"
Luhan throws his head back slightly, lips parted. His laughter is husky and loud, foreign enough for heads to turn to his direction. These days, people nod, smile, murmur. There isn't any space for boisterous chuckles to squeeze in. "You really do talk like an android. There's a coffee shop I know close by. Come on, your treat."
--
Gray dashboards, black leather seats. Clear glass, cutting edge design.
Yifan turns the heater on high, fixes them towards Luhan sitting beside him. He's taken his coat off, surrendered it to the shivers tumbling down Luhan's arms and shoulder. Both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. Luhan says things like go left and then left again after three stoplights, isn't this bridge so amazing, don't turn the radio on, listen to the rain, today is a good day. Until this day, Yifan's car had been a mode of transportation, not another place to hone conversation. Luhan sends echoes for the interior to absorb. He touches things, leaves subtle marks on them. He fishes his pocket for his top and spins it on the dashboard.
The top spins and spins and spins and--
"What is the purpose of that?"
"It keeps me rooted to reality."
Stop.
--
Beige chairs, chrome-splattered walls. Luhan looks kinder underneath fluorescent lights.
Meek smiles haunt the customer's faces and Yifan doesn't know how he got here. He's in his car one minute and in this cafe the next, observing the soft lines that constitute Luhan. Luhan is saying something and it's only a few seconds later when Yifan begins hearing the words, earplugs pulled out of him. "Try their Java Chocolate Chip. It tastes like heaven in a plastic cup."
The lens shifts and blurs.
"No, no--how did I get here?"
Luhan grins, reaching out to smooth the creases between Yifan's eyebrows. Yifan doesn't flinch like how he normally would. He doesn't think too much about the boy who folded a hundred paper cranes and threw coins into covered sinks. Luhan touches, Yifan savors the simplicity of his actions. "You haven't told me your name yet."
"Yifan."
"Yifan. Yiiiifaan. Yiifaaaaaaaaaan. Yifaaan. Yiiifan." Luhan pronounces the name as if it's something he's supposed to taste. It's at this point when Yifan decides to ignore the questions knocking on the doors of his mind and simply, simply, and simply lets himself be. Years taught Yifan how to be callous, calculating. Luhan smudges rules and reasoning as he babbles on, paints pictures in the air using slender fingers.
After placing their orders and getting them, Yifan and Luhan converse in whispers. The mirth on Luhan's eyes is reflected in Yifan's and they talk, and they talk some more about things that does not matter and never will. Mouths are puckered, pursed. Tongues clucked. Caffeine is slowly drained off the large cups. Facts bounce back and forth. Laugh lines resurfaces. Yifan won't remember much of the conversation, but the way Luhan bites his lower lip when he's concentrated will imprint on tender parts of him. Other people are nothing more than background noise. His attention is focused on the soft-skinned man and the world around them might as well burn, buildings depleted into fine ashes, flesh melted into gravel, and they won't ever notice. Luhan spins his top on the table and it doesn't falter, halt. Luhan knows that in this universe, it never would.
--
Drizzle greets half-opened eyelids. Yifan is in his car and he tries to remember. The engine is switched off. He closes his eyes--bitten bottom lip, pink cheeks, damp hair and light eyebrows, hoarse laughter adding up to what little he recalls of Luhan. The drive home is maddening, to the extent where Yifan stomps on the break, examining his seats for signs of the boy he shared a cup of coffee with. The lens shifts into focus. He flicks his wrist, pressing the spot Luhan touched. He checks the dashboard for trails of the spinning top and the absence of metal scratches knits his eyebrows together in confusion. People do not just disappear. Yifan is grasping for evidence, for proof that someone like Luhan existed the way a drowning man hangs onto a rope. Instead, he's left with four seconds of flying memories.
--
Their latest case is a suicide and Yifan is the superhero in bulletproof vests and sleek guns, like always, bursting through the house just as the man kicked off the chair beneath him. Nights gave birth to darker nights. Rain visits much more often. With every failed murder, interrupted shooting, Wu Yifan feels like he's another accident waiting to happen. After Luhan, Yifan's thoughts hovers over the ground where would-be killers once stood, talked, walked, smiled, once laughed. He starts wondering about them, their reasons, motives, the doors they've opened to unleash monsters they've been nurturing for so long. Empathy is a trait Yifan tried not to sharpen. It'd be like fighting the current in which operations ran.
Yifan's calendar states it's been three weeks since the uneventful encounter with Luhan.
It is definitely eerie, how he sees Luhan in the curvature of a girl's smile, the creases of beside the eyes of every one who has ever passe by him. To forget, he does what he's good at--digging deeper holes that could bring him closer to the core of his job. His world shrinks to bleak walls, glowing holograms, what's the next case and another cup of coffee, please. Zitao moves around him, a satellite orbiting around a planet's gravity, because that's what he's good at. "Yifan, look at this."
Hologram projections are studied. In a clipped voice, Zitao points out a thin link between recent murders, cites a plausible explanation as to why the attempted murder count has been increasing lately. He speaks in a dialect of sub-conscious, infiltration, vivid dreams, emotions extreme enough to trigger violence. "After interrogating our latest suspects, Jongdae-hyung and I found out they had interesting dreams two or one day prior to the attempted murders. Also, these suspects do not take neuron blockers, so they have no control of their impulses. Hyung thought we cannot ignore something like this. He says the chances are, it'll happen again."
"These dreams.. What were they about?" Yifan squints at the collected data. Zitao hovers his fingers over the projection, leading them to a video of Kim Jongin. As the video plays, Zitao glances at Yifan, expecting a reaction of some sort. "Watch."
Kim Jongin is in a room devoid of color. Whiteness surrounds, envelopes. A voice Yifan recognizes as Jongdae's inquires, You said you had a dream hours before nearly killing your partner. What was it about?
A brief pause.
"It was... It had.. something to do with the consequence. I don't remember much now, but Kyungsoo was there and then he wasn't. That my days went on and on and I was alone. Then it ends. I woke up frightened."
Is that enough reason?
"Have you ever felt strong emotions for someone?"
I am the one interrogating you.
"You haven't, right? I know people like you. You follow the government around blindly, taking pills that will make you less human and criticizing those of us who refuses to budge. Its called love. It's something you wouldn't recognize."
Does love means attempting to kill the one you believe is destined for you?
Sometimes, it has to end up to that just to make them stay.
--
Fresh, thick white towels and sheer curtains. Fluffy pillows, a light aroma permeating the room he's in.
Beyond the clear panes of glass, Seoul at midnight blinks at Yifan. The golds and yellows of adjacent skyscrapers serves as the sole source of light inside the place. The shadows are shifting. He turns and there's Luhan--clear-skinned, lithe, ever-mysterious Luhan--grinning at him, clad in a blood-stained shirt, skin dotted with purplish bruises. Questions, doubts dissipate in Yifan's mouth. He rushes to Luhan in the dimness, checks for more damages. Seeing Yifan like this, dressed in work clothes and that worried look carved into his face, Luhan smiles to himself.
"What happened? Don't move, I'm going to get something to clean you up." Because words can sometimes fall short, Luhan grips Yifan by the ends of his shirt. Stay here.
They sit down, knees brushing, heads pressed against the wall.
"Where have you been?"
A smile. "Here. There. Everywhere."
"And do you always end up being this battered? You should stop going to places where you're not wanted."
A scoff. "How did you know I wasn't wanted?"
Yifan smiles, makes out Luhan's bruises, traces them with his index finger, blue and purple stars arranged in a secret sequence. He isn't sure of what he's doing here, how he got here, why Luhan can be found at the last places he'll ever think of looking into. Every meeting fills a basket of unanswered queries. Luhan brings out his spinning top again, letting it twirl in steady circles on the ground. He studies the sharp edges. Gradually, the lens blurs. The pair of brown eyes on Luhan's side concentrates on his lower lip that bled red from all the biting, the lengthy eyelashes, the sunken cheeks, the strands of hair dyed a light blonde. Sandcastles by the shore, ice sculptures in the desert, it's one thing to be aware of how fleeting a moment is and another to actually do something to preserve this brief period.
Without thinking of the hows or whys or anything a regular person should be internalizing before kissing someone, Yifan leans his head towards Luhan's face and presses his lips against Luhan's. It's softer than it looks, easier than what he imagined. He closes his eyes when Luhan's fingers found their way to his hair and he knows that Luhan is aware this is solely out of need than want.
It lasts a second, and then seven more.
Yifan backs away, just a bit. As Luhan whispers, their lips grazes slightly. "Why?"
"I'm not certain. I just felt like it, I guess. I was curious."
Luhan kisses Yifan. "That's the most humane thing I've ever heard from you so far."
"I am human." To prove his point, Yifan leads Luhan's fingers to the underside of his wrist, letting skin listen to the pulsing of his veins. If they do this often enough, this would be routine.
"A beating heart doesn't mean that much anymore. By human, I mean careless and rash, acting out based on pure impulse. Lately, we have these pills to combat emotions, to control the neurons in our brains. Didn't it ever occur to you that we're becoming more and more mechanical? These days, even the most advanced androids are built nearly identically to humans. How are you going to differentiate yourself from them? I'm sorry for ranting. What I'm trying to say is that I'm glad to see this you." Luhan talks some more. Yifan listens, guiding Luhan's head to rest on his shoulder. Seoul huffs, puffs, flickers radiant promises of commercial life and gratuitous endings beyond clean windows. Metal silvers of the top continues to blur close to their feet. The strange top is one of the things Yifan is curious about, but for now, he'll let it slide.
Here is Luhan. Here is warmth. Here is the tinge of an emotion he never knew he could have felt again.
--
Four years before Luhan, sixteen months before the founding of PreCrime, eighty-two days before Yifan's slow descent to isolation, there was a boy who wore sadness like a second skin and another who gave away smiles to anyone who looks his way. Buildings weren't as high then, and The City was just another playground they always got lost in. A lifetime before Yifan's world crumbles, there was Zhang Yixing and to the young Yifan, Yixing was synonymous to stolen glances, midnight swims, uncertain touches, hands that know the right way to hold him when the ground has been swept from under his feet. Since childhood, their hips have been glued together in such a way that when one falls, the other hurts as much.
Yixing was a dedicated dancer, moving fluidly in a place where strangers frown at the sight of limbs driven by anything else that's not practical. Moments with him were shaded underneath autumn trees, laughter witnessed by the lens of Yifan's Polaroid camera. Yixing accuses him of being too old fashioned. They solved crossword puzzles, folded paper boats, wished on flower buds, loved the way you can only love the first time around. Music dictated Yixing's body, mirrors reflected the drops of sweat and expressions of agony he simply cannot show anyone else.
What Yixing didn't knew then and what Yifan wished he could have told Yixing was that the universe they lived in didn't welcome those who does not behave according to the general consensus. Until this day, he still wonders if that fact alone could have saved the both of them.
Rainfall lured Yixing to vacant rooftops where he would dance along to the beat of the soaked city. On blue afternoons like that, Yixing heard melodies Yifan can only listen to with eyes on the laughing boy, hands curved around his camera.
"Don't be such a buzzkill, come here." Once, twice, a billion times over, Yixing towed Yifan out of whatever refuge he's snuggled in. Polaroids under handkerchiefs, thick towels waiting by exit doors. These are a few of the precautions Yifan took when they're together. You act more of a mother to me than my own mom. Are you sure you're not a lady? teases Yixing surrounded by peeling paint and the best gray skies autumn has to offer.
They danced and danced and danced until all of Yixing's toes are stubbed and something akin to happiness nestled in Yifan's iris.
The truth is, the statement Yifan you're a terrible dance partner never left Yixing's mouth.
The truth is, the world laughed at how they taught two lips pressed together would make her stop turning.
Summer suns rose. Autumn trees undressed themselves. Winter moons fell. Spring flowers bloomed.
The earth stops for no one, for nothing.
Not for a stranger. Not for the tear-soaked Yifan holding Yixing's limp body inside his bathroom. Not for the washed-away blood and abandoned razor. Not for the maddening nights spent on sewing facts into something Yifan can accept. Replays of moments Yixing whispering about suffocation and expectations, realistic standards. Sometimes, Yixing confided sunsets before the incident, I feel like I don't belong here, in this city. Yifan did you know that there isn't a word for home in French? We're told what to do and what not to do, what to aim for, what to look like and it's too much. I can't handle it. There's no letter for home in this place, not for me anyway.
There's a certain kind of sound exhausted souls produce and they come out in stuttered sentences. A kind of secret only ocean waves can understand. They've always known what it's like to abandon and to be forgotten.
If only Yifan listened.
--
The silver moon is nibbled into a crescent. It pales into insignificance behind Yixing's smiling face. Wildflowers are swaying in the humid wind. Yifan is a smudged ghost chasing after Yixing; maybe this is what he's been running for. Leaves rustle. This time, Yixing does not look back at him. He sprints faster, aware of the vast field and distance between him and the very person he held dear. Finally, finally he catches Yixing and grips him by the shoulders--forcing him to look back only to realize that these features weren't gentle or loving. Instead, they're haughty and cheerful and teasing.
"Is there a word for home in your world?" Luhan asks, grinning, chuckling, kissing Yifan--his lips a dictionary of feelings Yifan will never decode.
Beneath them, the ground trembles.
Wu Yifan wakes up.
--
Two hours, twenty-six minutes into the future.
One hour, five minutes into the future.
Two minutes into the future.
Forty-four seconds into the future.
Six seconds into the future.
The point is, predictions constitute Yifan's life. There is always somewhere to be, someone to save, a hand to hold, reasons to understand. There's always the future and then there's always Yifan--stumbling through the cracks just to contain gunpowder, cleaning up the aftermath of the wreckage emotions caused. Head lights gleam in the five o'clock skyline. He's driving home, as usual. A brilliant expanse of golds and reds float on the horizon, reminding Yifan of Luhan because he keeps seeing the cheerful boy in colors too vibrant to be actually real. Yifan groans, vigorously shakes his head.
Luhan is the surprise raindrops appearing in the midst of a clear day. What Luhan is goes against what Yifan is. They mumble and fumble, but they don't crumble. Not yet. Routines are screwed, instructions ignored. They dive through disaster zones, disregarding protocol and the things they should have known by now. Gradually, as lenses blur and as lenses shift into focus, Yifan's lips curves into bigger smiles. The top spins non-stop on grass fields, on grandiose marble halls, on hide-outs where kisses are stolen like criminals shying away from moonlight. Luhan's vocabulary is deprived of the words I'll see you next week, eight thirty at night, let's go here or there. To Yifan, Luhan's lifestyle is cringe worthy in its carelessness, but each morning presents an atonement of a fresh carton of milk waiting by his doorstep, accompanied by tiny notes covered in doodles of Yifan's favorite facial expressions. He empties the cartons on the way to work, hides colorful scraps of paper in boxes and folders.
"I had a dream about you." Admits Yifan one Sunday evening, comfortably sitting beside Luhan in a secluded sidewalk. Steam dances from two plastic noodle cups. Luhan's spinning top turns before wobbling to a halt. He lets it be. "You were running in an empty field and I was chasing after you."
"Why were you running after me? I don't think I'm worth running after." There's a convenience store around the corner, offering cheap liquor and instant foods. They murmur in the outskirts of the city, a damp and dirty area where the less-privileged resides. But it has come to the point where places refused to matter. There's Yifan and where he is, is enough. Luhan has forever and Yifan doesn't.
Overhead, a streetlight flickers on. "I thought you were someone else."
All these times, Luhan thought he perfected the art of not caring about anything that isn't him. Yet all Yifan has to do is utter six words and Luhan is fourteen all over again--clutching an open heart for the world to stomp on, for cupids to use as target practice. There are parts of him too tender to be exposed. Yifan pokes his way around, leaving stinging spots in his wake. "Oh."
Yifan steals a glance at Luhan, smiles. "I wasn't disappointed, though. I'm glad it was you."
Luhan can't recall opening his mouth long enough for butterflies to enter and traverse all the way to the caves of his stomach. They flutter in unison. He scoffs and fucking stutters. "I-I wasn't as-asking you, idiot."
Yifan faces Luhan, grinning smugly at the confused look on Luhan's eyes.
"What are you staring at, stupid?" Luhan turns away, still feeling the weight of Yifan's eyes on him. If possible, his lips stretches even wider. Violent shades of pink blooms in Luhan's cheeks. A rumbling motorcycle zooms past them. "Stop that, you mongrel."
"I don't want to." The accused mongrel leans forward, purposely making Luhan fidget. Sometimes, Yifan is a professional agent, a runner in search of a refuge, a man familiar with death and loss, a mix of adjectives he doesn't always understand. He's one thing and then another. For now, he's content on being that man beside Luhan.
"Oh my god, stop it!" Luhan gives in first, blows air into his cheeks and blows them out before locking his legs together, planting his face on his knees.
Yifan chuckles and ruffles Luhan's hair without a second thought, a pause of consideration. Soft, blonde, vulnerable Luhan.
Their universe is a vortex of quick kisses, fingers tapping into wrists, goodbyes that never quite made it out of their lips, surprise encounters and moments never trapped in Polaroid. Using his index finger, Yifan draws circles into Luhan's scalp.
He can get used to this.
--
Holograms of various sizes hover over the lobby's spaces. Measured phrases are exchanged and in the middle of the modern day office, Zitao is standing, staring at Yifan's back. Even after all the renovations, inventions, something primitive lurks in the air. He fishes his pocket, opens his plastic bottle of neuron-blockers and swallows them dry. Like always, science saved him. This is another act melting into his routine. He staggers towards his office, waiting for the medicine's effect to seep into him before thinking of anything else.
Zitao bumps into two people along the way, ignores two people along the way.
Inside the protection of a locked door, an unlit room, Zitao slumps down.
His body curves into himself, turning into a question mark, admitting he never had the answers he thought he would have by now. He collects data, facts like how other people hoard pets or porcelain figurines or an item that made them feel alive. His heart rate beats down to normal, breathing calmer. While Zitao agrees that emotions have been rendered useless, he can't deny he has been harboring the heaviest of them all for years. And whenever they wash over him in tsunami waves, he longs for the comfort of more neuron blockers. Pallid capsules oozing quick solutions to permanent problems.
Zitao shuts his eyes close. Years past, when he realized what he had for Yifan was something frowned upon in general, he swallowed three pills. As Yifan's fingers were intertwined with hands that weren't Zitao's, he overdosed on two bottles. Yixing's funeral, three bottles. Yifan's desire to begin PreCrime because of Yixing, five bottles. Zitao joining as his assistant, seven bottles. The components aren't harsh.
There are a lot of things people have forgotten to talk about; the scent of earth after heavy rain, historical atomic bombings, what it feels like when the person you love smiles a smile that rattles suitcases of memories that were never yours to begin with, being the one on the outside looking in.
part two
pairing: kris/luhan
length: threeshot
genre: romance, fantasy, sci-fi
rating: PG-13
note: i wanted to try something something dystopia and something something krishan and something something every movie that i have ever loved.
summary: you don't choose the things you believe in. they choose you.
"No, please, no. You don't understand, I want to do this. This is all just a dream and there’s only one way to find out. I’ll wake up and I’ll see you waiting for me, just like always because this is a dream." Yifan's voice trembles--violin strings quivering in the midst of a typhoon. Shadows are falling on him, obscuring tear-soaked cheeks and the profile of the one who--given enough time--he could have loved better. The breathing breeze is cold. The gun on his hand is cold. The muzzle on his right temple is cold.
Wu Yifan is shaking inside a room of broken glass and broken hearts.
Perhaps the dark has no space for someone as uptight, organized, controlled, as strict and callous as Yifan is. Perhaps, perhaps he should have never played hopscotch with fate, cheated on destiny and tried to alter the inevitable. Clocks had been adjusted, doors locked, petals plucked, profiles examined, swings pushed, umbrellas opened, streets roamed, empty milk cartons thrown, goodbyes spoken, hellos forgotten, and Yifan should know better than anyone else that you can stop the minutes, but never the sun from edging closer and closer down the horizon. Footsteps shuffle forward. Yifan raises a hand--as a warning and as a plea.
"Don't come any closer." Don't come any closer not tell me I’m right and this is just another dream. Don't come any closer not spin the top and if it halts, remember I'll make everything alright again.
Don't come any closer not please stop me, I need you to.
Had Yifan pulled the trigger a second too late, the gun would be nothing more than a thud against the marble floor. Had he pulled it a second too early, he wouldn't have seen what loss is like.
The top halts.
--
"You don't choose the things you believe in. They choose you."
--
This is 2082.
This is a time when everything is explainable, a year for emotions to be categorized in neurons and electrons. The population has reduced in vastly, the children are laughing less, conversations never last longer than fifteen minutes. Cars aren't deemed harmful to the environment anymore. The city is a bubble in itself--protected by black metals and smiling lips, people with too much time cradled over their palms and people with time slipping in between fingers like grains of sand. Everyone, from the janitor whose trousers are drenched in water and bleach, to the satin-covered lady strutting down a shopping mall, to infants crying their hellos for the world to hear, to the government officials heaving behind monochrome tuxedos, are sheltered from unnatural death with the help of PreCrime--an organization catered for the not yets and the not quites.
Stripping it down to the core, PreCrime is comprised of individuals dedicated to predicting and preventing murders hours before they take place. Lives had been saved by Yifan's team and if things operate smoothly like they have been for three years now, then no one in the city would have to have their chests gutted, the very breath robbed off them through knives and posion, bullets and sharp edges.
Yifan enters the air-conditioned observation deck after going past retina scans, identity checks. Blasts of artificial air hits him, matching the rhythm of Yixing's monotonous reports. Holograms are suspended on the atmosphere--painting spaces green and blue, images of horrid scenes flash for eyes to feast on. This is standard operating procedure. "Kim Jongin. Myeongdong area. A crime of passion. Time of murder is twenty-one, thirty-nine o'clock. Three hours, forty-one minutes until the future. Here are the projected cuts from the PreCogs. This is case number eight hundred thirty three."
It's better not to think of them as human. It's better not to think of them at all. Yifan once advised a fidgeting Yixing, fighting the desire to peek at the bodies floating below them. Months, years ago, they've been nothing more than struggling and curious people who tried to make ends meet.
On the hologram--an opened mouth blurred by the camera's movements, a wine bottle pounding on thick, brown hair, a tanned man's angry snarl, glassy wide eyes, silhouettes on the walls merging into one. Colors smudging and hues pulsing vibrantly. Yifan rubs his hands together, operating holograms and scenes by a flick of his wrist, the twisting of his fingers, marginal movements of his palms. Images respond by freezing, rewinding, changing camera angles. "Get the team, we have another murder to prevent."
--
Kyungsoo is Jongin's core. When the atmosphere chokes him with all its unidentified particles, when situations threaten to tip him over the edge, when self-motivation and mirrors aren't enough to remind him of who he is and what he's worth, Kyungsoo would always be waiting for him. Perpetually two steps behind, gum-showing smiles and butterfly touches, have you eaten yets and let me fix your ties. Kyungsoo is four years of kisses, twenty-four hours of bliss.
Jongin squeezes his lids shut.
Partially muted by his bedroom's door, he could decipher the sound of banging cabinets, zippers moving. Lately, fear and confusion have been clouding Jongin's mind, raining down fat droplets of questions and theories that lead to negative ideas. Kyungsoo has been acting weird; shying away from hugs, talking of vacations and a month for himself. In a pocket of Jongin's mind, the notion of Kyungsoo needing his breathing space rattles his nerves, shifting the line dividing the things Jongin believes in and the things he refuses to accept.
It's just that I'm starting to feel suffocated. I understand that you're not too comfortable being without me now, but Jongin I. Can't. Breathe. I look there and you're there. I do this and you're beside me. I inhale and I swear to god, I'm taking a piece of you into my lungs. Not that it's a bad thing. It's just really, really suffocating. Let me be for a month. I'll be back.
To diminish echoes of Kyungsoo's monologue the day before, Jongin covers both ears. Incomplete silence, waves and frequencies sliding through the gaps between skin and skin. This is when and where he slips, loosing his grip on reality by standing up and heading over to the living room. Don't go, don't go. You won't come back, I know. You're mine. You can't be anything else.
"Kyungsoo?"
Kyungsoo is standing in the center of the living room where kisses were shared, promises stored and tucked into moldy sofa seats. Something in Jongin stirs awake as he cages Kyungsoo in his arms. He wishes Kyungsoo didn't have to struggle in his embrace, but he does and it leads to Jongin gripping Kyungsoo's waist, the nape of his neck. His lover smells of honey and dandelions in spring. Kyungsoo's shivers and reddening eyes entertain the creature Jongin wished didn't existed inside him. He delights in the obvious display of vulnerability. Greed, need, desperation, obsession forces nails to dig deeper, into Kyungsoo's flesh. "You can't. You can't leave me, I won't allow you to."
--
Wu Yifan, Huang Zitao and Kim Jongdae slither like snakes behind tree trunks.
The scent of musk and the earth in June envelopes Yifan whose eyes are set on the closed white door before him. The scene is the exact duplicate of the one they watched three hours ago--clear windows showcasing walking strangers, the flickering light bulb overhead, loud, angry words travelling from someone's mouth to the other. Watches are examined; fifty-nine seconds into the future. Yifan nods. The static drops.
Zitao runs, barges the front door open. Yifan enters first, his comrades tagging along behind him. He's greeted by discarded piles of clothes, two figures wrestling over the coach and the darker-skinned man's grip is tight on a wine bottle. Yifan dives forward, body weight slamming on the man's back, without any wasted movement, he flattens Jongin to the ground. The bottle breaks. Arms are knotted behind his back. Jongdae helps Do Kyungsoo stand up, assesses the damage. Zitao aids Yifan in pinning Jongin down as the retina scanner's bright blues illuminate Jongin's eyes.
Yifan's watch reads--Identity verified: Kim Jongin.
"Mr. Kim Jongin, you are under arrest for the future murder of Do Kyungsoo."
--
The PreCrime has done it again.
For the past years, a government-funded organization has saved citizens from unwanted accidents. Since the founded date of PreCrime, the mortality rate has decreased by ninety per cent nationwide.
If it wasn't for PreCrime, I would have been shot three times in the chest.
PreCrime saved my life.
Shaded by television's reds, his index finger inches down the red button. Darkness surrounds, silence rings. Cornered by walls too wide and tall to feel safe in, Wu Yifan groans and runs out of his house. Even at this age, the streets are never friendly towards citizens with their ears deafened by the lack of sounds, tongues wrung dry with words not yet spoken. In his black tank top and gray sweat pants, Yifan runs and sprints. He jogs past dazed pedestrians, too-fast cars and too-slow traffic lights. Yifan runs until his chest burns with the effort of breathing, until his clothes are glued to his skin by sweat, until only the thoughts of moving forward lingers on his brain. Wind bites into his pores. He is in love with The City because it's the easiest place to pretend.
Tonight is another night fusing into his routines. Daylight catches him in his duties--saving lives, stitching pieces of scenes into something coherent. However, when the sun sets, Yifan is in another cosmo. A place where there's nothing else to do but to run-even if he doesn't know what he's running towards, or what he's running away from.
--
Darkness, nothing but cold and pure and condensed darkness.
And light, a sliver of gold that may or may not be from a street lamp. Flesh. Soft skin, lips moving to whisper. Cupped hands.
Twirl. Spin. Twirl. Wobble. Stop.
Luhan leans away from the tree’s gaping hole and picks up the steady metal top from the ground, dropping it inside his pocket.
Seoul functions through fuels, luminous neon, crisp cash transferred underneath ash cascading from drowsy cashiers, bartenders, low-rate prostitutes reeking of men never their lovers. This type of universe never held the puppet strings drawing Luhan closer. Evasive and blunt. Reckless and anxious. This world is rotating in a perpetual paradox. Whistling a tune from his childhood, Luhan walks forward without a set destination.
Luhan is Chinese.
Luhan is rich.
Luhan is never what he seems to be, just like the rest of us.
Had Luhan turned left for no apparent reason than to change his direction, he would have collided into the heaving Wu Yifan and maybe then, their story wouldn't have ended so quickly.
--
It rains on a Monday--polished shoes sloshing puddles collected on sidewalks, gray skies shadowing brimming avenues. It rains at around five in the afternoon and Yifan is dry and warm because this is what Yifan is all about; he soaks in announcements, schedules, reports, weather forecasts because he's smart enough to realize he's going to need them sooner rather than later. It rains near the PreCrime headquarters, his colleagues ambling for shelter while he's safe under his yellow umbrella, hours after closing case number eight hundred thirty-five.
It rains on a Monday and Luhan is drenched.
Can I? The skinny boy's eyes seems like they're pleading. Now, Yifan only speaks in holograms and codes and he would be fracturing his own routine if he doesn't start driving home in ten minutes, but, but, but there's a boy shivering before him, causing Yifan to remember that there's such a thing as moral obligation and proper conduct. So he takes off the facade, approaches the trembling figure and huddles him under his umbrella. Yifan's being very careful: a touch is enough for a splintered porcelain to pulverize. "You should have listened to the morning news. You should have went inside a shop where you will be warm."
Expectations are something Yifan relies on. Instead of a reply, an apology, the boy reaches for Yifan's left wrist and places two fingers on a certain spot--checking for a pulse. This is not what Yifan expected. This is wrong and this, this should not have happened. On the sidewalk, raindrops fall because they're always landing on places where they're not wanted. The boy presses his fingers deeper. Yifan feels his own pulse through the touch of the boy's skin. This is a first.
"You're human." A declaration, a statement, a flame burning out whatever there is to doubt.
"Of course. What did you think I was?"
"An android. Gosh, you're so tall and stiff and your face looks edited. Oh no, Oh my god, you got surgery right, right? I mean, wow, that certainly clears it all up, doesn't it? I'm Luhan by the way, and I wanted to get a surgery but come on! Those things take hours to do and months to be okay. There's just too many things I could have done during those time, don't you think?"
Yifan glares. "Do not casually tell your name to people you meet on the street. You are liable for other information others might steal from you after that. People are dangerous."
The boy named Luhan cocks his head to side, his lower lips a victim of his grazing teeth. "But you're not a stranger on the street anymore, right? We're talking and you sound like one of those official people. You can't possibly be threatening. At least, you don't look threatening to me."
And there's something else, something childish and mischievous on Luhan's face. His words flimsy fabric shrouding secrets Yifan would one day unearth. But for now, they stand under Yifan's yellow umbrella long enough for their breathing to fall in sync. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Luhan bites his lower lip. Yifan pictures his shelves at home--rows of fat books dictating histories of neighboring countries, ruined empires and forgotten kings, the shaping and reshaping of technology, gadgets, man-made wonders of the world. Luhan fidgets. Yifan knows he's yet to read a book about communicating with drenched strangers after work hours. Tension coils around his throat, forces Yifan to spill syllables or else he'll drown in them. "Coffee shop. Citizens like going to coffee shops, I've seen the statistics. Do you want me to accompany you?"
Luhan throws his head back slightly, lips parted. His laughter is husky and loud, foreign enough for heads to turn to his direction. These days, people nod, smile, murmur. There isn't any space for boisterous chuckles to squeeze in. "You really do talk like an android. There's a coffee shop I know close by. Come on, your treat."
--
Gray dashboards, black leather seats. Clear glass, cutting edge design.
Yifan turns the heater on high, fixes them towards Luhan sitting beside him. He's taken his coat off, surrendered it to the shivers tumbling down Luhan's arms and shoulder. Both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. Luhan says things like go left and then left again after three stoplights, isn't this bridge so amazing, don't turn the radio on, listen to the rain, today is a good day. Until this day, Yifan's car had been a mode of transportation, not another place to hone conversation. Luhan sends echoes for the interior to absorb. He touches things, leaves subtle marks on them. He fishes his pocket for his top and spins it on the dashboard.
The top spins and spins and spins and--
"What is the purpose of that?"
"It keeps me rooted to reality."
Stop.
--
Beige chairs, chrome-splattered walls. Luhan looks kinder underneath fluorescent lights.
Meek smiles haunt the customer's faces and Yifan doesn't know how he got here. He's in his car one minute and in this cafe the next, observing the soft lines that constitute Luhan. Luhan is saying something and it's only a few seconds later when Yifan begins hearing the words, earplugs pulled out of him. "Try their Java Chocolate Chip. It tastes like heaven in a plastic cup."
The lens shifts and blurs.
"No, no--how did I get here?"
Luhan grins, reaching out to smooth the creases between Yifan's eyebrows. Yifan doesn't flinch like how he normally would. He doesn't think too much about the boy who folded a hundred paper cranes and threw coins into covered sinks. Luhan touches, Yifan savors the simplicity of his actions. "You haven't told me your name yet."
"Yifan."
"Yifan. Yiiiifaan. Yiifaaaaaaaaaan. Yifaaan. Yiiifan." Luhan pronounces the name as if it's something he's supposed to taste. It's at this point when Yifan decides to ignore the questions knocking on the doors of his mind and simply, simply, and simply lets himself be. Years taught Yifan how to be callous, calculating. Luhan smudges rules and reasoning as he babbles on, paints pictures in the air using slender fingers.
After placing their orders and getting them, Yifan and Luhan converse in whispers. The mirth on Luhan's eyes is reflected in Yifan's and they talk, and they talk some more about things that does not matter and never will. Mouths are puckered, pursed. Tongues clucked. Caffeine is slowly drained off the large cups. Facts bounce back and forth. Laugh lines resurfaces. Yifan won't remember much of the conversation, but the way Luhan bites his lower lip when he's concentrated will imprint on tender parts of him. Other people are nothing more than background noise. His attention is focused on the soft-skinned man and the world around them might as well burn, buildings depleted into fine ashes, flesh melted into gravel, and they won't ever notice. Luhan spins his top on the table and it doesn't falter, halt. Luhan knows that in this universe, it never would.
--
Drizzle greets half-opened eyelids. Yifan is in his car and he tries to remember. The engine is switched off. He closes his eyes--bitten bottom lip, pink cheeks, damp hair and light eyebrows, hoarse laughter adding up to what little he recalls of Luhan. The drive home is maddening, to the extent where Yifan stomps on the break, examining his seats for signs of the boy he shared a cup of coffee with. The lens shifts into focus. He flicks his wrist, pressing the spot Luhan touched. He checks the dashboard for trails of the spinning top and the absence of metal scratches knits his eyebrows together in confusion. People do not just disappear. Yifan is grasping for evidence, for proof that someone like Luhan existed the way a drowning man hangs onto a rope. Instead, he's left with four seconds of flying memories.
--
Their latest case is a suicide and Yifan is the superhero in bulletproof vests and sleek guns, like always, bursting through the house just as the man kicked off the chair beneath him. Nights gave birth to darker nights. Rain visits much more often. With every failed murder, interrupted shooting, Wu Yifan feels like he's another accident waiting to happen. After Luhan, Yifan's thoughts hovers over the ground where would-be killers once stood, talked, walked, smiled, once laughed. He starts wondering about them, their reasons, motives, the doors they've opened to unleash monsters they've been nurturing for so long. Empathy is a trait Yifan tried not to sharpen. It'd be like fighting the current in which operations ran.
Yifan's calendar states it's been three weeks since the uneventful encounter with Luhan.
It is definitely eerie, how he sees Luhan in the curvature of a girl's smile, the creases of beside the eyes of every one who has ever passe by him. To forget, he does what he's good at--digging deeper holes that could bring him closer to the core of his job. His world shrinks to bleak walls, glowing holograms, what's the next case and another cup of coffee, please. Zitao moves around him, a satellite orbiting around a planet's gravity, because that's what he's good at. "Yifan, look at this."
Hologram projections are studied. In a clipped voice, Zitao points out a thin link between recent murders, cites a plausible explanation as to why the attempted murder count has been increasing lately. He speaks in a dialect of sub-conscious, infiltration, vivid dreams, emotions extreme enough to trigger violence. "After interrogating our latest suspects, Jongdae-hyung and I found out they had interesting dreams two or one day prior to the attempted murders. Also, these suspects do not take neuron blockers, so they have no control of their impulses. Hyung thought we cannot ignore something like this. He says the chances are, it'll happen again."
"These dreams.. What were they about?" Yifan squints at the collected data. Zitao hovers his fingers over the projection, leading them to a video of Kim Jongin. As the video plays, Zitao glances at Yifan, expecting a reaction of some sort. "Watch."
Kim Jongin is in a room devoid of color. Whiteness surrounds, envelopes. A voice Yifan recognizes as Jongdae's inquires, You said you had a dream hours before nearly killing your partner. What was it about?
A brief pause.
"It was... It had.. something to do with the consequence. I don't remember much now, but Kyungsoo was there and then he wasn't. That my days went on and on and I was alone. Then it ends. I woke up frightened."
Is that enough reason?
"Have you ever felt strong emotions for someone?"
I am the one interrogating you.
"You haven't, right? I know people like you. You follow the government around blindly, taking pills that will make you less human and criticizing those of us who refuses to budge. Its called love. It's something you wouldn't recognize."
Does love means attempting to kill the one you believe is destined for you?
Sometimes, it has to end up to that just to make them stay.
--
Fresh, thick white towels and sheer curtains. Fluffy pillows, a light aroma permeating the room he's in.
Beyond the clear panes of glass, Seoul at midnight blinks at Yifan. The golds and yellows of adjacent skyscrapers serves as the sole source of light inside the place. The shadows are shifting. He turns and there's Luhan--clear-skinned, lithe, ever-mysterious Luhan--grinning at him, clad in a blood-stained shirt, skin dotted with purplish bruises. Questions, doubts dissipate in Yifan's mouth. He rushes to Luhan in the dimness, checks for more damages. Seeing Yifan like this, dressed in work clothes and that worried look carved into his face, Luhan smiles to himself.
"What happened? Don't move, I'm going to get something to clean you up." Because words can sometimes fall short, Luhan grips Yifan by the ends of his shirt. Stay here.
They sit down, knees brushing, heads pressed against the wall.
"Where have you been?"
A smile. "Here. There. Everywhere."
"And do you always end up being this battered? You should stop going to places where you're not wanted."
A scoff. "How did you know I wasn't wanted?"
Yifan smiles, makes out Luhan's bruises, traces them with his index finger, blue and purple stars arranged in a secret sequence. He isn't sure of what he's doing here, how he got here, why Luhan can be found at the last places he'll ever think of looking into. Every meeting fills a basket of unanswered queries. Luhan brings out his spinning top again, letting it twirl in steady circles on the ground. He studies the sharp edges. Gradually, the lens blurs. The pair of brown eyes on Luhan's side concentrates on his lower lip that bled red from all the biting, the lengthy eyelashes, the sunken cheeks, the strands of hair dyed a light blonde. Sandcastles by the shore, ice sculptures in the desert, it's one thing to be aware of how fleeting a moment is and another to actually do something to preserve this brief period.
Without thinking of the hows or whys or anything a regular person should be internalizing before kissing someone, Yifan leans his head towards Luhan's face and presses his lips against Luhan's. It's softer than it looks, easier than what he imagined. He closes his eyes when Luhan's fingers found their way to his hair and he knows that Luhan is aware this is solely out of need than want.
It lasts a second, and then seven more.
Yifan backs away, just a bit. As Luhan whispers, their lips grazes slightly. "Why?"
"I'm not certain. I just felt like it, I guess. I was curious."
Luhan kisses Yifan. "That's the most humane thing I've ever heard from you so far."
"I am human." To prove his point, Yifan leads Luhan's fingers to the underside of his wrist, letting skin listen to the pulsing of his veins. If they do this often enough, this would be routine.
"A beating heart doesn't mean that much anymore. By human, I mean careless and rash, acting out based on pure impulse. Lately, we have these pills to combat emotions, to control the neurons in our brains. Didn't it ever occur to you that we're becoming more and more mechanical? These days, even the most advanced androids are built nearly identically to humans. How are you going to differentiate yourself from them? I'm sorry for ranting. What I'm trying to say is that I'm glad to see this you." Luhan talks some more. Yifan listens, guiding Luhan's head to rest on his shoulder. Seoul huffs, puffs, flickers radiant promises of commercial life and gratuitous endings beyond clean windows. Metal silvers of the top continues to blur close to their feet. The strange top is one of the things Yifan is curious about, but for now, he'll let it slide.
Here is Luhan. Here is warmth. Here is the tinge of an emotion he never knew he could have felt again.
--
Four years before Luhan, sixteen months before the founding of PreCrime, eighty-two days before Yifan's slow descent to isolation, there was a boy who wore sadness like a second skin and another who gave away smiles to anyone who looks his way. Buildings weren't as high then, and The City was just another playground they always got lost in. A lifetime before Yifan's world crumbles, there was Zhang Yixing and to the young Yifan, Yixing was synonymous to stolen glances, midnight swims, uncertain touches, hands that know the right way to hold him when the ground has been swept from under his feet. Since childhood, their hips have been glued together in such a way that when one falls, the other hurts as much.
Yixing was a dedicated dancer, moving fluidly in a place where strangers frown at the sight of limbs driven by anything else that's not practical. Moments with him were shaded underneath autumn trees, laughter witnessed by the lens of Yifan's Polaroid camera. Yixing accuses him of being too old fashioned. They solved crossword puzzles, folded paper boats, wished on flower buds, loved the way you can only love the first time around. Music dictated Yixing's body, mirrors reflected the drops of sweat and expressions of agony he simply cannot show anyone else.
What Yixing didn't knew then and what Yifan wished he could have told Yixing was that the universe they lived in didn't welcome those who does not behave according to the general consensus. Until this day, he still wonders if that fact alone could have saved the both of them.
Rainfall lured Yixing to vacant rooftops where he would dance along to the beat of the soaked city. On blue afternoons like that, Yixing heard melodies Yifan can only listen to with eyes on the laughing boy, hands curved around his camera.
"Don't be such a buzzkill, come here." Once, twice, a billion times over, Yixing towed Yifan out of whatever refuge he's snuggled in. Polaroids under handkerchiefs, thick towels waiting by exit doors. These are a few of the precautions Yifan took when they're together. You act more of a mother to me than my own mom. Are you sure you're not a lady? teases Yixing surrounded by peeling paint and the best gray skies autumn has to offer.
They danced and danced and danced until all of Yixing's toes are stubbed and something akin to happiness nestled in Yifan's iris.
The truth is, the statement Yifan you're a terrible dance partner never left Yixing's mouth.
The truth is, the world laughed at how they taught two lips pressed together would make her stop turning.
Summer suns rose. Autumn trees undressed themselves. Winter moons fell. Spring flowers bloomed.
The earth stops for no one, for nothing.
Not for a stranger. Not for the tear-soaked Yifan holding Yixing's limp body inside his bathroom. Not for the washed-away blood and abandoned razor. Not for the maddening nights spent on sewing facts into something Yifan can accept. Replays of moments Yixing whispering about suffocation and expectations, realistic standards. Sometimes, Yixing confided sunsets before the incident, I feel like I don't belong here, in this city. Yifan did you know that there isn't a word for home in French? We're told what to do and what not to do, what to aim for, what to look like and it's too much. I can't handle it. There's no letter for home in this place, not for me anyway.
There's a certain kind of sound exhausted souls produce and they come out in stuttered sentences. A kind of secret only ocean waves can understand. They've always known what it's like to abandon and to be forgotten.
If only Yifan listened.
--
The silver moon is nibbled into a crescent. It pales into insignificance behind Yixing's smiling face. Wildflowers are swaying in the humid wind. Yifan is a smudged ghost chasing after Yixing; maybe this is what he's been running for. Leaves rustle. This time, Yixing does not look back at him. He sprints faster, aware of the vast field and distance between him and the very person he held dear. Finally, finally he catches Yixing and grips him by the shoulders--forcing him to look back only to realize that these features weren't gentle or loving. Instead, they're haughty and cheerful and teasing.
"Is there a word for home in your world?" Luhan asks, grinning, chuckling, kissing Yifan--his lips a dictionary of feelings Yifan will never decode.
Beneath them, the ground trembles.
Wu Yifan wakes up.
--
Two hours, twenty-six minutes into the future.
One hour, five minutes into the future.
Two minutes into the future.
Forty-four seconds into the future.
Six seconds into the future.
The point is, predictions constitute Yifan's life. There is always somewhere to be, someone to save, a hand to hold, reasons to understand. There's always the future and then there's always Yifan--stumbling through the cracks just to contain gunpowder, cleaning up the aftermath of the wreckage emotions caused. Head lights gleam in the five o'clock skyline. He's driving home, as usual. A brilliant expanse of golds and reds float on the horizon, reminding Yifan of Luhan because he keeps seeing the cheerful boy in colors too vibrant to be actually real. Yifan groans, vigorously shakes his head.
Luhan is the surprise raindrops appearing in the midst of a clear day. What Luhan is goes against what Yifan is. They mumble and fumble, but they don't crumble. Not yet. Routines are screwed, instructions ignored. They dive through disaster zones, disregarding protocol and the things they should have known by now. Gradually, as lenses blur and as lenses shift into focus, Yifan's lips curves into bigger smiles. The top spins non-stop on grass fields, on grandiose marble halls, on hide-outs where kisses are stolen like criminals shying away from moonlight. Luhan's vocabulary is deprived of the words I'll see you next week, eight thirty at night, let's go here or there. To Yifan, Luhan's lifestyle is cringe worthy in its carelessness, but each morning presents an atonement of a fresh carton of milk waiting by his doorstep, accompanied by tiny notes covered in doodles of Yifan's favorite facial expressions. He empties the cartons on the way to work, hides colorful scraps of paper in boxes and folders.
"I had a dream about you." Admits Yifan one Sunday evening, comfortably sitting beside Luhan in a secluded sidewalk. Steam dances from two plastic noodle cups. Luhan's spinning top turns before wobbling to a halt. He lets it be. "You were running in an empty field and I was chasing after you."
"Why were you running after me? I don't think I'm worth running after." There's a convenience store around the corner, offering cheap liquor and instant foods. They murmur in the outskirts of the city, a damp and dirty area where the less-privileged resides. But it has come to the point where places refused to matter. There's Yifan and where he is, is enough. Luhan has forever and Yifan doesn't.
Overhead, a streetlight flickers on. "I thought you were someone else."
All these times, Luhan thought he perfected the art of not caring about anything that isn't him. Yet all Yifan has to do is utter six words and Luhan is fourteen all over again--clutching an open heart for the world to stomp on, for cupids to use as target practice. There are parts of him too tender to be exposed. Yifan pokes his way around, leaving stinging spots in his wake. "Oh."
Yifan steals a glance at Luhan, smiles. "I wasn't disappointed, though. I'm glad it was you."
Luhan can't recall opening his mouth long enough for butterflies to enter and traverse all the way to the caves of his stomach. They flutter in unison. He scoffs and fucking stutters. "I-I wasn't as-asking you, idiot."
Yifan faces Luhan, grinning smugly at the confused look on Luhan's eyes.
"What are you staring at, stupid?" Luhan turns away, still feeling the weight of Yifan's eyes on him. If possible, his lips stretches even wider. Violent shades of pink blooms in Luhan's cheeks. A rumbling motorcycle zooms past them. "Stop that, you mongrel."
"I don't want to." The accused mongrel leans forward, purposely making Luhan fidget. Sometimes, Yifan is a professional agent, a runner in search of a refuge, a man familiar with death and loss, a mix of adjectives he doesn't always understand. He's one thing and then another. For now, he's content on being that man beside Luhan.
"Oh my god, stop it!" Luhan gives in first, blows air into his cheeks and blows them out before locking his legs together, planting his face on his knees.
Yifan chuckles and ruffles Luhan's hair without a second thought, a pause of consideration. Soft, blonde, vulnerable Luhan.
Their universe is a vortex of quick kisses, fingers tapping into wrists, goodbyes that never quite made it out of their lips, surprise encounters and moments never trapped in Polaroid. Using his index finger, Yifan draws circles into Luhan's scalp.
He can get used to this.
--
Holograms of various sizes hover over the lobby's spaces. Measured phrases are exchanged and in the middle of the modern day office, Zitao is standing, staring at Yifan's back. Even after all the renovations, inventions, something primitive lurks in the air. He fishes his pocket, opens his plastic bottle of neuron-blockers and swallows them dry. Like always, science saved him. This is another act melting into his routine. He staggers towards his office, waiting for the medicine's effect to seep into him before thinking of anything else.
Zitao bumps into two people along the way, ignores two people along the way.
Inside the protection of a locked door, an unlit room, Zitao slumps down.
His body curves into himself, turning into a question mark, admitting he never had the answers he thought he would have by now. He collects data, facts like how other people hoard pets or porcelain figurines or an item that made them feel alive. His heart rate beats down to normal, breathing calmer. While Zitao agrees that emotions have been rendered useless, he can't deny he has been harboring the heaviest of them all for years. And whenever they wash over him in tsunami waves, he longs for the comfort of more neuron blockers. Pallid capsules oozing quick solutions to permanent problems.
Zitao shuts his eyes close. Years past, when he realized what he had for Yifan was something frowned upon in general, he swallowed three pills. As Yifan's fingers were intertwined with hands that weren't Zitao's, he overdosed on two bottles. Yixing's funeral, three bottles. Yifan's desire to begin PreCrime because of Yixing, five bottles. Zitao joining as his assistant, seven bottles. The components aren't harsh.
There are a lot of things people have forgotten to talk about; the scent of earth after heavy rain, historical atomic bombings, what it feels like when the person you love smiles a smile that rattles suitcases of memories that were never yours to begin with, being the one on the outside looking in.
part two