#M36: Minutt for Minutt Part One
From: Anonymous until reveals
Title: Minutt for Minutt
Rating: R
Word Count: 15.7k
Summary: This is a story about love, sexual identity, mental illness, and friendship, and Luhan finds himself in the middle of it all.
Warning/s: Mental disorders
There are only two reasons as to why Luhan comes to these parties. He puts up with the mess, the noise, and the filth for 1) his best friends, and 2) the decent weed. It’s no secret that his friends think that he also comes for 3) the chicks, but that is a misconception that Luhan doesn’t plan on correcting any time soon.
The stench of weed is clogging up the air in the bathroom, but it’s a brief moment of peace and safety that Luhan clings on to. Speakers send pulses of music travelling up through the foundation of the house and Luhan can feel them buzzing against his spine, rattling down each vertebra until they blend in with the thrum of his heart.
He’s rudely pulled out of the haze in his mind when Minseok snatches the makeshift bong out of his hands. Luhan tunes back into the conversation to hear - with a sinking heart - that the boys are talking about girls. Again. Over the course of the last couple of years, he’s managed to pick up one very important skill: faking it. It keeps the looks and questions away, which is something that Luhan really needs, considering the fact that he still refuses to accept the glaring truth.
“...legs and a really nice ass,” is the first thing Luhan hears when he’s readied himself for the conversation.
“D’you guys see that one girl,” he begins, “with dark hair and really green eyes? Damn.”
As easy as that, Luhan watches his friends eagerly sink their teeth into the bait - hook, line, and sinker. It’s hard to keep the interested expression on his face, but it’s thanks to a lot of practice that he does.
Minseok snorts, “Else? No way you can get her. No one in this house can get her - dude, her last boyfriend was a college student and looked like a fucking god. Even I think he’s hot.”
Oh yeah, Luhan wants to say. He’s definitely hot. I’d let him do me.
Instead, he bristles in fake indignation and elbows his friend in the ribs. “You don’t think I can get her?”
“Fuck no,” Marwan laughs, reaching over to grab the bong from Mattéo’s hands. Luhan squints through the cloud of smoke that floats across his face, eyes tearing up just a little from the sting. “Not even someone with your game, buddy.”
So Luhan stands, knees knocking painfully against the edge of the tub.
“I’ll show you. Give me fifteen minutes; if I don’t have my tongue down her throat by then, I’ll buy you all lunch for the next week.”
His friends’ cheers ring in his ears all the way out of the bathroom and down the stairs. As Luhan scans the packed room for the girl he’d barely glimpsed earlier in the night, his gut churns with what is probably self-disgust. The art of picking up teenage girls is something he has mastered over time and Luhan does it extremely well.
So well, in fact, that he’s known throughout the school for it. It’s not the best reputation, but Luhan thinks that it’s infinitely better than the one he’d nearly gotten, thanks to his failure of clearing out his web searches and very nosy friends. Ever since the first year of high school, he’s been doing it so much that it almost feels natural - but he knows better, despite the brick wall of denial he can’t quite seem to break down.
He spots her near the drink table, the cup in her hand tilting precariously to the side. She’s laughing with her friends, leaning into the space of another girl, one whose gaze flits up and catches sight of Luhan. Her eyes widen and she all but pinches her friend at the hip. A whisper, during which Luhan rearranges himself into a nonchalant yet eye-catching stance.
Then his target whips around, drink sloshing out of her cup, and Luhan lets the corner of his mouth tug up into a little curl. He knows he looks good, the dimness of the room casting soft shadows across his face and into his eyes.
The girls fall for it all the time - hook, line, sinker.
When Luhan stumbles back into the bathroom with the girl - what was her name again? -, not ten minutes later, his friends scramble out of the tub and rush for the door. Through the mirror, Luhan sees an impressed look flit over Minseok's face and he fights the urge to sigh into her smoke-heavy hair.
The second she presses her lips to his, Luhan shuts his eyes and pulls up an image of a hot guy. Shirtless, tall, buff - the works. He doesn’t look at her once, letting his hands do the work, fingers curling into her hair as she sinks to her knees. Getting hard isn’t a problem, not when you’re a teenage boy on the cusp of adulthood, so he pretends it’s a guy’s lips around the head of his cock when he rocks into her mouth.
He comes with a low groan, gives her a sloppy kiss in thanks after she spits out his come (he’s not insulted whatsoever) and tucks him back in. It’s only when she settles down on the edge of the sink and spreads her legs that Luhan finally opens his eyes.
“I don’t have a condom,” he lies, “but I’ll finger you.”
She’s appeased, and Luhan does as he’d promised with almost clinical precision, two fingers inside her and his thumb pressed on her clit. Her thighs tremble when she orgasms, the strap of her top slipping off a shoulder. Because he’s not an asshole, Luhan waits until she’s presentable once more before washing his hands and leaving the bathroom.
He finds his friends out on the patio, but he’s no longer in the mood to drink or smoke. So he lifts a hand in lieu of a verbal goodbye and walks out onto the street.
The weekend passes in a thick haze, and before Luhan knows it, he’s back in school surrounded by the boys and his classmates and teachers who don’t wear bras when they very clearly should.
At lunch, Luhan busies himself with poking at his food, half-listening to Mattéo go on about how he had hooked up with a girl at the party who kisses like a cat - whatever the hell that means. His food starts clumping together, but he barely spares the mush a glance as he lets his gaze float around the room.
He spots Else at a table not far from his own, but before she can catch his gaze, he looks away and - oh, Luhan feels the air getting sucked right out from his lungs, and under his skin, he can feel his pulse flutter.
There’s a boy, sitting at the other end of the room, back flush against the wall. Is he new? He must be, because Luhan has never seen him before, and he would definitely remember if he had. He drinks it all in, from the sharp eyes to the tousled hair, from the tight jeans to the pen weaving between slim fingers. As he watches, Vera steps up to the new boy and engages him in conversation, drawing a bright and polite smile to his face.
The sight all but puts Luhan in a weird, hazy sort of daze, and it isn’t until he gets whacked on the head with a clipboard does he shake himself out of it.
“Huh?” Very eloquent, the voice inside his head snickers. Luhan curses at it.
Vera’s staring at him, eyebrow crooked and a very unimpressed expression on her face. To her right is Saira, the wings of her eyeliner as sharp as ever.
“I asked if you wanted to join our theatre and film group. I’m guessing you need extracurricular credit?”
Luhan peers at the back of the clipboard then promptly battles with the urge to ask if The Boy had signed up. Around him, his friends not-so-politely decline the offer, but just as the girls are about to take their leave, Luhan stops them.
“I’ll join.”
He gets a stunned smack to the back and a loudly whispered what the fuck? for that, but he ignores his friends and lets Vera scribble down his name on her sign-up sheet.
“Awesome,” Vera beams. “Our first meeting is on Thursday, after school in the drama room. Don’t be late!”
The second the girls are out of earshot, his friends descend on him like starving vultures.
“What the hell, Luhan?”
“Since when do you give a shit about theatre? Or film?”
“Who the hell are you and what have you done with my best friend?”
He rolls his eyes and elbows Minseok in the ribs. “Shut up. She’s not wrong, I do need extracurricular credit; I might as well get it over and done with this semester.”
His friends don’t seem very pleased with that explanation, but it’s a reasonable one and they can’t come up with any plausible arguments. Luhan deals with a few more weird looks from them before they give up trying to figure out what went wrong with him, and he takes the chance to steal another glance at The Boy across the room before going back to picking at his lunch.
Regret might be too strong a word - because he did sign up for a very legitimate reason, after all - but Luhan is seriously wondering if he should be given full autonomy of his decision-making abilities from now on. The group of students currently sitting inside the drama room is made up of the strangest combinations of people, and if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone is out of place, Luhan would be halfway to crawling out of his own skin by now.
Else is there too - she tries to make small talk with him, but Luhan barely spares her a second glance and it clearly ruffles her feathers. He gets a nasty look for his (lack of) effort, but he really doesn’t care.
They’ve all got a cookie each, courtesy of Vera, and it’s a true testament to how distracted Luhan is that he hasn’t polished it off in three bites. Moments before he stepped into the drama room, he’d given the sign-up sheet that was pinned on the board outside a look through. Oh Sehun was written right above his name and Oh Sehun is currently seated right next to him.
Luhan’s blood is buzzing so rapidly that it feels like he’s physically vibrating. He wonders if Oh Sehun knows of the effect he has on others - because let’s be real here, Luhan definitely isn’t the only one who has ever felt this way.
The meeting runs for an hour and a half, and Luhan participates in an insane amount of icebreaker games, painfully aware of how such games effortlessly pull his awkwardness through like a godly beam of light.
He escapes ten minutes before the end of it, breathing easier when the cool evening air washes over him. Propped up on the back of a bench, he unearths a squished blunt from his backpack and lights up - the only adults in the school right now are the janitorial staff, and they absolutely do not care about teenagers smoking weed.
One third through the blunt and a shadow falls over him.
Luhan doesn’t even have the time to think about collecting his scattered wits when Oh Sehun settles down next to him with a lazy smile on his face.
“Uh,” Luhan says. Wow, the voice says. Again, very eloquent. Luhan wants to punch himself.
“Hey,” Sehun says, a lock of hair falling into his eyes in the most charming way possible. “Mind if I take a hit?”
Running completely on autopilot, Luhan hands over the blunt and watches, wide-eyed, as Sehun leans forward to take a pull. His lips barely brush against Luhan’s fingers, but Luhan feels the touch burn.
“Mm, thanks.” Smoke curls out from between pink lips and Luhan wonders if they’re as soft as they look. They sit in silence for a minute or so, trading puffs, until Sehun snorts and says, “You missed a good game, you know. We had to feel each other up in the dark and if you touched someone’s dick, you had to suck it. My old school was never this fun.”
There’s a heavy pause where neither of them seems to be breathing, then Sehun lets out the cutest laugh and sets Luhan off too.
“Shit,” Luhan grins, “now I wish I didn’t leave.”
Sehun simply lifts an eyebrow in amusement and motions for Luhan to finish the blunt.
Baekhyun’s elbow is sharp and annoying and insistent against his ribs, but Luhan is too damn lazy to move out of its way. How he’s managed to live with him for over a year, Luhan has no idea.
“Dude,” he says, “what do you want.”
“Which one should I hook up with?” Baekhyun unceremoniously thrusts his phone into Luhan’s face and shakes it. “This one, or -” He scrolls to the next picture, “- this one?”
With the world’s heaviest sigh, Luhan looks up at the screen and gets an eyeful of chiselled abs, thick biceps, and hipbones that could cut diamonds.
“They look identical.”
Baekhyun huffs. “Therein lies the problem.”
Incredulous, Luhan pinches his friend in the stomach. “Just flip a coin or something, oh my god. You know you’d be happy with either one, anyway.” Right then, an idea hits. “Or you could just sleep with both of them.”
“You know,” Baekhyun says conversationally, sitting back and loading up Grindr. “If you were gay, you’d have so many guys tripping over themselves just to get you to look at them. I can already imagine your Grindr profile - sarcastic, no fucks given, a couple of blurry pictures that turn out to be artistic instead of half-assed.”
Luhan doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he settles for watching Baekhyun message both guys with a simple and straightforward: down for a threesome?
He’s rounding a corner when he runs right into something solid, nose throbbing with the force of it. A grunt, surprised and pained, slips out of him and Luhan feels his entire face scrunch up.
“Shit,” he hears, “I’m so sorry. You okay?”
It takes an embarrassingly long time for Luhan to place the voice, and when he finally does, he nearly gives himself whiplash from how hard he snaps his head up.
Sehun is mere inches away, looking down at him with clear concern in his eyes. He’s got a laptop in one hand and a pair of headphones in the other, and Luhan is momentarily rendered speechless when he gets to witness a lock of hair fall attractively into deep brown eyes.
“Fine,” he says thickly, still rubbing at his nose. “You, uh, have a hard back.”
A beat, then a grin spreads slowly across Sehun’s face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Sound trickles faintly from the headphones in Sehun’s grasp and Luhan glances down to see something playing on the screen of Sehun’s laptop.
“What are you watching?”
Sehun brightens visibly at the question and Luhan finds himself getting tugged over to a window, where they end up perched on the ledge with Sehun’s laptop resting on his knee.
“Pulp Fiction,” Sehun declares, brandishing his headphones. “One of the best films of all time.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Luhan blurts, then promptly winces. If this is Sehun’s favourite film, saying point blank that he’s never seen it before is probably not the best way to go about this budding crush of his.
But Sehun doesn’t seem offended whatsoever. In fact, that little tidbit seems to stoke his excitement.
“You have to watch it,” Sehun tells him, unplugging his headphones and turning the volume up a few notches. “Unprecedented. A mindblowing, post-modern mix of neo-noir, dark humor, and pop-culture. Undoubtedly Tarantino’s best work.”
He sounds so reverent of the film that Luhan immediately adds it to his mental to-do list. When he nods in agreement, Sehun smiles at him, all sunshine and sugar, and Luhan edits his to-do list to say: watch Pulp Fiction ten times.
“Are you going to this week’s meeting? I’ve heard that we’ll be discussing The Silence of the Lambs and I can’t wait.”
A small part of Luhan curses himself for having signed up, because how is he ever going to say no to attending the stupid meetings when he is clearly interested in Sehun and Sehun is clearly interested in film and theatre? Luhan knows that part of himself very well - it’s the part that believes he’ll get over his attraction to men, the part that keeps up his long-time charade of picking up girls at parties, the part that clears his phone and laptop histories obsessively whenever he watches gay porn.
He knows that part of himself and he hates it.
Jaw tight, he nods and says, “Yeah, probably. You like that film too?”
That sets Sehun off again and Luhan willingly lets his voice wash over him like a wave of warmth.
The air around them is oily and greasy and Luhan loves it. He and his boys have been coming to this fish and chips shop ever since freshman year and it’s one of his favourite forms of catharsis. Crispy on the outside yet soft and tender on the inside, Luhan never fails to clear his styrofoam box of food.
“Hey,” Minseok says, noisily sucking his fingertips clean of oil. “We got invited to a house party Friday night.”
“Yeah? Whose?”
“Else, can you believe it? I guess she really likes you.”
Luhan barely manages to fight back his repulsion. “I made it very clear to her it was a one-time thing.”
To his left, Marwan snorts incredulously. “The fuck? Why?”
Luhan shrugs. “Not interested in anything more.”
“But have you seen her?”
“If I haven’t, it would have been pretty damn hard for me to have hooked up with her, no?” Luhan replies, dry. He picks up a fry and dunks it into a plastic pot of mayo.
“Whatever,” Marwan says. He steals a handful of Minseok’s fries and stuffs them all into his mouth. “We’re going to that party and you’re coming too.”
Declining would be the gateway to a massive shitstorm of questions, so Luhan simply hums his assent and turns back to his food. Somehow, it tastes much too bland. He chews methodically - bite bite bite, swallow, repeat - and listens to his friends talk excitedly about the party, relying solely on his instincts to reply exactly when he should. A laugh here, a couple of words there, and his friends don’t even seem to notice that he doesn’t care.
The sunlight is still sharp by the time they leave the shop, the light bouncing off a thin sheen of oil lingering on their lips. Luhan bids his friends goodbye at the crossroads, trading one-armed hugs and fist bumps before they part ways. It’s a short walk home and Luhan enjoys the brief moment of solitude, pulling a snapback down over his eyes and clamping it in place with a pair of headphones. Now all he hears is his music, all he sees is the few feet of pavement ahead of him, and all he feels is the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.
For a while, he can just be himself.
He lets his thoughts roam and unsurprisingly, they land on a certain boy - tall, with an exquisite smile and warm brown eyes that crinkle when he laughs. Sighing, Luhan pulls out his phone and brings up Facebook. He types in Sehun’s name and scrolls through almost three dozen Oh Sehuns before he gives up. Instagram is next, and Luhan almost gets sidetracked when he finds himself looking through pictures of the cutest Maltipoo whose owner just happens to share the same name as Sehun.
Then, on a whim, Luhan types Sehun’s name into the search bar on YouTube. The guy likes films and theatre - thinking he might have a YouTube account isn’t that outrageous of an assumption, right?
And… there it is, the fourth video, with Sehun’s face right on the thumbnail.
Luhan is mere minutes away from home, but he finds himself moving off the street and leaning against a brick wall, fingertip pressing down against the screen of his phone to load the video.
Sehun’s voice floods his ears and Luhan is suddenly torn between watching Sehun’s animated expressions or listen to his equally cheerful words. What Luhan gathers from the video - it’s shaky and the person who’s filming likes to talk extremely loudly -, Sehun is reciting lines for a play, parading through the halls of his old school in an oversized shirt and skinny jeans. He looks radiant.
It’s a short video, barely two minutes long, but Sehun laughs through half of it.
In the end, Luhan finds himself walking home with it playing in his mind, in a loop, over and over again.
“So?” Sehun prompts, leaning against the wall and looking like an honest-to-god model. “What did you think of the discussion today?”
Dusk is just beginning to fall, draping a section of Sehun’s face with faint shades of purple that cut perfectly across his cheekbone. Just like last time, they’ve skipped the last ten minutes of the meeting, sharing yet another blunt between them. Sehun takes a few puffs and magnanimously tells Luhan to have the rest.
“It was…” Luhan lets out a stream of smoke. “Enlightening. I never really gave that much thought to a movie before. Changes a few things, huh?”
Sehun hums, thin fingers reaching out to pinch the tip of the blunt before he brings it to his lips. “I’ve loved films for as long as I can remember, so over-analyzing them is kinda my hobby. It’s interesting, you know, getting into the heads of the people behind them. Gives you a whole new perspective on things.”
It’s captivating, the way Sehun’s lips purse just the slightest around the blunt and the way his cheeks hollow when he sucks. Luhan swallows, mouth suddenly full of cotton.
“Were you, uh, ever a theatre kid? Like, acting, I mean.”
That has Sehun grinning sheepishly, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he passes the blunt back over. “Yeah, I was. I was in every single play and I would even offer to be part of the backstage crew. Can you believe that I learned how to sew just because I wanted to be involved in creating the costumes?”
Luhan lets out one plume of smoke and grinds out the remains of the blunt under his heel. “I’d like to have seen one of your plays.”
He nearly jumps out of his skin when a warm hand curls around his wrist. “I have them on tape.” A laugh, and Luhan shivers pleasantly. “My mother refuses to ever get rid of them. If you want, you can come over one day to watch some.”
Luhan’s stomach plummets and skyrockets right back up into his throat in the span of two seconds.
“...Really?”
“Of course! Not to sound like an arrogant asshole, but it gives me great joy whenever someone watches something I’m in.”
Gold replaces purple, gilding every line of Sehun’s face like he’s one of the world’s most precious artifacts. It turns the shade of his irises from a deep brown to a warm amber and Luhan wonders if he tastes as sweet as he looks.
“How about tomorrow? After school? I’d say right now, but I have an appointment that I can’t miss.”
“Friday?”
Sehun nods and the setting sun beams off his hair.
Friday, Luhan thinks. Something nags at him - does he have something else planned for Friday? But whatever it is isn’t coming to mind, so Luhan ends up nodding and saying, “Sure. I’m looking forward to it.”
A handful of rain droplets are dotting the pavement, forcing darker grey to blend into lighter grey. They’re fat droplets and Luhan feels the sting when one smacks against the curve of his cheek.
“It’s just a short bus ride,” Sehun’s saying next to him, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket and broad shoulders hunched in just the slightest. If Luhan focuses hard enough, he can spot tiny water droplets clinging to the curl of Sehun’s lashes.
They’re squeezed into a corner of the bus stop with their fellow students, the air around them smelling of damp grass and faint petrichor. Sehun’s arm is a line of warmth against Luhan’s, enough to chase away the traces of autumn’s chill trying to settle into his bones.
When he chances a look up at Sehun’s face, he gets a second or two to study the angle of his jaw before Sehun notices and smiles down at him. That sends a rush of heat up his cheeks and Luhan suppresses a hacking cough that attempts to crawl out of his throat.
Thankfully, a bus rumbles up right then and Sehun nudges him forward with a hand pressed to his back. “C’mon, let’s get going before the rest of the school comes swarming out and clogs up the bus.”
It’s packed as it is, even without the rest of the students. Luhan finds himself with a pole digging into his hip and Sehun’s shoulder a mere inch away from his face when the bus lurches forward. Amidst the chatter and the loud rattle of the bus’ engine, he doesn’t hear his phone trill with a new message.
“You okay? Enough space?”
Luhan tightens his grip around the pole - trying his best not to think of the fact that Sehun’s hand is right above his - and nods. “Yeah, but if I step on your feet, I’m sorry.”
Sehun just smiles, as sunny as ever, and Luhan wonders how a person could possibly be this perfect.
They push their way through the crowd and pop out of the bus ten minutes later, feeling a little rumpled but none the worse for wear. Sehun leads the two of them to a nondescript apartment building, stopping by the rows of mailboxes to open one and pull out a few letters.
“Bills.” Waving the envelopes in his hand, Sehun pulls a face and gestures towards the elevator with his head. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Luhan mumbles.
It almost feels like a dream. Things are little hazy around the corners and there’s a lightness to their movements that Luhan finds enthralling. Perhaps it’s due to the weed, Luhan thinks, toes curling underneath the woolly blanket Sehun had draped over them. The huge stack of homemade cheese toasties certainly does not make things any worse, either.
They’ve already gone through a third of the home DVDs that Sehun unearthed from one of the drawers, and it pains Luhan to say that Sehun’s performance in all of the plays he’s been a part of are… well, perfect. He delivers his lines flawlessly, emotes naturally, and moves across the stage like he was born to be up there.
“You’re good.” Luhan takes a sip from his beer - “I won’t tell if you won’t,” Sehun had said with a grin when Luhan informed him that he’s still a minor - and motions to the screen. “You ever think of going professional?”
Sehun lifts a shoulder, modest. “Thanks. And yeah, in a sense. I think I’d prefer being behind the scenes though. Directing, I mean. I want to create something and breathe life into it.”
Time slithers by, as slow and thick as honey.
“Should’ve added some spices,” Luhan comments out of the blue, punctuating his statement by taking a large bite of a toastie. It’s still good, but it’s missing that extra kick.
“Which spices?”
Luhan licks off the crumbs around his mouth and burrows deeper under the blanket. “Caribbean Jerk,” he says, lifting a finger. “Chili flakes. Cardamom.”
Next to him, Sehun is nodding seriously, his eyes still fixed on the TV screen. “I think I have all of those.”
“As you should,” Luhan says, and watches as the Sehun on screen proceeds to bring the house down.
They’re in the middle of Othello when the doorbell buzzes. Sehun jerks violently, foot slamming into the underside of the coffee table in his surprise. “Shit, what time is it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s scrambling off the couch, tugging the blanket clean off Luhan’s lap with the movement.
The front door opens and Luhan watches as a girl enters, long chestnut hair swept over a shoulder and sprinkled with rain. Sehun steps close, head bent as he says something, and the girl smiles up at him in a way that has Luhan’s heart seizing painfully.
Sehun takes her coat and hangs it up on a peg, free hand curling around her elbow. She stays close to his side, in his space, breathes in his air.
“Sorry,” Luhan hears him say, “I lost track of time. Amie, this is Luhan. He’s a friend from school and we’re both in the theatre and film club. Luhan, this is Amie. She’s my girlfriend.”
At a complete loss for words, all Luhan can do is offer Amie a shaky smile. She returns it easily enough before she turns for a kiss, one that Sehun gives, fingers under her chin to keep her in place.
Luhan’s phone pings then, and he tears his eyes - burning and dry - away from the couple to stare down at his phone.
dude, where the fuck are you?
else is asking about you, man. when are you getting here?
It’s past dinnertime and the indigo sky is already dipping into ink.
sorry. felt sick, probably gonna stay home.
“I have to go,” he blurts, springing to his feet. Sehun peels away from Amie long enough to look at him and nod.
“Yeah, of course. Sorry for keeping you this long, I didn’t realise it was so late. See you on Monday?”
Luhan mumbles something in response and practically bolts from the apartment. His pulse doesn’t slow until he’s safely back in his own room twenty-three minutes later, hair sticking to the back of his neck and nails digging craters into the flesh of his palms.
If there’s something Luhan truly hates in this world, it would probably be his fucking locker. He gets into a wrestling match with the blasted thing every single time he wants to close the door, and most of the time, he loses.
He’s moments away from slamming his entire body weight against the locker in a last-ditch attempt to close it when Vera appears by his elbow, eyes bright and wide as she fixes him with an expectant look.
Chest heaving, Luhan pushes his hair out of his eyes and drops his pile of books onto the floor by his feet. “...Yes?”
“We’re planning to have a party next week,” she chirps, head cocking to one side. “And I want you to host.”
“You want me to - what? Why me?”
She shrugs, unbothered. “Because no adults live with you and you have a place big enough to hold us all.”
With that, she grins at him and flounces off, hair swinging so forcefully that Luhan’s hit in the face with a strong whiff of magnolias. He sighs, slams the door of his locker, and rolls his eyes when it bounces off the frame and swings open once more. Whatever, all he has inside are his textbooks anyway. If some fucker wants them, they can have them.
He picks up the books by his feet and is just about to head to class when he spots Else down the hallway by her own locker, looking right at him. Her expression is unreadable and Luhan suddenly remembers the plethora of Are you gay? and How to tell if you are gay quizzes that he spent the whole afternoon on Sunday taking.
you’re not gay, but you could be a little straighter.
He refuses to think about the fact that for most of the questions, his answers were false.
When he turns to leave, grip tight on the hard spines of his books, Else’s gaze burns a hole straight through the back of his head.
“Do you think he’s gay?”
“What?”
“The dance instructor. He seems super gay.”
The moment those words leave his mouth, Luhan wishes he could take them right back.
“What’s wrong with being super gay?”
His throat is sandpaper dry. “Nothing.”
Minseok’s just about to reply when a shadow falls over them. Luhan looks up to see Sehun standing there, lips full and pouty, his tongue just a sliver of pink between them.
“You left this,” Sehun says, tossing a snapback at him. “Thought you might want it back.”
Luhan stares, Sehun crooks an eyebrow, and no one speaks. Then Sehun’s lips curve up at the corners and he leaves with a nod of his head, leaving Luhan clutching at the snapback and losing his goddamn wits.
“Who was that?”
“We’re in the theatre club together.”
“Why does he have your snapback?”
“Must’ve left it at the meeting last week. He usually sits behind me.”
It’s damning, the way lies flow so easily out of his mouth.
Somehow, he finds himself with Else right next to him, the neckline of her blouse hanging dangerously low around the swells of her breasts. She leans close, glossed lips claiming a place by Luhan’s ear. He lets her talk, donning a well-worn mask that has her thinking he’s hanging onto her every word when in reality, all that’s on his mind is Sehun and Amie in the far corner of the room.
The apartment is packed to the brim - how the hell did Vera manage to get such a huge turnout when their theatre group only has approximately twenty people? - and Luhan’s view is constantly getting blocked by passing heads. But he keeps his eyes fixed on that corner, ignoring the cheap neon lights pulsing in his periphery, and settles into a twisted, masochistic game of seeing how much he can stomach before he has to look away.
The couple is engrossed in each other, all wandering hands and kiss-bitten lips, and Luhan cannot fight the churn of jealousy deep in his gut. His skin crawls when Else rests a dainty hand on the inside of his forearm, coincidentally mirroring the way Amie holds onto Sehun. She’s marking her territory, Luhan can tell. The way her fingers curl into the thick locks of Sehun’s hair cannot be mistaken as anything else, nor can the way she angles his head to lick deep into his mouth.
Luhan’s mesmerized by the way Sehun’s jaw works when Sehun’s eyes suddenly fly open and lock with his. They’re dark and intent, pulling Luhan right under until he’s scrambling for air.
Else stops talking and Luhan acts on instinct, hauling her onto his lap and cutting off her squawk of surprise with his lips. When he dares to look back into the corner, Sehun is still looking at him, and Luhan wants. Just like that, with their mouths on their respective girls and their gazes trained on each other, they wile away the minutes.
It’s late and all Luhan wants to do is sleep, but he knows his flatmates will not be happy if they woke up to see the apartment floors covered with trash. So, with his limbs and eyelids equally heavy, he drags a trash bag around the empty apartment. It fills quickly, and by the time he’s crossing the threshold of the kitchen, he needs a new one.
But before he can get another, the one in his hands slips out of his grip at the sight of Sehun in his kitchen, standing over the sink with a bunch of soapy cups in hand. Bits of trash spill out of the open bag.
“What are you doing here?”
Sehun looks over his shoulder, unperturbed by Luhan’s sudden outburst.
“Thought I’d hang around and help with the clean-up. Don’t you have flatmates? Why are you doing this alone?”
“Yeah, but they’re not involved with the club, so I thought to ask them to help clean up would be - wait, I thought you left with your girlfriend.”
Ceramic clinks when Sehun sets a couple of mugs down on the drying rack.
“No, I came on my bike. Have to take it home. And didn’t I see a flatmate of yours right in the middle of the dance floor?”
“Baekhyun likes to have fun,” Luhan snorts. Bending, he stuffs the spilt trash back into the bag, knotting it up when he’s done and setting it aside. “He doesn’t like to clean up after the fun.”
They work in silence for a while, Luhan clearing the counters of trash while Sehun scrubs all the dishes clean. Luhan is busy wiping the surfaces down when he realises that the sound of running water is no more, and he turns to see Sehun leaning against the edge of the sink with a dish towel in his hands, quietly studying him.
“Um,” he says, and Sehun smiles.
“So,” Sehun begins. He sets the dish towel aside and takes a step closer. “How long have you been with Else?”
“I’m not with her,” Luhan replies, pulse speeding up with every step Sehun takes. “We hooked up once and she’s been trying to get more.”
“You don’t want more?”
The lump in his throat is in the goddamn way, but Luhan manages to swallow anyway. “No. Not with her.”
Sehun takes yet another step forward and Luhan backs up immediately, elbow knocking into the bottle of cleaning spray. It topples over with a low thud and Sehun reaches out to set it back upright.
“No?” Sehun echoes. The inside of his wrist brushes against the skin of Luhan’s arm. “With who, then?”
He’s so close now that Luhan has to physically tilt his head back to look up at Sehun. God, he can practically count each individual eyelash clinging to Sehun’s eyelids. The faint scent of laundry detergent and aftershave is delightful - Luhan breathes in long and deep.
“Someone,” he hears himself say. Sehun hums thoughtfully, both arms locked against the edge of the counter and keeping Luhan in place.
“Someone I know?”
He hears the words, but all Luhan registers is the loud pounding of his heart in his ears and the sight of Sehun’s lips so close to his own. They’re literally right there, and if he just -
A loud bang echoes through the apartment and they spring apart moments before Baekhyun comes sauntering into the kitchen. Luhan wants to scream.
Texts from his mother are flooding in, one after another at a rapid pace, and they don’t seem to be slowing any time soon. His phone rattles insistently across the surface of the table and when he sighs, Saira’s hand shoots out to stop it from dropping off the edge.
“Do you maybe wanna answer one of those texts?”
“It’s just my mother,” Luhan mutters, fiddling with his pen. “She’s…” He shrugs, helpless. “She has many thoughts.”
Saira frowns at him, perfect eyebrows dipping in an effort to meet in the middle. “Thoughts?”
The tip of Luhan’s pen presses so hard into the paper that it bleeds through a few sheets. He stares at the blooming spot of ink and gets the sudden urge to wipe his phone clean of all of her text messages.
“Thoughts,” he repeats, and turns a page.
Thankfully, Saira doesn’t push any further. They return to their project, and although Luhan ends up staring off into the distance rather than doing any actual work, Saira doesn’t complain.
During this lull in conversation, Luhan’s mind runs wild, jumping from one train to another so quickly it makes him dizzy. When it finally stops, he can’t help but open his mouth and utter the last thing he thought of. “Why do you believe in religion?”
Saira’s hand freezes, her pen in the middle of curling out the end of the letter g.
“Do you want to know my personal reasons or is this a general question?”
“Dunno,” Luhan sighs, frowning down at his notebook. His notes truly are a dreadful mess. “Both?”
“Religion is different for everyone.” Saira finishes writing her sentence and leans back in her seat, studying Luhan through thick lashes. “It gives me comfort, guidance, faith. A moral code. A community.”
“Don’t you think it’s unfair,” Luhan begins, “that gods are the ones that determine if something is right or wrong? If someone suffers from a disorder that has people think they’re fucked up? What gives them the right to make such a decision when they don’t even live to experience it?”
Saira exhales slowly, fingertip tapping steadily against the bow of her upper lip and interrupting the flow of air. “Are you talking about anything in particular?”
“Dunno,” Luhan repeats. “Things like mental illness, or like, homosexuality. Or something.”
Silence fills the space between and around them, and in a weak attempt to offset the tense awkwardness, Luhan starts writing down random words along the margins of his notebook.
“Can I just ask; if you don’t believe in a god, what do you believe in?”
“Science.” It’s an easy, automatic answer, because it’s the only one that makes sense. “It explains things, provides evidence, makes logical sense.”
At that, Saira can’t help but let out a noise of disbelief. “Science does not always make sense. Homosexuality is a genetic dead end, is it not? If they don’t reproduce, how can homosexuals pass on their genes?”
“Studies have suggested that women tend to have more children when they inherit the genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This compensates for the lack of offspring by gay men and also keeps the ‘gay gene’ in the gene pool.” Luhan lifts an eyebrow, defiant.
Saira huffs. “That is one explanation, but not necessarily the explanation. There are just some things we have no way of knowing, Luhan, regardless of the manner of reasoning behind it. I do not blindly follow everything my religion claims to be right and true. When it comes to my beliefs, I know I can decide for myself, and I do.”
Luhan doesn’t quite know what to say to that. His phone buzzes yet again, and he sets it to silent before turning back to his work. Across the table, Saira follows suit.
There’s a slip of paper stuck to the front of his locker, the bottom edge flapping lightly whenever someone walks by and displaces the air. Luhan keeps his eyes on it as he makes his way through the horde of students, getting an accidental elbow to the ribs when he trips over someone’s bag and nearly headbutts them.
When he finally makes it to his locker, Luhan tugs the paper free and stares down at it. It’s an ink drawing, a short comic of three frames. In the first frame, a figure is seated on a large rock overlooking the sea with something in his lap. It turns out to be a sketchbook, depicted in the second frame, with a rough sketch on its page. In the third frame, a second figure is seen out in the distance, the edge of the sketchbook visible in the corner of the frame.
At the bottom of the comic is the following sentence: wanna skip last period tomorrow and come with me to the beach? - sehun
Before his brain can even begin to process what he just read, he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see Else standing there, bright red lips practically glowing under fluorescent lights.
“Uh,” he says.
“So there’s this action movie that just came out,” she begins, either choosing to ignore Luhan’s clear disinterest or she’s just that oblivious, “and I was wondering if you’d want to take me out to see it.”
“I’m… I have plans,” Luhan says feebly.
Her eyes narrow, the flirty smile on her lips giving way to a scowl. “I didn’t even say when.”
“I’m busy today - we have the club meeting later, don’t we? -, I have plans tomorrow, and I’ll be busy on the weekend too.”
Well, he guesses he’ll be meeting up with Sehun tomorrow after all.
Else, unhappy but unable to find a hole in Luhan's excuse, turns on her heel and stalks down the hallway. With each step she takes, the panic that’s wound tight around Luhan’s lungs eases. It doesn’t go away completely, not when she’s in the theatre club and he knows that he’ll have to see her after school, but it’s enough to slow the rapid firing of his heart.
Too preoccupied with his thoughts, Luhan visibly startles when the bell rings. He engages in yet another wrestling match with his locker in an attempt to get his books for the next two periods; he wins, eventually, but not without breaking a sweat. Sehun’s drawing crinkles slightly in his grip, so he slots it gently between two pages of his chemistry textbook and books it to class.
“So,” Luhan begins, shifting awkwardly on the smooth face of the rock. “What exactly are we doing here?”
Sehun digs around in his backpack and brandishes a sketchbook, hair looking like liquid burnished gold in the late afternoon sun. “It’s for an art project. I was hoping you’d model for me.”
“Sure, but why didn’t you ask Amie?”
A pause, in which Sehun stays silent, and Luhan waits for a few moments before he looks over his shoulder. Sehun’s head is tipped down, knuckles pale around his pencil, and there’s a crease between his brows that Luhan really wants to smooth out. A flip of the sketchbook, then: “She’s busy.”
Luhan isn’t the most perceptive of people, but even he knows that this is a line of conversation that he should not be pursuing. So he shuts up, turns back around to face the sea, and listens to the scratch of Sehun’s pencil as he starts drawing.
It’s nice out, warm enough to not warrant extra layers but cool enough to keep the sweat at bay. The waves lapping at the shoreline is a hypnotizing sight and it lulls Luhan into a calmness he has never experienced before. It lets minutes slip by, soft and easy, and a full hour passes in the blink of an eye.
“Wanna look? It’s just a rough sketch, but I’ll refine it later.”
Something in Luhan’s knee cracks when he stands, but he feels so at ease that the aches in his body don’t bother him in the least.
“What’s the concept anyway? Why did we have to come to the beach?”
“Open space,” Sehun answers, handing over the sketchbook when Luhan is within reach.
Sure enough, most of the paper is left blank. Only the bottom quarter of the sheet has been used - the jagged edges of the rocks, the shape of Luhan’s frame, a hint of the beach and ocean below. The lines are seemingly haphazard, but there’s a precision and crispness to them that sets it apart from other sketches Luhan’s seen over the years.
“I like it,” Luhan says, careful not to smudge the graphite. “Is it finished or will you be adding more to it?”
“Watercolours.” Sehun gestures to the view. “But only what’s necessary to capture all of this.”
The beach they’re at isn’t a tourist beach - the sand is too rough, there are too many rocks, and the surrounding cliff faces are tall enough that it doesn’t get enough sun to warrant sunbathing. Even the locals tend to stay away from this beach.
Luhan thinks there’s a beauty to it, however. Untouched, it holds secrets that only a handful of people are ever privy to.
“Anyway, thanks for sitting for me,” Sehun says, carefully sliding the sketchbook back into his bag. “Are you in a rush to head home?”
Luhan replies with a shake of his head. Pass up more time with Sehun just to have Baekhyun squish him into a corner of the couch and torture him with pictures of hot men? No thanks.
“Wanna walk along the beach?”
Grains of sand are rough beneath his feet and Sehun’s arm is warm against his.
Sehun’s picking up tiny shells every few steps, collecting them in the cup of his palm until it overflows, at which point he lets them fall through the gaps between his fingers before starting over.
“Hey, this is probably a weird question, but do you know what time you were born?”
“20:20,” Luhan answers. “I remember because I was born on the 20th.”
Sehun simply smiles.
They walk in silence, edging closer to the water until it starts lapping at their ankles, washing over the tops of their feet. Luhan unearths a blunt from his backpack and lights it up - they pass it between them, sucking casually on it until they reach a shallow pool, with water as clear as crystal.
Sehun tosses him a look, then tosses his belongings onto the sand, pulls his jeans up past his knees, and wades in. Luhan does the first thing that comes to mind: he follows.
The water is surprisingly cold, firing goosebumps down Luhan’s arms like a line of dominos the second he breaks the surface with his toes. He yelps, jumps, and tumbles right into Sehun.
“Shit,” Luhan wheezes, clutching onto wide shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t expect it to be so cold.”
There’s an arm around his waist holding him up and it stays there even when Luhan calms down.
“Can I ask you something?”
The arm tightens its grip and Luhan finds himself tugged closer to Sehun. He barely manages to nod.
“Can I kiss you?”
It’s embarrassing, really, how quickly Luhan blurts out a, “Yes.”
It’s just as embarrassing how long it takes for the thought you asshole, he has a girlfriend! to wriggle into his mind. But by the time it does, he’s already in the middle of getting his life kissed right out of him, lungs seizing with the need for air but lips unwilling to pull away.
A hand curls around his neck to hold him in place, something that Luhan is immensely grateful for, because he’s quite sure he would be a useless mess of limbs without Sehun’s literal support. He tries to give back as good as he’s getting, but it turns out that despite all the practice he’s had with girls, kissing Sehun is wholly different and new.
It doesn’t help that Sehun’s a fucking good kisser, either. In all honesty, it’s really quite unfair.
Sehun doesn’t dally, doesn’t start off slow. No, he goes straight for the kill, easily coaxing Luhan’s lips apart and licking in deep once granted access. It’s mind numbing and electrifying all at once and Luhan can’t help the weak sound that passes from his throat into Sehun’s.
For the sound, he’s rewarded with a chuckle, Sehun’s lips still flush against his, ripe with the taste of conquest.
“Stop laughing,” Luhan mumbles weakly, fingers tight around handfuls of Sehun’s shirt.
“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry, but Luhan can’t find it within himself to complain.
A few more chaste pecks and Sehun leans back, absently sweeping a few strands of his hair out of his eyes. “You know, I think I’d like to stay here, like this, with you forever.”
Luhan stares at Sehun’s kiss-bruised lips. “Yeah,” he hears himself say. “Me too.”
Part Two
Title: Minutt for Minutt
Rating: R
Word Count: 15.7k
Summary: This is a story about love, sexual identity, mental illness, and friendship, and Luhan finds himself in the middle of it all.
Warning/s: Mental disorders
There are only two reasons as to why Luhan comes to these parties. He puts up with the mess, the noise, and the filth for 1) his best friends, and 2) the decent weed. It’s no secret that his friends think that he also comes for 3) the chicks, but that is a misconception that Luhan doesn’t plan on correcting any time soon.
The stench of weed is clogging up the air in the bathroom, but it’s a brief moment of peace and safety that Luhan clings on to. Speakers send pulses of music travelling up through the foundation of the house and Luhan can feel them buzzing against his spine, rattling down each vertebra until they blend in with the thrum of his heart.
He’s rudely pulled out of the haze in his mind when Minseok snatches the makeshift bong out of his hands. Luhan tunes back into the conversation to hear - with a sinking heart - that the boys are talking about girls. Again. Over the course of the last couple of years, he’s managed to pick up one very important skill: faking it. It keeps the looks and questions away, which is something that Luhan really needs, considering the fact that he still refuses to accept the glaring truth.
“...legs and a really nice ass,” is the first thing Luhan hears when he’s readied himself for the conversation.
“D’you guys see that one girl,” he begins, “with dark hair and really green eyes? Damn.”
As easy as that, Luhan watches his friends eagerly sink their teeth into the bait - hook, line, and sinker. It’s hard to keep the interested expression on his face, but it’s thanks to a lot of practice that he does.
Minseok snorts, “Else? No way you can get her. No one in this house can get her - dude, her last boyfriend was a college student and looked like a fucking god. Even I think he’s hot.”
Oh yeah, Luhan wants to say. He’s definitely hot. I’d let him do me.
Instead, he bristles in fake indignation and elbows his friend in the ribs. “You don’t think I can get her?”
“Fuck no,” Marwan laughs, reaching over to grab the bong from Mattéo’s hands. Luhan squints through the cloud of smoke that floats across his face, eyes tearing up just a little from the sting. “Not even someone with your game, buddy.”
So Luhan stands, knees knocking painfully against the edge of the tub.
“I’ll show you. Give me fifteen minutes; if I don’t have my tongue down her throat by then, I’ll buy you all lunch for the next week.”
His friends’ cheers ring in his ears all the way out of the bathroom and down the stairs. As Luhan scans the packed room for the girl he’d barely glimpsed earlier in the night, his gut churns with what is probably self-disgust. The art of picking up teenage girls is something he has mastered over time and Luhan does it extremely well.
So well, in fact, that he’s known throughout the school for it. It’s not the best reputation, but Luhan thinks that it’s infinitely better than the one he’d nearly gotten, thanks to his failure of clearing out his web searches and very nosy friends. Ever since the first year of high school, he’s been doing it so much that it almost feels natural - but he knows better, despite the brick wall of denial he can’t quite seem to break down.
He spots her near the drink table, the cup in her hand tilting precariously to the side. She’s laughing with her friends, leaning into the space of another girl, one whose gaze flits up and catches sight of Luhan. Her eyes widen and she all but pinches her friend at the hip. A whisper, during which Luhan rearranges himself into a nonchalant yet eye-catching stance.
Then his target whips around, drink sloshing out of her cup, and Luhan lets the corner of his mouth tug up into a little curl. He knows he looks good, the dimness of the room casting soft shadows across his face and into his eyes.
The girls fall for it all the time - hook, line, sinker.
When Luhan stumbles back into the bathroom with the girl - what was her name again? -, not ten minutes later, his friends scramble out of the tub and rush for the door. Through the mirror, Luhan sees an impressed look flit over Minseok's face and he fights the urge to sigh into her smoke-heavy hair.
The second she presses her lips to his, Luhan shuts his eyes and pulls up an image of a hot guy. Shirtless, tall, buff - the works. He doesn’t look at her once, letting his hands do the work, fingers curling into her hair as she sinks to her knees. Getting hard isn’t a problem, not when you’re a teenage boy on the cusp of adulthood, so he pretends it’s a guy’s lips around the head of his cock when he rocks into her mouth.
He comes with a low groan, gives her a sloppy kiss in thanks after she spits out his come (he’s not insulted whatsoever) and tucks him back in. It’s only when she settles down on the edge of the sink and spreads her legs that Luhan finally opens his eyes.
“I don’t have a condom,” he lies, “but I’ll finger you.”
She’s appeased, and Luhan does as he’d promised with almost clinical precision, two fingers inside her and his thumb pressed on her clit. Her thighs tremble when she orgasms, the strap of her top slipping off a shoulder. Because he’s not an asshole, Luhan waits until she’s presentable once more before washing his hands and leaving the bathroom.
He finds his friends out on the patio, but he’s no longer in the mood to drink or smoke. So he lifts a hand in lieu of a verbal goodbye and walks out onto the street.
The weekend passes in a thick haze, and before Luhan knows it, he’s back in school surrounded by the boys and his classmates and teachers who don’t wear bras when they very clearly should.
At lunch, Luhan busies himself with poking at his food, half-listening to Mattéo go on about how he had hooked up with a girl at the party who kisses like a cat - whatever the hell that means. His food starts clumping together, but he barely spares the mush a glance as he lets his gaze float around the room.
He spots Else at a table not far from his own, but before she can catch his gaze, he looks away and - oh, Luhan feels the air getting sucked right out from his lungs, and under his skin, he can feel his pulse flutter.
There’s a boy, sitting at the other end of the room, back flush against the wall. Is he new? He must be, because Luhan has never seen him before, and he would definitely remember if he had. He drinks it all in, from the sharp eyes to the tousled hair, from the tight jeans to the pen weaving between slim fingers. As he watches, Vera steps up to the new boy and engages him in conversation, drawing a bright and polite smile to his face.
The sight all but puts Luhan in a weird, hazy sort of daze, and it isn’t until he gets whacked on the head with a clipboard does he shake himself out of it.
“Huh?” Very eloquent, the voice inside his head snickers. Luhan curses at it.
Vera’s staring at him, eyebrow crooked and a very unimpressed expression on her face. To her right is Saira, the wings of her eyeliner as sharp as ever.
“I asked if you wanted to join our theatre and film group. I’m guessing you need extracurricular credit?”
Luhan peers at the back of the clipboard then promptly battles with the urge to ask if The Boy had signed up. Around him, his friends not-so-politely decline the offer, but just as the girls are about to take their leave, Luhan stops them.
“I’ll join.”
He gets a stunned smack to the back and a loudly whispered what the fuck? for that, but he ignores his friends and lets Vera scribble down his name on her sign-up sheet.
“Awesome,” Vera beams. “Our first meeting is on Thursday, after school in the drama room. Don’t be late!”
The second the girls are out of earshot, his friends descend on him like starving vultures.
“What the hell, Luhan?”
“Since when do you give a shit about theatre? Or film?”
“Who the hell are you and what have you done with my best friend?”
He rolls his eyes and elbows Minseok in the ribs. “Shut up. She’s not wrong, I do need extracurricular credit; I might as well get it over and done with this semester.”
His friends don’t seem very pleased with that explanation, but it’s a reasonable one and they can’t come up with any plausible arguments. Luhan deals with a few more weird looks from them before they give up trying to figure out what went wrong with him, and he takes the chance to steal another glance at The Boy across the room before going back to picking at his lunch.
Regret might be too strong a word - because he did sign up for a very legitimate reason, after all - but Luhan is seriously wondering if he should be given full autonomy of his decision-making abilities from now on. The group of students currently sitting inside the drama room is made up of the strangest combinations of people, and if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone is out of place, Luhan would be halfway to crawling out of his own skin by now.
Else is there too - she tries to make small talk with him, but Luhan barely spares her a second glance and it clearly ruffles her feathers. He gets a nasty look for his (lack of) effort, but he really doesn’t care.
They’ve all got a cookie each, courtesy of Vera, and it’s a true testament to how distracted Luhan is that he hasn’t polished it off in three bites. Moments before he stepped into the drama room, he’d given the sign-up sheet that was pinned on the board outside a look through. Oh Sehun was written right above his name and Oh Sehun is currently seated right next to him.
Luhan’s blood is buzzing so rapidly that it feels like he’s physically vibrating. He wonders if Oh Sehun knows of the effect he has on others - because let’s be real here, Luhan definitely isn’t the only one who has ever felt this way.
The meeting runs for an hour and a half, and Luhan participates in an insane amount of icebreaker games, painfully aware of how such games effortlessly pull his awkwardness through like a godly beam of light.
He escapes ten minutes before the end of it, breathing easier when the cool evening air washes over him. Propped up on the back of a bench, he unearths a squished blunt from his backpack and lights up - the only adults in the school right now are the janitorial staff, and they absolutely do not care about teenagers smoking weed.
One third through the blunt and a shadow falls over him.
Luhan doesn’t even have the time to think about collecting his scattered wits when Oh Sehun settles down next to him with a lazy smile on his face.
“Uh,” Luhan says. Wow, the voice says. Again, very eloquent. Luhan wants to punch himself.
“Hey,” Sehun says, a lock of hair falling into his eyes in the most charming way possible. “Mind if I take a hit?”
Running completely on autopilot, Luhan hands over the blunt and watches, wide-eyed, as Sehun leans forward to take a pull. His lips barely brush against Luhan’s fingers, but Luhan feels the touch burn.
“Mm, thanks.” Smoke curls out from between pink lips and Luhan wonders if they’re as soft as they look. They sit in silence for a minute or so, trading puffs, until Sehun snorts and says, “You missed a good game, you know. We had to feel each other up in the dark and if you touched someone’s dick, you had to suck it. My old school was never this fun.”
There’s a heavy pause where neither of them seems to be breathing, then Sehun lets out the cutest laugh and sets Luhan off too.
“Shit,” Luhan grins, “now I wish I didn’t leave.”
Sehun simply lifts an eyebrow in amusement and motions for Luhan to finish the blunt.
Baekhyun’s elbow is sharp and annoying and insistent against his ribs, but Luhan is too damn lazy to move out of its way. How he’s managed to live with him for over a year, Luhan has no idea.
“Dude,” he says, “what do you want.”
“Which one should I hook up with?” Baekhyun unceremoniously thrusts his phone into Luhan’s face and shakes it. “This one, or -” He scrolls to the next picture, “- this one?”
With the world’s heaviest sigh, Luhan looks up at the screen and gets an eyeful of chiselled abs, thick biceps, and hipbones that could cut diamonds.
“They look identical.”
Baekhyun huffs. “Therein lies the problem.”
Incredulous, Luhan pinches his friend in the stomach. “Just flip a coin or something, oh my god. You know you’d be happy with either one, anyway.” Right then, an idea hits. “Or you could just sleep with both of them.”
“You know,” Baekhyun says conversationally, sitting back and loading up Grindr. “If you were gay, you’d have so many guys tripping over themselves just to get you to look at them. I can already imagine your Grindr profile - sarcastic, no fucks given, a couple of blurry pictures that turn out to be artistic instead of half-assed.”
Luhan doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he settles for watching Baekhyun message both guys with a simple and straightforward: down for a threesome?
He’s rounding a corner when he runs right into something solid, nose throbbing with the force of it. A grunt, surprised and pained, slips out of him and Luhan feels his entire face scrunch up.
“Shit,” he hears, “I’m so sorry. You okay?”
It takes an embarrassingly long time for Luhan to place the voice, and when he finally does, he nearly gives himself whiplash from how hard he snaps his head up.
Sehun is mere inches away, looking down at him with clear concern in his eyes. He’s got a laptop in one hand and a pair of headphones in the other, and Luhan is momentarily rendered speechless when he gets to witness a lock of hair fall attractively into deep brown eyes.
“Fine,” he says thickly, still rubbing at his nose. “You, uh, have a hard back.”
A beat, then a grin spreads slowly across Sehun’s face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Sound trickles faintly from the headphones in Sehun’s grasp and Luhan glances down to see something playing on the screen of Sehun’s laptop.
“What are you watching?”
Sehun brightens visibly at the question and Luhan finds himself getting tugged over to a window, where they end up perched on the ledge with Sehun’s laptop resting on his knee.
“Pulp Fiction,” Sehun declares, brandishing his headphones. “One of the best films of all time.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Luhan blurts, then promptly winces. If this is Sehun’s favourite film, saying point blank that he’s never seen it before is probably not the best way to go about this budding crush of his.
But Sehun doesn’t seem offended whatsoever. In fact, that little tidbit seems to stoke his excitement.
“You have to watch it,” Sehun tells him, unplugging his headphones and turning the volume up a few notches. “Unprecedented. A mindblowing, post-modern mix of neo-noir, dark humor, and pop-culture. Undoubtedly Tarantino’s best work.”
He sounds so reverent of the film that Luhan immediately adds it to his mental to-do list. When he nods in agreement, Sehun smiles at him, all sunshine and sugar, and Luhan edits his to-do list to say: watch Pulp Fiction ten times.
“Are you going to this week’s meeting? I’ve heard that we’ll be discussing The Silence of the Lambs and I can’t wait.”
A small part of Luhan curses himself for having signed up, because how is he ever going to say no to attending the stupid meetings when he is clearly interested in Sehun and Sehun is clearly interested in film and theatre? Luhan knows that part of himself very well - it’s the part that believes he’ll get over his attraction to men, the part that keeps up his long-time charade of picking up girls at parties, the part that clears his phone and laptop histories obsessively whenever he watches gay porn.
He knows that part of himself and he hates it.
Jaw tight, he nods and says, “Yeah, probably. You like that film too?”
That sets Sehun off again and Luhan willingly lets his voice wash over him like a wave of warmth.
The air around them is oily and greasy and Luhan loves it. He and his boys have been coming to this fish and chips shop ever since freshman year and it’s one of his favourite forms of catharsis. Crispy on the outside yet soft and tender on the inside, Luhan never fails to clear his styrofoam box of food.
“Hey,” Minseok says, noisily sucking his fingertips clean of oil. “We got invited to a house party Friday night.”
“Yeah? Whose?”
“Else, can you believe it? I guess she really likes you.”
Luhan barely manages to fight back his repulsion. “I made it very clear to her it was a one-time thing.”
To his left, Marwan snorts incredulously. “The fuck? Why?”
Luhan shrugs. “Not interested in anything more.”
“But have you seen her?”
“If I haven’t, it would have been pretty damn hard for me to have hooked up with her, no?” Luhan replies, dry. He picks up a fry and dunks it into a plastic pot of mayo.
“Whatever,” Marwan says. He steals a handful of Minseok’s fries and stuffs them all into his mouth. “We’re going to that party and you’re coming too.”
Declining would be the gateway to a massive shitstorm of questions, so Luhan simply hums his assent and turns back to his food. Somehow, it tastes much too bland. He chews methodically - bite bite bite, swallow, repeat - and listens to his friends talk excitedly about the party, relying solely on his instincts to reply exactly when he should. A laugh here, a couple of words there, and his friends don’t even seem to notice that he doesn’t care.
The sunlight is still sharp by the time they leave the shop, the light bouncing off a thin sheen of oil lingering on their lips. Luhan bids his friends goodbye at the crossroads, trading one-armed hugs and fist bumps before they part ways. It’s a short walk home and Luhan enjoys the brief moment of solitude, pulling a snapback down over his eyes and clamping it in place with a pair of headphones. Now all he hears is his music, all he sees is the few feet of pavement ahead of him, and all he feels is the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.
For a while, he can just be himself.
He lets his thoughts roam and unsurprisingly, they land on a certain boy - tall, with an exquisite smile and warm brown eyes that crinkle when he laughs. Sighing, Luhan pulls out his phone and brings up Facebook. He types in Sehun’s name and scrolls through almost three dozen Oh Sehuns before he gives up. Instagram is next, and Luhan almost gets sidetracked when he finds himself looking through pictures of the cutest Maltipoo whose owner just happens to share the same name as Sehun.
Then, on a whim, Luhan types Sehun’s name into the search bar on YouTube. The guy likes films and theatre - thinking he might have a YouTube account isn’t that outrageous of an assumption, right?
And… there it is, the fourth video, with Sehun’s face right on the thumbnail.
Luhan is mere minutes away from home, but he finds himself moving off the street and leaning against a brick wall, fingertip pressing down against the screen of his phone to load the video.
Sehun’s voice floods his ears and Luhan is suddenly torn between watching Sehun’s animated expressions or listen to his equally cheerful words. What Luhan gathers from the video - it’s shaky and the person who’s filming likes to talk extremely loudly -, Sehun is reciting lines for a play, parading through the halls of his old school in an oversized shirt and skinny jeans. He looks radiant.
It’s a short video, barely two minutes long, but Sehun laughs through half of it.
In the end, Luhan finds himself walking home with it playing in his mind, in a loop, over and over again.
“So?” Sehun prompts, leaning against the wall and looking like an honest-to-god model. “What did you think of the discussion today?”
Dusk is just beginning to fall, draping a section of Sehun’s face with faint shades of purple that cut perfectly across his cheekbone. Just like last time, they’ve skipped the last ten minutes of the meeting, sharing yet another blunt between them. Sehun takes a few puffs and magnanimously tells Luhan to have the rest.
“It was…” Luhan lets out a stream of smoke. “Enlightening. I never really gave that much thought to a movie before. Changes a few things, huh?”
Sehun hums, thin fingers reaching out to pinch the tip of the blunt before he brings it to his lips. “I’ve loved films for as long as I can remember, so over-analyzing them is kinda my hobby. It’s interesting, you know, getting into the heads of the people behind them. Gives you a whole new perspective on things.”
It’s captivating, the way Sehun’s lips purse just the slightest around the blunt and the way his cheeks hollow when he sucks. Luhan swallows, mouth suddenly full of cotton.
“Were you, uh, ever a theatre kid? Like, acting, I mean.”
That has Sehun grinning sheepishly, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he passes the blunt back over. “Yeah, I was. I was in every single play and I would even offer to be part of the backstage crew. Can you believe that I learned how to sew just because I wanted to be involved in creating the costumes?”
Luhan lets out one plume of smoke and grinds out the remains of the blunt under his heel. “I’d like to have seen one of your plays.”
He nearly jumps out of his skin when a warm hand curls around his wrist. “I have them on tape.” A laugh, and Luhan shivers pleasantly. “My mother refuses to ever get rid of them. If you want, you can come over one day to watch some.”
Luhan’s stomach plummets and skyrockets right back up into his throat in the span of two seconds.
“...Really?”
“Of course! Not to sound like an arrogant asshole, but it gives me great joy whenever someone watches something I’m in.”
Gold replaces purple, gilding every line of Sehun’s face like he’s one of the world’s most precious artifacts. It turns the shade of his irises from a deep brown to a warm amber and Luhan wonders if he tastes as sweet as he looks.
“How about tomorrow? After school? I’d say right now, but I have an appointment that I can’t miss.”
“Friday?”
Sehun nods and the setting sun beams off his hair.
Friday, Luhan thinks. Something nags at him - does he have something else planned for Friday? But whatever it is isn’t coming to mind, so Luhan ends up nodding and saying, “Sure. I’m looking forward to it.”
A handful of rain droplets are dotting the pavement, forcing darker grey to blend into lighter grey. They’re fat droplets and Luhan feels the sting when one smacks against the curve of his cheek.
“It’s just a short bus ride,” Sehun’s saying next to him, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket and broad shoulders hunched in just the slightest. If Luhan focuses hard enough, he can spot tiny water droplets clinging to the curl of Sehun’s lashes.
They’re squeezed into a corner of the bus stop with their fellow students, the air around them smelling of damp grass and faint petrichor. Sehun’s arm is a line of warmth against Luhan’s, enough to chase away the traces of autumn’s chill trying to settle into his bones.
When he chances a look up at Sehun’s face, he gets a second or two to study the angle of his jaw before Sehun notices and smiles down at him. That sends a rush of heat up his cheeks and Luhan suppresses a hacking cough that attempts to crawl out of his throat.
Thankfully, a bus rumbles up right then and Sehun nudges him forward with a hand pressed to his back. “C’mon, let’s get going before the rest of the school comes swarming out and clogs up the bus.”
It’s packed as it is, even without the rest of the students. Luhan finds himself with a pole digging into his hip and Sehun’s shoulder a mere inch away from his face when the bus lurches forward. Amidst the chatter and the loud rattle of the bus’ engine, he doesn’t hear his phone trill with a new message.
“You okay? Enough space?”
Luhan tightens his grip around the pole - trying his best not to think of the fact that Sehun’s hand is right above his - and nods. “Yeah, but if I step on your feet, I’m sorry.”
Sehun just smiles, as sunny as ever, and Luhan wonders how a person could possibly be this perfect.
They push their way through the crowd and pop out of the bus ten minutes later, feeling a little rumpled but none the worse for wear. Sehun leads the two of them to a nondescript apartment building, stopping by the rows of mailboxes to open one and pull out a few letters.
“Bills.” Waving the envelopes in his hand, Sehun pulls a face and gestures towards the elevator with his head. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Luhan mumbles.
It almost feels like a dream. Things are little hazy around the corners and there’s a lightness to their movements that Luhan finds enthralling. Perhaps it’s due to the weed, Luhan thinks, toes curling underneath the woolly blanket Sehun had draped over them. The huge stack of homemade cheese toasties certainly does not make things any worse, either.
They’ve already gone through a third of the home DVDs that Sehun unearthed from one of the drawers, and it pains Luhan to say that Sehun’s performance in all of the plays he’s been a part of are… well, perfect. He delivers his lines flawlessly, emotes naturally, and moves across the stage like he was born to be up there.
“You’re good.” Luhan takes a sip from his beer - “I won’t tell if you won’t,” Sehun had said with a grin when Luhan informed him that he’s still a minor - and motions to the screen. “You ever think of going professional?”
Sehun lifts a shoulder, modest. “Thanks. And yeah, in a sense. I think I’d prefer being behind the scenes though. Directing, I mean. I want to create something and breathe life into it.”
Time slithers by, as slow and thick as honey.
“Should’ve added some spices,” Luhan comments out of the blue, punctuating his statement by taking a large bite of a toastie. It’s still good, but it’s missing that extra kick.
“Which spices?”
Luhan licks off the crumbs around his mouth and burrows deeper under the blanket. “Caribbean Jerk,” he says, lifting a finger. “Chili flakes. Cardamom.”
Next to him, Sehun is nodding seriously, his eyes still fixed on the TV screen. “I think I have all of those.”
“As you should,” Luhan says, and watches as the Sehun on screen proceeds to bring the house down.
They’re in the middle of Othello when the doorbell buzzes. Sehun jerks violently, foot slamming into the underside of the coffee table in his surprise. “Shit, what time is it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s scrambling off the couch, tugging the blanket clean off Luhan’s lap with the movement.
The front door opens and Luhan watches as a girl enters, long chestnut hair swept over a shoulder and sprinkled with rain. Sehun steps close, head bent as he says something, and the girl smiles up at him in a way that has Luhan’s heart seizing painfully.
Sehun takes her coat and hangs it up on a peg, free hand curling around her elbow. She stays close to his side, in his space, breathes in his air.
“Sorry,” Luhan hears him say, “I lost track of time. Amie, this is Luhan. He’s a friend from school and we’re both in the theatre and film club. Luhan, this is Amie. She’s my girlfriend.”
At a complete loss for words, all Luhan can do is offer Amie a shaky smile. She returns it easily enough before she turns for a kiss, one that Sehun gives, fingers under her chin to keep her in place.
Luhan’s phone pings then, and he tears his eyes - burning and dry - away from the couple to stare down at his phone.
dude, where the fuck are you?
else is asking about you, man. when are you getting here?
It’s past dinnertime and the indigo sky is already dipping into ink.
sorry. felt sick, probably gonna stay home.
“I have to go,” he blurts, springing to his feet. Sehun peels away from Amie long enough to look at him and nod.
“Yeah, of course. Sorry for keeping you this long, I didn’t realise it was so late. See you on Monday?”
Luhan mumbles something in response and practically bolts from the apartment. His pulse doesn’t slow until he’s safely back in his own room twenty-three minutes later, hair sticking to the back of his neck and nails digging craters into the flesh of his palms.
If there’s something Luhan truly hates in this world, it would probably be his fucking locker. He gets into a wrestling match with the blasted thing every single time he wants to close the door, and most of the time, he loses.
He’s moments away from slamming his entire body weight against the locker in a last-ditch attempt to close it when Vera appears by his elbow, eyes bright and wide as she fixes him with an expectant look.
Chest heaving, Luhan pushes his hair out of his eyes and drops his pile of books onto the floor by his feet. “...Yes?”
“We’re planning to have a party next week,” she chirps, head cocking to one side. “And I want you to host.”
“You want me to - what? Why me?”
She shrugs, unbothered. “Because no adults live with you and you have a place big enough to hold us all.”
With that, she grins at him and flounces off, hair swinging so forcefully that Luhan’s hit in the face with a strong whiff of magnolias. He sighs, slams the door of his locker, and rolls his eyes when it bounces off the frame and swings open once more. Whatever, all he has inside are his textbooks anyway. If some fucker wants them, they can have them.
He picks up the books by his feet and is just about to head to class when he spots Else down the hallway by her own locker, looking right at him. Her expression is unreadable and Luhan suddenly remembers the plethora of Are you gay? and How to tell if you are gay quizzes that he spent the whole afternoon on Sunday taking.
you’re not gay, but you could be a little straighter.
He refuses to think about the fact that for most of the questions, his answers were false.
When he turns to leave, grip tight on the hard spines of his books, Else’s gaze burns a hole straight through the back of his head.
“Do you think he’s gay?”
“What?”
“The dance instructor. He seems super gay.”
The moment those words leave his mouth, Luhan wishes he could take them right back.
“What’s wrong with being super gay?”
His throat is sandpaper dry. “Nothing.”
Minseok’s just about to reply when a shadow falls over them. Luhan looks up to see Sehun standing there, lips full and pouty, his tongue just a sliver of pink between them.
“You left this,” Sehun says, tossing a snapback at him. “Thought you might want it back.”
Luhan stares, Sehun crooks an eyebrow, and no one speaks. Then Sehun’s lips curve up at the corners and he leaves with a nod of his head, leaving Luhan clutching at the snapback and losing his goddamn wits.
“Who was that?”
“We’re in the theatre club together.”
“Why does he have your snapback?”
“Must’ve left it at the meeting last week. He usually sits behind me.”
It’s damning, the way lies flow so easily out of his mouth.
Somehow, he finds himself with Else right next to him, the neckline of her blouse hanging dangerously low around the swells of her breasts. She leans close, glossed lips claiming a place by Luhan’s ear. He lets her talk, donning a well-worn mask that has her thinking he’s hanging onto her every word when in reality, all that’s on his mind is Sehun and Amie in the far corner of the room.
The apartment is packed to the brim - how the hell did Vera manage to get such a huge turnout when their theatre group only has approximately twenty people? - and Luhan’s view is constantly getting blocked by passing heads. But he keeps his eyes fixed on that corner, ignoring the cheap neon lights pulsing in his periphery, and settles into a twisted, masochistic game of seeing how much he can stomach before he has to look away.
The couple is engrossed in each other, all wandering hands and kiss-bitten lips, and Luhan cannot fight the churn of jealousy deep in his gut. His skin crawls when Else rests a dainty hand on the inside of his forearm, coincidentally mirroring the way Amie holds onto Sehun. She’s marking her territory, Luhan can tell. The way her fingers curl into the thick locks of Sehun’s hair cannot be mistaken as anything else, nor can the way she angles his head to lick deep into his mouth.
Luhan’s mesmerized by the way Sehun’s jaw works when Sehun’s eyes suddenly fly open and lock with his. They’re dark and intent, pulling Luhan right under until he’s scrambling for air.
Else stops talking and Luhan acts on instinct, hauling her onto his lap and cutting off her squawk of surprise with his lips. When he dares to look back into the corner, Sehun is still looking at him, and Luhan wants. Just like that, with their mouths on their respective girls and their gazes trained on each other, they wile away the minutes.
It’s late and all Luhan wants to do is sleep, but he knows his flatmates will not be happy if they woke up to see the apartment floors covered with trash. So, with his limbs and eyelids equally heavy, he drags a trash bag around the empty apartment. It fills quickly, and by the time he’s crossing the threshold of the kitchen, he needs a new one.
But before he can get another, the one in his hands slips out of his grip at the sight of Sehun in his kitchen, standing over the sink with a bunch of soapy cups in hand. Bits of trash spill out of the open bag.
“What are you doing here?”
Sehun looks over his shoulder, unperturbed by Luhan’s sudden outburst.
“Thought I’d hang around and help with the clean-up. Don’t you have flatmates? Why are you doing this alone?”
“Yeah, but they’re not involved with the club, so I thought to ask them to help clean up would be - wait, I thought you left with your girlfriend.”
Ceramic clinks when Sehun sets a couple of mugs down on the drying rack.
“No, I came on my bike. Have to take it home. And didn’t I see a flatmate of yours right in the middle of the dance floor?”
“Baekhyun likes to have fun,” Luhan snorts. Bending, he stuffs the spilt trash back into the bag, knotting it up when he’s done and setting it aside. “He doesn’t like to clean up after the fun.”
They work in silence for a while, Luhan clearing the counters of trash while Sehun scrubs all the dishes clean. Luhan is busy wiping the surfaces down when he realises that the sound of running water is no more, and he turns to see Sehun leaning against the edge of the sink with a dish towel in his hands, quietly studying him.
“Um,” he says, and Sehun smiles.
“So,” Sehun begins. He sets the dish towel aside and takes a step closer. “How long have you been with Else?”
“I’m not with her,” Luhan replies, pulse speeding up with every step Sehun takes. “We hooked up once and she’s been trying to get more.”
“You don’t want more?”
The lump in his throat is in the goddamn way, but Luhan manages to swallow anyway. “No. Not with her.”
Sehun takes yet another step forward and Luhan backs up immediately, elbow knocking into the bottle of cleaning spray. It topples over with a low thud and Sehun reaches out to set it back upright.
“No?” Sehun echoes. The inside of his wrist brushes against the skin of Luhan’s arm. “With who, then?”
He’s so close now that Luhan has to physically tilt his head back to look up at Sehun. God, he can practically count each individual eyelash clinging to Sehun’s eyelids. The faint scent of laundry detergent and aftershave is delightful - Luhan breathes in long and deep.
“Someone,” he hears himself say. Sehun hums thoughtfully, both arms locked against the edge of the counter and keeping Luhan in place.
“Someone I know?”
He hears the words, but all Luhan registers is the loud pounding of his heart in his ears and the sight of Sehun’s lips so close to his own. They’re literally right there, and if he just -
A loud bang echoes through the apartment and they spring apart moments before Baekhyun comes sauntering into the kitchen. Luhan wants to scream.
Texts from his mother are flooding in, one after another at a rapid pace, and they don’t seem to be slowing any time soon. His phone rattles insistently across the surface of the table and when he sighs, Saira’s hand shoots out to stop it from dropping off the edge.
“Do you maybe wanna answer one of those texts?”
“It’s just my mother,” Luhan mutters, fiddling with his pen. “She’s…” He shrugs, helpless. “She has many thoughts.”
Saira frowns at him, perfect eyebrows dipping in an effort to meet in the middle. “Thoughts?”
The tip of Luhan’s pen presses so hard into the paper that it bleeds through a few sheets. He stares at the blooming spot of ink and gets the sudden urge to wipe his phone clean of all of her text messages.
“Thoughts,” he repeats, and turns a page.
Thankfully, Saira doesn’t push any further. They return to their project, and although Luhan ends up staring off into the distance rather than doing any actual work, Saira doesn’t complain.
During this lull in conversation, Luhan’s mind runs wild, jumping from one train to another so quickly it makes him dizzy. When it finally stops, he can’t help but open his mouth and utter the last thing he thought of. “Why do you believe in religion?”
Saira’s hand freezes, her pen in the middle of curling out the end of the letter g.
“Do you want to know my personal reasons or is this a general question?”
“Dunno,” Luhan sighs, frowning down at his notebook. His notes truly are a dreadful mess. “Both?”
“Religion is different for everyone.” Saira finishes writing her sentence and leans back in her seat, studying Luhan through thick lashes. “It gives me comfort, guidance, faith. A moral code. A community.”
“Don’t you think it’s unfair,” Luhan begins, “that gods are the ones that determine if something is right or wrong? If someone suffers from a disorder that has people think they’re fucked up? What gives them the right to make such a decision when they don’t even live to experience it?”
Saira exhales slowly, fingertip tapping steadily against the bow of her upper lip and interrupting the flow of air. “Are you talking about anything in particular?”
“Dunno,” Luhan repeats. “Things like mental illness, or like, homosexuality. Or something.”
Silence fills the space between and around them, and in a weak attempt to offset the tense awkwardness, Luhan starts writing down random words along the margins of his notebook.
“Can I just ask; if you don’t believe in a god, what do you believe in?”
“Science.” It’s an easy, automatic answer, because it’s the only one that makes sense. “It explains things, provides evidence, makes logical sense.”
At that, Saira can’t help but let out a noise of disbelief. “Science does not always make sense. Homosexuality is a genetic dead end, is it not? If they don’t reproduce, how can homosexuals pass on their genes?”
“Studies have suggested that women tend to have more children when they inherit the genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This compensates for the lack of offspring by gay men and also keeps the ‘gay gene’ in the gene pool.” Luhan lifts an eyebrow, defiant.
Saira huffs. “That is one explanation, but not necessarily the explanation. There are just some things we have no way of knowing, Luhan, regardless of the manner of reasoning behind it. I do not blindly follow everything my religion claims to be right and true. When it comes to my beliefs, I know I can decide for myself, and I do.”
Luhan doesn’t quite know what to say to that. His phone buzzes yet again, and he sets it to silent before turning back to his work. Across the table, Saira follows suit.
There’s a slip of paper stuck to the front of his locker, the bottom edge flapping lightly whenever someone walks by and displaces the air. Luhan keeps his eyes on it as he makes his way through the horde of students, getting an accidental elbow to the ribs when he trips over someone’s bag and nearly headbutts them.
When he finally makes it to his locker, Luhan tugs the paper free and stares down at it. It’s an ink drawing, a short comic of three frames. In the first frame, a figure is seated on a large rock overlooking the sea with something in his lap. It turns out to be a sketchbook, depicted in the second frame, with a rough sketch on its page. In the third frame, a second figure is seen out in the distance, the edge of the sketchbook visible in the corner of the frame.
At the bottom of the comic is the following sentence: wanna skip last period tomorrow and come with me to the beach? - sehun
Before his brain can even begin to process what he just read, he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see Else standing there, bright red lips practically glowing under fluorescent lights.
“Uh,” he says.
“So there’s this action movie that just came out,” she begins, either choosing to ignore Luhan’s clear disinterest or she’s just that oblivious, “and I was wondering if you’d want to take me out to see it.”
“I’m… I have plans,” Luhan says feebly.
Her eyes narrow, the flirty smile on her lips giving way to a scowl. “I didn’t even say when.”
“I’m busy today - we have the club meeting later, don’t we? -, I have plans tomorrow, and I’ll be busy on the weekend too.”
Well, he guesses he’ll be meeting up with Sehun tomorrow after all.
Else, unhappy but unable to find a hole in Luhan's excuse, turns on her heel and stalks down the hallway. With each step she takes, the panic that’s wound tight around Luhan’s lungs eases. It doesn’t go away completely, not when she’s in the theatre club and he knows that he’ll have to see her after school, but it’s enough to slow the rapid firing of his heart.
Too preoccupied with his thoughts, Luhan visibly startles when the bell rings. He engages in yet another wrestling match with his locker in an attempt to get his books for the next two periods; he wins, eventually, but not without breaking a sweat. Sehun’s drawing crinkles slightly in his grip, so he slots it gently between two pages of his chemistry textbook and books it to class.
“So,” Luhan begins, shifting awkwardly on the smooth face of the rock. “What exactly are we doing here?”
Sehun digs around in his backpack and brandishes a sketchbook, hair looking like liquid burnished gold in the late afternoon sun. “It’s for an art project. I was hoping you’d model for me.”
“Sure, but why didn’t you ask Amie?”
A pause, in which Sehun stays silent, and Luhan waits for a few moments before he looks over his shoulder. Sehun’s head is tipped down, knuckles pale around his pencil, and there’s a crease between his brows that Luhan really wants to smooth out. A flip of the sketchbook, then: “She’s busy.”
Luhan isn’t the most perceptive of people, but even he knows that this is a line of conversation that he should not be pursuing. So he shuts up, turns back around to face the sea, and listens to the scratch of Sehun’s pencil as he starts drawing.
It’s nice out, warm enough to not warrant extra layers but cool enough to keep the sweat at bay. The waves lapping at the shoreline is a hypnotizing sight and it lulls Luhan into a calmness he has never experienced before. It lets minutes slip by, soft and easy, and a full hour passes in the blink of an eye.
“Wanna look? It’s just a rough sketch, but I’ll refine it later.”
Something in Luhan’s knee cracks when he stands, but he feels so at ease that the aches in his body don’t bother him in the least.
“What’s the concept anyway? Why did we have to come to the beach?”
“Open space,” Sehun answers, handing over the sketchbook when Luhan is within reach.
Sure enough, most of the paper is left blank. Only the bottom quarter of the sheet has been used - the jagged edges of the rocks, the shape of Luhan’s frame, a hint of the beach and ocean below. The lines are seemingly haphazard, but there’s a precision and crispness to them that sets it apart from other sketches Luhan’s seen over the years.
“I like it,” Luhan says, careful not to smudge the graphite. “Is it finished or will you be adding more to it?”
“Watercolours.” Sehun gestures to the view. “But only what’s necessary to capture all of this.”
The beach they’re at isn’t a tourist beach - the sand is too rough, there are too many rocks, and the surrounding cliff faces are tall enough that it doesn’t get enough sun to warrant sunbathing. Even the locals tend to stay away from this beach.
Luhan thinks there’s a beauty to it, however. Untouched, it holds secrets that only a handful of people are ever privy to.
“Anyway, thanks for sitting for me,” Sehun says, carefully sliding the sketchbook back into his bag. “Are you in a rush to head home?”
Luhan replies with a shake of his head. Pass up more time with Sehun just to have Baekhyun squish him into a corner of the couch and torture him with pictures of hot men? No thanks.
“Wanna walk along the beach?”
Grains of sand are rough beneath his feet and Sehun’s arm is warm against his.
Sehun’s picking up tiny shells every few steps, collecting them in the cup of his palm until it overflows, at which point he lets them fall through the gaps between his fingers before starting over.
“Hey, this is probably a weird question, but do you know what time you were born?”
“20:20,” Luhan answers. “I remember because I was born on the 20th.”
Sehun simply smiles.
They walk in silence, edging closer to the water until it starts lapping at their ankles, washing over the tops of their feet. Luhan unearths a blunt from his backpack and lights it up - they pass it between them, sucking casually on it until they reach a shallow pool, with water as clear as crystal.
Sehun tosses him a look, then tosses his belongings onto the sand, pulls his jeans up past his knees, and wades in. Luhan does the first thing that comes to mind: he follows.
The water is surprisingly cold, firing goosebumps down Luhan’s arms like a line of dominos the second he breaks the surface with his toes. He yelps, jumps, and tumbles right into Sehun.
“Shit,” Luhan wheezes, clutching onto wide shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t expect it to be so cold.”
There’s an arm around his waist holding him up and it stays there even when Luhan calms down.
“Can I ask you something?”
The arm tightens its grip and Luhan finds himself tugged closer to Sehun. He barely manages to nod.
“Can I kiss you?”
It’s embarrassing, really, how quickly Luhan blurts out a, “Yes.”
It’s just as embarrassing how long it takes for the thought you asshole, he has a girlfriend! to wriggle into his mind. But by the time it does, he’s already in the middle of getting his life kissed right out of him, lungs seizing with the need for air but lips unwilling to pull away.
A hand curls around his neck to hold him in place, something that Luhan is immensely grateful for, because he’s quite sure he would be a useless mess of limbs without Sehun’s literal support. He tries to give back as good as he’s getting, but it turns out that despite all the practice he’s had with girls, kissing Sehun is wholly different and new.
It doesn’t help that Sehun’s a fucking good kisser, either. In all honesty, it’s really quite unfair.
Sehun doesn’t dally, doesn’t start off slow. No, he goes straight for the kill, easily coaxing Luhan’s lips apart and licking in deep once granted access. It’s mind numbing and electrifying all at once and Luhan can’t help the weak sound that passes from his throat into Sehun’s.
For the sound, he’s rewarded with a chuckle, Sehun’s lips still flush against his, ripe with the taste of conquest.
“Stop laughing,” Luhan mumbles weakly, fingers tight around handfuls of Sehun’s shirt.
“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry, but Luhan can’t find it within himself to complain.
A few more chaste pecks and Sehun leans back, absently sweeping a few strands of his hair out of his eyes. “You know, I think I’d like to stay here, like this, with you forever.”
Luhan stares at Sehun’s kiss-bruised lips. “Yeah,” he hears himself say. “Me too.”
Part Two