odwilż (the thaw) 1/3
Title: odwilż (the thaw)
Author: ajin
Pairing: Luhan/Sehun, Kris/Luhan, Luhan/Yixing, Kris/Yixing, OT12
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Romance
Word Count: 26,747
Summary: Luhan lives a thousand times, searching for the meaning of the never-ending circle that he's stuck in.
There’s a list of songs that I listened to on repeat while writing this fic. If you want, you can access the playlist here
Sometimes it takes a few seconds, sometimes even days. It’s all a blur in his head - too many years, places, people, things he just cannot connect. There was a starting point and a reason, he knows that much. It didn’t happen because someone snapped their fingers or because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s probably his fault. No. It definitely is his fault. He can remember the feeling of despair as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. He wanted to get away. He took a few steps too many and tumbled down faster and faster until he crashed. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. His bones broke and crumbled and got scattered around. There was blood everywhere, probably, most likely, though he’s not sure now. He couldn’t move but the ground felt too sticky for it to be soil. The roaring in his ears made him dizzy and all he wanted was for it all to just end right there. He closed his eyes and tried to pray, while his fingers trembled and his heartbeat slowed down. Then, as if a curtain fell, everything cut off. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, he was somewhere he had never been before.
*
Sehun is officially fed up with life. He couldn’t agree more with the saying that life is long and grey and shitty, just like toilet paper. What’s more, he thinks that submitting a huge canvas with toilet paper glued to it at random might actually become the masterpiece he has always longed to create. The depth, the contrast, the social critique, it would have it all. He can bet that even Jongin would agree. After all, his flatmate always tells him how boring his works are and how he should let his inner creativity out.
He stares at the canvas for so long that the paint on his palette hardens and the hand with which he’s holding his brush becomes numb. He has less than a week to finish the end of term work. He has spent almost a week already doing it. However, the half-completed painting of a sunset on a beach looks so offending to him that he grabs the bottle of turpentine from the nearest table and throws it at the painting with all his might. The sound of glass breaking and scattering in all directions is deafening, and he barely manages to get out of the way of a particularly big shard of glass. The solvent trickles down onto the floor and the smell becomes overbearing. Sehun can feel a headache coming and how is he even going to clean this and why did he do this and what if Jongin comes home before he’s done cleaning and-
He opens the window in the living room and shamelessly vomits onto the pavement from the third floor. As luck seems to finally be on his side, he manages to water all of the plants that his neighbour from the floor below keeps on the window sill in the process. Sehun almost feels like high five-ing himself and suddenly cleaning the vile mess he made seems a bit more fun.
Jongin stops in the door to the living room and silently stares at him lying on the floor next to a considerably big trash bag. One of his eyebrows seems to be twitching and Sehun can’t decide if it’s the moment to run away yet. However, all Jongin does in the end is sigh dramatically and push Sehun out of the flat. He throws the thrash bag at him just before slamming the door shut. Sehun deems it all to be a good omen and sets onto the epic garbage adventure with a smile.
He’s going back to the flat when he hears the screech of the tires of a car. It’s followed by a thud and the most chilling sound of bones breaking that he’s ever heard. He stops in his tracks and looks at the pavement with his mouth hanging open. It’s definitely not every day that a horribly disfigured body lands at his feet or his shoes get sprinkled by blood. He promptly vomits the second time.
He has no idea why he needs to go to the police station. Yes, he was a random spectator of the drama that was the hit-and-run. Yes, he saw the car. But no, he has no idea what its license plate was or what the driver looked like. And no, he definitely doesn’t know the victim and please just stop making him look at the carcass.
When Sehun gets a moment alone in the empty corridor of the police station, he takes a deep breath, counts to ten and pinches himself. Still, he doesn’t suddenly find himself back home. The walls around him are plain and boring, and he has the face of the victim memorized.
He fails the painting course spectacularly enough for it to go down in his university’s history. Even Kris, whose artistic side doesn’t exist in any universe and who ended up taking the course by mistake, manages to pass. Sehun almost feels like crying because this is just too humiliating. He can't even begin to fathom how he’s going to avoid his parents’ phone calls today. They wished for him to study something proper, like medicine or law. Him persuading them to let him major in arts was a miracle and such miracles should be treasured, not destroyed.
“Stop looking at me like you’re a puppy that just got kicked,” Jongin grumbles and plugs the telephone cable back in for the hundredth time. “Yes, you did fail that course but for fuck’s sake it’s not even a whole unit. Just take something extra next term and make up for it.”
Sehun successfully manages to tear up and pouts. “But-but I can’t lie to my parents.”
All Jongin can do in response is start laughing because Sehun is the type of a person who will do anything to get his way. Lying has never been a big deal and ever since Jongin can remember his annoying friend has been lying to his parents if the situation required him to do so. “Why are you saying such nonsense?”
Sehun shifts uncomfortably on the floor and Jongin narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”
“Nothing?”
“Stop shitting me.”
“Well...I...uhm...I told them that my average mark’s a first,” Sehun mumbles more to himself than Jongin. It’s nice of Jongin to take interest in his horrible life but right now nothing and no one can save him from having his money source cut off.
“This is almost worth a slow clap. Just find a different subject next term and pass it well enough to get a first. I have no sympathy for you.”
Sehun starts moving slowly but surely towards the phone socket.
“And no, you can’t unplug the phone!”
He gets a phone call some half an hour later. He lies but it backfires on him anyway. He knew it would. And thus not only is he short of half a unit, he also has no money. Life being like toilet paper? Yes and to the power of infinity.
He’s walking to the job interview when someone bumps into him. Sehun loses his balance and lands on the pavement hard. The stranger apologizes to him profoundly and then excuses himself because he’s running late. Sehun is unable to utter even a word during the whole incident for the stranger’s face is eerily familiar, as it’s a face he swore he would never forget.
*
When he tries, he’s able to remember the second time as well. It wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It wasn’t even that painful or long. It seemed like a dream at that point - surreal, happening as if in slow-motion, with colours faded and no second plan.
He opened his eyes and discovered that he was lying on a mattress in the middle of a sea, or maybe an ocean. Water was everywhere beneath him. Above him there was only a vast blue sky. He was alone, so alone that he couldn’t even hear the sound of fish swimming or birds singing. There was only him, the mattress, the sea and the sky.
He fell asleep soon afterwards as the gentle waves performed the most effective lullaby. His sleep was deep and dreamless until suddenly he was flying and then plunging towards the ground like a stone, his wings trying to move but only managing to wriggle grotesquely.
He woke up underwater. His lungs were constricting painfully, trying to get the excessive water out of his system. His legs and arms felt heavy, almost like lead. When he looked up, he saw the dark shadow of the mattress looming far above him, getting smaller with each watery breath he took. Smaller and smaller as his vision turned more and more black. Then, once again everything abruptly stopped.
*
Sehun is still in a state of shock. Not because of the stranger he encountered earlier but rather because he got the job. It’s an utter mystery how it happened. During the interview he was so out of it that he felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience. He’s sure that Jongin would have something to say about this small miracle, something along the lines of: “Sehun, we all know that you’re the smartest when you don’t think”. Not that Sehun disagrees. After all, he’s prone to over-thinking which usually results in him brooding and shooting death glares at anyone who’s nearby.
There’s one incident connected to Sehun’s over-thinking that haunts him even now, although it happened a good few years ago. It haunts him, for it is Jongin’s favourite let’s-break-the-ice story. His flatmate uses it almost at every party and very effectively at that. Sehun can’t comprehend why it works. For him, it isn’t funny at all.
They weren’t classmates at that time but still shared the biology class. One uneventful day, while Sehun was minding his own business and diligently taking notes, the teacher suddenly stopped talking and looked straight at him. Sehun raised an eyebrow. The teacher raised an eyebrow. The whole class turned around to stare as well. A dramatic silence ensued.
“Sehun, are you planning how to kill me?” asked the teacher seriously.
“What, why?!” answered Sehun.
“Because you keep staring at me with killing intent written all over your face. I don’t think I’m going to be able to continue teaching this class at this rate.”
Sehun couldn’t have been happier when he graduated. Finally people were going to stop making jokes about his facial expressions. Boy was he wrong.
Jongin needs to only take one look at him to know. “You got the job. Lord help us all, you’re actually smiling. Sehun, it’s creepy. Please stop.”
*
After the second time, he’s not sure about anything anymore. He visited various places, did sometimes completely outrageous things and then died. It’s not always the work of deus ex machina. More often than not, he gives up on his new lives himself. There’s always a void somewhere inside him. It’s a dark place, a place packed with resignation, emptiness and yearning for something more that he clearly can’t have.
Sometimes he feels like his existence could be defined as a big, black and white clock with its arms spinning in opposite directions. Spinning so fast that one can’t read the time. Spinning and spinning until they blur and become one. At the times when he feels like this, he wishes that the clock would stop and turn back. Whatever happened in the past, he’s sure that his first life was better than the infinite forgettable lives he leads now.
*
It’s Sehun’s second week working as a waiter at a cosy little Thai restaurant close to his uni (or as Kyungsoo once said during that boring The Theory of Art class, “Do you mean that over-priced den that serves pseudo-Thai food which tastes like a 5-year-old cooked it?”). So far it's been a relatively easy ride. So far.
“I see the bitchface’s made its glorious return. I think you’re going to get a hell lot of tips today,” says Jongin and wiggles his eyebrows at him.
“Shut it,” Sehun growls and goes back to fanning himself. “It isn’t humanly possible to survive this weather.”
“Well if you hadn’t failed the easiest class our uni offers...”
Sehun judges the distance between them and throws the fan right at Jongin’s face. “God damn it, stop talking about it already and give me back the fan. It’s too hot.”
His flatmate laughs, grabs the fan and unceremoniously leaves the living room. “Whatever. I’m going to uni. Have fun dying in that over-priced, chilli-smelling den.”
He experiences a whole new dimension of hell once he’s outside. There’s not even a small cloud to be spotted, the humidity’s level is trying to break the Guinness record and the sun is so strong that it literally burns. Sehun furrows his eyebrows in distaste and quickly walks into the tube station. It’s at times like these that he wishes it was socially acceptable for men to carry sun umbrellas with them. He’s certain that one more week of such weather and he will turn bright red. He’s hoping for some cool air inside of the station but instead is met with a wall of sweaty people who bump into him painfully every time the train stops. By the end of the journey he’s aching and soaking wet.
He’s muttering the most colourful curses under his breath on the way from the tube station to his work place, when he suddenly looks up at the skyscraper on his left. What follows is a lot of noise, people running around, someone shouting and a lot of blood on Sehun’s now-not-white shirt.
He spends a good ten minutes staring vacantly into space before he realizes that the street is swarming with police, and god only knows why, two ambulances and an arsenal of paramedics. Last time Sehun had looked down at his feet, only one person had died.
Once he looks around more closely, he notices a policeman literally drilling a hole in Sehun’s face. The moment the other catches Sehun staring, he smiles so brightly that Sehun instantly takes a few steps back. One shouldn’t have such a happy expression after looking at a dead body. It’s not right. Although Sehun thinks he has no right to judge, since he’s positive that the dead stranger is the same person he saw getting hit by a car and bumped into not that long ago. Clearly the heat must be getting to every one's mind.
He’s in the process of an intense frowning session when the overly happy policeman comes up to him. His smile is even more vibrant from up close and Sehun thinks that this might end in a headache.
“I know this can’t be pleasant but could you give me your contact details in case this turns into a proper investigation. We don’t need to go to the police station. Just get into my car and I’ll drop you off as well.”
Sehun can’t help but feel suspicious because what is this “get into my car” line. What if he gets murdered because all those accidents seem like such a dark foreshadowing but he’s too young to die and why can’t someone save him, god please have mercy, there are too many uni courses he still needs to fail. He mentally makes the sign of the cross, but nods in agreement and follows the policeman into the patrol car.
When they arrive before the entrance to Sehun’s block, he gathers all of his courage and blurts, “Uhm...well...I...erhm...Can you give me the name of the victim and his address? I know it sounds completely ridiculous but it’s important to me.” He finishes spouting the last sentence express speed and guesses it was facepalm-worthy. However, the policeman turns around to face him and excitedly says, “But of course. I can understand this. I’ll call you once we identify him.”
Jongin starts laughing hysterically after Sehun is done reporting how his ridiculous day went (and conveniently not mentioning his bizarre request).
“Creepy smile or not, that policeman was definitely hitting on you, you dimwit. Just wait until he calls and asks you to come to the police station to meet him face to face. Make sure not to go inside any empty rooms with him.”
“No way. He wasn’t hitting on me. You always think about one thing. Pervert.”
Jongin raises his eyebrow and stares at his friend accusingly. “Pervert? Tsk, I’m just looking out for you, mate. Gotta guard that virginity well.”
“I’m not a virgin,” mutters Sehun but blushes bright red.
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
*
It’s all a blur he wants to get away from, a blur he detests. Still, every now and then he finds himself in a unique place. Every now and then he feels the will to live crawl back into his system, make his blood flow quicker and the days pass by faster. Just like that one time when he found himself in China in the middle of a bustling road.
He blinks and the world comes to a still. The shadows spinning before his eyes transform into people and buildings. The ground stops to shake. He takes a deep breath and looks around. The people have slanted eyes and long, long black braids. Somehow the surroundings seem familiar. He guesses he must have seen this place on photographs sometime in the past. His lives do not connect in a straight line, they aren’t a neat loop. Instead, they turn and spin and overlap. Hence, he wouldn’t be surprised if he went back in time.
Before he can even finish this trail of thoughts, someone grabs his arm and tells him to follow. He’s too shocked to say no. The stranger is no different from all the other people around, except he walks fast and seems strangely determined.
They enter a labyrinth of narrow streets and a never-ending series of water canals. It’s only when they stop in front of a considerably big house that the stranger lets go of his arm. He turns back and looks closely at Luhan. They stand still in a complete silence for what seems like ages before the stranger finally speaks up.
“Do you want to get yourself killed?”
Luhan blinks and opens his mouth but no words come out.
“You don’t have a queue.”
“A queue?”
“Yes, your hair is short and you’re even wearing western clothes. Are you a foreigner?”
He looks down at himself automatically and notices that he’s indeed wearing a suit.
“I’m not sure what exactly happened to me,” Luhan mutters while looking at his feet.
“Hmm...it seems like you’ve lost your memory. It’d do you no good to wander the city looking like this. Before the sunset sets, you’d be beheaded. It’s a crime to not have the queue, especially if you look like a local and face-wise you do.”
Luhan can feel his hands get sweaty the longer the stranger talks. He has no idea how he looks right now, but his heartbeat’s speeding up and he can hear blood ringing in his ears. The stranger seems to notice this and takes a step closer to Luhan as if he were trying to calm him down.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you. I’m Yixing.”
And that is how Luhan finds a new home and a surprisingly good friend.
He holes himself in the living room one day when everyone is away. There’s a big, richly decorated western-style mirror on one of its walls. It’s cleaned twice a day and sparkles in the sun like a diamond. Yixing’s father deems it the most beautiful object he’s ever acquired and makes sure to keep people away from it. Luhan isn’t surprised because even he, who has lived for so long and been to so many different places, finds it absolutely captivating. He sits down before it and hesitantly looks at his own reflection.
It’s the first time that his hair is black. It’s much shorter than the hair of everyone else he has seen so far. Still, in the past two weeks that he’s lived with Yixing it got long enough to brush against his shoulders. He’s pretty sure that soon he’ll be able to finally get some sort of a braid. It hasn’t been that long but he yearns to go outside.
His eyes are more slanted than usual as well. He can recognize his face all right but now that he can see it properly, he understands why Yixing thought he was a local. With the right clothes and hairstyle, he would be able to blend in without problems. It unnerves him a bit to find himself so changed. On the other hand though, he can’t help but think that maybe this is what he needed all the time - a life that differs utterly from any of his past ones.
Yixing is a writer but more importantly he’s the son of the richest merchant in Canton. His family owns a huge traditional house in one of the main parts of the city. It’s so big once one goes inside it that Luhan manages to live there without anyone other than the servants ever noticing him. They don’t ask uncomfortable questions and act as if he didn’t exist.
To Luhan, it seems like most of the time his friend hovers between reality and some sort of an intoxicating dream. However, when it comes to filial piety, he’s serious. So serious in fact that at the age of 16 he manages to pass the official exam and lands a job that skyrockets his family’s position. Knowing that his father wants him to go as far as he can, he hides his love for novels as well. Writing is Yixing’s biggest and highly treasured secret even though it isn’t his only one.
It’s on a lazy summer afternoon that Luhan discovers the reason behind Yixing’s vacant stares and dreamy smiles. They’re alone in the house and Yixing spends the whole morning unusually agitated. He leaves in the early afternoon and comes back an hour later with a small bag. By that time his fingers are twitching and his breath is a bit too fast for Luhan’s liking. He doesn’t question his friend though, and follows him silently deep inside the house. They enter a big spacious room with a few sofas and a round, black table. Yixing sighs in relief and plops onto the nearest sofa. Then, he empties the contents of the bag onto a small plate which form a pile of tiny, pea-sized, dark pills.
“It’s chan du,” says Yixing with a big smile plastered onto his face.
“What?”
“You know, opium. Let me show you. It’s amazing,” he replies and moves towards a den Luhan hasn’t noticed before. Then, he dries a pill over a small flame of a spirit lamp. He picks up a pipe from the table with one hand. The other one he uses to hold a long needle and impale the pill with it. Carefully, he puts it into the bowl at the end of the pipe and immediately Luhan can smell something sweet and kind of musky, with a flowery undertone. After holding the bowl over the spirit lamp for a bit more, Yixing passes him the pipe.
“Try smoking it.”
He hesitates for a moment but takes the pipe anyway and inhales the opium fumes through it. Even though the taste is bitter and at first he feels nauseated, Luhan takes a breath after another until the fumes stop. He can feel himself getting drowsy and moves towards the sofa. The moment he lies down, the world starts to float and a giggle escapes his lips. Yixing is looking at him with a smile that seems so amazingly pretty all of a sudden and he notices that his friend has this cute dimple and why is everything so warm and cosy and what are those butterflies painted on the ceiling doing flying from one wall to another-
He isn’t sure how much they have smoked when Yixing decides to invade his personal space. Not that he minds much, for Yixing smells so nice, like his favourite candy from his first life. And then they are kissing and Luhan moves on top of Yixing. Suddenly, he wants Yixing more than anything. His lips tingle and his friend’s fingers burn a trail into his arms. Astonishingly, Luhan feels alive.
The next time they are alone and Yixing starts impatiently drumming his fingers against the arm chair, Luhan can feel a rush of excitement. Ever since he tried opium everything has been irritatingly blasé. The world has been too still and the colours too washed out. He’s not surprised at his friend’s love for writing anymore. If he could, he would escape the dull reality the same way.
The moment his lips touch the pipe, his vision sets itself ablaze. He starts laughing maniacally and Yixing joins him in lying on the floor. He whispers something about the room being filled with pink unicorns but all Luhan can make himself care about is Yixing’s hot breath tickling his neck.
It’s a month or maybe two later that his vision starts getting blurred regularly and thinking about anything for longer induces a horrible migraine. There are days which Luhan spends lying on the floor with his skin itching and stomach contracting in the most bizarre ways. Even so, it all appears so full of meaning to him - all the days that blend one into another, decorated by the sickeningly sweet smell of flowers, dreamy smiles and sex.
When he thinks about it now, he knows he ought to have noticed, for all the signs were so obviously there. Him, breaking into pieces like a shattered mirror with shards glued back recklessly, all chipped and ill-fitted. And Yixing, with his increasingly twitching fingers and eerily empty eyes. However, the world he saw was one filled with fog and hidden behind a veil. And so they became like moths flying towards a treacherous flame. As always, Luhan was the first one to burn.
*
Sehun obsesses over the mysterious stranger for two long weeks. Even Kyungsoo and Junmyeon, who only share one class with him, start looking at him strangely. Jongin is of course much less subtle. He regularly asks Sehun if he’s mental and assures him that, if need be, Jongin knows all the best institutions.
He can’t help it. Every time he lets his thoughts run free, they naturally turn towards the stranger. He has become a permanent fixture in Sehun’s life, an annoying but also a curiously welcome one. He’s certain that if Jongin knew the whole story, he would just tell Sehun that this is a clear sign that his life is really boring. Sehun would concur.
And so it takes two weeks for the creepy policeman to call. The conversation starts with the other apologizing for taking so long and then asking Sehun to come over to the police station. Sehun can vaguely recall what Jongin told him and all possible alarms go off in his head.
“I’m at work right now and will be pretty busy for the next month so could you please just tell me everything on the phone,” he says and looks at Jongin who is currently rolling from one side of the sofa to the other, laughing hysterically. Once his flatmate manages to contain himself, he stage whispers, “Work, huh? Nice. I’d like to work at home too.”
The policeman doesn’t sound too happy but in the end dictates the dead stranger’s name and address. Sehun notes it down with trembling fingers and then hastily says good bye.
“What was that about?”
“Huh?”
“There’s something you haven’t told me.”
“No?” Sehun tries to feign innocence but Jongin is having none of it. “That wasn’t a question, you dimwit. What is it you’re not telling me? And bloody hell, stop making that constipated face.”
Sehun bites his lower lip and focuses his gaze on the wall behind Jongin. On one hand, all he wants is to talk with someone about the ridiculous predicament that he’s found himself in. He has bottled everything up inside and at times he feels as if his mind is bursting at the seams. On the other hand, even he finds the whole thing absolutely absurd and that doesn’t encourage him to share.
“Whatever. Do what you want but if you end up in a tight spot, don’t come crying to me,” Jongin huffs and rolls his eyes ostentatiously before leaving the living room. Sehun looks at him go without a word. Once he hears the sound of door closing, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’s been holding and walks quickly to his own room. He switches on his laptop and waits for it to start, while tightening his fingers around the piece of paper on which he wrote the stranger’s address.
He looks around curiously. From what he can remember, he’s been to this part of the city only once before. The buildings look old but expensive; most of them white, with big windows and perfectly trimmed grass in front. It doesn’t take more than spotting a Mercedes and an Aston Martin on the street for Sehun to begin feeling out of place. Money has never been a problem in his family but this kind of money is something he can’t even begin to imagine having.
The stranger, or rather Luhan, used to live in one of the smaller houses. Still, it’s pristine white and its porch is a piece of art. Sehun swallows hard and rings the doorbell. What follows is absolute silence, broken only by the sound of the wind and cars driving by. He’s not sure what else he expected but nevertheless he’s a bit disappointed. Against all odds, he was hoping for this visit to lift some of the weight off his mind.
His musings are interrupted by a female voice. “Are you here to see Luhan?”
He turns around with a jolt and notices a woman, probably in her early thirties, standing in front of the porch.
“Y-Yes,” he stutters and wills his heart to stop beating so frantically.
“I’m afraid he died in an accident around two weeks ago.”
“Is that so? I guess there’s nothing for me to do here,” he lets out a nervous laugh. The woman lifts an eyebrow but says nothing in return. Sehun feels his palms sweating. He excuses himself and the moment he turns the corner, starts running towards the nearest tube station.
*
He dies again. It’s uneventful and quick. He barely manages to open his eyes before something hits him hard enough to send him flying. He lands on the ground a few seconds later and groans in pain. He can feel someone standing nearby but is unable to do anything but lie motionlessly and desperately try to take gulps of breath.
The next thing he knows, he’s standing in front of a white, expensive-looking house, holding a set of keys. He unlocks the door almost as if he were on autopilot and takes off his jacket. He’s not sure where he is or who exactly he is supposed to be. He knows though that he’ll find out soon enough.
It’s rather fast this time. Luhan settles comfortably into his new life in a matter of hours. He’s a lawyer, working for one of the best law firms in the country. He’s also extremely dedicated to his job, to the point that when an important case needs to be handled he has no problems with staying at the office overnight. Even on the normal days he wakes up early in the morning and comes back home long after the sun has set. Still, he’s somehow content with this monotonous, orderly life. That is, until one day he wakes up and realizes he overslept. He quickly dresses up and tries to beat the horrible traffic by taking a taxi. Halfway, he gives up and decides to walk. He’s a mere five minutes away from the office when he bumps into someone. The boy falls onto the pavement and groans. He has half a mind to apologize before he sets off running on pure adrenaline, with his vision blurring and heart clenching. Luhan may forget most of what had happened in his past lives but if there’s one thing he is sure about, it’s that he knows the boy quite well.
*
It follows naturally that Sehun becomes even more distracted than he already was. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon have now joined Jongin in expressing their oh-so-dramatic concerns. Sehun really wishes that The Theory of Art class didn’t exist but for some reason it’s the only class that everyone who attends his uni absolutely has to take (and it lasts a whole year, to boot). Thus, every week for two hours he’s stuck with his overly paranoid friends and practices the art of blocking out what people say. It’s either that, or he will start punching people during class. Consequently, when he’s finally told that he can indeed take an additional class to make up for his failed half unit two weeks into the new term, he feels relieved. The less time he has to mull over Luhan, the more of his sanity can he preserve.
He becomes less enthusiastic when faced with a list of courses he can choose from. A good 90% of them are theoretical and even more ridiculous than “The changing portrayal of human body in art”. As interesting as that course sounded, Sehun slept through most of it without shame and still managed to pass really well by writing an essay that Jongin promptly nominated for his personal most-convincing-bullshit-of-the-year award.
In the end, having to choose the lesser evil, Sehun settles for a contemporary dance class even though his dancing skills are pretty much non-existent. In result, he also makes Jongin’s day.
“A dance class? Are you sure that was the best choice?” his flatmate snorts, while Kyungsoo smirks at him from across the table. Sehun sighs and tries to wrap his mind around why he thought that having lunch with them was a good idea.
“Yes, a dance class. All I’m gonna be graded on is my attendance and a short dance performance. I say, that’s easy.”
His two friends share a knowing look before Kyungsoo retorts: “Sehun, you’ll still need to learn how to dance well if you want a good grade. Besides, it’s a dance performance we’re talking about here. A dance performance in front of, at least, your whole class.”
Sehun tries to imagine doing that and only manages to choke on his coffee. Jongin starts laughing openly now. “You forgot about that small detail, huh? Good luck mate.”
*
There’s another life that he cannot forget. It wormed itself beneath his skin and entangled with his veins. He tried to be more careful than last time but life will never stop for you just because you want to go slow. He tried but in the end he let the current take him away.
Before he realizes what is happening, a handsome, tall stranger hugs him warmly and ushers inside his house. He calls Luhan Shishi and somehow it sounds so right that a few minutes later Luhan isn’t sure what his previous name was anymore. He feels close to the man, as if they have known each other their whole lives.
It takes two days for Shishi to regain the memories he knows he shouldn’t have. This time he’s a poet and a rather famous one. People say that he’s ahead of his times and praise him for his ability to mix the traditional with the modern. Everything he writes is full of melancholy and longing. He figures that maybe that is how he should have been dealing with the inherent sadness that he’s felt all along. The moment his pen touches paper, it’s as if a lid opened and feelings pour out through his fingers forming words. He has no control over anything, his poetry breathes on its own.
The tall man’s name turns out to be Yomishihisa no Fujiwara, although Shishi affectionately calls him Hisa. He’s an oligarch and acts as the Minister of War in the Cabinet. He’s serious and formal and wears his uniform even inside his own house. Basically, he was born to be a government official (although he seems to hate the Navy General with a passion that rivals the power of the strongest sun and complains even in his sleep about how the Taisho Emperor is horribly feeble-minded and can Prince Hirohito grow up faster and replace him for god’s sake). He and Shishi are childhood friends.
Shishi finds his friend’s seriousness to be over the top more often than not (his wardrobe contains an arsenal of neatly folded copies of his military uniform, for crying out loud). Nevertheless, it gives him a sense of security that he has never experienced before. Hisa is so different from Yixing, but Shishi can’t help but be drawn to him. He finds himself staring at Hisa’s majestic eyebrows and perfectly chiselled face. It really doesn’t hurt that he looks amazing in his uniform either. Shishi thinks that maybe he could try the thing called love again.
It’s a warm spring night and he decides to go sit on the veranda that’s located inside of the house, and encloses one of the most beautiful traditional gardens that he has ever seen. The bushes are perfectly trimmed, the stones white-grey and forming orderly patterns on the ground. He’s passing by Hisa’s room when he hears muffled voices. He stops and moves as silently as he can towards the paper screen that was left slightly open. It takes all of his self-control not to gasp. There’s Yixing sitting next to Hisa, smiling that gentle smile of his that seems to light up the whole room. When Hisa leans a bit too close to Yixing, Shishi turns around and walks away with his heart beating so fast it’s threatening to burst from inside his ribcage. It hurts just like the first time he died, except his bones are intact and there’s no blood.
The next day, he’s introduced to Yixing, who’s in fact called Rei. Rei is a koto player and while he has Yixing’s face and his gentleness, he’s much more quiet and much more there. Gone are the dreamy smiles and empty gazes. Shishi smiles and bows politely but leaves Hisa and Rei alone as fast as he can. There are too many painful memories that resurface, and Hisa’s loving gaze sets his nerves on fire in the most aggravating way.
He turns to writing in order to escape and despair proves to be the best inspiration a poet can have. The images appear in his head without warning and disappear just as unexpectedly the moment he tries to form a verse. It is a flood, an avalanche, a wildfire spreading with the wind. Still, even though he imprints each and every one of his emotions on paper, they remain inside him, boiling and threatening to rip him apart. He can feel himself hurting and remembers the sadness that dominated his world when he took his life for the first time.
It’s still dark outside, almost an hour before the sun will begin to rise, when he goes out of his room to have breakfast. He hasn’t been sleeping too well lately. The moment he lies down on the bed, his mind is assaulted by a storm of thoughts that rarely have anything in common. It seems as if his sanity were crumbling. It’s not even Hisa’s fault anymore, he just can’t focus on anything. Sometimes he feels as if his life had no direction and it scares him.
He’s exhausted and the corridor he’s going through appears to be floating. He halts and rubs at his eyes. Then, he takes a few more steps towards the stairs but freezes when he sees Hisa walking towards the back of the house with a boy that Shishi has never seen before. He hides in the darkness and stares at them unabashedly. The boy looks to be a bit younger than him. His face has a serious expression on it that could probably rival Hisa’s. He’s beautiful, so beautiful in fact that, as cliché as it sounds, for a second Shishi feels his heart stop. It picks up again, moving his blood around dutifully when the boy disappears from his sight. Nevertheless, all he can think about during breakfast is the boy’s dark eyes and smooth skin.
He manages to corner Hisa late in the evening when the other retreats to the library. It’s a part of Hisa’s routine. Shishi has no idea what his friend does there but every evening he shuts himself in the library for at least three hours. He knows that Hisa hates to be interrupted but at this point he doesn’t care.
Hisa looks up from the book he’s been reading the moment Shishi opens the library door and asks quietly, “What are you doing here?” Shishi can hear the anger half-heartedly hidden in his voice. Still, he closes the door behind him and sits down on a chair next to Hisa.
“I’ve asked you what you’re doing here.”
“I know.”
“Well then?” Hisa’s left eyebrow starts to twitch and Shishi can barely contain his laugh. He straightens his back and says, “Who was that boy you brought home today?”
“You saw him?” Hisa utters and suddenly looks kind of scared.
“Of course I did. Why? Was him being here supposed to be a secret?”
“No. Nothing like that. He’s a son of an important friend of my father’s. He came to study literature in Todai, although I’ve been told he’s also a painter.”
“Uh-huh. And what is he doing staying here?” Shishi really feels like laughing because Hisa looks so desperate, trying to find the right words to make Shishi leave him in peace.
“I decided to let him stay in the winter pavilion. No one’s been using it since my mother died and the house is too big for me, even with you around, anyway.”
Shishi stares at Hisa’s twitching eyebrow the whole time the other talks. It’s pretty much a giveaway. He doesn’t need any more clues to know what might be going on.
“Sure. That’s definitely what you’d do. Stop lying. You’re really bad at it.”
“Well…uhm…he..,” Hisa tries to come up with something persuasive but in the end only sighs. “Oh, fuck it. I will tell you but keep it a secret. The boy’s name is Sehun and his father is the leader of one of the anti-Japanese groups in Korea. My father owed him a favour and so he asked me to take the boy to Japan in order to keep him safe. I didn’t like the idea much but I can’t disobey father.”
A heavy silence settles upon them. Shishi stares wordlessly at his fingers while he tries to come to terms with what he’s just heard. He didn’t expect to be told something so serious. For a split second he thinks it might have been better if he never asked.
“You got yourself into a dangerous mess. You could lose your life if the boy does something stupid.”
“I know that. He’s fluent in Japanese and smart enough to get into Todai though, so I’m hoping he’s also smart enough to stay out of trouble.”
Shishi forces himself to laugh. “So what kind of a Japanese name did you give him? Is the character for “se” in his name the same one as “se” in “sekai” and “hun” the same one as “kun” in “kunshou”?”
“Well, you could say that.”
“Then, Sekun?” Shishi giggles. “Or did you try to come up with something more creative?”
“It’s Yoshihiro,” Hisa says, resigned. Still, Shishi can see that he looks a bit less worried and feels the tension begin to ease up.
He takes to calling the beautiful boy by his Korean name in his head. They don’t see each other too often. When they are introduced to each other, it’s painfully short and to the point. It seems that Hisa is still paranoid. Why exactly, Shishi doesn’t know. The last thing on his mind would be to go to the police to report who Sehun really is.
It doesn’t stop him from stealing glances at the boy whenever he can. He’s graceful and appears to be calm and collected, albeit Shishi quickly begins to notice the commotion of emotions that Sehun carries under his carefully structured façade. Sometimes the boy looks back at him. Still, he seems bashful, averting his gaze as quickly as possible and walking away. Shishi wishes he could find a way to talk to him. He’s fascinated by Sehun, so fascinated that he barely spares Hisa any thought anymore. However, most of the time when the boy is in the same room as him, Hisa is nearby and unconsciously throwing disapproving glances Shishi’s way.
He knows he shouldn’t do this. It’s a stupid idea. It really is. Not that he ever listens to his inner voice of reason. If he can’t get to know Sehun better in a normal way, he has to resort to slightly more drastic measures.
It’s noon and everyone but the servants are out. Shishi walks quietly towards the back of the house and slides the paper screen of the winter pavilion open. He looks slowly inside, his stomach full of invisible, restless butterflies. There appears to be no one around so he steps inside with confidence.
The place is just as he remembers it being when Hisa’s mother was still alive. The main room is rather empty but each piece of furniture in it is beautifully made, and seems to be in exactly the right place. He’s unable to locate anything that might belong to Sehun and figures that the boy probably occupies the smaller room. Once he enters it, he’s flabbergasted. There’s a bed, a tiny writing desk and a washbasin. Other than that, the room is covered with paintings of all sizes. They lie on the floor, are hanging off a lone chair standing in a corner and are even scattered across the bed. They don’t share a common theme. It seems that Sehun paints whatever comes to his mind. Shishi has to admit that the paintings, with their precise strokes and explosion of colours, are even more breathtaking than Sehun himself.
He’s looking through the paintings, mesmerized, when he hears paper screen being opened. His eyes widen and he abruptly turns around. Sehun is standing on the threshold with an unreadable expression on his face. Shishi takes a deep breath and puts the painting he’s been holding back on the bed.
“I...I’m sorry. I’ve heard you paint but...uhm...I never got the chance to see anything. I was...well...c-curious,” he says, stumbling over his words. He nervously looks up at Sehun again and notices the boy looking everywhere but at him, one hand clutching at the paper screen. “Are you mad?”
“No,” Sehun utters while still looking stubbornly at the floor.
Shishi decides he really doesn’t care about acting rationally anymore. Sehun looks too pretty and Shishi has enough of stealing secret glances. He has enough of being ignored and enough of longing for something he once again seems to be unable to get. He hastily walks towards Sehun and stops only a few centimeters in front of him. His lungs are constricting painfully and he feels dizzy in a way he’s never felt before.
When Sehun notices how close they're standing, his eyes widen almost painfully and he trips over his own feet. Shishi instinctively grabs Sehun’s arm before the boy can fall down and brushes the hair out of his face.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers and he can feel the other boy tremble slightly underneath his palm.
It’s unexpected even to him. One minute they are looking at each other, the next they are kissing. Shishi doesn’t care who leaned in first because Sehun is kissing him as if there was nothing else that was important in this world, as if Shishi were his air, his hands grabbing tightly at Shishi’s clothes. Shishi’s head is spinning and he can hardly breath. It’s perfect. He imagined it before but it never came close to the real thing. He wishes it to never stop.
Suddenly, Sehun pulls away from him. His lips are red and bruised, and his cheeks on fire. Shishi wants to kiss him again and entangle his fingers in Sehun’s hair but the moment he leans in, the boy quickly moves away.
“You need to go now,” Sehun says in a perfectly controlled and emotionless voice. Shishi tries to ask why but before he can utter a word, Sehun spits out, “Leave.”
For the first few days after the incident, Shishi hopes that he’ll be able to talk to Sehun. Still, nothing changes. They are never alone and it seems as if Sehun were doing everything that is in his power to avoid him. It hurts in a way that makes him think that his ribcage is trying to pierce through his heart. Sehun continues to take his breath away, but now he seems even more distant and unattainable, to the extent that Shishi wonders if maybe he dreamt up kissing the other boy.
Sehun is visibly shaken by the news of the anti-Japanese protests in Korea. Shishi doesn’t know for sure and doesn’t dare to ask Hisa, but he figures Sehun’s father was probably arrested and may be facing the death penalty. There’s something that changes in the boy’s behaviour afterwards. Shishi can’t put a finger to it but it scares him, chills him to the bone. He feels almost as if he were watching an inevitable train wreck. He wishes he could do something to prevent it but he knows it’s a lost case.
It happens much too fast. One day he sees Sehun leaving the house, the next one of his friends (with slightly tanned skin, called Atsuyoshi as far as Shishi can remember) comes banging at the door. Hisa ushers him inside and takes him straight to his room. Shishi knows he shouldn’t be eavesdropping but the curiosity gets the better of him yet again. When the conversation is done, he wishes he decided to stay ignorant. Atsuyoshi is crying and Hisa is pacing nervously around the room. Shishi slides down to the floor and clenches his fists tight. The one thing he dreaded the most came true; Sehun has been arrested.
Hisa takes to aimlessly walking around the house. He looks gloomy and refuses to talk to anyone unless he absolutely has to. Shishi doesn’t need to ask to know that his friend feels trapped. No matter what he does, someone will die. If he tries to get Sehun out of jail, it will most likely be all three of them. Unfortunately, before they can even attempt to find a solution, Hisa tells him in a grave tone that Sehun is, in fact, already dead.
It’s the last straw for Shishi. While Hisa turns to Rei with his sadness, Shishi is once again left alone, trying to pick up the pieces of his heart that has been smashed too often. Still, no matter how hard he tries, he’s unable to glue them together and can only stare as they break over and over again.
This time the flood of emotions swipes him off his feet. He knows he’s being selfish. He didn’t know Sehun enough to feel so strongly about him. Nevertheless, life without the other boy is eerily empty and the colours around him seem washed out. His yearning for Sehun has become even stronger and more often than not it chokes him. Seeing Hisa only makes it worse. He begins to hate him for having the one thing he really wants, for being happily in love.
It becomes tiring to keep on going. No matter what he went through in his past lives, he’s still too weak to manage on his own. Hence, he gives up the way he usually does. He writes his last poem, leaves it without a title on his writing desk and slits his wrists.
| Część 2
Author: ajin
Pairing: Luhan/Sehun, Kris/Luhan, Luhan/Yixing, Kris/Yixing, OT12
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Romance
Word Count: 26,747
Summary: Luhan lives a thousand times, searching for the meaning of the never-ending circle that he's stuck in.
There’s a list of songs that I listened to on repeat while writing this fic. If you want, you can access the playlist here
Sometimes it takes a few seconds, sometimes even days. It’s all a blur in his head - too many years, places, people, things he just cannot connect. There was a starting point and a reason, he knows that much. It didn’t happen because someone snapped their fingers or because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s probably his fault. No. It definitely is his fault. He can remember the feeling of despair as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. He wanted to get away. He took a few steps too many and tumbled down faster and faster until he crashed. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. His bones broke and crumbled and got scattered around. There was blood everywhere, probably, most likely, though he’s not sure now. He couldn’t move but the ground felt too sticky for it to be soil. The roaring in his ears made him dizzy and all he wanted was for it all to just end right there. He closed his eyes and tried to pray, while his fingers trembled and his heartbeat slowed down. Then, as if a curtain fell, everything cut off. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, he was somewhere he had never been before.
*
Sehun is officially fed up with life. He couldn’t agree more with the saying that life is long and grey and shitty, just like toilet paper. What’s more, he thinks that submitting a huge canvas with toilet paper glued to it at random might actually become the masterpiece he has always longed to create. The depth, the contrast, the social critique, it would have it all. He can bet that even Jongin would agree. After all, his flatmate always tells him how boring his works are and how he should let his inner creativity out.
He stares at the canvas for so long that the paint on his palette hardens and the hand with which he’s holding his brush becomes numb. He has less than a week to finish the end of term work. He has spent almost a week already doing it. However, the half-completed painting of a sunset on a beach looks so offending to him that he grabs the bottle of turpentine from the nearest table and throws it at the painting with all his might. The sound of glass breaking and scattering in all directions is deafening, and he barely manages to get out of the way of a particularly big shard of glass. The solvent trickles down onto the floor and the smell becomes overbearing. Sehun can feel a headache coming and how is he even going to clean this and why did he do this and what if Jongin comes home before he’s done cleaning and-
He opens the window in the living room and shamelessly vomits onto the pavement from the third floor. As luck seems to finally be on his side, he manages to water all of the plants that his neighbour from the floor below keeps on the window sill in the process. Sehun almost feels like high five-ing himself and suddenly cleaning the vile mess he made seems a bit more fun.
Jongin stops in the door to the living room and silently stares at him lying on the floor next to a considerably big trash bag. One of his eyebrows seems to be twitching and Sehun can’t decide if it’s the moment to run away yet. However, all Jongin does in the end is sigh dramatically and push Sehun out of the flat. He throws the thrash bag at him just before slamming the door shut. Sehun deems it all to be a good omen and sets onto the epic garbage adventure with a smile.
He’s going back to the flat when he hears the screech of the tires of a car. It’s followed by a thud and the most chilling sound of bones breaking that he’s ever heard. He stops in his tracks and looks at the pavement with his mouth hanging open. It’s definitely not every day that a horribly disfigured body lands at his feet or his shoes get sprinkled by blood. He promptly vomits the second time.
He has no idea why he needs to go to the police station. Yes, he was a random spectator of the drama that was the hit-and-run. Yes, he saw the car. But no, he has no idea what its license plate was or what the driver looked like. And no, he definitely doesn’t know the victim and please just stop making him look at the carcass.
When Sehun gets a moment alone in the empty corridor of the police station, he takes a deep breath, counts to ten and pinches himself. Still, he doesn’t suddenly find himself back home. The walls around him are plain and boring, and he has the face of the victim memorized.
He fails the painting course spectacularly enough for it to go down in his university’s history. Even Kris, whose artistic side doesn’t exist in any universe and who ended up taking the course by mistake, manages to pass. Sehun almost feels like crying because this is just too humiliating. He can't even begin to fathom how he’s going to avoid his parents’ phone calls today. They wished for him to study something proper, like medicine or law. Him persuading them to let him major in arts was a miracle and such miracles should be treasured, not destroyed.
“Stop looking at me like you’re a puppy that just got kicked,” Jongin grumbles and plugs the telephone cable back in for the hundredth time. “Yes, you did fail that course but for fuck’s sake it’s not even a whole unit. Just take something extra next term and make up for it.”
Sehun successfully manages to tear up and pouts. “But-but I can’t lie to my parents.”
All Jongin can do in response is start laughing because Sehun is the type of a person who will do anything to get his way. Lying has never been a big deal and ever since Jongin can remember his annoying friend has been lying to his parents if the situation required him to do so. “Why are you saying such nonsense?”
Sehun shifts uncomfortably on the floor and Jongin narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”
“Nothing?”
“Stop shitting me.”
“Well...I...uhm...I told them that my average mark’s a first,” Sehun mumbles more to himself than Jongin. It’s nice of Jongin to take interest in his horrible life but right now nothing and no one can save him from having his money source cut off.
“This is almost worth a slow clap. Just find a different subject next term and pass it well enough to get a first. I have no sympathy for you.”
Sehun starts moving slowly but surely towards the phone socket.
“And no, you can’t unplug the phone!”
He gets a phone call some half an hour later. He lies but it backfires on him anyway. He knew it would. And thus not only is he short of half a unit, he also has no money. Life being like toilet paper? Yes and to the power of infinity.
He’s walking to the job interview when someone bumps into him. Sehun loses his balance and lands on the pavement hard. The stranger apologizes to him profoundly and then excuses himself because he’s running late. Sehun is unable to utter even a word during the whole incident for the stranger’s face is eerily familiar, as it’s a face he swore he would never forget.
*
When he tries, he’s able to remember the second time as well. It wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It wasn’t even that painful or long. It seemed like a dream at that point - surreal, happening as if in slow-motion, with colours faded and no second plan.
He opened his eyes and discovered that he was lying on a mattress in the middle of a sea, or maybe an ocean. Water was everywhere beneath him. Above him there was only a vast blue sky. He was alone, so alone that he couldn’t even hear the sound of fish swimming or birds singing. There was only him, the mattress, the sea and the sky.
He fell asleep soon afterwards as the gentle waves performed the most effective lullaby. His sleep was deep and dreamless until suddenly he was flying and then plunging towards the ground like a stone, his wings trying to move but only managing to wriggle grotesquely.
He woke up underwater. His lungs were constricting painfully, trying to get the excessive water out of his system. His legs and arms felt heavy, almost like lead. When he looked up, he saw the dark shadow of the mattress looming far above him, getting smaller with each watery breath he took. Smaller and smaller as his vision turned more and more black. Then, once again everything abruptly stopped.
*
Sehun is still in a state of shock. Not because of the stranger he encountered earlier but rather because he got the job. It’s an utter mystery how it happened. During the interview he was so out of it that he felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience. He’s sure that Jongin would have something to say about this small miracle, something along the lines of: “Sehun, we all know that you’re the smartest when you don’t think”. Not that Sehun disagrees. After all, he’s prone to over-thinking which usually results in him brooding and shooting death glares at anyone who’s nearby.
There’s one incident connected to Sehun’s over-thinking that haunts him even now, although it happened a good few years ago. It haunts him, for it is Jongin’s favourite let’s-break-the-ice story. His flatmate uses it almost at every party and very effectively at that. Sehun can’t comprehend why it works. For him, it isn’t funny at all.
They weren’t classmates at that time but still shared the biology class. One uneventful day, while Sehun was minding his own business and diligently taking notes, the teacher suddenly stopped talking and looked straight at him. Sehun raised an eyebrow. The teacher raised an eyebrow. The whole class turned around to stare as well. A dramatic silence ensued.
“Sehun, are you planning how to kill me?” asked the teacher seriously.
“What, why?!” answered Sehun.
“Because you keep staring at me with killing intent written all over your face. I don’t think I’m going to be able to continue teaching this class at this rate.”
Sehun couldn’t have been happier when he graduated. Finally people were going to stop making jokes about his facial expressions. Boy was he wrong.
Jongin needs to only take one look at him to know. “You got the job. Lord help us all, you’re actually smiling. Sehun, it’s creepy. Please stop.”
*
After the second time, he’s not sure about anything anymore. He visited various places, did sometimes completely outrageous things and then died. It’s not always the work of deus ex machina. More often than not, he gives up on his new lives himself. There’s always a void somewhere inside him. It’s a dark place, a place packed with resignation, emptiness and yearning for something more that he clearly can’t have.
Sometimes he feels like his existence could be defined as a big, black and white clock with its arms spinning in opposite directions. Spinning so fast that one can’t read the time. Spinning and spinning until they blur and become one. At the times when he feels like this, he wishes that the clock would stop and turn back. Whatever happened in the past, he’s sure that his first life was better than the infinite forgettable lives he leads now.
*
It’s Sehun’s second week working as a waiter at a cosy little Thai restaurant close to his uni (or as Kyungsoo once said during that boring The Theory of Art class, “Do you mean that over-priced den that serves pseudo-Thai food which tastes like a 5-year-old cooked it?”). So far it's been a relatively easy ride. So far.
“I see the bitchface’s made its glorious return. I think you’re going to get a hell lot of tips today,” says Jongin and wiggles his eyebrows at him.
“Shut it,” Sehun growls and goes back to fanning himself. “It isn’t humanly possible to survive this weather.”
“Well if you hadn’t failed the easiest class our uni offers...”
Sehun judges the distance between them and throws the fan right at Jongin’s face. “God damn it, stop talking about it already and give me back the fan. It’s too hot.”
His flatmate laughs, grabs the fan and unceremoniously leaves the living room. “Whatever. I’m going to uni. Have fun dying in that over-priced, chilli-smelling den.”
He experiences a whole new dimension of hell once he’s outside. There’s not even a small cloud to be spotted, the humidity’s level is trying to break the Guinness record and the sun is so strong that it literally burns. Sehun furrows his eyebrows in distaste and quickly walks into the tube station. It’s at times like these that he wishes it was socially acceptable for men to carry sun umbrellas with them. He’s certain that one more week of such weather and he will turn bright red. He’s hoping for some cool air inside of the station but instead is met with a wall of sweaty people who bump into him painfully every time the train stops. By the end of the journey he’s aching and soaking wet.
He’s muttering the most colourful curses under his breath on the way from the tube station to his work place, when he suddenly looks up at the skyscraper on his left. What follows is a lot of noise, people running around, someone shouting and a lot of blood on Sehun’s now-not-white shirt.
He spends a good ten minutes staring vacantly into space before he realizes that the street is swarming with police, and god only knows why, two ambulances and an arsenal of paramedics. Last time Sehun had looked down at his feet, only one person had died.
Once he looks around more closely, he notices a policeman literally drilling a hole in Sehun’s face. The moment the other catches Sehun staring, he smiles so brightly that Sehun instantly takes a few steps back. One shouldn’t have such a happy expression after looking at a dead body. It’s not right. Although Sehun thinks he has no right to judge, since he’s positive that the dead stranger is the same person he saw getting hit by a car and bumped into not that long ago. Clearly the heat must be getting to every one's mind.
He’s in the process of an intense frowning session when the overly happy policeman comes up to him. His smile is even more vibrant from up close and Sehun thinks that this might end in a headache.
“I know this can’t be pleasant but could you give me your contact details in case this turns into a proper investigation. We don’t need to go to the police station. Just get into my car and I’ll drop you off as well.”
Sehun can’t help but feel suspicious because what is this “get into my car” line. What if he gets murdered because all those accidents seem like such a dark foreshadowing but he’s too young to die and why can’t someone save him, god please have mercy, there are too many uni courses he still needs to fail. He mentally makes the sign of the cross, but nods in agreement and follows the policeman into the patrol car.
When they arrive before the entrance to Sehun’s block, he gathers all of his courage and blurts, “Uhm...well...I...erhm...Can you give me the name of the victim and his address? I know it sounds completely ridiculous but it’s important to me.” He finishes spouting the last sentence express speed and guesses it was facepalm-worthy. However, the policeman turns around to face him and excitedly says, “But of course. I can understand this. I’ll call you once we identify him.”
Jongin starts laughing hysterically after Sehun is done reporting how his ridiculous day went (and conveniently not mentioning his bizarre request).
“Creepy smile or not, that policeman was definitely hitting on you, you dimwit. Just wait until he calls and asks you to come to the police station to meet him face to face. Make sure not to go inside any empty rooms with him.”
“No way. He wasn’t hitting on me. You always think about one thing. Pervert.”
Jongin raises his eyebrow and stares at his friend accusingly. “Pervert? Tsk, I’m just looking out for you, mate. Gotta guard that virginity well.”
“I’m not a virgin,” mutters Sehun but blushes bright red.
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
*
It’s all a blur he wants to get away from, a blur he detests. Still, every now and then he finds himself in a unique place. Every now and then he feels the will to live crawl back into his system, make his blood flow quicker and the days pass by faster. Just like that one time when he found himself in China in the middle of a bustling road.
He blinks and the world comes to a still. The shadows spinning before his eyes transform into people and buildings. The ground stops to shake. He takes a deep breath and looks around. The people have slanted eyes and long, long black braids. Somehow the surroundings seem familiar. He guesses he must have seen this place on photographs sometime in the past. His lives do not connect in a straight line, they aren’t a neat loop. Instead, they turn and spin and overlap. Hence, he wouldn’t be surprised if he went back in time.
Before he can even finish this trail of thoughts, someone grabs his arm and tells him to follow. He’s too shocked to say no. The stranger is no different from all the other people around, except he walks fast and seems strangely determined.
They enter a labyrinth of narrow streets and a never-ending series of water canals. It’s only when they stop in front of a considerably big house that the stranger lets go of his arm. He turns back and looks closely at Luhan. They stand still in a complete silence for what seems like ages before the stranger finally speaks up.
“Do you want to get yourself killed?”
Luhan blinks and opens his mouth but no words come out.
“You don’t have a queue.”
“A queue?”
“Yes, your hair is short and you’re even wearing western clothes. Are you a foreigner?”
He looks down at himself automatically and notices that he’s indeed wearing a suit.
“I’m not sure what exactly happened to me,” Luhan mutters while looking at his feet.
“Hmm...it seems like you’ve lost your memory. It’d do you no good to wander the city looking like this. Before the sunset sets, you’d be beheaded. It’s a crime to not have the queue, especially if you look like a local and face-wise you do.”
Luhan can feel his hands get sweaty the longer the stranger talks. He has no idea how he looks right now, but his heartbeat’s speeding up and he can hear blood ringing in his ears. The stranger seems to notice this and takes a step closer to Luhan as if he were trying to calm him down.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you. I’m Yixing.”
And that is how Luhan finds a new home and a surprisingly good friend.
He holes himself in the living room one day when everyone is away. There’s a big, richly decorated western-style mirror on one of its walls. It’s cleaned twice a day and sparkles in the sun like a diamond. Yixing’s father deems it the most beautiful object he’s ever acquired and makes sure to keep people away from it. Luhan isn’t surprised because even he, who has lived for so long and been to so many different places, finds it absolutely captivating. He sits down before it and hesitantly looks at his own reflection.
It’s the first time that his hair is black. It’s much shorter than the hair of everyone else he has seen so far. Still, in the past two weeks that he’s lived with Yixing it got long enough to brush against his shoulders. He’s pretty sure that soon he’ll be able to finally get some sort of a braid. It hasn’t been that long but he yearns to go outside.
His eyes are more slanted than usual as well. He can recognize his face all right but now that he can see it properly, he understands why Yixing thought he was a local. With the right clothes and hairstyle, he would be able to blend in without problems. It unnerves him a bit to find himself so changed. On the other hand though, he can’t help but think that maybe this is what he needed all the time - a life that differs utterly from any of his past ones.
Yixing is a writer but more importantly he’s the son of the richest merchant in Canton. His family owns a huge traditional house in one of the main parts of the city. It’s so big once one goes inside it that Luhan manages to live there without anyone other than the servants ever noticing him. They don’t ask uncomfortable questions and act as if he didn’t exist.
To Luhan, it seems like most of the time his friend hovers between reality and some sort of an intoxicating dream. However, when it comes to filial piety, he’s serious. So serious in fact that at the age of 16 he manages to pass the official exam and lands a job that skyrockets his family’s position. Knowing that his father wants him to go as far as he can, he hides his love for novels as well. Writing is Yixing’s biggest and highly treasured secret even though it isn’t his only one.
It’s on a lazy summer afternoon that Luhan discovers the reason behind Yixing’s vacant stares and dreamy smiles. They’re alone in the house and Yixing spends the whole morning unusually agitated. He leaves in the early afternoon and comes back an hour later with a small bag. By that time his fingers are twitching and his breath is a bit too fast for Luhan’s liking. He doesn’t question his friend though, and follows him silently deep inside the house. They enter a big spacious room with a few sofas and a round, black table. Yixing sighs in relief and plops onto the nearest sofa. Then, he empties the contents of the bag onto a small plate which form a pile of tiny, pea-sized, dark pills.
“It’s chan du,” says Yixing with a big smile plastered onto his face.
“What?”
“You know, opium. Let me show you. It’s amazing,” he replies and moves towards a den Luhan hasn’t noticed before. Then, he dries a pill over a small flame of a spirit lamp. He picks up a pipe from the table with one hand. The other one he uses to hold a long needle and impale the pill with it. Carefully, he puts it into the bowl at the end of the pipe and immediately Luhan can smell something sweet and kind of musky, with a flowery undertone. After holding the bowl over the spirit lamp for a bit more, Yixing passes him the pipe.
“Try smoking it.”
He hesitates for a moment but takes the pipe anyway and inhales the opium fumes through it. Even though the taste is bitter and at first he feels nauseated, Luhan takes a breath after another until the fumes stop. He can feel himself getting drowsy and moves towards the sofa. The moment he lies down, the world starts to float and a giggle escapes his lips. Yixing is looking at him with a smile that seems so amazingly pretty all of a sudden and he notices that his friend has this cute dimple and why is everything so warm and cosy and what are those butterflies painted on the ceiling doing flying from one wall to another-
He isn’t sure how much they have smoked when Yixing decides to invade his personal space. Not that he minds much, for Yixing smells so nice, like his favourite candy from his first life. And then they are kissing and Luhan moves on top of Yixing. Suddenly, he wants Yixing more than anything. His lips tingle and his friend’s fingers burn a trail into his arms. Astonishingly, Luhan feels alive.
The next time they are alone and Yixing starts impatiently drumming his fingers against the arm chair, Luhan can feel a rush of excitement. Ever since he tried opium everything has been irritatingly blasé. The world has been too still and the colours too washed out. He’s not surprised at his friend’s love for writing anymore. If he could, he would escape the dull reality the same way.
The moment his lips touch the pipe, his vision sets itself ablaze. He starts laughing maniacally and Yixing joins him in lying on the floor. He whispers something about the room being filled with pink unicorns but all Luhan can make himself care about is Yixing’s hot breath tickling his neck.
It’s a month or maybe two later that his vision starts getting blurred regularly and thinking about anything for longer induces a horrible migraine. There are days which Luhan spends lying on the floor with his skin itching and stomach contracting in the most bizarre ways. Even so, it all appears so full of meaning to him - all the days that blend one into another, decorated by the sickeningly sweet smell of flowers, dreamy smiles and sex.
When he thinks about it now, he knows he ought to have noticed, for all the signs were so obviously there. Him, breaking into pieces like a shattered mirror with shards glued back recklessly, all chipped and ill-fitted. And Yixing, with his increasingly twitching fingers and eerily empty eyes. However, the world he saw was one filled with fog and hidden behind a veil. And so they became like moths flying towards a treacherous flame. As always, Luhan was the first one to burn.
*
Sehun obsesses over the mysterious stranger for two long weeks. Even Kyungsoo and Junmyeon, who only share one class with him, start looking at him strangely. Jongin is of course much less subtle. He regularly asks Sehun if he’s mental and assures him that, if need be, Jongin knows all the best institutions.
He can’t help it. Every time he lets his thoughts run free, they naturally turn towards the stranger. He has become a permanent fixture in Sehun’s life, an annoying but also a curiously welcome one. He’s certain that if Jongin knew the whole story, he would just tell Sehun that this is a clear sign that his life is really boring. Sehun would concur.
And so it takes two weeks for the creepy policeman to call. The conversation starts with the other apologizing for taking so long and then asking Sehun to come over to the police station. Sehun can vaguely recall what Jongin told him and all possible alarms go off in his head.
“I’m at work right now and will be pretty busy for the next month so could you please just tell me everything on the phone,” he says and looks at Jongin who is currently rolling from one side of the sofa to the other, laughing hysterically. Once his flatmate manages to contain himself, he stage whispers, “Work, huh? Nice. I’d like to work at home too.”
The policeman doesn’t sound too happy but in the end dictates the dead stranger’s name and address. Sehun notes it down with trembling fingers and then hastily says good bye.
“What was that about?”
“Huh?”
“There’s something you haven’t told me.”
“No?” Sehun tries to feign innocence but Jongin is having none of it. “That wasn’t a question, you dimwit. What is it you’re not telling me? And bloody hell, stop making that constipated face.”
Sehun bites his lower lip and focuses his gaze on the wall behind Jongin. On one hand, all he wants is to talk with someone about the ridiculous predicament that he’s found himself in. He has bottled everything up inside and at times he feels as if his mind is bursting at the seams. On the other hand, even he finds the whole thing absolutely absurd and that doesn’t encourage him to share.
“Whatever. Do what you want but if you end up in a tight spot, don’t come crying to me,” Jongin huffs and rolls his eyes ostentatiously before leaving the living room. Sehun looks at him go without a word. Once he hears the sound of door closing, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’s been holding and walks quickly to his own room. He switches on his laptop and waits for it to start, while tightening his fingers around the piece of paper on which he wrote the stranger’s address.
He looks around curiously. From what he can remember, he’s been to this part of the city only once before. The buildings look old but expensive; most of them white, with big windows and perfectly trimmed grass in front. It doesn’t take more than spotting a Mercedes and an Aston Martin on the street for Sehun to begin feeling out of place. Money has never been a problem in his family but this kind of money is something he can’t even begin to imagine having.
The stranger, or rather Luhan, used to live in one of the smaller houses. Still, it’s pristine white and its porch is a piece of art. Sehun swallows hard and rings the doorbell. What follows is absolute silence, broken only by the sound of the wind and cars driving by. He’s not sure what else he expected but nevertheless he’s a bit disappointed. Against all odds, he was hoping for this visit to lift some of the weight off his mind.
His musings are interrupted by a female voice. “Are you here to see Luhan?”
He turns around with a jolt and notices a woman, probably in her early thirties, standing in front of the porch.
“Y-Yes,” he stutters and wills his heart to stop beating so frantically.
“I’m afraid he died in an accident around two weeks ago.”
“Is that so? I guess there’s nothing for me to do here,” he lets out a nervous laugh. The woman lifts an eyebrow but says nothing in return. Sehun feels his palms sweating. He excuses himself and the moment he turns the corner, starts running towards the nearest tube station.
*
He dies again. It’s uneventful and quick. He barely manages to open his eyes before something hits him hard enough to send him flying. He lands on the ground a few seconds later and groans in pain. He can feel someone standing nearby but is unable to do anything but lie motionlessly and desperately try to take gulps of breath.
The next thing he knows, he’s standing in front of a white, expensive-looking house, holding a set of keys. He unlocks the door almost as if he were on autopilot and takes off his jacket. He’s not sure where he is or who exactly he is supposed to be. He knows though that he’ll find out soon enough.
It’s rather fast this time. Luhan settles comfortably into his new life in a matter of hours. He’s a lawyer, working for one of the best law firms in the country. He’s also extremely dedicated to his job, to the point that when an important case needs to be handled he has no problems with staying at the office overnight. Even on the normal days he wakes up early in the morning and comes back home long after the sun has set. Still, he’s somehow content with this monotonous, orderly life. That is, until one day he wakes up and realizes he overslept. He quickly dresses up and tries to beat the horrible traffic by taking a taxi. Halfway, he gives up and decides to walk. He’s a mere five minutes away from the office when he bumps into someone. The boy falls onto the pavement and groans. He has half a mind to apologize before he sets off running on pure adrenaline, with his vision blurring and heart clenching. Luhan may forget most of what had happened in his past lives but if there’s one thing he is sure about, it’s that he knows the boy quite well.
*
It follows naturally that Sehun becomes even more distracted than he already was. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon have now joined Jongin in expressing their oh-so-dramatic concerns. Sehun really wishes that The Theory of Art class didn’t exist but for some reason it’s the only class that everyone who attends his uni absolutely has to take (and it lasts a whole year, to boot). Thus, every week for two hours he’s stuck with his overly paranoid friends and practices the art of blocking out what people say. It’s either that, or he will start punching people during class. Consequently, when he’s finally told that he can indeed take an additional class to make up for his failed half unit two weeks into the new term, he feels relieved. The less time he has to mull over Luhan, the more of his sanity can he preserve.
He becomes less enthusiastic when faced with a list of courses he can choose from. A good 90% of them are theoretical and even more ridiculous than “The changing portrayal of human body in art”. As interesting as that course sounded, Sehun slept through most of it without shame and still managed to pass really well by writing an essay that Jongin promptly nominated for his personal most-convincing-bullshit-of-the-year award.
In the end, having to choose the lesser evil, Sehun settles for a contemporary dance class even though his dancing skills are pretty much non-existent. In result, he also makes Jongin’s day.
“A dance class? Are you sure that was the best choice?” his flatmate snorts, while Kyungsoo smirks at him from across the table. Sehun sighs and tries to wrap his mind around why he thought that having lunch with them was a good idea.
“Yes, a dance class. All I’m gonna be graded on is my attendance and a short dance performance. I say, that’s easy.”
His two friends share a knowing look before Kyungsoo retorts: “Sehun, you’ll still need to learn how to dance well if you want a good grade. Besides, it’s a dance performance we’re talking about here. A dance performance in front of, at least, your whole class.”
Sehun tries to imagine doing that and only manages to choke on his coffee. Jongin starts laughing openly now. “You forgot about that small detail, huh? Good luck mate.”
*
There’s another life that he cannot forget. It wormed itself beneath his skin and entangled with his veins. He tried to be more careful than last time but life will never stop for you just because you want to go slow. He tried but in the end he let the current take him away.
Before he realizes what is happening, a handsome, tall stranger hugs him warmly and ushers inside his house. He calls Luhan Shishi and somehow it sounds so right that a few minutes later Luhan isn’t sure what his previous name was anymore. He feels close to the man, as if they have known each other their whole lives.
It takes two days for Shishi to regain the memories he knows he shouldn’t have. This time he’s a poet and a rather famous one. People say that he’s ahead of his times and praise him for his ability to mix the traditional with the modern. Everything he writes is full of melancholy and longing. He figures that maybe that is how he should have been dealing with the inherent sadness that he’s felt all along. The moment his pen touches paper, it’s as if a lid opened and feelings pour out through his fingers forming words. He has no control over anything, his poetry breathes on its own.
The tall man’s name turns out to be Yomishihisa no Fujiwara, although Shishi affectionately calls him Hisa. He’s an oligarch and acts as the Minister of War in the Cabinet. He’s serious and formal and wears his uniform even inside his own house. Basically, he was born to be a government official (although he seems to hate the Navy General with a passion that rivals the power of the strongest sun and complains even in his sleep about how the Taisho Emperor is horribly feeble-minded and can Prince Hirohito grow up faster and replace him for god’s sake). He and Shishi are childhood friends.
Shishi finds his friend’s seriousness to be over the top more often than not (his wardrobe contains an arsenal of neatly folded copies of his military uniform, for crying out loud). Nevertheless, it gives him a sense of security that he has never experienced before. Hisa is so different from Yixing, but Shishi can’t help but be drawn to him. He finds himself staring at Hisa’s majestic eyebrows and perfectly chiselled face. It really doesn’t hurt that he looks amazing in his uniform either. Shishi thinks that maybe he could try the thing called love again.
It’s a warm spring night and he decides to go sit on the veranda that’s located inside of the house, and encloses one of the most beautiful traditional gardens that he has ever seen. The bushes are perfectly trimmed, the stones white-grey and forming orderly patterns on the ground. He’s passing by Hisa’s room when he hears muffled voices. He stops and moves as silently as he can towards the paper screen that was left slightly open. It takes all of his self-control not to gasp. There’s Yixing sitting next to Hisa, smiling that gentle smile of his that seems to light up the whole room. When Hisa leans a bit too close to Yixing, Shishi turns around and walks away with his heart beating so fast it’s threatening to burst from inside his ribcage. It hurts just like the first time he died, except his bones are intact and there’s no blood.
The next day, he’s introduced to Yixing, who’s in fact called Rei. Rei is a koto player and while he has Yixing’s face and his gentleness, he’s much more quiet and much more there. Gone are the dreamy smiles and empty gazes. Shishi smiles and bows politely but leaves Hisa and Rei alone as fast as he can. There are too many painful memories that resurface, and Hisa’s loving gaze sets his nerves on fire in the most aggravating way.
He turns to writing in order to escape and despair proves to be the best inspiration a poet can have. The images appear in his head without warning and disappear just as unexpectedly the moment he tries to form a verse. It is a flood, an avalanche, a wildfire spreading with the wind. Still, even though he imprints each and every one of his emotions on paper, they remain inside him, boiling and threatening to rip him apart. He can feel himself hurting and remembers the sadness that dominated his world when he took his life for the first time.
It’s still dark outside, almost an hour before the sun will begin to rise, when he goes out of his room to have breakfast. He hasn’t been sleeping too well lately. The moment he lies down on the bed, his mind is assaulted by a storm of thoughts that rarely have anything in common. It seems as if his sanity were crumbling. It’s not even Hisa’s fault anymore, he just can’t focus on anything. Sometimes he feels as if his life had no direction and it scares him.
He’s exhausted and the corridor he’s going through appears to be floating. He halts and rubs at his eyes. Then, he takes a few more steps towards the stairs but freezes when he sees Hisa walking towards the back of the house with a boy that Shishi has never seen before. He hides in the darkness and stares at them unabashedly. The boy looks to be a bit younger than him. His face has a serious expression on it that could probably rival Hisa’s. He’s beautiful, so beautiful in fact that, as cliché as it sounds, for a second Shishi feels his heart stop. It picks up again, moving his blood around dutifully when the boy disappears from his sight. Nevertheless, all he can think about during breakfast is the boy’s dark eyes and smooth skin.
He manages to corner Hisa late in the evening when the other retreats to the library. It’s a part of Hisa’s routine. Shishi has no idea what his friend does there but every evening he shuts himself in the library for at least three hours. He knows that Hisa hates to be interrupted but at this point he doesn’t care.
Hisa looks up from the book he’s been reading the moment Shishi opens the library door and asks quietly, “What are you doing here?” Shishi can hear the anger half-heartedly hidden in his voice. Still, he closes the door behind him and sits down on a chair next to Hisa.
“I’ve asked you what you’re doing here.”
“I know.”
“Well then?” Hisa’s left eyebrow starts to twitch and Shishi can barely contain his laugh. He straightens his back and says, “Who was that boy you brought home today?”
“You saw him?” Hisa utters and suddenly looks kind of scared.
“Of course I did. Why? Was him being here supposed to be a secret?”
“No. Nothing like that. He’s a son of an important friend of my father’s. He came to study literature in Todai, although I’ve been told he’s also a painter.”
“Uh-huh. And what is he doing staying here?” Shishi really feels like laughing because Hisa looks so desperate, trying to find the right words to make Shishi leave him in peace.
“I decided to let him stay in the winter pavilion. No one’s been using it since my mother died and the house is too big for me, even with you around, anyway.”
Shishi stares at Hisa’s twitching eyebrow the whole time the other talks. It’s pretty much a giveaway. He doesn’t need any more clues to know what might be going on.
“Sure. That’s definitely what you’d do. Stop lying. You’re really bad at it.”
“Well…uhm…he..,” Hisa tries to come up with something persuasive but in the end only sighs. “Oh, fuck it. I will tell you but keep it a secret. The boy’s name is Sehun and his father is the leader of one of the anti-Japanese groups in Korea. My father owed him a favour and so he asked me to take the boy to Japan in order to keep him safe. I didn’t like the idea much but I can’t disobey father.”
A heavy silence settles upon them. Shishi stares wordlessly at his fingers while he tries to come to terms with what he’s just heard. He didn’t expect to be told something so serious. For a split second he thinks it might have been better if he never asked.
“You got yourself into a dangerous mess. You could lose your life if the boy does something stupid.”
“I know that. He’s fluent in Japanese and smart enough to get into Todai though, so I’m hoping he’s also smart enough to stay out of trouble.”
Shishi forces himself to laugh. “So what kind of a Japanese name did you give him? Is the character for “se” in his name the same one as “se” in “sekai” and “hun” the same one as “kun” in “kunshou”?”
“Well, you could say that.”
“Then, Sekun?” Shishi giggles. “Or did you try to come up with something more creative?”
“It’s Yoshihiro,” Hisa says, resigned. Still, Shishi can see that he looks a bit less worried and feels the tension begin to ease up.
He takes to calling the beautiful boy by his Korean name in his head. They don’t see each other too often. When they are introduced to each other, it’s painfully short and to the point. It seems that Hisa is still paranoid. Why exactly, Shishi doesn’t know. The last thing on his mind would be to go to the police to report who Sehun really is.
It doesn’t stop him from stealing glances at the boy whenever he can. He’s graceful and appears to be calm and collected, albeit Shishi quickly begins to notice the commotion of emotions that Sehun carries under his carefully structured façade. Sometimes the boy looks back at him. Still, he seems bashful, averting his gaze as quickly as possible and walking away. Shishi wishes he could find a way to talk to him. He’s fascinated by Sehun, so fascinated that he barely spares Hisa any thought anymore. However, most of the time when the boy is in the same room as him, Hisa is nearby and unconsciously throwing disapproving glances Shishi’s way.
He knows he shouldn’t do this. It’s a stupid idea. It really is. Not that he ever listens to his inner voice of reason. If he can’t get to know Sehun better in a normal way, he has to resort to slightly more drastic measures.
It’s noon and everyone but the servants are out. Shishi walks quietly towards the back of the house and slides the paper screen of the winter pavilion open. He looks slowly inside, his stomach full of invisible, restless butterflies. There appears to be no one around so he steps inside with confidence.
The place is just as he remembers it being when Hisa’s mother was still alive. The main room is rather empty but each piece of furniture in it is beautifully made, and seems to be in exactly the right place. He’s unable to locate anything that might belong to Sehun and figures that the boy probably occupies the smaller room. Once he enters it, he’s flabbergasted. There’s a bed, a tiny writing desk and a washbasin. Other than that, the room is covered with paintings of all sizes. They lie on the floor, are hanging off a lone chair standing in a corner and are even scattered across the bed. They don’t share a common theme. It seems that Sehun paints whatever comes to his mind. Shishi has to admit that the paintings, with their precise strokes and explosion of colours, are even more breathtaking than Sehun himself.
He’s looking through the paintings, mesmerized, when he hears paper screen being opened. His eyes widen and he abruptly turns around. Sehun is standing on the threshold with an unreadable expression on his face. Shishi takes a deep breath and puts the painting he’s been holding back on the bed.
“I...I’m sorry. I’ve heard you paint but...uhm...I never got the chance to see anything. I was...well...c-curious,” he says, stumbling over his words. He nervously looks up at Sehun again and notices the boy looking everywhere but at him, one hand clutching at the paper screen. “Are you mad?”
“No,” Sehun utters while still looking stubbornly at the floor.
Shishi decides he really doesn’t care about acting rationally anymore. Sehun looks too pretty and Shishi has enough of stealing secret glances. He has enough of being ignored and enough of longing for something he once again seems to be unable to get. He hastily walks towards Sehun and stops only a few centimeters in front of him. His lungs are constricting painfully and he feels dizzy in a way he’s never felt before.
When Sehun notices how close they're standing, his eyes widen almost painfully and he trips over his own feet. Shishi instinctively grabs Sehun’s arm before the boy can fall down and brushes the hair out of his face.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers and he can feel the other boy tremble slightly underneath his palm.
It’s unexpected even to him. One minute they are looking at each other, the next they are kissing. Shishi doesn’t care who leaned in first because Sehun is kissing him as if there was nothing else that was important in this world, as if Shishi were his air, his hands grabbing tightly at Shishi’s clothes. Shishi’s head is spinning and he can hardly breath. It’s perfect. He imagined it before but it never came close to the real thing. He wishes it to never stop.
Suddenly, Sehun pulls away from him. His lips are red and bruised, and his cheeks on fire. Shishi wants to kiss him again and entangle his fingers in Sehun’s hair but the moment he leans in, the boy quickly moves away.
“You need to go now,” Sehun says in a perfectly controlled and emotionless voice. Shishi tries to ask why but before he can utter a word, Sehun spits out, “Leave.”
For the first few days after the incident, Shishi hopes that he’ll be able to talk to Sehun. Still, nothing changes. They are never alone and it seems as if Sehun were doing everything that is in his power to avoid him. It hurts in a way that makes him think that his ribcage is trying to pierce through his heart. Sehun continues to take his breath away, but now he seems even more distant and unattainable, to the extent that Shishi wonders if maybe he dreamt up kissing the other boy.
Sehun is visibly shaken by the news of the anti-Japanese protests in Korea. Shishi doesn’t know for sure and doesn’t dare to ask Hisa, but he figures Sehun’s father was probably arrested and may be facing the death penalty. There’s something that changes in the boy’s behaviour afterwards. Shishi can’t put a finger to it but it scares him, chills him to the bone. He feels almost as if he were watching an inevitable train wreck. He wishes he could do something to prevent it but he knows it’s a lost case.
It happens much too fast. One day he sees Sehun leaving the house, the next one of his friends (with slightly tanned skin, called Atsuyoshi as far as Shishi can remember) comes banging at the door. Hisa ushers him inside and takes him straight to his room. Shishi knows he shouldn’t be eavesdropping but the curiosity gets the better of him yet again. When the conversation is done, he wishes he decided to stay ignorant. Atsuyoshi is crying and Hisa is pacing nervously around the room. Shishi slides down to the floor and clenches his fists tight. The one thing he dreaded the most came true; Sehun has been arrested.
Hisa takes to aimlessly walking around the house. He looks gloomy and refuses to talk to anyone unless he absolutely has to. Shishi doesn’t need to ask to know that his friend feels trapped. No matter what he does, someone will die. If he tries to get Sehun out of jail, it will most likely be all three of them. Unfortunately, before they can even attempt to find a solution, Hisa tells him in a grave tone that Sehun is, in fact, already dead.
It’s the last straw for Shishi. While Hisa turns to Rei with his sadness, Shishi is once again left alone, trying to pick up the pieces of his heart that has been smashed too often. Still, no matter how hard he tries, he’s unable to glue them together and can only stare as they break over and over again.
This time the flood of emotions swipes him off his feet. He knows he’s being selfish. He didn’t know Sehun enough to feel so strongly about him. Nevertheless, life without the other boy is eerily empty and the colours around him seem washed out. His yearning for Sehun has become even stronger and more often than not it chokes him. Seeing Hisa only makes it worse. He begins to hate him for having the one thing he really wants, for being happily in love.
It becomes tiring to keep on going. No matter what he went through in his past lives, he’s still too weak to manage on his own. Hence, he gives up the way he usually does. He writes his last poem, leaves it without a title on his writing desk and slits his wrists.
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