Outlines (pt1.)
Title: Outlines
Author: theirblinggirl
Pairing: Sehun/Tao (tiny mentions of Xiumin/Luhan, Chanyeol/Baekhyun)
Rating: light R
Word Count: 8,406
Summary: Oh Sehun is an average college student with a not-so average ability that he doesn’t enjoy having at all. One day a new, ridiculously annoying ghost appears, and his request turns Sehun’s life upside down.
A/N: Sooo this was my entry to last year's SNCJ Secret Santa, and I've been planning on writing more to it before posting, but I don't think I will anymore so, half a year later, here it is again, finally on my journal. One of the main reasons why I am posting it now is BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN TRANSLATED TO ITALIAN BY THE WONDERFUL purple-mush I really am surprised that somebody would do that with a fic of mine, so thank you so much, dear~
Read it in Italian ~*HERE*~
~*~
When Sehun wakes up in the middle of the night, he can’t be the least bit surprised to see a tall figure looming over his bed.
“Do you guys really forget the concept of sleep as soon as you die?” he frowns, and the tall figure - a boy, probably only a couple years older than Sehun himself - wrinkles his forehead.
Of course he’d be young, Sehun muses. Young and gone before his time, that usually makes it harder to accept. He’s dealt with many of this kind before and he hopes he’s not gonna have a hard time with this one either. He also wishes they wouldn’t be so keen on upsetting his biorhythm.
“Okay let’s get over this quickly so I can go back to sleep. I ask questions and you answer them.
One - do you know exactly why you’re here?” - he asks, yawning. He’s grown somewhat tired of ghosts that stay back but can’t decide what the reason was in the first place.
“I thought you were supposed to figure out who I was first…” the boy raises his brow, clearly not amused. Good Lord, another know-it-all.
“Look, I couldn’t care less whatever fancy name your parents came up with 20-something years ago. Or whatever bright and amazing future you had ahead of yourself - it really doesn’t matter anymore, you see. We only need to figure out why you stayed back, quickly resolve it, and then you can be on your way towards the bright, white light or something.” Sehun sighs. He’s really not in the tactful mood at 3 in the morning. He sits up with his blanket pulled up to his chin before continuing - they always make the air chilly, no matter how high he sets the heating.
“And you also don’t look the lost-and-wandering type either. Not to mention I’m no counselor, so…”
“I know exactly what you are and aren’t, Oh Sehun. I died and am now a ghost, and you can see me, alright. So save yourself the trouble of trying to make me understand?” the ghost cuts in with a clearly irritated frown, but Sehun isn’t easily intimidated. Not by annoying young dead people who wake him up in the middle of a perfectly nice and ghost-free dream, anyways.
“That brings us back to my original question - what do you want? What is it that keeps you from going on?” he finally asks again, deciding not to let himself pissed off by his late-night visitor’s attitude.
For the first time since he appeared in his room, the ghost seems somewhat hesitant.
“I… I want you to find someone.”
Oh crap.
“Look here… I am really sorry if someone killed you - it happens to more people than we’d like to imagine, but I can’t do the revenge stuff. If there is an investigation going on about your death, well, I might be able to pass some info onto the police, but revenge is never the answer…” Sehun says, surprisingly softly. He can only guess how hard it must be for someone to see their killer free and untouched - murders hit way too close to home for him. He suddenly feels honestly sorry for the young guy in front of him, and he wants to help, now he really does, but he also knows it’s not really in his power.
The ghost, however, doesn’t seem taken aback by his refusal. If anything, he grins like Sehun just said the most amusing thing he’s ever heard, and waves his hand.
“It’s nothing like that, tho. It was an accident - a pretty ugly one. I actually saw my body in parts, uggh… But that’s not the point” he shakes his head, not letting himself be distracted, and Sehun thinks he really must have something important in mind if he can push his own death aside.
“Yeah, sorry about that. This… someone I want you to find is… Not connected to my death. He is - well, was - a good friend of mine. And I think - no I am pretty sure - that he is like you now.”
“Painfully sleep-deprived?”
“No. What I mean is… he can see ghosts. And I want you to help him deal with that.”
Sehun opens his mouth - and closes it without a sound.
”Also. I’m going to stick around and haunt you to insanity unless you help him so… You can call me Wufan. Thought you’d want to know that.”
~*~
“So you want me to stalk this friend of yours.” Sehun mumbles into his phone - with no one at the other end of the line but Wufan walking right next to him, passing through people like he was an illusion. Which Sehun really whishes he was, right now. He is on his way to his first lecture, which is in itself a quite annoying fact because it’s eight in the morning and he couldn’t get much sleep last night therefore couldn’t wake up in time to finish his readings in the morning and also couldn’t get to them on the public transportation because a certain - dead - someone kept following him around and bombarding him with his fantastic ideas. So now he pretends he is on the phone so he could finally convince the guy to just leave him alone.
He’s adopted this technique, this method of conversing with ghosts in public places since a couple years now, because he grew tired of the side-eyed glances he got from others - and also because he knew from experience that people talking to themselves are in general creepy as hell.
At the very moment, however, Sehun wishes he could just pocket his phone (or throw it), and send Wufan away with the international sign of the mentally disabled, because really, how the fuck is he supposed to do what this guy is asking him?
“No! I want you to talk to him and tell him anything he needs to know.” The ghost-boy shakes his ghost-head and rolls his ghost-eyes, which is, in Sehun’s opinion, totally uncalled for. He’s not the one making no sense in this conversation, after all.
“…what, like, should I just walk up to him and say “Hey, you don’t know me and I don’t know you either but listen, there is this friend of yours who has died recently and he wants me to enlighten you that you can actually see ghosts!” You do realize how wrong that sounds, right?”
Now it’s an eye-rolling competition and sadly Sehun has to admit that he is not winning, which, in any other situation - at any other human time of the day which is not morning - would be quite exciting since Sehun has always been the best at unbelieving eye-rolling.
“Why don’t you just go up to him and tell him yourself? That way he could actually immediately realize how these things work. You’re pretty lucky, you know, to actually have someone you know to help with your posthumous businesses…”
“I can’t do that. I already told you.” Wufan sighs, and for one moment, Sehun can hear something akin to resignation in his voice.
“Never told me why, tho…” he shrugs, pretending to care. As long as the other talks, Sehun is not obliged to answer, and he’s also since long learned how ghosts enjoy long rants about their lives. It’s a good tactic to get them not to focus on Sehun for some time.
“Because we were close and I don’t think he is over… it, yet. It would freak him out, and also make him sad. The one time he saw me accidentally, and that was when I found out, he… well, he took it quite badly. I suppose he thinks he was imagining it, tho. But you need to tell him because soon others will find him and he’ll freak out like hell.”
Sehun reluctantly admits to himself that Wufan has a point - he only fails to see where said point is in any way his business.
No one was there to explain to him, after all.
Soon they reach the campus and the ghost at least has the decency not to keep talking to him during lectures so Sehun tries to push the situation aside till lunchtime.
Though when he finds a flyer advertising traditional Chinese Martial Arts training (actually quite close to his university) in one of his textbooks during lunch, which he definitely knows didn’t put there, he has a feeling that Wufan is responsible.
“Zitao works part-time as a trainer for beginners in that centre. I thought maybe if you enrolled, you could get to know him without seeming suspicious.” A voice suddenly comes up from behind him and Sehun nearly chokes on his kimbap.
“Could you, like, not sneak up on me?” he murmurs in a low voice, hoping nobody catches him speaking to himself. Again.
“I thought this through okay? And this plan is totally foolproof. I know Tao, he’s gonna like you instantly once you go to his training. He’s weird like that.” Wufan simply continues, ignoring the piercing stare Sehun sends his way.
“Dude, do I look like a martial arts type of guy to you?!” he hisses, crumpling the paper in his hand. “There is absolutely nothing you can do to make me voluntarily get my ass beaten up by enthusiastic housewives and hyperactive preschoolers with sticks twice their sizes on a weekly basis. Absolutely nothing.”
~*~
Two days later, the afternoon finds a very, very annoyed Sehun in worn-out sweatpants and an old Red Devils T-shirt at the only training room of a small Chinese Sports Centre.
The mat under his feet seems painfully hard - painful to being thrown onto several times, that is. Mirrors cover three of the four walls of the room - it would be ideal for dancing, Sehun thinks -, and as he looks around, his annoyance is fueled by the fact that all his presumptions of this “wushu stuff” seem to be correct.
As this is the beginners class, mostly kids surround Sehun. Thankfully there is only one middle-aged woman in the group, but Sehun is not sure whether getting beaten up by children or women is more damaging to his self-esteem.
It also doesn’t help that many of the kids seem to know each other and gather into small groups, whispering amongst themselves, glancing at Sehun from time to time.
Somehow it feels like junior high all over again.
Sehun shoots the whispering kids a death-glare, which makes most them fell silent instantly, and turns his gaze at the door. The trainer (the whisperers call him master but Sehun is not into those kinks) has yet to arrive, and it kind of pisses Sehun off because he could list at least a hundred activities he could be doing at this very moment, instead of waiting for an awful Chinese ghost’s (presumably awful) Chinese friend.
Then the door opens, and - oh. Sehun really didn’t expect that.
Well, at least there is some positive side to this nonsense, he thinks, as he eyes Huang Zitao’s upper body clad in a black wife-beater. He also thinks that maybe it was time he asked Luhan to set him up with one of his many friends again because the level of his lack of sexual life is reaching “ridiculous”.
After Zitao walks in, he greets everyone with a wide smile and also tells them how happy he is to see new faces. His Korean is slightly accented and the way he grins makes Sehun doubt he is actually capable of causing any harm to as much as a fly. Sehun also doesn’t think the face he is making - he checks it in the mirrors - could possibly convey any impression of being happy to be here, so he tries to quickly soften his frown, because the sooner he “makes friends” with Zitao, the sooner he can stop this nonsense. Although he might somewhat miss the sight of Zitao’s bare arms. Clearly the world is out to get him.
Thirty-five minutes later he gets paired up with Mrs. Kim for couple training and he decides that no, there are no perfectly shaped and tanned upper arms that are worth this shit.
That night he decides that Luhan is his only friend in the universe because he gets him wasted and feels sorry for his bruises and calls Wufan’s ghost a fucker. And most importantly, again, gets Sehun really, really drunk.
~*~
“You’re making progress… Sehun, right?”
Sehun freezes momentarily in between changing his two socks and looks up at Zitao. They are in the small changing rooms just before training, and albeit Sehun didn’t notice Zitao walking in, he kind of knows this is his chance to speed things up. He smiles thankfully - having no idea what progress the other can possibly speak of because he still feels like broken shit after every training - and pulls out a bar of very expensive, import chocolate from his bag.
“Here… this is a bribe. I hope you’ll like it?” he says, standing up with one sock on, and Zitao looks kind of confused, hesitating before he takes the chocolate.
(“He likes sweet stuff… and expensive stuff, too.” Wufan told him earlier, before disappearing into thin air, and Sehun is actually surprised that all of the ghost’s plans and ideas have worked so far.)
“A… bribe?” Zitao asks slowly, and Sehun wonders if it’s the word itself that he actually doesn’t quite get.
“Yes, a bribe for you not to pair me up with Mrs. Kim anymore? Because, you know, it kind of hurts my pride to get smashed into the dirt by a woman that could be my mother two times a week…” Sehun answers, carefully picking his words. Understanding spreads across Zitao’s face like wildfire, and there is the grin again (which Sehun has labeled as the “misleading baby grin”).
“Okay… Okay I understand. You could have just told me, you know. But anyway, thanks for the chocolate.” He answers gleefully. “I’ll let you change now. See you in a couple minutes?” Zitao winks, and all Sehun can do is nod, because this shouldn’t be so easy.
Half an hour into training Zitao announces that he would be Sehun’s training partner to “help him shape his moves more accurately” and Sehun wishes the mat would swallow him.
“See, all you had to do was ask!” the trainer says once they stand in front of each other. Sweat is soaking Sehun’s T-shirt and making his hair stick to his face in the most not-amusing ways and Zitao looks like hasn’t even moved a finger yet. Which makes sense, actually, since this much shouldn’t be hard on someone who has, according to Wufan, been into martial arts since kindergarten, but it annoys Sehun nonetheless.
“Hey, don’t worry, okay? I’m not going to be hard on you… Just follow the moves exactly how I showed them earlier, okay?” Zitao smiles, reaching out to ruffle Sehun’s hair - like how he saw him doing to some of the younger kids after complementing them - and he narrows his eyes because no one is fucking allowed to handle him like a preschooler. Following moves exactly as he was shown is something he’s been painfully familiar with, anyways.
So that’s exactly what he does, surprising even himself how each move just seems to melt into the next one, how much it all actually makes sense, even though he feels he is missing the strength in his movements.
Training seems to end much earlier than usual, and Sehun is quite grateful for that because his mind is already on his assignments that are due to really soon, but then Zitao appears in front of him yet again, and honestly it’s just too easy to push everything aside.
After all, Sehun is just a normal college student, and as such, procrastination is practically his middle name.
“You were good, Sehun! You’re missing the strength yet, but it’s bound to build up soon, really.” Zitao beams, once they are back in the changing room and Sehun wants to punch him because he’s always hated when people told him the exact same things he already knew.
“Yeah, well, I suppose you are right?” he nods, re-considering that thought. For a brief second, they just stare at each other in awkward silence and suddenly Sehun is all too aware of the fact that he’s in the middle of buttoning up his shirt.
Then, before he can even think of anything to say, Zitao takes a surprisingly hesitant breath, and “So I was just thinking that maybe… since you know, you’re the only one around my age in my class and all… that maybe, umm… do you like coffee?”
“Yeah I practically live on coffee, actually” Sehun answers. In retrospect, this was probably one of the worst possible answers anyone has ever given to such a question but Sehun is too dumbfounded because things really shouldn’t be working out this easily.
~*~
Sehun is only five when he sees his first ghost. But it isn’t until he is eleven and his grandmother dies that he understands why strange men and women keep coming into their house, despite seeing his parents always locking the door, and why they keep talking to him about things he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how these people know him - they always call him by his name -, he has no idea why they wouldn’t just stop bothering him, but he learns fast enough not to tell anyone. On the first few occasions he tries to tell his mom - he runs to her bed in the middle of the night, crying, because a weird old man is standing in his room and staring at him, but she tells Sehun that it was just a bad dream, even though Sehun knows it wasn’t.
After a few more times - they come to him at the supermarket when he is shopping with his dad, at school when he is playing soccer with Jongin during break, and one time even at his grandparents’ house - his mom brings him to a nice lady, who makes him talk about them all, and tells him that he has a strong imagination. She makes him draw all the strange people, looks at his pictures with furrowed brows, and talks with his mom in a hushed tone so Sehun can’t hear anything. But she gives him candy and tells him that they are not real, and Sehun has to believe her because she is an adult and Sehun is supposed to listen to what adults say.
They never stop coming, tho, but Sehun is afraid to tell his mom because then she would think that Sehun is a bad boy who doesn’t listen to the adults and Sehun doesn’t want to upset her.
It’s not until his grandmother dies and comes to him after the funeral that he understands.
She tells him about ghosts, she tells him how it is a gift and how Sehun is special, and once again, he doesn’t want to go against the words of adults. She also tells him that she only stayed back so that she could talk to Sehun, tells him she loves him and then she disappears.
He only fully learns the meaning of “curse” years later, and by that time, he no longer gives a shit about what adults, or any other people, say, because honestly, what do they know.
Kim Jongin becomes his best friend in elementary school - his only friend for most of his elementary school life. Jongin likes to talk a lot - about himself and his mom, and then himself and his other friends, and also girl friends, which Sehun has never understood, and himself and this great theatre where his mom brought him where everyone was dancing in pretty dresses and on tiptoes and there was this boring classical music playing which Jongin actually somehow liked, even though it was supposed to be about cracking nuts or something… and Sehun likes to listen.
Even though Jongin is a popular kid and has many, many more friends than Sehun, he somehow thinks Jongin likes him the best because the others never let him talk enough. Sehun’s always been good at listening - he’s been listening to his mom’s problems about work, about bills, about his father and his grandparents since as far as he can remember, and he’s also been listening to ghosts. He is never good with solving their problems, but he discovers with Jongin that many times, it’s enough to just listen and let them talk.
It’s also Jongin who helps him discover dancing.
Jongin’s mom enrolls Jongin to ballet lessons and he tugs Sehun along. He doesn’t particularly like ballet - Jongin loves it and he is the best in their class when Sehun drops out - but when they start junior high, Jongin starts doing all genres of other dances and he brings Sehun along again.
They are fifteen when they meet Luhan, a Chinese exchange student at their school, and start their dance trio, and Sehun is sixteen when he discovers that he is gay.
He falls in love with Luhan because he’s known Jongin for too long and Luhan is the second closest person to him, and like any other first love, it’s overwhelming and exciting and painful and short.
By the time they are seventeen, they are able to laugh about it freely, and when they get drunk for the first time in their lives, together at Jongin’s place with his parents out for the weekend, Sehun tells Luhan the only secret he’s never told Jongin.
The booze loosens his tongue and he starts talking, more easily than any other time before, and Luhan listens with understanding attention, tells him he believes him and thanks him for being honest.
They make out on the couch after Jongin falls asleep, experimenting and giggling constantly into each other’s mouth, but nothing changes between them and Sehun has never been more grateful for anything.
~*~
“In other news, I think I am actually going on a date, hyung.” Sehun tells Luhan over the phone before pulling the device a little further from his ears, expecting the excited shrieks of his friend. He lays on his stomach on his bed, textbooks sprawled all across the sheets, highlighter pen between his fingers, and grins as Luhan demands all the details.
He can feel Wufan’s presence before the ghost actually appears, and with a sigh, he says good-bye to Luhan because if the trembling of the lamp on his nightstand is anything to go by, Wufan is not happy.
“What the fuck is this all about?” the ghost glares at him, clearly furious. Sehun rolls his eyes.
“You wanted me to get close to him, right? Why are you complaining now?”
“Yeah, but I meant… as friends or something! Not a fucking date! I warn you, if you disappoint him I’ll kill you Oh Sehun…” Wufan growls and Sehun almost starts to laugh at how overprotective he sounds. Almost.
“If I recall correctly, you’re the one who doesn’t have the guts to show up and talk to him, so don’t try to play the best friend-card on me, dude. Besides, it’s just a coffee okay. We’re not getting married…” Sehun snorts in annoyance, and returns his gaze to the textbook in front of him.
“Also, you wanted me to do this, so I’m doing this my way.” he adds, and hears Wufan taking a sharp breath, as if wanting to continue arguing, before he just huffs and disappears, leaving Sehun with the faint, bugging idea what somehow Wufan may be right, and this is entirely not going according to plans.
He is, of course, unable to efficiently study for the rest of the evening.
~*~
It may only be a coffee (and unbelievable amounts of cake for Zitao) but it’s also definitely a date, because Sehun might not be the most socially expert person, but he is certain that friendly coffee outings don’t include this amount of sheepish grinning and seemingly honestly interested interrogations about Sehun’s life.
Zitao also seems to enjoy talking, although he is full of questions and Sehun finds it stunningly easy to answer him. There is something about the way Zitao smiles over his cup of caramel latte that opens Sehun up, and halfway through the endless conversation, he discovers that he’s actually trying to impress the boy somehow.
Zitao also tells him a lot about himself - how he came to Seoul with a scholarship and works part-time at the fitness centre to finance his brand addiction (he says that with an embarrassed, yet adorable laugh), how he enjoys studying at a Korean university, even tough he might just end up as a full-time trainer because he still likes wushu the most, how he used to go to local tournaments back in China when he was younger and how he had to quit them because of school. Sehun can relate to that way too easily, which he also tells the other who asks Sehun to call him Tao.
By the time the coffee shop closes on them (how did it get so late so soon?) Tao loses the last remnants of his intimidating appearance, which comes from his toned figure and sharp (and handsome) features, and after they part with promises of seeing each other at the centre in two days, Sehun has a feeling that he might be absolutely fucked.
With years of meticulous training, Sehun has come to the point where he can ignore every single human being except for his mother if he puts enough effort in it.
So when Wufan shows up every night after he returns from a date with Tao, Sehun manages to flip him off with a tired “go to Hell and leave it to me”. It also helps that his mind is usually still full of warm laughs and witty comments in accented Korean. He does worry a little about his kitchen - his mugs and plates tend to break in the cupboard when Wufan particularly gets upset, and Sehun hasn’t even told him about last time’s quick good-night kiss yet. How is that his business anyway? It’s not like Tao was his boyfriend before he died, anyways.
Or so Sehun hopes, because as much as they have gotten closer, Tao still hasn’t mentioned Wufan’s name yet.
The lingering feel of guilt never leaves, however. If anything, it just grows stronger and stronger every time Tao “accidentally” brushes the backs of their hands together while they walk, or tells Sehun how lucky it is that he decided to enroll to his classes.
Sehun never quits training because it really does make Tao happy (and maybe he would be lying if he said he hasn’t started to enjoy regular exercise, but he does not speak of that, under any circumstances, especially after Luhan telling him that he would eventually come to like it).
“What do you actually want from him, anyway?” Wufan asks one night, and maybe Sehun is too tired, but as he looks up to the ghost, he finds it impossible to answer.
The next day he and Tao meet up for dinner and the Chinese boy insists on paying because he just received his paycheck.
When he opens his wallet, Sehun notices a small photo of three laughing boys and two girls and the guilt is back with full force because he recognizes the lean figure with his arm loosely around Tao’s shoulder in the middle. It’s Wufan.
~*~
PT2.