Challenge #25 - comment ficathon
[PROMPTING IS NOW CLOSED]
Welcome!
In the spirit of the holidays we've decided to forgo the traditional weekly challenge this week to run a comment ficathon. Prompting will close on the 1st 8th of January 2017, but remember there is no deadline if you still want to fill up a prompt. I won't be choosing a winner for this week so feel free to ( Read more... )
Welcome!
In the spirit of the holidays we've decided to forgo the traditional weekly challenge this week to run a comment ficathon. Prompting will close on the 1st 8th of January 2017, but remember there is no deadline if you still want to fill up a prompt. I won't be choosing a winner for this week so feel free to ( Read more... )
title and some inspiration from grey zone by nell which came to mind as soon as i saw this prompt because i, a masochist,
warning for mentions of sexual situations, departures from exo and swearing
They haven’t spoken in months but he knows Luhan’s in Beijing the moment the lights appear on the horizon. When he turns his phone on there’s a single text from an unknown number, timestamped twelve minutes ago.
Need a place to stay? it says, and Yixing doesn’t but he relays the address that comes through a moment later to the taxi driver anyway.
Luhan answers the door wearing a Man U shirt he’s had longer than Yixing’s known him.
“Hey,” he says, as though it hasn’t been almost a year, as though last time they saw each other Yixing wasn’t crying and Luhan wasn’t saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry like they were the only words he knew. “You eaten yet?”
Yixing follows him inside, suitcase clacking over the threshold. “You offering?”
Luhan’s apartment is big considering it’s central Beijing, and tidy considering it’s Luhan. He’s bent over staring at the bottle of wine and single carrot in his fridge. The cold light spilling across his face makes him look like a marble statue, or maybe an angel. “I’m offering to order takeout?” Luhan grins at him over his shoulder. It shifts into a wince when he straightens, one hand shooting to his lower back. “Jesus, how are you still standing?”
“Sorry,” he says, but Luhan holds up a hand.
“Don’t.” He takes the bottle of wine by the neck and lets the fridge slam shut behind him. “Don’t apologise.” He digs his wallet and phone out of his pocket and slides them across the counter to Yixing. “You choose. Whatever you want.”
Yixing’s memory of his trainee days is patchy at best, but he distinctly remembers the first time they met. He’d walked into dance class, caught eyes with Luhan, whose name he didn’t even know, and had the oddest feeling, almost like he was staring into a mirror.
Three days later Luhan had nudged him during a break and muttered, “Could you stop staring at Joohyun’s ass?”
Yixing choked on his water. “What?”
“You’re distracted so I am too.”
“What?” Yixing said again, and Luhan took a half-step back and looked at him strangely.
“You haven’t realised yet, have you?” Luhan pulled up his sleeve, raised his hand and, before Yixing could react, slapped his own forearm.
At his side, Yixing’s arm stung sharply. “What the fuck?” He pulled up his sleeve, and turned his arm over, but it looked normal. And yet he could feel it, in the centre of his left forearm, the exact same place a handprint was blooming on Luhan’s skin.
He looked up at Luhan, into his eyes and Yixing realised he was wrong. It wasn’t a mirror. It was more like the shadow and light of the moon-- two parts of a whole.
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Luhan’s sitting on the windowsill, mug atop his knees. He’s had two refills to each of Yixing’s, because he still has the tolerance of a high-schooler and Yixing holds his alcohol like a holey plastic bag.
“You remember when I asked you why this was happening?” Yixing says.
Luhan’s eyes are bright and his cheeks are red. Yixing feels dizzy. “I know where you’re going with this.”
“You said you thought the universe knew it was going to be hard and wanted to give us a fighting chance.” Like learning choreo twice as fast or needing half the sleep, or even that one time Luhan backed Yixing into the shower in the name of experimentation and he came so hard he nearly blacked out.
“You don’t need to do this,” Luhan mutters, almost to himself, glancing out at the lights of Beijing.
“But then why,” Yixing says, and Luhan sighs. “You left, so why’s it still here?”
Luhan turns and looks at him for a long moment. “You want me to say we’re destined to be together or some shit? Because I will, if that’s what you want to hear.”
Yixing stares at his lap and grips his mug hard. “That’s not it.”
“What, then, if you don’t want me to give you a reason to follow me?” Luhan shouldn’t be sober but he sure looks it, still and deadly serious.
“I think,” Yixing says, realising it himself for the first time, “I think I want a reason to stay.”
Yixing flies back to Seoul at night. He can still feel Luhan as the plane shudders up off the runway, distant but there, like holding hands in the dark or falling asleep to a familiar voice.
And then, like smoke, he’s gone.
Yixing leans his head against the window and looks up. The moon is bright and full tonight. It illuminates the tops of the clouds, lighting the way.
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