primary; fanxing; 3/3
he wakes up, and for once he doesn’t remember what he dreamt. and it’s not him blocking out a memory, this time; he can’t remember a damned thing. the absence of memories that should be there are ringing in his mind. what had he dreamt? what had he dreamt?
there is only one pounding thought in his head, again, and this time he can attach something to it. the fact that he remembers something, at least, is a relief. yixing, he thinks, and it’s not just familiar, not just warm, not just thick and clinging like a loving winter mist. yixing is a person. yixing is an important person. someone who listens and speaks back, who mostly understands and tries his best to try when he can’t, who plays guitar and cooks fantastic, smiles like a child and has his own dreams. yixing, like tendrils, like smoke. yixing, folded crane within the folded crane, always just as full as what’s left behind. yixing is a very solid, real person. yixing, who isn’t here.
he’s sitting against the kitchen counter, on the floor, knees against his chest, chest heaving for breath. he feels like a hangover and he is hungover and he wants a jacket over his eyes.
he tilts his head, and he can see the door to sehun and yixing’s room wide open. yixing is gone and sehun isn’t snoring there, either. it’s two in the afternoon, he’s probably in a class.
yifan reaches for his pocket, draws out his phone. dials speed dial one. baekhyun picks up after two rings. “i feel like a hangover,” he mumbles into it, and he hears a rush of static as baekhyun sighs. “i’m coming, wait a bit.”
the soup is good but it’s cabbage and mutton and doesn’t taste the same, and baekhyun is comfortable but he isn’t quiet. he keeps pushing, keeps pushing, and yifan ends up in front of his laptop, writing the epilogue. it’s something happier than making kangjun realize that the forces had shot his mother the moment he’d entered service. it’s happier than completing the sixteenth chapter.
(it’s happier than thinking of what to write past the phrase when death’s lips left mine.)
and in his mind, the song takes on a darker tinge and the tendrils turn green and wiry, pushing up stubbornly through the keys he’s typing.
after baekhyun makes sure he’s fine by himself, he leaves with a half-hearted glare and a, “take care of yourself, for god’s sake.”
take care of himself. there’s nothing to be guilty about. he keeps typing, scrolls through the file and adds sentences here and there throughout the chapters, begins chapter nineteen instead of finishing the sixteenth, revisits the funeral scene and tastes waffles and emptiness. it’s five in the evening and sehun hasn’t come back. his phone’s beeped countless times with messages but he doesn’t really bother. there’s nothing to be guilty about, and that’s not what the psychiatrist had meant all those years ago when he was nineteen but who in hell gave a crap, right? six years is a long time. he doesn’t remember what he dreamt and he doesn’t want to remember what’s still waiting to be unveiled. when he’d opened his eyes after the statue had fallen.
yifan hits the ctrl and s keys before closing the laptop and lying down, wide awake. he watches the clock blink the hours passing. five p.m. whispers to six p.m. passes onto seven, melts into eight and then nine. yifan’s eyes flutter shut as he tries so hard, so hard to remember.
and then later, much later, he finds himself in a haze as someone pulls him upright, holds his face in their hands.
“you okay?”
yifan doesn’t know what to think, shoulders tensing. then that someone sighs and says, “get up,” and yifan cannot go against what that voice is saying, so he gets up, he follows that someone out the door. it’s dark dark dark and it’s probably past midnight and the traffic zips by a few yards away as he straps himself in the car. the car? so long since he’s been in it, almost forgot he’d had one. a ford cortina. what’d sehun said? won’t ever rust.
is this another dream, or are they actually driving? whatever it is, yifan isn't behind the steering wheel. not today.
they flit through underpasses and over highways, windows down. yifan feels himself rouse, slowly, with the cold wind. yixing’s face lights up and fades continuously as they travel down the brightly lit streets. “hello,” yifan says, and he feels so tired. “where are we going?”
he doesn’t need to know, but he doesn’t want to think. he needs to talk. needs someone to talk.
“quiet,” yixing replies, places a hand on his thigh for a moment before pulling at the clutch and shifting gear.
yifan feels the imprint burn, and stares out the window. quiet, then. he concentrates on the sound of everything falling past as the road is swallowed under them and the trees, moon-drunk (the night’s brighter now that the clouds have drifted), sway and bend over. they drive for so long that the the sceneries melt together into a soft bokeh blur, and he loses track of time and place.
when yixing finally stops the car, yifan can hardly believe his eyes. white sand and white water spread out before them. he sits and grips the dashboard, staring over to the ocean. he only remembers to move after yixing’s left the car, opened his door and clicked open the seat belt. shakily, yifan steps out.
the waves draw him closer, their scent stripping him raw. so many other times he’d been here, somewhere like here, a beach, the sand, the open, open water. pictures of bare feet and pants rolled up.
“is this because i need more help than i know, yixing?” he’s kneeling down on the sand, watching the waves unfurl and lap at the shore, rise up gently and kiss his knees. “is it?” the water is glistening green and silver in the moonlight, and yixing stands, inches away.
“no,” his voice carries down to yifan, light, airy. “it’s the story. for kangjun.”
that’s right. he’s stuck with kangjun. what are you supposed to do when death’s lips leave yours? yifan knows what kangjun is supposed to do, but he refuses it. he refuses it. what had happened when the glass had melted and the steel had shook? he refuses it.
there’s a hand on his shoulder, weighing down. “what are you thinking?” yixing whispers, close. so close. yifan’s fingers dig into the sand.
for you, not for you.
“i’m trying to remember,” he chokes out, and the hand moves over to his own hand, closes over it.
yifan closes his eyes.
yifan remembers.
-
he opens his eyes, and the city is gone. well, of course he’d expected that. but he isn’t in a vast arena, something devastated or shell-shocked. he’s in a large, gleaming room. there is a steady beeping from a machine, walls and floor sternly clinical and white.
in the middle, up against one of the walls, is a bed. a form on the bed. he doesn’t look. he does not look because he doesn’t want to look because he knows what -- who -- is there. there is a chair at the foot of the bed. so he fixes his gaze at its foot, walks towards it, takes a seat.
then stares at his hands and waits. there is one thought in his mind. how much time? how much time? how much time? how much time? how much time? how much time? how much time? how much time? how mu--
a door slides open.
funny, he hadn’t seen a door when he’d looked around first. then again, he hadn’t looked around properly. this is a dream of a memory. in the dream, and in the memory of this dream, yifan winces. so many things, so many things he could have done, so many things he shouldn’t have.
regret.
“lia jheng kevin?”
-
“yixing,” yifan breathes. “i don’t have to, do i?”
the only reply is a slight pressure on his wrist.
the answer is coming.
-
the boy whose name is kevin stands up, something sinking inside his ribs.
-
yifan begins to shake. it’s cold. it’s very cold.
the answer is coming.
-
“as of now, your mother’s reports…all positive.”
the boy whose name is kevin waits, tense and silent. his face shows no emotion. mama, asleep on the bed, gives a sigh. the doctor waits for him to react, but yifan won’t give him that satisfaction. who do these people think they are? how dare these people --
“how much time?” the doctor prompts him, then shrugs and continues on himself.
-
yifan freezes.
-
“i would say seven months, give or take a few weeks. we’ve done our calculations, done the best we possibly could have. but it’s spread to her brain, now. it’s not very regular for this to happen, but it can occur occasionally.”
the boy whose name is kevin sits back down.
“even surgery wouldn’t help at this point. a month from now she’ll be suffering from ataxia and perhaps behavioral changes. vertigo. definitely seizures. to help with this, we’ll be…"
the boy whose name is kevin tunes the clear voice and its hateful, precise pronunciation out.
-
yifan sits back, staring dully at the waves. “this isn’t even about my mother dying,” he says, eventually. “this is about me, as egotistical as it sounds.” he lets out a dry laugh, and draws with his finger in the sand. “what i could have done, what i didn’t do.”
-
“kevin?”
the boy whose name is now yifan looks up from his pillow, blearily.
she looks at him with a soft smile. “oh, good. there you are. i was wondering where you’d gone.”
yifan avoids looking at her.
“you being here means so much to me, háizi. you know, lately, i’ve been almost falling everywhere. the other day i almost fell down the stairs. i’m beginning to be afraid, to be honest. imagine having a little while to live and even that gets cut short because you’re silly enough to fall down some stairs!” she laughs, but it trembles, and as much as yifan wants to reach out and hold her hand, he doesn’t. he was never one for reaching out. the laugh turns into a cough, and he sits up at once, goes to the kitchen to get her the usual tea and tissues.
“thank you, qī'ài,” even her smile is shaking, and he looks away. hesitantly, he places a hand on her head, strokes the bare skin a moment before moving away, back to his bed.
-
“what i could have done,” yifan repeats, biting his lip, and the waves ripple out in a hushed roar.
yixing’s knuckles brush his, and yifan stares out to the inky horizon. he was never one to reach out.
but he reaches out, holds yixing’s wrist this time, and they sit, still, until the sun begins to rise, water beating a tattoo of endlessness, a dream of forever.
the drive back is noisy, other cars gunning closer with puttering engines and fancy wheels. yixing’s hand rests on his arm at the red lights.
“i’m sorry for leaving like that,” yixing says, eyes on the road, and yifan tries to sink further into the seat, tries to feel like he deserves an apology, but it doesn’t work.
“i’m sorry, too.”
-
when someone’s lips leave yours, you think immediately of what you have done. sometimes, of what you could have done. death is just another person. she is no exception.
yifan finishes the sixteenth chapter, sends it over. baekhyun calls him up on skype an hour later, eyes puffy, nose red. “fuck you,” he says, thickly. “that was amazing.”
-
there is a young boy sitting at a bench, eyes contemplative as he regards the window in front of him. yifan turns to look at it, immediately squints at the blinding white light attacking his senses. he raises a hand over his eyes, and the boy gives a delighted laugh, so familiar and carefree. yifan is drawn to it, to it him. there’s a beautiful curve in his right cheek, and a matching dimple in his left, only more sleepy.
yixing.
yixing reaches forward to the table across him, moves a glass prism towards the window.
the next thing he knows, the room is bathed in colors. red, green, blue, primary colors overlapping in kisses to melt into lighter shades, darker shades; yellow, orange, purple, indigo, cyan -- the room is painted over with light, with colors.
for once, he just sees innocent, pure colors. yifan is drenched in them, and maybe now, now it isn't so bad. his hands are shaking, but it isn't so bad.
yixing turns to look at him, eyes widen with recognition. he spreads his arms and runs towards yifan, wrapping them around his back. yifan is shaking, there are tears in his eyes, but it isn’t so bad.
-
yifan’s dreams are almost always of himself, wandering and alone. that’s the way they have been since he can remember. and his mind is sharpening, now, with each word he types. new memories resurface the further he wades through his mind for adjectives and the right words to say. to say. to write.
what’s different is how, now, he can remember dreams with color, from a long, long time ago.
a boy dancing on the wind, a girl painting seashells in a cabin. little people -- yifan sits up, laptop sliding off. little people.
-
“i guess mama has cancer,” she tells him, voice barely audible from all her coughing.
and he hadn’t known, of course. “what’s cancer, mama?”
she coughs again, reaches for water. ten years old, he rushes forward and gets it for her. she ruffles his hair in thanks.
“ah, little people. you know how sometimes people in the world can get angry and fight? well, i have little people inside me, working hard so i can be strong. but some of them are tired, now. they’re starting to fight.”
and he hadn’t even realized the gravity then. “so you have cancer?”
“yes,” she gives a small laugh. “so i have cancer.”
he sits down next to her, confused. gives her a hug. “what does it feel like, mama?”
she’s silent, just running her hands through his hair. after a while, she sighs. “it’s like they’re trying to set me on fire, qī'ài.”
his eyes widen, and he doesn’t know what to say. so he tightens his arms around her middle, squashes his face in her side.
“it’ll be okay,” she whispers. “mama was silly to tell you. it’ll be okay.”
and he hadn’t known.
-
little people. he’d dreamt that, before. the little people, in the statue.
11.12 p.m. hey
yifan stares at the screen. baekhyun doesn’t reply.
-
he doesn’t need to type in the epilogue when he finally reaches the end of chapter twenty two (he’d ended up adding two chapters’ worth of fillers, on sehun’s suggestion), but he does revise it, fixes his typos and adds another sentence in the middle.
he sits and stares at it for a few seconds, before saving it and shutting down the computer at once.
04.56 p.m. kill me
04.56 p.m. will b sending u
04.56 p.m. complete draft in a few hrs
04.57 p.m. ???? u always say tht n then take three days =.=
yifan grins down proudly at the phone screen.
04.58 p.m. ye? nt this time
04.58 p.m. this time im informin u
04.59 p.m. AFTER im finished
05.00 p.m. i just hate it rn
05.00 p.m. so dont want to touch for a while
05.01 p.m. u tryin 2 get back 2 me
05.01 p.m. for tellin u AFTER i xx’d my boyfie
yifan shakes his head, still grinning, and pockets the phone.
-
the next week yifan barely eats, barely sleeps, barely blinks. the only thought in his head is that he hates himself, and apart from that the only thought in his head is that yixing is amazing, and apart from that the only thought in his head is what mama would think, and although his head is convoluted he still recognizes an inconsistency in his thought process, but he’s just dragged himself through two and forty nine thousand words of espionage garbage, so he can’t bother himself to find out.
baekhyun proofreads his work, yixing tries to make him eat, sehun forces him to watch more hockey than should be humanly possible, and by tuesday, he has his answer in his email.
10.23 a.m. Kim Jongdae [IMP] REGARDING YOUR DRAFT: Eighth Hour
Dear Mr. Wu Yifan,
yifan doesn’t bother reading properly, just skims and lets words jump out at him. honor and pleasure... draft has been accepted... editor will be in touch... process…once again…honor... look forward... publish your work…
publish your work.
publish.
his yell has yixing bowling over the bathroom door and skidding into the room, sehun not far behind.
he shoves the laptop towards them. it almost falls off the bed.
as they sit and stare in shock, then stand and stare in shock, then pound his back in shock, he sits, quietly, in a daze.
mama?
i did it. i did it one more time. would you be smiling?
-
“sehun,” yifan drawls, smoke eking out his mouth.
sehun takes a puff, winces. “hmm.”
“what’d you say about my ford again? when i first got it.”
sehun lets out a hoot. “i sang an arctic monkey song, stripped to my boxers and danced on the bonnet.”
yixing raises his eyebrows, slouched over in his corner, and lets out a giggle. “seriously?”
“ah, yixing,” sehun leans back, raising his legs against the wall. “there is much to know about me.”
“clearly.”
“which arctic monkey song,” yifan insists, eyes weighing down. “i think the lyrics were nice but your ass was distracting.”
“why are we talking about my assets in past tense?” sehun lifts his butt off the floor and wiggles it. “it’s still distracting. you could be eighty and married with five grandchildren and it’d be the most beautifully distracting rear end on the planet.”
“what was the song,” yifan grunts, yixing laughing ‘til he cries.
“oh, god,” sehun lets his legs drop and turns onto his stomach. “something about vaccuum cleaners and coffee pots? or something. yeah. wanna be yours. that was it.”
-
it is said by the eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the music of the ainur more than in any substance that is in this earth; and many of the children of ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the sea, and yet know not for what they listen. j. r. tolkien, of course. the silmarillion. yifan quotes this thoughtfully, perhaps meaningfully, as they sit, side by side at the kitchen counter at two a.m., legs dangling from the high seats. yixing raises his brows, slightly impressed.
“that's lovely.”
“you're the music you write,” yifan says, abruptly. and yixing lets out a little laugh.
“is that a compliment? my sheets are so basic, yifan, i wouldn't call them music.”
“alive,” yifan shakes his head, insistent, and takes a sip of cold, icy water. it’s so cold it gives him a brainfreeze. tendrils, he remembers. “alive,” he repeats, and yixing just looks at him with a small smile, and yifan finds himself, as ever, smiling back.
you’d like his music, mama. you’d like him.
-
the president of the publishing company throws a party at baekhyun’s secret (only to yifan) request. not too big, but still grand -- baekhyun’s request, again.
yifan stands in a corner of the bar, rocking backwards on his seat a little. there are small crowds at the tables, women dressed in gaultier -- the knowledgeable bartender points out a rustling silver dress -- and tony yacoub -- the knowledgeable bartender points out another one, rusty and gleaming with rhinestones -- and prabal gurung -- the all-knowing bartender moans at the lilac gown, flaring at the waist with -- okay, yifan doesn’t get any of this stuff. but props to the bartender. “thank you…" he stares at the nametag on his uniform. “thank you, kim minseok,” he says, firmly. “i’ll ask you for more details later.”
kim minseok timidly keeps quiet.
well, there are small crowds at the tables, with women dressed in gaultier, tony yacoub and prabal gurung, and men dressed in, well, pressed black suits. some of them have got gray ones. a few older ones wear mismatched trousers, shirts and coats, but they also have humongous horn-rimmed glasses, so it kind of fits.
to be honest, yifan can’t care less about what people are wearing tonight. he’s just whiling away time, waiting for yixing to arrive. and sehun and baekhyun, of course. he fiddles with his cuffs and asks for some champagne. minseok hands him a full flute in under fifteen seconds, and okay, kim minseok is a pretty good bartender.
he’s leaning into his flute, sniffing at it and processing the fact that perhaps champagne will never stop smelling godawful, when there’s a tap at his shoulder. yifan whirls around and almost upsets his drink on the person in front who -- yifan doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or not -- isn’t yixing.
yifan can’t shake the feeling that he’s seen him before.
“ni hao,” the man inclines his head, respectfully, and when the light from behind the bar reflects into his eyes, yifan suddenly knows who he is.
“ni hao,” yifan smiles, nervously. “i’m baekhyun’s, uh, best friend. i think.”
“lu han,” the other guy says, extending his hand. “you’re wu yifan, author of eighth hour and, as baekhyun says, his platonic soulmate?”
yifan is very pleased with this, and the phrase settles in his stomach like a warm serving of custard. he shakes lu han’s hand, and is about to question, “you’re his boyfriend, right?” at the same time someone walks up to the podium and starts a speech. lu han frowns as soon as the stranger starts talking in an annoyingly high voice. “i don’t do well with speeches. they’re a dreadful bore,” lu han sighs and takes a seat next to yifan’s. “minseok, be a brother, give me something hard.”
minseok looks at him appraisingly. “you get hard stuff at our place every night, what with you having a boyfriend. when are we going to discuss how you dessicated my bed last week. or your own, the week before that? let me guess,” minseok pauses for effect, and lu han has the decency to look embarrassed. “that’s right, never, because you’re either too busy sexting at meetings, or sucking face!”
lu han colors at once. “minseok,” he hisses. “there is an author right in front of you.”
minseok shrugs. “yeah? i just educated this guy on fashion lines. and right now, i’m not talking to him, i’m talking to you. and what i’m saying to you is-- i’m giving you a ninny drink, pink and wishy washy with three umbrellas and a straw. lots of ice cream. i hope there are pictures in the local newspaper tomorrow, president of bookling publishing house caught drinking an embarrassingly womanly drink, subtitled, “i am a man!” he insists. and then everyone photoshops your face onto lingerie models with d-cup boobs, because they have nothing better to do.” he sniffs in disdain. “but good for you, you know.”
lu han groans into his hands. “minseok. please.”
but minseok, yifan learns in awe, is granite. forty eight seconds later, he hands over a glass with, as promised, pink stuff that looks considerably wishy washy. there are three umbrellas, one pink, one yellow, one orange, and raspberry ice cream floats on the top. the straw is white. lu han looks pained as minseok slides it over to him.
“you’re a brother to me,” he repeats, pleading, “i swear.”
“yeah,” minseok nods, “feeling’s mutual.”
meanwhile, the podium guy has been going on and on about publishing and the history of publishing and the beauty of publishing and the ecstasy of publishing and the happiness of publishing and he has now run out of positive adjectives with which to describe publishing, so he calls out, “will the president step up, please!”
lu han groans aloud. “dammit to hell. i wanted a stiff drink, minseok!”
“don’t worry,” minseok pats his hand. “you’re buzzed anyway.”
“how did you--” lu han’s shoulders sag as every individual in the hall claps loudly. yifan joins in, looking around curiously for the president, but lu han is the only one making his way to the podium. that’s strange, almost as if --
“evening, ladies and gentlemen,” lu han puts on an almost entirely convincing, million dollar smile. and he starts talking about the history of publishing and the beauty of publishing, too. yifan frowns and leans towards the bartender, who courteously leans towards him, as well.
“are you saying,” he whispers, confusedly, “that he’s the president of the publishing house?”
“ah,” minseok nods. “won’t catch me saying it in his earshot. but i’m not denying it, either.”
yifan could choke on his breath. he almost does. ever helpful bartender kim minseok clears his throat as he wipes the spotless surface to further levels of spotlessness, and yifan pulls himself together.
“so he published me?”
minseok nods lazily. “’s right. hasn’t read a single word of your book, though.”
oh. yifan feels a tiny bit out of place. “i see.”
“not to worry. baekhyun’s working on it. gets his way with the guy.”
and this is when it properly hits him, that baekhyun is dating. dating the president of the company.
“wow,” he says. “wow.”
“wow,” baekhyun’s voice says from behind him, and yifan almost jumps out of his skin.
“you’re dating a hot president,” yifan states, flatly. “could you bother telling me details?”
“martini,” baekhyun nods in minseok's general direction, then turns to yifan. “nah. it’s more exciting to see you have a heart attack over my infinitely better luck in life.” he downs the glass in a go as soon as minseok hands it over. “especially when it comes to hot bastards.”
yifan tries to sip at his champagne. “don’t. sehun’s been like that ever since my first year in college, and he was a high school kid. i have enough negativity in my life.”
baekhyun hums, staring at the podium and not really listening.
“where’s he, though?” yifan persists.
“coming.”
“in his pants,” he sighs, exasperated, “or over here?”
baekhyun bites back a laugh. “give us a break, you know it’s probably both-- oh,” he adds, raising his brows, “look out. han’s singing your praises.”
and sure enough, lu han’s still smiling, and currently talking about the many wonders and intricate details in eighth hour that have wooed the critics -- “wooed,” baekhyun repeats, dumbly. “did he just say that.” yifan can only blankly stare at lu han’s perfectly gelled up hair -- and woven a spell over tens of thousands of readers -- “told you he was buzzed,” minseok shakes his head. yifan feels a bit offended but lets it pass -- within a week of having been published. “and so, for this month’s bestseller, let’s have the author himself, wu yifan, on stage!” lu han points to him, and all the people present crane their necks around to look.
-
it’s one of the few times he decides to talk to her, properly, these days. her hands tremble, slightly, as she reads through his submission. “it’s lovely,” she whispers, eyes shining. “and this won first prize?”
yifan nods, smiling slightly.
“i’m so proud of you,” she opens her arms. he leans down, face in her shoulder, and feels her hands pat at his back. “we’re getting ice cream for celebration, okay?”
“okay.”
“my son just won the guangdong writing competition,” his mother calls across to the girl who’s taking their ice cream orders. she squeals in response, hurrying over and handing them their cones, chocolate and strawberry. “congratulations!” she says, clapping her hands, and before yifan knows it, everyone in the stall is clapping their hands and singing happy birthday in confusion, and then the stall down to the right, then to the left, and the customers, too.
“now that was a congratulation ceremony,” she sighs, toeing off her shoes and settling on the one seater. yifan ducks to avoid hitting the doorframe, chucking his own sneakers off. “one day you’ll get a hall and someone will call out your name,” she smiles at him, tired but bright, and he feels something fold up in his chest and sputter. he sits on the bed and smiles at her hands.
-
the speech he hadn’t prepared tumbles out in stutters and ends very quickly, but everyone gives him a thunderous applause anyway, and he’s very relieved to shake lu han’s hand one more time -- “thank you so much for coming, mr. wu!”-- “ah, i’m honored, i’m honored.”-- to step off quickly and merge at once with the crowd.
a few people come up to him, discuss the plotline, the research, offer invitations to their readings or their addresses for further contact, and soon he’s left alone.
hello mama
how are you today?
i’m doing good
you were right
a tap on the shoulder.
yifan turns around, expecting another middle-aged man raising his glas--
“hello, little starlet,” yixing tilts his head back to look at him, smiling proudly, and yifan feels his breath catch in his chest because yixing looks like he was made to be under the sparkling lights of the chandelier, looks somehow perfectly in place with his crisp white dress shirt and dark denim jeans, looks so endeared by looking at him.
“hello,” yifan breathes, “little star.”
yixing just shakes his head, dimples showing, and pulls him closer by the lapels, then smoothes them down. “how did it go? i’m sorry i couldn’t arrive earlier-- sehun held me up with his incessant internal struggle of whether or not to invite a zitao.”
yifan feels a little giggle in his ribs. “he wanted to invite zitao? what exactly did he say?”
“he said, ‘he’s super cute but he wants my dick romantically’ a couple hundred times over. i just had to sit around and wait for him to decide.”
yixing’s hands are still resting on his chest, and yifan feels very calm and very hysterical at the same time. “and what’d you say?”
“i said,” hands pull at his lapels again in slight excitement, “i said, ‘there’s no need to be so alarmed, i’m sure he’s as harmless as peaches.’ and i laughed,” he pauses with a triumphant smile as yifan laughs, too, “at my cross-language pun, but he’s ridiculously illiterate in mandarin and didn’t appreciate it.”
“well,” yifan says, very seriously, “i appreciate it.”
“mm,” yixing drops his hands to his sides and turns so he’s standing next to yifan, against the wall. yifan doesn’t know how to feel about this. “thank you for your appreciation. they’re probably in the bathroom stall right now, though. they were in a big hurry since we picked zitao up.”
yifan feels old and sighs.
eventually, they make their way over to the bar again, where minseok’s kept yifan’s flute intact and is currently in the process of giving in and pouring lu han several whiskeys. “thank you,”lu han sobs, downing his fourth, and yixing looks at him with a little anxiety. minseok shakes his head, “i’ve got it. this is normal.”
“what’ll you have?” yifan nudges yixing, and yixing looks at the shelves behind minseok with a start. “i…i’ll have sherry? or vodka. vodka! with, um, lots and lots of sugar.”
minseok turns around from lu han’s pathetic weeping very slowly. “vodka and sugar it is,” he affirms, after staring at yixing for a full minute.
he slides it over after another full minute, and he apologizes for his lack of speed. “not many people ask for extra sugar in their drinks at these parties. i’d forgotten where they keep it.”
yixing accepts it graciously, but yifan’s pretty sure he’d just been slow because he was in shock.
yifan bides his time with yixing, talking about what he’d do on break and agreeing to cleaning his room first thing in the morning the next day. patiently, he answers yixing’s neverending questions and promises that, yes, he’ll give him a signed copy.
it’s when there’s a slight pause in the conversation that he swallows down his whole existence and shoves it under his own feet, clears his throat and says, conversationally, “so, yixing.”
“yes?”
okay no, what’s he doing.
“would you be okay if i asked you out to dinner sometime?”
okay so that’s what he just did. how could he have done that? that is the worst possible way to ask someone out, he should’ve--
“i’d be more than okay,” yixing sounds highly amused and, yifan sneaks a glance, looks very sober. so he’s not intoxicated. that’s a bit relieving, except now yixing has actually said something like a yes which is not only mindblowing but also shock-inducive and yifan is glad he hadn’t been taking a sip; it’s very hard to breathe right now as it is.
“in fact,” yixing turns in his seat and fixes him with an intensely dazzling expression, “i was wondering when you’d get around to it.”
“you were wondering when i’d get around to it,” yifan repeats.
“mhm, was thinking i’d have to ask you out myself.” yixing swishes the remaining droplets around in his shot glass.
“kim minseok,” yifan whispers. “i’ll be needing some vodka.”
he gets a glass shoved in his face and swallows it all at once. once the burning bitterness blows over and his eyes stop watering, he can see everything ten times clearer -- including yixing’s dimples, which can’t possibly be good for his health. does he have a fixation with his dimples? this is probable.
“okay, okay! tell me,” yixing laughs, scooting his seat closer to yifan’s, “is this a spur of the moment thing, or have you thought about it for a while?”
“ah,” yifan chews his lip. “ahem.”
yixing raises an eyebrow. minseok provides them two more glasses. yifan is grateful, takes a meek sip from his. “thought about it for a while? a long while, okay. like, two weeks. and then, like, you disappeared. not that i blame you!” he adds, in a hurry, words tripping over themselves. “i just, somewhere along the way of drinking myself into misery i realized wow, okay, yixing’s amazing. and then you came back-- bam! in the middle of the night! and proved it. that you were amazing. and then baekhyun cried and said ‘fuck you’ to me, to me, so i said to myself, ‘i’ll ask yixing out if it’s a bestseller’,” yifan can’t keep the grin off his face. perhaps he’s a little drunk after a single shot. which is ridiculous, considering he’d written off half the book drunk blind. wait, had he drunk only a single shot? no, he’d had more. good, still not a lightweight. although this thought process is alarming because if he’s had more than one shot then he’s probably--
“and what’d you do if it weren’t?” yixing’s eyes glitter, just shy of dangerous, face so, so close. yifan has to concentrate very hard on the fact that just because yixing’s just said yes doesn’t mean he can do anything right now. he swallows and tries to think of what yixing’s just said. then he tries to think of an answer.
“then i-i’d write something else more worthy of you. not!” he adds, sloshing his vodka over onto his hands and probably his sleeves, “that even this is worthy. but--”
it’s a good thing that yixing kisses him then because he’s not sure what he’d say after ‘but’-- wait. yixing’s kissing him, and he tastes of more vodka, only with sugar, which is strange but not bad, or maybe he’s just hopelessly drunk, or more probably hopelessly in love, or hopelessly whipped, or both or all three, and as his hands fall to yixing’s waist, yixing’s curling around his neck, yifan feels…yifan feels unbelievable. unbelievable and a bit-- a bit deserving.
yixing smiles into his mouth, and yifan, as ever, smiles back.
“peanuts,” baekhyun says, stoically. “this is public, have a care.”
yifan holds up a hand, shoves it in baekhyun’s face.
mama, look!
i mean-- don’t look
but see
i think i love him
-
“your room’s a mess,” yixing states, flatly, the next day, and yifan has a sinking feeling but also a bubbly one, and it’s with very meek obedience that he follows yixing’s instructions and cooperates with cleaning out his room.
two hours later and they’re almost done, really, everything on the outside looking neat and organized, but yixing’s nothing if not thorough. he’s sorting everything into piles in the drawers. “you need clean undershirts,” he notes, “you don’t have any here.”
yifan squirms from his spot on the bed. discussing underwear is slightly uncomfortable, even if it’s just shirts. sehun’s dirty undershirts all have yellow stains at the armpits from all his sweat. hell, even some of his clean undershirts have those stains. it’s like his sweat is acidic or something, most detergents can’t get the spots off.
he looks up in trepidation when yixing stops scrabbling in the drawers and stands still. “what is it?”
yixing’s staring at a small box in his hands, and yifan feels even more uncomfortable, but oh well, he’d better share this. it’s better than underwear, and a lot more important.
“here, i’ll show you,” he gets on his knees and takes it from yixing’s hands, pulls yixing down to the bed next to him.
it’s a small cardboard box, painted black all over, with a lid that’s a little too big for it. he lifts it up, and yixing gives a small gasp and leans all the way in. yifan blinks at the back of yixing’s head, hovering over the box on his lap.
“notes?” yixing picks one, curious. “may i?”
“you can try reading,” yifan shrugs, “but my handwriting is awful. haven’t met a single person who can decipher it.”
yixing narrows his eyes at the challenge, squints at the napkin. “hey,” he exclaims, “this is. this is familiar! feel like a hangover, you’ve said.” he looks up at yifan with a grin. “have i always been this memorable?”
and yifan wants to laugh, but it tugs at his throat. “i guess,” he manages, ears heating up like a furnace. oh well.
“well,” yixing settles down, comfortable and cross-legged. “that’s settled it. i’m amazing, and the only one who can decipher your handwriting.”
“right,” yifan agrees, hiding a smile. “quite right.”
yixing delves in the box again, polaroids in his palms. there’s a stray ray of sunlight on a brick wall, a blurred shot of someone’s hands, a boy standing up on his bicycle. four other photos, all gray, with a thread in the center connecting them all. “what are all these?” his smile fades and he’s solemn, hushed.
“these,” yifan scratches the back of his neck. “these are parts of new stories i’m working on. i’ll be starting on the gray ones sometime soon-- i just have a feeling about those.”
yixing spreads them out on the sheets and stares at them for a long while. “will you tell me about them, one day?” he asks, and yifan can only nod.
he’ll tell yixing everything that could be possibly told. just give him time.
you’d like him, mama-
“what’re you going to do,” yifan murmurs, arm curling around yixing’s shoulders as they lie, quiet, amidst the rumpled blankets on his bed. “about those pages you need to turn back?”
yixing looks up at him, and his expression is... lost, and worried, and however much yifan wants to help, he prepares himself for a rebuke, or perhaps a gentle push away from the topic. but yixing just sighs and settles back down against his chest. “you can go through them,”he replies, voice just above a whisper. “see if they should be turned, after all.”
-
it’s over a cup of coffee in the middle of the night (yixing is sensible, but he also coaxes yifan into dangerously bad decisions sometimes) when he eventually tells yifan about it. “remember the music theory friend? the high school senior i’d told you about,” he starts, and yifan nods immediately.
“of course i remember. go on.”
yifan learns that they’d paired up for a competition, the two of them, yixing and his friend. they’d practised and sweated and practised and sang and played and sweated for all of three months after signing up, obsessively, almost. it got to the point that they didn’t even care about winning anymore, participating in itself was enough; standing on the stage and performing. showing. “we’d done our piece from scratch,” there’s a glint of pride in yixing’s eyes as he says it, fingers tapping incessantly against the table. “in all, there were about thirty participants, and we were going to have a lot of rounds. perhaps ten? twelve? i was content with simply performing in the first round, but hyung, for once, said we could let ourselves dream big for a bit. we stayed up the whole night choosing our would-be performances, all the songs and duets we’d be adding our own twists to, all the audiences we’d woo.”
yifan feels a smile tugging at his lips. “sounds like fun.”
“it was fun,” yixing leans back in his seat and sighs, feet bumping against yifan’s. “and we were so into the very idea of the competition... we pretty much bordered on obsessed, i think.” second-last week to the big day, and they were practising themselves hoarse at every possible occasion. yixing’s parents warned him time and time again to keep it down, but then, they always had. yixing hadn’t paid much attention.
the week before the competition, neither of them were able to sleep a wink. “this is bad,” they had kicked at the dirt with their shoes as they stood, tensely, at the door of yixing’s house. “the lack of sleep, the competition! my board exams begin just three hours after it ends!” yixing had only laughed it off, because he knew it didn't make a difference to either of them. downsizing its importance, talking about impending exams instead, was just a way of coping, somehow.
the night before the competition, yixing had rolled over and given the other an experimental call at half past midnight. “jinki hyung picked up so fast i couldn’t believe the signals had even begun to send. and when he said hello, i could tell he was wide awake and nervous.” yixing tilts his head to stare at the blank tv screen, heaves a sigh. “sometimes, there are moments when your skin crackles and your ears are so sensitive, you can hear your heartbeat and your breathing and the passing cars outside ten times louder than usual. it feels like something good, something very, very special is crawling under your skin and pounding in your skull, something sweet and wide awake. something like moonlight and what wolves would sound like if their howls were happy. and then those moments just stick with you. they don’t shake off. i don’t think they ever shake off.
“this is so many years ago, but i feel like i’m half here, now, talking to you, and half there, then, when i could hear my breathing, and hyung’s. i was sitting upright, legs tucked under me, picking at my blue shirt, and i remember the garbage truck driving by -- i could tell by the way its engine was hissing -- and then the streetlight in front of my window flickered. i’ll always remember that.”
jinki had laughingly proposed vocal practise on the phone, but yixing was so restless he’d taken him seriously, started warming up right away. ten minutes later they were both belting themselves hoarse, and fifteen minutes later, jinki’s parents woke up, confused. thirty seconds more, and yixing’s father burst into the room, eyes dark, fuming.
yixing gives a sudden little laugh, pulling his hands and feet in towards himself. “he just. blew up. i’d say he blew up out of nowhere, but then, he’d told me so many times before, kept trying to wheedle me out of music theory, out of seriously looking at music as a way of life. so maybe i should have seen it coming. but he’d never been pushy, and i thought there was a right to choice. but there wasn’t.”
you have a father with power and money (the two are rarely separate), and you have quite a few advantages in comparison to others who don’t have that kind of parent. yixing had always had the latest mp3 players, then the walkmans, then the ipods. basketballs, new books every month, and, later on, the most expensive gym membership. shirts clean pressed and ironed out by the part time maid, food cooked by the chef; chauffeur to open the car and escort him at the major family events back home, in china.
but there were also disadvantages; your father can do anything he wants with that power and money. in an hour, yixing’s bags were packed to accompany his father’s business trip to busan the next day. no amount of force, physical or emotional, would get him out of it. his phone and laptop confiscated, unable even to tell jinki anything.
they left at dawn and returned in a month. by then, the senior batch had graduated.
yixing tried asking around, but jonghyun had left for a far-flung tour of the world already, and taemin only gnashed his teeth and growled at him. yixing went to ask the people who ran the competition -- called them, asked them if anyone had dropped out. they affirmed that four had. competitors lee jinki, zhang yixing, kang daesung and song jieun. so jinki hadn’t gone. he wouldn’t have. “you and me, i promise,” he’d said.
he’d even tried contacting his parents, but they’d only say that he’d gone to seoul.
“i got admitted into business school, in guangzhou, so i went. then i came back.”
yifan is silent, but he reaches out and covers yixing’s hands with his.
“i found his address,” yixing says, quietly, after a minute. “it’s why i’d gone, in the middle. i’m sorry.” his hands twist up from under yifan’s, grasp them tightly. yifan squeezes back.
“i just want to apologize to him, tell him what happened. let him i know i’ve always meant well.”
-
(mama would be proud of him, he thinks. he’s doing something good. he’s doing something good, for someone he loves. he’s doing something good.)
you there, mama?
you smiling?
yifan is just beginning to fiddle with the car keys, anxiously, when his phone begins to ring. “āi, nán péngyǒ!” yixing’s voice sing-songs, and yifan fights to keep the blush down from his cheeks. cheesy new ringtones every week are something that comes with dating yixing, apparently, and he’s not complaining. he considers this fact and aims his thumb at the screen to swipe down to answer, a pigeon flies over his windshield and pees in a splatter. he jumps, picking up the call.
“hey,” he says, apprehensive, but all he hears on the other end is yixing’s accented hangul, slightly garbled, then someone else’s voice, and then yixing saying, “ah, well, let’s go, then.”
this is alarming. “yixing! where’re you going! where! tell me!”
the line drops. dammit. what if yixing’s walked into an ambush? what if yixing’s willingly being kidnapped? what if yixing’s running away? what if yifan’s been a monster and yixing hates him? what--
yixing’s stepping out of the building, laughing at something a slightly shorter man is saying. yifan blinks. his smile genuine and bright, nothing like yixing’s but very cute in its own way, and his eyes crinkle up pleasedly at the edges as he adds something and yixing laughs even harder, running towards the car.
yixing rushes to his door and knocks impatiently. “yifan! come out! say hello!”
and this is when it hits yifan, that he’s about to meet yixing’s long-lost mentor-best-friend-elder-brother figure, and he feels entirely overwhelmed and silly. he unlocks the door and steps out, bowing immediately.
“don’t, don’t,” the man says, and his voice is soft and heavy. “yixing doesn’t, and his boyfriend shouldn’t, either.”
yifan stops bowing and blushes like ten thousand tomato crates, not that that analogy makes any sense. “he’s very shy,” yixing explains, and yifan feels so red he’s sure he’s turning purple. “jinki hyung, this is yifan, yifan, this is jinki hyung.”
“i’m not shy,” yifan blurts. “it’s just hot today.”
“so it is,” jinki agrees, amiably. “plus, you’re tall. closer to the sun.”
(mama would be proud.)
“exactly.”
the hand yixing shoves playfully into his has something slightly wiry on it. yifan looks down, momentarily. a thin, red bracelet, little portions of it glinting in the afternoon sunlight, looking like rubies. yifan looks back up, joins in with jinki’s laughter, with yixing’s.
with yixing’s.
yifan holds his hand tight.
-
“turn on the radio,” yixing mumbles, rummaging through his bag for the wallet. “want some music.”
“radio radio!” zitao calls from the backseat, sprawled under sehun who is currently trying to literally chew his ear off. or maybe lick it romantically, who knows.
so yifan turns it on and fiddles with the dial, freezing a little when familiar words come on.
i wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
i wanna be your ford cortina
i won’t ever rust
“hey,” sehun says, slowly, sitting up, but zitao growls and yanks him back down.
yixing looks up, a look of confusion on his face before yifan can tell he remembers, and then yixing’s fingers lace through his in the heavy afternoon traffic.
under his breath, yifan hums along as the light turns green and the cars begin to move.
secrets inside my heart
are harder to hide than i thought.
a/n: many thanks, cakes, souls and just a tiny flute of nice alcohol to jihye without whom this would never have happened because i am a BUM and incapable of doing stuff by myself. does that imply she babysat me through this. yes, yes it does.