Appear Like The Wind (Disappear Like Smoke) for FLAMEOBAEKHYUN
Title: Appear Like The Wind (Disappear Like Smoke)
Recipient: flameobaekhyun
Pairing: Lay/Luhan
Word Count: 5.2K
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Luhan’s locked his heart away a long time ago, but Yixing’s found the key.
you don’t know, but i’m after your heart
Sunlight spills through the crystal clear window panes of the library and across Yixing’s pale blue sweater, a painting of beautiful serenity. Inside, the heating is just warm enough to touch the bottoms of hearts; and outside, the fresh coat of snow sparkles and gleams with every newly angled beam of light.
Yixing’s fingers pause every few minutes atop the laptop keys, clashing with the many taps and clicks of other computers but in a comforting harmony. It stops abruptly though with a rush of frigid air that’s come in along with the pretty boy dropping into the seat across from him even though more than half the library is empty, snowflakes melting into his chestnut-coloured hair and the cold rush of the winter colouring his face an endearing pink.
Yixing lifts his head and frowns at the newcomer, who in turn gives him a splitting grin that seems to be very well outshining the afternoon sun. “Hello,” he says cheerfully, voice just soft enough to not disturb the peace of the library but bright all the same. “My name is Luhan, can I sit with you?”
“Yeah.” Yixing nods.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what your name is too?” That same sunny grin and a lift of the brows.
“No.” Yixing returns to his laptop screen.
“Oh. Well, that’s okay. What’s your name?”
“…”
Luhan ignores the silence, slips a tablet out of his backpack and keeps talking. About what his name means, about how everyone thinks his name and face are too feminine, his childhood and how much he hated being mistaken for a girl even when he was small, his love for soccer and talent with the Rubik’s cube, and then goes on and on about tapioca. He spares Yixing twenty minutes or so of quiet here and there and Yixing lets himself breathe in those gaps, wondering who the hell this guy was.
“My name is Luhan, like I just told you, right? My parents really like it, except they were expecting a daughter when they decided on the name. But since, like, I’m obviously a guy, they gave the name to me instead. My name means deer in the break of dawn…
Apparently besides my name being meant for a girl, my face is really feminine too. I mean, ever since I was a kid, people have been saying ‘oh, what a pretty little girl!’ when they see me in the yard. You know, like those big huge apartment yards? We have them here in Beijing, but you’re not from here, are you? I can tell you’re not, because Beijing people are really talkative. Do you have them where you’re from? Anyway, I’ve hated being mistaken for a girl so much since I was small, and even now people still call me pretty and it pisses me off so much…
I really like soccer, and I wanted to get into the China team or something and save this ping pong champion from being disqualified from the World Cup and being replaced by, like, an elementary school team from Germany or something. I mean, have you heard that thing about all the teams wanting to compete with us as much as possible at competitions? It’s so they can win without even having to guard their own net…although I ended up getting shooed out as soon as the coach saw me, because apparently I’m too short and skinny. But no, I tell you! No! I am a manly man! Very manly! You see these muscles?
I’m pretty good at the Rubik’s cube too, and I can solve all six sides in less than thirty seconds, usually. If I don’t have a cube to play with, my hands keep moving by themselves, like this. I guess I’m just very hyper. At least this way people don’t say my personality is girly, too.
Some people think tapioca is disgusting, but isn’t that dumb? Bubble tea without tapioca is just milk tea, like how a book without pages is just a cover. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense to me. They’re just circles of jelly, and they go down with the drink as well as - like, ketchup on fries. They belong together. Except now they have square tapioca too, and different flavours. Like instead of those black ones, they have white ones that taste like vanilla and strawberry ones that are actually full of strawberry juice and-“
Luhan is so talkative that he hadn’t seemed to mind when Yixing had put in his earphones not long after he started explaining his name; although by the time the library is slipping to its closing hours and Yixing’s stomach is growling with hunger, he realizes that he knows more about this chattery Beijing boy than he probably remembers about himself.
Yixing wraps his earphones neatly and puts them into his jeans’ pocket, closing his laptop and zipping it into his messenger bag. Luhan begins to pack up too, and Yixing finds himself taking his time in strapping his bag over his shoulder, adjusting the already comfortable slope at which his bag hangs at his side.
Like they are old friends and not two rather fresh university graduates who grew up in different cities and only met three hours ago, Luhan scoops up his puffy gray coat and shrugs on his own backpack, smile easy and voice soothing. “I know this place around the corner that makes the best soft crusted pizzas, wanna go there for dinner?”
They step outside, snow squeaking under their shoes and the five o’clock sun already slipping west, leaving a tainted golden sky temporarily behind.
“Oh, okay.” Yixing nods, agreeing automatically and sneaking a glance at Luhan’s profile. He actually is kind of adorable, he finally notices. And pizza with a smiley stranger sounds better than a thirtieth package of instant noodles at home by himself, anyway. “And by the way, my name is Yixing. Zhang Yixing. I’m from Changsha, and I dance - we had apartment yards where I grew up, too.”
Yixing and Luhan bid goodbye that day like they’ve been brothers forever, and Yixing leaves behind his phone number and a piece of his heart. It’s almost like they were meant to meet, and Yixing briefly wonders where this boy has been all his life.
“Can I come over to your house tomorrow?” Luhan had asked when they parted. “You can come to mine the day after! I’ll show you my autographed soccer ball.”
And Yixing had found himself agreeing again.
He wakes the next morning to chirping birds who apparently weren’t afraid of the cold and sunlight streaming in from the gaps between curtain and window.
Yixing rolls over, vaguely remembering something planned for today that’s not eating chips and wondering when the hell the restaurant he works in is going to be done with renovations.
Then it hits him: Luhan is coming over today. So he hurriedly leaps out of bed and hightails it to the bathroom down the hallway. He quickly brushes his teeth, washes his face and rinses his sleep-crusted eyes, combs down his hair until it feels like silk at his fingertips, and then rushes back into his bedroom to change into multiple outfits like a girl going to her first dance before deciding on jeans and a patterned hoodie, knocking into every vertice possible on the way there..
‘Cute Beijing soccer player’ is the only coherent thought that runs through Yixing’s head the entire morning before the doorbell is chiming, and he opens the door to Luhan.
“Oh, hi,” Yixing says, dimpled because who doesn’t like seeing happy faces so early in the morning, right?
“Hi,” Luhan answers. He waves two mitten-ed hands at him and Yixing keeps himself from reaching out to brush away the lines of snow caked into the seams and folds of Luhan’s winter coat.
“Come inside,” Yixing welcomes, stepping back. “Just hang your coat there and put your boots here, and your scarf can go over there. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
Luhan smiles and pats his own stomach after he’s inside, winter attire off. “No,” he answers, following Yixing into the kitchen. “I got up a little late today.”
Yixing feels his own throat tightening for reasons unknown to him. “It’s okay, me too,” he assures, sitting Luhan down at the kitchen table and pushing a box of tissues and a place mat out of the way. He’s a little nervous. “What do you want to eat?”
Luhan sets his chin in two hands and watches him. “Anything is okay, what do you have?”
Yixing pads into the kitchen and pulls open the refrigerator door, leaning down to inspect its contents. “Well,” he scratches the back of his head. “I have instant noodles.” There’s the shuffle and bang of things being moved around, and then a muffled, “And…instant noodles. And some pancake mix a Canadian friend brought over two months ago when he came to visit.”
Luhan loses his jaw laughing. “What do you even live off of? And please, do both your Canadian friend and me a favour and throw that pancake mix out.”
Yixing straightens up with two packages of noodles stacked in one hand and half of box of hardening dough-ish substance in the other. “I live off of these,” he says, raising the noodles and suddenly a little sad for himself. He steps on the pedal of the nearby garbage can and drops the offendingly outdated could’ve-been-but-never-will-be pancakes inside.
Luhan shakes his head, collects his chin and stands up to join the other boy in the kitchen. “How about we have this for breakfast, and then we’ll go to the grocery store afterwards so we have stuff for lunch. I’m telling you now though, I don’t do very well in the kitchen.”
“So you mean I’m cooking?”
“Yes, Chef Zhang.”
After a steaming breakfast of hot soup and instant noodles that’s deliciously satisfying in the chilled temperature that’s found its way into the house, Yixing stacks their bowls and chopsticks into the dishwasher before heading for the front door, waving for Luhan to follow. Yixing tugs his coat off the rack and slips into it, shuffling the collar. “There’s a grocery store in the plaza just down the street, it’s close enough we can walk. What do you want to eat for lunch? Chef Zhang will cook it for you,” Yixing says, satisfied with his new nickname.
Luhan bends down to tuck the cuffs of his jeans into his boots, tying his scarf loosely around his neck before reaching for his own coat. He’s laughing, eyes bright and twinkling. “Let’s just have fried rice, I haven’t had that in a while.”
“Chef Zhang approves.”
i’m the only one that can win you over
A month later, Luhan is Yixing’s new best friend. There’s something comforting and reassuring about the way Luhan laughs at the same things as he does when they’re watching a movie and how he goes off on these amusing little tangents without Yixing ever saying anything - they work, somehow, the two of them. Their relationship works.
They’re out for coffee now, a cup of something hot and rich in the below-zero weather.
Luhan’s talking, but he’s cut off by the sound of Yixing’s phone ringing. He quiets down as they turn away from the counter, paper cups in hand, wanting to find a seat in the cozy but still elegantly decorated little shop.
“Hello?” Yixing listens, and his smile slants off of his paling face, the most relaxed and maybe even the happiest month of his life skidding to a stop right there, smashing like glass right in front of his eyes and disappearing like it’d never been there in the first place. Both the cup of coffee and his cell phone slip out of his grasp and drop to the ground. The cashier rushes out from behind the counter and calls for another worker to mop up the mess, and everyone’s turning around to look - but Yixing doesn’t so much as nod a sorry, only grabs his phone off the floor and runs. Luhan bows an apology and follows close after.
He barely manages to get into the same cab as Yixing. “Yixing, what’s wrong?”
Yixing’s head is spinning, heartbeat spiraling out of control in a nauseous way that makes him want to be sick. What he’d just heard on the phone plays over and over again like a broken record tape. “Hello, is this Mr. Zhang? We believe you are a close friend of Li Weijia, as you are first on his emergency dial pad. Mr. Li was in car accident, and we are extremely apologetic to inform you that he has not survived-“
They got it all wrong. Weijia can’t be dead.
Weijia isn’t even his friend.
He had always been “that neighbourhood kid” growing up - the kind of boy grandparents would point to and say, “Oh, that’s the ten-year-old that got into the newspapers for volunteering at a nursing home!” and the kind of student whose name parents would scream at their own children on Report Card Day if the numbers weren’t pretty.
He was the kind of senior whose sleeve younger kids would tug on and ask softly, “Could you get that ball back for us?” He was the kind of friend who would pick up calls at three in the morning, the kind of boyfriend who never yelled or hit or got impatient, and the kind of son that would skip breakfast for a month to save up for his mom or dad’s birthday present.
Yixing mentioned once to Weijia that he would like to learn how to bike, and the next morning he was knocking on his door with a worn bike he’d found somewhere on the curb, seat ripped and metal body dented.
“Come on,” he’d said, smiling. “We’re biking today.”
Yixing bled a lot that day, but every time he fell, Weijia only waited for him to get back up before telling him, “Now try it again.” And by seven in the evening, with the sunset like fire casting shifts and shadows over his face, Yixing had a grand total of three makeshift leaf bandages tied over his legs with tall grass and a wide stretch of skin scraped from his elbow, but he could bike.
No, Weijia hadn’t been his friend - he had been the older brother Yixing never got to have.
He can’t be dead.
my fingertips follow you, and only you shine
Yixing leaves the hospital with empty eyes hours later, the wet mist covering them the only telltale sign that he’s still alive. An intangible curtain of sheer golden light drapes gently over him. It’s cold and getting colder still as the light dims, but Luhan lets him lean.
“Yixing.”
Soft voice, smooth words, charming city lilt, firm edge coming through.
“Yixing,” he says, a hesitant arm coming up around his shoulders in a different way than he’s done before. His voice is shaky and near uncertain when he parts his lips again. “You - still have me.”
There are sounds everywhere, cars skimming hurriedly over the roads, people holding phones to their ears and talking loudly, the clanging of the backs of trucks being tugged down, short honks of impatient drivers, but it all gathers and melts into silence in Yixing’s ears. All he hears is his name, gentle and soothing, and he straightens slowly. He looks at the boy next to him, features illuminated, and his breath hitches once.
He doesn’t remember right then that the sun shines brightest only minutes before dying, so he nods when Luhan says, “I’ll take you somewhere you can forget everything that’s hurt you today.”
come on, disappear with me
Yixing stops dead when he sees where Luhan has brought him to. He turns around, but the cab is already driving away under the darkening sky. “Luhan-“ But he should know that he doesn’t stand a chance against him.
Luhan steps in close almost hastily, breath hot and tempting against Yixing’s already wind-numbed cheek, chilled by the cutting night air, and Yixing’s heart begins to thud in his chest.
“You like me.” The tone of Luhan’s voice has gone from soothing to dangerous. “So come with me.”
And despite what every part of him is screaming for him not to do, he follows.
i’ll approach you like a petal, pierce you like a thorn
It doesn’t take long before Yixing’s eyes start to lose focus, the taste of alcohol already making him numb.
“Aren’t you hurting inside?” Luhan whispers, slipping in close. “Don’t you want to forget?”
Yixing nods messily, bottle wobbling precariously in his hand. “Forget…”
Luhan traces his fingertips lightly down Yixing’s arm, making him shiver, and takes his hand. “Come on then.” He looks Yixing in the eye, but only he knows he’s not really seeing. He pulls Yixing out of his seat and onto the dance floor. “Come on, I’ll help you forget.”
The last Yixing remembers of Luhan that night are his eyes, clouded with lust and misty with something akin to tears, when he’d led him into a room and shut the door behind them.
When he wakes up, it’s near noon, and Luhan is gone. He has a headache that pierces his temples, and when he lifts a hand to his head, memories like electric shocks flicker on and off. Luhan’s hands trailing fire down his arms, Luhan pressing bruising kisses to his lips, something salty akin to Luhan’s tears mixing with his sweat and dampening the pillow. Luhan Luhan Luhan Luhan-
-and then he remembers.
He throws on his clothes, now crumpled from being on the floor all night, fumbling through his pocket to see if his phone is still there. He dials Luhan’s number, heart in his throat, telling himself over and over again that Luhan wouldn’t have taken advantage of him like that while he was drunk and then just left him, he wouldn’t have done that, he just went out to get breakfast for the both of them, he’ll come to get me in a few minutes, he’ll pick up, he’ll pick up and laugh at him for thinking he would leave.
But he doesn’t pick up.
The phone slips away from Yixing’s hand, dropping to a cushioned rest on the bed, and his eyes stare empty into the space before him, heart dropping with a heavy thud to the bottom of his stomach, and it’s like all his insides are churning. The busy signal still coming from his phone is deafening.
-
Yixing stumbles out of the room, legs weak, and he knows why. He grits his teeth and props himself up on the walls for support, trying to gain balance and strength on his own to at least find his way out of here. And find Luhan.
He doesn’t have any money on him, so he can’t get a cab; he can only walk, and so he does, boiling anger and the feeling of betrayal the only things keeping him going. He pulls his coat tighter around him and doesn’t realize how pitiful the gazes are of the people around him.
He finds his way around back to the hospital somehow, feeling a bit faint, and keeps moving on to the places Luhan would be. Not in his favourite record store, not in their coffee shop, not in the sports equipment store whose owner Luhan was friends with, not in the pizza place Luhan made a habit of going to every Friday. Finally, with tunneling vision, his hand stops on the handle of a library’s door, and he registers that this is useless.
If Luhan would leave him alone like that, is he still the same?
And the chilling answer numbs Yixing.
But while he passes through a park trying to get home, he sees Luhan sitting on the bench, leaning forward on his knees with his hands clasped, staring down into snow. His breath makes mist in the cold air.
“LUHAN!” he screams, voice broken. He realizes that he doesn’t even have the guts to demand a proper answer. This is all he can do, to plead for an explanation. “Luhan, you-“
Luhan starts, but he stands up. “Why are you here? I’m done with you.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear that? I said, I’m done with you.”
“But-“
“You know what I mean.”
“No, no, Luhan, it’s not-“
“What, Yixing? That’s exactly what it is. You don’t need to be here anymore.”
And Yixing, not hearing the trips and stutters in the other boy’s words, finally bites down on the truth.
“Why do you do this?” He’s trembling, with both vexation and physical discomfort.
Luhan looks up, face so blank, only eyes written full with something Yixing isn’t able to see. “It’s fun.”
The other boy clenches his teeth, briefly wondering again if this was still Luhan, the clear-eyed boy he met in the library only a month ago. “It’s fun? Playing like this is fun?”
Luhan cranes his neck to the side, impatience tainting his pretty face. “Don’t be such a boy, yeah? Loosen up, don’t take everything so seriously. What, do you wanna go home now and fold some paper airplanes and make wishes on them for love? Love doesn’t really exist, don’t you see-“
“I’d rather be called a boy and play with paper airplanes than be someone like you and play with another person’s heart!” Yixing’s usually gentle eyes flash, and then he’s running away, wiping at the tears that are finally overflowing, falling down and down and down, tracing the contours of his face and finally disappearing into the dark, leaving Luhan to wonder why his heartbeat is quickening into painful pangs.
i’m a maze when you look at me, sand when you grasp me
Yixing pushes the litter of empty bottles onto the floor, taking wild comfort in the colossal sounds of unevenly shattering glass. He tries to stand up but ends up on the floor, palms cut and head spinning. Tears fall loosely from his inky lashes.
“Double faced bastard!” he cries, waves of disappointment alongside rushes of anger crashing into a steady shore of disbelief. He clenches a nearby bottle, still unopened and full, and throws it across the room with what energy he has; it smashes against the wall, draping a curtain of alcohol-stained sadness over the smooth white surface. “I’m not going to be anybody’s backup plan!”
He’s screaming now, voice breaking and cutting off in heart-wrenching syllables, bloody hands shaking uncontrollably. “I HATE YOU!”
Minutes after he falls unconscious, his neighbours rush in through the door, the mess in front of him a confirmation of the loud sounds that had been unusual for the boy next door.
-
Yixing wakes up in the hospital as dawn is breaking, and he’s pretty sure he knows why he’s there. Nobody says it explicitly, but Yixing knows anyway. And while the doctor speaks in a soothing timbre, the rises and falls and pauses of his voice almost melting with the light of the sunrise, Yixing finds it in himself to begin to smoothen the harshest edges of the ragged halves of his heart.
Maybe he’s just too drained to remain irate.
He looks outside the floor window, everything under the sky luminous but unclear. And blurrily, he thinks that’s like his love.
into your transparent trap, i’m stuck here, help me
“There’s no need to worry about your hospital fees, Mr. Zhang, a boy looking the same age as you came immediately after you were brought and took care of those for you. He’s been waiting on the bench outside for hours now, I suppose you would let him in now?”
Yixing nods.
Moments later, Luhan comes in. “I just,” his voice is cracking with fatigue and his eyes are bloodshot, long eyelashes that Yixing used to make a joke out of counting brushing the dark shadows cast underneath his eyes every time he blinks.
Yixing waits.
“I didn’t know this would happen I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you this much, I’ve done this before, more than once, I’ve played with people, but it’s just so different this time and I don’t know - I went to find you but your neighbours said an ambulance brought you away so I came here and I asked about you and they said you had to get something done so I waited and sorry won’t fucking cut it, I know, I just - I’m so-“
“You didn’t mean it then, right?”
“What? I-“
“At the park.”
“I didn’t mean it, it came out different - I mean, it-“
“I think I get it, a little.”
“What? Yixing, you can hate me, you can wish me dead, don’t be like this, you…” Luhan shuts his eyes. “I hope you’ll never see me again, Yixing.”
“Before you leave,” Yixing calls out, almost against his own will. “Can you talk to me for a while?”
Luhan stops mid-step, and Yixing thinks maybe they both just want a formal goodbye. “About?”
“The people you’ve played with, what were they like? I want to know.” No, he doesn’t want to know; he just wants him to be there for a little while longer, because Luhan may have hurt him, but the idea of him never did.
So Luhan, with tired eyes, sits down on the leather-padded chair by Yixing’s bed, smile so sad Yixing can’t find the heart to blame him for anything at all. He talks to him, just like that first day in the library.
“My first was a girl, actually. Songqian. She was easy to love, but it was too steady, and when she asked me during our fifth year about the rest of our lives, I got scared and I just - she left. But university is huge, and I never saw her after that, except once in the back garden of the school during the last year. There was a guy, and he was proposing to her; they’ve been married for a couple years now. I still don’t blame her though, because she’s been hurt before and she just wanted a future. My friends’ relationships all seemed so tiring, with fights and all, even though they told me some people were worth it, but I…I don’t know.
My second one was a guy from my university soccer team, and I called him Baozi all the time. There must be someone out there who would love him, but it wasn’t me. I learned to flirt, though, that was useful - we ended up as friends, at least.
Then there was a guy whose smile I thought could light up the entire world, and his voice was just like water. He took care of me in a way that made me comfortable, but I got tired of him. He wasn’t…exciting enough.
I dated a guy and a girl at the same time during my second year of university, a guy named Kim Jongdae and a girl called Boa. Kwon Boa, I think? He had the most beautiful singing voice and made me laugh all the time, and she was like a goddess at our school. She was two years above me though, and after she graduated we lost connection. I never got caught cheating, but Jongdae ended it himself because he said he didn’t see it in my eyes anymore; I remember hugging him on that last day.
Then was Chanyeol, and we stayed together for two whole years. He was tall and handsome and played the guitar, and he was a good rapper and his voice was addicting. A real happy virus, though. He made me smile every day and laughed with me all the time, and he was interesting because he was a little different every day. I felt like even if we were the only people left in the world, I wouldn’t be lonely. I’ve thought about spending forever with him, but he went out to London after graduation.
I went to Korea for a while to think about things. I met Soojung just that winter, and she was pretty in a shy way - she was so clean even though she was always treated like a princess at home and by her friends, but she was too sensitive for me to handle.
Oh, Jongin was a fascinating kid. I still broke up with him after some three months, because he went and became a trainee at an entertainment company, and I didn’t want to wait for his time. Now he’s debuted as Kai, part of that twelve-member boy band - what, EXO or something?
I had a week-long fling with a girl called Chorong before I came back to China. She was cute. I met a really witty guy named Baekhyun on the plane ride back, and we kept in touch for another month or so before my phone broke and I lost his number.
I don’t really remember much about Jinri, Taemin, Yoona, Naeun, Jonghyun, Jinki, Nichkhun, Miyoung, Kibum, Minho, and Shinhye - I’ve even forgotten their full names. My last one was Do Kyungsoo; all I remember about him is that his voice was made of chocolate.”
Luhan keeps talking and talking, and Yixing’s looking out the window.
“Am I another one?” Yixing asks when Luhan finishes. “Is this how you say goodbye to all of them?”
“No.” Luhan’s hand lifts towards Yixing’s face, but doesn’t touch him. “No. You’re the only one I’ve told this to. And the only one I’ve really wanted to keep. I know you don’t-”
Yixing looks him in the eye. “I do.” I believe you. “Just don’t go around being like this again, Luhan. Everyone you’ve played with was hurting at the time as much as you are now. You’ve taken too much.”
There’s a long stretch of something not dead enough to be called silence but not light enough to be called quiet before Luhan blinks away the tears pooling in his eyes and speaks.
“Alright.”
“I never want to see you again.”
“I know.”
I love you.
I love you too.
-
Four years later, Yixing has started over with someone else. He has a pair of gorgeous eyes nothing like Luhan’s but similar sometimes, under the starlight, and lips that fit perfectly over his own. His name is Wu Yifan. The winter a year after they met, Yifan wants to go to the library for something to read in case they are ever snowed in, and when Yixing opens the door, memories rush back. Yifan tugs on his hand to lead him to the shelves, but Yixing looks up and sees someone about to step out from the other door, and he freezes.
There’s a tall boy standing next to him, and he’s saying something with his eyes crinkled into a pair of crescents, but Luhan’s looking back at Yixing. His features spread into a smile and he lifts his hand to wave; Yixing dimples and waves back. They lock eyes, saying millions of things in that one moment, and then they part ways again.
And Yixing forgives.
-fin-
Post-fic notes: [notes]Okay so firstly I know this isn’t what you expected and I’m so sorry - I was at 4K before I got my head out of this and went oh my God, this definitely is not what she wanted.
I gave your two other prompts a try too after that to see if I could start over but I really couldn’t do it, I even started this one over once but it just went in the same direction and I’m so sorry and augh you only wanted Layhan but I added basically Luhan/the entirety of the KPOP industry (you probably didn’t like it when I mentioned all the female idols, right? I don’t know why I put that in myself, I don’t like reading about that either, but I wanted to make Luhan seem more of a player and I’m slapping my head regretting it right now I’m sorry).
I added Fanxing too for the ending (I wanted to have a good ending for Yixing, but then I realized that there must’ve been a damn good reason you didn’t list them as one of your accepted pairings, like maybe you were for OT11 or this was your NOTP and I went fuck I messed up but I really didn’t know what to do at that point since that was literally hours before the due date and I didn’t want something half-assed and I’m typing in this note for the last minute, I’m a minute from sending this off) and Hunhan too because I just wanted Luhan to settle down and I am really so so so sorry because I know what it’s like to even see a pairing you hate or an OT(?) that you’re against, much less practically being pressured to read a fic about them.
I swear I read through the entire thing to see what I could do to change things, but I was so stuck and I had no idea what I could do and I was literally near tears, I think it was teenage girl hormones too but definitely mostly because I really am super sorry and I hope you will forgive me for screwing this up :(
And I know this was super choppy because I wrote the majority of it on my laptop, but I saved some of it on my phone too when I wasn’t home and something happened with the sync and apps and it just all got deleted, I went through the fic and tried to patch up what I could but it wasn’t the same and I’m just so sorry.
After the reveals I’ll write you Layhan until you’re 1000% happy unless you hated this so much that you never want to hear from me again which I understand too T.T
Recipient: flameobaekhyun
Pairing: Lay/Luhan
Word Count: 5.2K
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Luhan’s locked his heart away a long time ago, but Yixing’s found the key.
you don’t know, but i’m after your heart
Sunlight spills through the crystal clear window panes of the library and across Yixing’s pale blue sweater, a painting of beautiful serenity. Inside, the heating is just warm enough to touch the bottoms of hearts; and outside, the fresh coat of snow sparkles and gleams with every newly angled beam of light.
Yixing’s fingers pause every few minutes atop the laptop keys, clashing with the many taps and clicks of other computers but in a comforting harmony. It stops abruptly though with a rush of frigid air that’s come in along with the pretty boy dropping into the seat across from him even though more than half the library is empty, snowflakes melting into his chestnut-coloured hair and the cold rush of the winter colouring his face an endearing pink.
Yixing lifts his head and frowns at the newcomer, who in turn gives him a splitting grin that seems to be very well outshining the afternoon sun. “Hello,” he says cheerfully, voice just soft enough to not disturb the peace of the library but bright all the same. “My name is Luhan, can I sit with you?”
“Yeah.” Yixing nods.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what your name is too?” That same sunny grin and a lift of the brows.
“No.” Yixing returns to his laptop screen.
“Oh. Well, that’s okay. What’s your name?”
“…”
Luhan ignores the silence, slips a tablet out of his backpack and keeps talking. About what his name means, about how everyone thinks his name and face are too feminine, his childhood and how much he hated being mistaken for a girl even when he was small, his love for soccer and talent with the Rubik’s cube, and then goes on and on about tapioca. He spares Yixing twenty minutes or so of quiet here and there and Yixing lets himself breathe in those gaps, wondering who the hell this guy was.
“My name is Luhan, like I just told you, right? My parents really like it, except they were expecting a daughter when they decided on the name. But since, like, I’m obviously a guy, they gave the name to me instead. My name means deer in the break of dawn…
Apparently besides my name being meant for a girl, my face is really feminine too. I mean, ever since I was a kid, people have been saying ‘oh, what a pretty little girl!’ when they see me in the yard. You know, like those big huge apartment yards? We have them here in Beijing, but you’re not from here, are you? I can tell you’re not, because Beijing people are really talkative. Do you have them where you’re from? Anyway, I’ve hated being mistaken for a girl so much since I was small, and even now people still call me pretty and it pisses me off so much…
I really like soccer, and I wanted to get into the China team or something and save this ping pong champion from being disqualified from the World Cup and being replaced by, like, an elementary school team from Germany or something. I mean, have you heard that thing about all the teams wanting to compete with us as much as possible at competitions? It’s so they can win without even having to guard their own net…although I ended up getting shooed out as soon as the coach saw me, because apparently I’m too short and skinny. But no, I tell you! No! I am a manly man! Very manly! You see these muscles?
I’m pretty good at the Rubik’s cube too, and I can solve all six sides in less than thirty seconds, usually. If I don’t have a cube to play with, my hands keep moving by themselves, like this. I guess I’m just very hyper. At least this way people don’t say my personality is girly, too.
Some people think tapioca is disgusting, but isn’t that dumb? Bubble tea without tapioca is just milk tea, like how a book without pages is just a cover. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense to me. They’re just circles of jelly, and they go down with the drink as well as - like, ketchup on fries. They belong together. Except now they have square tapioca too, and different flavours. Like instead of those black ones, they have white ones that taste like vanilla and strawberry ones that are actually full of strawberry juice and-“
Luhan is so talkative that he hadn’t seemed to mind when Yixing had put in his earphones not long after he started explaining his name; although by the time the library is slipping to its closing hours and Yixing’s stomach is growling with hunger, he realizes that he knows more about this chattery Beijing boy than he probably remembers about himself.
Yixing wraps his earphones neatly and puts them into his jeans’ pocket, closing his laptop and zipping it into his messenger bag. Luhan begins to pack up too, and Yixing finds himself taking his time in strapping his bag over his shoulder, adjusting the already comfortable slope at which his bag hangs at his side.
Like they are old friends and not two rather fresh university graduates who grew up in different cities and only met three hours ago, Luhan scoops up his puffy gray coat and shrugs on his own backpack, smile easy and voice soothing. “I know this place around the corner that makes the best soft crusted pizzas, wanna go there for dinner?”
They step outside, snow squeaking under their shoes and the five o’clock sun already slipping west, leaving a tainted golden sky temporarily behind.
“Oh, okay.” Yixing nods, agreeing automatically and sneaking a glance at Luhan’s profile. He actually is kind of adorable, he finally notices. And pizza with a smiley stranger sounds better than a thirtieth package of instant noodles at home by himself, anyway. “And by the way, my name is Yixing. Zhang Yixing. I’m from Changsha, and I dance - we had apartment yards where I grew up, too.”
Yixing and Luhan bid goodbye that day like they’ve been brothers forever, and Yixing leaves behind his phone number and a piece of his heart. It’s almost like they were meant to meet, and Yixing briefly wonders where this boy has been all his life.
“Can I come over to your house tomorrow?” Luhan had asked when they parted. “You can come to mine the day after! I’ll show you my autographed soccer ball.”
And Yixing had found himself agreeing again.
He wakes the next morning to chirping birds who apparently weren’t afraid of the cold and sunlight streaming in from the gaps between curtain and window.
Yixing rolls over, vaguely remembering something planned for today that’s not eating chips and wondering when the hell the restaurant he works in is going to be done with renovations.
Then it hits him: Luhan is coming over today. So he hurriedly leaps out of bed and hightails it to the bathroom down the hallway. He quickly brushes his teeth, washes his face and rinses his sleep-crusted eyes, combs down his hair until it feels like silk at his fingertips, and then rushes back into his bedroom to change into multiple outfits like a girl going to her first dance before deciding on jeans and a patterned hoodie, knocking into every vertice possible on the way there..
‘Cute Beijing soccer player’ is the only coherent thought that runs through Yixing’s head the entire morning before the doorbell is chiming, and he opens the door to Luhan.
“Oh, hi,” Yixing says, dimpled because who doesn’t like seeing happy faces so early in the morning, right?
“Hi,” Luhan answers. He waves two mitten-ed hands at him and Yixing keeps himself from reaching out to brush away the lines of snow caked into the seams and folds of Luhan’s winter coat.
“Come inside,” Yixing welcomes, stepping back. “Just hang your coat there and put your boots here, and your scarf can go over there. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
Luhan smiles and pats his own stomach after he’s inside, winter attire off. “No,” he answers, following Yixing into the kitchen. “I got up a little late today.”
Yixing feels his own throat tightening for reasons unknown to him. “It’s okay, me too,” he assures, sitting Luhan down at the kitchen table and pushing a box of tissues and a place mat out of the way. He’s a little nervous. “What do you want to eat?”
Luhan sets his chin in two hands and watches him. “Anything is okay, what do you have?”
Yixing pads into the kitchen and pulls open the refrigerator door, leaning down to inspect its contents. “Well,” he scratches the back of his head. “I have instant noodles.” There’s the shuffle and bang of things being moved around, and then a muffled, “And…instant noodles. And some pancake mix a Canadian friend brought over two months ago when he came to visit.”
Luhan loses his jaw laughing. “What do you even live off of? And please, do both your Canadian friend and me a favour and throw that pancake mix out.”
Yixing straightens up with two packages of noodles stacked in one hand and half of box of hardening dough-ish substance in the other. “I live off of these,” he says, raising the noodles and suddenly a little sad for himself. He steps on the pedal of the nearby garbage can and drops the offendingly outdated could’ve-been-but-never-will-be pancakes inside.
Luhan shakes his head, collects his chin and stands up to join the other boy in the kitchen. “How about we have this for breakfast, and then we’ll go to the grocery store afterwards so we have stuff for lunch. I’m telling you now though, I don’t do very well in the kitchen.”
“So you mean I’m cooking?”
“Yes, Chef Zhang.”
After a steaming breakfast of hot soup and instant noodles that’s deliciously satisfying in the chilled temperature that’s found its way into the house, Yixing stacks their bowls and chopsticks into the dishwasher before heading for the front door, waving for Luhan to follow. Yixing tugs his coat off the rack and slips into it, shuffling the collar. “There’s a grocery store in the plaza just down the street, it’s close enough we can walk. What do you want to eat for lunch? Chef Zhang will cook it for you,” Yixing says, satisfied with his new nickname.
Luhan bends down to tuck the cuffs of his jeans into his boots, tying his scarf loosely around his neck before reaching for his own coat. He’s laughing, eyes bright and twinkling. “Let’s just have fried rice, I haven’t had that in a while.”
“Chef Zhang approves.”
i’m the only one that can win you over
A month later, Luhan is Yixing’s new best friend. There’s something comforting and reassuring about the way Luhan laughs at the same things as he does when they’re watching a movie and how he goes off on these amusing little tangents without Yixing ever saying anything - they work, somehow, the two of them. Their relationship works.
They’re out for coffee now, a cup of something hot and rich in the below-zero weather.
Luhan’s talking, but he’s cut off by the sound of Yixing’s phone ringing. He quiets down as they turn away from the counter, paper cups in hand, wanting to find a seat in the cozy but still elegantly decorated little shop.
“Hello?” Yixing listens, and his smile slants off of his paling face, the most relaxed and maybe even the happiest month of his life skidding to a stop right there, smashing like glass right in front of his eyes and disappearing like it’d never been there in the first place. Both the cup of coffee and his cell phone slip out of his grasp and drop to the ground. The cashier rushes out from behind the counter and calls for another worker to mop up the mess, and everyone’s turning around to look - but Yixing doesn’t so much as nod a sorry, only grabs his phone off the floor and runs. Luhan bows an apology and follows close after.
He barely manages to get into the same cab as Yixing. “Yixing, what’s wrong?”
Yixing’s head is spinning, heartbeat spiraling out of control in a nauseous way that makes him want to be sick. What he’d just heard on the phone plays over and over again like a broken record tape. “Hello, is this Mr. Zhang? We believe you are a close friend of Li Weijia, as you are first on his emergency dial pad. Mr. Li was in car accident, and we are extremely apologetic to inform you that he has not survived-“
They got it all wrong. Weijia can’t be dead.
Weijia isn’t even his friend.
He had always been “that neighbourhood kid” growing up - the kind of boy grandparents would point to and say, “Oh, that’s the ten-year-old that got into the newspapers for volunteering at a nursing home!” and the kind of student whose name parents would scream at their own children on Report Card Day if the numbers weren’t pretty.
He was the kind of senior whose sleeve younger kids would tug on and ask softly, “Could you get that ball back for us?” He was the kind of friend who would pick up calls at three in the morning, the kind of boyfriend who never yelled or hit or got impatient, and the kind of son that would skip breakfast for a month to save up for his mom or dad’s birthday present.
Yixing mentioned once to Weijia that he would like to learn how to bike, and the next morning he was knocking on his door with a worn bike he’d found somewhere on the curb, seat ripped and metal body dented.
“Come on,” he’d said, smiling. “We’re biking today.”
Yixing bled a lot that day, but every time he fell, Weijia only waited for him to get back up before telling him, “Now try it again.” And by seven in the evening, with the sunset like fire casting shifts and shadows over his face, Yixing had a grand total of three makeshift leaf bandages tied over his legs with tall grass and a wide stretch of skin scraped from his elbow, but he could bike.
No, Weijia hadn’t been his friend - he had been the older brother Yixing never got to have.
He can’t be dead.
my fingertips follow you, and only you shine
Yixing leaves the hospital with empty eyes hours later, the wet mist covering them the only telltale sign that he’s still alive. An intangible curtain of sheer golden light drapes gently over him. It’s cold and getting colder still as the light dims, but Luhan lets him lean.
“Yixing.”
Soft voice, smooth words, charming city lilt, firm edge coming through.
“Yixing,” he says, a hesitant arm coming up around his shoulders in a different way than he’s done before. His voice is shaky and near uncertain when he parts his lips again. “You - still have me.”
There are sounds everywhere, cars skimming hurriedly over the roads, people holding phones to their ears and talking loudly, the clanging of the backs of trucks being tugged down, short honks of impatient drivers, but it all gathers and melts into silence in Yixing’s ears. All he hears is his name, gentle and soothing, and he straightens slowly. He looks at the boy next to him, features illuminated, and his breath hitches once.
He doesn’t remember right then that the sun shines brightest only minutes before dying, so he nods when Luhan says, “I’ll take you somewhere you can forget everything that’s hurt you today.”
come on, disappear with me
Yixing stops dead when he sees where Luhan has brought him to. He turns around, but the cab is already driving away under the darkening sky. “Luhan-“ But he should know that he doesn’t stand a chance against him.
Luhan steps in close almost hastily, breath hot and tempting against Yixing’s already wind-numbed cheek, chilled by the cutting night air, and Yixing’s heart begins to thud in his chest.
“You like me.” The tone of Luhan’s voice has gone from soothing to dangerous. “So come with me.”
And despite what every part of him is screaming for him not to do, he follows.
i’ll approach you like a petal, pierce you like a thorn
It doesn’t take long before Yixing’s eyes start to lose focus, the taste of alcohol already making him numb.
“Aren’t you hurting inside?” Luhan whispers, slipping in close. “Don’t you want to forget?”
Yixing nods messily, bottle wobbling precariously in his hand. “Forget…”
Luhan traces his fingertips lightly down Yixing’s arm, making him shiver, and takes his hand. “Come on then.” He looks Yixing in the eye, but only he knows he’s not really seeing. He pulls Yixing out of his seat and onto the dance floor. “Come on, I’ll help you forget.”
The last Yixing remembers of Luhan that night are his eyes, clouded with lust and misty with something akin to tears, when he’d led him into a room and shut the door behind them.
When he wakes up, it’s near noon, and Luhan is gone. He has a headache that pierces his temples, and when he lifts a hand to his head, memories like electric shocks flicker on and off. Luhan’s hands trailing fire down his arms, Luhan pressing bruising kisses to his lips, something salty akin to Luhan’s tears mixing with his sweat and dampening the pillow. Luhan Luhan Luhan Luhan-
-and then he remembers.
He throws on his clothes, now crumpled from being on the floor all night, fumbling through his pocket to see if his phone is still there. He dials Luhan’s number, heart in his throat, telling himself over and over again that Luhan wouldn’t have taken advantage of him like that while he was drunk and then just left him, he wouldn’t have done that, he just went out to get breakfast for the both of them, he’ll come to get me in a few minutes, he’ll pick up, he’ll pick up and laugh at him for thinking he would leave.
But he doesn’t pick up.
The phone slips away from Yixing’s hand, dropping to a cushioned rest on the bed, and his eyes stare empty into the space before him, heart dropping with a heavy thud to the bottom of his stomach, and it’s like all his insides are churning. The busy signal still coming from his phone is deafening.
-
Yixing stumbles out of the room, legs weak, and he knows why. He grits his teeth and props himself up on the walls for support, trying to gain balance and strength on his own to at least find his way out of here. And find Luhan.
He doesn’t have any money on him, so he can’t get a cab; he can only walk, and so he does, boiling anger and the feeling of betrayal the only things keeping him going. He pulls his coat tighter around him and doesn’t realize how pitiful the gazes are of the people around him.
He finds his way around back to the hospital somehow, feeling a bit faint, and keeps moving on to the places Luhan would be. Not in his favourite record store, not in their coffee shop, not in the sports equipment store whose owner Luhan was friends with, not in the pizza place Luhan made a habit of going to every Friday. Finally, with tunneling vision, his hand stops on the handle of a library’s door, and he registers that this is useless.
If Luhan would leave him alone like that, is he still the same?
And the chilling answer numbs Yixing.
But while he passes through a park trying to get home, he sees Luhan sitting on the bench, leaning forward on his knees with his hands clasped, staring down into snow. His breath makes mist in the cold air.
“LUHAN!” he screams, voice broken. He realizes that he doesn’t even have the guts to demand a proper answer. This is all he can do, to plead for an explanation. “Luhan, you-“
Luhan starts, but he stands up. “Why are you here? I’m done with you.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear that? I said, I’m done with you.”
“But-“
“You know what I mean.”
“No, no, Luhan, it’s not-“
“What, Yixing? That’s exactly what it is. You don’t need to be here anymore.”
And Yixing, not hearing the trips and stutters in the other boy’s words, finally bites down on the truth.
“Why do you do this?” He’s trembling, with both vexation and physical discomfort.
Luhan looks up, face so blank, only eyes written full with something Yixing isn’t able to see. “It’s fun.”
The other boy clenches his teeth, briefly wondering again if this was still Luhan, the clear-eyed boy he met in the library only a month ago. “It’s fun? Playing like this is fun?”
Luhan cranes his neck to the side, impatience tainting his pretty face. “Don’t be such a boy, yeah? Loosen up, don’t take everything so seriously. What, do you wanna go home now and fold some paper airplanes and make wishes on them for love? Love doesn’t really exist, don’t you see-“
“I’d rather be called a boy and play with paper airplanes than be someone like you and play with another person’s heart!” Yixing’s usually gentle eyes flash, and then he’s running away, wiping at the tears that are finally overflowing, falling down and down and down, tracing the contours of his face and finally disappearing into the dark, leaving Luhan to wonder why his heartbeat is quickening into painful pangs.
i’m a maze when you look at me, sand when you grasp me
Yixing pushes the litter of empty bottles onto the floor, taking wild comfort in the colossal sounds of unevenly shattering glass. He tries to stand up but ends up on the floor, palms cut and head spinning. Tears fall loosely from his inky lashes.
“Double faced bastard!” he cries, waves of disappointment alongside rushes of anger crashing into a steady shore of disbelief. He clenches a nearby bottle, still unopened and full, and throws it across the room with what energy he has; it smashes against the wall, draping a curtain of alcohol-stained sadness over the smooth white surface. “I’m not going to be anybody’s backup plan!”
He’s screaming now, voice breaking and cutting off in heart-wrenching syllables, bloody hands shaking uncontrollably. “I HATE YOU!”
Minutes after he falls unconscious, his neighbours rush in through the door, the mess in front of him a confirmation of the loud sounds that had been unusual for the boy next door.
-
Yixing wakes up in the hospital as dawn is breaking, and he’s pretty sure he knows why he’s there. Nobody says it explicitly, but Yixing knows anyway. And while the doctor speaks in a soothing timbre, the rises and falls and pauses of his voice almost melting with the light of the sunrise, Yixing finds it in himself to begin to smoothen the harshest edges of the ragged halves of his heart.
Maybe he’s just too drained to remain irate.
He looks outside the floor window, everything under the sky luminous but unclear. And blurrily, he thinks that’s like his love.
into your transparent trap, i’m stuck here, help me
“There’s no need to worry about your hospital fees, Mr. Zhang, a boy looking the same age as you came immediately after you were brought and took care of those for you. He’s been waiting on the bench outside for hours now, I suppose you would let him in now?”
Yixing nods.
Moments later, Luhan comes in. “I just,” his voice is cracking with fatigue and his eyes are bloodshot, long eyelashes that Yixing used to make a joke out of counting brushing the dark shadows cast underneath his eyes every time he blinks.
Yixing waits.
“I didn’t know this would happen I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you this much, I’ve done this before, more than once, I’ve played with people, but it’s just so different this time and I don’t know - I went to find you but your neighbours said an ambulance brought you away so I came here and I asked about you and they said you had to get something done so I waited and sorry won’t fucking cut it, I know, I just - I’m so-“
“You didn’t mean it then, right?”
“What? I-“
“At the park.”
“I didn’t mean it, it came out different - I mean, it-“
“I think I get it, a little.”
“What? Yixing, you can hate me, you can wish me dead, don’t be like this, you…” Luhan shuts his eyes. “I hope you’ll never see me again, Yixing.”
“Before you leave,” Yixing calls out, almost against his own will. “Can you talk to me for a while?”
Luhan stops mid-step, and Yixing thinks maybe they both just want a formal goodbye. “About?”
“The people you’ve played with, what were they like? I want to know.” No, he doesn’t want to know; he just wants him to be there for a little while longer, because Luhan may have hurt him, but the idea of him never did.
So Luhan, with tired eyes, sits down on the leather-padded chair by Yixing’s bed, smile so sad Yixing can’t find the heart to blame him for anything at all. He talks to him, just like that first day in the library.
“My first was a girl, actually. Songqian. She was easy to love, but it was too steady, and when she asked me during our fifth year about the rest of our lives, I got scared and I just - she left. But university is huge, and I never saw her after that, except once in the back garden of the school during the last year. There was a guy, and he was proposing to her; they’ve been married for a couple years now. I still don’t blame her though, because she’s been hurt before and she just wanted a future. My friends’ relationships all seemed so tiring, with fights and all, even though they told me some people were worth it, but I…I don’t know.
My second one was a guy from my university soccer team, and I called him Baozi all the time. There must be someone out there who would love him, but it wasn’t me. I learned to flirt, though, that was useful - we ended up as friends, at least.
Then there was a guy whose smile I thought could light up the entire world, and his voice was just like water. He took care of me in a way that made me comfortable, but I got tired of him. He wasn’t…exciting enough.
I dated a guy and a girl at the same time during my second year of university, a guy named Kim Jongdae and a girl called Boa. Kwon Boa, I think? He had the most beautiful singing voice and made me laugh all the time, and she was like a goddess at our school. She was two years above me though, and after she graduated we lost connection. I never got caught cheating, but Jongdae ended it himself because he said he didn’t see it in my eyes anymore; I remember hugging him on that last day.
Then was Chanyeol, and we stayed together for two whole years. He was tall and handsome and played the guitar, and he was a good rapper and his voice was addicting. A real happy virus, though. He made me smile every day and laughed with me all the time, and he was interesting because he was a little different every day. I felt like even if we were the only people left in the world, I wouldn’t be lonely. I’ve thought about spending forever with him, but he went out to London after graduation.
I went to Korea for a while to think about things. I met Soojung just that winter, and she was pretty in a shy way - she was so clean even though she was always treated like a princess at home and by her friends, but she was too sensitive for me to handle.
Oh, Jongin was a fascinating kid. I still broke up with him after some three months, because he went and became a trainee at an entertainment company, and I didn’t want to wait for his time. Now he’s debuted as Kai, part of that twelve-member boy band - what, EXO or something?
I had a week-long fling with a girl called Chorong before I came back to China. She was cute. I met a really witty guy named Baekhyun on the plane ride back, and we kept in touch for another month or so before my phone broke and I lost his number.
I don’t really remember much about Jinri, Taemin, Yoona, Naeun, Jonghyun, Jinki, Nichkhun, Miyoung, Kibum, Minho, and Shinhye - I’ve even forgotten their full names. My last one was Do Kyungsoo; all I remember about him is that his voice was made of chocolate.”
Luhan keeps talking and talking, and Yixing’s looking out the window.
“Am I another one?” Yixing asks when Luhan finishes. “Is this how you say goodbye to all of them?”
“No.” Luhan’s hand lifts towards Yixing’s face, but doesn’t touch him. “No. You’re the only one I’ve told this to. And the only one I’ve really wanted to keep. I know you don’t-”
Yixing looks him in the eye. “I do.” I believe you. “Just don’t go around being like this again, Luhan. Everyone you’ve played with was hurting at the time as much as you are now. You’ve taken too much.”
There’s a long stretch of something not dead enough to be called silence but not light enough to be called quiet before Luhan blinks away the tears pooling in his eyes and speaks.
“Alright.”
“I never want to see you again.”
“I know.”
I love you.
I love you too.
-
Four years later, Yixing has started over with someone else. He has a pair of gorgeous eyes nothing like Luhan’s but similar sometimes, under the starlight, and lips that fit perfectly over his own. His name is Wu Yifan. The winter a year after they met, Yifan wants to go to the library for something to read in case they are ever snowed in, and when Yixing opens the door, memories rush back. Yifan tugs on his hand to lead him to the shelves, but Yixing looks up and sees someone about to step out from the other door, and he freezes.
There’s a tall boy standing next to him, and he’s saying something with his eyes crinkled into a pair of crescents, but Luhan’s looking back at Yixing. His features spread into a smile and he lifts his hand to wave; Yixing dimples and waves back. They lock eyes, saying millions of things in that one moment, and then they part ways again.
And Yixing forgives.
-fin-
Post-fic notes: [notes]Okay so firstly I know this isn’t what you expected and I’m so sorry - I was at 4K before I got my head out of this and went oh my God, this definitely is not what she wanted.
I gave your two other prompts a try too after that to see if I could start over but I really couldn’t do it, I even started this one over once but it just went in the same direction and I’m so sorry and augh you only wanted Layhan but I added basically Luhan/the entirety of the KPOP industry (you probably didn’t like it when I mentioned all the female idols, right? I don’t know why I put that in myself, I don’t like reading about that either, but I wanted to make Luhan seem more of a player and I’m slapping my head regretting it right now I’m sorry).
I added Fanxing too for the ending (I wanted to have a good ending for Yixing, but then I realized that there must’ve been a damn good reason you didn’t list them as one of your accepted pairings, like maybe you were for OT11 or this was your NOTP and I went fuck I messed up but I really didn’t know what to do at that point since that was literally hours before the due date and I didn’t want something half-assed and I’m typing in this note for the last minute, I’m a minute from sending this off) and Hunhan too because I just wanted Luhan to settle down and I am really so so so sorry because I know what it’s like to even see a pairing you hate or an OT(?) that you’re against, much less practically being pressured to read a fic about them.
I swear I read through the entire thing to see what I could do to change things, but I was so stuck and I had no idea what I could do and I was literally near tears, I think it was teenage girl hormones too but definitely mostly because I really am super sorry and I hope you will forgive me for screwing this up :(
And I know this was super choppy because I wrote the majority of it on my laptop, but I saved some of it on my phone too when I wasn’t home and something happened with the sync and apps and it just all got deleted, I went through the fic and tried to patch up what I could but it wasn’t the same and I’m just so sorry.
After the reveals I’ll write you Layhan until you’re 1000% happy unless you hated this so much that you never want to hear from me again which I understand too T.T