for mydeerest_luhan: toying with raggy andys
Title: toying with raggy andys
For: mydeerest_luhan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: luhan-centric
Word Count: 3k+
Warnings: body horror, character death, gore
Summary: [its right before letum Rd. big ass house you wont miss it]
A/N: This is my first oneshot, and I feel like you can really tell, but I hope you can still enjoy reading this. I rematched characters because I felt like they "fit better" with another of your prompts. I'm really sorry if it looks funny. I wanted to make the text messages look real but couldn't figure out how to do it.
He's got an empty pizza box on the floor beside his bed and his feet up on the wall, too lethargic to bother changing the channel. The nightly news is playing some update on a recent pileup near campus. A bunch of highschoolers from a nearby town had come to party with the big kids and tried to drive home drunk. Lu Han wishes they would quit bringing it up. He had been driving home from those same wack ass parties when some kids clipped his car. Who the hell drag races in a neighborhood? In a car covered in spirit paraphernalia specific to your own high school? Dumb kids. He didn't think they needed to be drunk to cause an accident. He was lucky to be alive.
His phone buzzes.
[sup]
[hey]
[heeeeeeeeeeeyyy]
[Didn't I tell you not to talk to me]
[awe dont be like dat i .I got a surprise]
[What- did you make patient of the month at the free-clinic?]
[hatersgo na hate. naw hyo is throwing a lil get together for this girls birthday. wanna go?]
[With you? Goodbye, Baekhyun]
[man fuck you]
[naw bt really do u wanna go]
[How have you managed to stay alive so long. My car is basically totaled. Just stay home]
[I will be in a home and u can be too. and u can find somebody to take khome]
[You make me feel ashamed to continue our friendship.]
[its right before letum Rd. big ass house you wont miss it]
The house is huge- two stories of dark red brick, and all the lights are on inside. As he approaches the stained glass door, a cat skitters out from behind one of those giant vase decorations people stick fake plants in. He rings the doorbell, but doesn't wait before letting himself in and tripping over about a thousand shoes all resting just inside.
The lights are actually off here, still blue shadows in the room off to his left. Big houses can be creepy in their largeness, filled to the brim with shit from Pottery Barn and still empty in a way.
He rounds a corner and halts, frightened by the sight of his own reflection in a long mirror set by the entryway. His face is shadowed unnaturally in the darkness, and he's mesmerized at how gaunt he appears. Senior year has not been kind. He studies himself for a moment longer before his eyes are drawn to the quiet dark reflected behind him.
A white something hovering midway off the ground, catching light . A second face in the mir-ror.
"What the-"
By the time he spins around, the face is gone. Eyes having adjusted to the dark, he manages to pull a few shapes from the room just beside the front door. Several bookcases line the wall facing the entrance to the room.
"Hello?" His voice echoes lamely. Lu Han jolts at a the sudden thick twang of a bass, a song blaring throughout the house.
He quickens his steps unconsciously- 2 Chainz' sloppy drawl growing steadily louder. It is wooden flooring for a while, then beige carpet that he almost feels bad about tainting with the bottoms of his filthy Converse. The inside of the house is nice, deep orange walls stretching up into curved arches at random.
A trio of wolf heads face eachother from opposite walls, an oddly rustic touch for this suburban home. It really seems like the family is well-off with all the gold trim laying around. Gold vases, gold frames, a cluster of gold-colored metal tumblers on a dark wood dining table playing as props in a heated game of beer pong. He's found the party alright.
It is dead silent when he steps up to the table- makes him vaguely feel as though he's somehow been the group's topic of conversation- but a 'plop' sounds and it is chaos all around. Lu Han has just witnessed the winning shot of a 10-0 win, a guy with a bleached-buzzcut chugging down the contents of his lone red cup as his twin-haired opponent woops viciously.
Another round starts almost immediately after and alerts him to the fact it will probably be the only entertainment he'll receive for the night, so he ditches the table.
There's a trio of girls snuggling on a love seat he hadn't noticed when entering. All three are watching him interestedly, the slow and deliberate rub of hands over each other's skin tempting him to follow with his eyes. A chorus of whoops erupt behind him and startle him from his thoughts. Another 10-0 win with the same players.
Jesus, that kid is going to get alcohol poisoning.
A girl bumps into him just then- her body catapulting into the opposite direction- flying almost comically, arms and legs curving into a full-body 'C' as it swooshes into a wall. He stands, shocked. Watches her head bounce off the stucco there. Sees the drag of itchy red follow the hair from the corner of a painting to where her limbs lay in a tired heap on the carpet.
Holy shit!
The music stops abruptly, the entire room suddenly silent. Lu Han makes for help, turns with wide eyes to the collection of people at the table who have made no move to assist the injured girl. He opens his mouth to yell, but realizes with sudden confusion that he is out of breath. He has been screaming for a while without making a sound.
A series of bongs peal deeply throughout the house while Lu Han tries not to lose himself in a growing haze of panic. It's midnight- how long has he been at this party? He's sweating and pant-ing from trying to move, but his legs seem magnetized to the floor- every internal command to move steadily becoming more sluggish.
Someone screams.
Lu Han wants to look and see who has managed to break the strange spell of silence and stillness he and the rest of the room are suffering under.
Yixing! Oh my god, Yixing! Sobbing begins.
It is a man's voice. Lu Han feels a pounding in his head from forcing his eyes to stay focused to the side for so long. He can see a figure in white crouching over the body of the bleeding girl, pulling her into his lap, rocking them both to the rhythm of his hiccuping cries.
What happened? What happened? His hands cradling the bloody mess of her face and hair. The wailing fades to background noise as Lu Han's instincts kick into high gear.
It is frightening how quickly the atmosphere in the room is changing. The sweat from earlier is cooling uncomfortably on the back of his neck and under his arms. Lu Han wishes suddenly to be left alone- remain stuck as a statue and undetected by the new person who has escaped the sticky pull of this unnatural gravity.
He is just allowing his mind to slip fully into shock when he becomes aware of two bloodshot eyes boring into his own. Lu Han gasps, even the swift inhale of oxygen somehow muted.
You.
The face before him is a ghastly white. The eyes a wet red.
Lu Han can only look on into the throat- an endless yawn of thick blackness.
His shoes are gone.
The thought swirls leisurely around his mind for a long while, Lu Han faintly aware of the sting of cold against his side. Something slams.
There is someone there. Lu Han feels something beside him shift. He struggles to focus on his surroundings as more things are moved around him. Acids in his stomach turn violently- the air so rotten he can taste the stench of it on his tongue.
You.
The voice catches, growls. Lu Han is snatched forward, the hands of an unseen assailant fisting tightly in the collar of his shirt. A throb blossoming dully from where his neck had cricked backwards as he, himself, is dragged away.
They don't travel far, Lu Han is aware. He is left propped against something, huffing as his body alerts his brain to a series of injuries he must have acquired while out. His shoes are gone, and his side is tingling so strongly it hurts.
The smell of rancid meat has lessened wherever he has been placed, but it is still pitch black. Lu Han starts- his ribs stretching painfully as he sucks in a lungful of air. There had been a man and a party. Blood.
His thoughts are interrupted by an unexpected flood of light that glows, but does not illuminate. Is he blind?
Someone shuffles past him, breathing heavily. Something else is being moved. Lu Han recognizes the scrape of metal and a weighty thud like a carpet roll falling to the floor.
"What am I gonna do with you?" Lu Han freezes, afraid the white face has caught him awake. "You're all messy. My little baby is messy. I'm gonna clean you up. Wipe your little face, okay? Oh, you're so cute."
Lu Han has never been so afraid in his entire life and he can feel his mind willing itself to shut down. He waits for the hands on his face, letting a part of himself slip into hopelessness. He can-not even imagine the terror he is about to experience and his throat clenches, cheeks itching where tears must have dried earlier.
The cloth over his eyes and nose is almost soaked through before he realizes he has been blind-folded.
Lu Han had lucked out with his selection of professors his very first year at Shadyside Universi-ty. His FINC 101 professor was an young man who liked to wear Kangols and blazers patched at the elbows. This professor was of a type who had managed to develop an appreciation for the potential of youth- including his own.
He was a man who wisely saw his role as an educator as a privilege, but was overly-enthusiastic and assumed more of himself and his affect on the lives of his students. With his soft voice and habitually unprompted smiles, Lu Han had thought him a brown-noser who couldn't decide if he wanted to be a good professor or the cool one, so he ignored his responsibilities in online mod-ules and often sagged into class tardy.
He brushed off requests to meet with this man afterclass and floated through his first semester hooking up with random girls and growing ever-satisfied as his popularity as a pretty boy rose like a weather balloon in the heat. Two consecutive Finance classes were cancelled before the rumors reached him. A professor was dead. A custodian had found him in his office.
Lu Han didn't even think about going to the wake his uni announced it would be holding, but he still managed to get stuck watching the TA playing substitute get emotional in the middle of class. He was distracted with thoughts of ignored invitations, but the sight of a grown man crying in front of a bunch of semi-strangers shocked him.
"...was the first person to make me feel welcome here, you know? He was actually the reason I decided to apply for another semester here- he even helped with the exchange sponsors- convinced them." Lu Han looked on in growing discomfort. It had been like the guy had forgotten they were even there, eyes glazing over and voice lowering to a mumble as nostalgia stifled his self-awareness. His face had taken on one of those cry-smiles you see in movies, the slow stream of tears and snot dribbling past the singular dimple of his half-smile.
A great feeling overtakes Lu Han. An awful wave of something that has his mind snapping back and forth from his thoughts and what is happening on the other side of the blindfold. Fresh tears leak out unnoticed while Lu Han stews in the emotion. It relents just as suddenly, leaving behind the phantom weight of its memory, like a wave that is drawn back into the ocean without its foam. There is movement near him, the white face is speaking, but he cannot give his complete attention to it. Despite his situation, Lu Han finds himself sinking deeper into the memory of his professor's death.
The ceilings of these lecture rooms were really the most unappreciated examples of decay Lu Han thought. Splotches of yellow appeared at random and in varying degrees of nasty- like god had taken the most sporadic piss on this room alone. Some spots seemed to be an evergrowing sponge-puddle, uneven rings of dark discoloration lines reaching progressively outward before stopping to halfheartedly dry again.
It smelled dusty in the corner where he sat, foot propped on the seat before him, and no cluck of perfumed girls to hide his university's apparent lack of consistent cleanliness. He had been early- earlier to class than he had ever been past the first semester of this year. His roommate had taken to slamming the door for his early morning exits ever since he walked in on Lu Han on his side of the room, in his bed. And with his girlfriend.
So for the eighth morning in a row, Lu Han had found himself awake in time to suffer through the tailend of post-dawn chill. He had given up on trying to will his mind to slip back into uncon-ciousness on this particular day, however- had shrugged out of the sheets and into a ratty pullover too grody to even wear at the campus gym.
Winter in Columbus was a tragedy for some, frozen air raking into throats with a special seasonal fire, but Lu Han loved it. The sting of cold air against his face and eyes. The illusionary burst of speed when struggling against a wall of wind and it suddenly breaks. Especially that.
He had jogged without plan, following the red-bricked walkways almost into the main square before getting winded. A few students were parked outside the tiny coffee kiosk that was popular for serving coffee flavored like candybars. Lu Han had thought the kiosk was so cool during his first campus visit, a definite pro on his list to his parents of why he should attend this particular university.
He sees a man walk up to order- becomes excited when he sees a familiar blazer patched at the elbows. The man turns, and the excitement flares into anger. It's the TA from his finance class looking very harried and very day-after. What- did he run out for breakfast and throw the blazer on like a coat? An idiot like that would get the professor in a lot of trouble. Lu Han ran back the way he came, a second wind fueling his limbs.
His entire stash of Cliff bars was missing when he got back to the room. And when he went to fix himself breakfast, he had found his cupboard of oatmeal empty. Lu Han cursed his luck- of course he would get the most sensitive, passive-aggressive dumbass as a roomie. He hadn’t even wanted that girl. But he had wanted someone.
The door opened, a Kangol leading the way as its owner leaned into the room. Lu Han popped another stick of gum into his mouth, sick of the previous one rubbing grittily over his tongue. Watched his professor unpack his things at his desk. Eyed the pull of his button-up across his chest as he shrugged out of that damned blazer. His hands smoothing slowly through mussed hair. And his eyes boring into Lu Han's own with a challenge when he finally looked up- immediately finding them like he had known the whole time he was being watched and from where. Had he been putting on a show?
Lu Han bristled, irritated with the man for teasing him and himself for feeling pleased with the thought.
A fierce sense of urgency kicks in, Lu Han's already panicked mind picking up its frantic back-pedaling. He has forgotten something. There is something very important he needs to remember. He is dizzy with the strain of pulling himself back into a state of alert, distracted by his thoughts and the buzzing in his ears.
The white face has been speaking the entire time, voice low and doting. He hasn't touched Lu Han or yelled at him again, but there is a growing dread in the back of Lu Han's mind that is dif-ferent from fear of the unknown. A fear of the familiar.
Before he realizes the miracle of it, he reaches up and pulls the blindfold down his face.
Fuzzy shapes slowly take form out of a bright haze as Lu Han's eyes adjust to the light. The girl from earlier is seated facing him, the man in white shuffling anxiously around behind her chair. It is a barber's chair, Lu Han realizes. It scrapes rustily as it is maneuvered, a steaming puddle of pink-tinged water growing on the floor around her seat. Her top half is soaked, face pallid and blank as the man in white dabs at her face and hair.
He drops the towel on the counter behind him and turns the girl to face him. Lu Han remembers the movement of her body in the air and the shocking stillness of it on the floor, and he feels sick the moment he realizes.
The man in white scrunches her hair tightly at the scalp and jerks it away from her front repeat-edly. Crackling sounds can be heard as her hair is torn further off. There is a sound like velcro being snatched and then- Lu Han sees.
Bright fuschia stains the back of her neck and patches of short, matted hair like melted carna-tions. Opaque swirls of a white substance cover her head and evolve into red ones where chunks of hair are missing.
The man in white tsks as he inspects her scalp.
"I know, Honey, I know. I shouldn't have used glue. I was too excited to see you in your pretty wig- I know." He stops to hold her face between his hands. Lu Han can see his fingers petting her face on each side. "You miss your hair? I got some for you. I always take care of my baby. Just like you took care of me." His voice is teasing.
He turns her back around to face Lu Han and moves in front of her, retrieving something from beneath a cloth and forcing Lu Han into a game of peek-a-boo with her balding corpse.
It's horrifying to see her face again- slivers of red peeking out where the glue has ripped flesh. So horrifying that Lu Han doesn't recognize her at first- doesn't see the dimpled half-smile beneath her blank stare. Not until the first tear falls from unfocused eyes does Lu Han remember a man in mourning- students suspicious of an unethical attachment. Dumb jokes about star-crossed lovers when that man chooses an early death.
"I'll fix it, Yixing, don't cry." The man in white shifts then, reaching toward Yixing's- Yixing's- wet face. He closes his open palm over the other man's eyes and mouth and shakes viciously. "I'll fix you! I said I'll fix you!"
"Lu Han! What a surprise- you've even beaten me here!" That same soft-eyed smile made its ap-pearance. "Did you have something you...wanted?" He paused briefly before 'wanted', stressed the word itself like he meant to ask about all its meanings- wanted to know if Lu Han wanted. His head tilted cutely like he knew he was being naughty.
Lu Han sighed internally. He would have to see that smile for another few months. It wouldn't feel like such a struggle to see him if the man quit looking so damn pleased all the time. Like he knew something about Lu Han that he himself didn't yet know. He wasn't even that much older, but he had a type of patience that translated over into the way he carried himself. Like someone who just knew they would get what they wanted in the end.
It was intriguing.
"Morning, Professor Kim."
Lu Han strains against his seat, willing his legs to move as well, but drops them back down, sur-prised, when they do. His feet thump on the weighty metal of a foot rest, and he glances down. He screams, his voice echoing in the space above him, when he sees an old style barber's chair. He's been sitting in it the entire time. Waiting his turn.
It is a knowing scream. An instinctual plea of the soul for help from a man that knows in his flesh none will come. He knows he is truly caught before he registers the approach of the white face.
And his breath is soft on Lu Han's cheeks. His smile just as knowing as it was back then. Satis-faction is thick in his voice as he speaks.
“Welcome, Lu Han. I'm glad you decided to come today.”
Epilogue
Seven dead in a multi-vehicle crash near Shadyside university campus
Police say several teens died in a 3-car pileup just inside a Fear Street neighborhood when two cars crashed into the side of a pick-up truck earlier this week.We’re told two of the males involved were actually identified as students from the nearby university. It was revealed tonight that one of those students has actually passed just this morning- adding to the history of unfortunate deaths that seem so prevalent at the university. Another petition to close the school seems to be in the works, as angry citizens question the institution’s safety- citing the murder of a professor at the school just three years earlier. The results of the investigation revealed that twenty-four year old teaching assistant Yixing Zhang had begun stalking the professor after being rejected romantically. The man reportedly took his own life soon after.
For: mydeerest_luhan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: luhan-centric
Word Count: 3k+
Warnings: body horror, character death, gore
Summary: [its right before letum Rd. big ass house you wont miss it]
A/N: This is my first oneshot, and I feel like you can really tell, but I hope you can still enjoy reading this. I rematched characters because I felt like they "fit better" with another of your prompts. I'm really sorry if it looks funny. I wanted to make the text messages look real but couldn't figure out how to do it.
He's got an empty pizza box on the floor beside his bed and his feet up on the wall, too lethargic to bother changing the channel. The nightly news is playing some update on a recent pileup near campus. A bunch of highschoolers from a nearby town had come to party with the big kids and tried to drive home drunk. Lu Han wishes they would quit bringing it up. He had been driving home from those same wack ass parties when some kids clipped his car. Who the hell drag races in a neighborhood? In a car covered in spirit paraphernalia specific to your own high school? Dumb kids. He didn't think they needed to be drunk to cause an accident. He was lucky to be alive.
His phone buzzes.
[sup]
[hey]
[heeeeeeeeeeeyyy]
[Didn't I tell you not to talk to me]
[awe dont be like dat i .I got a surprise]
[What- did you make patient of the month at the free-clinic?]
[hatersgo na hate. naw hyo is throwing a lil get together for this girls birthday. wanna go?]
[With you? Goodbye, Baekhyun]
[man fuck you]
[naw bt really do u wanna go]
[How have you managed to stay alive so long. My car is basically totaled. Just stay home]
[I will be in a home and u can be too. and u can find somebody to take khome]
[You make me feel ashamed to continue our friendship.]
[its right before letum Rd. big ass house you wont miss it]
The house is huge- two stories of dark red brick, and all the lights are on inside. As he approaches the stained glass door, a cat skitters out from behind one of those giant vase decorations people stick fake plants in. He rings the doorbell, but doesn't wait before letting himself in and tripping over about a thousand shoes all resting just inside.
The lights are actually off here, still blue shadows in the room off to his left. Big houses can be creepy in their largeness, filled to the brim with shit from Pottery Barn and still empty in a way.
He rounds a corner and halts, frightened by the sight of his own reflection in a long mirror set by the entryway. His face is shadowed unnaturally in the darkness, and he's mesmerized at how gaunt he appears. Senior year has not been kind. He studies himself for a moment longer before his eyes are drawn to the quiet dark reflected behind him.
A white something hovering midway off the ground, catching light . A second face in the mir-ror.
"What the-"
By the time he spins around, the face is gone. Eyes having adjusted to the dark, he manages to pull a few shapes from the room just beside the front door. Several bookcases line the wall facing the entrance to the room.
"Hello?" His voice echoes lamely. Lu Han jolts at a the sudden thick twang of a bass, a song blaring throughout the house.
He quickens his steps unconsciously- 2 Chainz' sloppy drawl growing steadily louder. It is wooden flooring for a while, then beige carpet that he almost feels bad about tainting with the bottoms of his filthy Converse. The inside of the house is nice, deep orange walls stretching up into curved arches at random.
A trio of wolf heads face eachother from opposite walls, an oddly rustic touch for this suburban home. It really seems like the family is well-off with all the gold trim laying around. Gold vases, gold frames, a cluster of gold-colored metal tumblers on a dark wood dining table playing as props in a heated game of beer pong. He's found the party alright.
It is dead silent when he steps up to the table- makes him vaguely feel as though he's somehow been the group's topic of conversation- but a 'plop' sounds and it is chaos all around. Lu Han has just witnessed the winning shot of a 10-0 win, a guy with a bleached-buzzcut chugging down the contents of his lone red cup as his twin-haired opponent woops viciously.
Another round starts almost immediately after and alerts him to the fact it will probably be the only entertainment he'll receive for the night, so he ditches the table.
There's a trio of girls snuggling on a love seat he hadn't noticed when entering. All three are watching him interestedly, the slow and deliberate rub of hands over each other's skin tempting him to follow with his eyes. A chorus of whoops erupt behind him and startle him from his thoughts. Another 10-0 win with the same players.
Jesus, that kid is going to get alcohol poisoning.
A girl bumps into him just then- her body catapulting into the opposite direction- flying almost comically, arms and legs curving into a full-body 'C' as it swooshes into a wall. He stands, shocked. Watches her head bounce off the stucco there. Sees the drag of itchy red follow the hair from the corner of a painting to where her limbs lay in a tired heap on the carpet.
Holy shit!
The music stops abruptly, the entire room suddenly silent. Lu Han makes for help, turns with wide eyes to the collection of people at the table who have made no move to assist the injured girl. He opens his mouth to yell, but realizes with sudden confusion that he is out of breath. He has been screaming for a while without making a sound.
A series of bongs peal deeply throughout the house while Lu Han tries not to lose himself in a growing haze of panic. It's midnight- how long has he been at this party? He's sweating and pant-ing from trying to move, but his legs seem magnetized to the floor- every internal command to move steadily becoming more sluggish.
Someone screams.
Lu Han wants to look and see who has managed to break the strange spell of silence and stillness he and the rest of the room are suffering under.
Yixing! Oh my god, Yixing! Sobbing begins.
It is a man's voice. Lu Han feels a pounding in his head from forcing his eyes to stay focused to the side for so long. He can see a figure in white crouching over the body of the bleeding girl, pulling her into his lap, rocking them both to the rhythm of his hiccuping cries.
What happened? What happened? His hands cradling the bloody mess of her face and hair. The wailing fades to background noise as Lu Han's instincts kick into high gear.
It is frightening how quickly the atmosphere in the room is changing. The sweat from earlier is cooling uncomfortably on the back of his neck and under his arms. Lu Han wishes suddenly to be left alone- remain stuck as a statue and undetected by the new person who has escaped the sticky pull of this unnatural gravity.
He is just allowing his mind to slip fully into shock when he becomes aware of two bloodshot eyes boring into his own. Lu Han gasps, even the swift inhale of oxygen somehow muted.
You.
The face before him is a ghastly white. The eyes a wet red.
Lu Han can only look on into the throat- an endless yawn of thick blackness.
His shoes are gone.
The thought swirls leisurely around his mind for a long while, Lu Han faintly aware of the sting of cold against his side. Something slams.
There is someone there. Lu Han feels something beside him shift. He struggles to focus on his surroundings as more things are moved around him. Acids in his stomach turn violently- the air so rotten he can taste the stench of it on his tongue.
You.
The voice catches, growls. Lu Han is snatched forward, the hands of an unseen assailant fisting tightly in the collar of his shirt. A throb blossoming dully from where his neck had cricked backwards as he, himself, is dragged away.
They don't travel far, Lu Han is aware. He is left propped against something, huffing as his body alerts his brain to a series of injuries he must have acquired while out. His shoes are gone, and his side is tingling so strongly it hurts.
The smell of rancid meat has lessened wherever he has been placed, but it is still pitch black. Lu Han starts- his ribs stretching painfully as he sucks in a lungful of air. There had been a man and a party. Blood.
His thoughts are interrupted by an unexpected flood of light that glows, but does not illuminate. Is he blind?
Someone shuffles past him, breathing heavily. Something else is being moved. Lu Han recognizes the scrape of metal and a weighty thud like a carpet roll falling to the floor.
"What am I gonna do with you?" Lu Han freezes, afraid the white face has caught him awake. "You're all messy. My little baby is messy. I'm gonna clean you up. Wipe your little face, okay? Oh, you're so cute."
Lu Han has never been so afraid in his entire life and he can feel his mind willing itself to shut down. He waits for the hands on his face, letting a part of himself slip into hopelessness. He can-not even imagine the terror he is about to experience and his throat clenches, cheeks itching where tears must have dried earlier.
The cloth over his eyes and nose is almost soaked through before he realizes he has been blind-folded.
Lu Han had lucked out with his selection of professors his very first year at Shadyside Universi-ty. His FINC 101 professor was an young man who liked to wear Kangols and blazers patched at the elbows. This professor was of a type who had managed to develop an appreciation for the potential of youth- including his own.
He was a man who wisely saw his role as an educator as a privilege, but was overly-enthusiastic and assumed more of himself and his affect on the lives of his students. With his soft voice and habitually unprompted smiles, Lu Han had thought him a brown-noser who couldn't decide if he wanted to be a good professor or the cool one, so he ignored his responsibilities in online mod-ules and often sagged into class tardy.
He brushed off requests to meet with this man afterclass and floated through his first semester hooking up with random girls and growing ever-satisfied as his popularity as a pretty boy rose like a weather balloon in the heat. Two consecutive Finance classes were cancelled before the rumors reached him. A professor was dead. A custodian had found him in his office.
Lu Han didn't even think about going to the wake his uni announced it would be holding, but he still managed to get stuck watching the TA playing substitute get emotional in the middle of class. He was distracted with thoughts of ignored invitations, but the sight of a grown man crying in front of a bunch of semi-strangers shocked him.
"...was the first person to make me feel welcome here, you know? He was actually the reason I decided to apply for another semester here- he even helped with the exchange sponsors- convinced them." Lu Han looked on in growing discomfort. It had been like the guy had forgotten they were even there, eyes glazing over and voice lowering to a mumble as nostalgia stifled his self-awareness. His face had taken on one of those cry-smiles you see in movies, the slow stream of tears and snot dribbling past the singular dimple of his half-smile.
A great feeling overtakes Lu Han. An awful wave of something that has his mind snapping back and forth from his thoughts and what is happening on the other side of the blindfold. Fresh tears leak out unnoticed while Lu Han stews in the emotion. It relents just as suddenly, leaving behind the phantom weight of its memory, like a wave that is drawn back into the ocean without its foam. There is movement near him, the white face is speaking, but he cannot give his complete attention to it. Despite his situation, Lu Han finds himself sinking deeper into the memory of his professor's death.
The ceilings of these lecture rooms were really the most unappreciated examples of decay Lu Han thought. Splotches of yellow appeared at random and in varying degrees of nasty- like god had taken the most sporadic piss on this room alone. Some spots seemed to be an evergrowing sponge-puddle, uneven rings of dark discoloration lines reaching progressively outward before stopping to halfheartedly dry again.
It smelled dusty in the corner where he sat, foot propped on the seat before him, and no cluck of perfumed girls to hide his university's apparent lack of consistent cleanliness. He had been early- earlier to class than he had ever been past the first semester of this year. His roommate had taken to slamming the door for his early morning exits ever since he walked in on Lu Han on his side of the room, in his bed. And with his girlfriend.
So for the eighth morning in a row, Lu Han had found himself awake in time to suffer through the tailend of post-dawn chill. He had given up on trying to will his mind to slip back into uncon-ciousness on this particular day, however- had shrugged out of the sheets and into a ratty pullover too grody to even wear at the campus gym.
Winter in Columbus was a tragedy for some, frozen air raking into throats with a special seasonal fire, but Lu Han loved it. The sting of cold air against his face and eyes. The illusionary burst of speed when struggling against a wall of wind and it suddenly breaks. Especially that.
He had jogged without plan, following the red-bricked walkways almost into the main square before getting winded. A few students were parked outside the tiny coffee kiosk that was popular for serving coffee flavored like candybars. Lu Han had thought the kiosk was so cool during his first campus visit, a definite pro on his list to his parents of why he should attend this particular university.
He sees a man walk up to order- becomes excited when he sees a familiar blazer patched at the elbows. The man turns, and the excitement flares into anger. It's the TA from his finance class looking very harried and very day-after. What- did he run out for breakfast and throw the blazer on like a coat? An idiot like that would get the professor in a lot of trouble. Lu Han ran back the way he came, a second wind fueling his limbs.
His entire stash of Cliff bars was missing when he got back to the room. And when he went to fix himself breakfast, he had found his cupboard of oatmeal empty. Lu Han cursed his luck- of course he would get the most sensitive, passive-aggressive dumbass as a roomie. He hadn’t even wanted that girl. But he had wanted someone.
The door opened, a Kangol leading the way as its owner leaned into the room. Lu Han popped another stick of gum into his mouth, sick of the previous one rubbing grittily over his tongue. Watched his professor unpack his things at his desk. Eyed the pull of his button-up across his chest as he shrugged out of that damned blazer. His hands smoothing slowly through mussed hair. And his eyes boring into Lu Han's own with a challenge when he finally looked up- immediately finding them like he had known the whole time he was being watched and from where. Had he been putting on a show?
Lu Han bristled, irritated with the man for teasing him and himself for feeling pleased with the thought.
A fierce sense of urgency kicks in, Lu Han's already panicked mind picking up its frantic back-pedaling. He has forgotten something. There is something very important he needs to remember. He is dizzy with the strain of pulling himself back into a state of alert, distracted by his thoughts and the buzzing in his ears.
The white face has been speaking the entire time, voice low and doting. He hasn't touched Lu Han or yelled at him again, but there is a growing dread in the back of Lu Han's mind that is dif-ferent from fear of the unknown. A fear of the familiar.
Before he realizes the miracle of it, he reaches up and pulls the blindfold down his face.
Fuzzy shapes slowly take form out of a bright haze as Lu Han's eyes adjust to the light. The girl from earlier is seated facing him, the man in white shuffling anxiously around behind her chair. It is a barber's chair, Lu Han realizes. It scrapes rustily as it is maneuvered, a steaming puddle of pink-tinged water growing on the floor around her seat. Her top half is soaked, face pallid and blank as the man in white dabs at her face and hair.
He drops the towel on the counter behind him and turns the girl to face him. Lu Han remembers the movement of her body in the air and the shocking stillness of it on the floor, and he feels sick the moment he realizes.
The man in white scrunches her hair tightly at the scalp and jerks it away from her front repeat-edly. Crackling sounds can be heard as her hair is torn further off. There is a sound like velcro being snatched and then- Lu Han sees.
Bright fuschia stains the back of her neck and patches of short, matted hair like melted carna-tions. Opaque swirls of a white substance cover her head and evolve into red ones where chunks of hair are missing.
The man in white tsks as he inspects her scalp.
"I know, Honey, I know. I shouldn't have used glue. I was too excited to see you in your pretty wig- I know." He stops to hold her face between his hands. Lu Han can see his fingers petting her face on each side. "You miss your hair? I got some for you. I always take care of my baby. Just like you took care of me." His voice is teasing.
He turns her back around to face Lu Han and moves in front of her, retrieving something from beneath a cloth and forcing Lu Han into a game of peek-a-boo with her balding corpse.
It's horrifying to see her face again- slivers of red peeking out where the glue has ripped flesh. So horrifying that Lu Han doesn't recognize her at first- doesn't see the dimpled half-smile beneath her blank stare. Not until the first tear falls from unfocused eyes does Lu Han remember a man in mourning- students suspicious of an unethical attachment. Dumb jokes about star-crossed lovers when that man chooses an early death.
"I'll fix it, Yixing, don't cry." The man in white shifts then, reaching toward Yixing's- Yixing's- wet face. He closes his open palm over the other man's eyes and mouth and shakes viciously. "I'll fix you! I said I'll fix you!"
"Lu Han! What a surprise- you've even beaten me here!" That same soft-eyed smile made its ap-pearance. "Did you have something you...wanted?" He paused briefly before 'wanted', stressed the word itself like he meant to ask about all its meanings- wanted to know if Lu Han wanted. His head tilted cutely like he knew he was being naughty.
Lu Han sighed internally. He would have to see that smile for another few months. It wouldn't feel like such a struggle to see him if the man quit looking so damn pleased all the time. Like he knew something about Lu Han that he himself didn't yet know. He wasn't even that much older, but he had a type of patience that translated over into the way he carried himself. Like someone who just knew they would get what they wanted in the end.
It was intriguing.
"Morning, Professor Kim."
Lu Han strains against his seat, willing his legs to move as well, but drops them back down, sur-prised, when they do. His feet thump on the weighty metal of a foot rest, and he glances down. He screams, his voice echoing in the space above him, when he sees an old style barber's chair. He's been sitting in it the entire time. Waiting his turn.
It is a knowing scream. An instinctual plea of the soul for help from a man that knows in his flesh none will come. He knows he is truly caught before he registers the approach of the white face.
And his breath is soft on Lu Han's cheeks. His smile just as knowing as it was back then. Satis-faction is thick in his voice as he speaks.
“Welcome, Lu Han. I'm glad you decided to come today.”
Epilogue
Seven dead in a multi-vehicle crash near Shadyside university campus
Police say several teens died in a 3-car pileup just inside a Fear Street neighborhood when two cars crashed into the side of a pick-up truck earlier this week.We’re told two of the males involved were actually identified as students from the nearby university. It was revealed tonight that one of those students has actually passed just this morning- adding to the history of unfortunate deaths that seem so prevalent at the university. Another petition to close the school seems to be in the works, as angry citizens question the institution’s safety- citing the murder of a professor at the school just three years earlier. The results of the investigation revealed that twenty-four year old teaching assistant Yixing Zhang had begun stalking the professor after being rejected romantically. The man reportedly took his own life soon after.