Memorandum for tyreling 1/3
Title: Memorandum
For: tyreling
Pairing: Kris/Lu Han, Kris/Yixing, Kyungsoo/Jongin
Rating: NC-17
Length: 20,338w
Summary, potential warnings: The curve of your lips rewrite history. Kris learns this the hard way, when he ends up opening his heart to Love, despite telling himself that he’s given up on it a long time ago.
爱是对的，错的是我们。
Love is always right, we’re the ones in the wrong.
3.04pm, Kris sighs a little and stows his briefcase below the seat in front of him again, eyebrows creasing slightly at the thought of returning to Seoul a half hour later due to takeoff delays.
The very thought of Baekhyun’s silhouette materializing in his apartment, only to shake his head and tut in disapproval is enough to make Kris to shift a little in his seat and bite back the urge to walk right into the cockpit and demand to know when they’d be taking off. All he does, however, is press the side of his head against the cool windowpane and shut his eyes; it’s not his fault that he was taken to the wrong part of Korea to begin with.
He exhales slightly and squeezes his eyes shut in relief as he feels the plane jerk forward a little, the captain’s deep voice resonating in the cabin as he delivers an obligatory apology for the delay and announces that their takeoff will soon commence.
It’s only when the plane has stabilized, does Kris pull out his Samsung Galaxy tab and scroll through the list of dramas that Jongdae had synced into it, after two days of intense research. It’s for when you get bored without me around to annoy you, was what Jongdae had told him, when he handed Kris the black device.
He hesitates before picking City Hunter, deciding that it sounds the least like one of those sappy tearjerkers that Jongdae has a love-hate relationship with. Fifteen minutes into the first episode, he decides that it was a bad call. Just as he reaches for the small knob to turn off the device, he registers a soft squeal from beside him.
“Sorry,” the man mumbles, a light shade of pink creeping up his cheeks as he leans back in his seat.
Try to fit in, he can almost hear Baekhyun nag, before he musters a smile at the man and asks, “You like this show?”
The man nods slowly and fidgets with the lapels of his brown jacket. “I think the storyline’s kinda cool, that’s all. And my colleagues are over the moon about this show, so I’m just… curious is all.”
Kris smiles and holds out one end of his earphones. The stranger blinks for what could’ve been hours before he hesitantly takes up the offer. Kris tilts the screen slightly away from him and watches the man lean a little closer to him, eyes fixated on the little pixelated screen.
If there’s anything Kris has learnt from the future, it’s that an additional friend is better than an additional enemy.
-
“You’re late.”
Kris barely misses a beat as he toes off his shoes and shrugs off his jacket, casually brushing past a hovering Baekhyun. “Why don’t you go and yell at Chanyeol for not tweaking the transporter properly instead?”
“Your flight was supposed to land an hour ago. Don’t tell me you walked here.”
“Crawled,” Kris answers sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he puts his luggage down on the ground and begins spreading things out in random piles around him.
He only pauses when Baekhyun walks right through the photo frame holding a photo of him and Yixing, stopping inches away from Kris's hand. "You're pretty annoying even when you're just an image."
"Watch it," Baekhyun says, with a slight crinkle of his nose, although there's no real venom behind his words. "I could have you fired and replaced before your mission even starts."
Kris nods nonchalantly, knowing Baekhyun doesn’t mean what he says, and leans back on his palms. "So, why exactly are you here?"
Baekhyun sighs a little, holding out an open palm and projecting the image of a square building. "Report to this police post tomorrow and look for a Kim Joonmyeon. Request to try out for the force and I'm sure you can take whatever they throw at you from there."
There's a slight pause, where Baekhyun hovers over Kris's bent form, tutting a little at the words scrawled in incorrigible handwriting on Kris's notepad. Almost instinctively, Kris says, "How about you stop mentally criticizing my writing and keep talking?"
Baekhyun reaches out to smack Kris's head, huffing in frustration when his hand passes right through his scalp. "Well, you know everything else. Just... try not to act like a weirdo, alright? We’re--- no, our entire world is counting on you."
Kris makes a non-committal grunt, concentrating on his luggage once again, but abruptly jerks his head up upon hearing a gentle swish. "Baekhyun."
Baekhyun pauses, steps away from the glowing electric blue portal before him, his head turned in Kris’s direction. "Yeah?"
"How's Yixing?"
There's a dull hum, where Kris alternates between staring at every spot in his apartment, except at Baekhyun's flickering image. "Hurt. That his best friend went against his words, took on this suicide mission and left without so much as a goodbye."
“There’s nothing left for me back there.”
“Isn’t there?” Baekhyun’s eyes are sad, as they sweep over Kris, a thousand words hidden behind them.
It takes five seconds for Kris to come up with a logical explanation, one that he wants Baekhyun to carry to Yixing on his behalf. But by the time the words leave his mouth, all that answers him is the soft flapping of the curtains.
-
"I need volunteers."
Kris stifles a yawn, sparing Joonmyeon a glance when he removes his navy blue cap and places it smack dab in the middle of the pages of his book. Kris stares incredulously at his lack of tact. “I was reading that.”
Joonmyeon manages a sweet smile, the one that Sehun deems as his dangerfuckingrous-i'm-going-to-bully-you-into-some-shit sign. "This would be a good first mission for you, Yifan. Educating children about road safety is a path that all officers will walk down someday.”
This has Kris bolting upright immediately, his eyes wide open as he protests, "But you said you've never seen anyone with the physique or skills that can rival mine in the police force. I should be out catching criminals and throwing them behind bars or something!"
Next to him, Sehun lets out a snort before swallowing a mouth of ramyeon. Joonmyeon sighs and pats his shoulder sympathetically. "Sadly, this town doesn't see much drama."
Kris's shoulders droop a little, knowing that there’s no room for argument or negotiation once Joonmyeon’s made up his mind. "Beats idling around here, I guess."
"Great!" Joonmyeon announces, clasping his hands together. "Report at 8am sharp to School 2013 tomorrow then. And here are some notes."
Kris pauses, ignoring the stacks of paper Joonmyeon waves enthusiastically in his face. "School 2013?"
"Yeah, it's just down the street from here. It's an all-boys school, so you’re sure as hell going to need the briefing."
Kris gingerly lifts the notes from Joonmyeon's fingers, barely registering anything other than Baekhyun’s voice echoing as clear as day in his ears.
He was from an all-boys school, which is just a couple of blocks down from your station. School 2013.
-
"Great! Barely a week here and you're already making progress!" Baekhyun claps gleefully from the couch, as Kris continues flipping through the notes from Joonmyeon, pausing to roll his eyes every five seconds at the dumb as fuck rules.
"There are almost a thousand kids in that school. How is this considered progress?" Kris snaps, tossing the pile of notes with particular vigour onto the table in slight anguish.
Baekhyun makes a soft tutting noise and clicks his tongue. "Always so pessimistic. At least you've been given a reason to actually enter the school, so you won't look like a pedophile loitering around the neighborhood."
Trust Baekhyun to always find the light in every tunnel, Kris grimaces slightly. It was Baekhyun's optimism, paired with Kris's dead logic, that had earned them their title as the undefeatable pair on the force. Or at least that had been their title until this particular case came about.
"How's D.O?" Kris finally musters the courage to ask, after several moments of hesitation.
Baekhyun's face falls slightly, and he fiddles slightly with the lapels of his jacket. Kris clears his throat uncomfortably in return, fidgets a little in his seat and desperately racks his brain for another topic.
"Yixing says his condition's stabilising. He's still out cold, but at least it isn't getting worse."
Kris lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding and nods as Baekhyun manages a small smile at him. Baekhyun gets to his feet and tugs the creases out of his crimson red jacket. "Well, it's getting late, you should get some rest. All the best for tomorrow. I have faith that you will find child D.O and protect him well."
Kris glances up at him and asks, "Any new information from Jongdae’s research team? Anything that will help me identify D.O apart from his school?"
He can’t say he didn’t expect Baekhyun to shake his head, although it does little to prevent his heart from sinking. "Alright, just keep me updated."
Baekhyun sighs, a habit that he's picked up recently in replacement of his bright smiles, and answers, "Goodnight, Kris."
It takes an hour of tossing and turning, plagued with worries and imagination of how D.O would look like as a child before Kris finally nods off. Even when he does, his dreams are filled with Yixing's brown eyes - kind, weighed down with the slightest hint of sadness, just how he remembers seeing them.
-
"So let's thank Officer Wu for taking time off his busy schedule to give this talk," Minseok coos as he tries to engage the audience to join in his half-hearted applause.
The hall certainly looks like it’s filled with the walking dead, a stark contrast to the surprisingly loud applause. Kris gives a final bow before being ushered off-stage by Minseok; Joonmyeon greets him with a clap on the back. "Nice speech," Sehun comments, chewing on his gum with a bored expression.
Brat, Kris mouths at him, only to receive a glimpse of a pink tongue in return. He opts to ignore the little bubblegum bitch and scans the crowd before him instead, unconsciously letting out a loud sigh at how similar all the faces look. This earns him a weird stare from Sehun, who proceeds to kick Kris's shoulder bag, abandoned on the floor, and tilt his head slightly towards the school gate. Kris chews on his lower lip, only trailing Sehun reluctantly when Joonmyeon raises his eyebrows at him. So much for fitting in.
"Looking for someone?" Joonmyeon asks, holding the door of the police car open for Kris.
Kris shrugs nonchalantly and ducks to enter the car, but a loud shriek causes him to jump in shock and hit his head against the door frame instead.
In front of him, Sehun looks startled, for once. Kris sprints in the direction of the scream, his hand already reaching into his back pocket for his handgun.
He's halfway there when a figure in a black beanie sprints past him, in the opposite direction, a brown briefcase clasped tightly in his hands.
Kris skids to a halt, reaches out and clamps down rather easily on denim fabric. He gives it a sharp tug, smiling slightly when he earns a satisfactory yelp from it's owner. In three seconds flat, Kris has the culprit pinned beneath his knee while he pries the briefcase effortlessly from his grasp.
When Sehun finally catches up with him, eyes wide as short puffs of breath escapes his pink lips, he questions, "Did you work for the CIA or something? How are you so fast?"
Kris smiles in response and hands the man to Joonmyeon, who cuffs him easily and leads him back to the police car wordlessly, although Kris doesn't miss the slight amusement that flickers pass his grey orbs.
"Oh! It's you!"
Kris tears his gaze away from Joonmyeon and stares in bewilderment at the petite man with light brown hair and eyes as bright as the sun standing before him. He’s seen this guy before, he knows it, as he desperately racks his brain. The stranger seems to have sensed his hesitation, as he supplies helpfully, "City Hunter."
"Oh, you're the guy from the plane," Kris smiles at him easily, as his brain registers the familiar features of the stranger that he had shared earphones with for two hours.
"Is this yours, Lu Han-ge?" Sehun manages, seeming to have snapped out of his trance long enough to string words together in a coherent sentence.
Lu Han nods and stares expectantly at Kris, who hands him his briefcase. "Thanks for your help, Sehunnie and... you're Officer Wu, right?"
"Yifan," Kris corrects gently, trying not to wince at how unfamiliar the name sounds rolling off his tongue - a precaution, Baekhyun had insisted, when he bestowed the identification card bearing the name to Kris.
"Right, Yifan," Lu Han amends and scuffs the ground with his sneakers, before continuing, "Can I buy you coffee or something, to thank you for your help?"
Next to him, Sehun mumbles something about helping - bitch did nothing, Kris thinks bitterly - and receiving nothing in return.
This is a perfect opportunity to get insider help, Kris can almost hear Baekhyun say. Alas, he has never been much of a people person like Baekhyun, so he settles for smiling and saying, "Maybe next time."
-
'Next time' doesn't take all too long to come around, Kris realises, when he finds himself face-to-face with a slightly surprised Lu Han a week later while patrolling around the neighborhood.
"Patrolling?" Lu Han asks, a small smile dancing on his lips as Kris tips his police cap at him slightly and nods.
He's just about to carefully side-step Lu Han and continue his rounds along School 2013's grounds when something soft collides against him.
"Jongin, are you alright?" Lu Han exclaims, his eyes wide, as he bends down and helps a child with hair as brown as his chocolate orbs to his feet, gently brushing dust off his pants.
Kris bends down and smiles at Jongin, who simply beams back at Lu Han, before his eyes catch on a little black book on the ground. That octagon logo, Kris's breath catches in his throat as he reaches for the notebook. Are you him?
He glances up at Jongin and asks, "Is this yours?"
Jongin stares at him in slight bewilderment and counters, "If I say yes, can you take me as your disciple?"
Kris blinks at him blankly, his mind whirling with all the possibilities just from the sight of the logo, as Jongin continues, "Teach me to be cool like you! That way, I can protect people just like how you protected seonsaengnim."
This earns him a light rap on the head from Lu Han, whose cheeks are tinted a light pink as he furiously mumbles something about not needing protection.
"You're his teacher?" Kris asks Lu Han, his heart pounding hard against his rib cage.
Lu Han rubs the back of his head awkwardly and nods slowly. “Kind of. He was my student for one module.”
Fucking jackpot.
"Jonginnie! Wait for me!"
A slightly chubby boy pauses by Jongin's side, soft puffs of air falling from his mouth as he tugs his scarf tighter around his neck. He puffs out his cheeks and raps Jongin's knuckles slightly with his little fingers, before he glances up, mouth forming a little 'o' at the sight of Kris.
Jongin smiles at the boy, and tugs him forward, so they’re both staring up at Kris, eyes bright. “Yifan-ahjusshi, you’ll teach Kyungsoo and I how to be as cool as you, right?”
“Jongin-ah, Yifan-sshi’s really busy, he-”
“Why not?” Kris manages a smile, as Lu Han looks at him, eyes widening a little before he returns the smile easily and mouths a small ‘thank you’.
The pair answers him with loud squeals of excitement as they bounce on the spot and start chattering simultaneously, one overlapping the other in their frenzy. Kris smiles a little and bends down to their height, before saying, “How about this? I’ll pop by every Wednesday and give you guys an hour or so of lessons on basic self-defense? It’ll come in useful in future too, I bet.”
“Pinky promise!” Jongin squeaks, his eyes so bright that Kris can’t help himself from smiling and hooking their pinkies together in agreement.
“I think I really owe you coffee this time round,” Lu Han comments, once Jongin and Kyungsoo are out of earshot, light bounces in every step they take while they chatter happily.
Kris hesitates, he really shouldn’t. He’s not a charmer like Baekhyun, nor an enthusiast like Chanyeol, and the last thing he really needs is to form bonds with people, people whom he will end up leaving one way or another.
I taught him for one module.
“I think I could spare half an hour or so.”
-
“What’ll you be having?”
Kris pauses, scanning the row after row of names all too fancy and foreign to him on the menu. “Just get me a caramel macchiato then, I guess,” he says at long last, deciding that it shouldn’t be too dangerous a choice, since he actually knows what caramel tastes like.
When they finally settle down in a peaceful corner of the cafe, steaming mugs of coffee in hand, Kris decides that he will probably never take anything with caramel in its name ever again, even if his life depended on it. Lu Han seems to notice, if his voluptuous laughter when Kris takes a sip of the drink is any indication.
“Why did you order it if you don’t like it?” Lu Han asks, licking off some whipped cream from his upper lip while he blows at his coffee.
Kris shrugs a little and says simply, “I just want to try something new, I guess.”
A blanket of silence settles over both of them, as they both take small sips of their coffee, Kris trying not to cringe with each gulp. Kris spends a good few moments desperately racking his brain for a topic, for a way to bring up Jongin and gain more information without sounding like a total creep.
“So where were you from previously?” Lu Han asks abruptly, breaking Kris’s train of thought. Kris only blinks at him dumbly. “Sehun told me you moved here recently.”
“Oh,” Kris responds, for the lack of coming up with a better response. “Somewhere far away.”
Lu Han laughs a little and waves his hand dismissively at Kris. “What’s with the mystery? Next, you’re going to tell me you have some dark past and being around you would endanger my life.”
You have no idea that you just hit the nail on the head, do you?
“So, are you scared?” Kris taunts, as he glances up at Lu Han through long lashes.
Lu Han stares at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he laughs and hits Kris’s shoulder lightly. “God, straight out of a movie, I swear. You must really like action flicks.”
“That’s why I’m a cop,” Kris answers easily, giving Lu Han a small smile.
“Then you fit the role perfectly,” Lu Han laughs, a hand coming up to cover his lips, his eyes crinkling into small crescents.
Kris’s heart skips a beat at the sight, noticing abruptly how beautiful Lu Han is upclose, but he shakes the thought out of his head and stares out the window instead.
Focus, Kris.
He clears his throat awkwardly and ventures, “You’re a teacher at School 2013?”
Lu Han hums in response, nodding while he stirs his drink and blows little puffs of air at it. “Kind of, I teach special modules rather than your average daily subjects like Math and Science.”
“Oh?” Kris frowns a little.
Lu Han shrugs and replies, “Yeah, I majored in Linguistics back in university. So I do special courses and teach the kids a little sign language and other things. It’s like a skills workshop of sorts.”
Kris smiles in return before he spreads out his left palm and brushes his right hand across it. He tilts his forefingers and presses them together, grins and points one of them at Lu Han.
Nice to meet you.
“You know sign language?” Lu Han asks, eyes bright, before he babbles on endlessly when Kris nods in affirmation.
Like taking candy from a baby, Kris smiles simply. Baekhyun would have been proud.
An hour later, Kris trudges back to the police post, a small victory smile painting his lips and Lu Han’s number scrawled hastily on a cafe napkin, tucked safely in his back pocket.
-
“You’re out late today,” Baekhyun hums, pacing around Kris’s apartment thoughtlessly, inspecting pieces of furniture like he actually owns the place.
“Cases have been piling up ever since I caught some thief. People in this world have such useless definitions of the word hero,” Kris muses, flopping onto the sofa bonelessly.
Baekhyun raises an eyebrow and laughs. “Just revel in the fame while you still have it.”
Kris flings a pillow at him, mentally cursing when it flies right through Baekhyun and hits his table lamp instead, causing it to wobble precariously. Baekhyun laughs good-naturedly, before nodding towards Kris’s wrist watch and asking, “So what did you call me for?”
“Oh right,” Kris straightens and breaks out into a grin. “I think I found child D.O.”
Baekhyun’s eyes widen slightly, and he smiles in return. “I’m impressed, Kris. Keep up this pace and I’m sure you’ll destroy Drone in no time.”
“Is that really the best you useless cops can do?”
The bullet bounces off the surface of Drone, Kris’s eyes widening at the small, almost unnoticeable scratch it makes, before he looks down at his gun.
“I don’t understand,” Baekhyun gasps, as he takes several steps back, his bullets having almost the same effect as Kris’s. “Chanyeol’s guns could take out everything else.”
“He’s my prized possession, of course you can’t take him out,” Kai descends upon them slowly, his black cloak falling to the ground behind him.
“It’ll be different this time round, I promise,” Baekhyun says softly, his eyes locked on Kris’s.
Kris grimaces, he’s always been like an open book to Baekhyun, after working alongside him for years. Baekhyun continues, “We’ll be prepared this time round. Chanyeol’s already working on new weapons.”
It takes Kris hours to sleep that night, and when he does fall asleep, the only thing that he remembers is Kai’s laughter, echoing endlessly in his ears.
You didn’t win in 2063, and I won’t let you win in 2013.
-
“You’re here!” Jongin exclaims, his eyes brightening as Kris enters the room that Lu Han had specially booked for their lessons.
Kris manages a smile and says, “Of course I am. I pinky promised, didn’t I?”
Next to him, Kyungsoo looks equally excited as he climbs out of Lu Han’s lap and rushes towards Kris. Kris gives Lu Han a small wave and calls out, “I’ll take it from here. Thanks for your help, Lu Han.”
Lu Han gets to his feet and heads for the door, hesitating a little when he reaches the doorknob. He turns at the last moment, just when Kris is instructing Kyungsoo and Jongin to do stretches, and asks, “Would it be alright if I stayed?”
His eyes are so bright and hopeful that Kris can’t find it in himself to say no, and the beaming grin Lu Han sends in his direction doesn’t help matters. “Why not,” Kris says at long last, much to Jongin and Kyungsoo’s delight. “Everyone should know basic self-defence.”
Except Lu Han is a bumbling mess, tripping when Jongin and Kyungsoo make perfect kicks and punches. He huffs, after twenty minutes, and flops on the ground, grumbling, “Stop being so good at this, kids. You’re making me look bad.”
Kris laughs aloud, despite himself, and says, “More than anything, you need lessons in hand and feet coordination.”
This earns him a pout from Lu Han, who gets to his feet and launches himself forward, exclaiming, “Let’s see you defend yourself against this!”
Kris laughs and side-steps Lu Han’s fist easily, before catching a hold of Lu Han’s waist on instinct, preventing his wrist from colliding with the wall mere inches away.
Lu Han is surprisingly light, his tensed body warm against Kris’s as he drops his fist to his side, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Kris drops his arm in surprise and wills his heart to stop pounding painfully against his rib cage, muttering, “Be careful. Sehun won’t let me live it down if I cause someone to get injured in self-defence class.”
He carefully angles his face away and bends down to pat Kyungsoo and Jongin’s head instead, pretending that he doesn’t notice the way Lu Han’s face is now a light shade of red or how fast his pulse had been, pressed up against Kris’s hand.
It’s probably because he’s been exercising. Or the speed of my reflexes just stunned him. Yes, that’s probably it.
Kris shakes the thought out of his head and smiles at Lu Han, who carefully avoids his gaze and focuses on poking Kyungsoo’s cheeks instead.
Yes, I’m probably right, Kris decides, as he drops the smile and averts his gaze from Lu Han.
-
They fall into a routine of sorts, with Lu Han sending Kris bento lunches at work everyday - “You’re not god, you have to eat something no matter how busy you are, right?” - and Kris walking Lu Han home after work - he needs to return the bento box, okay.
There’s nothing wrong with making friends. And Lu Han can help with my mission, he reasons with himself, whenever he sees Joonmyeon shooting them a knowing smile or Sehun raising his eyebrows in displeasure.
“You two are actually really gross,” Sehun grumbles offhandedly one afternoon, after Kris is done swallowing the last grain of rice in his bento.
Kris raises an eyebrow challengingly and shrugs. “He’s just happy that I’m helping his students, I guess.”
Sehun rolls his eyes, almost as if he expected that answer, leans across the partition separating their desks and snaps, “Yeah? I don’t get bento boxes for tutoring Jongin in Math.”
“That’s because Jongin’s grades actually started deteriorating under your guidance,” Joonmyeon hums from the other end of the office.
Sehun puffs out his cheeks and exclaims, “Failing one test isn’t an accurate depiction of my tutoring abilities! And you’re supposed to be on my side, hyung!”
“It’s close enough,” Kris teases, a bright glint in his eyes, earning a flash of pink tongue from Sehun in return, much to his satisfaction, while Joonmyeon only shrugs in response.
It’s only later on, when Sehun has already left and the office is sparse, except for Joonmyeon and Kris, does Joonmyeon stop by Kris’s table. “Sehun’s right though,” he comments abruptly, causing Kris’s brows to crease together in confusion.
“Right about what?” Kris asks, snippets of the conversation they had at lunch escaping his mind completely.
Joonmyeon gives him a knowing look, sighing at long last when Kris continues to stare him down expressionlessly. “Lu Han. I’ve never seen him so happy around anyone. And you look happy around him too. Trust me, it’s obvious from a third party’s perspective.”
Are you crazy?
All Kris can do in response is shake his head and offer him a small smile before turning back to his files, ignoring Joonmyeon’s presence entirely.
The truth behind Joonmyeon’s words don’t hit him until he’s almost at Lu Han’s house, laughter falling smoothly from his lips. And even when it hits him, Kris pushes it to the back of his mind and continues pretending.
You’re done with heartbreaks, you’re done with lies, you’re done with Love.
-
Meet me at the same cafe in five minutes?
Kris contemplates turning down the offer, but decides against it at the last minute. He ends up grabbing his gun and lying to Joonmyeon that he’s going for a quick patrol, and arrives at the cafe entrance at the same time as Lu Han.
“I thought you weren’t coming!” Lu Han exclaims as they enter, bells tinkling to announce their arrival.
“I’m a man of surprises,” Kris hums, as he stares at the menu, a familiar headache coming on when he catches sight of the foreign names.
Lu Han seems to notice this, from the way he smiles and shrugs. “Why don’t you just order your favourite drink? You won’t go too wrong that way.”
There’s a slight pause, where Kris tries to think up of a convincing way to explain how none of these drinks sound like remotely edible to him. “I... don’t have a favourite,” Kris sighs in resignation.
To his surprise, Lu Han’s eyes brighten and he proceeds to shoo Kris away to find a seat for them both. Kris protests initially, only giving up when Lu Han starts shoving and getting weird stares from their fellow patrons. “Fine,” he exclaims. “But please don’t get me caramel macchiato again.”
All he gets in reply is a mysterious smile from Lu Han. He decides that he’s probably better off not knowing and trudges away to find a seat.
The waiter shows up ten minutes after Lu Han takes a seat opposite him, with at least ten cups of different colored caffeinated drinks in hand.
“Are you crazy?” Kris asks, once the waiter is out of earshot, staring at the seemingly endless row of cups before him. “We can’t possibly finish all this,” he hisses, flailing his hands awkwardly at the drinks.
Lu Han just hums in response and answers, “Nope, I’m just going to have my vanilla latte. The others are for you.”
This only causes Kris’s eyes to widen dramatically as he sputters, “How do you expect me to finish everything?”
“I don’t,” Lu Han replies, his eyes still shining with what Kris would deem as insanity. “You just have to take a sip from each cup and decide which your favourite is. There are ten different flavours and one of them is bound to be to your liking.”
Kris eyes him carefully and asks, “Why are you doing all this? We barely know each other.”
“Because you could use a friend.” Lu Han smiles at him wistfully and takes another sip from his steaming cup. “And I’ve never seen Jongin so happy in a long time.”
“Why not? All kids should be happy at this age, they have no worries, no woes.”
Lu Han pauses for a moment, before he sighs and sets down his cup. “You’ll probably find out sooner or later, but Jongin’s kind of an orphan.”
Kris frowns a little at the new information presented to him as he takes a cautious sip from one of the cups. “What do you mean ‘kind of’?”
There’s a long pause, and in the time between Kris’s question and Lu Han’s answer, Kris almost expected him to drop the topic and casually change the subject. He doesn’t, though. “His dad left his mum for another woman, so she committed suicide. Opened the window and jumped out right in front of Jongin. It traumatized him.”
“Oh,” Kris manages and looks down. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” Lu Han answers, reaching across the table and patting Kris’s hand gently with his own. “Not when you’re the only person who makes him so, so, happy these days.”
The words catch Kris by surprise, a slow warmth spreading through his heart as he smiles at Lu Han.
At the end of the day, Kris decides, much to Lu Han’s amusement, on vanilla latte. Lu Han teases him the whole way back to the police post for lying about not liking sweet things, and Kris just scrunches his nose in response.
If anyone were to ask, Kris would probably tell them that he likes it because of the fragrance of vanilla-infused coffee, and definitely not because the drink reminded him of a certain doe-eyed teacher, who smiles as brightly as the sun.
-
“Ice cream!” Jongin exclaims, sprinting happily towards the ice cream truck, Kris hot on his heels, Kyungsoo and Lu Han trudging along behind them.
He laughs when Jongin stares at him with large pleading puppy eyes, giving in easily to Jongin’s request and letting Jongin choose from the multitude of ice cream flavours before them.
It’s only when Kris is done paying for both Kyungsoo and Jongin’s ice cream does he recognise the street they’re standing on.
No.
He watches the scene unfold before him, distraught, as Jongin starts poking Lu Han in the background, begging him to continue the story about Peter Pan that he was supposedly telling them before Kris had showed up in the room for their weekly defence lessons.
Just several steps away, Kris watches a little boy with black hair, step out of his house, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He wonders, what would happen if he dashed forward and stopped the boy from taking five steps forward.
“Yifan, what do you think?” Lu Han asks, snapping Kris out of his what ifs.
“I--- What?” Kris splutters intelligently, his forehead creasing slightly as he momentarily turns his attention to Lu Han.
Lu Han stares at him quizzically, his eyebrows raised in clear amusement. Nonetheless, he repeats himself, mouthing each word slowly as though he was speaking too fast for Kris to catch him at first. “Kyungsoo asked for the definition of love. Do you know what love is?”
In the moment Kris spends thinking and giving Lu Han a satisfactory answer, a deafening crash interrupts them.
Kris hesitates; he knows what would happen next even as he turns back to the scene.
A small boy with light brown hair, skates attached to his feet, is sprawled on the cement pathway, tears streaming down his face. He watches the boy with black hair sprint forward and help the other boy up, and turns away. He doesn’t need to continue watching to know what happens next.
The beginning of the end.
They will sit on the pavement, chatting mindlessly before realising that they go to the same school. Later on, they will end up as the best of friends, and the boy with black hair will end up falling, without any warning whatsoever, into a love without an ending.
“Love,” Kris says abruptly, causing all three of them to turn their attention to him, eyes bright with curiousity. “Love is knowing that you’re falling into an endless pit from the start, and doing nothing to prevent it from happening even when you have a chance for a do-over.”
This earns him confused stares from Kyungsoo, while Jongin scratches his head and blinks at him, creases pressing into his forehead. Lu Han’s eyes smolder for a moment, but it passes and when he turns to Kyungsoo, he’s all smiles once again. “Everyone defines love differently. There’s no right definition to it. You’ll understand when you get older.”
Kyungsoo makes a sad face, before he screams at Jongin for stealing a small mouthful of his ice cream in his moment of distraction. Jongin simply sticks out his tongue and tugs cutely on Kyungsoo’s sleeve in response, leaning forward to sneak another mouthful.
When Kris turns his attention back to the duo, now sitting on the sidewalk, they’re chatting animatedly. He only turns away and tugs Jongin along, back to the orphanage, when he feels Lu Han’s stare, hot on the side of his face.
There was nothing Kris could have done back then to stop it, and there’s nothing he can do right now either. He’s always been helpless, like a child left to drown, whenever Zhang Yixing is concerned.
-
“I’m getting married.”
“Congratulations.”
“Kris.” Yixing’s eyes are unreadable, as he reaches for Kris, only for Kris to take five steps backwards. “Don’t do this. I can’t get married with you acting this way.”
Kris squeezes his eyes shut. He’s done being treated and fooled like a child.
When he opens his eyes, he sees caramel brown hair instead of dark red, large doe eyes instead of small, kind ones. “Yifan?”
Kris shakes his head in confusion and takes another step back, only to feel mercilessly robbed of oxygen, the ground dissolving into pieces below him. And he’s falling, falling, falling.
Kris wakes up with his shirt soaked thoroughly, his eyes jolting open in shock. He rakes fingers through his hair and tries to steady his breathing.
It’s like falling into an endless pit and doing nothing to stop yourself.
He doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night and spends the time staring at the ceiling, praying for someone to take away his emotions.
part two
For: tyreling
Pairing: Kris/Lu Han, Kris/Yixing, Kyungsoo/Jongin
Rating: NC-17
Length: 20,338w
Summary, potential warnings: The curve of your lips rewrite history. Kris learns this the hard way, when he ends up opening his heart to Love, despite telling himself that he’s given up on it a long time ago.
爱是对的，错的是我们。
Love is always right, we’re the ones in the wrong.
3.04pm, Kris sighs a little and stows his briefcase below the seat in front of him again, eyebrows creasing slightly at the thought of returning to Seoul a half hour later due to takeoff delays.
The very thought of Baekhyun’s silhouette materializing in his apartment, only to shake his head and tut in disapproval is enough to make Kris to shift a little in his seat and bite back the urge to walk right into the cockpit and demand to know when they’d be taking off. All he does, however, is press the side of his head against the cool windowpane and shut his eyes; it’s not his fault that he was taken to the wrong part of Korea to begin with.
He exhales slightly and squeezes his eyes shut in relief as he feels the plane jerk forward a little, the captain’s deep voice resonating in the cabin as he delivers an obligatory apology for the delay and announces that their takeoff will soon commence.
It’s only when the plane has stabilized, does Kris pull out his Samsung Galaxy tab and scroll through the list of dramas that Jongdae had synced into it, after two days of intense research. It’s for when you get bored without me around to annoy you, was what Jongdae had told him, when he handed Kris the black device.
He hesitates before picking City Hunter, deciding that it sounds the least like one of those sappy tearjerkers that Jongdae has a love-hate relationship with. Fifteen minutes into the first episode, he decides that it was a bad call. Just as he reaches for the small knob to turn off the device, he registers a soft squeal from beside him.
“Sorry,” the man mumbles, a light shade of pink creeping up his cheeks as he leans back in his seat.
Try to fit in, he can almost hear Baekhyun nag, before he musters a smile at the man and asks, “You like this show?”
The man nods slowly and fidgets with the lapels of his brown jacket. “I think the storyline’s kinda cool, that’s all. And my colleagues are over the moon about this show, so I’m just… curious is all.”
Kris smiles and holds out one end of his earphones. The stranger blinks for what could’ve been hours before he hesitantly takes up the offer. Kris tilts the screen slightly away from him and watches the man lean a little closer to him, eyes fixated on the little pixelated screen.
If there’s anything Kris has learnt from the future, it’s that an additional friend is better than an additional enemy.
-
“You’re late.”
Kris barely misses a beat as he toes off his shoes and shrugs off his jacket, casually brushing past a hovering Baekhyun. “Why don’t you go and yell at Chanyeol for not tweaking the transporter properly instead?”
“Your flight was supposed to land an hour ago. Don’t tell me you walked here.”
“Crawled,” Kris answers sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he puts his luggage down on the ground and begins spreading things out in random piles around him.
He only pauses when Baekhyun walks right through the photo frame holding a photo of him and Yixing, stopping inches away from Kris's hand. "You're pretty annoying even when you're just an image."
"Watch it," Baekhyun says, with a slight crinkle of his nose, although there's no real venom behind his words. "I could have you fired and replaced before your mission even starts."
Kris nods nonchalantly, knowing Baekhyun doesn’t mean what he says, and leans back on his palms. "So, why exactly are you here?"
Baekhyun sighs a little, holding out an open palm and projecting the image of a square building. "Report to this police post tomorrow and look for a Kim Joonmyeon. Request to try out for the force and I'm sure you can take whatever they throw at you from there."
There's a slight pause, where Baekhyun hovers over Kris's bent form, tutting a little at the words scrawled in incorrigible handwriting on Kris's notepad. Almost instinctively, Kris says, "How about you stop mentally criticizing my writing and keep talking?"
Baekhyun reaches out to smack Kris's head, huffing in frustration when his hand passes right through his scalp. "Well, you know everything else. Just... try not to act like a weirdo, alright? We’re--- no, our entire world is counting on you."
Kris makes a non-committal grunt, concentrating on his luggage once again, but abruptly jerks his head up upon hearing a gentle swish. "Baekhyun."
Baekhyun pauses, steps away from the glowing electric blue portal before him, his head turned in Kris’s direction. "Yeah?"
"How's Yixing?"
There's a dull hum, where Kris alternates between staring at every spot in his apartment, except at Baekhyun's flickering image. "Hurt. That his best friend went against his words, took on this suicide mission and left without so much as a goodbye."
“There’s nothing left for me back there.”
“Isn’t there?” Baekhyun’s eyes are sad, as they sweep over Kris, a thousand words hidden behind them.
It takes five seconds for Kris to come up with a logical explanation, one that he wants Baekhyun to carry to Yixing on his behalf. But by the time the words leave his mouth, all that answers him is the soft flapping of the curtains.
-
"I need volunteers."
Kris stifles a yawn, sparing Joonmyeon a glance when he removes his navy blue cap and places it smack dab in the middle of the pages of his book. Kris stares incredulously at his lack of tact. “I was reading that.”
Joonmyeon manages a sweet smile, the one that Sehun deems as his dangerfuckingrous-i'm-going-to-bully-you-into-some-shit sign. "This would be a good first mission for you, Yifan. Educating children about road safety is a path that all officers will walk down someday.”
This has Kris bolting upright immediately, his eyes wide open as he protests, "But you said you've never seen anyone with the physique or skills that can rival mine in the police force. I should be out catching criminals and throwing them behind bars or something!"
Next to him, Sehun lets out a snort before swallowing a mouth of ramyeon. Joonmyeon sighs and pats his shoulder sympathetically. "Sadly, this town doesn't see much drama."
Kris's shoulders droop a little, knowing that there’s no room for argument or negotiation once Joonmyeon’s made up his mind. "Beats idling around here, I guess."
"Great!" Joonmyeon announces, clasping his hands together. "Report at 8am sharp to School 2013 tomorrow then. And here are some notes."
Kris pauses, ignoring the stacks of paper Joonmyeon waves enthusiastically in his face. "School 2013?"
"Yeah, it's just down the street from here. It's an all-boys school, so you’re sure as hell going to need the briefing."
Kris gingerly lifts the notes from Joonmyeon's fingers, barely registering anything other than Baekhyun’s voice echoing as clear as day in his ears.
He was from an all-boys school, which is just a couple of blocks down from your station. School 2013.
-
"Great! Barely a week here and you're already making progress!" Baekhyun claps gleefully from the couch, as Kris continues flipping through the notes from Joonmyeon, pausing to roll his eyes every five seconds at the dumb as fuck rules.
"There are almost a thousand kids in that school. How is this considered progress?" Kris snaps, tossing the pile of notes with particular vigour onto the table in slight anguish.
Baekhyun makes a soft tutting noise and clicks his tongue. "Always so pessimistic. At least you've been given a reason to actually enter the school, so you won't look like a pedophile loitering around the neighborhood."
Trust Baekhyun to always find the light in every tunnel, Kris grimaces slightly. It was Baekhyun's optimism, paired with Kris's dead logic, that had earned them their title as the undefeatable pair on the force. Or at least that had been their title until this particular case came about.
"How's D.O?" Kris finally musters the courage to ask, after several moments of hesitation.
Baekhyun's face falls slightly, and he fiddles slightly with the lapels of his jacket. Kris clears his throat uncomfortably in return, fidgets a little in his seat and desperately racks his brain for another topic.
"Yixing says his condition's stabilising. He's still out cold, but at least it isn't getting worse."
Kris lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding and nods as Baekhyun manages a small smile at him. Baekhyun gets to his feet and tugs the creases out of his crimson red jacket. "Well, it's getting late, you should get some rest. All the best for tomorrow. I have faith that you will find child D.O and protect him well."
Kris glances up at him and asks, "Any new information from Jongdae’s research team? Anything that will help me identify D.O apart from his school?"
He can’t say he didn’t expect Baekhyun to shake his head, although it does little to prevent his heart from sinking. "Alright, just keep me updated."
Baekhyun sighs, a habit that he's picked up recently in replacement of his bright smiles, and answers, "Goodnight, Kris."
It takes an hour of tossing and turning, plagued with worries and imagination of how D.O would look like as a child before Kris finally nods off. Even when he does, his dreams are filled with Yixing's brown eyes - kind, weighed down with the slightest hint of sadness, just how he remembers seeing them.
-
"So let's thank Officer Wu for taking time off his busy schedule to give this talk," Minseok coos as he tries to engage the audience to join in his half-hearted applause.
The hall certainly looks like it’s filled with the walking dead, a stark contrast to the surprisingly loud applause. Kris gives a final bow before being ushered off-stage by Minseok; Joonmyeon greets him with a clap on the back. "Nice speech," Sehun comments, chewing on his gum with a bored expression.
Brat, Kris mouths at him, only to receive a glimpse of a pink tongue in return. He opts to ignore the little bubblegum bitch and scans the crowd before him instead, unconsciously letting out a loud sigh at how similar all the faces look. This earns him a weird stare from Sehun, who proceeds to kick Kris's shoulder bag, abandoned on the floor, and tilt his head slightly towards the school gate. Kris chews on his lower lip, only trailing Sehun reluctantly when Joonmyeon raises his eyebrows at him. So much for fitting in.
"Looking for someone?" Joonmyeon asks, holding the door of the police car open for Kris.
Kris shrugs nonchalantly and ducks to enter the car, but a loud shriek causes him to jump in shock and hit his head against the door frame instead.
In front of him, Sehun looks startled, for once. Kris sprints in the direction of the scream, his hand already reaching into his back pocket for his handgun.
He's halfway there when a figure in a black beanie sprints past him, in the opposite direction, a brown briefcase clasped tightly in his hands.
Kris skids to a halt, reaches out and clamps down rather easily on denim fabric. He gives it a sharp tug, smiling slightly when he earns a satisfactory yelp from it's owner. In three seconds flat, Kris has the culprit pinned beneath his knee while he pries the briefcase effortlessly from his grasp.
When Sehun finally catches up with him, eyes wide as short puffs of breath escapes his pink lips, he questions, "Did you work for the CIA or something? How are you so fast?"
Kris smiles in response and hands the man to Joonmyeon, who cuffs him easily and leads him back to the police car wordlessly, although Kris doesn't miss the slight amusement that flickers pass his grey orbs.
"Oh! It's you!"
Kris tears his gaze away from Joonmyeon and stares in bewilderment at the petite man with light brown hair and eyes as bright as the sun standing before him. He’s seen this guy before, he knows it, as he desperately racks his brain. The stranger seems to have sensed his hesitation, as he supplies helpfully, "City Hunter."
"Oh, you're the guy from the plane," Kris smiles at him easily, as his brain registers the familiar features of the stranger that he had shared earphones with for two hours.
"Is this yours, Lu Han-ge?" Sehun manages, seeming to have snapped out of his trance long enough to string words together in a coherent sentence.
Lu Han nods and stares expectantly at Kris, who hands him his briefcase. "Thanks for your help, Sehunnie and... you're Officer Wu, right?"
"Yifan," Kris corrects gently, trying not to wince at how unfamiliar the name sounds rolling off his tongue - a precaution, Baekhyun had insisted, when he bestowed the identification card bearing the name to Kris.
"Right, Yifan," Lu Han amends and scuffs the ground with his sneakers, before continuing, "Can I buy you coffee or something, to thank you for your help?"
Next to him, Sehun mumbles something about helping - bitch did nothing, Kris thinks bitterly - and receiving nothing in return.
This is a perfect opportunity to get insider help, Kris can almost hear Baekhyun say. Alas, he has never been much of a people person like Baekhyun, so he settles for smiling and saying, "Maybe next time."
-
'Next time' doesn't take all too long to come around, Kris realises, when he finds himself face-to-face with a slightly surprised Lu Han a week later while patrolling around the neighborhood.
"Patrolling?" Lu Han asks, a small smile dancing on his lips as Kris tips his police cap at him slightly and nods.
He's just about to carefully side-step Lu Han and continue his rounds along School 2013's grounds when something soft collides against him.
"Jongin, are you alright?" Lu Han exclaims, his eyes wide, as he bends down and helps a child with hair as brown as his chocolate orbs to his feet, gently brushing dust off his pants.
Kris bends down and smiles at Jongin, who simply beams back at Lu Han, before his eyes catch on a little black book on the ground. That octagon logo, Kris's breath catches in his throat as he reaches for the notebook. Are you him?
He glances up at Jongin and asks, "Is this yours?"
Jongin stares at him in slight bewilderment and counters, "If I say yes, can you take me as your disciple?"
Kris blinks at him blankly, his mind whirling with all the possibilities just from the sight of the logo, as Jongin continues, "Teach me to be cool like you! That way, I can protect people just like how you protected seonsaengnim."
This earns him a light rap on the head from Lu Han, whose cheeks are tinted a light pink as he furiously mumbles something about not needing protection.
"You're his teacher?" Kris asks Lu Han, his heart pounding hard against his rib cage.
Lu Han rubs the back of his head awkwardly and nods slowly. “Kind of. He was my student for one module.”
Fucking jackpot.
"Jonginnie! Wait for me!"
A slightly chubby boy pauses by Jongin's side, soft puffs of air falling from his mouth as he tugs his scarf tighter around his neck. He puffs out his cheeks and raps Jongin's knuckles slightly with his little fingers, before he glances up, mouth forming a little 'o' at the sight of Kris.
Jongin smiles at the boy, and tugs him forward, so they’re both staring up at Kris, eyes bright. “Yifan-ahjusshi, you’ll teach Kyungsoo and I how to be as cool as you, right?”
“Jongin-ah, Yifan-sshi’s really busy, he-”
“Why not?” Kris manages a smile, as Lu Han looks at him, eyes widening a little before he returns the smile easily and mouths a small ‘thank you’.
The pair answers him with loud squeals of excitement as they bounce on the spot and start chattering simultaneously, one overlapping the other in their frenzy. Kris smiles a little and bends down to their height, before saying, “How about this? I’ll pop by every Wednesday and give you guys an hour or so of lessons on basic self-defense? It’ll come in useful in future too, I bet.”
“Pinky promise!” Jongin squeaks, his eyes so bright that Kris can’t help himself from smiling and hooking their pinkies together in agreement.
“I think I really owe you coffee this time round,” Lu Han comments, once Jongin and Kyungsoo are out of earshot, light bounces in every step they take while they chatter happily.
Kris hesitates, he really shouldn’t. He’s not a charmer like Baekhyun, nor an enthusiast like Chanyeol, and the last thing he really needs is to form bonds with people, people whom he will end up leaving one way or another.
I taught him for one module.
“I think I could spare half an hour or so.”
-
“What’ll you be having?”
Kris pauses, scanning the row after row of names all too fancy and foreign to him on the menu. “Just get me a caramel macchiato then, I guess,” he says at long last, deciding that it shouldn’t be too dangerous a choice, since he actually knows what caramel tastes like.
When they finally settle down in a peaceful corner of the cafe, steaming mugs of coffee in hand, Kris decides that he will probably never take anything with caramel in its name ever again, even if his life depended on it. Lu Han seems to notice, if his voluptuous laughter when Kris takes a sip of the drink is any indication.
“Why did you order it if you don’t like it?” Lu Han asks, licking off some whipped cream from his upper lip while he blows at his coffee.
Kris shrugs a little and says simply, “I just want to try something new, I guess.”
A blanket of silence settles over both of them, as they both take small sips of their coffee, Kris trying not to cringe with each gulp. Kris spends a good few moments desperately racking his brain for a topic, for a way to bring up Jongin and gain more information without sounding like a total creep.
“So where were you from previously?” Lu Han asks abruptly, breaking Kris’s train of thought. Kris only blinks at him dumbly. “Sehun told me you moved here recently.”
“Oh,” Kris responds, for the lack of coming up with a better response. “Somewhere far away.”
Lu Han laughs a little and waves his hand dismissively at Kris. “What’s with the mystery? Next, you’re going to tell me you have some dark past and being around you would endanger my life.”
You have no idea that you just hit the nail on the head, do you?
“So, are you scared?” Kris taunts, as he glances up at Lu Han through long lashes.
Lu Han stares at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he laughs and hits Kris’s shoulder lightly. “God, straight out of a movie, I swear. You must really like action flicks.”
“That’s why I’m a cop,” Kris answers easily, giving Lu Han a small smile.
“Then you fit the role perfectly,” Lu Han laughs, a hand coming up to cover his lips, his eyes crinkling into small crescents.
Kris’s heart skips a beat at the sight, noticing abruptly how beautiful Lu Han is upclose, but he shakes the thought out of his head and stares out the window instead.
Focus, Kris.
He clears his throat awkwardly and ventures, “You’re a teacher at School 2013?”
Lu Han hums in response, nodding while he stirs his drink and blows little puffs of air at it. “Kind of, I teach special modules rather than your average daily subjects like Math and Science.”
“Oh?” Kris frowns a little.
Lu Han shrugs and replies, “Yeah, I majored in Linguistics back in university. So I do special courses and teach the kids a little sign language and other things. It’s like a skills workshop of sorts.”
Kris smiles in return before he spreads out his left palm and brushes his right hand across it. He tilts his forefingers and presses them together, grins and points one of them at Lu Han.
Nice to meet you.
“You know sign language?” Lu Han asks, eyes bright, before he babbles on endlessly when Kris nods in affirmation.
Like taking candy from a baby, Kris smiles simply. Baekhyun would have been proud.
An hour later, Kris trudges back to the police post, a small victory smile painting his lips and Lu Han’s number scrawled hastily on a cafe napkin, tucked safely in his back pocket.
-
“You’re out late today,” Baekhyun hums, pacing around Kris’s apartment thoughtlessly, inspecting pieces of furniture like he actually owns the place.
“Cases have been piling up ever since I caught some thief. People in this world have such useless definitions of the word hero,” Kris muses, flopping onto the sofa bonelessly.
Baekhyun raises an eyebrow and laughs. “Just revel in the fame while you still have it.”
Kris flings a pillow at him, mentally cursing when it flies right through Baekhyun and hits his table lamp instead, causing it to wobble precariously. Baekhyun laughs good-naturedly, before nodding towards Kris’s wrist watch and asking, “So what did you call me for?”
“Oh right,” Kris straightens and breaks out into a grin. “I think I found child D.O.”
Baekhyun’s eyes widen slightly, and he smiles in return. “I’m impressed, Kris. Keep up this pace and I’m sure you’ll destroy Drone in no time.”
“Is that really the best you useless cops can do?”
The bullet bounces off the surface of Drone, Kris’s eyes widening at the small, almost unnoticeable scratch it makes, before he looks down at his gun.
“I don’t understand,” Baekhyun gasps, as he takes several steps back, his bullets having almost the same effect as Kris’s. “Chanyeol’s guns could take out everything else.”
“He’s my prized possession, of course you can’t take him out,” Kai descends upon them slowly, his black cloak falling to the ground behind him.
“It’ll be different this time round, I promise,” Baekhyun says softly, his eyes locked on Kris’s.
Kris grimaces, he’s always been like an open book to Baekhyun, after working alongside him for years. Baekhyun continues, “We’ll be prepared this time round. Chanyeol’s already working on new weapons.”
It takes Kris hours to sleep that night, and when he does fall asleep, the only thing that he remembers is Kai’s laughter, echoing endlessly in his ears.
You didn’t win in 2063, and I won’t let you win in 2013.
-
“You’re here!” Jongin exclaims, his eyes brightening as Kris enters the room that Lu Han had specially booked for their lessons.
Kris manages a smile and says, “Of course I am. I pinky promised, didn’t I?”
Next to him, Kyungsoo looks equally excited as he climbs out of Lu Han’s lap and rushes towards Kris. Kris gives Lu Han a small wave and calls out, “I’ll take it from here. Thanks for your help, Lu Han.”
Lu Han gets to his feet and heads for the door, hesitating a little when he reaches the doorknob. He turns at the last moment, just when Kris is instructing Kyungsoo and Jongin to do stretches, and asks, “Would it be alright if I stayed?”
His eyes are so bright and hopeful that Kris can’t find it in himself to say no, and the beaming grin Lu Han sends in his direction doesn’t help matters. “Why not,” Kris says at long last, much to Jongin and Kyungsoo’s delight. “Everyone should know basic self-defence.”
Except Lu Han is a bumbling mess, tripping when Jongin and Kyungsoo make perfect kicks and punches. He huffs, after twenty minutes, and flops on the ground, grumbling, “Stop being so good at this, kids. You’re making me look bad.”
Kris laughs aloud, despite himself, and says, “More than anything, you need lessons in hand and feet coordination.”
This earns him a pout from Lu Han, who gets to his feet and launches himself forward, exclaiming, “Let’s see you defend yourself against this!”
Kris laughs and side-steps Lu Han’s fist easily, before catching a hold of Lu Han’s waist on instinct, preventing his wrist from colliding with the wall mere inches away.
Lu Han is surprisingly light, his tensed body warm against Kris’s as he drops his fist to his side, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Kris drops his arm in surprise and wills his heart to stop pounding painfully against his rib cage, muttering, “Be careful. Sehun won’t let me live it down if I cause someone to get injured in self-defence class.”
He carefully angles his face away and bends down to pat Kyungsoo and Jongin’s head instead, pretending that he doesn’t notice the way Lu Han’s face is now a light shade of red or how fast his pulse had been, pressed up against Kris’s hand.
It’s probably because he’s been exercising. Or the speed of my reflexes just stunned him. Yes, that’s probably it.
Kris shakes the thought out of his head and smiles at Lu Han, who carefully avoids his gaze and focuses on poking Kyungsoo’s cheeks instead.
Yes, I’m probably right, Kris decides, as he drops the smile and averts his gaze from Lu Han.
-
They fall into a routine of sorts, with Lu Han sending Kris bento lunches at work everyday - “You’re not god, you have to eat something no matter how busy you are, right?” - and Kris walking Lu Han home after work - he needs to return the bento box, okay.
There’s nothing wrong with making friends. And Lu Han can help with my mission, he reasons with himself, whenever he sees Joonmyeon shooting them a knowing smile or Sehun raising his eyebrows in displeasure.
“You two are actually really gross,” Sehun grumbles offhandedly one afternoon, after Kris is done swallowing the last grain of rice in his bento.
Kris raises an eyebrow challengingly and shrugs. “He’s just happy that I’m helping his students, I guess.”
Sehun rolls his eyes, almost as if he expected that answer, leans across the partition separating their desks and snaps, “Yeah? I don’t get bento boxes for tutoring Jongin in Math.”
“That’s because Jongin’s grades actually started deteriorating under your guidance,” Joonmyeon hums from the other end of the office.
Sehun puffs out his cheeks and exclaims, “Failing one test isn’t an accurate depiction of my tutoring abilities! And you’re supposed to be on my side, hyung!”
“It’s close enough,” Kris teases, a bright glint in his eyes, earning a flash of pink tongue from Sehun in return, much to his satisfaction, while Joonmyeon only shrugs in response.
It’s only later on, when Sehun has already left and the office is sparse, except for Joonmyeon and Kris, does Joonmyeon stop by Kris’s table. “Sehun’s right though,” he comments abruptly, causing Kris’s brows to crease together in confusion.
“Right about what?” Kris asks, snippets of the conversation they had at lunch escaping his mind completely.
Joonmyeon gives him a knowing look, sighing at long last when Kris continues to stare him down expressionlessly. “Lu Han. I’ve never seen him so happy around anyone. And you look happy around him too. Trust me, it’s obvious from a third party’s perspective.”
Are you crazy?
All Kris can do in response is shake his head and offer him a small smile before turning back to his files, ignoring Joonmyeon’s presence entirely.
The truth behind Joonmyeon’s words don’t hit him until he’s almost at Lu Han’s house, laughter falling smoothly from his lips. And even when it hits him, Kris pushes it to the back of his mind and continues pretending.
You’re done with heartbreaks, you’re done with lies, you’re done with Love.
-
Meet me at the same cafe in five minutes?
Kris contemplates turning down the offer, but decides against it at the last minute. He ends up grabbing his gun and lying to Joonmyeon that he’s going for a quick patrol, and arrives at the cafe entrance at the same time as Lu Han.
“I thought you weren’t coming!” Lu Han exclaims as they enter, bells tinkling to announce their arrival.
“I’m a man of surprises,” Kris hums, as he stares at the menu, a familiar headache coming on when he catches sight of the foreign names.
Lu Han seems to notice this, from the way he smiles and shrugs. “Why don’t you just order your favourite drink? You won’t go too wrong that way.”
There’s a slight pause, where Kris tries to think up of a convincing way to explain how none of these drinks sound like remotely edible to him. “I... don’t have a favourite,” Kris sighs in resignation.
To his surprise, Lu Han’s eyes brighten and he proceeds to shoo Kris away to find a seat for them both. Kris protests initially, only giving up when Lu Han starts shoving and getting weird stares from their fellow patrons. “Fine,” he exclaims. “But please don’t get me caramel macchiato again.”
All he gets in reply is a mysterious smile from Lu Han. He decides that he’s probably better off not knowing and trudges away to find a seat.
The waiter shows up ten minutes after Lu Han takes a seat opposite him, with at least ten cups of different colored caffeinated drinks in hand.
“Are you crazy?” Kris asks, once the waiter is out of earshot, staring at the seemingly endless row of cups before him. “We can’t possibly finish all this,” he hisses, flailing his hands awkwardly at the drinks.
Lu Han just hums in response and answers, “Nope, I’m just going to have my vanilla latte. The others are for you.”
This only causes Kris’s eyes to widen dramatically as he sputters, “How do you expect me to finish everything?”
“I don’t,” Lu Han replies, his eyes still shining with what Kris would deem as insanity. “You just have to take a sip from each cup and decide which your favourite is. There are ten different flavours and one of them is bound to be to your liking.”
Kris eyes him carefully and asks, “Why are you doing all this? We barely know each other.”
“Because you could use a friend.” Lu Han smiles at him wistfully and takes another sip from his steaming cup. “And I’ve never seen Jongin so happy in a long time.”
“Why not? All kids should be happy at this age, they have no worries, no woes.”
Lu Han pauses for a moment, before he sighs and sets down his cup. “You’ll probably find out sooner or later, but Jongin’s kind of an orphan.”
Kris frowns a little at the new information presented to him as he takes a cautious sip from one of the cups. “What do you mean ‘kind of’?”
There’s a long pause, and in the time between Kris’s question and Lu Han’s answer, Kris almost expected him to drop the topic and casually change the subject. He doesn’t, though. “His dad left his mum for another woman, so she committed suicide. Opened the window and jumped out right in front of Jongin. It traumatized him.”
“Oh,” Kris manages and looks down. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” Lu Han answers, reaching across the table and patting Kris’s hand gently with his own. “Not when you’re the only person who makes him so, so, happy these days.”
The words catch Kris by surprise, a slow warmth spreading through his heart as he smiles at Lu Han.
At the end of the day, Kris decides, much to Lu Han’s amusement, on vanilla latte. Lu Han teases him the whole way back to the police post for lying about not liking sweet things, and Kris just scrunches his nose in response.
If anyone were to ask, Kris would probably tell them that he likes it because of the fragrance of vanilla-infused coffee, and definitely not because the drink reminded him of a certain doe-eyed teacher, who smiles as brightly as the sun.
-
“Ice cream!” Jongin exclaims, sprinting happily towards the ice cream truck, Kris hot on his heels, Kyungsoo and Lu Han trudging along behind them.
He laughs when Jongin stares at him with large pleading puppy eyes, giving in easily to Jongin’s request and letting Jongin choose from the multitude of ice cream flavours before them.
It’s only when Kris is done paying for both Kyungsoo and Jongin’s ice cream does he recognise the street they’re standing on.
No.
He watches the scene unfold before him, distraught, as Jongin starts poking Lu Han in the background, begging him to continue the story about Peter Pan that he was supposedly telling them before Kris had showed up in the room for their weekly defence lessons.
Just several steps away, Kris watches a little boy with black hair, step out of his house, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He wonders, what would happen if he dashed forward and stopped the boy from taking five steps forward.
“Yifan, what do you think?” Lu Han asks, snapping Kris out of his what ifs.
“I--- What?” Kris splutters intelligently, his forehead creasing slightly as he momentarily turns his attention to Lu Han.
Lu Han stares at him quizzically, his eyebrows raised in clear amusement. Nonetheless, he repeats himself, mouthing each word slowly as though he was speaking too fast for Kris to catch him at first. “Kyungsoo asked for the definition of love. Do you know what love is?”
In the moment Kris spends thinking and giving Lu Han a satisfactory answer, a deafening crash interrupts them.
Kris hesitates; he knows what would happen next even as he turns back to the scene.
A small boy with light brown hair, skates attached to his feet, is sprawled on the cement pathway, tears streaming down his face. He watches the boy with black hair sprint forward and help the other boy up, and turns away. He doesn’t need to continue watching to know what happens next.
The beginning of the end.
They will sit on the pavement, chatting mindlessly before realising that they go to the same school. Later on, they will end up as the best of friends, and the boy with black hair will end up falling, without any warning whatsoever, into a love without an ending.
“Love,” Kris says abruptly, causing all three of them to turn their attention to him, eyes bright with curiousity. “Love is knowing that you’re falling into an endless pit from the start, and doing nothing to prevent it from happening even when you have a chance for a do-over.”
This earns him confused stares from Kyungsoo, while Jongin scratches his head and blinks at him, creases pressing into his forehead. Lu Han’s eyes smolder for a moment, but it passes and when he turns to Kyungsoo, he’s all smiles once again. “Everyone defines love differently. There’s no right definition to it. You’ll understand when you get older.”
Kyungsoo makes a sad face, before he screams at Jongin for stealing a small mouthful of his ice cream in his moment of distraction. Jongin simply sticks out his tongue and tugs cutely on Kyungsoo’s sleeve in response, leaning forward to sneak another mouthful.
When Kris turns his attention back to the duo, now sitting on the sidewalk, they’re chatting animatedly. He only turns away and tugs Jongin along, back to the orphanage, when he feels Lu Han’s stare, hot on the side of his face.
There was nothing Kris could have done back then to stop it, and there’s nothing he can do right now either. He’s always been helpless, like a child left to drown, whenever Zhang Yixing is concerned.
-
“I’m getting married.”
“Congratulations.”
“Kris.” Yixing’s eyes are unreadable, as he reaches for Kris, only for Kris to take five steps backwards. “Don’t do this. I can’t get married with you acting this way.”
Kris squeezes his eyes shut. He’s done being treated and fooled like a child.
When he opens his eyes, he sees caramel brown hair instead of dark red, large doe eyes instead of small, kind ones. “Yifan?”
Kris shakes his head in confusion and takes another step back, only to feel mercilessly robbed of oxygen, the ground dissolving into pieces below him. And he’s falling, falling, falling.
Kris wakes up with his shirt soaked thoroughly, his eyes jolting open in shock. He rakes fingers through his hair and tries to steady his breathing.
It’s like falling into an endless pit and doing nothing to stop yourself.
He doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night and spends the time staring at the ceiling, praying for someone to take away his emotions.
part two