SH 2014: protect me (from blood red blues) for sardothien
For: sardothien
From: ANONYMOUS until May 22, 2014
Title: protect me (from blood red blues)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s)/Focus: Suho/Lu Han
Length: 9847 words
Summary: Junmyeon works as a concierge at his father’s hotel, he meets Lu Han, a wealthy businessman on one of his business trips, and death has kindly invited them to stay for dinner.
Warning/s: Suicidal behavior/thoughts
Notes: Well...this is sort of Professional Gamer AU...yikes. I can’t thank my beta enough for helping me with this and for the mod, who’s been so kind and understanding despite my horrible time-management and all that ;~;
Sunrise.
Junmyeon is woken by the racket of the city coming to life: coffee makers, car engines, photocopier machines. It is already nearly thirty degrees outside. Once the sun hits this side of the building, not even the shutters can keep the heat out.
With a groan of defeat, he forces himself to sit up. Sunlight pours in, falling across his bed in stripes. Time check. He has an hour to get ready before his shift starts. Getting to the hotel takes half an hour, which means he won’t have time to make his own lunch. Sliding out of bed, he kicks aside the shirt he wore to work the previous day and walks over to grab his favorite pair of jeans. He settles for a cheap white shirt (he bought a box of those) because it doesn’t matter what he wears. He has his uniform waiting for him at the hotel.
Breakfast consisted of two cups of water and two slices bread. Nothing tasty. Peanut butter is rather pricey. He hasn’t known that before all of this happened.
He reaches the staff office right on time and spots a familiar face at the sign-in area.
“Morning, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun shoots him his trademark toothy grin. “Hyung! Do you have anything for me to fix today?”
Baekhyun is the youngest technician employed at the hotel. There were some problems back home and he had to quit first year of college to work. Baekhyun is smart. Street-smart. But he trusts people too easily. On his first day of work, he told Junmyeon all about the debt his parents owed, how they had been kicked out of their apartment, and despite all that, his family is the reason he is out here, at his age, doing all of this. Junmyeon wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of one hand and shakes his head apologetically. Baekhyun’s shoulders sag in undisguised disappointment.
“If you want, I can ‘accidentally’ drop my phone and then send it to you for fixing?” Junmyeon offers. In his head, he is calculating the costs and benefits to such a solution to the problem at hand.
Baekhyun laughs, eyes crinkling into crescents, and Junmyeon feels something akin to happiness tickling his stomach. Happiness has avoided him for quite a while now.
“Don’t be ridiculous, hyung! I don’t want you going around breaking things just so someone can fix them.”
Junmyeon shrugs. “Well, you’ll be the first person I go to if I need anything fixed.” He slots his card into the machine, makes sure the correct date is stamped, and pins it to his locker. “Gotta go,” he tells Baekhyun, who is checking out his reflection in the mirror he has stuck to the back of his locker. “Some important guests are arriving at noon. There’s going to be a real big fuss over them.”
“No kidding. Well, good luck!”
✳✳✳
“Welcome, sir, how may I help you?”
Junmyeon has already been briefed about the customer he is now serving. When he was told that he was to show Mister Lu Han, a businessman from Beijing, to his room, whatever it was that he expected, it isn’t this: decked in a trendy black leather jacket that made him look less like a businessman and more like a kid fresh out of college, Lu Han has caught Junmyeon’s attention the minute he stepped out of the guest limousine.
Instead of replying him, Lu Han simply smiles, all too confident that he doesn’t have to tell Junmyeon just how he may be helped.
“Room 165,” Junmyeon swipes the card, registering it in the system, and stands up. He bows slightly. “Please allow me to show you to your room, sir.”
“None of that,” Lu Han says. His eyes flicker down to read Junmyeon’s nametag. “Junmyeon, right?” He speaks Korean fluently. If his name hadn’t given him away, Junmyeon wouldn’t have thought he was a foreigner. “Just call me Lu Han.” He pauses. “Or hyung, whichever you prefer.”
Feeling a flush rising up, Junmyeon simply steps out behind the front desk and leads Lu Han to the lift lobby. “I’m afraid that’s against company protocol.” It went against everything that has been drilled into him when he first signed up for the job.
They are the only ones in the lift and Lu Han doesn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space. He is standing close, too close, and before the door slides open on the sixteenth floor, he leans in so he can whisper in Junmyeon’s ear. “Company protocol? Well, I say we fuck that.”
Junmyeon has never been so glad to be back behind the front desk. Anything to be far, far away from the VIP guest in room 165.
✳✳✳
By the time he gets home, it is ten minutes to midnight. This part of the city is quieting; cars slowing, machines lulled to sleep. Still, the night is young.
Junmyeon wastes no time scrubbing his skin raw in the rain of hot water. The heater stops working after midnight. Even though he hadn’t expected much when he rented the small and dingy apartment for half the average market price, that still took some getting used to.
Stepping out of the bathroom, he takes a quick glance of his room. Clothes and books scattered all over the place. He can’t remember where he left his laptop. Coffee table? Work table?
Bedside table.
He remembers going to sleep right after sending his resume to a printing company. Working at the hotel, even as a mere concierge, means that he is constantly watched and scrutinised. Not by the ones he worry about, but by his parents. He hasn’t talked to them since he moved out in April.
Logging on...
There are a handful of taboos that members of society will go to great lengths to avoid. The Dying Game has recently joined the list. Its symbol is a single black rose. The game is exactly what it sounds like. A game meant for and sponsored by those who feel that they have become tired of living. The setup is excessively grand and that isn’t new: ropes hanging from chandeliers that swung like nooses, asking to be worn like they were the most exquisite string of diamonds, pearls, or whatever that was preferred. The choice is theirs.
You have successfully logged on.
There are terms and conditions before someone can start playing. Nobody is a hundred percent sure how the game works. Nobody knows who designed it or how it was designed. As for what exactly is the point of the game? Nobody cares. It is a game, one of the biggest gambles (sometimes the last) of their lives. They play it simply because they can afford to. One can easily tire of a rich lifestyle. They have time, too much time. Many of them fear death and yet they are fascinated by it.
Welcome back to the game, Suho.
Junmyeon knows some people who think that the Dying Game is just a game, nothing more, until, well, they find out that it isn’t. The idea of having to track down someone who can either be oceans away or lives next door - the one whose chihuahua peed on your shoes - sounds fun. A little mystery, thrill, and blood. They will keep believing that it is a mere game, just a game, until they are found by another player in the arena. Junmyeon credits his beginner luck for not having been found by anyone yet. When found, the winner gets to take their pick: death, or a new beginning.
✳✳✳
It is a bright day, full of possibility. Blue skies, warm (but not too hot) weather, and it is his day off. Junmyeon doesn’t plan to initiate a conversation with anyone else. He has logged on to the game just for the sake of logging on. He should probably tackle the pile of clothes on his bed but he doesn’t want to. Cleaning after his own mess has never been his forte. He is better at cleaning up after others. Odd, isn’t it? Pushing the responsibilities of living alone aside, he turns back to the screen. A pop-up window is blinking at him.
L. has requested for a private chat.
It isn’t the first time he has seen this user around.
L. 27. Asian.
There isn’t anything else written on his profile. Junmyeon reckons he can easily be one of them. One of those kids who party more than they study in college because they don’t need to chase their dreams. They have been living the dreams of many others since birth. Junmyeon knows such a life well. He used to be one of them. His gut feeling tells him that this guy, L, is more than that.
Everyone in this game knows L. He is, afterall, the infamous impossible-to-beat player known for ruthlessness both in the game and out. Junmyeon has tried digging around and all he received were words of warnings. Do not mess with L, because he always wins; he will resort to anything to win.
Junmyeon has rejected L’s chat requests before. Barely a minute after he had signed up for the game, the request was sent. Junmyeon was a newbie (and he still is), but he knew a fiery pit when he saw one.
Request accepted. Loading private chat-room…
✳✳✳
In retrospect, Junmyeon never thought of living a life like this, but a lot of things happened last summer. A situation developed and Junmyeon moved out, quit med school and around the same time, took up his job at the hotel. None of his friends understood why, of all places in the city, he chose to work at his father’s hotel. If he had wanted to get away, he should have picked somewhere else.
A month after that, he joined the Dying Game.
The first person he private-messaged was a boy called Kai. It didn’t take much for Junmyeon to find out his real name: Kim Jongin, who recently found out that he was suffering from distal muscular dystrophy, which was going to gradually weaken the muscles of his arms, forearms and lower legs. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it spelled the end of his life-long aspiration to become a professional dancer.
Suho: You aren’t at the end of the road. Trust me. Your life has only just begun. Get out of this place, kiddo. Go out there, breathe in some fresh air, and explore the possibilities. The stage may have changed, but it is still yours.
Kai is typing…
Junmyeon was just about to log off when a new message came in.
Kai: What about you?
He smiled.
Suho: Have a nice day, Jongin. Goodbye.
✳✳✳
He had visited his brother’s grave once. It was six months after the accident and his parents knew nothing about it. He made sure there wasn’t a hint of sadness on his face. His brother liked it better when he smiled. He stood there for four hours, closely watched by the unrelenting sun.
The trees surrounding the cemetery were lungs filling with air. Junmyeon’s were starting to fill with blood.
“Six broken ribs, a punctured lung, a cracked femur, two broken arms, and a fractured skull. He keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. There is a blood clot in his brain and we need your permission to operate on him immediately. If all goes well, he will live.”
For his parents, that was the only comfort. They had only just lost their elder son. They couldn’t afford to lose Junmyeon too.
The blood had to drain away. Despite his condition stabilizing, two weeks after the first operation, the coma persisted. “These things,” his parents were told, “they are sometimes a mystery. He needs a reason to wake up.” The doctors held out little hope, but as it turned out, the heavens were on his side. He spent months at the hospital, being pieced back together by an excellent surgeon (“trained in the United States,” his parents assured him, even though he hadn’t doubted that they had gotten him nothing but the best) and nurses who won’t stop trying to flirt with him after he had regained consciousness.
“The fracture”, he remembers the surgeon saying and touching his skull. He mimics the action, feeling where the scar runs over his scalp, hidden by previously blond hair, now dyed back to black, “too much blood”.
The sun grew tired waiting for him and slowly, it backed away. The horizon was stained red and beyond, that was where death lurked.
He hadn’t been happy when he woke. He still isn’t. How can he, when he had survived what his brother had not?
The plume of dust and smoke still drifted across the skyline and the smell of the bouquet of roses Junmyeon had bought on a whim mixed with the ugly, sweet stench of grief.
Faintly, he could hear the invisible bells ringing in the trees.
✳✳✳
Late evening. The weather had turned. Wind thrashed against the weary apartment building and rain rattled against the windows. They wanted to be let in, to sweep him away to someplace (good or bad, Junmyeon doesn’t know). His computer took a while to start up and he should probably get a new one, but he didn't have the money for it. He couldn't possibly use their money, that was for sure.
Seconds passed slowly and closing his eyes, his mind was flooded with images. The thunderstorm was playing tricks on him.
Ping!
A new private chat request and Junmyeon smiled when he saw who it is. He had been speaking to this player who called himself ‘Park’, and Junmyeon can’t help but wonder how Park hadn't been found by other players yet; he posted all sorts of things on his home page - gigs he went to every weekend, his favourite places of hangout...Junmyeon also couldn't help but wonder if Park was doing all this on purpose. He won’t be surprised if he was.
Park was a pretty interesting guy. All of them had been interesting, but Park was slightly different; he reminded Junmyeon a lot of his brother. Not an exact replica, but bits and pieces of him hit hard when Junmyeon least expected them to. Junmyeon remembered what his father once told him.
“You and your brother...you are complete opposites. He’s like fire and you, water. It isn’t a bad thing.”
His father never elaborated. Junmyeon never got to find out if he’s like an ocean, full of secrets, or if he was merely a glass of water, plain and all too easy to read.
Park is typing…
Park: hey what’s up?
Junmyeon had done a good share of digging around. He was good at it. Several times he had to put his father’s name to use and felt shame trickling down his back. He had always been the pride and joy of the family, so was his brother, but not anymore.
Suho: Nothing much. How did the gig go?
Park: pretty good...got a few numbers and you know, the usual stuff…
He wondered how Park, real name Park Chanyeol, would take it if Junmyeon was to tell him that he had already been found out. Chanyeol had an impressive track record for losing his temper all too easily, be it at gigs or at parties. Two years ago, he was at a party and some things went horribly wrong. Three injured, one dead. Fire was a useful thing, but people often forget that it was just as dangerous - it would make sure one never makea the same mistake twice.
But here Chanyeol was, making the exact same mistake he had made two years ago. Disregarding his life, disregarding others’, simply because rage had blinded him. How could Junmyeon possibly stop the fire from swallowing him whole? The waves inside him offered no answer.
Junmyeon considered his options, downed his cup of tea and went back to typing.
✳✳✳
L is typing…
L: East or West?
Not one to beat about the bushes. Junmyeon takes a moment to deliberate, then begins to type.
Suho: East. You?
Junmyeon’s shoulders loosen. He rubs his hands together and while waiting for a reply, he went to get a can of Nescafe and a packet of digestive biscuits. When he returns, he has the answer he wants.
L: East. Are we playing 21 questions?
Suho: Only if you’re up for it.
L: You first.
Suho: Is L the first letter of your name?
L: My family’s. My turn. What’s with ‘Suho’? That can’t be your real name, right?
Junmyeon types and points out that they are asking two questions.
L: But I am only asking for one answer.
Suho is typing…
Suho: What if I don’t give you one?
L: A forfeit.
Suho: Ask me something else.
L: You’re no fun. Right. Okay. I got another one. What would it take for you to kill yourself?
Suho: ...What sort of question is that? We’re playing a game called “The Dying Game”.
L: Exactly. Come on, it’s just a question...or are you going to forfeit again?
Suho: I don’t believe in suicides.
L: Liar. What if you’re in awful pain, dying from a terrible disease? Or if you’re starring in a SAW movie and someone was making you eat yourself?
Suho: You ask a lot of questions.
L: And you aren’t answering most of them.
Suho: There are painkillers.
L: Not in SAW movies. What if you were suffering from dementia and can’t even remember your own name?
Suho: Am I really suffering then? If I had dementia it wouldn’t matter.
L: What if you’re being tortured by the Russians for information?
Suho: Why is it always the Russians? And plus, I don’t have any top secret information.
L: It’s always the Russians. What if someone had a bomb on the bus and they were going to blow it to the sky? Would you shield everyone from the bomb by hugging it?
Suho: Where are you getting all your questions from? ...and how is that going to save anyone?
L: I think about stuff all the time, like how one decision, even a small one, can change your life. Maybe someone else’s. I have really weird dreams, y’know? I once dreamed I had a vagina and boobs. Does that make me bisexual?
Suho: ...
L: Tell me, what are you thinking about right now?
Suho: Is this how you charm everyone you talk to in this game? Joke around, ask them silly questions, and slowly, slyly, you dig into their heads. Smooth.
L is typing…
Junmyeon waits patiently for the screen to start blinking again. Next door, someone flushes a toilet. Water flushes through the pipes in the walls.
L: Ah. You’re one of those.
Suho: One of those?
L: You already know this, don’t you? Suho… we’re just suicidal people telling other suicidal people that suicide isn’t the answer.
There is a pause. Both of them are making calculations, measuring distances. Geography, geometry, and time. How long will it take for either one of them to find the other?
L: So...back to 21 questions. What’s your favorite colour?
✳✳✳
For the past few days, Junmyeon hadn’t been able to sleep well. Right this instant, he is staring at the shut windows, out at the night sky, asking himself why he is awake. In his mind, he is taking a walk up that familiar path, past the park two streets from his parent’s place and towards the car wreck painted at the deserted junction. He is also remembering the steps to tie a dead knot, the way his brother taught him. His hands are trembling. It doesn’t seem to be working. He repeats it close to over ten times, trying to get it right. Then, he shakes his head and laughs at the audacity of it - a memory he did his best to seal away.
Slick with blood, the memory re-enters his head, cleanly, like a knife.
The room temperature drops by a few degrees - or perhaps it is only his imagination - and he feels that he has to get out of here. His fractured memory has bonded with the ones he has newly brought home, and he can’t seem to reassemble enough of it. The pain is too much and the grief, suffocating. He feels that if he can put a name to whatever it is that he is suffering from, he can control it. Post traumatic stress disorder? That has the right sound, but it is too clinical to give him a handle on. Time wears on and he decides that perhaps the medical label doesn’t matter anyway.
The only thing that matters is the effect it has on him, and on his life.
The lift is under repair. It has been under repair for the past six months. Junmyeon takes the stairs. It isn’t the running that makes him pant. Snagging a cab by the bus stop, he gets on. It is only when the driver asks him for a destination that he realizes he doesn’t have one in mind.
“What address?” the driver asks again impatiently.
Just follow the smoke and the sirens. “Jungwon high school.”
The driver drops him off in front of the eatery that was his brother’s favorite hangout back then. Junmyeon could always count on finding him there, but not anymore.
✳✳✳
[12: 01 pm] Baekhyun: hyung! you have night shift today, right? hwaiting! \o/
Pocketing his phone with a smile, he stands up, tells Tiffany that he is going to take a break. She nods, still texting her boyfriend, or boyfriends, Junmyeon doesn’t really care to find out.
The hotel’s blueprint hangs above his father’s desk, accompanied by a family photo taken at his brother’s college graduation ceremony. When Junmyeon told his friends he knew every nook and cranny of the hotel by heart, he wasn’t kidding. Now, he wishes he can forget. Only then can he pack up his stuff and go some place far, far away. By staying, he is only breaking his parents’ heart. He doesn’t know any other way to set things right. He has always been a son they are proud of, but he can never replace his brother.
There is already someone sitting by the pool and the manmade sandpit next to it. If one closes their eyes, digs their feet into the sand, they can pretend that the sounds of waves coming home to the shore are real.
Junmyeon simply stands by the pool, wondering whether he should signal to Lu Han that he is there. But before he can reach a decisions, Lu Han spots him. When he sees Junmyeon, he gives a nod and nothing more. It both pleased and irked him.
“Can’t sleep?” He takes a look at the wine bottle Lu Han is holding and makes no comment about it.
Lu Han nods. His eyes are bright, the kind that never really focus on anything, that thrive off their own secrets. He gives Junmyeon this smile. It reveals nothing. He is good looking; he must have been a boy prettier than any girl in his classes. Junmyeon doesn’t let that influence his judgement. Some of the meanest guys he knew back in boarding school were real handsome kids.
“What about you? Work?”
Junmyeon shrugs, “Sort of.”
Lu Han grins. “Sort of?”
“I’m taking a break.”
It is a dangerous impulse. He takes a step closer and Lu Han watches him, still smiling. There are stars in his eyes. That should be a warning enough. “From?”
“Everything, I guess.” A laugh pops from his mouth. “I haven’t taken a break in a while.”
Lu Han offers his hand and Junmyeon takes it. Warm, alive. Lu Han’s grin fills his face. It is a familiar one, that knowing and vaguely condescending smile that Junmyeon wants to dislike but can’t. “Well, I have an ide
They end up at the seaside. Junmyeon hasn’t been to this place for years, even though it is only a twenty-minute walk away from the hotel, or a ten-minute bus ride from his parents’ place. The waves caresses the shore with the same gentleness the wind touches Junmyeon’s hair with.
Junmyeon watches Lu Han brush sand off his legs. In the moonlight, Lu Han bends over, resembling a cracked hourglass. He straightens up, whole again. Junmyeon looks away. Everyday he learns something new. This day he learns that Lu Han has a scar that was the length of a toothpick under his right knee. He also learns something else, but he doesn’t wish to acknowledge it. He draws a long breath, exhales. Repeats.
He starts considering an idea - slowly, carefully.
✳✳✳
Today is the anniversary of his brother’s death.
There is a faint pervasive scent in the room that transports Junmyeon back to the seaside. The sky is lightening ever so slowly and he winces when he feels his stomach cramp and the vomit rising. The pain passes and Junmyeon fees something like freedom. Not freedom exactly, because he knows he has to work towards that, but he is certainly lighter. It is with this self-delusion that he turns on his computer and accepts the chat request L has sent him.
L is typing…
L: Why are you always waiting for me to get the conversation started?
Suho: Why do you always start the conversation with a question?
L: There you go again. Replying a question with a question.
Junmyeon tries to imagine L staring at his computer screen in frustration. The idea pleases him.
Suho: Well, it’s that or lying.
✳✳✳✳✳✳
The rest of the week passes in a blur. All too soon, it is time for him to pack up and head home, free to do whatever he wants for the weekend. He bids his colleagues farewell and slowly makes his way out of the concierge.
The idea he has shoved aside is back, and again, he is considering it.
A knock on the door. Junmyeon realizes his mistake but it is too late for him to revise his decision. The door of room 165 swings open and Junmyeon finds himself face to face with Lu Han.
“Oh,” Lu Han is dressed in a simple black tee and he looks like he has only just woken up. He doesn’t look surprised to see Junmyeon there. “Hello there.”
Junmyeon blames grief for his first foolish mistake, his next foolish mistake, and everything else in between.
✳✳✳
Time eclipses as they are dragged down by soft kisses that eventually turn into harsh, urgent ones. Lu Han is intoxicating. Junmyeon likes the weight of Lu Han on him, pressing down, pressing in, pressing close. So close that Junmyeon can count his lashes.
It is as though they are taking a fraction of each other and imbuing them together. Words can’t describe how it works and nor can they describe what it feels like.
Lu Han is riding Junmyeon’s cock. His forehead is wet with sweat, hair sticking together haphazardly, and his cheeks are red, but there is no doubt that he is in control. There is a fire in Lu Han’s eyes that has Junmyeon weak with lust and surrendering to Lu Han is easy, so incredibly easy that it really ought to scare him, except it doesn’t.
“Lu Han, please. Please. Faster.” A moan slid out from the back of Junmyeon’s throat as Lu Han drops. He is so unbelievably tight. All Junmyeon can do is to dig his heels into the sheets, hands bruising Lu Han’s skin as Lu Han works to bring both of them to orgasm. He blinks sweat from his eyes and keeps his eyes locked on Lu Han. Swollen pink lips. Muscular thighs flexing with every lift, every drop. Every now and then he will brush a hand up Junmyeon’s neck, sinking fingertips into soft skin, marking Junmyeon as his.
Lu Han reaches orgasm first. He groans, his eyelids fluttering shut, legs spreading further apart, and it is too much. Losing energy, he nearly collapses forward, arms bracing on Junmyeon’s check. He grinds out his release and leans in to kiss Junmyeon sloppily, and Junmyeon comes soon after with a soft whisper of Lu Han’s name.
Later, lying naked in the air-conditioned room, his heartbeat slowly returning to normal, Junmyeon keeps thinking back on the moment when pleasure overcomes and the wave breaks inside him.
✳✳✳
The clock reads two in the morning. Sweat clings to Junmyeon’s back and the sheets he is lying on but he doesn’t want to move. Lu Han is leaning on his side, staring at Junmyeon who is staring at the ceiling. His eyes are soft, and it is the first time since they have met that Junmyeon feels a stir of certain feelings. The aftermath has always been the most powerful, the strongest strike.
“How old are you?” Lu Han asks.
“Younger than you. How did you know that, anyway?” Junmyeon remembers the suggestion Lu Han offered him at the front desk. Hyung, he thinks, he hasn’t called anyone that in a long, long time.
Lu Han tries to shrug, but it looks weird seeing that he is lying on his side. Only one shoulder moves. “Just a hunch.”
“You don’t look any older than me,” Junmyeon frowns when Lu Han replies him with a laugh.
Pointing at the lines at the corners of his eyes, Lu Han keeps smiling. “I have wrinkles, kid.”
He looks silly when he laughs like that. Features scrunching up, mouth so wide Junmyeon could probably shove a pillow in, and Junmyeon likes it because it is so genuine. Like the smile of a baby. He waits for Lu Han to sober up, rebuild his wall of secrets, going back to staring at Junmyeon, who has stopped looking at him and his stupid laugh.
“What are you here for? In Korea.”
“A business trip.”
Junmyeon fixes him with a stare that tells him he is not fooling anybody with that excuse. “Really?”
“And to take a break.”
“From what?”
“The usual,” Lu Han begins to list, “Meetings, golf, parties, killing sprees…”
Junmyeon says nothing at first, because he doesn’t want to speak too quickly, too unthinkingly. He reassesses his terror. “Do you have a chainsaw stashed under this bed? Should I run? Or will jumping out of the window guarantee a more painless death?” He tries telling his heart to slow down.
Lu Han laughs. “Don’t worry, I think I like you alive.”
The worst timing, but Junmyeon finds himself blushing. He opens his mouth to speak, to say something like “Thank god you aren’t the Chinese version of Jack the ripper”, but Lu Han beats him to it.
“My father passed away earlier this month. My mother has been emotionally unstable even before his death, but now, she’s gotten from bad to worse. Seeing me, she can’t help but think that I am my father, and the family doctor advices me to take a trip away from Beijing. They are putting her under intensive care and under a close watch. Make sure she doesn’t do anything, y’know, crazy.”
Junmyeon nods, finally understanding.
“Was your father a businessman too? Did you inherit his business?”
A laugh. Lu Han shakes his head, looking thoroughly amused by the idea of that.
“He was a mathematician. He taught at the university. When he wasn’t teaching he spent his time calculating possibilities, working with numbers like they were his children, forgetting he had a son waiting for him to come home and bring him toys or to bring him to the annual father-son relay.” Lu Han chews the inside of his mouth and, just when Junmyeon starts to wonder if he is going to cry, he continues, “He was completely lost in his thoughts. Living in numbers. They called him a genius back when he was a kid, then he outgrew the term and they switched to calling him a professional. He was good at what he did and he loved it.”
“He forgot dates. He could remember all the formulas, could solve whatever he sets out to solve, but he often forgot appointments with the doctor, anniversaries, shopping lists..and so on. Sometimes, in the middle of a family dinner, he would begin mumbling to himself and had to jot things down on the tablecloth. This was why my mother always bought white tablecloths. So that he could write things down. Once, he gave me a new laptop for my birthday. It wasn’t my birthday, but my mother’s.”
Softly, Junmyeon asks, “How does your mother cope with all of that?”
Lu Han grunted amusement. “My mother? She accepted every single one of his foibles and follies. That’s what she called them. She couldn’t understand why he did what he did, but she accepted it. She consoled herself with the knowledge that he would always remember, even if he had spent the rest of the time forgetting. Now that he’s gone? I think she can’t be bothered to keep pretending that his faith in something other than his family hadn’t bothered her the least. She has given up on the idea of living, I think. And that vexes me. Which is why I’m here. I don’t want to see her give up on herself.”
He looks at Junmyeon, waiting for Junmyeon to say something, but Junmyeon knows that he wants to talk some more. It seems that Lu Han has kept all of this to himself for a very long time and now that there is someone to listen, someone he feels he can entrust his secrets with, he can’t hold back.
“You know what’s funny?”
Of course not.
“I always thought it was quite ironic that my father had never taken a risk in his life. Not once.”
Junmyeon opens his mouth, changes his mind. Tries again. “He doesn’t gamble?”
“Never. I suppose anyone who knows all about probability would never gamble. It’s like a fireman playing with fire, a dietitian eating fast food for all three meals a day, or a son like me doing the same things my father had done to his family.” Lu Han stops to think about what he has just said. “All his life, he only has debts to pay. For a math genius, he is pretty lousy with money. I suppose that’s why I became a businessman. I want to be able to pay for my kid’s tuition fees, his first car, and then some.”
Junmyeon has been taught to tell the difference between pain observed and pain shared. Lu Han gives him a smile, one that reflects all the pain he has been suffering from - pain his father had inflicted upon him. Junmyeon can’t really tell the difference anymore.
✳✳✳
It is amazing how much junk Junmyeon has accumulated over the past two years. Like an overzealous squirrel storing up more nuts than it can ever eat, Baekhyun once pointed out. Has he really thought all this crap could fill up the space inside him? The space his previous life used to occupy?
Having just sold his old laptop and an MP3 player his father got him for his birthday (he has forgotten which), he is on his way back to his apartment. He walks slowly, staring straight ahead. At times, he stops breathing through his nose and instead breathes with his mouth, as if trying to taste the wind as it rushes past him. He doesn’t pause to examine the rows of peeling, sagging homes around him. It doesn’t matter how big or small the houses. They can be just as empty, and if people want to leave their lives behind, that should their business, not his. He has his own life to attend to, his own life to guard.
Except Lu Han’s words stayed on his mind all weekend. They parted and exchanged numbers after Junmyeon received a call from Tiffany, who was wondering where he was. She said nothing about his disappearance from work for three whole hours and instead settled for shooting him curious looks. He made sure to busy himself with checking his work email for updates on his work schedule next week.
I suppose anyone who knows all about probability would never gamble.
After the junction, he looks down. From this point onwards, he prefers to keep his eyes fixed on the pavement, trying to draw some genuine interest in observing the cracks that twist and turn and fight to keep up with his pace.
Is that what he is doing with the game? Teaching people he doesn’t even know, people he will never ever meet, all about probability? If the probability of dying becomes greater than half, most people will chicken out. Is that what Junmyeon is trying to do? Making them think that, then letting the fear factor kick in, kicking them into realizing that hey, I don’t actually want to die just yet.
Then, for some strange reason, he is reminded of what L had told him the first time they talked.
We’re just suicidal people telling other suicidal people that suicide isn’t the answer.
Junmyeon reaches his doorstep and gets this urge to throw his key out of the window down the corridor. He waits it out. The urge passes and he slowly takes out his key to open the door of his apartment. Kicking his shoes aside, going straight to bed.
Junmyeon likes to eat at exact, predetermined times. It is the same at work. He takes five minutes to finish the sides, then ten minutes to finish the rest. It often frustrates Baekhyun, who claims that he eats like a robot, all too mechanically. In response, Junmyeon claims that the routine is a comfort to him. It gives him a better sense of day and night, of the weeks and months passing, the time he is saving, or wasting.
Today, however, is an exception. An abnormally. Outside, it has started raining. Lying there, on his bed, Junmyeon begins counting slowly, his mouth almost too dry to make the words. One...two...three... The room is quiet. He stops. Listens. Rain gurgles in the downpipes. Wind shakes the trees.
He places his hand upon his chest, feeling for his own heartbeat. Then, he curls up, placing his arms around his form, trying to protect himself from monsters.
✳✳✳
"Junmyeon," rasps a voice.
Junmyeon's eyes are wide open now. He looks around the room.
"Can you hear me?"
He can't shake off the strange bout of exhaustion that has his hands tied and bound, useless in a fight. He is dragged off his bed. It is like a spotlight has been turned on and he is left there, wondering just what the hell is going on.
A hand covers his mouth and nose, warm and hard against his lips and teeth. Another holds a gun that glints even without a light source, and it presses the barrel to Junmyeon's mouth, forcing it between his lips, into his throat, making him gag. The darkness smiles, and everything is distorted by something that could only be described to be pure madness.
Everything is dark. Junmyeon can see into the creature's eyes. Empty. Bottomless. They remind him of something from his childhood, a weekend at the countryside upon his brother's insistence - an old abandoned well in the garden, hidden by the trees, covered up and sealed with a metal grate. Young, he was curious and peered into the well, wondering if it was a real voice he heard or just something from his imagination. At times he felt like the well was breathing like the nostrils of a sleeping giant.
He has faced death before. He thought he wouldn't be afraid of it a second time. He was wrong. Afraid of it he is, as the barrel of the fun is traced down his cheek. Across his lips. Over his chin to his neck. Then back to his lips.
Junmyeon leans in. The darkness reacts as thought scalded, rearing backwards. Junmyeon's lips fall apart, courage crumbling, body shivering from a draught without a source. Once again he is reminded of the imagined sleeping giant.
He is allowed a moment of reprieve. The, the darkness is back once more. It is different, but this time, Junmyeon recognizes it. He knows this dream. It is the same loop he watches on the wrong side of every night - the litany of destruction and misery. And it always end the same way, with his brother’s broken body, his brown eyes open, blood on his lips.
✳✳✳
The sound of his phone ringing startles Junmyeon awake from the nightmare.
“It’s me,” Lu Han says.
“Hello.”
“You sound terrible.” There is some rustling coming from Lu Han’s end. Junmyeon shifts so that he is sitting back down on bed, leaning against the wall and pulling his pillow from behind him to put it on his lap.
“About the other night - ”
Truth to be told, Junmyeon didn’t know if he was going to meet Lu Han again. He hasn’t been sure if that was a once-off thing.
“I have never done that before,” Junmyeon admitted.
“No you haven’t. I would have remembered you.”
Junmyeon laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls of his room. He isn’t sure if his neighbours can hear him. Over the phone, Lu Han joins him in laughing. He seems to be very confident of his flirting capabilities.
“Smooth,” Junmyeon replies. He remembers what he has been meaning to ask, “Do you regret it now?”
Lu Han is quiet for a long time. “I always regret things. It’s my automatic response to just about every decision I make.”
Annoyingly, Junmyeon again feels that vague familiarity. It is in Lu Han’s words, and in the way he says it. But from where? He has never met someone like Lu han. He would have remembered them. His stomach convulsed, as if to remind him of something he has forgotten. What is it?
“You’ve come to the right place, then. This is a world full of regrets.”
“Have you come to the right place?”
Silence. He should say something.
“Can we meet again tonight?” Lu Han speaks before he can reply.
Junmyeon can’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
“That soon?”
Lu Han laughs, “It’s good to strike when the iron’s hot.”
Junmyeon’s turn to laugh. “Is it that hard?”
“Like a brick.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
In spite saying that, Junmyeon feels his face flush and blood rushing to other places.
“By the way,” Lu Han says, and Junmyeon stills because there is a change in his tone, “I have a question and it’s got nothing to do with the thing you do with your pelvic floor muscles.”
Junmyeon’s face can’t possibly get any redder than this. “The thing?”
“Yes.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, that’s what he said,” Lu Han can’t hold back his laughter on his end of the line and Junmyeon joins him.
“You’re the worst.”
“I’ll ask you another time,” Lu Han says, words squeezed between laughs, “And I mean what I said. I still want to see you later.”
“More like you want my body,” Junmyeon jokes.
“Hmm, we can go grab dinner first...or not.”
Junmyeon laughs again. “Second dates are always trickier, you know?”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”
“I’m a very complex human being.”
“How so?”
“I’ve done some crazy. You won't believe it."
"I'll try to keep an open mind."
"Things get poisoned if you leave them open. Polluted, moldy. They collect rainwater. Leaves. Things you don't want to keep. Memories you don't want to remember."
“We’ll see about that, Junmyeon. See you later.”
✳✳✳
There was an enormous silence in the room when Junmyeon woke alone. He sat up slowly, groggy from sleep, and it took a while for him to realize that it was an awfully early hour for him to be awake. The windows were fogged by the cold air, breaths, and clamouring voices. He felt a tingle all over his body, and gradually, the voices started sounding like the rumble before a clap of thunder.
Something was amiss. Junmyeon couldn’t quite put a finger to it. The silence is deafening, cutting deep. Lu Han has left. Disappointment is a bitter taste and Junmyeon tells himself he didn’t think Lu Han would have stayed the night. We’ll meet again.
Looking outside, he can barely make out the shapes and colors of the city. What does dawn do but sharpen the city’s edges? It is as if he is separated from the world outside by staind glass. It is safe to say that the night is almost gone, and so has Lu Han’s scent, bringing with them memories of yesterday.
Junmyeon opens the curtains and succeeds in dividing the room with angled light. There was an overnight storm, he remembers it faintly, but it has long since passed.
The bruises on Junmyeon's cheek have faded but if he presses hard enough, he can still feel it beneath his skin. Lu Han. A souvenir. No, that is not the word he wants. A reminder.
The door clicks open. His heart leaps.
"I thought you had already left."
"It's my room," Lu Han says, smiling, and Junmyeon's skin prickles with embarrassment.
"I know," he replies lamely. "I mean, you know, for work."
"Oh. Right." Lu Han casually drops his room card on the bedside table. "I work from home. Or wherever I want, really."
Nodding, Junmyeon makes his way across the room awkwardly. He feels the desperate need for an instruction manual that can teach him how to make conversations with someone who is more than just some one-night stand. Or at least that is what this feels like.
“Are you in the mood for breakfast in bed or somewhere else?” Lu Han asks while shamelessly keeping his eyes on Junmyeon as Junmyeon puts on some clothes for the sake of easing the awkwardness that has settled in his stomach.
“Does it matter?”
Lu Han simply shakes his head. “Is everything with you a question? Come on, let’s get out of here.”
There is a cafe down the street that serves some really good coffee and breakfast combinations, so Junmyeon leads Lu Han there. On their way there, Lu Han stops to make faces at a cat and earns himself a lazy, disinterested yawn from the fair maiden. Junmyeon doesn’t stop laughing until they have reached their destination.
“Iced Americano,” Junmyeon says after they are seated by the window. He has bought himself a croissant and a potato salad with latte to go. He stares at Lu Han, who stares back curiously.
“Yes,” Lu Han replies, “Why?”
Junmyeon shakes his head, biting back the urge to tell Lu Han that he shouldn’t be drinking cold drinks in the morning and Lu Han shrugs, going back to his food, digging in with fervor.
Once they are done with the simple meal, the awkwardness is back. For Junmyeon, at least.
Lu Han is the first to break the silence. “Hey. How about you tell me something about your family?”
Junmyeon isn't looking at him now. His lips are thin lines. Cautious. "Why the interest?"
"Because I like stories. Plus, I told you a story of mine. It's only fair for you tell me one of yours."
"I have a story for you. But it's a sad one."
"Well. I can't say I like sad stories, but sure, go ahead."
Standing up, Junmyeon revels in the way Lu Han’s brows are pinched together in bewilderment. “But first, there’s a place we need to get to.”
✳✳✳
That is how they end up in Lu Han’s flashy convertible, silence rolling between them, slowly accumulating, as they drive out of the busiest part of the city. Halfway there, Lu Han takes a stick of chewing gum from his pocket and turns on the radio, beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel. He doesn’t ask Junmyeon any more question once they hit the expressway. After that, he makes a turn whenever Junmyeon tells him to.
Every time Junmyeon visits his brother, the sky is clear and it irritates him. It is a gentle reminder that tragedy often strikes when nothing seems to be amiss.
Lu Han doesn’t speak. Simply watches Junmyeon place the bouquet down and trying to find resemblance to Junmyeon in the black-and-white picture.
“They suggested I take anti-depressants. It’s funny. I told them I wasn’t depressed, but they refused to believe me. I wasn’t. Depressed is not being able to fall asleep at night or get out of bed even though it’s already two in the afternoon. Depressed is not being able to taste your food and yet you can’t laugh or cry. Depressed is when you feel nothing at all. Back then and right now? I’d love to feel nothing, and yet I’m feeling everything I don’t want to feel. I’m not depressed. Not at all.”
Lu Han’s expression doesn’t change, but it is clear nevertheless that he doesn’t agree with what Junmyeon has said.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself…”
“He insisted on driving. I wanted to take over but he wouldn’t let me. I should’ve - ”
“Then you’d be the one dead.”
“Yeah, well, I could have lived with that.”
✳✳✳
The next day, Lu Han is gone. He hasn’t left a message or anything, simply left in the middle of the night and Junmyeon finds out when the manager calls him aside to assign him a new VIP guest. He can hide the surprise he is feeling, but the hurt is hard to contain and the manager asks if he is alright. For the first time since he started working at the hotel, Junmyeon takes a sick leave.
He hasn’t forgotten anything: the kisses, the conversations, the sex, and then more conversations…
All of a sudden he feels anger, then just as quickly as it has arrived, it is replaced by that deep sadness.
He has visited the game portal several times after Lu Han left, but there is silence on the other end as well. What is with people disappearing whenever and however they want? Junmyeon has some answers for himself. Each time he opens his mouth to say them, the words dry up, evaporating in his mouth. His mind becomes lost.
Hours turn into days and days turn into weeks. The dull ache of uncertainty Junmyeon has been nursing all this while is replaced by a dull rattle, a struggle against a stubborn coffin lid. He spends too much time lying awake, thinking about Lu Han, remembering how Lu Han touched him; embarrassed by the tears he wants to shed. That deep sadness kicks him just when he thinks it is gone, the same way Lu Han did, and when it does, he doubles over in pain and fights hard to regain his composure. He is losing grip.
Breathing through the pain, he turns off the light and lies on his bed. Listening. Remembering. Desiring. He spends most of his night wondering why everyone he touches seems to bloom - Lu Han’s laughter echoes in his mind - and then wither like a cut flower. Hasn’t the water been enough? Whether or not Junmyeon is the ocean or a simple cup of water, it should have been enough. For at least an eternity more. Sleep comes unexpectedly and it never stays.
He wakes in fright, fighting his bedsheets, the top one twisted around him like a noose. A hand on his chest. A fleeting thought. But he finds that he is alone in his room.
✳✳✳
“Morning, Baekhyun.”
“Hyung! Do you have anything for me to fix today?”
Baekhyun falters when Junmyeon replies him with a smile that means nothing.
“Baekhyun-ah, how do you fix a broken heart?”
✳✳✳
Four weeks after Lu Han’s disappearance, Junmyeon finally quit his job at the hotel, moved out of that pathetic excuse of an apartment, and moved in with Baekhyun. That same week, he got into a fight at the bar at which Baekhyun worked part-time. He has never fought before, not even back in high school when he was teased for being the teacher’s pet and some guy made an offhanded remark about how he would probably sucked cocks to earn all his extra credits. This time, however, he threw a punch at a guy who had refused to back off even after being rejected by Baekhyun twice. Junmyeon hates someone who can’t take “no” for an answer. At the end of the fight, he finally felt something. The fight rekindled the pain that had, until then, been subsiding. Baekhyun had helped him out of the bar, let him sit by the roadside and then waited by a side, watching him shout obscenities at random passengers who dared stare at him.
There is a knock on the door.
Getting up, Junmyeon makes his way to the door cautiously. Nobody knows about this address. Not even Baekhyun.
“Junmyeon, right?” The same infuriating grin, the same boyish face, and the same everything that renders Junmyeon speechless.
Junmyeon can’t quite believe it. This guy disappears for weeks and then comes knocking on his door, smiling the same way he did when they first met? He stares at Lu Han in silent shock. At the back of his mind, a voice whispers for him to slam the door in Lu Han’s smug face, but a louder voice dominates, so he steps aside quietly to let Lu Han come in. If he wants to stab Lu Han to death, he shouldn’t do it where his neighbours can see them.
Lu Han takes a look around but nothing seems to interest him. He motions to Junmyeon’s hand. “Is it broken?”
“Maybe.”
Lu Han gingerly unwraps Junmyeon’s bandage as though expecting to see something gangrenous. Instead it is bruised and swollen. Lu Han makes a sound of disapproval and Junmyeon feels the urge to make the same mistake. To throw a punch at Lu Han and this time, if luck is on his side, he will succeed in breaking his own hand and Lu Han’s nose both at once.
“What made you do it?” Lu Han asks gently.
Junmyeon frowns, thinking through the words he wants to say. In the end, he settles for the truth, “You.”
Lu Han blinks at him. “Me?”
Lu Han looks so surprised it makes Junmyeon want to laugh, but he can’t clear the ball of anger that is lodged in his throat. He looks away and Lu Han seems to catch a whiff of the explanation Junmyeon doesn’t give.
Junmyeon wants to ask Why are you back? but instead he asks, “Why are you here?”
The setting sun is falling on one side of Lu Han’s face and in the harsh lights, the shadows keep dancing. Lu Han’s lips inch upwards and Junmyeon can only watch him as he takes a step closer. “Because I was forced to realize just how much I’ve been missing you.”
Liar, Junmyeon thinks, but he still feels his face flush. Tears close. “You’re only saying that so I won’t kick you out,” he says, trying to wipe his eyes as discreetly as he can, but he doesn’t know if he says it aloud because the words might have been drowned out by a hundred other voices that are saying, Maybe he means it.
These voices allow Lu Han to lean forward, brush his lips against Junmyeon’s, holding the kiss like it is most precious. These voices allow Lu Han to pull Junmyeon close, guide him to the couch, where they spend the rest of the evening talking about mindless things - their favorite movies, Marvel versus DC, how long it takes for the sky to turn dark, and everything else they can possibly think of.
Lu Han has poured him another glass of wine and Junmyeon pauses in the midst of talking about the pets he’s ever kept. He struggles to count in his head. How much has he had to drink? Two pints. A scotch. Four glasses of wine...He has never been good at handling his alcohol. Lu Han is still talking. He talks about Beijing, about his childhood dreams of becoming a soccer player, and about the one time he dreamed that he had a vagina and boobs…
“You know?” Junmyeon slurs.
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s almost as if you never left.”
Junmyeon is trying to shake the fuzziness out of his head. Lu Han’s face is getting blurrier and he can feel his thoughts drifting. Sliding. Spilling over the edge, settling in the holes the dead have left behind. He wants to get himself a glass of water. Maybe that will help him feel better. But his legs are so heavy he can’t move them. He can’t really hear what Lu Han is saying now, so he simply watches Lu Han’s lips move, benumbed by the alcohol coursing in his veins.
What is he saying? It might be goodbye. Or it might be sorry.
✳✳✳
Junmyeon opens his eyes and finds himself alone. He shouldn’t be so unused to this feeling. Lu Han has spoilt him. He listens for a long time, thinking Lu Han might be in the bathroom. The clock by the bed reads 11 a.m. Lu Han’s semen has dried on his thighs and he can still feel Lu Han’s weight pressing him into the mattress, then again, roles reversed. He is wide awake now. His body refuses to go back to sleep and he can’t remember the dreams that have wrenched him from sleep. There is an awful taste in his mouth. Alcohol, mixed with a cacophony of bad feelings.
Out of bed, Junmyeon pulls the curtains apart. A haze hangs over the city, softening the light which spills all over him. Junmyeon wipes a finger along the length of his arm as though the gold finish might come off on his skin. The room is quiet save for the flapping of the curtains against the walls.
Why did he let Lu Han in last night? He has never let anyone know about this apartment, but Lu Han...this troubled man, this good man? Is he truly a good man? Junmyeon hasn’t thought about it last night when he opened the door. He hasn’t been thinking about it for a while now.
Maybe everyone changes when they get what they want. They put on a persona to attract someone but after the sex or the kill or whatever it is, the persona peels off like a bad paint job.
Then, something catches his eyes. A tremor passes through him, a surge of fear.
A single black rose lies in Lu Han’s stead.
What did he say? It might be goodbye. Or it might be sorry.
1. As aforementioned, a single black rose is the symbol for The Dying Game. The color black is synonymous with death and mourning, sadness and farewell, and so many believes black roses to symbolize bereavement, loss and morality; they are often used at funerals. A single black rose might be sent by a close friend and/or loved one leaving for a war or on a journey from which they did not expect to return. However, a more positive meaning does exist for the black rose. It can also represent the beginning of new things, a journey into unexplored territory.
2. Hinging on the meaning of black roses/a single black rose, Lu Han leaving behind a black rose for Junmyeon can be interpreted two ways. One (well...I hope it is obvious that he is the player L, given the few parallels), he has found Junmyeon and has chosen to spare him and they will never meet again or two, he wants this to be a new beginning for the two of them. If you’re confused about the Dying Game, it’s pretty much just everyone pretending to be hired assassins and trying to find their targets (so I guess you need some resources and money for this kind of leisure activities), and once found, you can’t do anything but wait for the ‘winner’ to decide if they want to spare you or not. Obviously this is an alternate, even more fucked up world that allows such a game to exist.
From: ANONYMOUS until May 22, 2014
Title: protect me (from blood red blues)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s)/Focus: Suho/Lu Han
Length: 9847 words
Summary: Junmyeon works as a concierge at his father’s hotel, he meets Lu Han, a wealthy businessman on one of his business trips, and death has kindly invited them to stay for dinner.
Warning/s: Suicidal behavior/thoughts
Notes: Well...this is sort of Professional Gamer AU...yikes. I can’t thank my beta enough for helping me with this and for the mod, who’s been so kind and understanding despite my horrible time-management and all that ;~;
Sunrise.
Junmyeon is woken by the racket of the city coming to life: coffee makers, car engines, photocopier machines. It is already nearly thirty degrees outside. Once the sun hits this side of the building, not even the shutters can keep the heat out.
With a groan of defeat, he forces himself to sit up. Sunlight pours in, falling across his bed in stripes. Time check. He has an hour to get ready before his shift starts. Getting to the hotel takes half an hour, which means he won’t have time to make his own lunch. Sliding out of bed, he kicks aside the shirt he wore to work the previous day and walks over to grab his favorite pair of jeans. He settles for a cheap white shirt (he bought a box of those) because it doesn’t matter what he wears. He has his uniform waiting for him at the hotel.
Breakfast consisted of two cups of water and two slices bread. Nothing tasty. Peanut butter is rather pricey. He hasn’t known that before all of this happened.
He reaches the staff office right on time and spots a familiar face at the sign-in area.
“Morning, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun shoots him his trademark toothy grin. “Hyung! Do you have anything for me to fix today?”
Baekhyun is the youngest technician employed at the hotel. There were some problems back home and he had to quit first year of college to work. Baekhyun is smart. Street-smart. But he trusts people too easily. On his first day of work, he told Junmyeon all about the debt his parents owed, how they had been kicked out of their apartment, and despite all that, his family is the reason he is out here, at his age, doing all of this. Junmyeon wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of one hand and shakes his head apologetically. Baekhyun’s shoulders sag in undisguised disappointment.
“If you want, I can ‘accidentally’ drop my phone and then send it to you for fixing?” Junmyeon offers. In his head, he is calculating the costs and benefits to such a solution to the problem at hand.
Baekhyun laughs, eyes crinkling into crescents, and Junmyeon feels something akin to happiness tickling his stomach. Happiness has avoided him for quite a while now.
“Don’t be ridiculous, hyung! I don’t want you going around breaking things just so someone can fix them.”
Junmyeon shrugs. “Well, you’ll be the first person I go to if I need anything fixed.” He slots his card into the machine, makes sure the correct date is stamped, and pins it to his locker. “Gotta go,” he tells Baekhyun, who is checking out his reflection in the mirror he has stuck to the back of his locker. “Some important guests are arriving at noon. There’s going to be a real big fuss over them.”
“No kidding. Well, good luck!”
✳✳✳
“Welcome, sir, how may I help you?”
Junmyeon has already been briefed about the customer he is now serving. When he was told that he was to show Mister Lu Han, a businessman from Beijing, to his room, whatever it was that he expected, it isn’t this: decked in a trendy black leather jacket that made him look less like a businessman and more like a kid fresh out of college, Lu Han has caught Junmyeon’s attention the minute he stepped out of the guest limousine.
Instead of replying him, Lu Han simply smiles, all too confident that he doesn’t have to tell Junmyeon just how he may be helped.
“Room 165,” Junmyeon swipes the card, registering it in the system, and stands up. He bows slightly. “Please allow me to show you to your room, sir.”
“None of that,” Lu Han says. His eyes flicker down to read Junmyeon’s nametag. “Junmyeon, right?” He speaks Korean fluently. If his name hadn’t given him away, Junmyeon wouldn’t have thought he was a foreigner. “Just call me Lu Han.” He pauses. “Or hyung, whichever you prefer.”
Feeling a flush rising up, Junmyeon simply steps out behind the front desk and leads Lu Han to the lift lobby. “I’m afraid that’s against company protocol.” It went against everything that has been drilled into him when he first signed up for the job.
They are the only ones in the lift and Lu Han doesn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space. He is standing close, too close, and before the door slides open on the sixteenth floor, he leans in so he can whisper in Junmyeon’s ear. “Company protocol? Well, I say we fuck that.”
Junmyeon has never been so glad to be back behind the front desk. Anything to be far, far away from the VIP guest in room 165.
✳✳✳
By the time he gets home, it is ten minutes to midnight. This part of the city is quieting; cars slowing, machines lulled to sleep. Still, the night is young.
Junmyeon wastes no time scrubbing his skin raw in the rain of hot water. The heater stops working after midnight. Even though he hadn’t expected much when he rented the small and dingy apartment for half the average market price, that still took some getting used to.
Stepping out of the bathroom, he takes a quick glance of his room. Clothes and books scattered all over the place. He can’t remember where he left his laptop. Coffee table? Work table?
Bedside table.
He remembers going to sleep right after sending his resume to a printing company. Working at the hotel, even as a mere concierge, means that he is constantly watched and scrutinised. Not by the ones he worry about, but by his parents. He hasn’t talked to them since he moved out in April.
Logging on...
There are a handful of taboos that members of society will go to great lengths to avoid. The Dying Game has recently joined the list. Its symbol is a single black rose. The game is exactly what it sounds like. A game meant for and sponsored by those who feel that they have become tired of living. The setup is excessively grand and that isn’t new: ropes hanging from chandeliers that swung like nooses, asking to be worn like they were the most exquisite string of diamonds, pearls, or whatever that was preferred. The choice is theirs.
You have successfully logged on.
There are terms and conditions before someone can start playing. Nobody is a hundred percent sure how the game works. Nobody knows who designed it or how it was designed. As for what exactly is the point of the game? Nobody cares. It is a game, one of the biggest gambles (sometimes the last) of their lives. They play it simply because they can afford to. One can easily tire of a rich lifestyle. They have time, too much time. Many of them fear death and yet they are fascinated by it.
Welcome back to the game, Suho.
Junmyeon knows some people who think that the Dying Game is just a game, nothing more, until, well, they find out that it isn’t. The idea of having to track down someone who can either be oceans away or lives next door - the one whose chihuahua peed on your shoes - sounds fun. A little mystery, thrill, and blood. They will keep believing that it is a mere game, just a game, until they are found by another player in the arena. Junmyeon credits his beginner luck for not having been found by anyone yet. When found, the winner gets to take their pick: death, or a new beginning.
✳✳✳
It is a bright day, full of possibility. Blue skies, warm (but not too hot) weather, and it is his day off. Junmyeon doesn’t plan to initiate a conversation with anyone else. He has logged on to the game just for the sake of logging on. He should probably tackle the pile of clothes on his bed but he doesn’t want to. Cleaning after his own mess has never been his forte. He is better at cleaning up after others. Odd, isn’t it? Pushing the responsibilities of living alone aside, he turns back to the screen. A pop-up window is blinking at him.
L. has requested for a private chat.
It isn’t the first time he has seen this user around.
L. 27. Asian.
There isn’t anything else written on his profile. Junmyeon reckons he can easily be one of them. One of those kids who party more than they study in college because they don’t need to chase their dreams. They have been living the dreams of many others since birth. Junmyeon knows such a life well. He used to be one of them. His gut feeling tells him that this guy, L, is more than that.
Everyone in this game knows L. He is, afterall, the infamous impossible-to-beat player known for ruthlessness both in the game and out. Junmyeon has tried digging around and all he received were words of warnings. Do not mess with L, because he always wins; he will resort to anything to win.
Junmyeon has rejected L’s chat requests before. Barely a minute after he had signed up for the game, the request was sent. Junmyeon was a newbie (and he still is), but he knew a fiery pit when he saw one.
Request accepted. Loading private chat-room…
✳✳✳
In retrospect, Junmyeon never thought of living a life like this, but a lot of things happened last summer. A situation developed and Junmyeon moved out, quit med school and around the same time, took up his job at the hotel. None of his friends understood why, of all places in the city, he chose to work at his father’s hotel. If he had wanted to get away, he should have picked somewhere else.
A month after that, he joined the Dying Game.
The first person he private-messaged was a boy called Kai. It didn’t take much for Junmyeon to find out his real name: Kim Jongin, who recently found out that he was suffering from distal muscular dystrophy, which was going to gradually weaken the muscles of his arms, forearms and lower legs. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it spelled the end of his life-long aspiration to become a professional dancer.
Suho: You aren’t at the end of the road. Trust me. Your life has only just begun. Get out of this place, kiddo. Go out there, breathe in some fresh air, and explore the possibilities. The stage may have changed, but it is still yours.
Kai is typing…
Junmyeon was just about to log off when a new message came in.
Kai: What about you?
He smiled.
Suho: Have a nice day, Jongin. Goodbye.
✳✳✳
He had visited his brother’s grave once. It was six months after the accident and his parents knew nothing about it. He made sure there wasn’t a hint of sadness on his face. His brother liked it better when he smiled. He stood there for four hours, closely watched by the unrelenting sun.
The trees surrounding the cemetery were lungs filling with air. Junmyeon’s were starting to fill with blood.
“Six broken ribs, a punctured lung, a cracked femur, two broken arms, and a fractured skull. He keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. There is a blood clot in his brain and we need your permission to operate on him immediately. If all goes well, he will live.”
For his parents, that was the only comfort. They had only just lost their elder son. They couldn’t afford to lose Junmyeon too.
The blood had to drain away. Despite his condition stabilizing, two weeks after the first operation, the coma persisted. “These things,” his parents were told, “they are sometimes a mystery. He needs a reason to wake up.” The doctors held out little hope, but as it turned out, the heavens were on his side. He spent months at the hospital, being pieced back together by an excellent surgeon (“trained in the United States,” his parents assured him, even though he hadn’t doubted that they had gotten him nothing but the best) and nurses who won’t stop trying to flirt with him after he had regained consciousness.
“The fracture”, he remembers the surgeon saying and touching his skull. He mimics the action, feeling where the scar runs over his scalp, hidden by previously blond hair, now dyed back to black, “too much blood”.
The sun grew tired waiting for him and slowly, it backed away. The horizon was stained red and beyond, that was where death lurked.
He hadn’t been happy when he woke. He still isn’t. How can he, when he had survived what his brother had not?
The plume of dust and smoke still drifted across the skyline and the smell of the bouquet of roses Junmyeon had bought on a whim mixed with the ugly, sweet stench of grief.
Faintly, he could hear the invisible bells ringing in the trees.
✳✳✳
Late evening. The weather had turned. Wind thrashed against the weary apartment building and rain rattled against the windows. They wanted to be let in, to sweep him away to someplace (good or bad, Junmyeon doesn’t know). His computer took a while to start up and he should probably get a new one, but he didn't have the money for it. He couldn't possibly use their money, that was for sure.
Seconds passed slowly and closing his eyes, his mind was flooded with images. The thunderstorm was playing tricks on him.
Ping!
A new private chat request and Junmyeon smiled when he saw who it is. He had been speaking to this player who called himself ‘Park’, and Junmyeon can’t help but wonder how Park hadn't been found by other players yet; he posted all sorts of things on his home page - gigs he went to every weekend, his favourite places of hangout...Junmyeon also couldn't help but wonder if Park was doing all this on purpose. He won’t be surprised if he was.
Park was a pretty interesting guy. All of them had been interesting, but Park was slightly different; he reminded Junmyeon a lot of his brother. Not an exact replica, but bits and pieces of him hit hard when Junmyeon least expected them to. Junmyeon remembered what his father once told him.
“You and your brother...you are complete opposites. He’s like fire and you, water. It isn’t a bad thing.”
His father never elaborated. Junmyeon never got to find out if he’s like an ocean, full of secrets, or if he was merely a glass of water, plain and all too easy to read.
Park is typing…
Park: hey what’s up?
Junmyeon had done a good share of digging around. He was good at it. Several times he had to put his father’s name to use and felt shame trickling down his back. He had always been the pride and joy of the family, so was his brother, but not anymore.
Suho: Nothing much. How did the gig go?
Park: pretty good...got a few numbers and you know, the usual stuff…
He wondered how Park, real name Park Chanyeol, would take it if Junmyeon was to tell him that he had already been found out. Chanyeol had an impressive track record for losing his temper all too easily, be it at gigs or at parties. Two years ago, he was at a party and some things went horribly wrong. Three injured, one dead. Fire was a useful thing, but people often forget that it was just as dangerous - it would make sure one never makea the same mistake twice.
But here Chanyeol was, making the exact same mistake he had made two years ago. Disregarding his life, disregarding others’, simply because rage had blinded him. How could Junmyeon possibly stop the fire from swallowing him whole? The waves inside him offered no answer.
Junmyeon considered his options, downed his cup of tea and went back to typing.
✳✳✳
L is typing…
L: East or West?
Not one to beat about the bushes. Junmyeon takes a moment to deliberate, then begins to type.
Suho: East. You?
Junmyeon’s shoulders loosen. He rubs his hands together and while waiting for a reply, he went to get a can of Nescafe and a packet of digestive biscuits. When he returns, he has the answer he wants.
L: East. Are we playing 21 questions?
Suho: Only if you’re up for it.
L: You first.
Suho: Is L the first letter of your name?
L: My family’s. My turn. What’s with ‘Suho’? That can’t be your real name, right?
Junmyeon types and points out that they are asking two questions.
L: But I am only asking for one answer.
Suho is typing…
Suho: What if I don’t give you one?
L: A forfeit.
Suho: Ask me something else.
L: You’re no fun. Right. Okay. I got another one. What would it take for you to kill yourself?
Suho: ...What sort of question is that? We’re playing a game called “The Dying Game”.
L: Exactly. Come on, it’s just a question...or are you going to forfeit again?
Suho: I don’t believe in suicides.
L: Liar. What if you’re in awful pain, dying from a terrible disease? Or if you’re starring in a SAW movie and someone was making you eat yourself?
Suho: You ask a lot of questions.
L: And you aren’t answering most of them.
Suho: There are painkillers.
L: Not in SAW movies. What if you were suffering from dementia and can’t even remember your own name?
Suho: Am I really suffering then? If I had dementia it wouldn’t matter.
L: What if you’re being tortured by the Russians for information?
Suho: Why is it always the Russians? And plus, I don’t have any top secret information.
L: It’s always the Russians. What if someone had a bomb on the bus and they were going to blow it to the sky? Would you shield everyone from the bomb by hugging it?
Suho: Where are you getting all your questions from? ...and how is that going to save anyone?
L: I think about stuff all the time, like how one decision, even a small one, can change your life. Maybe someone else’s. I have really weird dreams, y’know? I once dreamed I had a vagina and boobs. Does that make me bisexual?
Suho: ...
L: Tell me, what are you thinking about right now?
Suho: Is this how you charm everyone you talk to in this game? Joke around, ask them silly questions, and slowly, slyly, you dig into their heads. Smooth.
L is typing…
Junmyeon waits patiently for the screen to start blinking again. Next door, someone flushes a toilet. Water flushes through the pipes in the walls.
L: Ah. You’re one of those.
Suho: One of those?
L: You already know this, don’t you? Suho… we’re just suicidal people telling other suicidal people that suicide isn’t the answer.
There is a pause. Both of them are making calculations, measuring distances. Geography, geometry, and time. How long will it take for either one of them to find the other?
L: So...back to 21 questions. What’s your favorite colour?
✳✳✳
For the past few days, Junmyeon hadn’t been able to sleep well. Right this instant, he is staring at the shut windows, out at the night sky, asking himself why he is awake. In his mind, he is taking a walk up that familiar path, past the park two streets from his parent’s place and towards the car wreck painted at the deserted junction. He is also remembering the steps to tie a dead knot, the way his brother taught him. His hands are trembling. It doesn’t seem to be working. He repeats it close to over ten times, trying to get it right. Then, he shakes his head and laughs at the audacity of it - a memory he did his best to seal away.
Slick with blood, the memory re-enters his head, cleanly, like a knife.
The room temperature drops by a few degrees - or perhaps it is only his imagination - and he feels that he has to get out of here. His fractured memory has bonded with the ones he has newly brought home, and he can’t seem to reassemble enough of it. The pain is too much and the grief, suffocating. He feels that if he can put a name to whatever it is that he is suffering from, he can control it. Post traumatic stress disorder? That has the right sound, but it is too clinical to give him a handle on. Time wears on and he decides that perhaps the medical label doesn’t matter anyway.
The only thing that matters is the effect it has on him, and on his life.
The lift is under repair. It has been under repair for the past six months. Junmyeon takes the stairs. It isn’t the running that makes him pant. Snagging a cab by the bus stop, he gets on. It is only when the driver asks him for a destination that he realizes he doesn’t have one in mind.
“What address?” the driver asks again impatiently.
Just follow the smoke and the sirens. “Jungwon high school.”
The driver drops him off in front of the eatery that was his brother’s favorite hangout back then. Junmyeon could always count on finding him there, but not anymore.
✳✳✳
[12: 01 pm] Baekhyun: hyung! you have night shift today, right? hwaiting! \o/
Pocketing his phone with a smile, he stands up, tells Tiffany that he is going to take a break. She nods, still texting her boyfriend, or boyfriends, Junmyeon doesn’t really care to find out.
The hotel’s blueprint hangs above his father’s desk, accompanied by a family photo taken at his brother’s college graduation ceremony. When Junmyeon told his friends he knew every nook and cranny of the hotel by heart, he wasn’t kidding. Now, he wishes he can forget. Only then can he pack up his stuff and go some place far, far away. By staying, he is only breaking his parents’ heart. He doesn’t know any other way to set things right. He has always been a son they are proud of, but he can never replace his brother.
There is already someone sitting by the pool and the manmade sandpit next to it. If one closes their eyes, digs their feet into the sand, they can pretend that the sounds of waves coming home to the shore are real.
Junmyeon simply stands by the pool, wondering whether he should signal to Lu Han that he is there. But before he can reach a decisions, Lu Han spots him. When he sees Junmyeon, he gives a nod and nothing more. It both pleased and irked him.
“Can’t sleep?” He takes a look at the wine bottle Lu Han is holding and makes no comment about it.
Lu Han nods. His eyes are bright, the kind that never really focus on anything, that thrive off their own secrets. He gives Junmyeon this smile. It reveals nothing. He is good looking; he must have been a boy prettier than any girl in his classes. Junmyeon doesn’t let that influence his judgement. Some of the meanest guys he knew back in boarding school were real handsome kids.
“What about you? Work?”
Junmyeon shrugs, “Sort of.”
Lu Han grins. “Sort of?”
“I’m taking a break.”
It is a dangerous impulse. He takes a step closer and Lu Han watches him, still smiling. There are stars in his eyes. That should be a warning enough. “From?”
“Everything, I guess.” A laugh pops from his mouth. “I haven’t taken a break in a while.”
Lu Han offers his hand and Junmyeon takes it. Warm, alive. Lu Han’s grin fills his face. It is a familiar one, that knowing and vaguely condescending smile that Junmyeon wants to dislike but can’t. “Well, I have an ide
They end up at the seaside. Junmyeon hasn’t been to this place for years, even though it is only a twenty-minute walk away from the hotel, or a ten-minute bus ride from his parents’ place. The waves caresses the shore with the same gentleness the wind touches Junmyeon’s hair with.
Junmyeon watches Lu Han brush sand off his legs. In the moonlight, Lu Han bends over, resembling a cracked hourglass. He straightens up, whole again. Junmyeon looks away. Everyday he learns something new. This day he learns that Lu Han has a scar that was the length of a toothpick under his right knee. He also learns something else, but he doesn’t wish to acknowledge it. He draws a long breath, exhales. Repeats.
He starts considering an idea - slowly, carefully.
✳✳✳
Today is the anniversary of his brother’s death.
There is a faint pervasive scent in the room that transports Junmyeon back to the seaside. The sky is lightening ever so slowly and he winces when he feels his stomach cramp and the vomit rising. The pain passes and Junmyeon fees something like freedom. Not freedom exactly, because he knows he has to work towards that, but he is certainly lighter. It is with this self-delusion that he turns on his computer and accepts the chat request L has sent him.
L is typing…
L: Why are you always waiting for me to get the conversation started?
Suho: Why do you always start the conversation with a question?
L: There you go again. Replying a question with a question.
Junmyeon tries to imagine L staring at his computer screen in frustration. The idea pleases him.
Suho: Well, it’s that or lying.
✳✳✳✳✳✳
The rest of the week passes in a blur. All too soon, it is time for him to pack up and head home, free to do whatever he wants for the weekend. He bids his colleagues farewell and slowly makes his way out of the concierge.
The idea he has shoved aside is back, and again, he is considering it.
A knock on the door. Junmyeon realizes his mistake but it is too late for him to revise his decision. The door of room 165 swings open and Junmyeon finds himself face to face with Lu Han.
“Oh,” Lu Han is dressed in a simple black tee and he looks like he has only just woken up. He doesn’t look surprised to see Junmyeon there. “Hello there.”
Junmyeon blames grief for his first foolish mistake, his next foolish mistake, and everything else in between.
✳✳✳
Time eclipses as they are dragged down by soft kisses that eventually turn into harsh, urgent ones. Lu Han is intoxicating. Junmyeon likes the weight of Lu Han on him, pressing down, pressing in, pressing close. So close that Junmyeon can count his lashes.
It is as though they are taking a fraction of each other and imbuing them together. Words can’t describe how it works and nor can they describe what it feels like.
Lu Han is riding Junmyeon’s cock. His forehead is wet with sweat, hair sticking together haphazardly, and his cheeks are red, but there is no doubt that he is in control. There is a fire in Lu Han’s eyes that has Junmyeon weak with lust and surrendering to Lu Han is easy, so incredibly easy that it really ought to scare him, except it doesn’t.
“Lu Han, please. Please. Faster.” A moan slid out from the back of Junmyeon’s throat as Lu Han drops. He is so unbelievably tight. All Junmyeon can do is to dig his heels into the sheets, hands bruising Lu Han’s skin as Lu Han works to bring both of them to orgasm. He blinks sweat from his eyes and keeps his eyes locked on Lu Han. Swollen pink lips. Muscular thighs flexing with every lift, every drop. Every now and then he will brush a hand up Junmyeon’s neck, sinking fingertips into soft skin, marking Junmyeon as his.
Lu Han reaches orgasm first. He groans, his eyelids fluttering shut, legs spreading further apart, and it is too much. Losing energy, he nearly collapses forward, arms bracing on Junmyeon’s check. He grinds out his release and leans in to kiss Junmyeon sloppily, and Junmyeon comes soon after with a soft whisper of Lu Han’s name.
Later, lying naked in the air-conditioned room, his heartbeat slowly returning to normal, Junmyeon keeps thinking back on the moment when pleasure overcomes and the wave breaks inside him.
✳✳✳
The clock reads two in the morning. Sweat clings to Junmyeon’s back and the sheets he is lying on but he doesn’t want to move. Lu Han is leaning on his side, staring at Junmyeon who is staring at the ceiling. His eyes are soft, and it is the first time since they have met that Junmyeon feels a stir of certain feelings. The aftermath has always been the most powerful, the strongest strike.
“How old are you?” Lu Han asks.
“Younger than you. How did you know that, anyway?” Junmyeon remembers the suggestion Lu Han offered him at the front desk. Hyung, he thinks, he hasn’t called anyone that in a long, long time.
Lu Han tries to shrug, but it looks weird seeing that he is lying on his side. Only one shoulder moves. “Just a hunch.”
“You don’t look any older than me,” Junmyeon frowns when Lu Han replies him with a laugh.
Pointing at the lines at the corners of his eyes, Lu Han keeps smiling. “I have wrinkles, kid.”
He looks silly when he laughs like that. Features scrunching up, mouth so wide Junmyeon could probably shove a pillow in, and Junmyeon likes it because it is so genuine. Like the smile of a baby. He waits for Lu Han to sober up, rebuild his wall of secrets, going back to staring at Junmyeon, who has stopped looking at him and his stupid laugh.
“What are you here for? In Korea.”
“A business trip.”
Junmyeon fixes him with a stare that tells him he is not fooling anybody with that excuse. “Really?”
“And to take a break.”
“From what?”
“The usual,” Lu Han begins to list, “Meetings, golf, parties, killing sprees…”
Junmyeon says nothing at first, because he doesn’t want to speak too quickly, too unthinkingly. He reassesses his terror. “Do you have a chainsaw stashed under this bed? Should I run? Or will jumping out of the window guarantee a more painless death?” He tries telling his heart to slow down.
Lu Han laughs. “Don’t worry, I think I like you alive.”
The worst timing, but Junmyeon finds himself blushing. He opens his mouth to speak, to say something like “Thank god you aren’t the Chinese version of Jack the ripper”, but Lu Han beats him to it.
“My father passed away earlier this month. My mother has been emotionally unstable even before his death, but now, she’s gotten from bad to worse. Seeing me, she can’t help but think that I am my father, and the family doctor advices me to take a trip away from Beijing. They are putting her under intensive care and under a close watch. Make sure she doesn’t do anything, y’know, crazy.”
Junmyeon nods, finally understanding.
“Was your father a businessman too? Did you inherit his business?”
A laugh. Lu Han shakes his head, looking thoroughly amused by the idea of that.
“He was a mathematician. He taught at the university. When he wasn’t teaching he spent his time calculating possibilities, working with numbers like they were his children, forgetting he had a son waiting for him to come home and bring him toys or to bring him to the annual father-son relay.” Lu Han chews the inside of his mouth and, just when Junmyeon starts to wonder if he is going to cry, he continues, “He was completely lost in his thoughts. Living in numbers. They called him a genius back when he was a kid, then he outgrew the term and they switched to calling him a professional. He was good at what he did and he loved it.”
“He forgot dates. He could remember all the formulas, could solve whatever he sets out to solve, but he often forgot appointments with the doctor, anniversaries, shopping lists..and so on. Sometimes, in the middle of a family dinner, he would begin mumbling to himself and had to jot things down on the tablecloth. This was why my mother always bought white tablecloths. So that he could write things down. Once, he gave me a new laptop for my birthday. It wasn’t my birthday, but my mother’s.”
Softly, Junmyeon asks, “How does your mother cope with all of that?”
Lu Han grunted amusement. “My mother? She accepted every single one of his foibles and follies. That’s what she called them. She couldn’t understand why he did what he did, but she accepted it. She consoled herself with the knowledge that he would always remember, even if he had spent the rest of the time forgetting. Now that he’s gone? I think she can’t be bothered to keep pretending that his faith in something other than his family hadn’t bothered her the least. She has given up on the idea of living, I think. And that vexes me. Which is why I’m here. I don’t want to see her give up on herself.”
He looks at Junmyeon, waiting for Junmyeon to say something, but Junmyeon knows that he wants to talk some more. It seems that Lu Han has kept all of this to himself for a very long time and now that there is someone to listen, someone he feels he can entrust his secrets with, he can’t hold back.
“You know what’s funny?”
Of course not.
“I always thought it was quite ironic that my father had never taken a risk in his life. Not once.”
Junmyeon opens his mouth, changes his mind. Tries again. “He doesn’t gamble?”
“Never. I suppose anyone who knows all about probability would never gamble. It’s like a fireman playing with fire, a dietitian eating fast food for all three meals a day, or a son like me doing the same things my father had done to his family.” Lu Han stops to think about what he has just said. “All his life, he only has debts to pay. For a math genius, he is pretty lousy with money. I suppose that’s why I became a businessman. I want to be able to pay for my kid’s tuition fees, his first car, and then some.”
Junmyeon has been taught to tell the difference between pain observed and pain shared. Lu Han gives him a smile, one that reflects all the pain he has been suffering from - pain his father had inflicted upon him. Junmyeon can’t really tell the difference anymore.
✳✳✳
It is amazing how much junk Junmyeon has accumulated over the past two years. Like an overzealous squirrel storing up more nuts than it can ever eat, Baekhyun once pointed out. Has he really thought all this crap could fill up the space inside him? The space his previous life used to occupy?
Having just sold his old laptop and an MP3 player his father got him for his birthday (he has forgotten which), he is on his way back to his apartment. He walks slowly, staring straight ahead. At times, he stops breathing through his nose and instead breathes with his mouth, as if trying to taste the wind as it rushes past him. He doesn’t pause to examine the rows of peeling, sagging homes around him. It doesn’t matter how big or small the houses. They can be just as empty, and if people want to leave their lives behind, that should their business, not his. He has his own life to attend to, his own life to guard.
Except Lu Han’s words stayed on his mind all weekend. They parted and exchanged numbers after Junmyeon received a call from Tiffany, who was wondering where he was. She said nothing about his disappearance from work for three whole hours and instead settled for shooting him curious looks. He made sure to busy himself with checking his work email for updates on his work schedule next week.
I suppose anyone who knows all about probability would never gamble.
After the junction, he looks down. From this point onwards, he prefers to keep his eyes fixed on the pavement, trying to draw some genuine interest in observing the cracks that twist and turn and fight to keep up with his pace.
Is that what he is doing with the game? Teaching people he doesn’t even know, people he will never ever meet, all about probability? If the probability of dying becomes greater than half, most people will chicken out. Is that what Junmyeon is trying to do? Making them think that, then letting the fear factor kick in, kicking them into realizing that hey, I don’t actually want to die just yet.
Then, for some strange reason, he is reminded of what L had told him the first time they talked.
We’re just suicidal people telling other suicidal people that suicide isn’t the answer.
Junmyeon reaches his doorstep and gets this urge to throw his key out of the window down the corridor. He waits it out. The urge passes and he slowly takes out his key to open the door of his apartment. Kicking his shoes aside, going straight to bed.
Junmyeon likes to eat at exact, predetermined times. It is the same at work. He takes five minutes to finish the sides, then ten minutes to finish the rest. It often frustrates Baekhyun, who claims that he eats like a robot, all too mechanically. In response, Junmyeon claims that the routine is a comfort to him. It gives him a better sense of day and night, of the weeks and months passing, the time he is saving, or wasting.
Today, however, is an exception. An abnormally. Outside, it has started raining. Lying there, on his bed, Junmyeon begins counting slowly, his mouth almost too dry to make the words. One...two...three... The room is quiet. He stops. Listens. Rain gurgles in the downpipes. Wind shakes the trees.
He places his hand upon his chest, feeling for his own heartbeat. Then, he curls up, placing his arms around his form, trying to protect himself from monsters.
✳✳✳
"Junmyeon," rasps a voice.
Junmyeon's eyes are wide open now. He looks around the room.
"Can you hear me?"
He can't shake off the strange bout of exhaustion that has his hands tied and bound, useless in a fight. He is dragged off his bed. It is like a spotlight has been turned on and he is left there, wondering just what the hell is going on.
A hand covers his mouth and nose, warm and hard against his lips and teeth. Another holds a gun that glints even without a light source, and it presses the barrel to Junmyeon's mouth, forcing it between his lips, into his throat, making him gag. The darkness smiles, and everything is distorted by something that could only be described to be pure madness.
Everything is dark. Junmyeon can see into the creature's eyes. Empty. Bottomless. They remind him of something from his childhood, a weekend at the countryside upon his brother's insistence - an old abandoned well in the garden, hidden by the trees, covered up and sealed with a metal grate. Young, he was curious and peered into the well, wondering if it was a real voice he heard or just something from his imagination. At times he felt like the well was breathing like the nostrils of a sleeping giant.
He has faced death before. He thought he wouldn't be afraid of it a second time. He was wrong. Afraid of it he is, as the barrel of the fun is traced down his cheek. Across his lips. Over his chin to his neck. Then back to his lips.
Junmyeon leans in. The darkness reacts as thought scalded, rearing backwards. Junmyeon's lips fall apart, courage crumbling, body shivering from a draught without a source. Once again he is reminded of the imagined sleeping giant.
He is allowed a moment of reprieve. The, the darkness is back once more. It is different, but this time, Junmyeon recognizes it. He knows this dream. It is the same loop he watches on the wrong side of every night - the litany of destruction and misery. And it always end the same way, with his brother’s broken body, his brown eyes open, blood on his lips.
✳✳✳
The sound of his phone ringing startles Junmyeon awake from the nightmare.
“It’s me,” Lu Han says.
“Hello.”
“You sound terrible.” There is some rustling coming from Lu Han’s end. Junmyeon shifts so that he is sitting back down on bed, leaning against the wall and pulling his pillow from behind him to put it on his lap.
“About the other night - ”
Truth to be told, Junmyeon didn’t know if he was going to meet Lu Han again. He hasn’t been sure if that was a once-off thing.
“I have never done that before,” Junmyeon admitted.
“No you haven’t. I would have remembered you.”
Junmyeon laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls of his room. He isn’t sure if his neighbours can hear him. Over the phone, Lu Han joins him in laughing. He seems to be very confident of his flirting capabilities.
“Smooth,” Junmyeon replies. He remembers what he has been meaning to ask, “Do you regret it now?”
Lu Han is quiet for a long time. “I always regret things. It’s my automatic response to just about every decision I make.”
Annoyingly, Junmyeon again feels that vague familiarity. It is in Lu Han’s words, and in the way he says it. But from where? He has never met someone like Lu han. He would have remembered them. His stomach convulsed, as if to remind him of something he has forgotten. What is it?
“You’ve come to the right place, then. This is a world full of regrets.”
“Have you come to the right place?”
Silence. He should say something.
“Can we meet again tonight?” Lu Han speaks before he can reply.
Junmyeon can’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
“That soon?”
Lu Han laughs, “It’s good to strike when the iron’s hot.”
Junmyeon’s turn to laugh. “Is it that hard?”
“Like a brick.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
In spite saying that, Junmyeon feels his face flush and blood rushing to other places.
“By the way,” Lu Han says, and Junmyeon stills because there is a change in his tone, “I have a question and it’s got nothing to do with the thing you do with your pelvic floor muscles.”
Junmyeon’s face can’t possibly get any redder than this. “The thing?”
“Yes.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, that’s what he said,” Lu Han can’t hold back his laughter on his end of the line and Junmyeon joins him.
“You’re the worst.”
“I’ll ask you another time,” Lu Han says, words squeezed between laughs, “And I mean what I said. I still want to see you later.”
“More like you want my body,” Junmyeon jokes.
“Hmm, we can go grab dinner first...or not.”
Junmyeon laughs again. “Second dates are always trickier, you know?”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad.”
“I’m a very complex human being.”
“How so?”
“I’ve done some crazy. You won't believe it."
"I'll try to keep an open mind."
"Things get poisoned if you leave them open. Polluted, moldy. They collect rainwater. Leaves. Things you don't want to keep. Memories you don't want to remember."
“We’ll see about that, Junmyeon. See you later.”
✳✳✳
There was an enormous silence in the room when Junmyeon woke alone. He sat up slowly, groggy from sleep, and it took a while for him to realize that it was an awfully early hour for him to be awake. The windows were fogged by the cold air, breaths, and clamouring voices. He felt a tingle all over his body, and gradually, the voices started sounding like the rumble before a clap of thunder.
Something was amiss. Junmyeon couldn’t quite put a finger to it. The silence is deafening, cutting deep. Lu Han has left. Disappointment is a bitter taste and Junmyeon tells himself he didn’t think Lu Han would have stayed the night. We’ll meet again.
Looking outside, he can barely make out the shapes and colors of the city. What does dawn do but sharpen the city’s edges? It is as if he is separated from the world outside by staind glass. It is safe to say that the night is almost gone, and so has Lu Han’s scent, bringing with them memories of yesterday.
Junmyeon opens the curtains and succeeds in dividing the room with angled light. There was an overnight storm, he remembers it faintly, but it has long since passed.
The bruises on Junmyeon's cheek have faded but if he presses hard enough, he can still feel it beneath his skin. Lu Han. A souvenir. No, that is not the word he wants. A reminder.
The door clicks open. His heart leaps.
"I thought you had already left."
"It's my room," Lu Han says, smiling, and Junmyeon's skin prickles with embarrassment.
"I know," he replies lamely. "I mean, you know, for work."
"Oh. Right." Lu Han casually drops his room card on the bedside table. "I work from home. Or wherever I want, really."
Nodding, Junmyeon makes his way across the room awkwardly. He feels the desperate need for an instruction manual that can teach him how to make conversations with someone who is more than just some one-night stand. Or at least that is what this feels like.
“Are you in the mood for breakfast in bed or somewhere else?” Lu Han asks while shamelessly keeping his eyes on Junmyeon as Junmyeon puts on some clothes for the sake of easing the awkwardness that has settled in his stomach.
“Does it matter?”
Lu Han simply shakes his head. “Is everything with you a question? Come on, let’s get out of here.”
There is a cafe down the street that serves some really good coffee and breakfast combinations, so Junmyeon leads Lu Han there. On their way there, Lu Han stops to make faces at a cat and earns himself a lazy, disinterested yawn from the fair maiden. Junmyeon doesn’t stop laughing until they have reached their destination.
“Iced Americano,” Junmyeon says after they are seated by the window. He has bought himself a croissant and a potato salad with latte to go. He stares at Lu Han, who stares back curiously.
“Yes,” Lu Han replies, “Why?”
Junmyeon shakes his head, biting back the urge to tell Lu Han that he shouldn’t be drinking cold drinks in the morning and Lu Han shrugs, going back to his food, digging in with fervor.
Once they are done with the simple meal, the awkwardness is back. For Junmyeon, at least.
Lu Han is the first to break the silence. “Hey. How about you tell me something about your family?”
Junmyeon isn't looking at him now. His lips are thin lines. Cautious. "Why the interest?"
"Because I like stories. Plus, I told you a story of mine. It's only fair for you tell me one of yours."
"I have a story for you. But it's a sad one."
"Well. I can't say I like sad stories, but sure, go ahead."
Standing up, Junmyeon revels in the way Lu Han’s brows are pinched together in bewilderment. “But first, there’s a place we need to get to.”
✳✳✳
That is how they end up in Lu Han’s flashy convertible, silence rolling between them, slowly accumulating, as they drive out of the busiest part of the city. Halfway there, Lu Han takes a stick of chewing gum from his pocket and turns on the radio, beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel. He doesn’t ask Junmyeon any more question once they hit the expressway. After that, he makes a turn whenever Junmyeon tells him to.
Every time Junmyeon visits his brother, the sky is clear and it irritates him. It is a gentle reminder that tragedy often strikes when nothing seems to be amiss.
Lu Han doesn’t speak. Simply watches Junmyeon place the bouquet down and trying to find resemblance to Junmyeon in the black-and-white picture.
“They suggested I take anti-depressants. It’s funny. I told them I wasn’t depressed, but they refused to believe me. I wasn’t. Depressed is not being able to fall asleep at night or get out of bed even though it’s already two in the afternoon. Depressed is not being able to taste your food and yet you can’t laugh or cry. Depressed is when you feel nothing at all. Back then and right now? I’d love to feel nothing, and yet I’m feeling everything I don’t want to feel. I’m not depressed. Not at all.”
Lu Han’s expression doesn’t change, but it is clear nevertheless that he doesn’t agree with what Junmyeon has said.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself…”
“He insisted on driving. I wanted to take over but he wouldn’t let me. I should’ve - ”
“Then you’d be the one dead.”
“Yeah, well, I could have lived with that.”
✳✳✳
The next day, Lu Han is gone. He hasn’t left a message or anything, simply left in the middle of the night and Junmyeon finds out when the manager calls him aside to assign him a new VIP guest. He can hide the surprise he is feeling, but the hurt is hard to contain and the manager asks if he is alright. For the first time since he started working at the hotel, Junmyeon takes a sick leave.
He hasn’t forgotten anything: the kisses, the conversations, the sex, and then more conversations…
All of a sudden he feels anger, then just as quickly as it has arrived, it is replaced by that deep sadness.
He has visited the game portal several times after Lu Han left, but there is silence on the other end as well. What is with people disappearing whenever and however they want? Junmyeon has some answers for himself. Each time he opens his mouth to say them, the words dry up, evaporating in his mouth. His mind becomes lost.
Hours turn into days and days turn into weeks. The dull ache of uncertainty Junmyeon has been nursing all this while is replaced by a dull rattle, a struggle against a stubborn coffin lid. He spends too much time lying awake, thinking about Lu Han, remembering how Lu Han touched him; embarrassed by the tears he wants to shed. That deep sadness kicks him just when he thinks it is gone, the same way Lu Han did, and when it does, he doubles over in pain and fights hard to regain his composure. He is losing grip.
Breathing through the pain, he turns off the light and lies on his bed. Listening. Remembering. Desiring. He spends most of his night wondering why everyone he touches seems to bloom - Lu Han’s laughter echoes in his mind - and then wither like a cut flower. Hasn’t the water been enough? Whether or not Junmyeon is the ocean or a simple cup of water, it should have been enough. For at least an eternity more. Sleep comes unexpectedly and it never stays.
He wakes in fright, fighting his bedsheets, the top one twisted around him like a noose. A hand on his chest. A fleeting thought. But he finds that he is alone in his room.
✳✳✳
“Morning, Baekhyun.”
“Hyung! Do you have anything for me to fix today?”
Baekhyun falters when Junmyeon replies him with a smile that means nothing.
“Baekhyun-ah, how do you fix a broken heart?”
✳✳✳
Four weeks after Lu Han’s disappearance, Junmyeon finally quit his job at the hotel, moved out of that pathetic excuse of an apartment, and moved in with Baekhyun. That same week, he got into a fight at the bar at which Baekhyun worked part-time. He has never fought before, not even back in high school when he was teased for being the teacher’s pet and some guy made an offhanded remark about how he would probably sucked cocks to earn all his extra credits. This time, however, he threw a punch at a guy who had refused to back off even after being rejected by Baekhyun twice. Junmyeon hates someone who can’t take “no” for an answer. At the end of the fight, he finally felt something. The fight rekindled the pain that had, until then, been subsiding. Baekhyun had helped him out of the bar, let him sit by the roadside and then waited by a side, watching him shout obscenities at random passengers who dared stare at him.
There is a knock on the door.
Getting up, Junmyeon makes his way to the door cautiously. Nobody knows about this address. Not even Baekhyun.
“Junmyeon, right?” The same infuriating grin, the same boyish face, and the same everything that renders Junmyeon speechless.
Junmyeon can’t quite believe it. This guy disappears for weeks and then comes knocking on his door, smiling the same way he did when they first met? He stares at Lu Han in silent shock. At the back of his mind, a voice whispers for him to slam the door in Lu Han’s smug face, but a louder voice dominates, so he steps aside quietly to let Lu Han come in. If he wants to stab Lu Han to death, he shouldn’t do it where his neighbours can see them.
Lu Han takes a look around but nothing seems to interest him. He motions to Junmyeon’s hand. “Is it broken?”
“Maybe.”
Lu Han gingerly unwraps Junmyeon’s bandage as though expecting to see something gangrenous. Instead it is bruised and swollen. Lu Han makes a sound of disapproval and Junmyeon feels the urge to make the same mistake. To throw a punch at Lu Han and this time, if luck is on his side, he will succeed in breaking his own hand and Lu Han’s nose both at once.
“What made you do it?” Lu Han asks gently.
Junmyeon frowns, thinking through the words he wants to say. In the end, he settles for the truth, “You.”
Lu Han blinks at him. “Me?”
Lu Han looks so surprised it makes Junmyeon want to laugh, but he can’t clear the ball of anger that is lodged in his throat. He looks away and Lu Han seems to catch a whiff of the explanation Junmyeon doesn’t give.
Junmyeon wants to ask Why are you back? but instead he asks, “Why are you here?”
The setting sun is falling on one side of Lu Han’s face and in the harsh lights, the shadows keep dancing. Lu Han’s lips inch upwards and Junmyeon can only watch him as he takes a step closer. “Because I was forced to realize just how much I’ve been missing you.”
Liar, Junmyeon thinks, but he still feels his face flush. Tears close. “You’re only saying that so I won’t kick you out,” he says, trying to wipe his eyes as discreetly as he can, but he doesn’t know if he says it aloud because the words might have been drowned out by a hundred other voices that are saying, Maybe he means it.
These voices allow Lu Han to lean forward, brush his lips against Junmyeon’s, holding the kiss like it is most precious. These voices allow Lu Han to pull Junmyeon close, guide him to the couch, where they spend the rest of the evening talking about mindless things - their favorite movies, Marvel versus DC, how long it takes for the sky to turn dark, and everything else they can possibly think of.
Lu Han has poured him another glass of wine and Junmyeon pauses in the midst of talking about the pets he’s ever kept. He struggles to count in his head. How much has he had to drink? Two pints. A scotch. Four glasses of wine...He has never been good at handling his alcohol. Lu Han is still talking. He talks about Beijing, about his childhood dreams of becoming a soccer player, and about the one time he dreamed that he had a vagina and boobs…
“You know?” Junmyeon slurs.
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s almost as if you never left.”
Junmyeon is trying to shake the fuzziness out of his head. Lu Han’s face is getting blurrier and he can feel his thoughts drifting. Sliding. Spilling over the edge, settling in the holes the dead have left behind. He wants to get himself a glass of water. Maybe that will help him feel better. But his legs are so heavy he can’t move them. He can’t really hear what Lu Han is saying now, so he simply watches Lu Han’s lips move, benumbed by the alcohol coursing in his veins.
What is he saying? It might be goodbye. Or it might be sorry.
✳✳✳
Junmyeon opens his eyes and finds himself alone. He shouldn’t be so unused to this feeling. Lu Han has spoilt him. He listens for a long time, thinking Lu Han might be in the bathroom. The clock by the bed reads 11 a.m. Lu Han’s semen has dried on his thighs and he can still feel Lu Han’s weight pressing him into the mattress, then again, roles reversed. He is wide awake now. His body refuses to go back to sleep and he can’t remember the dreams that have wrenched him from sleep. There is an awful taste in his mouth. Alcohol, mixed with a cacophony of bad feelings.
Out of bed, Junmyeon pulls the curtains apart. A haze hangs over the city, softening the light which spills all over him. Junmyeon wipes a finger along the length of his arm as though the gold finish might come off on his skin. The room is quiet save for the flapping of the curtains against the walls.
Why did he let Lu Han in last night? He has never let anyone know about this apartment, but Lu Han...this troubled man, this good man? Is he truly a good man? Junmyeon hasn’t thought about it last night when he opened the door. He hasn’t been thinking about it for a while now.
Maybe everyone changes when they get what they want. They put on a persona to attract someone but after the sex or the kill or whatever it is, the persona peels off like a bad paint job.
Then, something catches his eyes. A tremor passes through him, a surge of fear.
A single black rose lies in Lu Han’s stead.
What did he say? It might be goodbye. Or it might be sorry.
1. As aforementioned, a single black rose is the symbol for The Dying Game. The color black is synonymous with death and mourning, sadness and farewell, and so many believes black roses to symbolize bereavement, loss and morality; they are often used at funerals. A single black rose might be sent by a close friend and/or loved one leaving for a war or on a journey from which they did not expect to return. However, a more positive meaning does exist for the black rose. It can also represent the beginning of new things, a journey into unexplored territory.
2. Hinging on the meaning of black roses/a single black rose, Lu Han leaving behind a black rose for Junmyeon can be interpreted two ways. One (well...I hope it is obvious that he is the player L, given the few parallels), he has found Junmyeon and has chosen to spare him and they will never meet again or two, he wants this to be a new beginning for the two of them. If you’re confused about the Dying Game, it’s pretty much just everyone pretending to be hired assassins and trying to find their targets (so I guess you need some resources and money for this kind of leisure activities), and once found, you can’t do anything but wait for the ‘winner’ to decide if they want to spare you or not. Obviously this is an alternate, even more fucked up world that allows such a game to exist.