buttoned up; 互扣; 2/2
★
Of course, no one could be sad forever, silly-willy. In fact, Sehun is more inclined to feel the jitters when he meets Lu Han again the next day, unsure if he should be anticipating anything. But Lu Han appears to be in a rush. “Er,” he says, pulling his backpack onto his shoulders, “classes are over for you, right?” Nodding, Sehun looks at the blue deer-sailor keychain swinging merrily on Lu Han’s bag.
“I have something on, do you want to come?”
Sehun thinks about his unfinished project, the reading he has to do before classes tomorrow and the analysis he has yet to complete for his multiple experiments. “Sure,” he says, forcing his brain to shutdown and making to follow Lu Han out of campus, “I’m free.”
They arrive at an old folk’s home. Some of the residents are energetic and milling about but most are sitting around either in chairs or beds staring at the empty skies and ceilings. Lu Han sends Sehun an apologetic look. “I’m sorry if you were expecting something more exciting. I’m supposed to come over during the weekend but something cropped up and I changed my shift with another volunteer.”
“Oh, it’s alright,” Sehun says automatically, even though he doesn’t exactly know what to say, or do, actually. Lu Han senses his hesitation like the Red person he is. “Do you want to wait for me in the lobby instead? Or do you want to return to your dorm? I’m sorry, I forgot. You probably won’t be comfortable with this. They have been lonely,” he explains quietly. Sehun stands beside Lu Han and watches him greet the elderly like old friends.
“It’s fine, I’m coming along.” Lu Han turns and sends him an uncertain smile. This time, it’s Sehun who reaches for his hand. “Let’s go.” And Lu Han lets him lead the way in.
The first person they talk to is an old lady. She pulls Lu Han’s hand away from Sehun’s grasp when they approach. But all Lu Han says to her is, “How has your day been, Mrs. Park?” She beams at him and chats about the stray cat, Molly, who has been visiting, her hidden stash of chocolates in the second drawer of the cabinet and her daughter whom she hasn’t seen in months. Lu Han kneels down and pats her hand while she rambles on. Mid-way, she begins to stutter and repeat all that she has said like a broken record. Sehun is bewildered but Lu Han just listens on with interest so he keeps his silence. When Lu Han makes to move on, Mrs. Park still isn’t done talking about Molly. Sehun stops him, “She hasn’t finished talking,” he says, worried that they might be rude. Lu Han just grins and says, “Come on.” And so they left Mrs. Park who’s still chatting animatedly to air.
When they arrive at the third ward, the first old man they approach reaches out for Sehun instead. To his credit, he only flinches back for a split second before he takes the old man’s hand. “Let me,” Lu Han says hurriedly but Sehun ignores him. “How has your day been…” Sehun sneaks a peek at the man’s nametag pinned to his chest, “Mr. Kim?” He imitates Lu Han, smiling and nodding to the old man while he complains about everything. Lu Han stands by the side and watches them, ready to intercept whenever Sehun feels uncomfortable. But Sehun does fine. He even joins in the complaining and the old man agrees whole-heartedly with his complaints. “The South Korean education system is still a load of trash, I see,” he declares with aplomb. Lu Han does a bit of silent clapping at the side and Sehun acknowledges it with a small bow.
Lu Han is still smiling when they emerge from the ward. “What?” Sehun asks, his self-consciousness dusts a layer of pink onto his cheeks.
“Nothing,” Lu Han replies. But the secretive smile on his lips stays there for a long time.
They split up after that, each attending to an elderly folk. For Sehun, the touches come and go easily now. He kind of likes the way the cool wrinkly skin of the old folks warms up when they soak up the heat of his hands. He also likes the way their faces crease as they ease into genuine smiles when they talk, grateful for concern of any kind.
At the last ward though, he hears a loud cry and when he looks over, he sees an old woman clutching onto Lu Han’s arms and pulling him into her embrace. She is sobbing uncontrollably as she cries ‘Minjun ah’ over and over again. Running over, Sehun is about to tear Lu Han from her grip when he sees him shaking his head at him. Lu Han wraps his arms around the old lady and consoles her by running his hand down her back. In a gentle voice, he whispers strange words into her ears and Sehun assumes that could only be Chinese. There’s no way the woman could understand him either but she soon begins to calm down and the loud sobbing subsides to quiet weeping. Lu Han doesn’t let go until her head starts to loll and he helps her onto the bed. When he lifts his head up, Sehun is already gone.
He finds him sitting on the stone bench in the yard. “Hey,” Lu Han says cheerily as he sits down beside him. Quietly, Sehun turns to look at him. The fading sunlight breaks into pieces and scatters onto Lu Han. Sehun observes the way they draw faint shadows on his face but glint off the brown of his hair and turn it into gold. Then he sees the light beginnings of bruises on Lu Han’s arms. Lu Han is fragile and strong at the same time. Aggressive at times, but sensitive to people. He is a heady mix of everything that should be standing at opposite ends of spectrums, but when it all comes together, the one who stands on the brink of explosion is strangely, not himself. Lu Han is everything Sehun doesn’t understand and he trips on all these hints that have been carelessly scattered around without a care for his sanity.
But a soft ‘Hey’ is all Sehun mumbles in reply. ‘Hey’, and not ‘Hey, you awe me and I’m not so sure how I feel about this. Do you understand? Do you, perhaps, feel the same way too?’
“How has your day been, Mr. Oh?” Lu Han slings an arm over Sehun’s neck and asks mischievously. The evening breeze visits and unsettles everything in the yard; fallen leaves, wilted flowers, stirred emotions. Somewhere they cannot see, a bird sings a curious melody. Mr. Oh listens to its song for a while before he counts three very slow seconds and puts an arm around Lu Han’s shoulders. It feels awkward but good. Sehun guesses he can deal with feeling good.
“It went great,” he answers simply, leaning onto Lu Han’s side. The warmth seeps through their clothes and creeps onto skin. The days are stretching right into summer and the stone they’re sitting on has been drenched in sunlight for the better half of the day. It might be a little too hot for them to be sitting there with arms looped around each other.
But no one lets go.
Sehun steals a glimpse of Lu Han. His mouth forms a silent ‘O’ of surprise before it pulls itself into the tiniest of smiles. Sehun feels himself begin to fall when the first glittering burst of stardust appears and the world fades away until all that’s left is the two of them.
★
“So you went to do volunteer work with him yesterday,” Chanyeol mutters as he bites into a Cat’s Tongue. “How was it?”
“He touched people and made them happy.”
Chenyeol looks up from the cookies he’s packing (eating, actually) into bags. Sehun is standing in the middle of the bakery with a wipe-cloth in his hands. Except he’s just standing there and not doing any wiping at all. “Sehun?” As if wakening from a stupor, Sehun’s disoriented gaze drifts to Chanyeol. It takes a minute for it to sharpen into focus.
“Chanyeol,” Sehun says.
“Yup, I am Chanyeol, Chanyeol is me,” Chanyeol says slowly when Sehun clearly has no intention to complete his sentence. “Are you alright?”
“Chanyeol,” Sehun repeats, “you like Yifan, right?”
“As I have expressed very clearly without any doubt via blunt words, inappropriate actions and unspeakable thoughts for the past few weeks, yes,” Chanyeol replies. “What happened?” He shoves two cookies into his mouth. Sehun is important, of course, but so are cookies.
With a few wide strides, Sehun closes the distance between them. He grips Chanyeol’s shoulders and asks, “How do you know you like him?”
Chanyeol looks down at Sehun and grins. “Easy peasy. You think about that person all the time. He’s here.” Chanyeol taps a finger on Sehun’s forehead. Sehun’s eyes cross when he tries to focus on Chanyeol’s digit. “And here.” Chanyeol rests a palm over the left of Sehun’s chest. Sehun looks at the hand resting directly over his heart. “Then you close your eyes.” Chanyeol closes his eyes and Sehun sees a smile play with the ends of Chanyeol’s lips.
“And he’s everywhere.”
Outside the bakery, someone walks too close to the automatic doors and the sensor sends them sliding open. A wind surges in and ruffles Chanyeol’s bangs. It tickles. Chanyeol’s eyes flit open and he actually looks a little embarrassed right then when he tidies his bangs sheepishly. Sehun has never seen his friend being flustered. But the foolish smile remains.
Sehun’s lips part a little in wonderment. Chanyeol looks like he’s in love. Either that or he’s stuck in a dream.
Perhaps both.
★
Chanyeol’s explanation does nothing to help Sehun, actually. So in an unprecedented move, he takes a day off school to lie on bed and think about things. He ignores the ringing phone, moving only to flip himself over when his back gets too stiff from lying in the same position for too long a time. He stares at the twirl of the ceiling fan until day darkens into night and night lightens into day. But no thinking gets done. In the morning, he finally picks up his phone and sees a couple of messages from Lu Han. They make him sad. So he puts on a human mask and goes to school.
Sehun sees Lu Han perk up when he enters the lab. But all Lu Han does is to continue sitting there while he watches Sehun approach with a worried expression on his face. As if he thinks Sehun would bolt if he reaches out. “Hey,” Sehun greets when he stands in front of Lu Han.
‘Hey’ has somehow become the abbreviation for all that Sehun cannot bring himself to express.
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han blurts out when Sehun has seated himself opposite him, “I know you might not like volunteer work. I assumed too much. I just thought-“
“No,” Sehun cuts him off. “It’s not that.”
“But,” Lu Han worries his lower lip.
“Hey,” Sehun attempts a smile, “I’m OK. I have been doing some analyzing about things, that’s all.”
Relentless as he is, Lu Han persists, “What things?”
Sehun just continues smiling. He pulls out his notes. “I need to do some reading for the classes I missed yesterday. Can we just sit in the lab today?” Lu Han tips his head forward in a nod and returns Sehun a relieved smile. Then he resumes writing in the logbook that he has been neglecting. When he’s about to pull his hair out, however, he looks up and meets Sehun’s stare. “Still thinking?” he asks, glad for any form of diversion from serious work.
Sehun blinks. “Just trying to find the science in things,” he mumbles, fingers sliding absent-mindedly across his temple, as if that would help to stir his thoughts.
“Stop thinking, Sehun,” Lu Han advises, reaching over to pull his hand down. Sehun lets him do just that. “Sometimes things just happen for no good reason.”
“Even the good things?” Sehun asks as Lu Han’s thumb strokes his wrist.
“Even the good things,” Lu Han nods.
“Even the absurdly good things?” Sehun presses on.
Lu Han laces their fingers together like pieces of a puzzle. Then he lifts his eyes up and gives Sehun a blazing smile.
“The best things.”
In this moment, everything shifts and clicks into place for Sehun.
★
Sehun resumes being Sehun from then on. Things don’t really change between Lu Han and him but he feels a lot better now that he has properly categorized and packed his emotions and they are no longer all over the place. They are friends and…maybe a bit more. Sehun likes it better this way and he wants things to stay just so. Until, one day (he doesn’t really know when).
Unfortunately, Chanyeol remains Chanyeol too.
So one fine day, when Sehun enters the lab, he finds Lu Han sitting two lab tables away from Chanyeol and Yifan. He’s chomping away on a bag of chips while he watches them squabble.
“Care for some food poisoning?” Lu Han extends the chips over to Sehun.
Sehun looks at the yellow contents of the bag and then at Lu Han who’s still watching the drama broadcast live in front of them. He purses his lips, picks one chip out of the bag and takes a careful sniff. It smells oily and potato-y. Lu Han has his attention back on Sehun now. He throws some chips into his mouth and lifts a challenging brow at Sehun. Frowning, Sehun takes a cautious bite. His scowling ceases. “It tastes like…Heaven,” he marvels, swallowing and helping himself to seconds.
“Like discovering a new religion, I know,” Lu Han nods in understanding. Sehun sits down beside him and they watch the show while they share the bag of chips.
Yifan throws his pen down and says something they can’t hear. “I love you. I have always loved you,” Lu Han fills in the gap while he snaps a chip into half. Sehun chokes on his cardiac arrest and spins to face Lu Han. But Lu Han just nudges him and says, “Try it. Your turn.” Sehun turns back to see Chanyeol planting his fists on the table and saying something back to Yifan. Couldn’t be anything good, judging from Yifan’s expression.
“Oh, erm,” Sehun stutters when he realizes he has mistaken Lu Han’s script for a coonfeeessionn. He calms himself down quickly and tries to time his lines such that Chanyeol would look like he’s lip-syncing to them, “Liar, um, you have never loved me.”
Yifan leans across the table as well; he narrows his eyes and opens his mouth. “What exactly do I have to do to prove my undying love for you? I have only my heart to give. It’s yours. Take it!” Lu Han’s own eyes turn into slits as he immerses himself in voice dubbing.
Chanyeol closes in onto Yifan and Sehun stands ready with his cheesy lines, but all Chanyeol does is to continue to lean in until.
“Oh,” Sehun exhales. “Oh. Oh.”
Lu Han gawks at the scene before him. Chanyeol has a hand at the back of Yifan’s head, he brushes his lips against Yifan’s mouth. Once, twice, before he tilts his head at another angle and presses down fully. As Sehun watches, Yifan’s eyelids slowly dropped to half-mast before they seal shut.
Then Chanyeol drops his hand and takes a step back. He looks shocked, as if he weren’t the one who started it all. “Damn,” he curses. Loudly, so that Lu Han and Sehun can hear him even across the room. Then he drags a shaking hand through his hair and picks up his bag. On his way to the door, he passes by his audience. “I swear, this is the only way to shut him up. Him and his stupid rules.”
“You just wanted to kiss him,” Sehun points out smartly.
“You know me so well,” Chanyeol says with grave concern on his face, “I have no choice but to kill you now.”
Lu Han cuts through their friendly conversation. “You better do so before Yifan kills you.” To their right, Yifan is making his way over with a hard look on his face.
Chanyeol gives a rueful smile. “Shit. I guess this is really the end,” he says quietly and sadly, but still managing to give Sehun a half-hearted wink before he walks swiftly out of the lab.
As Sehun glances at Chanyeol’s retreating figure, he recalls the dreamy look on Chanyeol’s face that afternoon in the bakery when he told Sehun what it means to be in love. It makes him feel sad again. With that in mind, he moves to stop Yifan on his way out.
“Chanyeol really likes you, Yifan,” Sehun berates, “he might be a bumbling buffoon whose thoughts lay strewn all over the universe and he has no inkling of what’s appropriate and what’s not. But he’s fucking perfect, OK. It’s alright if you don’t like him back because really, your loss. But if you ever hurt him, I will,” ’cut you’ is the appropriate phrase to insert here but then Sehun looks up at Yifan and he seems just about the most uncuttable person Sehun has ever met. He also crosses out ‘maim you’ and ‘maul you’. “I will be really angry at you,” he finally says, as viciously as he can to make up for the meek threat.
Yifan tilts his head and appears puzzled because really, he doesn’t give a damn if Sehun is ever angry with him so he doesn’t know how that even constitutes as a threat. Hence, he just strides past Sehun and starts running after Chanyeol.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you utter a curse,” Lu Han exclaims, wholly impressed by what he just witnessed. “Oh, Sehun! You have feelings!” He congratulates Sehun by enveloping him into a hug.
’More than you’d ever know,’ Sehun thinks sadly as his carefully packed emotions tumble out of their boxes and fall messily onto the floor of his heart. But he puts an arm around Lu Han anyway.
★
“How are you?” Sehun asks warily the next time he sees Chanyeol at work.
“Attached,” replies Chanyeol.
“I see,” Sehun shakes his head regretfully because Chanyeol is now officially mad. And it’s all Yifan’s fault. He puts on his orange bowtie and laments at life.
“Aren’t you going to press me for details so I can joyously share my abundant joy with you?” Chanyeol crinkles his nose at Sehun.
“He hit you on the head, didn’t he?”asks Sehun worriedly, searching for the root cause of Chanyeol’s lunacy.
“What? No. Why are you stupid today? Have you been listening?” Chanyeol has the feeling that they’ve switched roles. No wonder Sehun is so exasperated with him sometimes. “I said I’m attached. I have a boyfriend.”
“You shouldn’t just find anyone as a replacement for Yifan, Chanyeol. Even if you’re really upset. It’s unfair to the other party.”
“I. You. Urgh.” Running out of words, Chanyeol substitutes speech with violence. He picks up a piece of cake and smashes it into Sehun’s face.
Sehun struggles and pushes Chanyeol away, evading most of the attack but gets some cake over his chin. He flicks his tongue out and, hmm, Mont Blanc. Overly sweet and low in nutritional value. Nothing hurts though.
Chanyeol snickers. “Me. And Yifan,” he says and there’s that look on his face again.
Sehun tries to make sense of things. “I think I’m missing something here.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure either and I didn’t ask. It doesn’t matter to me, anyway. At one point, though, he got sick of me trying to be sane and told me to just be myself. Maybe it really did occur in steps for him. But you know me, I only care that he’s with me.”
Sometimes things just happen for no good reason.
Even the good things?
The best things.
Chanyeol wipes Sehun’s chin with a tissue. “Stop licking, you don’t even like sweets.”
“Why are you such a romantic silly little peach?” Sehun’s hands fall helplessly to his sides. Chanyeol is incorrigible, always showing his heart to people he doesn’t even know if he should trust. Sehun hates that about him. So much. He walks up to the gentle giant.
“Silly little peach,” Chanyeol laughs, “I like the sound of that.” Then, “Sehun?”
“Huh?”
“What are you doing?” Chanyeol is suddenly looking at him with utter confusion.
Before he even realizes it, Sehun has thrown an arm around Chanyeol’s neck. He freezes. “Erm. The Hug of Friendship?”
“But you have never. Oh my. Oh my God. You’re turning into Lu Han.”
★
“So you’re still Blue. But you now have two secondary colors, Green and Red,” Lu Han deduces from the test results. “You used to be in the avoidant area for Red.”
“What does this mean?” asks Sehun. He has just re-taken the Whole Brain Thinking test and Lu Han is evaluating the results for him.
“It means that you’re no longer so adverse to this,” Lu Han says, squeezing Sehun’s forearm.
Sehun gazes at Lu Han’s hand. He didn’t even know when Lu Han has gripped his arm. “Uh,” he mumbles.
“Like I’ve first explained to you, how our brains work can be influenced by the environment and people around us. And in your case,” Lu Han points to himself and looks mightily pleased.
“Uh,” Sehun repeats.
“I guess we have a conclusion for the study now,” Lu Han comments. “Brain thinking usually evolves in a gradual manner and over long periods of time. But through intensive interaction of extremes in different color ranges, one’s inclination to think in a certain way can change. Although it is not certain that the effect will be mutual and permanent. That will require more study.”
Sehun picks up the important message in Lu Han’s professional analysis. “Conclusion?”
The…end?
Lu Han gazes right into Sehun’s eyes as he takes a step forward. Sehun endures this for all of ten seconds before he hesitatingly inches away. “What?”
“Sehun,” says Lu Han.
“Yes…?”
“I’m sure you have something to say to me.”
“No…?”
“Wrong answer. Try again.” Lu Han’s voice drops to a whisper.
“Uh…?” Sehun is suddenly very nervous.
“Can you say something else besides ‘uh’?”
“…derp?”
“Wrong,” Lu Han chants, “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
In fact, Sehun offers no right answers for the rest of the day.
★
Lu Han ups his game the next day. “I’ve applied for a transfer,” he tells Sehun. “I’m moving on to another university for a new project.”
It takes a moment for Sehun to absorb the news. He waits for Lu Han’s cry of ‘Kidding!’ It never came.
“Why?” he asks, taken aback by the announcement. He never thought that Lu Han would leave, even though he’s not a student here. Actually, Sehun has never entertained the thought of Lu Han not being around him. Habits are such dangerous things.
“We have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion for the study, there’s no point in me staying here anymore.” Lu Han says, taking in the look of distress on Sehun’s face. Sorry, honey, I’m not feeling so comfortable in your comfort zone.
“I have only five days left here,” Lu Han taps Sehun’s wristwatch, “your time starts now.” There is a most infuriating smirk on his lips.
Sehun sadfaces into his precious Fundamentals of Power Electronics notes.
Lu Han feels bad for a second, then he figures it’s just karma for Sehun’s eighteen years of feelings drought.
★
Day 1
They are working in the lab (well, Lu Han is typing a report while the geek floats around in the background like a stray ghost) when Sehun slides something over until it enters the far peripheral of Lu Han’s vision. Lu Han promptly ignores it until Sehun starts hack coughing.
“I hear you,” Lu Han drawls, still typing away on his laptop.
A red-faced Sehun ceases his pretend-cough and nods to the piece of paper he has been trying to get Lu Han to take a look at. Then he averts his eyes.
Lu Han looks down. And then up again. “It’s a restaurant pamphlet, I see.”
Type, ignore, type, ignore, type.
A minute drags its feet by. “It’s a Japanese restaurant,” Sehun says in a small strained voice.
Lu Han is not a cruel person by nature. So he stops working on the laptop and gives his full attention to Sehun. Inclining forward a bit, he asks expectantly, “And?”
But having Lu Han’s eyes on him only makes Sehun panic. “’N-nothing,” he wheezes and slowly slinks away like a slug, leaving behind a trail of depressed vibes.
Lu Han is disappointed.
✫
Day 2
Sehun bursts through the door of the lab and strides determinedly to Lu Han. Quickly pushing his work aside, Lu Han turns to face Sehun. He looks up from his long lashes and acts quite decidedly coy.
Sehun speaks brashly, “Tonight, you and me-“ Before he could finish though, Chanyeol dashes in and steals him from Lu Han. “I’m sorry, I need Sehun for the quiz tomorrow!” He lifts Sehun onto his shoulders like the struggling potato sack he is. The last Lu Han sees of Sehun is him reaching out tragically as Chanyeol zips out of the lab.
Sighs.
“Bye bye, Sehun~” Lu Han waves.
✫
Day 3
Chanyeol and his boyfriend are impossible to ditch. Couples are so damn annoying. No one cares about your sweet sweet love, take it somewhere else (preferably over a tall cliff or under a herd of trampling water buffaloes).
Sehun is wretched. He will just have to ask Lu Han out in their presence. It is supremely mortifying for Sehun but a lovelorn person’s gotta do what a lovelorn person’s gotta do.
“There’s this movie,” he begins tentatively and the lethargic Lu Han beside him immediately brightens up.
“You’re talking about the one with the old man who lives in the mountains by himself?”
Sehun would have punched Chanyeol but to his dismay, it’s Yifan who’s obstructing his path to lifelong happiness. How dare he. Sehun hasn’t even decided if he likes him.
“Yeah, we’ve already watched that, didn’t we?” This time, it’s Chanyeol who dances on his grave. “So like, one day, the old man was out hunting when…”
Giving Sehun a meaningful look, Lu Han folds his arms and wait. But all Sehun does is to wilt silently.
“…and in the end, everyone died!” Chanyeol declares and Yifan hands him a glass of water after his long speech. “Thank you,” Chanyeol beams at Yifan and Yifan beams back at him (Sehun had no idea Bitchface is actually capable of using his facial muscles).
Lu Han appears to be mightily pissed off after that so Sehun tearfully tears up the movie tickets and flushes them down the toilet.
✫
Day 4
It’s not the right romantic time at all. But Sehun has already figured out that there is just no right time. “There’s a really nice café just around the corner,” he says to Lu Han, who gives him a bored look, as if he knows exactly how this will end. But not even bored looks can stop Sehun now.
“Sehun, do you mind? I’m trying to pay attention to the lecturer for once and you just have to decide to be talkative, do you?” Chanyeol complains from where he sits between Sehun and Lu Han in the lecture hall. But Sehun will no longer allow whining friends to stand in his way either.
However.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo turns around from where he sits in front of Chanyeol, “I know about that café. They serve really good pork chop sandwiches. Want to go?” he says to Lu Han.
Sehun and Chanyeol stare at Kyungsoo.
“Sure.”
Sehun and Chanyeol stare at Lu Han.
“Shock,” Chanyeol says.
Sehun decides it’s soursop-time.
✫
Day 5
Sehun flops himself onto the lab table. His head is tucked into the crook of his bent right arm so when he speaks, his piteous voice sounds muffled. “Lu Han, will you go out with me?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” The snide in Lu Han's voice is lovely.
★
They had tempura at the Japanese restaurant, watched the movie where everyone dies at the end and even ate pork chop sandwiches at the café. Lu Han is stuffed with food he doesn’t want and still, Sehun hasn’t said a thing. Things that he wants to hear, anyway.
They’re now in a park near Lu Han’s apartment. Overeating and walks in the park weren’t exactly what Lu Han had been expecting for the night. But he doesn’t want to be too demanding on their first date, in case Sehun really keels over. He rubs his round tummy and yawns. “I’m sleepy,” he mumbles.
In a breakthrough move, Sehun grabs Lu Han’s hand and pulls him over to sit on a bench. This is fairly exciting considering how boring the night has been thus far, so Lu Han happily follows him. They proceed to sit on the bench for another ten minutes.
“Sehun,” Lu Han gurgles, completed exhausted.
“Can I kiss you?” Sehun suddenly blurts out.
“You don’t have to ask for permission,” deadpans Lu Han
“Oh,” Sehun says and a crease appears on his forehead.
A pause surfaces.
”OH SEHUN, YOU’RE IMPOSSIBLE!” Lu Han half-screams into the still air of the night.
So a terrified Sehun scrambles to kiss Lu Han.
★
Lu Han eventually decides to move on to his new stint anyway. “This is not what I had been expecting for all that I’ve done.” A very disgruntled Sehun says as he helps Lu Han pack his files into a box.
“We’ll see each other,” Lu Han smiles and lays his head onto Sehun’s shoulders. Sehun stops packing to savor the moment; though really, he doesn’t do more than just sit there. He breathes in Lu Han and fingers the hemline of his shirt. Somewhere along the way, Lu Han’s hand reaches out to cover his. His skin is cool; Sehun flips his palm over and traces the lines on it. Fingertips ghosting over creases. Lu Han squirms and laughs; he tries to snatch his hand back. But then Sehun envelops Lu Han’s hand in his own instead.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Chanyeol smiles and says when he sees the identical grins on their faces.
The two of them look up to see Chanyeol and Yifan walking over to them. Lu Han suddenly sniggers and whispers into Sehun’s ears. Sehun casts a suspicious eye on Yifan after that. Then he whispers something back to Lu Han, who promptly explodes into cute giggles.
Not enjoying the feeling of being judged at all, Yifan says, “If you have something to say, just say it. Stop this whispering business.”
“Yeah.” Chanyeol stands by his boyfriend. “It’s rude.”
Lu Han and Sehun turn to look at each other. “Did you see that on Yifan’s neck?” Lu Han goes first. The stars in his eyes glimmer playfully.
“Definitely a hickey,” Sehun follows up with a grin. Yifan slaps a hand over that offending spot on his neck.
“Oh dear, Chanyeol is blushing,” Sehun says, very impressed with the results of their teasing, “surely this means the end of the world.”
“Jeez, is that a cut on Chanyeol’s lower lip? I wonder how he got that,” Lu Han ponders.
“Maybe Yifan knows,” Sehun suggests brightly.
“My oh my, Yifan is blushing,” Lu Han chimes, “now it’s really the end of the world.”
Blushing giants. How charming.
“Cut it out and start packing,” Yifan growls and the wee babies shut their traps immediately.
While they’re packing, Chanyeol grabs Lu Han’s wrist to ask him to help him with a box but Lu Han smacks his hand away. Sehun wonders about that. Then he observes Lu Han and Yifan. Although the two colleagues share an easy camaraderie, casual touches are few and far between.
“Have some water,” Lu Han says, handing Sehun a bottle of water when they’ve finished clearing Lu Han’s stuff into boxes. Sehun looks at the hand on his arm. “You know,” he muses, “you’re Red and I do know that’s why you’ve been so touchy-feely since the first day we know each other. But I just realize, you don’t really interact with Chanyeol or Yifan or anyone else like-” Sehun stops because he’s too embarrassed to say, ‘like how you touch me’.
“Like what?” Lu Han asks. Though his sneaky expression says that he knows what Sehun is on. “Like this?” He wraps his arm around Sehun’s waist. “Or this?” He slings an arm over Sehun’s neck and leans into his side. “Perhaps this?” A hand lands on Sehun’s shoulder before it slides down to his bicep.
Sehun laughs first. “Skinship monster.”
“Do you really think I’m like this with everyone, Sehun?”
Sehun continues laughing. Then he stops. “Oh.”
“Did it really take you so long to realize?”
★
Sehun’s confession comes a long time later.
They are sitting quietly side by side into an empty classroom after Sehun’s graduation ceremony. In fact, they escaped there because Chanyeol had brought a cake from the bakery for the occasion, but he suddenly had the idea that cake belongs on faces and not in stomachs.
Sehun has already changed out of his gown into a white shirt and black pants. As he watches, Lu Han pulls his hand out of Sehun’s grasp and undoes the buttons of the cuffs of their shirts. Then he takes the button on his cuff and loops it through the buttonhole of Sehun’s cuff. Smiling, he lifts his hand up and Sehun’s arm follows suit. He shows his work to Sehun as if presenting a gift.
“Bounded,” Lu Han says softly.
But Sehun doesn’t smile. Something starts aching instead. How is it possible to be happy and sad at the same time? Feeling humbled by what Lu Han is offering, Sehun leans forward until his cheek is pressed against the softness of Lu Han’s cheek. With his free hand, Sehun draws Lu Han near and love is suddenly warm and heavy in his arms. He nuzzles Lu Han’s neck and pulls him even closer, feeling the brittleness and strength of Lu Han in his grip; contradictions that make him who he is. Lu Han confuses Sehun, he constantly throws him into a loop, he is a closed room without a key. Sehun will accept nothing less.
His lids drift to a close; Sehun stops seeing and starts to feel.
“What’s wrong?” Lu Han asks, although he shows no resistance, choosing to meld onto Sehun instead.
“I like you,” Sehun mumbles into Lu Han’s skin, “I like you.”
He feels the pressure of Lu Han’s smile against his cheek. “Sehun, I love you too.” Because Lu Han knows that’s probably the closest thing to ‘I love you’ that Sehun can offer.
And the significance of Sehun’s confession diminishes. He wants to pull away, peer into Lu Han’s eyes and tell him he loves him just as much, that he fell just as hard. But Lu Han holds him down with a hand on his back.
“It’s alright,” Lu Han whispers soothingly, “I know. This, and everything you never say.” His hand sends light strokes down Sehun’s back. “I know what it means when you take my hand. I know what it means when you hold me like this. I know what it means when you open your mouth and look at me but say nothing at all.” Sehun can’t see it, but Lu Han’s smile is beautiful. “I know it all.” He says all of this slowly in a low murmur, so that each word could take its time to tattoo itself onto their bones and label them as one.
But no, Sehun thinks, blinking his eyes open and smiling wistfully at a tiny dancing sparkle in the air, Lu Han doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t think that Lu Han will ever know that he had dazzled him on the first day they met - still does, two years later.
These days, however, he just swats the swirling clouds of stardust away.
★
idk what to call them, but these are the /idkwhattocallthemforreals/ in different languages
japanese >チュチュ> chuchu
chinese > 啾啾> jiū jiū (pronounced the same as 揪揪)
korean > 보보 > bobo
greek > (◞‸◟)?
lbr, lu han touches people. what else do you expect from me. what else
Of course, no one could be sad forever, silly-willy. In fact, Sehun is more inclined to feel the jitters when he meets Lu Han again the next day, unsure if he should be anticipating anything. But Lu Han appears to be in a rush. “Er,” he says, pulling his backpack onto his shoulders, “classes are over for you, right?” Nodding, Sehun looks at the blue deer-sailor keychain swinging merrily on Lu Han’s bag.
“I have something on, do you want to come?”
Sehun thinks about his unfinished project, the reading he has to do before classes tomorrow and the analysis he has yet to complete for his multiple experiments. “Sure,” he says, forcing his brain to shutdown and making to follow Lu Han out of campus, “I’m free.”
They arrive at an old folk’s home. Some of the residents are energetic and milling about but most are sitting around either in chairs or beds staring at the empty skies and ceilings. Lu Han sends Sehun an apologetic look. “I’m sorry if you were expecting something more exciting. I’m supposed to come over during the weekend but something cropped up and I changed my shift with another volunteer.”
“Oh, it’s alright,” Sehun says automatically, even though he doesn’t exactly know what to say, or do, actually. Lu Han senses his hesitation like the Red person he is. “Do you want to wait for me in the lobby instead? Or do you want to return to your dorm? I’m sorry, I forgot. You probably won’t be comfortable with this. They have been lonely,” he explains quietly. Sehun stands beside Lu Han and watches him greet the elderly like old friends.
“It’s fine, I’m coming along.” Lu Han turns and sends him an uncertain smile. This time, it’s Sehun who reaches for his hand. “Let’s go.” And Lu Han lets him lead the way in.
The first person they talk to is an old lady. She pulls Lu Han’s hand away from Sehun’s grasp when they approach. But all Lu Han says to her is, “How has your day been, Mrs. Park?” She beams at him and chats about the stray cat, Molly, who has been visiting, her hidden stash of chocolates in the second drawer of the cabinet and her daughter whom she hasn’t seen in months. Lu Han kneels down and pats her hand while she rambles on. Mid-way, she begins to stutter and repeat all that she has said like a broken record. Sehun is bewildered but Lu Han just listens on with interest so he keeps his silence. When Lu Han makes to move on, Mrs. Park still isn’t done talking about Molly. Sehun stops him, “She hasn’t finished talking,” he says, worried that they might be rude. Lu Han just grins and says, “Come on.” And so they left Mrs. Park who’s still chatting animatedly to air.
When they arrive at the third ward, the first old man they approach reaches out for Sehun instead. To his credit, he only flinches back for a split second before he takes the old man’s hand. “Let me,” Lu Han says hurriedly but Sehun ignores him. “How has your day been…” Sehun sneaks a peek at the man’s nametag pinned to his chest, “Mr. Kim?” He imitates Lu Han, smiling and nodding to the old man while he complains about everything. Lu Han stands by the side and watches them, ready to intercept whenever Sehun feels uncomfortable. But Sehun does fine. He even joins in the complaining and the old man agrees whole-heartedly with his complaints. “The South Korean education system is still a load of trash, I see,” he declares with aplomb. Lu Han does a bit of silent clapping at the side and Sehun acknowledges it with a small bow.
Lu Han is still smiling when they emerge from the ward. “What?” Sehun asks, his self-consciousness dusts a layer of pink onto his cheeks.
“Nothing,” Lu Han replies. But the secretive smile on his lips stays there for a long time.
They split up after that, each attending to an elderly folk. For Sehun, the touches come and go easily now. He kind of likes the way the cool wrinkly skin of the old folks warms up when they soak up the heat of his hands. He also likes the way their faces crease as they ease into genuine smiles when they talk, grateful for concern of any kind.
At the last ward though, he hears a loud cry and when he looks over, he sees an old woman clutching onto Lu Han’s arms and pulling him into her embrace. She is sobbing uncontrollably as she cries ‘Minjun ah’ over and over again. Running over, Sehun is about to tear Lu Han from her grip when he sees him shaking his head at him. Lu Han wraps his arms around the old lady and consoles her by running his hand down her back. In a gentle voice, he whispers strange words into her ears and Sehun assumes that could only be Chinese. There’s no way the woman could understand him either but she soon begins to calm down and the loud sobbing subsides to quiet weeping. Lu Han doesn’t let go until her head starts to loll and he helps her onto the bed. When he lifts his head up, Sehun is already gone.
He finds him sitting on the stone bench in the yard. “Hey,” Lu Han says cheerily as he sits down beside him. Quietly, Sehun turns to look at him. The fading sunlight breaks into pieces and scatters onto Lu Han. Sehun observes the way they draw faint shadows on his face but glint off the brown of his hair and turn it into gold. Then he sees the light beginnings of bruises on Lu Han’s arms. Lu Han is fragile and strong at the same time. Aggressive at times, but sensitive to people. He is a heady mix of everything that should be standing at opposite ends of spectrums, but when it all comes together, the one who stands on the brink of explosion is strangely, not himself. Lu Han is everything Sehun doesn’t understand and he trips on all these hints that have been carelessly scattered around without a care for his sanity.
But a soft ‘Hey’ is all Sehun mumbles in reply. ‘Hey’, and not ‘Hey, you awe me and I’m not so sure how I feel about this. Do you understand? Do you, perhaps, feel the same way too?’
“How has your day been, Mr. Oh?” Lu Han slings an arm over Sehun’s neck and asks mischievously. The evening breeze visits and unsettles everything in the yard; fallen leaves, wilted flowers, stirred emotions. Somewhere they cannot see, a bird sings a curious melody. Mr. Oh listens to its song for a while before he counts three very slow seconds and puts an arm around Lu Han’s shoulders. It feels awkward but good. Sehun guesses he can deal with feeling good.
“It went great,” he answers simply, leaning onto Lu Han’s side. The warmth seeps through their clothes and creeps onto skin. The days are stretching right into summer and the stone they’re sitting on has been drenched in sunlight for the better half of the day. It might be a little too hot for them to be sitting there with arms looped around each other.
But no one lets go.
Sehun steals a glimpse of Lu Han. His mouth forms a silent ‘O’ of surprise before it pulls itself into the tiniest of smiles. Sehun feels himself begin to fall when the first glittering burst of stardust appears and the world fades away until all that’s left is the two of them.
★
“So you went to do volunteer work with him yesterday,” Chanyeol mutters as he bites into a Cat’s Tongue. “How was it?”
“He touched people and made them happy.”
Chenyeol looks up from the cookies he’s packing (eating, actually) into bags. Sehun is standing in the middle of the bakery with a wipe-cloth in his hands. Except he’s just standing there and not doing any wiping at all. “Sehun?” As if wakening from a stupor, Sehun’s disoriented gaze drifts to Chanyeol. It takes a minute for it to sharpen into focus.
“Chanyeol,” Sehun says.
“Yup, I am Chanyeol, Chanyeol is me,” Chanyeol says slowly when Sehun clearly has no intention to complete his sentence. “Are you alright?”
“Chanyeol,” Sehun repeats, “you like Yifan, right?”
“As I have expressed very clearly without any doubt via blunt words, inappropriate actions and unspeakable thoughts for the past few weeks, yes,” Chanyeol replies. “What happened?” He shoves two cookies into his mouth. Sehun is important, of course, but so are cookies.
With a few wide strides, Sehun closes the distance between them. He grips Chanyeol’s shoulders and asks, “How do you know you like him?”
Chanyeol looks down at Sehun and grins. “Easy peasy. You think about that person all the time. He’s here.” Chanyeol taps a finger on Sehun’s forehead. Sehun’s eyes cross when he tries to focus on Chanyeol’s digit. “And here.” Chanyeol rests a palm over the left of Sehun’s chest. Sehun looks at the hand resting directly over his heart. “Then you close your eyes.” Chanyeol closes his eyes and Sehun sees a smile play with the ends of Chanyeol’s lips.
“And he’s everywhere.”
Outside the bakery, someone walks too close to the automatic doors and the sensor sends them sliding open. A wind surges in and ruffles Chanyeol’s bangs. It tickles. Chanyeol’s eyes flit open and he actually looks a little embarrassed right then when he tidies his bangs sheepishly. Sehun has never seen his friend being flustered. But the foolish smile remains.
Sehun’s lips part a little in wonderment. Chanyeol looks like he’s in love. Either that or he’s stuck in a dream.
Perhaps both.
★
Chanyeol’s explanation does nothing to help Sehun, actually. So in an unprecedented move, he takes a day off school to lie on bed and think about things. He ignores the ringing phone, moving only to flip himself over when his back gets too stiff from lying in the same position for too long a time. He stares at the twirl of the ceiling fan until day darkens into night and night lightens into day. But no thinking gets done. In the morning, he finally picks up his phone and sees a couple of messages from Lu Han. They make him sad. So he puts on a human mask and goes to school.
Sehun sees Lu Han perk up when he enters the lab. But all Lu Han does is to continue sitting there while he watches Sehun approach with a worried expression on his face. As if he thinks Sehun would bolt if he reaches out. “Hey,” Sehun greets when he stands in front of Lu Han.
‘Hey’ has somehow become the abbreviation for all that Sehun cannot bring himself to express.
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han blurts out when Sehun has seated himself opposite him, “I know you might not like volunteer work. I assumed too much. I just thought-“
“No,” Sehun cuts him off. “It’s not that.”
“But,” Lu Han worries his lower lip.
“Hey,” Sehun attempts a smile, “I’m OK. I have been doing some analyzing about things, that’s all.”
Relentless as he is, Lu Han persists, “What things?”
Sehun just continues smiling. He pulls out his notes. “I need to do some reading for the classes I missed yesterday. Can we just sit in the lab today?” Lu Han tips his head forward in a nod and returns Sehun a relieved smile. Then he resumes writing in the logbook that he has been neglecting. When he’s about to pull his hair out, however, he looks up and meets Sehun’s stare. “Still thinking?” he asks, glad for any form of diversion from serious work.
Sehun blinks. “Just trying to find the science in things,” he mumbles, fingers sliding absent-mindedly across his temple, as if that would help to stir his thoughts.
“Stop thinking, Sehun,” Lu Han advises, reaching over to pull his hand down. Sehun lets him do just that. “Sometimes things just happen for no good reason.”
“Even the good things?” Sehun asks as Lu Han’s thumb strokes his wrist.
“Even the good things,” Lu Han nods.
“Even the absurdly good things?” Sehun presses on.
Lu Han laces their fingers together like pieces of a puzzle. Then he lifts his eyes up and gives Sehun a blazing smile.
“The best things.”
In this moment, everything shifts and clicks into place for Sehun.
★
Sehun resumes being Sehun from then on. Things don’t really change between Lu Han and him but he feels a lot better now that he has properly categorized and packed his emotions and they are no longer all over the place. They are friends and…maybe a bit more. Sehun likes it better this way and he wants things to stay just so. Until, one day (he doesn’t really know when).
Unfortunately, Chanyeol remains Chanyeol too.
So one fine day, when Sehun enters the lab, he finds Lu Han sitting two lab tables away from Chanyeol and Yifan. He’s chomping away on a bag of chips while he watches them squabble.
“Care for some food poisoning?” Lu Han extends the chips over to Sehun.
Sehun looks at the yellow contents of the bag and then at Lu Han who’s still watching the drama broadcast live in front of them. He purses his lips, picks one chip out of the bag and takes a careful sniff. It smells oily and potato-y. Lu Han has his attention back on Sehun now. He throws some chips into his mouth and lifts a challenging brow at Sehun. Frowning, Sehun takes a cautious bite. His scowling ceases. “It tastes like…Heaven,” he marvels, swallowing and helping himself to seconds.
“Like discovering a new religion, I know,” Lu Han nods in understanding. Sehun sits down beside him and they watch the show while they share the bag of chips.
Yifan throws his pen down and says something they can’t hear. “I love you. I have always loved you,” Lu Han fills in the gap while he snaps a chip into half. Sehun chokes on his cardiac arrest and spins to face Lu Han. But Lu Han just nudges him and says, “Try it. Your turn.” Sehun turns back to see Chanyeol planting his fists on the table and saying something back to Yifan. Couldn’t be anything good, judging from Yifan’s expression.
“Oh, erm,” Sehun stutters when he realizes he has mistaken Lu Han’s script for a coonfeeessionn. He calms himself down quickly and tries to time his lines such that Chanyeol would look like he’s lip-syncing to them, “Liar, um, you have never loved me.”
Yifan leans across the table as well; he narrows his eyes and opens his mouth. “What exactly do I have to do to prove my undying love for you? I have only my heart to give. It’s yours. Take it!” Lu Han’s own eyes turn into slits as he immerses himself in voice dubbing.
Chanyeol closes in onto Yifan and Sehun stands ready with his cheesy lines, but all Chanyeol does is to continue to lean in until.
“Oh,” Sehun exhales. “Oh. Oh.”
Lu Han gawks at the scene before him. Chanyeol has a hand at the back of Yifan’s head, he brushes his lips against Yifan’s mouth. Once, twice, before he tilts his head at another angle and presses down fully. As Sehun watches, Yifan’s eyelids slowly dropped to half-mast before they seal shut.
Then Chanyeol drops his hand and takes a step back. He looks shocked, as if he weren’t the one who started it all. “Damn,” he curses. Loudly, so that Lu Han and Sehun can hear him even across the room. Then he drags a shaking hand through his hair and picks up his bag. On his way to the door, he passes by his audience. “I swear, this is the only way to shut him up. Him and his stupid rules.”
“You just wanted to kiss him,” Sehun points out smartly.
“You know me so well,” Chanyeol says with grave concern on his face, “I have no choice but to kill you now.”
Lu Han cuts through their friendly conversation. “You better do so before Yifan kills you.” To their right, Yifan is making his way over with a hard look on his face.
Chanyeol gives a rueful smile. “Shit. I guess this is really the end,” he says quietly and sadly, but still managing to give Sehun a half-hearted wink before he walks swiftly out of the lab.
As Sehun glances at Chanyeol’s retreating figure, he recalls the dreamy look on Chanyeol’s face that afternoon in the bakery when he told Sehun what it means to be in love. It makes him feel sad again. With that in mind, he moves to stop Yifan on his way out.
“Chanyeol really likes you, Yifan,” Sehun berates, “he might be a bumbling buffoon whose thoughts lay strewn all over the universe and he has no inkling of what’s appropriate and what’s not. But he’s fucking perfect, OK. It’s alright if you don’t like him back because really, your loss. But if you ever hurt him, I will,” ’cut you’ is the appropriate phrase to insert here but then Sehun looks up at Yifan and he seems just about the most uncuttable person Sehun has ever met. He also crosses out ‘maim you’ and ‘maul you’. “I will be really angry at you,” he finally says, as viciously as he can to make up for the meek threat.
Yifan tilts his head and appears puzzled because really, he doesn’t give a damn if Sehun is ever angry with him so he doesn’t know how that even constitutes as a threat. Hence, he just strides past Sehun and starts running after Chanyeol.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you utter a curse,” Lu Han exclaims, wholly impressed by what he just witnessed. “Oh, Sehun! You have feelings!” He congratulates Sehun by enveloping him into a hug.
’More than you’d ever know,’ Sehun thinks sadly as his carefully packed emotions tumble out of their boxes and fall messily onto the floor of his heart. But he puts an arm around Lu Han anyway.
★
“How are you?” Sehun asks warily the next time he sees Chanyeol at work.
“Attached,” replies Chanyeol.
“I see,” Sehun shakes his head regretfully because Chanyeol is now officially mad. And it’s all Yifan’s fault. He puts on his orange bowtie and laments at life.
“Aren’t you going to press me for details so I can joyously share my abundant joy with you?” Chanyeol crinkles his nose at Sehun.
“He hit you on the head, didn’t he?”asks Sehun worriedly, searching for the root cause of Chanyeol’s lunacy.
“What? No. Why are you stupid today? Have you been listening?” Chanyeol has the feeling that they’ve switched roles. No wonder Sehun is so exasperated with him sometimes. “I said I’m attached. I have a boyfriend.”
“You shouldn’t just find anyone as a replacement for Yifan, Chanyeol. Even if you’re really upset. It’s unfair to the other party.”
“I. You. Urgh.” Running out of words, Chanyeol substitutes speech with violence. He picks up a piece of cake and smashes it into Sehun’s face.
Sehun struggles and pushes Chanyeol away, evading most of the attack but gets some cake over his chin. He flicks his tongue out and, hmm, Mont Blanc. Overly sweet and low in nutritional value. Nothing hurts though.
Chanyeol snickers. “Me. And Yifan,” he says and there’s that look on his face again.
Sehun tries to make sense of things. “I think I’m missing something here.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure either and I didn’t ask. It doesn’t matter to me, anyway. At one point, though, he got sick of me trying to be sane and told me to just be myself. Maybe it really did occur in steps for him. But you know me, I only care that he’s with me.”
Sometimes things just happen for no good reason.
Even the good things?
The best things.
Chanyeol wipes Sehun’s chin with a tissue. “Stop licking, you don’t even like sweets.”
“Why are you such a romantic silly little peach?” Sehun’s hands fall helplessly to his sides. Chanyeol is incorrigible, always showing his heart to people he doesn’t even know if he should trust. Sehun hates that about him. So much. He walks up to the gentle giant.
“Silly little peach,” Chanyeol laughs, “I like the sound of that.” Then, “Sehun?”
“Huh?”
“What are you doing?” Chanyeol is suddenly looking at him with utter confusion.
Before he even realizes it, Sehun has thrown an arm around Chanyeol’s neck. He freezes. “Erm. The Hug of Friendship?”
“But you have never. Oh my. Oh my God. You’re turning into Lu Han.”
★
“So you’re still Blue. But you now have two secondary colors, Green and Red,” Lu Han deduces from the test results. “You used to be in the avoidant area for Red.”
“What does this mean?” asks Sehun. He has just re-taken the Whole Brain Thinking test and Lu Han is evaluating the results for him.
“It means that you’re no longer so adverse to this,” Lu Han says, squeezing Sehun’s forearm.
Sehun gazes at Lu Han’s hand. He didn’t even know when Lu Han has gripped his arm. “Uh,” he mumbles.
“Like I’ve first explained to you, how our brains work can be influenced by the environment and people around us. And in your case,” Lu Han points to himself and looks mightily pleased.
“Uh,” Sehun repeats.
“I guess we have a conclusion for the study now,” Lu Han comments. “Brain thinking usually evolves in a gradual manner and over long periods of time. But through intensive interaction of extremes in different color ranges, one’s inclination to think in a certain way can change. Although it is not certain that the effect will be mutual and permanent. That will require more study.”
Sehun picks up the important message in Lu Han’s professional analysis. “Conclusion?”
The…end?
Lu Han gazes right into Sehun’s eyes as he takes a step forward. Sehun endures this for all of ten seconds before he hesitatingly inches away. “What?”
“Sehun,” says Lu Han.
“Yes…?”
“I’m sure you have something to say to me.”
“No…?”
“Wrong answer. Try again.” Lu Han’s voice drops to a whisper.
“Uh…?” Sehun is suddenly very nervous.
“Can you say something else besides ‘uh’?”
“…derp?”
“Wrong,” Lu Han chants, “wrong, wrong, wrong.”
In fact, Sehun offers no right answers for the rest of the day.
★
Lu Han ups his game the next day. “I’ve applied for a transfer,” he tells Sehun. “I’m moving on to another university for a new project.”
It takes a moment for Sehun to absorb the news. He waits for Lu Han’s cry of ‘Kidding!’ It never came.
“Why?” he asks, taken aback by the announcement. He never thought that Lu Han would leave, even though he’s not a student here. Actually, Sehun has never entertained the thought of Lu Han not being around him. Habits are such dangerous things.
“We have arrived at a satisfactory conclusion for the study, there’s no point in me staying here anymore.” Lu Han says, taking in the look of distress on Sehun’s face. Sorry, honey, I’m not feeling so comfortable in your comfort zone.
“I have only five days left here,” Lu Han taps Sehun’s wristwatch, “your time starts now.” There is a most infuriating smirk on his lips.
Sehun sadfaces into his precious Fundamentals of Power Electronics notes.
Lu Han feels bad for a second, then he figures it’s just karma for Sehun’s eighteen years of feelings drought.
★
Day 1
They are working in the lab (well, Lu Han is typing a report while the geek floats around in the background like a stray ghost) when Sehun slides something over until it enters the far peripheral of Lu Han’s vision. Lu Han promptly ignores it until Sehun starts hack coughing.
“I hear you,” Lu Han drawls, still typing away on his laptop.
A red-faced Sehun ceases his pretend-cough and nods to the piece of paper he has been trying to get Lu Han to take a look at. Then he averts his eyes.
Lu Han looks down. And then up again. “It’s a restaurant pamphlet, I see.”
Type, ignore, type, ignore, type.
A minute drags its feet by. “It’s a Japanese restaurant,” Sehun says in a small strained voice.
Lu Han is not a cruel person by nature. So he stops working on the laptop and gives his full attention to Sehun. Inclining forward a bit, he asks expectantly, “And?”
But having Lu Han’s eyes on him only makes Sehun panic. “’N-nothing,” he wheezes and slowly slinks away like a slug, leaving behind a trail of depressed vibes.
Lu Han is disappointed.
✫
Day 2
Sehun bursts through the door of the lab and strides determinedly to Lu Han. Quickly pushing his work aside, Lu Han turns to face Sehun. He looks up from his long lashes and acts quite decidedly coy.
Sehun speaks brashly, “Tonight, you and me-“ Before he could finish though, Chanyeol dashes in and steals him from Lu Han. “I’m sorry, I need Sehun for the quiz tomorrow!” He lifts Sehun onto his shoulders like the struggling potato sack he is. The last Lu Han sees of Sehun is him reaching out tragically as Chanyeol zips out of the lab.
Sighs.
“Bye bye, Sehun~” Lu Han waves.
✫
Day 3
Chanyeol and his boyfriend are impossible to ditch. Couples are so damn annoying. No one cares about your sweet sweet love, take it somewhere else (preferably over a tall cliff or under a herd of trampling water buffaloes).
Sehun is wretched. He will just have to ask Lu Han out in their presence. It is supremely mortifying for Sehun but a lovelorn person’s gotta do what a lovelorn person’s gotta do.
“There’s this movie,” he begins tentatively and the lethargic Lu Han beside him immediately brightens up.
“You’re talking about the one with the old man who lives in the mountains by himself?”
Sehun would have punched Chanyeol but to his dismay, it’s Yifan who’s obstructing his path to lifelong happiness. How dare he. Sehun hasn’t even decided if he likes him.
“Yeah, we’ve already watched that, didn’t we?” This time, it’s Chanyeol who dances on his grave. “So like, one day, the old man was out hunting when…”
Giving Sehun a meaningful look, Lu Han folds his arms and wait. But all Sehun does is to wilt silently.
“…and in the end, everyone died!” Chanyeol declares and Yifan hands him a glass of water after his long speech. “Thank you,” Chanyeol beams at Yifan and Yifan beams back at him (Sehun had no idea Bitchface is actually capable of using his facial muscles).
Lu Han appears to be mightily pissed off after that so Sehun tearfully tears up the movie tickets and flushes them down the toilet.
✫
Day 4
It’s not the right romantic time at all. But Sehun has already figured out that there is just no right time. “There’s a really nice café just around the corner,” he says to Lu Han, who gives him a bored look, as if he knows exactly how this will end. But not even bored looks can stop Sehun now.
“Sehun, do you mind? I’m trying to pay attention to the lecturer for once and you just have to decide to be talkative, do you?” Chanyeol complains from where he sits between Sehun and Lu Han in the lecture hall. But Sehun will no longer allow whining friends to stand in his way either.
However.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo turns around from where he sits in front of Chanyeol, “I know about that café. They serve really good pork chop sandwiches. Want to go?” he says to Lu Han.
Sehun and Chanyeol stare at Kyungsoo.
“Sure.”
Sehun and Chanyeol stare at Lu Han.
“Shock,” Chanyeol says.
Sehun decides it’s soursop-time.
✫
Day 5
Sehun flops himself onto the lab table. His head is tucked into the crook of his bent right arm so when he speaks, his piteous voice sounds muffled. “Lu Han, will you go out with me?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” The snide in Lu Han's voice is lovely.
★
They had tempura at the Japanese restaurant, watched the movie where everyone dies at the end and even ate pork chop sandwiches at the café. Lu Han is stuffed with food he doesn’t want and still, Sehun hasn’t said a thing. Things that he wants to hear, anyway.
They’re now in a park near Lu Han’s apartment. Overeating and walks in the park weren’t exactly what Lu Han had been expecting for the night. But he doesn’t want to be too demanding on their first date, in case Sehun really keels over. He rubs his round tummy and yawns. “I’m sleepy,” he mumbles.
In a breakthrough move, Sehun grabs Lu Han’s hand and pulls him over to sit on a bench. This is fairly exciting considering how boring the night has been thus far, so Lu Han happily follows him. They proceed to sit on the bench for another ten minutes.
“Sehun,” Lu Han gurgles, completed exhausted.
“Can I kiss you?” Sehun suddenly blurts out.
“You don’t have to ask for permission,” deadpans Lu Han
“Oh,” Sehun says and a crease appears on his forehead.
A pause surfaces.
”OH SEHUN, YOU’RE IMPOSSIBLE!” Lu Han half-screams into the still air of the night.
So a terrified Sehun scrambles to kiss Lu Han.
★
Lu Han eventually decides to move on to his new stint anyway. “This is not what I had been expecting for all that I’ve done.” A very disgruntled Sehun says as he helps Lu Han pack his files into a box.
“We’ll see each other,” Lu Han smiles and lays his head onto Sehun’s shoulders. Sehun stops packing to savor the moment; though really, he doesn’t do more than just sit there. He breathes in Lu Han and fingers the hemline of his shirt. Somewhere along the way, Lu Han’s hand reaches out to cover his. His skin is cool; Sehun flips his palm over and traces the lines on it. Fingertips ghosting over creases. Lu Han squirms and laughs; he tries to snatch his hand back. But then Sehun envelops Lu Han’s hand in his own instead.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Chanyeol smiles and says when he sees the identical grins on their faces.
The two of them look up to see Chanyeol and Yifan walking over to them. Lu Han suddenly sniggers and whispers into Sehun’s ears. Sehun casts a suspicious eye on Yifan after that. Then he whispers something back to Lu Han, who promptly explodes into cute giggles.
Not enjoying the feeling of being judged at all, Yifan says, “If you have something to say, just say it. Stop this whispering business.”
“Yeah.” Chanyeol stands by his boyfriend. “It’s rude.”
Lu Han and Sehun turn to look at each other. “Did you see that on Yifan’s neck?” Lu Han goes first. The stars in his eyes glimmer playfully.
“Definitely a hickey,” Sehun follows up with a grin. Yifan slaps a hand over that offending spot on his neck.
“Oh dear, Chanyeol is blushing,” Sehun says, very impressed with the results of their teasing, “surely this means the end of the world.”
“Jeez, is that a cut on Chanyeol’s lower lip? I wonder how he got that,” Lu Han ponders.
“Maybe Yifan knows,” Sehun suggests brightly.
“My oh my, Yifan is blushing,” Lu Han chimes, “now it’s really the end of the world.”
Blushing giants. How charming.
“Cut it out and start packing,” Yifan growls and the wee babies shut their traps immediately.
While they’re packing, Chanyeol grabs Lu Han’s wrist to ask him to help him with a box but Lu Han smacks his hand away. Sehun wonders about that. Then he observes Lu Han and Yifan. Although the two colleagues share an easy camaraderie, casual touches are few and far between.
“Have some water,” Lu Han says, handing Sehun a bottle of water when they’ve finished clearing Lu Han’s stuff into boxes. Sehun looks at the hand on his arm. “You know,” he muses, “you’re Red and I do know that’s why you’ve been so touchy-feely since the first day we know each other. But I just realize, you don’t really interact with Chanyeol or Yifan or anyone else like-” Sehun stops because he’s too embarrassed to say, ‘like how you touch me’.
“Like what?” Lu Han asks. Though his sneaky expression says that he knows what Sehun is on. “Like this?” He wraps his arm around Sehun’s waist. “Or this?” He slings an arm over Sehun’s neck and leans into his side. “Perhaps this?” A hand lands on Sehun’s shoulder before it slides down to his bicep.
Sehun laughs first. “Skinship monster.”
“Do you really think I’m like this with everyone, Sehun?”
Sehun continues laughing. Then he stops. “Oh.”
“Did it really take you so long to realize?”
★
Sehun’s confession comes a long time later.
They are sitting quietly side by side into an empty classroom after Sehun’s graduation ceremony. In fact, they escaped there because Chanyeol had brought a cake from the bakery for the occasion, but he suddenly had the idea that cake belongs on faces and not in stomachs.
Sehun has already changed out of his gown into a white shirt and black pants. As he watches, Lu Han pulls his hand out of Sehun’s grasp and undoes the buttons of the cuffs of their shirts. Then he takes the button on his cuff and loops it through the buttonhole of Sehun’s cuff. Smiling, he lifts his hand up and Sehun’s arm follows suit. He shows his work to Sehun as if presenting a gift.
“Bounded,” Lu Han says softly.
But Sehun doesn’t smile. Something starts aching instead. How is it possible to be happy and sad at the same time? Feeling humbled by what Lu Han is offering, Sehun leans forward until his cheek is pressed against the softness of Lu Han’s cheek. With his free hand, Sehun draws Lu Han near and love is suddenly warm and heavy in his arms. He nuzzles Lu Han’s neck and pulls him even closer, feeling the brittleness and strength of Lu Han in his grip; contradictions that make him who he is. Lu Han confuses Sehun, he constantly throws him into a loop, he is a closed room without a key. Sehun will accept nothing less.
His lids drift to a close; Sehun stops seeing and starts to feel.
“What’s wrong?” Lu Han asks, although he shows no resistance, choosing to meld onto Sehun instead.
“I like you,” Sehun mumbles into Lu Han’s skin, “I like you.”
He feels the pressure of Lu Han’s smile against his cheek. “Sehun, I love you too.” Because Lu Han knows that’s probably the closest thing to ‘I love you’ that Sehun can offer.
And the significance of Sehun’s confession diminishes. He wants to pull away, peer into Lu Han’s eyes and tell him he loves him just as much, that he fell just as hard. But Lu Han holds him down with a hand on his back.
“It’s alright,” Lu Han whispers soothingly, “I know. This, and everything you never say.” His hand sends light strokes down Sehun’s back. “I know what it means when you take my hand. I know what it means when you hold me like this. I know what it means when you open your mouth and look at me but say nothing at all.” Sehun can’t see it, but Lu Han’s smile is beautiful. “I know it all.” He says all of this slowly in a low murmur, so that each word could take its time to tattoo itself onto their bones and label them as one.
But no, Sehun thinks, blinking his eyes open and smiling wistfully at a tiny dancing sparkle in the air, Lu Han doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t think that Lu Han will ever know that he had dazzled him on the first day they met - still does, two years later.
These days, however, he just swats the swirling clouds of stardust away.
★
idk what to call them, but these are the /idkwhattocallthemforreals/ in different languages
japanese >チュチュ> chuchu
chinese > 啾啾> jiū jiū (pronounced the same as 揪揪)
korean > 보보 > bobo
greek > (◞‸◟)?
lbr, lu han touches people. what else do you expect from me. what else