(02/04)
i ii
“I don’t think that should go there.”
Lu Han nearly drops the picture frame in his hand. He turns around only to come inches close to Mr. Lu Han’s face, eyes nearly going cross as he meets his eyes. They’re too close to each other, and Lu Han does his best to suppress this supermassive need to plant a big one on Sehun’s lips. Instead, he pushes Sehun away, and pretends to be shocked.
“What are you doing in here?”
“I wanted to welcome my new lodger, is that so bad? And you left your door open, so I thought I might as well come in. You might need some help, you know?” Sehun moves to look at the array of picture frames lined up around the ledge of the fireplace, and chuckles. He picks up a red picture frame. “Is this really you?”
Lu Han walks over, and snatches the frame instantly from Sehun’s grasp. “Not that one. I was fat then.”
“Yeah, I can see not all the baby fats got shed.” He pinches Lu Han’s cheeks, and it seems like such an intimate gesture Lu Han can’t help but turn away and blush.
“Hey! For your information, I am still quite young.”
“Oh yeah? How old are you then, my foetus friend?”
“I am 23,” Lu Han proudly says, placing his university graduation photo in the middle of the ledge.
“Well, I’m 27. I don’t know if you want an older husband but...” Sehun trails off and points at picture, “You look amazing in this one.”
Lu Han ignores Sehun's comment about having an older husband, and demands, “Are you implying that I don’t normally look amazing?”
“Well,” Sehun gives him a once over, and only then does Lu Han remember he is already wearing his My Neighbour Totoro pyjamas. “You have a peculiar sense of fashion, I tell you that. I thought the get-up you wore on New Years was just a joke. But it seems...”
“Did you come up here to help me, or to make fun of me?” Lu Han pouts, putting away the empty boxes to the side.
“Ok, ok. Where do you want this?” Sehun asks as he picks up a sealed white box.
“In the bedroom,” Lu Han replies, dusting off his hands.
“Wow, Lu Han, you move fast. Don’t you think I should take you out on a date first before we get it on in the bedroom?” he hears Sehun say from inside the master bedroom. Lu Han stops in his tracks, aghast.
“That box really does go to the bedroom, though. Oh Sehun, what are you thinking?” Lu Han is blushing again, because the thought of Sehun stripping and crawling to him and hovering over him, kissing him and tou-
“Well, Lu Han, what are you thinking?” Sehun smugly asks once Lu Han’s entered the room and started unsealing the box. “And why do you keep on saying my full name? I know I'm a bad boy but I don't think I need to be reprimanded all the time.”
Lu Han is positive his cheeks are burning crimson right now. Sehun really did look like a bad boy, what with his silver hair, his normally expressionless face, and those lips that quirk only several degrees up rather than smiling fully. He's currently sprawled all over Lu Han's bed, looking quite comfortable there. His half-hooded brown-grey eyes are trained on Lu Han, and Lu Han squirms. He goes back to unpacking, trying to ignore the feel of Sehun's gaze on him.
“You keep on saying mine fully. I like to believe that people must follow parallelism even in calling names. So you, Oh Sehun, please get off my bed.” Lu Han points at Sehun with the back scratcher in his hand and signals him to get off.
“Such boner kill,” Sehun tsks, “How can you live with the guilt of ordering your future husband to get off of the bed?”
“Are we seriously having this conversation right now, Oh Sehun.”
“Yes, we are, Lu Han. What do you say to having dinner with me tonight?”
“I am not going to sleep with you.”
“Oh my God,” Sehun laughs. Lu Han keeps his arms crossed over his chest, backing away gradually from Sehun. “You think I want to-Oh no, I just want to have dinner with you, I promise. Let’s just say it’s my welcome gift to you. And think of it this way,”
Lu Han braces himself.
“It’s going to be your first date with your future husband.”
☯
“So, how’s living with Sehun like,” Baekhyun brings up when Lu Han visits the trattoria. They are sitting in the veranda, the wind nipping at their faces, chilling the cups of hot chocolate they’re respectively nursing between cupped hands. “How does it feel living just above your future husband?”
“Can you please,” Lu Han pleads while tearing at a bread stick seasoned with garlic, basil, and sesame seeds, “stop referring to him as my future husband. He calls himself that too many times on a daily basis already. And I’ve only been his lodger for five days.”
“Oh my god, he does?” Baekhyun squeals, nearly hitting the handsome waiter-Zitao, it reads from the nametag-that’s placing plates of strawberry shortcake in front of them, “So he totally accepts you? OMG, I therefore conclude that he has the hots for you.”
“I conclude that you are delusional.” Lu Han takes a swig of his hot chocolate, and retorts, “I believe he takes this whole future husband thing as a joke-like what it really is, if I may press-so...”
“Why do you sound so sad, Jesus Christ, stop it,” Baekhyun laughs. He waves a breadstick at Lu Han’s face, and Lu Han tries to bite it. “Did you know that Sehun never shuts up about you whenever he talks to Kris?”
Lu Han stops trying to snap his jaws around the doughy goodness, and stares at Baekhyun. “What?”
“Kris told me. Whenever he’s with Sehun the topic is always you. Whenever it isn’t, some magical divine intervention happens and all of a sudden, the topic’s you again. I don’t know, Lu Han. He seems pretty smitten.”
“What does he say about me,” Lu Han hisses as he scoots his chair closer to Baekhyun. “Tell me everything.”
“Why are you so excited to find out,” Baekhyun teases.
“I’m not excited, I’m curious,” Lu Han defends. “There is a significant difference between those two emotions.”
“I digress. That is not the tone one takes when he is curious,” Baekhyun reasons, “That is the tone of euphoric excitement.”
“You are of no proper social and mental status to tell me what tone of voice I am using. You are a culinary chef, not an acoustician.”
“Whatever, Mr. Oh Sehun.”
“Hey that actually sounds nice. Mr. and Mr. Oh Sehun.”
“Should I start calling you that then, Lu Han?”
Lu Han nearly spits out bits of his cheesecake at Baekhyun’s giggling face. “Please don’t tell me Oh Sehun is behind me.”
“Oh, but sweetheart,” Baekhyun says cheekily, “you’re tone of pathetic pleading will not make Sehun disappear. Not to mention he is my guest. He has enough reason to stay here as much as you do.”
“But I’m your best friend,” Lu Han whines, “plus your number one happiness benefactor. BFFs before potential boyfriends, remember?”
“And I am still here, Mr. Oh Sehun.” Sehun pulls out the seat next to Lu Han and sits down, shifting so he’s facing Lu Han. “So it’s potential boyfriend now? I am sad. I have just been demoted to being a potential boyfriend after a first dinner date.”
“You guys went out on a date?” Baekhyun exclaims. Turning to Lu Han he accuses, “And you did not tell me?”
“What?” Lu Han replies, looking at Sehun’s stoic-and really handsome-face, “It was not a date.” He faces Baekhyun, and insists, “It was not a date.”
“We drank coffee and we fed each other,” Sehun recounts, taking the strawberry on top of Lu Han’s cheesecake, “We held hands under the stars. I stand corrected. I am not sad, I am pummelled. You are now a potential boyfriend, too, Lu Han. I am denying you of the title Mr. Oh Sehun.”
Lu Han wails, the sound a cross between a manatee giving birth and a dying walrus. He doesn’t really know what he’s wailing for; the fact that Sehun is acting like Lu Han just kicked him in the face by denying the dinner they shared was definitely not a date, or the realisation that the prized strawberries he was saving and planning to eat last were now missing and are in the process of being turned into bolus by Sehun’s canines (that Lu Han has started to develop a fondness for). But maybe it's none of the above, because Sehun just said Lu Han is a potential boyfriend.
So maybe it was sort of a date. Kinda.
Sehun had taken him to a cosy, hole-in-the-wall cafe that has live indie bands and poetry slams on Thursdays (it was a Wednesday). They ordered breakfast for dinner, and Sehun shared his plate of blueberry pancakes in exchange for some of Lu Han’s banana muffins and hash browns. Lu Han remembers how Sehun had shoved his fork in front of his mouth, waiting for him to part his lips. He felt the blush creep up his neck to crawl to his cheeks, and he shyly opens his mouth and Sehun feeds him a slice of his breakfast with a catty smile.
On the walk home, both holding respective to-go grande cups of Americano from Starbucks, Sehun had started pointing at the stars. He showed Lu Han where the Orion Belt is, and shared to him the mythology about the constellation named Cassiopeia. As Sehun started pointing at the North Star Lu Han stumbled on the sidewalk. Sehun had shot his arm out to grab at Lu Han’s arm, and he had steadied him, his hand never leaving its curled position around Lu Han’s bundled up bicep. As they turn the corner to their street Sehun’s hand inched down to take Lu Han’s hand in his, and nothing passed between them. When they arrived at the townhouse Sehun had quietly squeezed Lu Han’s fingers before slipping away from its grasp. He had smiled crookedly at Lu Han, and waited for Lu Han to arrive at the landing of the second floor before disappearing inside his own flat. Lu Han tried not to squeal out, he really did, when he was safe in the confines of his flat. But he couldn’t help grinning like an idiot, replaying the day’s events over and over in his head.
But after three days and no suggested motive that Sehun wanted to maybe pursue a potential relationship with Lu Han, Lu Han felt crestfallen. Sehun goes in and out of Lu Han’s flat like he owned the place (well technically he does but that is entirely not the point right now), taking and drinking Lu Han’s hidden stash of chocolate milk behind the vegetable crisper as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Lu Han has only really known Sehun officially for three months and they’re already acting like they’ve known each other for years. It’s scary how comfortable Lu Han already is with Sehun, despite all his claims of wanting to marry the guy. He doesn’t even know a single thing about him other than his name and his address and his home-and very recently, because of emergency purposes, his cellphone-number. He could’ve been a serial killer for all Lu Han knows.
And now here he is, sharing a cheesecake with Sehun after being demoted to a potential boyfriend, feeling something sinking inside him. Maybe it’s his heart. Or his head movie. Because he’s falling far too fast, and Newton’s Law of Gravity never said anything about this.
His heart is free falling with an acceleration much faster than 9.8 metres per second squared. And he’s not really sure if Oh Sehun will be there to catch him and show him the North Star to guide him home.
Wherever home is.
☯
There is this line from Lu Han’s favourite American film, and it goes something like this: “Carpe Diem!”
Lu Han remembers crying over this film some several times over after watching it on a daily basis when he was in Year 11. It was their film to review for the first half of the year, and Lu Han had been captivated with the stories of the boys that were much like him and Baekhyun, minus the literary abilities and the nice-looking uniforms. They were all dumped by their parents in a boarding school, all expected to succeed as if sending them away to a place far away from civilisation will help. It was a film that made Lu Han realise that every minute that ticks by without doing something that he loves is a good minute lost. He learned that seizing the day is very important, because time flies by so fast, and time cannot be taken back, cannot be grasped.
But this one good saying is something that Lu Han never learned how to apply in real life.
He has tried, he really has, but it never really seems to work. There was this time in Year 12 when there was a singing competition. He wanted to join so much, and he did join. He took a form, filled it up with the proper information, and passed it to the teacher in charge. But when the event was only a week away, he got cold feet. What if he wasn’t good enough? What if he fails? What if he ends up forgetting the lyrics? What if he can’t sing in time with the music? What if his parents find out?
It was always Lu Han’s passion to sing and to perform, but his parents didn’t need to know that. They’d be furious, not to mention severely disappointed. Because nothing good will come out of being an artist. Being a slave to the arts won’t get you anywhere. So a week before his supposed performance he withdrew. He didn’t seize the day. He didn’t push through like what Neil Perry had done (he didn’t really want to die yet, anyway). Instead he decided to be the goody-good son and follow through with everything his parents have planned out for him.
However he’s 23 now. Perfectly legal and supposedly free from his parents’ proverbial claws. It’s time to start seizing the day. To suck the marrow out of life. And what’s a better time to start than now.
So when Lu Han wakes up on a sunny Monday morning he declares, “Carpe Diem!”
He throws his quilt to the side and stretches, then gets out of bed. He parts the ecru curtains, and sunlight floods his room like tidal waves. With a deep breath he grasps at the metal handles of the windows, and opens them. For the first time in his stay at his new flat, his new home, he steps out and into the balcony.
He realises with a start that he is pretty high up. His hands grope instantly for the railings, trying to find something to assure him he won’t fall. He’s awfully scared of heights, and the ground looks pretty uncomfortable to land on if you end up falling from the second floor.
He gets over the initial shock eventually, and he takes tentative steps to the front, his slippered feet hesitantly gliding over the marble tiles. He can smell the sea, and the brine clears his nostrils that are normally clogged at this time of the day. There are all these boats and ships by the docks, and the sun still hasn’t finished its ascent. The view is wonderful, and it’s all worth it.
“Carpe diem,” Lu Han whispers. He decides that today will be the day he will suck the marrow out of life. He will seize the day, and he will make sure he seizes it right. And he will start with Sehun.
It’s been almost a month since his last talk with Sehun, and officially the last time since he saw a glimpse of his silver blond hair. Not a word was said about their dinner date that wasn’t really a date but technically was. Sehun suddenly stopped barging into his flat for more chocolate milk. He didn’t even come up to insult him about his being downgraded to a potential boyfriend. It confuses Lu Han because what the hell, he flirted first. Lu Han and Baekhyun made up this BFF code once upon a time that, no matter what happens, they will only flirt back, and not be the ones to initiate the flirting.
But desperate times call for desperate measures, and his want to get to know Sehun is most definitely considered as a desperate time. So Lu Han sucks it up. After texting Sehun that he's going to take them on a happy day out and maybe catch a good film he goes back inside his room, and takes a good, long, cleansing bath, mentally and physically preparing himself to ask Sehun out.
When he is neatly and properly dressed, wearing a light cardigan over his graphic t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and his favourite pair of black Chucks, he goes down to the bottom floor. He's standing in front of Sehun's door, hesitating to knock. He's deliberating on making a run for it, just forget it, find another person to like. Yixing's gay anyway. And he's still not sure if Sehun is gay or not. And what about that Sequined Slut?
Lu Han shakes his head, trying to cast his thoughts away. He puffs out his chest, and breathes, "Carpe diem."
He raps on the door a measured four times, all two seconds apart. When almost five minutes pass (yes, Lu Han was counting) and the door still hasn’t opened, he knocks again. He checks the time on his phone and it says 11: 53 AM. He starts feeling edgy, and maybe there’s this sinking feeling in his stomach that he can’t push away.
He brings a hand to wrap on the doorknob, and when he turns it he finds out it’s unlocked. He hesitates, debating with himself if he should open the door or not. He takes another deep breath in, and closes his eyes. What the hell, Sehun barges in his flat all the time. And they're practically friends now. That accounts for something, right?
With a last fleeting thought that says "Carpe diem", Lu Han pushes the door open. He takes light steps in, creeping past the coat closet and the white hallway. When he's well past the corridor, he gasps.
Sehun's flat is beautiful. It is all white, the walls and the curtains the purest shade of it. There's a huge L-shaped couch in the middle of the living room, facing a glass coffee table. There's an LCD TV neatly mounted on the wall in front of the couch, and directly below it is a white shelf filled with a collection of DVDs that range in genres and years released, video games, and gaming consoles all neatly organised and stacked. Sehun's fireplace is the direct antithesis of Lu Han's, beholding not a single picture frame. Come to think of it, the entire place doesn't seem to have a single framed picture in it.
Lu Han enters the kitchen and sees that everything is clean, everything is in its place. He sights by the pantry a wide array of cereal boxes, and he smiles to himself. So Sehun's a cereal fanatic. That's why he always badgers him to go stock up on the stuff whenever he raids Lu Han's humble abode. Lu Han makes to grab a bottle of water from sehun's fridge and, when he opens the stainless door, he is mildly surprised. His refrigerator is almost empty, beholding only a few bottles of water and beer, a half-eaten... something placed inside a pink Tupperware, and a jar of pickled maraschino cherries.
"Oh Sehun," Lu Han calls out. His voice echoes inside the vast room, his own call bouncing back at him. "Oh Sehun." He goes back to the living room, and looks around. The flat looks tragically empty all of a sudden, and the realisation hits.
Sehun isn't here.
He whips out his phone and scrolls through his contacts, finger stopping to hover at the name Sehun inputted in: "Seobang".
It doesn't make sense, other than the fact that it starts with an 'S' also. Lu Han presses on the name and calls. He brings the phone to his ear, and waits. The phone is consistently ringing, never stopping. The server suddenly starts, announcing that the subscriber cannot be reached in thick Italian that Lu Han barely understood.
With a heavy heart he dials Baekhyun's number, because Baekhyun is the only one that can understand him right now.
"Baekhyun," Lu Han starts when the other picks up, "Baekhyun, I don't ever want to seize the day anymore."
"Sweetheart," Baekhyun says, "What's wrong? Are you ok?"
"I don't know. I feel let down. I texted Oh Sehun earlier that we should go out for lunch and something or the other afterwards. When I came down he's nowhere in sight and he won't pick up his phone. I don't want to seem clingy or anything but I don't think this infiltrating one's space should be one-sided an-"
"Sweetheart." Baekhyun's voice cuts through Lu Han's pathetic monologue, and Lu Han swears Baekhyun's voice sounds apologetic.
"Sehun's been gone for quite a while now. Even Kris doesn't know where he is."
So much for seizing the day.
☯
There’s this English idiom that a lot of people whip out whenever they are being scrutinised based on their physical appearances, saying “do not judge a book by its cover”. Considering it is quite rude to stereotype a person based on how the look outwardly, it’s a pretty legit metaphorical phrase.
Let’s say in a police station, where there is a current screening for potential suspects to a heinous crime, which do you think would be pointed at as the perpetrator: a dishevelled man with rotten teeth and a nasty underbite, or a petite girl with ribbons in her hair? See. What if in truth the man is just some naturally unhygienic person, and the girl is a psychopath with a closet full of skeletons?
It has been officially two weeks since Sehun has disappeared from the face of the Earth. Lu Han has found out from Kris, after a lengthy talk and around five tubs of gelato (flavoured strawberry, pistachio, chocolate, vanilla, and dark mocha), he finds out everything he thinks he needed to know about Sehun.
Apparently Sehun is an only child. He was born into an old family that are direct descendants of some powerful merchant from the old Joseon Dynasty in South Korea. He was born to be the successor of numerous lines of businesses, ranging from restaurants to hotels to wineries to trade. He was destined to be big, and Lu Han had to suck in a big breath and stop eating as he absorbed all these facts Kris was telling him.
Kris first met Sehun when they were both roughly five years old, at a business dinner at Sehun’s, back when Sehun was still living in a secluded subdivision in Chungnam, South Korea. Their parents were planning a company merge, and Kris was left to hang out with the supposed heir of the Oh company lines. Sehun, even then, had a morbid facial expression on his face, Kris had chuckled while recounting to Lu Han. His mouth was always permanently set into a line, eyebrows scrunched up, eyes trained on some book, face looking perpetually bored. They were so the same, it was laughable. Maybe that’s why they went off without a hitch, friendship blooming into something that was more akin to brotherhood as time went by.
When they were both sent to a boarding school in America, that’s where they both learned to loosen up, and let go. Sehun started becoming a social butterfly, attracting people as if he was this portable gravitational centre that everyone curved to and started revolving around. The fact that he was so smart and unconventionally perfect didn’t help in making him less popular with the girls, and the boys. He and Kris joined the school’s basketball team, joined clubs and organisations, did anything and everything they wanted to do. There was no one to tell them what they could and couldn’t do, and it was the most wonderful thing that happened to them. The feel of being liberated was one they got so used to.
But still, they were born to be CEOs, to be businessmen, to be successors. In their senior year they were forced to study, not that they were doing awful in school. Sehun was at the top of his year, Kris not too far behind. But they needed to get into major universities, and it wasn’t even a choice, it was an obligation. They attended all of these cram schools against their will, and were withdrawn from all extracurricular activities, depriving them of their only form of recreation. No more parties, no more relationships.
They both passed all their tests, acquiring above average results from all the SATs they took. They-or more like their parents-decided to enrol them in Harvard, both taking Business Administration. It was a gruelling four years in university, years spent slaving away on schoolwork and having no time for themselves. Sehun wasn’t his charming self anymore, turning into this emotionless hollow person that just studied and never made friends. Kris couldn’t blame him, he became like Sehun as well. When they got their diplomas Kris was catapulted by his father straight into their family company, making him the CEO of the chain of Wu Hotels. Sehun was enrolled into graduate school, and maybe that was the last news of Sehun he heard of in a while.
Next he caught wind of Sehun’s status in life was roughly two years after, Sehun’s father boasting proudly that his son has acquired his master’s degree in business administration to a room filled with his fellow businessmen, Kris and his own father included. Sehun was now in charge of almost half of the Oh Corporations, turning it into this huge tiger company that was taking the world by storm. He’s one of the best the world has ever seen, but Kris knew better. This wasn’t what Sehun wanted.
And like what Kris had known from the start, Sehun ran. He disappeared one day without a trace. He managed to still run his businesses and make new transactions while remaining MIA. No one knew where he went, or who he was with, not even his parents or his assistants. Not even Kris. And maybe that’s what hurt the most because Kris thought that they were supposed to be brothers, supposed to lean on each other’s shoulders when shit went downhill. However with Sehun, everything just seemed to go up and up and up, and Kris somehow lost sight of him.
One day Kris got a package. It was a package that had no return address. When he opened it, it was full of postcards. Postcards dated almost two weeks apart, all containing the familiar, hardly discernible scrawl of one Oh Sehun. There were 39 countries all in all, and Kris had released a shuddering breath of relief when he concluded that Sehun was fine, he was ok, and he was gradually going back to who he really was.
Kris decided to stay in Italy indefinitely. He was aiming for the Italian economy, to create an empire there alongside a Sehun that still wasn’t making an appearance. It was there that Kris met Baekhyun, and fell in love. And then one day Sehun appeared, and it’s a somewhat wonderful reunion. He was with someone, a boy with striking features and a nice jaw line, and he seemed happier than what Kris had seen in years. Sehun bought a townhouse near Trentova beach, and moved in. Maybe Sehun had gotten over his wanderlust, and decided to settle down.
But then Kris realised that this was Sehun, and he was as mercurial as the weather. After two months he left without a trace, leaving notes to him and Jongdae, the man he left. It's already a blur in Kris' mind, but all he remembers is that Sehun left him the townhouse, and something that said "I don't have any reason to stay". It was a good blow to Kris' face because, apparently, he wasn't enough reason for Sehun to stay, nor was a person he thought was Sehun's significant other.
And just last year he finally sees Sehun again. Now that Sehun has come back to Italy, Kris doesn't know what to do next. It was a big surprise, and it left him flabbergasted for a good amount of time. It took everything he could not to bash Sehun's face in with one of Baekhyun's frying pans, but all it took was a shy smile from him for Kris to forgive him and to welcome him with open arms.
"You know," Kris says, licking his spoon clean, "what I don't get?"
"What?" Lu Han asks. He's already finished his last bite of dark mocha-pistachio gelato, and is currently cradling his empty ice cream bowl in his hands.
"Ever since the day I introduced you to him, it's like something changed in him." Kris' spoon clanks against his glass bowl, and Baekhyun gives him the stink eye.
"What do you mean?"
"You don't know him as well as I do, but I can tell. Did you know that this must be the longest he's stayed in one place? I thought he was going to leave around last last month, but he didn't. I'd like to think that it's because of you."
"Why me?" Lu Han asks again, frustrated. All this information is quite a lot to take in, and Kris isn't making any of this easier.
"Because no one has ever made him feel appreciated before, or went against his wishes. Not after a long while." Kris leans back into the couch, hand coming to rest atop Baekhyun's hand. "Maybe he's found his reason to stay."
Lu Han goes home with more than enough things to think about. His mind is jumbled up. He knows that back then he really wanted to get to know Sehun. He wanted to know his story and who he is. But now that he has, he's realised that there was so much more to him than meets the eye. He's this really complex person made up of a clusterfuck of contrasting traits and Lu Han's head spins at the thought of trying to comprehend him.
And all of a sudden, Lu Han is scared.
Because he finds himself still falling fast for Sehun. He finds himself drawn to this person that looks so beautiful and wonderful, is funny and amazing. But he can't just judge him by his outward appearance alone. Not when he has so many skeletons in his closet, and Lu Han is actually itching to figure out everything.
Lu Han finds himself falling for a book that not only has a blank cover but also, an unwritten ending.
☯
An English proverb says that the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
This holds true for Lu Han’s parents. Lu Han’s father had met his mother at her family’s restaurant. He had come with his family, too, and one bite of his mother’s peking duck had him calling for the chef. One look at his mother and his father was smitten. That where it had started. The addition of another moneymaker under his belt, and a woman to love and to cherish (and also to feed him). Three years after Lu Han was born into the world, and the rest is history.
“You should hold a housewarming party.”
Lu Han looks up from his chopping board to glare at Sehun from behind his shoulder. “I have been staying here for a good three months now. I believe I can not throw a party. And please stop eating the pancetta.”
Sehun is seated at the island bar, hand currently inside the Pyrex bowl placed innocently in front of him on the marble counter, fishing for crispy bacon clumps. He smiles up at Lu Han, and Lu Han turns back to his diced onions, blushing quite fiercely.
Sehun had knocked this time around.
He was holding a basket filled with ribbons of lasagne pasta, cherry red tomatoes, a block of mozzarella and packets of parmesan, and two green bottles with characters written all over them. Lu Han was shocked when he tiptoed to look into his door’s glass peephole, seeing Sehun’s fisheye lens-distorted image looking back at him, but not really seeing him. Sehun had disappeared for a month now, and now he’s here in front of Lu Han’s door, looking windblown and still wonderful like he did before he left.
Lu Han fumbled greatly to open the door and, once it had swung open, he took in a deep breath. Sehun looked taller, if it was still possible, and his cheeks and nose were tinged the lightest of pink. His wool trenchcoat was drenched with rainwater, and his hair was clinging to his face. The ends of his jeans were shades darker, and he realised that Sehun must’ve ran in the rain, and headed straight up to Lu Han’s flat.
When Lu Han had fully taken in Sehun’s face and his presence by his door he nearly kissed him, relieved that Sehun was alive and well and here. Then he remembered that he was just a friend, his landlord, and that it is very frowned upon to kiss someone who may or may not like him back with the same magnitude that he does. But that didn’t stop him from punching Sehun first, his fist colliding quite harshly with Sehun’s chest before letting him inside his warm flat.
And now here they are, Lu Han cooking the tomato sauce as per Sehun’s instructions while waiting for the pasta to boil, and the white sauce (because there has to be a hint of French cuisine here somewhere) to simmer on the stove. Sehun is just watching him, perfectly dry and now clothed in a loose navy blue v-neck shirt with matching flannel pyjamas he dashed downstairs for (“No, I do not want to wear Pororo pyjamas,” Sehun had objected, shaking his drenched tresses back and forth). Now that his rain-wet head is perfectly towel-dried, Lu Han discovers than Sehun’s hair isn’t silver blond anymore. It’s the softest and prettiest shade of pink, and he looked so ethereally beautiful it took a good while before Lu Han’s heart started beating in his chest cavity again.
“Yes you can, you know. And it would be really fun. You can hold it on a Friday night and it’d be the drunken orgy you mentioned the first day you stepped into this place.” Sehun pops a particularly large piece of pancetta in his mouth, and Lu Han promptly lets go of his hold on the pot of pasta. He hisses when the boiling water comes into contact with his skin, retracting his hand as fast as he can.
Sehun jumps up from his seat, and hurries towards Lu Han. He opens the tap and shoves Lu Han’s hand under the cold water. Lu Han watches as Sehun’s eyebrows converge, staring at the reddening skin pulled over Lu Han’s fingers as he washes them.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Sehun apologises as he helps relieve Lu Han’s blanched skin. Lu Han’s stomach is thrashing, the feel of Sehun’s hands wrapped around his own making him feel overwhelmed.
“The pasta,” he manages to choke out, “Save it.” He pushes Sehun away, and makes to go to nearest bathroom. After he’s finished applying some burn cream on his hand, he goes back to the kitchen. He sees Sehun rummaging through the cupboards, and his shirt hitches up ever so slightly to reveal a lean waist, and faint dimples at the bottom of his spine. His skin is so white under the fluorescent lights, and Lu Han has to look away to avoid thinking inappropriate things.
“Where do you put your Pyrex trays?” He asks. He turns to face Lu Han and smiles at him shyly. Lu Han points at the third cupboard to the left, and Sehun promptly goes to it.
“Come here,” he calls out to Lu Han. Lu Han shuffles to moves next to Sehun. “You can’t lay the pasta, so you can put on the sauce. Pour some of the tomato sauce on the bottom. I don’t know how it’ll taste like with that white sauce of yours but, drizzle it in there.” Lu Han watches as Sehun takes a sheet of lasagna and puts it over the sauce. “There put some of the sauce again.”
It’s like clockwork, and they work at a comfortable pace, surrounded by comfortable silence and the pitter-patter of the storm raging outside. Their arms occasionally brush against each other, and Lu Han has to constantly grip the sauce ladle tighter in his hand to avoid from dropping it and grabbing Sehun to kiss him.
“Hand me the cheeses inside the basket, will you?” Sehun requests. He takes the ladle from Lu Han’s hand and pushes him away with a hand dangerously close to his waist, settling only in the middle of his scapula. He takes the cheese and grabs the cheese grater from one of the drawers, and hands them to Sehun. Sehun puts a generous amount of white sauce on the top, unfortunately something that Lu Han likes, and grates loads of cheese over it.
“I really like cheese, if you don’t mind,” Sehun says while running the mozzarella back and forth, reducing them to white strings. Lu Han loves extra cheese on his pasta. Sehun pops the lasagne in the oven, and starts ordering Lu Han to sit down and let him set the dinner table (in this case, the island bar).
"Who taught you how to cook?" Lu Han asks as he hands the Pyrex bowl with pancetta in it to Sehun. Sehun sets the freshly baked lasagne on the counter, peels off the oven mittens.
"I taught myself. I had to, you know. Survival does it to you," he answers. Sehun takes the bowl from his grasp and sprinkles the salted pork on top of the melted cheese. When he's done he pushes the lasagne towards the middle with a mitten and exclaims, "Buon appetito!"
Sehun and Lu Han make a good combination in making lasagne. It is one of the best and creamiest (also cheesiest) lasagne Lu Han has ever eaten, and it is heaven. Sehun laughs at his expression when he takes his first bite, and Lu Han efficiently takes the melted cheese and pancetta off of half the pasta in retaliation. Sehun reaches over and takes the green bottles from the basket, and pops them open. He hands one to Lu Han, and takes a swig from the other one.
Lu Han eyes the bottle, and takes a sniff. “What is this?”
“Soju,” Sehun answers, shivering a little before taking another bite of his lasagne. “It’s like vodka, but from Korea. Try it.”
Lu Han eyes him, stares at the contents from the mouth of the bottle. It’s colourless, and looks a lot like Sprite. He takes a gulp. It burns on its way down his throat, and the heat spreads to his stomach and around his body. He shivers. Now he gets it.
“Why does it taste like this oh my god,” Lu Han gasps out, struggling to untangle his legs from its hooked position around the legs of his chair, and stumbling to the fridge to take a bottle of water. He downs a quarter of it in one go, and Sehun’s chuckles sound like music to his ears. Lu Han goes back to his seat, and declares, “Why?”
“That’s everybody’s reaction the first time they drink that,” Sehun informs him, taking another drink from his own bottle. “Burns and tastes like a bitch, doesn’t it?” Lu Han swallows a mouthful of pasta and cheese to chase down the taste.
“So is that where you went?” Lu Han asks. He pokes at a blob of white sauce, and looks up, “You went to Korea?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Lu Han is frustrated at Sehun’s clipped answer, at his emotionless expression more so. “Why didn’t you even tell me? I was so disappointed in you, did you know that? It was like, one day I went down and knocked on your door and found no one home, and you weren’t answering your phone, and Baekhyun told me you were gone and even Kris didn’t know where you were. God, I was so worried an-”
"You missed me?"
"I-what?"
Sehun leans forward, and his breath hits Lu Han's face, "I asked, you missed me?"
Lu Han flushes quite fast and, in a spur of the moment, takes a swig from his bottle filled with what tastes like rubbing alcohol diluted in water. His face feels unnaturally warm, and there's this buzz forming somewhere at the back of his throat.
"I did not," he vehemently denies as he tries his best not to shiver, "I was worried because... I was already a month overdue in bills! I do not like owing people money. People from the Lu clan never get debts."
"Liar." Sehun stares at Lu Han for some fifteen heartbeats (Lu Han's heart was thumping inside his chest really fast), and adds, "I had to attend a funeral. My father's."
Lu Han chokes on air, and the bitter smirk slapped on Sehun's face hurt more than what he expected. "Oh my god, Oh Sehun, I didn't know. I'm so sor-"
"Sorry?" Sehun scoffs, and pushes his empty plate away. "Why do people think that saying sorry will make everything ok? I don't think I need to be pitied by people just because my father's dead, Lu Han. Especially by you."
"I'm still sorry." Sehun's eyes flash with something reminiscent to anger, and Lu Han takes Sehun's hand in his. "I lied to you. Maybe I did miss you. Horribly so. I missed getting my flat infiltrated. I missed having my chocolate milk stolen. I missed getting cornered by the front door during my Monday pastry conquest. And I'm sorry because I thought we were friends, you know? I'm always open to talk to, and I won't judge you for it. I just thought that, maybe, I was more than a flatspacer to you."
He slips his hands off of Sehun's, only to have Sehun's fingers lock around his wrist. Sehun's face is still empty, but his grey eyes are storms of emotions crackling and conflicting, fighting for dominance. One emotion surfaces, and Sehun's eyes soften. Thank you.
"You're not just a flatspacer, I give you that." Sehun pulls away, and digs a fork into the pile of cheese at the side of Lu Han's plate.
"Hey!"
"Shh. Have pity on me, my dad just died." Sehun chuckles when Lu Han's palm connects with the skin on his arm. Lu Han is laughing, too, and is wrestling the fork away from Sehun.
"You just told me not to pity you, you dumb arse!"
"That was before you shoved me down to the petty level of a friend. The agony. I have fallen from grace. From being a future husband to a potential boyfriend and, now, a friend. I deserve all the cheese and the cartons of chocolate milk the Lu clan can offer."
Lu Han thinks that maybe Sehun is drunk, or that maybe he's drunk. There's this thrumming somewhere in between his lungs, and it feels warm and fuzzy and comfortable. Sehun clinks their soju bottles together, and they continue their dinner with less drama, and more comic jibes.
So maybe the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But they are both men here, and Lu Han thinks Sehun's the one that had wormed his way from Lu Han's stomach to his heart with his soju and his tasty lasagne and his strawberry hair and his sweet smile, instead of the other way around.
He doesn't think he can fall deeper than this.
☯
Sehun manages to get what he wants though. After a few persistent visits, bribes of food and comic books, and the intervening of a too-ecstatic Baekhyun and, by extension, a supportive Kris, Lu Han gives into Sehun's suggestion of throwing a housewarming party. Though around four months too late.
Lu Han invites some of the clients he's close to, Jongin and Chen included, and Baekhyun makes it his responsibility to fill up the rest of the guest list. Lu Han orders a sizeable number of cases of beer, and a few casks of the finest Lu wines. Kris takes the liberty, under Baekhyun's stern glare, of providing the food for the event.
"What are you supposed to do?" Lu Han asks a useless Sehun who is currently leaning on the fireplace, watching him tidy the room up and hang some decorations.
"Attend your drunken orgy, of course. And maybe evacuate the mass of people that will come before they trash your flat which, in technicality, is mine as well." He finishes this off with a Cheshire grin on his face, and it leaves Lu Han breathless. He also sort of wants to strangle Sehun with the string of firefly lights he's holding. Sehun leaves him to his own devices, on the excuse that he needs to look good when he attends Lu Han's aforementioned drunken orgy. Lu Han decides that he should do the same, tacking the last of the glow-in-the-dark stars on the wall, then heading to his room to take a bath.
He takes one last look at his reflection in the mirror, silently blames his father's genes again because his hair is tragically curly today, and rights his jacket. He looks quite dapper in his starched polo shirt and black jeans, save for his not salvageable hair. He locks his bedroom for the night, not wanting it to be some place for people to be hooking up in. It's nearly 8 PM, and the guests will start arriving soon.
Lu Han clearly underestimated the number of people by 30, give or take five. Baekhyun, not surprisingly, knows a lot of people in Naples and Agropoli and thought it would be a splendid idea to invite them over at Lu Han's. Lu Han discerns some of the faces as those that had kissed him, or he had kissed, during Baekhyun's New Years party. He clearly avoids those people, not wanting to be recognised. It's a good thing he pushed the couch to the corner of the room, because the middle of the living became something of a makeshift dance floor, Jongin owning the space.
"Who is that?"
Lu Han turns around to see Mr. Dimples, not-so-subtly ogling a good client of his. He answers politely, "Kim Jongin."
"Fine boy with a fine body," Mr. Dim-Yixing! He remembers now!-purrs, eyeing Jongin up and down as Jongin rolls his hips quite lewdly, "I want to marry him someday." Yixing winks at Lu Han before walking away from him, and moving towards the centre. He watches Yixing and Jongin circle each other, and start grinding on each other like mating worms and Lu Han doesn't know which appendages are Jongin's and which are Yixing's anymore. He looks away, cringing at the sight, and makes to go to the island bar.
It is there that he sees Sehun, looking like a god. He's wearing a crisp white dress shirt and dress pants, his pink hair looking more like washed-out red than a soft pastel. Sehun looks pristine and untouchable. And maybe he is, what with that harsh set to his jaw and the icy glare in his eyes. He's currently in, what seems to be, a row with Lu Han's client, Chen, and he doesn't look very happy. Lu Han moves to intervene, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Lu Han looks up to see Kris, shaking his head from left to right.
"Let him settle his issue with Jongdae. He owes him that much," Kris says solemnly, and Lu Han finally understands the morbid expression on Sehun's face. He makes the assumption that Chen equals Jongdae equals ex-boyfriend. A skeleton has just come out of the closet, and Sehun is not yet ready to face it.
So Lu Han backs off, and decides to swallow down all the drinks that come his way, even the shots of soju that Baekhyun thought was a nice touch.
The housewarming party spirals down after that, and it's all a blur of flashing lights and too-bright colours to Lu Han. Someone infiltrated the sound system in his flat and started booming out tracks with sounds that range from the cheesiest pop to the most electronically dubstepped.
Lu Han finds himself squeezing through the bodies of people, and stumbling back to the island bar. Sehun is still there, but now his face has eased into this look of solemnity, staring down at the shot glass in his hand. Lu Han sits himself down next Sehun, and nudges him.
"I got to hand it to you, Oh Sehun," Lu Han slurs, not minding that maybe Sehun can't understand Chingrish. "This does seem like a drunken orgy. Just without the... Um..." He suddenly shuts up, face blooming red. He knows he must sound ridiculous, and he mustn't really be making the brightest impression on Sehun right now.
"I'm always right," Sehun cuts smilingly, eyes boring into his. He's impossibly close, and his breath smells tangy. Lu Han leans into Sehun closer.
"Why do you smell good different?"
"What?"
"Lemon, I think. Or orange, or some citrus thing. Why?"
"Oh," Sehun leans back, and Lu Han suppresses a whimper at the loss of Sehun-warmth. "Tequila."
Lu Han attempts to jumpstart his brain. "I don't Spanish."
"I'd have thought, with your family being in the liquor business, you would be thoroughly versed in the world of it." Sehun drags the bottle in front of them. "This is tequila. It's Mexican, not Spanish. And it's one of the best things you'd ever drink in your life." He pours some on two shot glasses, and slides one to Lu Han. Lu Han stares at the clear liquid and downs it at once, and it burns.
“Why the fuck do you enjoy drinking hydrochloric acid,” Lu Han gasps out in between coughs, his throat awfully worked out. He thinks he might have started vomiting a little in his mouth, and Sehun’s just laughing at him, throwing his head back while turning on the counter chair.
“That’s because you don’t drink it like that, uncultured, potential boyfriend of mine,” Sehun replies condescendingly. He pours another generous amount of tequila in Lu Han’s shot glass, and slides a plate of sliced lemons in between them. There’s a small mountain of powdered white something at the side, and oh my god dru-
“First of all, put a dab of salt on your hand like this.” Sehun forms his hand into a fist, and brings it close to his mouth, his tongue flicking out to wet the patch of skin in between his thumb and forefinger. He takes a pinch of the salt and sprinkles it over the damp area. He waits for Lu Han to do the same, and signals for Lu Han to take a slice of the citrus.
“Ok. Basically, all you have to do is lick, drink, and suck. Mix it in your mouth, and swallow. Get?” Lu Han manages to nod his head, and proceeds to stare at his shot glass filled with clear acid. He feels sceptic, and he’s sure he’s already drunk. Sehun stifles a chuckle. “Let me do it first.”
And so Lu Han watches Sehun lick the smatter of salt on the back of his palm, pink tongue flattening out and oh God. He then throws back the shot of tequila, and proceeds to suck his slice. His cheeks are hollowed out, and then he gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing up and then down. Lu Han never thought drinking acid would look so sexy.
Sehun releases a breath, and says, “You try it.”
Lu Han does, following Sehun’s instructions: lick, drink, suck. He swirls the mixture in his mouth with his tongue and, after a second or two, forces it down. It still feels like there’s a fire trail going down his throat, but it feels and tastes better, and wow.
Around his fifth shot and the third Rihanna song Lu Han starts shout-singing along.
“You da one!” Lu Han shouts into Sehun’s ear, trying to jump down from his seat. The floor is practically throbbing with music, the bass entirely way too loud. Alcohol is thrumming in his veins, and this song is actually one of his favourites to jam to.
“What,” Sehun shouts back, catching Lu Han with an arm around his waist before he faceplants on the kitchen tiles.
“You da one that I think about alwaaaaaaays,” Lu Han singsongs-slash-shrieks, curling his fingers around Sehun’s dress shirt. He hiccups, then continues, an entire line too early, “My love is your love, your love is my looooove.”
“You’re drunk,” Sehun proclaims. He helps Lu Han to his feet, managing to fish out his cellphone in the process. He calls Kris and asks him to make the guests leave, and to inform Baekhyun that the party’s over, and he’d take care of Lu Han. He leads Lu Han to his bedroom, and finds the door locked.
“Lu Han,” Sehun says while he jiggles the doorknob. It won’t budge. “The keys to your room, please. Where is it? Lu Han, are you ok?”
“Yep,” Lu Han nods, hands coming up to grasp at Sehun’s shoulders. “I’m falling for you,” he continues, voice entirely way too loud in the rapidly deserting corridor. He nods his head again, looking straight at Sehun’s face, trying to focus his eyes into Sehun’s. Lu Han insists, “But there’s nothing wrong with that.”
And with that Lu Han passes out, body slumping against Sehun’s. The last of the obnoxious tune of the song drowns out as Kris turns the sound system off, and he takes a peek at Sehun and Lu Han’s current condition.
“Got shit-faced drunk?” Kris asks, looking at a frozen Sehun holding up an unconscious Lu Han. Sehun couldn’t answer; just staring down at the tuft of golden curls shoved under his chin and is ticking his neck. He manages to nod though.
As Sehun carries Lu Han downstairs to his own flat, and lets Kris and Baekhyun handle the mess upstairs, he realises he’s sort of confused. Because how much of what Lu Han had been scream-singing at him were true, and were just meaningless, and obnoxious lyrics?
i ii iii