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t o    t h e    d e v i l    i    l o v e d    d e a r l y

 

 

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═

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody told him it would ever be easy.

In fact, there had been so many times he’d been so willing to give it all up.

Sleepless and teary-eyed at five AM, he had worn holes through his own clothing trying to reach for his dreams.

But every minute he had spent bent over the slow drone of his sewing machine made him wonder, later, if it had been worth it at all.

Because he'd been nothing but sincere, since the very beginning.

And yet the only solace he ever found was in the bottom of a wine glass - dark and red just like his bleeding heart.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“You didn’t actually think it was love, did you? I had to set myself apart somehow. You know how it is in this industry. You either make it or you don't.”

And just like that, gone were the moments where he’d honestly believed he’d mattered.

Snatched just like the papers falling from his hands, fluttering slowly to the ground.

His name on every sheet, the countless hours he'd spent, his blood sweat and tears - erased in minutes with careful of a white-out pen, invisible now if not for the fact that he knew what had been there before.

You lied to me. He wanted to scream and cry.

To ball up all of the sketches he’d drawn for that man, to tear them up in a rage.

You stole - you stole everything from me.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it had to end like this.”

His heart was as fragile as the paint peeling off his door, creaking slowly open and shut in the hollow wind. Empty like the voids in the drawers and on the mantelpiece, where mementos they’d shared and cherished before had been removed. Shattered like the glass jars he’d left out, vomiting their spare buttons and bright fabric swatches like organs onto the floor.

He used to love running his hands through them, spreading the sequins like gold coins and watching them glitter between his fingers.

Instead, he wiped a drop of sweat from his cheek, smearing his skin with traces of white tailor’s chalk.

“Get out.”

The hesitation was palpable - thick enough to cut.

But after a few breathless moments, the floorboards creaked and the door slammed shut with a finality that he wasn’t sure he was prepared for.

And then that was it. He had been left behind. Staring down at his bandaged hands, alone with his thoughts.

Sure, he’d always imagined what it would be like.

To believe in the smile that his reflection put on for him in the mirror. To look down and no longer see his dirty, bleeding fingertips. To be proud, for once, of all the choices he’d made.

All the people who’d been forcefully cut out of his life, just as quickly as the snip-snap of his scissors across the fabric he used to fill up the holes.

Maybe he’d be okay alone.

At least then there’d be no more wondering, no more late nights at the sewing machine telling himself that maybe this time he’d make it and he'd finally have something to be proud of - and maybe then life wouldn’t have been such a still life painting - black and white to the vibrant colors he knew it should have been.

He sat there for hours though, wanting and wondering and wandering in his mind, blinking slowly to the beat of the ringing of his ears, the slow scratch of his ragged fingernails against the faded blue of his jeans.

When he opened his eyes again, the glass of burning alcohol that made its way into his hands felt comforting, the low light of the bar was a soft blur and the cold liquid against his overheated head and hands slid into him nice and smooth. The tips of his fingers pricked with phantom, bleeding pain.

Sure, he had never been the good kid. Never the golden child. But some part of him wondered - hadn’t he worked hard? Tried hard?

(Hadn’t he deserved more than this?)

“But, I never wanted to be alone, either.” He admitted, to himself, in the quiet dark.

The bartender hardly spared him another glance.

So he took another drink.

And then another.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

he would wind up crying himself senseless in the dirty seat of the last train back home

the rocking car shaking him, the bright lights of the city burning against the back of his shuttered eyelids

he remembered the taste of his tears, bit his lips so hard he bled over the red vinyl
and the bitter disappointment - one that he could taste -

this, he promised himself, was something that he would never forget

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“Dim the lights! Cue the music! Get your faces ready everyone - alright and go, go, go!”

 

They were all dressed to kill, looking as prickly and untouchable as their metal spikes and black leather suggested.

Every single one of them wore the same cold expression - eyes dead and mouths sneering - as if everyone else disgusted them.

The show had only just started but they were already getting a response from the crowd - the cameras were out in full force, a sea of bright lights flashing and mouths dropping appreciatively open as the winter collection marched forward to the sound of dark, drowning music.

They were chillingly beautiful, and violent all the same, looking like death incarnate with their waifish figures and drooping eyelids.

But for as stunningly cool and collected as the models seemed on stage, backstage, there was a panicked frenzy as always.

Nobody wanted to up.

Of course they were all professionals. Some of them had been doing the same job for decades.

Still, regardless of experience, there was a sort of nervous energy that came over all of them during every show. They ran around like field mice, shoulders tight and gazes to the floor. All of them wanted to do their best. To prove that they belonged here.

Because he was watching - he always was.

Just when you’d think you’d finally gotten it right, he’d pop up when you’d least expect it, snatching the clipboard right out of your hands, shouting your ear off and making you run off to the bathroom to have a long, hard cry.

He was an awful man to work for. He demanded and expected nothing but perfection.

Then again, wasn’t that expected?

After all, he was one of the youngest designers of his time to reach this level of international acclaim. Celebrities fell over themselves to wear his designs on the red carpet. The gossip magazines always plastered pictures of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hiddleston dressed in his signature black leather suit, asking their readers the ever important question of who wore it better?

The truth was, nobody wore the designer’s clothes better than he did himself.

Because Huang Zitao was just as if not more handsome than any of the models who represented him on his catwalk - and the style of his clothes always fit him and his personality to a tee. He was the original blueprints to all the countless copies that were pasted into his clothes. If you ever were one of the lucky few to catch a glimpse of his face when he wasn’t yelling or scowling at you, you might have said that he had one of those faces that was born to be famous. High cheekbones and snake-like eyes. A pouty, sulking creature who seemed more fit to be lounging on red satin bedsheets than to be in the middle of the fray as he often was, pencil tucked behind his ear, pins clenched tightly between his teeth as he secured the very last dress onto the model that was about to be sent down the runway.

If you were smart, you would know better than to approach him when he was like this. Eyebrows furrowed and lips pulled downward at the corners.

Then again, maybe that’s exactly what they all wanted - the undivided attention of a real artiste. Even if it came off as murderous. You had to be a little masochistic, to survive here.

No one remained unaffected. Outside, they were already eating out of the palms of his hands - fawning over every piece that came out onto the runway, gushing over every detail, tweeting and instagramming every single look that came flying past them #dropdeadgorgeous #sickening.

And when the show was finally over, when the models came filing out one last time in their fifty shades of black eyeshadow and black lipstick, all eyes were on him.

Bravo, they would all stand for him, feet sore from their stilettos, hands red from clapping.

Beautiful, they’d write about him in the papers later.

Perfect, the magazines would all have to say.

The rich buyers would come afterwards, of course. Sweeping in and out of his stores as if they owned the place, pulling his clothes off the rack like hot pies straight from the oven.

He’d buy all the magazines, just for a good laugh. And he’d sit on the expensive leather couch of his multi-million dollar home, watching as the money would roll in.

(That’s what they thought he would do, anyway. Luckily for him, the media had so far failed to notice or mention the bags under his eyes, hidden cleverly by concealer, or the quivering shake in his hand, steadied only by the presence of the small bottle he’d hidden in his coat pocket.)

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Oh god it was happening again, why was it happening again.

“But I love you. You can't leave me!”

“Yeah… mmm… thanks but no thanks.”

Oh Sehun, 25 years old, bleached blond with a bachelor's degree in being cool, only barely managed to hightail it out of there wearing just his pants, his wallet and shirt clenched tightly in his hand as the door slammed shut behind him, muting the sound of the man’s voice trying to call him back.

When he finally made it home, he went through the tried and true rhythm of removing the guy’s contact information, making sure to his number and deleting every incriminating photo from his phone with a cringe and a shudder.

Then, he called Suho.

“Again?!”

He pulled away with a grimace, sticking his finger into his ear to clear out the ringing noise before cautiously pressing his face back against the phone.

“Jesus, Sehun. How many times has this happened already? Four? Five times?”

“Six, if you count that crazy beekeeper chick who liked wearing her weird space suit to bed.”

“Oh Sehun,” Suho started, in the same disapproving mother voice that always made Sehun want to roll his eyes into his head, “You’re not a therapist. Stop trying to fix people’s problems with your .”

“I’m not trying to fix people with my -”

“- the first step to fixing a problem is to admit you have a problem.”

“I don’t have a problem!” Sehun practically shouted back into the phone.

Dead silence filled the line.

Sehun sighed, looking down after a minute to pick self-consciously at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt.

“…okay, so maybe I have a problem.” He mumbled. “A small, very insignificant problem.”

“Oh, yeah? Then what was so insignificant about the drug addict who stole a thousand bucks from you, the one who you said ‘had beautiful eyes’?”

“She did, okay? And all I wanted to do was to take her picture, jeez.”

“Was this before or after your porked her?” Suho asked.

“……god, Suho, who the hell even uses that word?”

“Admit it - you have a thing for every 'wilted flower' that catches your eye.”

“Jesus. You make me sound like a real dirtbag.” Sehun complained with a mutter.

“Well, I’m glad you got the implication. Your lovelife is full of psychopaths and social deviants! Hasn’t anyone told you to stay away from people like that??”

“Yeah.” Sehun remarked drily, “You have.”

“That’s right! Because they’re not just photos on a canvas, Sehun. These are real crazy people with real crazy emotions who make the real crazy assumption that you actually have feelings for them. Which leads to bad times for everyone.” Suho stressed, the agitation in his voice coming out clear across the phone.

“Listen, I can’t help that I find troubled people inspiring, alright? ty situations tend to bring out the worst qualities in people, yeah, but also the best. You’ve been to my exhibitions - you’ve seen the portraits I shot - didn’t you say they were beautiful?”

“I did, but I also recognize that at some point, things are going to come right back around and bite you straight in the , young man.” Suho warned.

“Alright, alright, mom. Enough with the morality lesson. I’ve already got enough on my plate as it is.”

Sehun took a look at his wristwatch, cursing when he realized the time.

“Speaking of,” he said, “I should probably get going. I’ve got to wake up early tomorrow.”

Suho sniffed across the line, clearly not satisfied with the abrupt end to their conversation, although he allowed the topic to change.

“Fine. You’ve got that interview, right? Do you think you're prepared?”

“Yeah, sure. Gotta be if I want to make enough money to buy myself that new camera lens. It should be a breeze. There weren’t a lot of qualifications on the job listing, and the commute is nice. If it all goes well, I should be looking at…” Sehun clucked under his breath, shaking his wristwatch free again so that he could check the date. “…September 1st for my first day.”

“Well, good luck.” Suho said. “Not that you’ll need it.”

Sehun snorted, actually rolling his eyes this time, even if the other man wasn’t there to see it.

“Alright, old man. I’m going to bed, then. Good night.”

“Hey Sehun?” Suho asked, just as Sehun was about to pull away to end the call.

“Yeah?” He asked back, raspy and tired and barely holding back the yawn crawling up his throat.

“Stay out of trouble.” Suho warned.

As if things were that simple.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

It was a photograph he’d develop over time.

Something that he would hang up in his darkroom so that he could watch the details become clearer and clearer to him.

Like pulling out of a fog.

“So this is the boss’ office. Doesn’t look like he’s here right now - he might be in the bathroom - that’s fine though, we can wait. It’d be good for you to meet him, and he has to review and sign all the documentation before you officially start working here anyway. You know, for legal purposes.”

Sure, sure.

Sehun nodded and shifted, standing straighter. He smoothed back his hair nervously with his hand, fixing his tie at the next opportunity. He had noticed, of course, the fixed stares from his two companions. It was hard not to. It felt like they hadn’t blinked ever since he’d walked in. He was sweating profusely under the bold, glaring light.

“So, if I might ask,” One of them finally asked, dressed in a stark white blouse with obnoxious ruffle detail, “why did you apply for the job?”

Sehun gave a confused grunt, digging a finger into the hot collar of his shirt and pulling it out to give his neck some fresh air.

“Was it for the employee discount? Because you won’t be able to use that for the first six months.” The second woman blurted out. She was wearing a tight-fitting black pencil skirt and slim, black-framed glasses, like a Morticia Addams trying to do her best impression of a y librarian.

Sehun turned to her with a frown, ready to correct her when the first woman chimed in again.

“Don’t be stupid, Raina. Just look at him. Ragged suit, purposefully mismatched tie… Let me guess. You’re one of those avid fanboys of the 2013 fall collection, aren’t you? Your look is so very hobo chic.”

Sehun blinked, looking down at his own clothes with a frown.

Hobo? This was his best suit.

Great. Not even a day in and they’re already making fun of me, he thought to himself, with no small amount of bemusement, and what the hell were they even talking about, anyway?

Whatever the two of them thought was the reason for him being here today couldn’t be more wrong.

He just needed the money, honestly.

Until he could take enough clients to start using photography as the main means for a living, something had to pay the bills.

Not that he’d be stupid enough to tell the two of them that.

Besides, the two of them were no longer even paying attention to him, instead falling into a heated, hushed argument with each other over who was right and who was wrong.

Sehun decided to keep the truth to himself. No point in telling them when they were having so much fun trying to figure it out themselves.

Still. He stuck out his arm, pulling back his shirt sleeve to glance down at his watch with a frown. Five minutes had already passed, and there was still no sign of his elusive boss. His frown deepened.

“…so where is this lady, anyway?”

Both women shot him a look. They responded in perfect unison.

“Mr. Huang is not a lady.”

Sehun grimaced, taking a shuffling step to the side as he folded his hands into his pockets.

“Right. Mr. Huang.” He muttered drily. “Is he always this late to everything?”

“He’s never late.” Thing 1 said.

“That’s right. He’s always exactly where he needs to be, when he needs to be.” Thing 2 said.

“In fact, you should probably act more grateful to even be here,” The taller one continued, giving him a snooty up-and-down look. “Though I can’t imagine you will be here very long.”

“Nana!” The other one hissed.

“…what do you mean by that?” Sehun asked with narrowed eyes.

Rather than answering him directly, they turned to him with yet another question.

“Don’t you know who he is?” They both flung at him in the same empty tone, before turning back to each other to bicker once again.

You all sound like robots. He wanted to say, fingers itching to grab the camera that was usually by his side.

Switch out the lens. Maybe change the lighting a bit. Shift a little more to the left so that his eerie little escorts fell on either side, perfectly framing the shot.

Click-click, his mind supplied the sound of the camera snapping for him.

But soon, even he grew tired of constructing fake photo shoots in his own head.

The models lacked conviction, he told himself. No deep emotion. Nothing real about them at all.

He turned back to face the hall with a sigh.

This was turning out to be a long day.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“Mr. Huang, sir, if you could please just - just take a quick look at my sketches I promise I’ll get out of your hair, I -”

The door flew open with a bang, and with that came the whirlwind that would change Sehun’s life forever.

“Get out of my face before I call security and have you dragged out of here and tossed onto your .” He heard the snarl before he even saw the long legs stalking in, followed shortly by an even thinner torso wrapped up neatly in a dark, nearly black, pea-coat. Quick on his heels was a frazzled young woman who looked very much out of her element, holding a batch of papers in front of her that she insistently pressed forward.

“Please, I swear I’ll leave if you just have a look! I - I’ve just been your fan for so long, you’ve inspired me to pursue my dreams, and if - if you could just give me some feedback, I, I swear I’ll go -” She stammered.

Fingers were snapped impatiently in front of her face in place of a response, and with a giddy, trembling energy, she eagerly passed on her sketches.

The man, whom Sehun could only assume was to be his new boss, whipped around to face her, pulling off the thin wireframe glasses off his face in order to take a closer look at what he’d been handed.

Sehun, who had been standing there lost in the background waiting the whole time, felt his mouth run dry. 

He hadn’t expected his new boss to look like this.

He hadn’t even known that his boss was even going to be a man until a few minutes ago, and when he’d figured that out he’d just assumed it would be a small, effeminate looking man.

Which was not at all what he got.

What he got instead was someone who looked more like a model. He definitely had the height and hawkish features of one, though he definitely wasn’t a conventional one - he didn’t have the type of face one would typically see in a catalogue. Where one would expect a pleasant, smiling face - high cheekbones and bright white teeth - in its place there was a sullen, sulking expression, downturned lips and shrewd eyes that looked like they might eat you alive. Tall and bony with dark bags under his eyes, his new boss almost gave him the impression of being a beautifully underfed drug addict.

Sehun couldn’t help but stare.

Unhealthy edges aside, there was just something about him - some weird, hypnotizing quality that made it hard for Sehun to tear his eyes off. Made his fingers itch even more for his camera.

“Really? This - is what you’ve worked so hard for?”

With a cold look that worked so well on his face, Mr. Huang stared right into the young woman’s eyes as he took her hard work and ripped it page-by-page to shreds right in front of her.

“Did you expect me to congratulate you on a job well done? To tell you that you’d made it - to offer you a job - a partnership?”

She blanched with every loud rrrrrippp. Her reaction only seemed to bring sadistic pleasure to the man in front of her.

“Well, I guess you could say we’ve both been disappointed by this encounter.” He said with a smile that looked about as friendly as a pit full of snakes.

“You can leave now.” He said quite sweetly, as if he hadn’t just ripped up the young woman’s hopes and dreams. With a loud snivel that sent Sehun’s blood running cold, she ran out of the room in tears.

With the momentary spell broken, Sehun couldn’t help but to grimace with a mixture of disgust and horror.

Who the hell did he think he was? He thought to himself, his hands feeling clammier now than ever.

New boss or not, that had to have been the dickiest of all moves he’d ever seen in his life.

God. Then came flooding in the feeling that he had put himself in a situation where he was in way over his head.

Sehun felt his mouth go dry again, although this time it was out of dread rather than awe.

The girl had left, but Mr. Huang barely seemed to notice the presence of the three other people still left in the room. He acted as if he were alone, stalking past them before collapsing into his chair with a huff. The man took one look at the small stack papers on top of his desk before leaning back and rubbing at his forehead as if it pained him.

He pulled out a flask of whiskey from somewhere behind his desk, knocking it back with all the ease of an old alcoholic, and Sehun watched the whole affair with no small amount of revulsion.

“That was rude.” Sehun said without thinking, his brain catching up with his mouth moments too late.

The man’s head rolled in his direction, his gaze burning holes into Sehun’s clothes. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, accompanied by the itchy feeling of someone examining him just a little too closely.

“…and who the hell are you?” The silence was finally broken, when the man sneered at him, glaring down his nose as if regarding a stain on the carpet.

Before Sehun could answer, the man asked the same question again, louder this time and aimed toward the other occupants in the room he had finally noticed.

“Uh, this is our new hire, sir.” Thing 1 clacked mechanically, daring to lean forward into the other man’s view if only to urge Sehun forward with a rough push.

“New hire?” Mr. Huang snorted, shooting him another look. “This mouthy piece of ?”

Sehun’s cheeks burned, and as had always been the case since he was child, he spoke without thinking.

“Again. Rude.”

As if not expecting it, the man looked for a moment as if he’d been blindsided, though the blank look on his face lasted only a split second before it wrinkled back into a sneer. Sehun steeled himself for the worst.

“And what’s your name?” Mr. Huang barked.

“Oh Sehun,” Sehun said back unflinchingly, the words tumbling from his mouth. “Sehun spelled with an ‘e’ and a ‘u’, Oh as in ‘oh, what a surprise’.”

“Oh, what a surprise indeed. Congratulations. You’ve just been fired.” Mr. Huang said, sending the entire room into a silent panic.

Admittedly, Sehun was stunned for a moment, his mouth dropping open to catch flies.

Before he could really even process what had just happened though, Thing 1 once again stepped in for him.

“Uh, sir, you - you can’t technically fire him, he hasn’t even been officially hired yet. We still need you to sign the papers - and even then you have to -”

“Well then give me that, Raina.” Mr. Huang snatched the papers from her hands, pulling out an expensive looking gold pen from the pocket of his suit.

He scrawled out his signature onto every dotted line, grumbling the whole time as he flipped through page by page, barely reading the words that were printed on it.

“There, there, and there. Done. You’re hired. Aaaaand now - you’re fired.” The smug look on the man’s face was back in full force, and he folded his arms across his chest in victory.

It was only with noticeable hesitation that Raina stepped forward again, looking backward as if trying to gather courage from her increasingly stony-faced companion.

“Uh - uhhhhh - sir -” She started, only to fall deathly quiet when Mr. Huang sent her a chilling look.

“What now, Raina?” He asked.

“It’s just - just we can’t - we can’t, um, actually do that -” She said, nervously wringing her hands.

They all flinched when Mr. Huang stood from his desk, the sound of his chair scraping loudly against the floor grating against their ears. He slammed his hands down, leaning forward as close as he could across the table.

“And. Why. Can’t. We?” Mr. Huang asked, in a low, threatening tone.

“I, uh, it’s an HR thing, sir - it'd be considered a uh, wrongful termination to fire someone within the first month without a legitimate reason.”

“Well, how about if I just don’t like him? That’s ‘a legitimate reason’, isn’t it?”

Raina started to shake her head but stopped herself quickly, staring up at her boss with big doe eyes, obviously unwilling to voice her answer when she knew it would only anger him.

Behind her, Sehun shifted, opening his mouth to speak on his own behalf - because it wasn’t like he wanted this job that bad, okay?! - but his efforts were only awarded by a hard pinch on the arm by the quiet woman still standing next to him, flaring her eyes at him and running pinched fingers across in a clear ‘zip it!’ gesture.

Mr. Huang’s glower only deepened, and despite his half-assed attempts at a smile, Sehun’s own expression mirrored it.

“Fine.” Mr. Huang gritted, sinking back down in his leather chair and rubbing a well-manicured hand back over his forehead. “Well, how long do we need to keep him around for before I can legally fire him, then?”

“Uh, uh -” Raina blanked, her brain failing her for a second as she swiped frantically at her phone for the answer. “… uh, probably three months? I, uh, would have to confirm that with HR, but… I think…”

Her voice trailed off into a quiet mumble.

Sehun stopped listening, instead distracted by the dark look of understanding that was shared across both men’s faces. And as Sehun debated whether or not it was really worth it to take on what was sure to be a job from hell, well-paying or not, a devilish smile crept up onto his new boss’ face.

“What did we hire him for, exactly?” He asked Raina, though it was Nana who chose to reply.

“He’s your new personal assistant, sir. Your general PA. You asked for budget last week for a new one, didn’t you?”

“…did I, now?” Mr. Huang said, picking his pen up from the desk and twirling it between his fingers. He bit his lip, as if considering something, before his eyes lit back up with cruel purpose.

“Well, might as well get started, then. Fetch me a coffee, will you?”

And then, a thoughtful click of the pen, followed shortly by a dark look.

“And make it quick, Oh Sehun.”

Sehun shifted his weight, paralyzed for a moment by indecision. A meaningful glance to his watch though, followed by his boss imitating that sound of a ticking clock, was enough to have him bolting from the room.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

He knew from what happened during their first interaction that it wasn’t going to be that easy.

He just should have realized it was the tip of the iceberg when his co-workers spared him worried, pitying looks.

For all the time and effort it had taken for him to get the fanciest, most expensive cup of coffee at the nicest hipster cafe in the area, it was all wasted when his boss barely spared it a glance.

And when he did, it was to dump it all - entirely untouched - straight onto the floor with a sneer.

“First thing you should learn is that I drink tea, not coffee,” He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named said, before gesturing down at the floor with a wave of his hand. “And clean that mess up, will you?”

…what had he gotten himself into? Sehun thought grimly to himself as he grit his teeth and reluctantly rolled up his sleeves.

It was barely his first day and he was already on his knees, mopping up spilled coffee.

…well, at least his new boss was hot.

Like, the crazy kind of hot that Sehun wouldn’t mind being on his knees for in the first place.

Not that he was thinking about that, of course.

Mr. Huang wasn’t even looking his way, too busy clicking away on his computer to notice how good Sehun looked from here.

, this wasn’t y at all. This just straight up .

Still, if there was one thing to be noted about Oh Sehun, it was that he was a fiercely competitive spirit.

And if somebody had set out to with him for the express purpose of showing him that he couldn’t do something, the more Sehun wanted to prove them wrong.

Because you and your ty personality. Sehun thought, looking his boss straight in the eyes the entire time, undeterred by the weight of the other’s critical gaze.

If it was a challenge Mr. Huang wanted, it was a challenge he would get.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Within the past five years he’d spent alone, Mr. Huang had apparently gone through at least twenty changes in personal assistants. Not that the rest of his staff lasted much longer, but when it came to the people working with Mr. Huang personally, it seemed to be a constantly revolving door. Sehun was just the only one who hadn’t come in with stars in their eyes, which was both a blessing and a curse.

The curse part of it being that he’d come in dressed in the exact same raggedy suit jacket for a week straight, which was embarrassing enough. Everyone knew that even if you didn’t walk the catwalk, you had to look the part. Endorse the brand. Keep people curious and interested.

It wasn’t until Mr. Huang’s eye had started twitching and wouldn’t stop that someone had finally stepped in and helped Sehun put together a new wardrobe.

Now, sporting a matching tie and a blazer that actually fit him, he looked like he might have fit in.

All Sehun knew was that he was missing his t-shirts and jeans. Bad.

In retrospect, Sehun knew the whole thing had been too good to be true. He should have realized it when he’d practically been hired the moment he walked in through the door. After all, weren’t they supposed to be some well-known high fashion brand? Shouldn’t they have asked for higher qualifications than a GED and a few sprinkled part time jobs?

It wasn’t until he’d finally started working for Mr. Huang that the realization had washed over him in a cold, ty wave of ohhhh, I get it now. With the reputation that their boss had with his tongue and his temper, they were lucky if anyone applied at all.

Which explained how easy it had been to get the job.

Although the standards were depressingly low, Sehun thought himself a quick and competent learner, even if he was completely new to the fashion world and all the constant peacocking that came with it.

As a photographer, Sehun had a surprisingly hawk-like eye for detail, and whether it came to applying his knack for detail cleaning up Mr. Huang’s schedules or helping the boss plan out the logistics of their next show, he never seemed to worry too much about anything. It took him a little while to get used to everything, of course, but he’d done everything so far without complaint.

Best of all, he hardly ever seemed to bat an eye - even when Mr. Huang was at his worst (which was often). His laidback way of doing things was a complete foil to Mr. Huang’s high tension personality. It was too early to really count their blessings, but it finally looked as if Mr. Huang had met his match.

And that was good for everyone involved.

Crash! A picture frame hit the wall, spilling glass onto the floor.

“I told you to come back with a full roster of models, Nana! I gave you the deadline months ago, and you told me you could make it! So what the hell do you mean by ‘you need more time’?”

Here we go again, Sehun thought, quietly picking up the dustpan from where it lay against the wall by the door.

He took his time brushing the shards of glass into the pan, sweeping quietly while keeping his eyes trained on the other occupants of the room.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Huang, I just, I couldn’t find any good models at the last few casting calls, they just - don’t have the right look that, that you, uh -”

Usually a picture of cool, calm and collected, ex-model Nana was all nerves today, looking frantic and frazzled in the face of her boss’ anger.

“They’re blank slates, Nana! I don’t give two s if one of them has a ed up tooth or if the other one has big feet, because nobody’s coming to my shows to look at those parts of them, anyway! They’re coming for ME!” Mr. Huang cried, throwing out his arms violently.

“And what the hell do you know about ‘the right look’?” He continued, forcing her back against the door with every step forward. “You’re not the visionary here, I am! Now get me that full list of models by tomorrow or you’ll be finding all the contents of your desk waiting for you in a box by the dumpster!”

Nana nodded, scrambling with the door knob as she turned around and fled with her tail between her legs.

Only Sehun was left to pick up the pieces - literally and figuratively.

When he’d finally finished sweeping up the broken glass a few minutes later, Sehun set the dustpan back against the wall where he’d first taken it, taking his time to dump the glass shards into the trash before finally turning to look at his boss.

Mr. Huang, dark and statuesque, had his arm propped up against the long glass window of his office, staring out into the cityscape with a look of tired frustration. The lights reflected blue-yellow-orange against the glass, lighting a kaleidoscope of soft colors against his long and drawn face.

Wow. Sehun thought to himself. Now wasn’t that the perfect shot?

Click-click, his mind went. Snapping that photo for him, saving it away for some other time.

Still watching, he bent down slowly, picking up and replacing the now slightly battered picture frame back onto Mr. Huang’s desk, adjusting it carefully so that it looked as if nothing were out of place. He’d order a new frame later, but it would have to do for now.

When there was nothing but silence for a few minutes, Sehun broke his gaze to look down at the mahogany desk, tracing the sharp lines where the black frame met the rich mahogany wood.

Not even in the few pictures that lined his desk did his boss look happy.

Jesus. He’d never seen someone who fit the ‘resting face’ trope so well.

It was more than a little eerie. Like he was looking at stock pictures rather than something real. Everything was perfectly in place, from his expertly schooled expression to his impeccably coordinated clothing and accessories.

What a whack job.

“You didn’t have to yell at her like that, man. It’s not like it was her fault.” Sehun said, quietly breaking the silence.

His boss said nothing for a few minutes, breathing foggy circles of condensation onto the glass before he finally turned around.

“No one’s asking you for your opinion, waterboy.” Mr. Huang said, sounding resigned. “Now go find some other mess to clean up. I’m not in the mood to babysit today.”

Sehun heard the drawer pull open again, and knew, without even looking, that a familiar flask was back in his boss’ hand.

Sehun frowned.

Wasn’t it a bit early to start drinking?

Still, whatever small niggling worry he had in his mind was far outweighed by the pressing need to keep his well-paying job. Because above all else, he needed to pay his rent. And he really wanted that new camera lens, damnit.

Sehun’s lips pressed firmly shut as he made his way to the door, although his eyes were still fixed on the slumped figure of his boss slumped over in his chair.

Against his better judgment, he hesitated while opening the door, taking in the way Mr. Huang’s dark eyes were lined with fatigue. The tight grip his fingers had on the flask.

“You could just... trust her, you know. To take care of it. If she’s been here that long, she knows how to do her job. You should know because you were the one who hired her. Anyway, I think you’re worrying for no reason and you - ” Sehun muttered, pausing when Mr. Huang’s bloodshot eyes suddenly glanced up to meet his.

Dark and complex, like the burgundy red of a fine wine. It unnerved him - sent chills tingling down his spine. He took a thousand pictures of them with an imaginary camera, and hung them up in his mind.

“You drink too much.” He muttered, tearing his eyes away. Without waiting to hear a response, he was already out the door, pulling it firmly shut behind him.

What the hell had made him say that?

He thought to himself, stalking down the hall with a face that was burning red.

It was as if all the warnings Suho had given him had flown straight out the window and into the trash.

Because - because damn - those eyes. He’d never seen anything like them before.

He shuddered, his mind abuzz with thoughts.

Looks like he’d found his new muse.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Most people were so blinded by what they saw in the magazines on the television that they probably thought working in the fashion industry was a glamorous life.

It wasn’t, really.

People worked really hard. Like, pushing-80-hours-a-week hard.

It wasn’t until Sehun had seen the same tired faces falling asleep over their desks every day for weeks that he realized just how much work went into every single detail of every single piece of clothing that made it into their collections.

Besides the concepting, which took months on its own, most of Sehun’s time was spent accompanying his boss to fabric stores. Fabric warehouses, really. wasn’t cheap but it needed to come in bulk, because there had to be a lot to work with and Bossman was very particular about his material.

In fact, he seemed to have a keen eye for fabrics that could only be found in the fifth or sixth lot, buried behind hundreds and hundreds of long, heavy swatches of blue, yellow and chartreuse.

To his credit, despite having the most disagreeable personality on the planet, Mr. Huang was undoubtedly a genius at his craft, all too willing to sacrifice a few nights’ worth of rest in order to find that perfect fabric for his designs. Sehun had to reluctantly admit that he was impressed by the other man’s dedication. He’d seen his boss pull out miracles in just hours with the plain black and white material he had a habit of choosing - transforming it from something dull and shapeless into walking works of art.

Still, sometimes, Sehun had to question his boss’ sense of taste. You couldn’t be a genius without having moments of insanity, after all. And although he might not have grown up with the best taste himself (he just couldn’t bring himself to care too much, honestly), even he could tell that this… this just wasn’t a good idea.

“I can’t believe you’re buying this god awful black velvet .” Sehun muttered, although he stood obediently still when his boss piled heaps of said ‘god awful’ material into his arms.

The warehouse clerk stood to the side, silent even in the face of Sehun’s criticism. Nervous sweat was beading up on her upper lip and the smile on her face was robotic.

As if she wasn’t there, Mr. Huang pushed past her to dig into another row of cloth, sighing long and loud. As if he were the one being forced to endure Sehun’s presence, and not the other way around.

“I don’t recall giving my walking coat hanger permission to talk.” Mr. Huang said, rubbing the new material between his fingers with a considering look.

Sehun snorted, bending his knees like a football player to catch another bolt of fabric sent quickly flying his way. He could hear his boss speaking to the clerk, negotiating prices with her for the stock of material they’d selected. Just on, and on, and on. Blah blah blah blah blah.

While he waited agonizingly for the discussion to end, Sehun examined the fabric in his hands, shifting it in his arms and watching the way the light shone against it.

With another quick glance in his boss’ direction, the photographer in Sehun couldn’t help but to try picturing the shot, closing his eyes so that he could line it up perfectly in his mind.

He probably lost track of time, because when he opened his eyes back up again, Mr. Huang was just inches away, staring at him with a strange expression on his face.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

Sehun glanced over his shoulder. The clerk was no longer anywhere in sight - she had probably run off at some point to grab her ledger. That meant that he was alone with his boss in a dusty warehouse aisle.

Alone and about to be in big trouble, judging by the way Mr. Huang’s shoe was tapping a mile a minute on the concrete floor.

Sehun cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly in his spot.

“Imagining it.” Sehun finally responded. “I mean, I get what you’re trying to do, but unless you have the bright lights and mirrors for floors, you’re not going to get the look you’re going for. You’d do better with that shiny black tablecloth we saw earlier.”

“Taffeta.” Said his boss, completely deadpan.

“What?” Sehun asked, his eyes snapping back open to see that his boss looking amused.

“The ‘shiny black tablecloth’. It’s called taffeta, you ing donut.” Mr. Huang managed in a voice that shook suspiciously. Was that laughter he was trying to hide?

“Right, yeah, whatever.”

With another odd, strangled noise, Mr. Huang turned around with a shake of his head, leaving Sehun to his thoughts.

While Mr. Huang continued to quietly sift through the samples with low hums and soft mutters, Sehun shuddered, thinking about what kind of hideous article of clothing the black velvet would eventually be made into.

All he could think about were those god awful paintings his grandmother used to hang around the house. Baby Jesus on black velvet. Elvis Presley on black velvet. Johnny Cash on black velvet, with that weird, squiggly corner that he’d spilled juice on when he was five.

Eeuuugh. Blech! Blech blech blech.

His stomach was still rolling when the clerk finally returned, red-faced after having clearly run halfway across the warehouse to fetch the book and calculator she now held in her hands.

After a rapid firing of numbers that went straight over Sehun’s head, Mr. Huang nodded to him, looking as if he were just about ready to pack up what they’d bought and leave. But then, with a calculating, considering frown, he turned back to face the clerk, turning her beet red with how close he suddenly was.

“Right. Could we also add a few bolts of that black taffeta to the order?” He said. As if it was just an afterthought.

But there was nothing inadvertent about the way he turned to give Sehun a shark-like grin - all toothy and rotten.

Not that Sehun minded it. He quirked up the side of his own mouth, hesitantly smiling back.

In fact, his eyes sharpened with focus - just like the lens of his camera.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Huang held one of his many paper sketches in his hands, wireframe glasses perched on top of his head as he compared the sketch to the mannequin currently draped with black taffeta.

He walked around it, taking careful steps to avoid stepping on the still-yet-incomplete train.

Coming back around after a full 360, Mr. Huang came to face the front of his mannequin once again.

And this time - this time he lowered the paper in his hands, and really looked.

The vision was still rough, still half in his head and half on paper, but even at this stage, he could see what Sehun had meant.

The way that the light hit the fabric - looking like a dark blue from one angle, and almost red from another angle. Like as if it were constantly reinventing itself as the model walked it down the runway.

It was unfinished, yes, but - it was shaping up to be something amazing.

He let out his breath, tilting his head in wonder again.

“Sehun,” He murmured, knowing that the other man was there and listening. He usually was. “Go ahead and reschedule my meeting with Mr. Gibbs until tomorrow. I think I’m onto something here and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

He reached out to touch the fluttering train, already marking the measurements in his mind where one area needed to be cinched, another area to be embroidered with lace. He was so deep into his thoughts that he barely heard it.

And it wasn’t until he’d replayed it casually in his mind a couple times that he actually realized what the other man was saying.

“Sure thing, Tao.”

He swiveled his head around immediately, giving his PA his full and undivided attention for once.

“What did you just call me?” He breathed.

Sehun - that brat with his upturned nose and that brassy, spitfire personality of his - all he did was to smile crookedly at his boss, making something in the designer’s chest flutter just a little faster than it would normally.

“Your name.” Sehun said, as if it was obvious. “I looked it up on Wikipedia last night. I’m not Chinese, so I’m not even going to try to pronounce your full name. I thought I’d just call you Tao instead. That’s okay, right?”

All he got in response was a blank, fixed stare.

“… but,” the designer said, after a long moment, “no one calls me that.”

“That’s a pity.” Sehun said, adding just a little fuel to the fire. “It suits you, you know.”

If looks could kill, Sehun would have dropped stone dead already. But - he thought to himself, if only to see some other colorful expression on his boss’ usually cold face - it was worth it.

Sehun couldn’t help but to break out into a small grin as he marched out the door, feeling the weight of his boss’ stare, burning into his back.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Tao had huge personality flaws.

That much was for sure.

Sehun had been so pissed off by his boss’ rude comments the first few weeks that they’d met that he hadn’t tried very hard to look past it.

But by week 6 though, when he’d grown enough thick skin to be unphased by the other’s ing and whining, he began to see just how cracked a mask Tao wore.

It was as if Tao was trying to push them away, by acting as purposefully terrible as possible.

Instead of just being antisocial, like most of his peers seemed to be, it seemed more and more like Tao was just ...painfully withdrawn?

The symptoms were obvious. He hated having other people around. Preferred being alone whenever he could. And although he tolerated Sehun’s presence for the sake of his work, he tended to act like Sehun was invisible when the other man was around (and he usually was).

Most days, Tao always found some excuse to be left alone, whether by sending everyone else on ridiculous fetch quests for him, or by just being so generally unpleasant that people left on their own.

Sehun felt like he was beginning to see a pattern.

The next time he talked to Suho, his friend had pretty much told him that he thought Sehun was insane for investing so much time in trying to figure out the mystery that was his crazy boss.

But there was something weird about it!

It almost felt like Tao’s insults were canned. Generic ones that someone might pull out as if he were reading lines off of a teleprompter. ‘Stupid’ and ‘idiot’ were the most common ones he’d hear. ‘You’re wasting my time’ was another phrase that’d get tossed out every now and again. And although Tao’s eyes were always cold, when Sehun really thought about it, they never seemed to be staring at him either.

More like through him.

Hey, Sehun was miles away from being considered the perfect extrovert himself. But that just meant he could pick up on someone’s introversion quicker. He read the signs because he knew them. And rather than just assume his boss was an just for the sake of being an , he thought that maybe nobody else had ever really tried to dig deeper than that.

Yeah, Tao was a ty person who said ty things, but the more Sehun heard it, the more he realized it wasn’t ill-intentioned - at least - not really. Tao just wanted to be left alone more often than not, and that was his way of doing it, though it did him more harm than good.

He pictured Tao like a modern day Greta Garbo, draped onto a door frame like in that classic Grand Hotel scene and turning around to proclaim: I want to be alone!

Now if only Tao could put the sentiment in a way that didn’t have most people running away in tears.

But maybe that was what drew Sehun in the first place.

That ‘ it, who gives a ’ personality.

Sehun could respect that. And maybe it went beyond just respect.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

One day, on a rare occasion when he was finally left alone, Tao was sketching idly onto one of his many blank notepads - some structured, modern dress inspired by New York architecture and towering skyscrapers - when suddenly, out of the corner of his disinterested eye, Raina was there. Fidgeting restlessly, as she always was.

“Well,” she said, “we’re not legally bound to keep him hired anymore, sir. Should I bring him in to discuss a severance package?”

He dropped his pencil to the table to pick up one with a softer tip instead.

“What?” He muttered. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not going anywhere.”

“But Mr. Huang, I thought you said…” Raina started, only to be interrupted by a sigh.

“I know what I said, Raina. I’m allowed to change my mind. Besides, I’m not paying you to do the thinking for me, am I?”

He let his pencil clatter back onto the desk, giving her his undivided attention. Under his steely gaze she turned pale and stammered, fumbling her way through an apology.

Tao squinted at Raina.

He’d seen her small, squirrelly face daily for the past few months. Heard her footsteps trailing after him constantly, her high voice calling after him - Mr. Huang, Mr. Huang, Mr. Huang!

He tilted his head slowly.

Come to think of it, when was the last time she had a vacation?

He drowned out her blabbering for a moment, pursing his lips in thought.

Note to self: Order Raina to take a vacation.

Later, of course, he told himself, eyes falling back to the curved black hatch marks of his design.

(Of course, there would be no later, when he’d drunk himself to a stupor that very same night.)

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

man, Sehun hadn’t realized how bad his boss’ alcohol problem was until he’d opened his drawer for himself.

Jesus. It was like an entire liquor store stuffed into a 15x15 inch metal square.

Well that explained why whenever he heard it opening, he would turn around to find Tao nursing a glass of liquid courage. And occasionally, when his boss was particularly agitated, it would be the actual bottle itself.

Sehun had been a college student at a party school once, and even his liver ached just thinking about it. How the older man functioned under that kind of daily consumption of alcohol was beyond him.

He was surprised Tao was even coherent, most days.

And yeah, it was concerning, of course, but Sehun tried his best to take Suho’s advice and not get involved in it.

- it just wasn’t his problem, okay?

Yeah, if it had been a friend, he would have stepped in a long time ago.

And although he’d certainly become much closer to Tao over the last few months, there was still a barrier there in the fact that Tao was still his boss.

Still, what made everything infinitely weirder was that everybody else seemed to try their best not to acknowledge the elephant in the room, either.

It’s like they’d tiptoe around the issue, even when Tao was stumbling around the office, slurring his words with bloodshot eyes.

Alright, so maybe Sehun was more worried about it than he’d originally let on.

He wasn’t directly involving himself. Wasn’t pulling an intervention on his boss or anything.

But if he tried to hide the liquor he found lying around away - or if he tried replacing his boss’ glasses with cold bottles of water on his boss’ desk every morning - no one mentioned a thing.

Not even Tao, though he was pretty sure his boss had noticed.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

And yet sometimes, bottles would slip past him.

Like today. When he found his boss with his head buried in his arms, whining to Sehun with his fingers wrapped around a gin and tonic.

“We’ve got fashion week in Taipei next week,” Tao groaned, “and we don’t have anything to show for it other than old pieces. What the hell are we going to do?”

Sehun, who’d been trying unsuccessfully for the past ten minutes to pry the glass out of his boss’ hands and replace it with a bottle of water, blinked in surprise.

“Really?” Sehun asked. “You’re asking my opinion on this?”

I know -all about this stuff, was the implication behind his words.

“Yes.” Tao mumbled, knocking back the rest of his drink to Sehun’s dismay. His voice was only just a little slurred, which was a miracle considering how much he’d already drunk over the course of the day. “Annoying little though you might be, you’ve got a good eye.”

Gee, thanks, I guess. Sehun thought to himself, with an uncontrollable twitch of his eye.

“Well,” Sehun thought, squinting in the way he always did when he was trying to picture something in his mind. “There’s nothing wrong with reusing the old, right? Why don’t you try redoing some of your old showcase pieces? We wouldn’t need to buy much new fabric, and you’d already have a base to work with. Hell, you could just say that you’re doing ‘recycled fashion’, and we’d probably get some good PR from that. I’m sure you’d be able to pull some good sponsors for the show, maybe use it as an opportunity to raise awareness through charity and ‘give back to the community’ or something. As far as the space goes we could do something really cool at a local museum or something - string up an exhibition room with recycled paper, make some cool dangling lights with some garbage bags and some colored plastic. What do you think?”

Sehun had done it before. He’d been a poor photographer once. He’d made it work with what he’d had at the time, and it had been almost just as he’d described - except for with his photography, instead of with fashion. He could still picture it perfectly in his mind, and when he closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, he occupied the empty exposition space with all the little details, slowly filling in the empty spaces in between with chairs and people.

...it was quiet.

He noticed it late, and when he opened his eyes, letting his pupils refocus slowly, he could see that the blurry black and white blur that was his boss was staring at him intently.

Though Tao’s eyes was red with alcohol, there was no mistaking the spark his boss had in his eyes, as if it were the very first time he was really seeing Sehun.

Slowly, as if compelled by some kind of force in the air, Tao picked up his pad of paper and a pencil, setting the lead nib down on it with light pressure. And then, he began to draw, at first at a snail’s pace, and then quicker, as the inspiration began to fill him like fuel to an empty tank.

He pushed his glass of gin and tonic away impatiently, the bottle of water taking its place as Tao sipped on it, wiping the back of his mouth with his arm before stooping back over the paper again.

“…thank you.” He heard Tao say much later, although it was faint and barely audible.

He’d never heard those words coming out of his boss’ mouth before.

And although he couldn’t see his boss’ face clearly in the dim light, he thought - sitting there like an outsider, red light blinking and camera lens filming the man in front of him as he absently bit the tip of the pencil like a child - that there was some kind of strange beauty in this moment.

Click-click, his mind went.

Went, and wandered.

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

The show was both everything and nothing like the way Sehun had imagined it, and the critics would end up praising it to hell and high heaven.

The highlight, of course, would end up being that damned taffeta dress. Like Vivian Leigh walking straight off the set of Gone With the Wind, and he could hear the crowd losing their mind, the wave of whispers swelling until it sounded like a hurricane of noise.

Beautiful - they said, behind their hands, their glass marble eyes wide with wonder.

Never-seen-anything-like-it-before.

It was a unique concept on its own, but there was that added HZT flair to it, with its shocking blacks and whites, the violent music that pumped like a piston in the background, matching every crippling stomp of stiff stiletto heels against a dimly lit runway.

Behind the scenes, it was chaos as usual.

Models were waiting to get their faces painted with their hair half falling from their curlers as they struggled to pull on their clothes - and the dressers and stylists ran circles around them with pieces of jewelry and articles of clothing draped over their shoulders - and the directors and assistant directors marched around, mouthing directions into their headsets as they frantically looked around for something or another.

Visual shock - were the only words Sehun could use to describe the scene. He couldn’t take his eyes off of any of it, not even for a moment.

He was nothing but a passive participant in all the insanity, watching all the moving parts around him, taking in the loud noises and the bright lights with stupor. The flat screen TV mounted on the wall in front of him replayed the view from the front, reflecting every single HD detail into his eyes. A million synapses were exploding at the same time like fireworks inside his brain.

This was it - everything about it, everything he was seeing and hearing - put it all together, and he could see it so clearly.

An abstract picture of the man who had poured his heart and soul into this very night.

It was like a mosaic masterpiece that came in pieces. Every piece of it was beautiful both by itself and as a whole. Sehun tried to memorize the details, his eyes flying all over the screen, his ears wide open and breathing in deep.

Busy absorbing it all, he barely noticed someone coming to stand beside him until he felt the heat of their skin against his arm.

“It’s perfect,” Sehun heard Tao mumble, from somewhere beside him, “…isn’t it?”

Instead of the hint of pride that should have come with a sentence like that, there was only a feeling of emptiness instead.

Sehun had to drag his eyes away from the screen.

Tao was standing there, watching the show beside him with a nameless expression on his face.

Sehun had to blink hard, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to find anything in his boss’ body language that could have given a hint as to what was going on in the other man’s head. There was nothing that he could see.

Of course it’s perfect. He wanted to say, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth.

So why are you making that face?

There were always all these questions, and never any of the answers Sehun wanted.

In the brief moments where he was pulled aside by a frantic assistant trying to track the organza veil that her model was supposed to be wearing - by the time he’d pointed her in the right direction and turned back around, he found himself completely alone once again.

He thought, maybe, that he could see Tao’s tall, straight back, disappearing somewhere into the crowd without a word. But there were so many people, and with all the colors and the lights, it was hard to see anything clearly at all.

What lingered was an indescribable feeling, somewhere deep inside his gut, as he watched the crowd swallow him up, feeling the press of heated bodies against his skin but feeling cold all the same.

Something gnawed at him.

Filled him with a strange sense of worry.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

The after parties were never really Sehun’s thing. He was the kind of guy who preferred the quiet hum of his darkroom at home, a beer in his hand and the deep red light more soothing to him than the sound of loud laughter and booming bass. What made things worse was how big this party was.

HZT shows were generally successful, but this one had been huge. It’d been hard enough to count the number of models they’d hired for the event, let alone the number of gawkers sitting outside waiting for them to appear. The only type of after party to follow a show like that was one that could match it with its size and absurdity.

Everyone who was anyone was there - multi-billionaires and fashion photographers whose work he admired but whose names he could barely pronounce, ex-models and award-winning actors and actresses alike. Sehun couldn’t even take a step without inevitably bumping into someone whose net worth could make his own savings account cry salty tears.

God, he just wanted to go home.

A migraine was already building when he stuck his fingers in his ear in a poor attempt to mute the music. Carefully, he stepped over a couple falling over themselves in the hallway to approach a few staff members lingering by the banister that he recognized.

And then the same question was repeated, as it had been repeated dozens of times over the past half hour.

“Has anyone seen the boss?”

Up until then, the answer had all been the same. Dazed shaking of heads, dozens of drunken gazes trying and failing to sober up under his scrutiny. No one had been much of a help.

That was until he bumped into Raina and Nana, the former squatting down in her red-bottomed Louboutins while puking her guts out into an impressively realistic looking plastic houseplant in the corner, the latter absentmindedly rubbing her friend’s back with one hand and uploading photos onto Instagram with the other.

“Have you guys seen Tao?” He shouted over the sound of the music, leaning in close so that he could direct his voice into Nana’s ear.

“The boss? Not since he stepped out at the end of the show!” Nana shouted back at him, flipping her hair beautifully over her shoulder with a practiced toss of her head. “Why? Don’t tell me you’re trying to get some work done! Come on, go get yourself a drink! We only get to party like this once every blue moon!”

“I think I drank too much…” Raina moaned weakly, before holding a hand over and bending back over the houseplant again.

“If Raina’s puking her guts out what state do you think the boss is in?” Sehun tried to explain, his frustrations growing by the minute. “You can’t just leave him alone with alcohol! Hasn’t anyone noticed before?”

“So what if he drinks a little?” Nana shrugged, scrolling down her twitter feed with a red-nailed finger. “It’s not like we can stop him. He’s an adult, just like you.”

“I can’t believe none of you are taking this seriously! He has a problem!” Sehun practically shouted. His blood pressure was skyrocketing and he could feel his heart thumping with anxiety in his chest.

“You… could try… the rooftop…” Raina managed, in between painful sounding gurgles that had his own stomach gurgling. “He likes… places like thaaaa - eeeeurrrgh!”

“Alright, Raina. Just let it all out.” Nana cheerily told her companion, finally looking over as she reached out to tuck a curling piece of her friend’s hair behind her ear. “At least here, where we’ve paid for cleanup. Because I swear to god, if you puke in my car again… I mean, honestly… you don’t know how much it cost last time to get that carpet cleaned…”

“I swear… I never want to see another drink again…”

With a wrinkled nose and a grimace, Sehun left them to their own devices, wandering off in search of the rooftops.

It was more difficult than it seemed - the main stairs didn’t lead anywhere near it. It was only half an hour later that he found an unmarked door by the toilets on the second floor that led to a maintenance stairwell. A maintenance stairwell that seemed to go up a couple more floors - maybe even to the roof, if he was lucky.

He didn’t know why he felt so compelled to find Tao, nor why it was really worth all that effort if all he wanted to do was to go home, but something about the unsettling feeling that had crept up on him during the show compelled him to put one foot in front of the other.

He placed his hand against the white brick wall as he made his way slowly up to the roof, feeling each worn groove, chipped with paint, against his fingertips.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“Sehun! There you are. Was --- wondering where you ran off to. Like a little mouse --- always… scurrying off here and… and there.”

His boss was wasted.

Tao drank pretty much every day, and he was sure the older man could drink him under the table, but he’d never really acted like it really affected him more than a slight slur and reddened eyes. He could only imagine how much the other man had drank if he was struggling to even stand.

It didn’t look like he was in any state to walk either, but it also didn’t look like he was anywhere close to stopping, judging by the way he stooped down to pick up a half-empty bottle of wine. He squinted at Sehun, waving him closer before swaying unsteadily and falling onto his haunches with a drunken snicker.

Sehun rushed to Tao’s side, pulling his boss up by his arm and dragging him away from the dangerous edge of the roof that he’d been tipping toward. The bottle of wine tumbled from Tao’s fingers, tumbling to the ground and bleeding red against the concrete.

“You’ve had enough to drink tonight, boss man. I think it’s time to go home.” Sehun said, urging his boss to stand on his own two feet.

“Go home? Now?” Tao laughed, sprawling his arms out wide and nearly tipping over if not for Sehun’s arms wrapping around to catch him. “No way! Not now. You can’t make me.”

Stumbling out of Sehun’s hold, he made his way back to the ledge, leaning precariously over it as he spread his hands out toward the glass roof below.

“Don’t you see all those people down there? They’re here for me. They’re cheering me on because it’s my party.”

“If you really gave a about what they were saying about you, then you wouldn’t be up here drinking by yourself.” Sehun said with anger coloring his voice. It bothered him. The thought that here he was, not even getting paid overtime to pick up after his nigh-suicidal head of a boss. If only his coworkers could see them now - if only they could see this with their own eyes. Maybe then they’d understand just how bad it was.

Sehun pulled him sharply away from the ledge again, this time his grip firm and unyielding as he dragged Tao toward the door, picking up the coat his boss had dropped on the ground along the way.

Even drunk, Tao still found a way to get under Sehun’s skin, hooking his arms around Sehun’s neck while the assistant picked up the rest of his things for him, tucking them under his arm or into his pockets with a sigh.

Tao watched for a moment through bleary eyes, a dopey smile crawling onto his face as he was pushed in through the door by his disgruntled looking PA.

“Is that what you think, Oh Sehun?” Tao called out, trailing behind as Sehun led the way down the hallway. The younger man ignored him, shooting Tao an irritated look as he pulled open the next set of doors and tugged his boss through with a hand around Tao’s bony wrist.

Rather than coming with, Tao used Sehun’s grip on him to his advantage, throwing his weight into it and pushing them both into the nearby wall. They landed with an ooph, the air knocked out of their chests for a second and leaving them both breathless.

Sehun stared up at Tao’s dark silhouette hunched over him. His hands quickly found a place bunched up in the soft material of the designer’s shirt. Cool breath blew onto his cheek, and though the smell of alcohol was almost overwhelming, it tickled the baby hairs on his face, making him instinctively blink his eyes closed for a moment.

When he opened them again, Tao was staring at him with dark, swirling eyes.

“You don’t think I care?” His boss breathed, turning his cheek so that he could press in closer - so that his lips were brushing up against Sehun’s sensitive ear, sending chills down his spine.

“Because I do, Oh Sehun.”

Soft lips met his cheek. Chastely. Coy and sweet.

And Sehun thought to himself - Oh .

His eyes were bugging out, so wide that they might have popped out of their sockets.

Tao’s body. Although he’d obviously noticed it before, now, it was pressed up against him and impossible not to admire. Long, sharp, lean. Surprisingly not without curves. He felt his boss’ thighs bracketing his own, all warm and soft and thick.

Sehun gulped, hard and dry as he struggled weakly to wriggle out of his boss’ embrace. He was trapped, held down - although not entirely against his will.

Tao pulled back slowly, dragging his hot (burning) cheek across Sehun’s. When they were finally face-to-face, staring into each other’s eyes, Tao’s lips twitched up in a shadow of a smile.

Sehun didn’t have any time to process just how strange it looked before those lips were pressed up against his own.

He bugged out again, shouting against the other’s lips when Tao slid his arms around the back of his neck and his back, tilting his head and pressing his tongue in with a smooth motion and an even louder moan. Tao rocked his hips in, grinding his growing bulge against Sehun’s in a way that had the assistant twisting and gasping into his mouth.

“Take me home, Sehun.” His boss growled between kisses, teeth clacking against teeth, lips snagging against lips,

Sehun gulped, dazed and almost completely out of his mind. He could only look helplessly past Tao’s head, to the neon exit that continued to blink in and out, in and out, just out of reach.

Holy , Sehun thought, both terrified and aroused beyond belief as his own decision became clear to him.

Suho is going to kill me when he finds out about this.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Of course Sehun took Tao home.

Of course he did. He was a young man with a fully functioning , after all.

Besides, Tao’s looks were hard to deny - the older man was always sweeping in with stupidly y wind-blown hair and plump, just-bitten lips. He had the body of a slender swimsuit model and always looked like he’d walked off the pages of GQ or Vogue, and if that wasn’t the most cliché romance novel description of ‘one very hot guy’, Sehun wasn’t sure what was.

But Tao was also his boss.

As in - he still got paychecks every other Friday from the same man who was now trying to grind his into Sehun’s thoroughly confused . They had to be breaking every HR rule in the book. Aaaannnd let’s not forget how awkward all of this was going to be the morning after, when he was picturing Tao waking up with a hangover to find him in lounging in the bed. And all of those scenarios ended with him dead in different ways. Chopped to pieces, flushed down the toilet, thrown in the trash where he belonged. Oh man, oh man, oh man.

Hey dude, I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but I just wanted to let you know that I am totally up for it. Little Sehun reassured him, twitching impatiently in pants that were suddenly too tight. Sehun cursed, adjusting the material stretched across his crotch and swatting Tao’s touchy-feely hands away from it before he fumbled in Tao’s coat pocket for his keys.

Tao didn’t make it easy for him. He was giggling (giggling!) the whole time, flirty and clingy and straight up scaring the  out of him as Sehun tried his best to jiggle his apartment’s lock open. With one arm wrapped around his boss’ waist, Sehun somehow kept the two of them upright. It was especially difficult to do, considering the way Tao had octopus-ed his limbs around him, pressing sloppy wet kisses against Sehun’s neck that sent tingles down his spine.

“Come on come on come on - there we go - okay in we go, in in in.” He muttered, shoving his boss into his apartment and flashing a sheepish grin at the absolutely scandalized elderly couple who were passing by on their way up the stairs. He slammed the door shut firmly behind him, barely managing to deadbolt the lock before an arm looped over his neck again and dragged him down into a kiss.

Sehun’s surprised shout was muffled, and, for the second time that night, he found his tongue in his boss’ mouth. He yelped into the kiss when hands reached down to squeeze his , the sound quickly turning into a moan when the fashion designer used the grip as an anchor to rock his hips against Sehun.

 - and Tao was whining into his mouth, his normally dark, gravelly voice now an aching tenor that gave Sehun the ing heebie-jeebies in all the right ways.

This was beyond weird, man.

But he couldn’t lie and say that he hadn’t ever imagined this either - Tao like putty in his arms, smiling at him sweetly instead of shouting his ear off. This doe-eyed, soft version of his boss was one that Sehun certainly wasn’t used to, but it definitely had Sehun sweating bullets under his collar.

And so there wasn’t much he could do when they found themselves in Tao’s bedroom, Sehun tripping over his own socks, half on and half off. Hands were digging into his hair, a hard length pressing up against his through just the thin barrier of his boxers.

Tao pulled him down onto the bed, and they fell against satin sheets with a gasp and a sigh, letting the cool fabric stretch across their backs while their fingers traveled to far more heated places.

Sehun hadn’t had a single drink the entire night, but he felt as if he were drunk already, high on the way Tao was sliding his warm leg between their bodies, the way Tao’s thick thighs tensed and then spread across Sehun’s lap, the way he fell into vertigo when their bodies tumbled across the bed, lips against lips, tongue against skin, rocking back and forth into a scorching heat he’d never felt before.

 

 

 

 

 

“T - T - Tao! Oh , I…”

“…shut up and touch me, Sehun.”

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

All that pounding music and those flickering lights had done their trick. Sehun woke up in the middle of the night to a pounding ache in his head. He jerked up with a groan, clutching his temples with his hands as he blearily tried to regain his bearings.

He reached out an arm, slapping around until he found the switch for the lamp.

He squinted his eyes when a sudden flash of light illuminated the room.

There wasn’t much to see. Just a bedroom, as normal as the other rooms he’d passed briefly through on his rushed tour through the apartment. Well, normal, if minimalism was the norm.

Besides the king size mattress that rested on a black slab of a bed frame, there wasn’t much else in the room. No personal effects, no pictures on the wall. Just the necessities - a mattress, a lamp, a nightstand.

And, just like the designer, everything was dressed in severe blacks and whites and greys. As if he were trapped in some black and white film. Typical Tao style.

Speaking of Tao - the designer wasn’t beside him.

Sehun reached out with a searching hand, frowning when his fingers met nothing other than cold sheets.

He smoothed his hair back, checking over his shoulder to be sure that there really wasn’t anybody else in the room - but he was alone. And chilly. He shivered, looking around the room for his shirt and frowning when he couldn’t find it.

Where the hell had his clothes gone? He barely remembered pulling them off last night.

Well, he could hazard a guess where they were. Probably still strewn out in pieces on the floor leading up to the door, considering the way Tao had ripped them off when -

Oh, .

Sehun tumbled off the bed with a thud and a muffled oof!

He popped back up seconds later, cursing under his breath and frantically scrambling around on his knees searching for his clothes.

Oh man, oh man, his thoughts were rushing in like high tide again, his headache slamming into him harder as he clawed his hands through his hair and considered with a wince that he had just ed his boss. Who was still gone. Because, well, .

Oh god oh god oh god - he slapped himself lightly in the face with his hands, shaking his head as he reeled in his panic.

Okay, calm the  right down, Oh Sehun. You can do this.

Right - right - he could do this. Clothes first, freak out session later.

He swiveled his head around like an owl, knees squeaking against the parquet floor as he searched for his pants, spotting them lying crumpled near the door that was still ajar. He grabbed them first, still wriggling them on over his hips when he turned around to reach for his watch on the nightstand.

5:13am, the red digits read.

Well what’s he up for then? Sehun thought to himself, turning to face the empty void in the bed again.

Still, he didn’t linger on it. There were bigger fish to fry.

Like, for example, where the rest of his clothes had gone.

Or how the hell he was going to get himself out of this mess.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

His first question was answered by the Hansel and Gretel trail of clothes that he picked up one by one, pulling them on as quietly as he could. He continued on barefoot, tongue sticking out of his lips in concentration as he tiptoed down the hall.

At least he could see where he was going. Moonlight was streaming in from the beautiful bay windows that lined the apartment, the beautiful cityscape still shining bright while the rest of the world slept.

Sehun moved through Tao’s dreary modern kitchen, ducking underneath a row of hanging pots as he made his way past the open archway and across the living room. When he heard a soft noise to his right, he turned and nearly gave himself a heart attack when he finally noticed the figure that had been standing at the window.

Tao’s back faced Sehun. He was only wearing his boxers and the white shirt he’d been wearing that evening. Just standing there, staring out the window into the night.

Sehun pounded his hand against his chest as he clapped the other hand against his mouth. The solid sound of skin against skin was so loud that he was so sure that the other man would notice.

Thankfully, Tao seemed preoccupied - he never turned around.

Once he’d gotten over his initial shock, Sehun slowly lowered his hands, amazed that he’d gotten away with all the loud sounds he’d sure he’d been making without alerting Tao to his presence.

Then again, who knew if Tao wasn’t glaring at him through the reflection of the window waiting for him to notice? That wouldn’t be completely out of character either.

Sehun shivered. Taking slow, careful steps, he placed one foot in front of the other, shifting to the left until he could see Tao’s face reflected in the glass.

And then he stopped dead in his tracks.

Tao was crying.

He wasn’t full on sobbing - no - but maybe this was more shocking to see than if he had been. He was almost silent the entire time, pressing his forehead against the glass pane without anything but an occasional whimper forced out between pressed-thin lips, but there was no denying the tracks that stained his cheeks, traced over time and time again by fresh tears.

And in the seconds it took for Sehun to process what he was seeing, it was as if all that he had believed his boss to be - all that scowling anger - all that mad cruelty - was wiped blank. Because this - this was nothing like the man who he worked for every day.

No, this man was different, somehow. Sad. Quiet.

And when Sehun shifted again, squinting his eyes to make sure that what he was seeing wasn’t a hallucination, he thought that maybe Tao looked softer in the moonlight.

That - while he’d always seen Tao as a figure of authority in all of his fitted suits and hard lines - now, disheveled in a white shirt that barely clung to him, Tao looked almost… small.

His shoulders were definitely shaking with the force of his tears now. A clenched fist was held up against lips that had, just hours earlier, been pressed up against Sehun’s shoulder, biting into his skin. That same mouth that had whispered filthy things into Sehun’s ear was now muffling his sobs, his entire body shuddering as if the man could only barely hold it in.

And although Sehun was acutely aware that he was on the other side of the fishbowl - intruding in on an intimate moment that was clearly meant to be private - there was another part of him - sick, perhaps - that couldn’t look away.

He felt like a witness to something beautiful. Like he was peering through the viewfinder of his camera, spying on some divine revelation had just been revealed to him and him only.

While the photographer in him reveled in the picture developing slowly in front of him, in beautiful hues of purple and black and blue, he thought that the silver glow of the city lights reflecting against Tao’s flushed skin was the most beautiful to behold.

And as he held up the imaginary camera up to his eyes in slow motion, he felt for a moment the connection that was being formed between them - photographer and unwitting subject - sharing a moment together underneath that same moonlight.

He immortalized Tao’s image in his mind, solitary and still, and imagined what it would be like, to see the other man turn back toward him with a smile on his trembling lips.

Click-click.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“Alright, that’s beautiful! And a different pose, please! Show me something new now!”

 

Any hope that Sehun had for a return to normalcy were tossed straight out the door and into the trash the day they returned back to work.

He turned a corner, and faced Tao down in a long hallway illuminated by the flashing light of a photoshoot underway. They both stood there, frozen with hesitation.

While he usually would have wandered in the general direction of the lights, having always been fascinated by photoshoots even if fashion photography wasn’t exactly his thing, today he only had the stricken look on Tao’s face from that night in his mind.

The man had been avoiding him ever since he’d been pushed out from the other’s apartment, tossed out onto the figurative doorstep with his pants half zipped and his shirt and hair in disarray.

And , although he should have just taken that as an easy out - done what Suho told him and just left it alone - a part of him still remained torn up about it.

He didn’t want it to be like all the other times where he’d picked up his clothes and walked out of someone else’s life. He wasn’t sure he knew how to do that this time.

What he did know was that not talking about it felt wrong. Pretending like everything was A-OK when it clearly wasn’t felt awful.

But no matter how hard he tried to talk to the other man about it, Tao had done all that he possibly could to completely avoid Sehun, following some alternate schedule that Sehun wasn’t aware of, always one foot out the door whenever Sehun entered the room.

At first, he had thought the other man was just being shy about it. Maybe he’d never had a one night stand before, and had felt awkward about the whole thing. Maybe he hadn’t had as good of a time as he’d wanted. Well, either way, it didn’t have to be blown up into the huge thing that it had become. If they could have just sat down and talked about it, it would have worked itself out so much better than this stupid game of marco polo that Tao was forcing him to play.

Sehun snapped out of it first. He took a deep breath before stomping down the hallway in long strides, taking hold of his boss’ arm with an iron grip and frog marching the older man back into his office so that they wouldn’t be disturbed.

“What the hell is going on, why are you avoiding me?” Sehun asked, painfully aware as the words came spilling out of his mouth that he was coming off more like a jilted boyfriend than a concerned employee.

“Nothing’s going on. Let go, already. I’ve got things to do.” Tao spat, wrenching his arm out of Sehun’s grip.

Sehun let go, but rather than standing back and watching the designer leave without a word as he had countless times before, he backed up, pressing the door shut with his back and trapping the other man in the room with him.

He folded his arms across his chest.

“No way. You don’t get to play that game with me. C’mon. You and I both know that something’s not right.”

“You of all people should know what it is that isn’t right.” Tao spat back at him, trying to push him out of the way. “I’m your boss, not your lover.”

“Is that what this is about?” Sehun said, his frown growing when he noted the red flush on Tao’s face. “You’re embarrassed by what we did?”

...hadn’t that been his own concern a couple of days ago? His mind echoed, irritating thoughts that kept bubbling up without his control. When had that changed?

“What we did the other night doesn’t matter.” Tao said. “Just stay out of my way from now on, and we’ll be just fine.”

Sehun wasn’t really the type to push this kind of thing. He’d been in this situation before and he knew just how terrible workplace relationships were to deal with and they hadn’t gone into it with any kind of set expectations anyway. Still, something about the way the designer had tried to just cut him out of his life (just like that!) irked him.

Weren’t they better than this?

“It’s not fine.” Sehun hissed, raking his slim fingers through his hair. “I see you every day, dammit. I’m not someone you can just throw away.”

“And why not??” Tao seemed as exasperated as he was stunned that Sehun was actually talking back to him.

“Because I won’t let you.” Though pigheaded and stubborn, his answer seemed obvious. To himself, at least.

Tao threw his hands up, shaking his head in complete disbelief.

“Just what do you hope to gain by doing all of this?” He asked. He no longer seemed nearly as angry ...or as frightened.

“Well, I dunno,” Sehun started, half to his boss, half to himself. He really didn’t know why he felt so strongly about this now. He’d never thought about it. So he tried. He thought long and hard. Gnawing at his lip until the words came to him. “I guess… I’d just like some more closure. I feel like I have to see this one through.”

“Just because you ‘feel like it’?” Tao sneered. “What, am I some kind of charity case to you?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then what are you saying? That you want to tie yourself down to a nasty alcoholic who everyone hates? What kind of idiot do you take me for!”

Tao stormed over to his desk as he shouted, pulling open drawers at random to reveal more bottles than Sehun originally realized he’d had. A chipped glass was taken from one of these drawers and slammed down onto Tao’s desk.

“That’s not what I’m saying at all.” Said Sehun, his head beginning to ache with all the shouting and the yelling.

When he shut his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts, he heard the familiar sound of a bottle being opened. When he opened his eyes, he watched amber liquid being poured messily into the glass by fingers that shook. Sehun felt queasy and anxious just watching, realizing that whatever problems Tao had, the solution wouldn’t be found at the bottom of that glass, nor had it been at the bottom of any of the horrifying number of empty bottles that lined up the cluttered windowsill behind Tao.

“Woah - hey, like I said, that’s not what I meant - “

“Here’s a news flash for all of you - I brought this brand up from my own blood, sweat and tears, and never have I ever once relied on anyone else to help me -”

“Tao, I’m not -”

Tao picked the glass up, steadying himself with a hand planted firmly on top of his desk. He looked at Sehun through the clouded eyes of a madman, seeing through him as if seeing a ghost standing in Sehun’s place - some monster that only he could see.

Sehun took a step forward, arms held out placatingly.

“And what do you want?” Tao continued to say. “You just want to use me, don’t you? You all do! You - you just want to use me as a stepping stone! As if I’d ever let someone else walk over me a-again! I - I’d sooner - ”

“Enough already!”

Sehun grabbed the glass before it could touch Tao’s lips, gripping it so tightly that the tips of his fingers were white.

The designer stared at him, the anger gone from his reddened eyes as the glass trembled between their competing grips.

Sehun finally wrenched it out of Tao’s reach, slamming it back down onto the table with a loud crack.

“I said stop it.” He said, feeling his heart beating out of his chest with frustration and anger. “If that’s what you feel about other people, it’s no wonder you treat us the way that you do. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you have a problem?”

“I don’t have a problem. I’m fine the way I am.”

“Then why can’t you look me straight in the eyes?”

“I said I’m - I’m fine.” Tao’s voice cracked on the last words, surprising Sehun when moisture gathered in his eyes. Shying away as if ashamed, Tao buried his face into his hands.

“Well, er,” Sehun said, feeling super awkward for having just made his boss cry, “I guess I’ll believe you when you start to believe yourself.”

Tao sank slowly down into his black leather chair. One hand still held firmly over his face, he stuck the other out wordlessly, snapping his fingers and waiting impatiently as Sehun fumbled with his pockets, patting them down until he pulled out his spare handkerchief. He handed it over.

Tao replaced his hands with the handkerchief, keeping it firmly over his eyes like a mask as he slid down into the chair. It creaked noisily under his weight, and he molded himself into its shape, boneless and exhausted.

Sehun took a hesitant seat on the edge of the desk, thumbs twiddling in his lap as he waited restlessly for the other to recover enough to speak. It took the other man a few minutes to pull himself together, but when he did, he spoke with a gravelly voice, as if he’d just woken up.

“…I’ve got a problem.” Tao said, albeit in an obviously reluctant tone of voice.

“Well, admitting to it is a start?” Sehun said, feeling a strange sense of deja vu as he basically repeated the same conversation he’d had with Suho months ago. He felt as if he should reach forward to pat his boss on the shoulder, but he didn’t particularly want to get his hand clawed off. “Maybe you can try not lying about it, next time?”

Tao abruptly ripped the cloth off his eyes to reveal a Medusa-like death glare that made Sehun’s blood immediately run cold.

“Listen, I swear I’m not out to get you or anything. Hell, it wasn’t like I'd planned on sleeping with you.” Sehun backpedaled.

“So, what, you don’t find me attractive, then?” Tao seemed, if anything, even more upset now, although it was probably anger rather than sadness that motivated him to sit up and shift forward onto the edge of his seat. Viper-like. Very scary.

“What?” Sehun said, his famously deadpan voice cracking just a little. “I didn’t say that at all. I think you’re - you’re um - you’re good. Looking! Good looking. Uh, I just… thought it would be inappropriate to approach my boss like that?”

“Well I’m the one who calls the shots around here.” Tao said. “What is or isn’t appropriate is up to me to determine.”

Somehow, I don’t think that’s how these things work, Sehun thought to himself while maintaining a straight face, though he kept the thought to himself.

“So, are we… are we good? Are we cool?” Sehun asked.

“…we’re good.” Tao said, after a minute.

For now, Tao seemed satisfied with Sehun’s responses, his eyes dry though still a little red as he leaned back in the chair. Some of the sassy overconfidence that Sehun was used to seeing seemed restored. Tao still looked a little out of it, but a sleepy looking boss man was leagues better than a crying boss man, and Sehun would take that small improvement over none at all.

Sehun smiled, subtly dumping out the drink he still held in his hands into the wastebasket beside him. And on second thought, in went the glass too. Despite the loud thump it made as it settled to the bottom, Tao didn’t even blink.

“So,” Sehun said, “I’ll see you tonight around 8?”

Tao looked startled.

“What? …Why?”

“Because I know a nice Italian place down the street. You like Italian, right?”

The fire he knew was within Tao was slowly but surely beginning to rebuild. The older man slowly straightened, with a spark in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Wait a minute… is this a date?”

Sehun shrugged, as casually as he could, ignoring his inner voice, his Suho shaped conscience that was currently screaming at him, telling him that ‘he must be crazy!’

Choosing the crazy seemed like a better option than sitting alone at home, filled with half-baked ‘what-ifs’ and regrets. It was just a date, anyway. Not a marriage proposal.

“Hey, like you said: you’re the one calling the shots around here, boss.” Sehun returned, with a smile that came surprisingly easily. The designer took ages to think it over, staring down at his desk for a good minute or two before finally glancing up.

“…alright, then. A date it is.”

Sehun grinned.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s cranberry juice.”

“… Sehun, I asked for a bloody mary, not some sippy cup go-go juice.”

“Just try it, alright? You’ll like it, I promise.”

Tao rolled his eyes but grabbed the glass, sliding it closer to himself with a sigh.

The two of them were sitting at a nondescript red window-side booth at Dino’s Ristorante, in their own little section where they wouldn’t be bothered. They were the only ones dressed in suits and ties, and although they probably had gotten funny looks from other restaurant goers when they came in, Sehun was a regular here, and Dino himself had welcomed him in with a smile, pointing him to his usual spot in the corner with friendly warmth in abundance.

Tao had been predictably sullen, prickling up like a hissing cat whenever any stranger leveled a look in his direction. He’d been left alone though, his presence not commented on by anyone except Dino, who dug his elbow into Sehun’s side and offered him a knowing wink.

Fifteen minutes later they’d settled in quickly, menus open and phones put aside as they tried to figure out what to order.

Sehun was only half interested in looking at the menu - he’d been here enough to know what he was going to order - and besides, he was more curious as to whether or not Tao would actually try the drink Sehun had ordered for him.

His patience paid off, when, after a while of staring inconspicuously over the top of his menu, Tao picked up the glass, sniffing it cautiously before bringing it up to his lips for a small sip.

Sehun dropped his menu and gave up all pretenses of reading it.

“…well?” He asked, taking in Tao’s raised eyebrows with a grin.

“It’s tart.” Tao said.

“Yeah, but you like it, right?”

Tao chose not to respond (smug bastard that he was), but he did end up finishing the glass before their meals even arrived. He even pushed the glass out with the tips of his fingers until the waiter took the hint and refilled it.

Sehun counted it as a solid victory when Tao never asked for his glass to be filled with anything else. Sehun hid an uncontrollably triumphant grin underneath his hand, pretending that his mouth was too full of chicken piccata to speak until he was sure that all traces of it was wiped off of his face.

“Alright, so this is a date, right?” He said, sometime during their appetizer course. “Let’s pretend we’re just two Joe Schmoes who met randomly in the middle of the street. You tell me you like my trim waist and swimmer's back, I tell you that I’ve always dug the ‘murderous librarian’ look on the men I date” - the words forced out a snort from the other side of the table - “and we hit it off right away. What’s next?”

“Even if we had met like that, I wouldn’t know.” Tao shrugged as he took another sip of his juice, the fruit already staining his lips an attractive cranberry red. “I don’t really go on dates much.”

“Fair enough. Maybe we should talk about our interests then. Do you, um, like music?”

“I’d pay you fifty dollars if you could actually find someone who’d answer ‘no’ to that question.”

“No need for all the sass, bossman. Just trying to make small talk. Alright, so, you like music. What genre?”

“...pop rock, I guess.”

“Well, uh, okay, who’s your favorite pop rock band, then?”

“Princess Princess.”

“…you’re going to have to help me out a little here because I can’t tell from your face if you’re joking or not.”

“I am not joking.”

“You have got to be ing with me. There’s no way that you enjoy a band called ‘Princess Princess’!”

“I am not ing with you. They were an all female Japanese pop rock band from the 80s and I used to have posters of them plastered all over my wall at home. I’ll have you know that all of the clothes that I designed for last year’s fall ready wear were based off of the look in their debut album.”

Sehun squinted his eyes as he struggled to remember the collection in question.

“…what, that super weird line with the poofy shoulders and the giant bangles?”

“Like I said, they were an 80s rock band. It was a different time.” Tao deadpanned.

Sehun smacked his lips, leaning back in his seat while scratching his head.

“Alright, you got me. I believe you now. But wooooow, I would never have pegged you of all people to like pop rock.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What else am I ‘supposed’ to like?” Tao asked.

“I don’t know. Industrial… electronica… hipster house music or some ?”

“If you’re talking about what we play on the catwalk, I’ll have you know that Nana picks the music. Besides, that’s more for the models and the media than it is for us. The models have to have something with a clear beat to step to, and the media likes to eat up the whole package. They all think I’m some kind of goth death lord or something. It sells well, so I just let them assume whatever image of me that they want.”

Sehun leaned forward, pushing aside his now empty plate of food.

“So, what are you then, if you’re not what the media portrays you to be?” He asked.

Tao shrugged, picking at a stray thread sticking out of his napkin.

“I don’t know.” He said, just a little self-conscious and just a little cute. “Just somebody doing fairly well at the job I trained for years for.”

Sehun heaved a sigh.

“That doesn’t sound like somebody who is very passionate about what they do.” He said.

Tao’s mouth twitched. He looked a little downtrodden.

“…I loved it at the beginning. But to be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way about it.” Tao admitted, after a long moment of silence.

“So why are you still doing it?” Sehun asked.

“Because it was always my dream.” Tao responded almost immediately.

Sehun snorted, unconvinced. He folded his arms onto the table so that he could lean forward even more, scrutinizing the blank look on his date’s face.

“Really? This was?” Sehun asked.

Something flickered for a moment on Tao’s face, so quick that Sehun wasn’t able to pick up on what exactly it was.

“… of course it is.” Tao said.

Sehun just stared at him, rolling his jaw and nodding slowly as he tried his best to figure out what the other man was thinking. The most he did was unsettle Tao, who looked away quickly, picking up his now empty glass and cradling it between his fingers.

“Anyway.” Tao’s voice was hoarse. Embarrassed.

“What’s your dream?”

Sehun suddenly remembered where his camera bag was, still left sitting under the back passenger seat of his car.

His smile slowly grew, handsome and lopsided.

He threw a couple of bills down on the table, enough to cover their meal and the tip, before jerking his head to the exit.

“Come on,” He told Tao, reaching out to pull the other man along, “Let me show you.”

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

One month later, and his camera was running out of film.

His darkroom was filled, photos pinned up and dripping from every inch of the tiny space, all filled with the very same subject.

Bold close-ups of a soft side profile. Curved lips, full cupid’s bow. Eyes - sharper than a knife, darker than the night. He wanted to capture every detail, so that he would never forget it.

Light filled the room for a half-second flash.

“What is it about photography that you love so much? It’s just pictures, isn’t it?”

“It’s more than ‘just pictures’.” Sehun laughed, winding his camera back up before looking back through the viewfinder.

Tao was lying back in his king-sized bed, dressed only in an ed shirt and dark boxer briefs. His long legs were tangled in the satin sheets, short black hair falling over his outstretched arms. He looked like a cat lounging on a windowsill, eyes half-lidded and body curled seductively around the space Sehun had left behind.

God, it filled his mind with endless possibilities. Both artistic and ual in nature.

“It’s about finding beauty in the everyday world.” He explained, using his free hand to zoom the lens in on Tao’s pink, bitten lips. The machine whirred. Like an extension of himself, it hummed pleasantly beneath his fingers. “There’s a sense of satisfaction when you see something nobody else has noticed before.”

“Is that right?” Tao smirked, shifting onto his back and letting his shirt fall open. He dragged one of his feet up the bed, making sure Sehun was watching as it slid across the satin, slowly drawing his legs open. “And are you feeling very satisfied, now?”

Sehun just had to take one more picture. Of the look on Tao’s face. The hickies that lined his chest and ended somewhere between his thighs like the frame of the world’s most beautiful painting.

Then he succumbed to Tao’s charm, dropping the camera to the bed, eyes dark.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” He began without an end, pulling his wife beater off over his head. He was dry-mouthed and breathless, chest already heaving as he crowded over Tao, boxing him in with his warm arms and long legs.

“So ing gorgeous.” He breathed.

Suho would probably yell at him later for this.

But for now, all he wanted was to bend down to take those smiling lips in a kiss.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Two months later, and Sehun had his own dresser in Tao’s swanky uptown apartment.

He’d slept over so many times at that point that he was quickly growing more used to its layout than he was to his own apartment.

It hadn’t been as much of an adjustment as he’d thought it would have been, although Sehun wished his body would hurry up and become used to putting on a suit every day. It was part of what came with the package of dating a fashion designer, he supposed. Tying the slim ties he was expected to wear with his clumsy fingers was hell, but making sure everything matched (to someone’s high standards) was even worse.

At least he had a professional fashion designer by his side, checking him every morning and helping him pair the right shirt with the right jacket. He’d even comb Sehun’s hair on the rare occasion that they were both running late - applying pomade to Sehun’s hair with care while Sehun tied his shoes. It seemed like despite all his rough edges, Tao could be surprisingly thoughtful.

At this rate though, he might have to add buttoning up his suit jacket to the list of things Tao would have to help him with, Sehun thought to himself, as he fumbled through doing it himself with a grumble.

As if sticking a middle finger up at his struggle, the offending button broke free from its thread, tumbling to the ground with a rattle.

“Damnit. Stupid thing just snapped off.” Sehun cursed. He reached down with a frown, picking up the offending button his hand. He could hear Tao making his way toward him before he even saw the pair of legs that stepped in front of him.

“Here. Let me see that.”

As Sehun straightened back up, Tao’s fingers reached out, plucking the button from his palm. Another hand reached for his jacket, tugging on the sleeve until Sehun finally relented and pulled it off his body.

A drawer opened with the ter-clatter of something rattling in its case. Tao a lamp and sat down cross legged on the floor, laying the jacket in his lap. He lifted the button carefully to the light, plucking off the stray fluff of thread that had been ripped off by Sehun’s fingers.

“Tsk, tsk.” The older man chided him, wetting the string with his mouth and threading the needle with practiced ease. “Twenty-six years old and you don’t know how to sew a button back on.”

“Hey, I’ve got even less reason to learn now that I’m dating a designer.” Sehun said with a smirk, falling easily back into the comfortable, bantering relationship the two of them had always shared. “Talk to me when one of your photographers break one of their fancy camera lens, and you’ll see just how useful I am then.”

Tao snorted, but left him alone on it, distracted by what he was doing. Tao’s thin, nimble fingers were moving so quickly that the needle almost seemed invisible as it dove in and out of dark fabric. Sehun stooped closer, drawn in by the shine of something metallic on Tao’s finger.

“Is that a thimble?” He asked.

“Yeah. Keeps me from pricking my finger.” Tao responded easily, pulling the thread through with a practiced, graceful flick. Fffwwwhiiip, it went again, as the needle cut through the air and the string was pulled taut.

Sehun watched it, too fascinated to look away.

“I thought you were ‘too skilled’ to prick your fingers?” Sehun asked with a cheeky grin.

“Watch it, Sehun, before I use the same skills to sew your mouth shut.” Tao said, brandishing the needle at him like a weapon though his mouth twitched up in an endearing smile. Sehun couldn’t help but to smile back, helpless and weak against Tao’s awful, awful smile.

They stayed like that for a little while, crouched on the floor of the entry hall, just Sehun watching Tao as Tao quietly sewed the button back onto his jacket. For someone as high up as Tao was in the fashion world, it was… refreshing to see him like this, doing something so simple. Something about it felt peaceful and fragile, and honestly, Sehun could have sat there forever and have been perfectly content.

“So how’d you learn how to do that?” He said just as Tao began to wrap up, tying a careful, delicate knot around the end.

“I had a lot of free time when I was a kid.” Tao explained, bending down to bite off the excess thread with his teeth.

“Yeah? And instead of spending it outside playing football like most boys you mean to tell me you were inside with a needle and thread?” Sehun snorted, reaching out to rub his Tao’s cheek to show that he was just teasing. “What are you, an eighty year old cat woman stuck in a thirty year old man’s body?”

Tao’s face was curiously blank, and he didn’t laugh, although Sehun personally thought the joke was hilarious.

“There were a lot of clothes in the house that needed mending.” Tao said quietly. “Mom was usually too preoccupied to care of it, so I handled it myself.”

Something about that was weird. Of course Sehun noticed it. There was already a question forming on his lips when Tao suddenly stood up, cutting off the conversation abruptly.

The look on Tao’s face was closed off, and it was clear to Sehun that the conversation - though barely started - was already over.

“Okay,” Tao said, holding the jacket out for Sehun to wear, “put this on and see how it feels.”

“Alright,” Sehun said, stepping forward with a frown.

And at least for now, that was the end of that.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t until much later that Sehun finally learned the implications behind that strange little conversation.

Another late night, and Sehun was slumped over the craft table with a yawn, his long, stretching arms pushing away the mess of thread spools and thick cloth that were sent tumbling onto the floor.

Seated on a stool beside Tao, he kept the designer company as, once again, the man toiled tirelessly over the sewing machine in his study.

The methodical sound of the whirring machine was almost like a lullaby at this point, and every time he closed his eyes, he could feel his eyelids grow heavier.

He drummed his fingers against the wood to keep himself awake, kicking his heels against the rungs of his chair for a moment - until his eyes caught on the gap between Tao’s shirt buttons, flapping open and closed whenever the man moved closer to fiddle with the bobbin, cranking the wheel to get the needle and thread to move together just right.

He’d seen the wide, raised scar on Tao’s collarbone before - they’d slept together plenty of times at this point - and though they weren’t exactly lovers, he’d seen the other’s body enough times to claim the familiarity of one.

But he’d never really put two and two together. Always assumed it was due to some childhood accident - maybe Tao had been just as clumsy of a kid as he was when he was younger. But then he realized - of all the many things Tao was, he certainly could never have been that clumsy.

The older man froze when Sehun reached out with his finger, as if reenacting the iconic scene from ET as he touched the jagged, alien-looking scar with a strange sort of apprehension.

Tao shivered, and though he didn’t move away, Sehun felt the other man’s gaze fall on him, sharp and piercing.

He was treading on thin ice here.

“Was this… from your dad …?” He asked, very slowly, phrasing it very carefully.

As if he’d poked a balloon with a needle, Tao seemed to deflate, sighing as he brushed Sehun’s hand away impatiently.

“My dad left when I was thirteen. My stepdad was a , though.” Tao said, very shortly. He reached out, forcing Sehun to remain still as the designer pulled a fresh spool of thread from beside his resting head. His mind raced with all the possibilities of what that could mean as he listened to the sound of Tao winding the bobbin methodically.

Click-click, click-click, whirrrrrrr whirrrrrrrr whirrrrrrrrr.

“He hated my guts, but mom was too scared to leave him.” Tao continued, after what seemed like ages. “So I left by myself when I was sixteen, instead. Got myself a couple of odd jobs, put myself through school however I could.”

For some reason, that surprised Sehun. He was so used to seeing Tao wearing expensive, brand name clothes that he hadn’t ever once entertained the thought that Tao had grown up with anything less than that.

It humbled him for having never considered it. Then again, how would he have known? The man kept his secrets as if he’d locked them away in a vault.

The machine hummed as Tao sewed another seam onto a pair of men’s dress pants. It was tightly executed, just as expected from a master of his craft. Yet, at the same time, though he was clearly well practiced, almost mindless in his back-and-forth repetitive motions, Sehun could see that his fingers were trembling.

Sehun blinked. Then he folded his arms under his head, tilting it so that he could see the other man clearly as he spoke.

“Is that when you fell into the fashion world?” Sehun asked, without really knowing what else to say.

“My boyfriend that I lived with at the time was in fashion school. He taught me all I know about the basics, and helped me get into school myself, which was the only good thing that bastard ever did.”

Tao’s face grew even darker, somehow. Or maybe it was just the flickering light playing tricks on Sehun’s eyes. A close-up portrait shot would have looked amazing from here, wouldn’t it? From this exact angle.

“…and what happened with him?” Sehun asked, well aware that his own words could land him in trouble. But his tongue was a devil, spying an opportunity to pull every secret from the man who usually kept them so close.

“He stole my designs during our last year of school together. Whited-out my name, wrote his own down over it, and turned in my sketches for our final.” Tao said, the machine vibrating almost violently as the designer dug his foot into the pedal.

“I was too in love with him at the time to stop him from doing it.” He admitted quietly, as if he were disgusted with himself for saying it.

Sehun blinked again, stunned for the moment.

He’d never known. But when he put it all together, it all made sense. The reasons for behaviors Sehun hadn’t understood at first now became so painfully clear.

Here he was standing on Sehun’s doorstep - a man who had never once learned to trust anyone else.

“I mean, I can’t say I didn’t understand.” Tao mumbled, so quiet that Sehun had to strain to hear him. “We both had agreed to put our careers first. And I know I’m a lot to handle at times. I’ve got a temper. I know that. But, I, really loved him… yeah? He was the first and only person that I thought actually gave a damn about me.”

“Tao…”

“God, he was the worst. Man, what a prick.”

The look on Tao’s face as he reached out to crank the needle up from the fabric was still blank; it was almost as if he were discussing the weather, or reading out a grocery list, instead of something that was clearly so personal to him.

“But most people are, right?” Tao mumbled. “People are awful. People are - by nature - bitter, selfish creatures. So why bother trying to be any different, you know?”

Sehun’s heart was pounding.

He sat up suddenly, leaning in close to the other man as the urge in him to - do something, anything - grew.

“What about your mom?” Sehun tried his best. “Your mom loved you enough to try to keep you with her, didn’t she?”

Tao snorted.

“Mom was an alcoholic .” He said, the look in his eyes hard and suspiciously bright. “No matter how hard I tried to impress her, she always loved the bottle more than she ever loved me. But I guess we share that in common, right? Like mother, like son.”

Sleepless nights, spent rifling through Tao’s cupboards, making sure he’d gotten rid of any trace of whiskey and wine, any hidden flask tucked away carefully into the couch cushions. Sehun had spent so much time looking.

“Stop that.” Sehun said, quietly.

“There’s no reason to stop. Not when everyone hates me already.” Tao said.

“No, they don’t. They’re just scared of your temper tantrums.”

“You say that as if I don’t have them on purpose. It works, doesn’t it? Act three sheets to the wind, raise my voice a little, and everyone ing runs.”

By now, Sehun had an arm around the back of Tao’s chair, pressed so close that he could practically feel the heat of the other man’s shivering body against him, even though Sehun wasn’t even touching him. Some parts of him were angry for reasons he couldn’t understand. And another part of him, equally bewildering, ached.

“Not everyone out there is trying to use you, Tao.” Sehun said, falling down just a little deeper into the rabbit hole he’d dug for himself.

“You say that with such optimism.” Tao said, eyes dropping back down to his shaking hands as he struggled to finish sewing the last few inches of fabric. “Haven’t you been burned like that before?”

“Of course I have.” Sehun said, quietly. “But it’s the journey that matters, doesn’t it? Even if it doesn’t end up working out. It’s the journey that changes us for the better. Because - because there’s always something to learn from the experience. Even if it scares us to try.”

“A lot of things seem to scare you.” Tao responded after a short pause, deflecting the conversation away from himself with a small smile. “Snakes, spiders, rats.”

Sehun saw the deflection for what it was, but he let it go, letting Tao have his comfort.

Sehun slid back into his own space, slowly letting his head fall back onto the table where it had been just minutes before. The scene rewound itself, to the sound of the humming machine.

“Rats aren’t what scares me most.” He mumbled to himself, letting his hair fall into his eyes. “It’s not knowing a thing that does.”

 

Click-click, click-click.

whirrrrrrr whirrrrrrrr whirrrrrrrrr

 

Tao asked just one last question - right before he lapsed back into a silence that would last the rest of the night.

“Do you think it’s worth it? To try.”

 

Click-click, click-click.

whirrrrrrr whirrrrrrrr whirrrrrrrrr

 

“Yeah.” Sehun said, looking at the distance between them with an unreadable expression.

“… of course I do.”

 

Click-click, click-click.

whirrrrrrr whirrrrrrrr whirrrrrrrrr

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun was strangely settled into a life he’d never imagined for himself.

He went out every Friday night with a grocery list for two. He’d even grown used to using Tao’s fancy espresso machine.

He spent most late nights cuddled up next to his boss in bed, listening to him talk, helping him plan his next collection, his next vision, his next show.

And, for once in his life, he found himself genuinely caring.

Of course, they hadn’t ever really talked about what it was they meant to each other (they weren’t really that type), but they had grown comfortable with each other.

Used to having the other person around - dinners for two, movie nights at home.

And just like he’d learn to handle Tao’s occasional manic fits and the spools of thread laying half unraveled all throughout Tao’s penthouse that he’d trip over, Tao learned to handle always having a camera in his face, flashing away at all hours of the day. Pictures had begun to appear on his once barren walls. Vibrant, like a splash of vivid color against his modern monochromatic furniture.

At work, everybody knew but nobody talked about it. They didn’t make it a topic for gossip, but they didn’t hide their curiosity for it either - they all saw the warm pats on the shoulder whenever it was time for Tao to shut himself inside of his office, they all peeked to see the kisses goodnight whenever it was time for Sehun to leave first so that he could pick up dinner for them both.

Of course, if anyone had asked Sehun, he’d vehemently deny that it was anything more serious than it was.

No plans, nothing really other than doing what just… felt right.

And didn’t it feel right? Lying down with his head propped up against Tao’s leg, the sound of the TV providing a blanketing white noise as he scanned through the photos he’d taken on his DSLR, the familiar and comforting scritchascratch as Tao sketched something into his notepad.

Sehun wasn’t stupid, either.

He knew certain things to be true.

Like - how his job was just a means to an end, and his heart would always be in photography. Or, alternatively, how Tao was never going to be anyone’s ‘sweetheart’. Maybe in another life, if he had grown up loved, if he’d been pampered the way every kid deserved to be - maybe then - that Tao would have been softer. Kinder.

But the truth was that no matter how hard he tried to rage against the machine, to prove himself to be better than the sum of his parts, the past wasn’t something Tao (or anyone else for that matter) could change.

So he wasn’t exactly sunshine and flowers to be around. That was okay. There was a reason for that, and now that Sehun knew, Sehun understood.

Besides, he liked Tao’s quirks. Liked them quite a lot, actually.

It had become a familiarity. Something that he could always count on.

And that’s what made it so surprising when everything seemed to change overnight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

A little over a year later, ten o’clock on a Saturday.

Tao turned to him with a smile, and said - “I love you.” - with absolute sincerity.

Sehun froze up.

His fingers stuttered in the middle of buttoning up his shirt, speechless as he turned his head to look at the other man still lying on the bed.

They had just woken up. The fashion designer was still a mess - his usually perfect hair was plastered very unattractively to his face, and the bags under his eyes appeared darker and heavier than usual - and on his lips was this beautiful, gorgeous smile. One that had his eyes crinkling and his nose scrunching in a way that Sehun, for all his attention to detail, had never noticed.

He thought - that never once had Tao ever looked more like an angel than he did now.

But the words I love you too, which Sehun knew he should have said right back, never came to him.

It never did.

Oh, the guilt was there - the guilt was immense, but -

 

I don’t know what to say to that.

I mean I’m flattered, it’s just -

I like you, of course, but -

 

- he was afraid.

Afraid of the way his heart beat a lazy and content rhythm when Tao turned to say hello for the first time in the morning, afraid of the way he felt when the older man curled into him when they watched movies that were too scary, afraid of the way he looked like when Sehun pulled out of him every night, cheeks rosy and flushed with life.

And he was afraid that when Tao looked at him, he was a sunflower turning to the sun - searching his features, following his eyes - as if Sehun was the only thing that mattered.

Because Sehun knew that he was.

Because he knew the truth - of what impact he’d had on Tao. Even if he hadn’t meant for it to work out quite like this, he’d been there every step of the way, holding Tao’s hands, leading him down this path every single step of the way.

And hadn’t Suho warned him? Warned him not to. Warned him that this would happen. And he’d let it.

Suppose - suppose it all worked out. Suppose he told Tao that he loved him back, suppose Sehun kissed him on the cheek, lived together with him happily ever after until they were old and senile. Would that have ever worked out?

Sehun didn’t think so.

Despite how earnest he knew Tao had become in this - whatever the two of them had together - he knew that Tao was still the same man. Happier, maybe, but Sehun didn’t think he’d ever be able to shake the idea that he’d made Tao happy by forcing Tao to be dependent on him for everything - that Tao would ever only be happy because Sehun was there.

Of course, a dark part of him whispered ‘What’s wrong with that?’, wanting to bottle all of the Tao’s love for himself - because who wouldn’t want to hoard it like the gold it was?

So the question still remained. The one he could imagine Suho asking him, his friend’s voice static and shrill in the receiver of his phone.

Why had he let it get this far?

Sehun, with his eyes wide open and pressed against the viewfinder, had wanted nothing more than to chip away the wall around Tao’s heart. All he had really wanted, was to capture for himself just how beautiful it was. Because in the end, he was an artist, just like Tao was.

And just like an artist always wished for praise, so too had he always wanted the whole world to see his masterpiece. He just hadn’t imagined Tao staring right back. To find that Sehun had always been the one standing behind the barrier of a glass lens.

“It’s okay,” This soft vision of Tao said, earnest and forgiving where he never had been before, “you don’t have to answer me. I can wait.”

A thin hand carded through his hair for a second. Then the bed dipped and lifted as Tao got up, mumbling something about making coffee for them both. Bare footsteps against the parquet floor, walking away from the bed left half empty.

But the truth was that it wasn’t okay. And Sehun felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Guilt was heavy. It filled his heart with a sort of confused hurt that had him wanting to crawl under the bed and wait for the fallout.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” Sehun said to no one at all, dipping his face into his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

For as long as it took to build,

Sehun’s sand castle crumbled so quickly

that in the blink of an eye,

it was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Work got done, just like it always had, but something had changed.

Rumors, not the good kind, were floating around the office.

Something about how Tao, their lead creative director, the man behind the vision and the brand, had suddenly begun to produce works in soft tulle and off white beige, planning a line of dreamy and romantic dresses that looked more catalog than haute couture.

In other words - Tao’s work was becoming predictable.

And in the ever changing world of fashion, that was almost a guaranteed death sentence.

When the latest editorial came in for their last show, Sehun snatched it up, waiting until he was alone on the rooftop to open it, leaning against the guardrail as he scrolled through his phone.

HZT Falls Flat on the Runway, the name of the article read, partially hidden by Sehun’s thumb as he flipped through the vicious pages with growing dread.

 

The founder of the famed haute couture fashion line seems to have found himself stuck in a creative rut.

Though the brand has been previously praised for having quickly risen from its humble beginnings to stand toe-to-toe against the oldest giants of the industry, last week’s show in Milan showed a disappointing lack of the furious energy that HZT is known for.

Instead of the striking black and white contrasts we’d all been hoping to see for months, what we got were soft whites and pinks - something which wouldn’t look out of place in a Vera Wang wedding collection, but which seems to be a complete departure from the fashion house’s typically cutthroat branding.

This editor must unfortunately write to say that there were no memorable outfits to be found on the runway - whatever has changed with Mr. Huang’s usually impeccable sense for striking and innovative fashion has left even his most complex outfit (a woven, ombre suit with a netted, wide-brimmed hat) looking bland and distasteful.

This seems to be the latest in the string of unfortunate shows that began during the Tokyo show in winter.

What happened to the Mr. Huang who constantly re-invented himself with each season? What happened to the Fall 2013 ready wear collection, or last year’s beaded lattice work gown that actress Lupita Nyong’o wore on the Met Gala red carpet? What happened to the creative mind that kept us guessing?

His stark lines have softened beyond recognition - the severity we were so used to seeing from him has been gone for a long time. And perhaps this is a letdown to those of us who were expecting more.

Whether or not this marks a permanent departure for the brand is something that still remains to be seen - however, should things continue down this path, this editor feels very uncertain of HZT’s bleak future in the face of an industry that is constantly evolving.

 

Sehun lit a cigarette with his free hand, watching his phone screen come alive, buzzing with a familiar name.

Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.

Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.

He stared at it without moving a muscle, taking one last long puff of his cigarette before turning his head and watching the smoke blow out in trails of white and grey. He watched it go, fading slowly into the clouds that dotted the skyline.

Am I doing the wrong thing?

He kept asking himself, contemplating, considering, regretting.

Was it all for the wrong reasons?

He slowly put out his cigarette, deliberately rubbing the lit end into the ashtray until he was sure the flame had finally gone out.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

It sounded like the beginning of one of those terrible jokes you would find in an old Reader’s Digest.

‘Two artists walk into a room’ - it would start.

One of them, reaching for his dreams, the other one, in search of one.

And how would that story end?

“I quit.” Sehun told him far too many days later, ending the affair they had with a single envelope, slid across that long, mahogany desk.

There was a chair right next to him, but he chose to stand so that he wouldn’t be comfortable, forcing himself to just watch as Tao slowly lifted his head to look at him.

Everything ached.

“You’re what?” Tao asked, slowly rolling the syllables off his tongue as if his mouth wasn’t functioning.

“I’m quitting.” Sehun repeated.

Tao stared at him for another long moment, the color slowly draining from his face.

It was almost interesting to watch. In the same thread as his reluctant cruelty, Sehun knew that if he had his camera on him, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from pulling it out, to capture every emotion as it unfolded on the other man’s face.

“You’re - you’re what?” Tao asked quietly. “…why?”

“Because I think it’s time to move on.”

A gasp, coming from a third party, at the edge of the room.

Tao his lips, tearing his eyes away from Sehun’s face to stare blankly at the other occupants in the room.

Raina and Nana were standing there, hands to their mouths and faces frozen with genuine shock that he knew Tao echoed on the inside. It wasn’t that he had planned to publically humiliate Tao. He’d had no idea anyone was inside when he’d walked in - stuck in tunnel vision, he’d been so focused on the man sitting behind the desk that he hadn’t seen the two women there.

But, maybe it was better this way. The shock of having it done so publicly would help ease the transition.

Oh Sehun wasn’t a hateable man by nature, but he was trying his very best to be.

His hands were shaking from where they were clutched behind his back.

Struck speechless, Tao dismissed the two of them with a wave of his hand. They scattered like the wind, eyes darting toward each other in a way that told Sehun that by the time he’d finished here, there wouldn’t be a soul in the office that wouldn’t know what had just happened.

But his attention was quickly being drawn away again, this time by the loud sound of Tao pushing back his chair, stumbling away from his desk so that he could stand in front of Sehun.

“What’s this?” He asked, shaking the crumpled envelope in his fist with those fever bright eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t you hear me the first time?” Sehun forced himself to say, pushing out each word from his frozen lips. “I’m done.”

Tao searched his face for a long time, looking for some sign of weakness that Sehun refused to let show.

It’s for his own good. Sehun frantically told himself, chanting it over and over like a mantra.

It’s for his own good.

“Weren’t you the one who told me that you would see things through?” Tao asked hoarsely.

He had been expecting curses and  yous, maybe even a temper tantrum and a glass or two thrown his way.

But this - this was unanticipated. It was more difficult to handle disappointment than anger. And he could feel the disappointment dripping off of the man in front of him. He could understand how it felt - having someone who had worked so closely with him for so long abandon him so suddenly.

“I’ve seen it through until the end and I can’t do anything more for you. You’ve got to stand on your own, now.”

The tears welling up in Tao’s eyes was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He turned away. Sehun forced his legs to move, forced himself not to look back, in case he would see something that would make him regret the choice he’d just made for the rest of his life.

So when Sehun left, he left quickly and quietly.

He closed the door behind him with a click that echoed with finality, never knowing what expression Tao still had on his face, never knowing what must have been going on in Tao’s head. All he had were his own thoughts, and they were dark and depressing.

Sehun waited until he was outside to pull out his phone, dialing in the number of his best friend with shaking fingers.

“Suho?” He said, voice cracking, pressing the phone to the ear as he sunk down onto the nearest stoop, dropping his bag and all his belongings onto the ground. “Suho, are you there?”

“Sehun?” He heard the static break as the voice on the other side crackled into being. “What’s wrong?”

“Suho, are you - are you free right now?” He said, numbly blinking away his own tears.

“I really need to talk to someone.”

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun found moderate success as a freelance photographer. Though it wasn’t international success overnight, he found himself making a comfortable living doing what he loved to do most.

There wasn’t much prestige to it - no expensive, branded clothing, no designer shoes, no schmoozing with the city’s elite and shaking hands until his wrists ached.

But he preferred it this way.

If he was being honest, he’d say that it was far more emotionally fulfilling than any other job he’d ever had, because he no longer had to pretend to care about things that didn’t matter to him.

And he loved his work. He loved capturing private moments of another person’s life. Finding the beauty in all the small things life had to offer.

This - his dream job - had been all that he had hoped for and all that he had expected it would be.

Except when it wasn’t.

Despite all the reasons he told himself that it wouldn’t have worked out anyway, he still found himself spending long lonely nights in the cramped living room of his studio apartment, listening to the rain hitting the metallic stairs of the fire escape outside his window.

And he still thought of Tao.

God, he thought of Tao all the time.

Every time he saw a magazine on the stand, waiting in the line to pay for his groceries, he would inevitably be drawn to the cover. Who was that? What were they wearing? Was it something he recognized? Was it something Tao had designed?

Every time he’d turn on the TV to find the red carpet footage of some live award show, he’d drop the remote, lean forward and ask himself the very same questions.

Every time he’d wind his camera back, standing in the dripping corner of his darkroom, hanging every picture one-by-one to dry, he’d think back to how beautiful Tao’s smile had looked in all the thousands of photographs he’d taken of him, still tucked away in a photo album he’d left untouched since he’d moved away from the city.

Every single time.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun introduced Suho to him in his next exhibition.

A portrait in black and white. Starkly contrasted, sharpened to an extreme.

“This is him?” Suho asked, looking up.

“Yep.” Sehun said simply, brushing his shoulders with his oldest friend as they both looked upon the photograph.

The lecture was going to come, just like he knew it always would.

But he waited for it in vain.

Instead, Suho took a step back, mouth gaping open just a little bit as he caught Sehun’s reflection in those haunting eyes.

“You know,” Suho said, with a quiet sort of awe, “I think I can see it.”

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

And of course there were days when he’d lay back on his bed, closing his eyes and remembering the times where he could stretch out a hand and find someone else’s reaching out to touch his own.

Of course, he did his best not to seek Tao out. Any detail of his ex-lover’s life was private and not meant for him. At least, not anymore. And though that was a thought that made him ache, he just couldn’t do it to himself either. Not when he was trying so hard to do the right thing, for once in his rotten life.

“Are you happy now?” He would ask his mirror’s reflection, his face still wet, shaving cream still clinging in tufts on his chin. “Do you miss me at all?”

The answer, of course, was one that he knew he wouldn’t hear - not from his reflection, not from his lonely days, spent with a camera in front of his face, snapping, snapping, and snapping away.

But then one day he’d opened his mailbox, and found a piece of it inside.

A gold embossed letter, addressed to him with three glossy, black letters spelling out boldly: HZT.

It was clearly a stock card. It hurt, just a little, to see no personal touch, no handwritten, scrawling script that he’d gotten so used to deciphering.

He stared at it as if it was some strange, ancient relic sitting on his kitchen table, ready and waiting to be deciphered.

It took him far too long before he could reach out for it again, this time to slowly rip the top of the predictably black envelope open and to pull out what looked to be some kind of invitation.

For one of his shows? Sehun thought to himself, flipping the card from back to front and finding no answer other than a date and a time.

After all this time. Six months - at the very least.

What could Tao possibly want from him now? Maybe to gloat? To parade some new, more handsome lover in front of him? That wouldn’t be unexpected, right?

His jaw hurt from gritting his teeth just thinking about it. But he held onto the card.

You were the one who made this choice, Sehun thought to himself.

After what you did, he probably doesn’t even have feelings for you anymore.

The least he could do would be to sit through another one of his shows. Make it some kind of public display of penitence, if that was what Tao needed.

And no matter what kind of punishment was in store for him, a part of him - a part of him was glad.

Because despite it all, there was a part of him that missed Tao terribly. That same part of him wanted to see Tao doing well, standing on his two feet. And even if it meant seeing the fashion designer just one more time, even if it meant sitting by himself in the corner while everyone else reveled in Tao’s spotlight, Sehun - Sehun wanted to do it.

It was the very least he could do, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

Sehun thought that he might have accidentally stepped into the wrong show. Which was ridiculous. Logically speaking, there couldn’t have been that many fashion shows in that particular part of town at that particular time of day.

But it looked so different.

Finding his seat in the front row, he sandwiched himself between a trout-lipped socialite and an older woman who looked suspiciously like Anna Wintour. He spoke to neither of them, practically perched on the edge of his seat, not knowing where to focus his attention or what to even begin to think.

Compared to all of Tao’s shows that he’d helped out with before, this one seemed so… casual.

Instead of a silent mass, worshippers in lined pews, today there were people actually laughing in their seats, chatting lightly with each other besides a blindingly white stage.

Hell, there was even food, light hors d'oeuvres served on tiny plates that Tao would have dropped dead before serving. Catering was too much of a hassle, he remembered Tao telling him before. Something about large groups and tight budgets. Well, Tao had obviously changed his mind about that.

Sehun swiped a plate as a waiter walked by, popping in a beautifully decorated piece of angel food cake into his mouth as he looked around with wide eyes.

There was so much light, pouring down from the glass ceiling, illuminated by shards of mirrored glass that hung delicately from fishing wire. There was no real runway. Instead of a suspended platform like usual, the runway itself took place on the floor right in front of them - just within arm’s reach.

Instead of looking up at them, he looked forward, meeting each model’s eyes as they stepped out from the white curtain, one by one.

His hands had set down the plate on the ground and picked up his camera before he’d even known it. He placed his eye against the viewfinder, and snapped every picture that his mind developed in front of him, feasting on the beauty that every second brought.

They wore white. Bridal white, off white, white without a stitch of that signature black he knew they’d all been anticipating. Just -- pure white. They floated too, as if their dresses were made of feathers. They were long and wispy, trailing behind them like angel wings, sending a breeze of white linen and lavender that had him breathing in deep.

Sehun thought that this might have been it - that he was witnessing Tao’s return to the spotlight, in the breathy oohs and aahs from the crowd, the gorgeous dresses that were both everything and nothing that Tao was.

This was it then, wasn’t it? Tao’s return to purity. His slate, finally wiped clean.

It was beautiful. Awe inspiring. Sehun couldn’t look away, snapping as many photos as he could and losing himself, just for a moment, in the brief glimpse of a world he’d never seen before.

But he’d underestimated the depth of Tao’s brilliance.

With a hiss, the sprinkler system , spraying down the entire stage with a sudden onslaught of water.

Beside him, he heard a chorus of movement as a thousand plastic umbrellas snapped open in unison, his own left unopened beneath his chair for the moment as he scrambled to protect his camera.

By the time he had finally shoved it under his chair, grabbing his own umbrella and hastily snapping it open - the transformation before his very eyes was already well under way.

Each and every droplet of water splashed down onto the white clothes the models wore and from it - a bloom of color began to spread. In perfect coordination, the models began to turn, some ripping off entire layers from their outfit, others unsnapping a hidden belt and revealing panels of bright colors that looked so different from the structured dresses and tunics they had come out wearing. The cloth fell around their knees, framing them picture perfect as the colors leaked out onto the floor in puddles of vibrant reds and oranges and blues and purples!

Tao’s vision. He could see it now - all of his hopes and dreams, his heart, worn on a sleeve.

For once in his life, his sheltered, cold heart began to beat so fast that he felt as if he were simultaneously soaring and plummeting through the air at the same time, his cheeks flushed and his pupils dilating until there was no trace of anything other than a ring of gold.

And Sehun fell in love.

With Tao’s sincerity, with his earnest devotion in shades of memory, laid out for him in sheets of cotton and polyester, every single smile Tao had ever given to him whether painful or shy, every single movement of Tao’s body against his in the middle of the night, every single tear pressed into Sehun’s shoulder.

Sehun loved everything that Tao was - the Tao that was sweet to him, the Tao that hated him, the Tao that had struggled for so many years with alcohol and addiction. The Tao who had stood there, watching him leave out the door.

He’d left Sehun a message.

One last love letter, because though Tao had never been very good at expressing his emotions, here was everything Sehun had ever wanted to know but had never asked. The happy and the sad, because despite all that had happened between the two of them in the short time they'd been together, Tao was glad to have loved him.

And Sehun loved him too. So much that he could no longer deny it anymore.

It welled up like the tears in his eyes.

He was happy that water was splashing against his cheeks, because he didn’t want to anyone to see the way that it all affected him, watching the colored dye swirl in pools around his feet, slowly melting away in the open drain in the ground.

And just like he had then - just like he had that first night he’d left alone - Sehun closed his eyes with a smile, letting the umbrella fall to his side as the water soaked him through to his bone.

“It’s so beautiful.” He echoed, choking out the words past his shaking body moved to tears. “Just like you are.”

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“You should check under your seat.”

Raina had told him when she found him after the show, just shortly before she left to join Nana on the stage.

“You might find something that would interest you.”

Sure enough, when he looked, there was a single envelope wrapped in a Ziploc bag, velcroed to the bottom of it.

 

 

“ Thank you everyone, for joining us here, today. “

 

 

As if carefully disarming a bomb, he very slowly snapped the baggie open, reaching in with two shaking fingers to slide the envelope out.

A drip of water splashed down from the bridge of his nose, wetting the paper.

 

 

“ As you may or may not already know, today’s show is very, very special.”

 

 

There it was! Tao’s curly handwriting. Looping and messy and wonderful at the same time.

‘To the devil I loved dearly,’ it began. He bit back a wet laugh.

 

 

“ We’re here to confirm the rumors - that tonight marks our very last show

with the talented Mr. Huang as our chief designer. “

 

 

He traced the manila envelope, slowly turning it over and over in his hands.

It felt thick and textured, sliding with a soft and satisfying shhhhhhhaaaaa under the grooves of his fingers.

 

 

“ Mr. Huang always had a unique personality.

I’m sure you’ve all heard a tale or two from the media about his infamous temper.

But let us tell you the truth about the man that we worked with. “

 

 

His trembling fingers found the edge of the envelope’s lip, curling into it and peeling away the adhesive as he slowly tore it open, letting the contents fall into his lap.

A letter.

 

 

“ He lived and breathed fashion. It was his whole world. His first love.

He might not have been perfect.

Hell, I know over half of you in this room alone would say that he was far from it.

But no one can deny that he had vision. “

 

 

He unfolded it in his hands, carefully leaning it away from him so that the water trickling from his hair wouldn’t smear the careful handwriting together.

 

 

“ Somehow, with his own two hands, he always found it a way to create life on the runway.

He always found a way.

And though we might not all have understood him,

we can all appreciate the impact he’s made not only on the industry - but on all of us as well. “

 

 

He started slowly at first, word by word, over and over, numbly until it finally began to click in his head.

Then he began to read faster, his red eyes devouring every line.

 

 

“ Now if you can join Raina and I, the new head designers of HZT, in this round of applause,

we’d like to reassure all of you that this won’t the last you’ll hear of Huang Zitao and his legacy … “

 

 

By the end of it – by the time the thundering applause had stopped, by the time the noisy sound of a thousand chairs being pushed back as its occupants stood in a standing ovation for a man who wasn’t there to witness it, Tao was already long gone, out there somewhere, searching for his dreams.

And just as quickly as he’d fallen in love - he found himself left behind, sitting there with an empty envelope on his lap, damp sheets of paper floating in the shallow pools of water by his feet.

And as the water dripped from strands of his hair, trailing down his cheeks, a smile slowly grew on Sehun’s face, full of wonder and regret and loss and love. He sat there, basking in Tao’s genius, tipping his head back into the light and letting it blind him so that he couldn’t feel the sting of his own tears.

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

“Final boarding call for all passengers on flight 382!” The stewardess called out through the intercom, though the sound was barely audible through the blood roaring through his ears.

And he waited.

The weight of his suitcase made his fingers hurt.

Tao stood at the end of the terminal, eyes locked on the other end.

He barely blinked, the view through his rose-colored sunglasses never changing as he kept his hopeful gaze fixed on the same point in the distance.

“Sir?” He felt a light touch on his elbow. He finally tore his gaze away to see the stewardess looking up at him, a confused smile frozen on her face.

“Sir, are you going to be boarding this flight?”

The one-way ticket in his hand was crumpled, cutting lines into the flesh of his palm. His backpack weighed him down. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, purple orange glow casting a soft glow upon the world around him.

And, in the middle of the busy airport terminal, the sound of screaming children and hushed conversations all surrounding him, he realized - that he was waiting for someone who would never come.

With a small smile, he nodded slowly, letting the stewardess pull the boarding pass from his heavy fingers. And though her gestures were impatient, he didn’t feel anger or irritation when she rushed him through the gate, ushering him through to the jet way with a quick - “Have a good journey, sir.”

Looking over his shoulder one last time he saw in his mind a young man smiling at him through the lens of a viewfinder. Smiling openly back, he tightened his grip on his suitcase, and turned away.

Yes – he thought – it had all been worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

═

 

 

 

 

 

The breeze felt nice.

The sun was pleasantly warm, peeking out from between the edges of the swaying palm trees.

Even years later, the shifting landscape before him was still just as vivid and bright.

He sketched it all out onto the pad of paper balanced on his knee, taking a moment to admire every detail before him, to take a deep breath of the sea breeze.

In his mind he was nothing but content, hearing the sound of the finches talking in the trees, the wind chimes sounding out their hellos from the rooftops.

His peace and quiet was only broken, if just slightly, but the sound of something heavy being set down onto his table.

Shifted, with great care, in his direction.

He tried to sneak a look at the stranger, but the low brim of his hat and the glare of the sun hid them from view.

He took a moment to blink away the sunspots, squinting to see that there was now a drink next to his hand.

He wasn’t angry about it. The stranger was well intentioned.

It’s just that Tao wasn’t that type of man.

He smiled, friendly and easy, pushing the drink back toward whomever had set it before him.

“Sorry,” he said, “but I don’t drink.”

When he expected to see the glass pull away, he did not.

When he expected to hear the stranger leave, he did not.

Instead, strangely enough, the glass was pushed back toward him.

“I know.” A male voice told him. One he thought he knew.

He glanced back down at the glass, looking deep into the red liquid, and feeling very suddenly in the back of his head, a spark of recognition.

And though it had been a while, his heart still skipped a beat.

When he looked up, he was blinded by an almost nostalgic light.

The bright flash captured to memory his warmest smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

═ E N D ═