“Hey, don’t you remember me?”

“No, should I?”

They’ve been talking in circles for the past ten minutes. Neither relents yet neither walks away.

Now, Luhan freezes—the words he was about to say shudder, blanch, wilt a little inside his mouth. He considers spitting them out anyway or just swallowing them and cry internally from the bitter taste. Closing his mouth, they get mashed up and garbled nonsense falls from his lips, “Wow, that kind of hurts.”

The man shrugs indifferently. He looks ephemeral with his blond hair shining under the sun like actual gold. In comparison, his skin is blindingly pale. Luhan feels like he should be worried over the sickly pallor but the man’s skin is practically translucent and just—beautiful.

And his eyes—beautifully familiar, despite the man’s words.

“Yixing,” he tries.

Those beautiful dark eyes narrow.

Luhan takes it as recognition and his nose wrinkles before he can stop it. “Yeah, I told you…We know each other.”

Yixing crosses his arms. He’s still indifferent—no emotion is betrayed on his face—but Luhan is losing it. Both his resolve and his sanity.

So what if he was walking down the busy streets of a random bustling city and suddenly saw a man who perfectly resembled his long-lost friend? And after closer inspection, it really was him? There’s no law in the world that states that, in this situation, Luhan just has to run across the street, almost cause a car accident, grab the man’s arm, and insist for ten minutes that they do know each other. (But he does because—)

After all, in their line of work, this is how people die. (—in this situation—)

People disappear without a reason—which is a reason in and of itself. People disappear off the face of the planet because they, or others, don’t want them to ever be found again. (—he wants to find him and—)

And when they get found out, they die. (—that’s what he wants.)

It’s simple, really.

Luhan knows this too. Is he trying to get his so-called long-lost best friend killed? Well, not exactly. But he’s stupid, hot-headed, and now…finally feels the stupidity of his actions.

But the fact that Yixing never flat-out denied that he is the Zhang Yixing? What is that supposed to mean? So Luhan can fool himself into pretending that things were still okay?

He ends up narrowing his eyes as well. Just it, man, it.

“Stop playing,” he practically growls.

Something flashes past Yixing’s eyes. He moves his lips next to Luhan’s ear—he’s so conscious of the hot breath on his cartilage—“You shouldn’t be here.”

And then he’s shoved to the side with a sharp and bony shoulder. And Yixing’s gone, melted into the faceless masses again.

Luhan’s lost him again.

By now, he shouldn’t even be surprised anymore. Because, surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

In his temporary apartment, he fabricates a story to Boss. The man doesn’t buy the lie and screams Luhan’s ear off. Clearly, Luhan has failed the mission and also failed at placating the man.

He squeezes his eyes shut but doesn’t dare to remove the phone from his ears. Finally, the man utters a threat that is both vague and terrifyingly specific and Luhan promises, once again, that he’ll stop being a failure.

He’ll find Yixing again and he won’t fail this time.

The next time he sees the man, blood will be shed.

See, one of them is the traitor, so now they’ll forever be on different sides. Luhan has to kill Yixing. Yixing probably has to kill him too. But they don’t.

Luhan follows Yixing around the world like a crazed lover scorned but no one ever dies. They just make attempts at conversing, sometimes Luhan likes to be melodramatic, but then it ends with one (usually Yixing) getting away.

They’re bad at their jobs, really.

Really pathetic, dangerous; puts a new meaning to flirting with death.

Polishing his gun with careful, deliberate , it’s like he’s caressing Yixing’s cheek. He can almost feel that smooth white cheek under his hands.

Yixing should be pressed against a wall—Luhan pins him there. Yixing’s hand grows slack and the vintage-looking Beretta 92 in it falls to the floor, the thud muffled by the thick carpet. They’ll stare at each other during this breathless moment. Maybe Yixing will be wearing colored lenses and Luhan’ll be drowning in a steel gray galaxy or a bottomless blue ocean.

There should be faint jazz or classical music playing in the background. But the music becomes stifled and stars appear in Luhan’s vision. They might be the specks of light in Yixing’s eyes or Luhan just can’t breathe. He can’t remember how to breathe.

To save himself from asphyxiation, he hangs onto anything. He grasps Yixing’s collar with one hand. The fine material crinkles and a button pops open. It plinks against the forgotten gun. His fingers splay against the chest, to steady himself, and he feels the heart thumping against him. Yixing’s body heat courses through Luhan’s veins, burning in his gut and his head.

His other hand is busy tracing Yixing’s features. Maybe his fingers will run down the sharp cheekbones to the plump lips and land on the cupid bow and shoot an arrow right into Yixing’s heart beating under his palm.

Luhan considers his other weapons.

A blade with the tip dabbed with poison would be subtle and mostly painless. Plus, Luhan gets an excuse to get close.

Cursing himself out, he shakes the thought from his head. Who the is he kidding? They’d gotten close enough for Luhan to lodge his in Yixing’s , but the man still left the next day—alive, with Luhan’s money and dignity too.

After settling on a weapon (a plain ol’ pistol), he now considers calling someone. He wants to rant and vent and cry. Scrolling through his contacts, different names fly past in a flurry and he’s reminded of those stupid cheesy quotes about having such a long friend list but no one to truly talk to.

Why do all these things apply to him so well?

He keeps scrolling, dragging sweat across his phone screen. And his finger stops at the name Sehun. Luhan stares long and hard and his finger quivers.

When Luhan has no one else, at least he still has him.

His finger stops its jittery dance when he hears a click.

Luhan feels the cold breath of the chrome before he feels it pressed against his temple. The cold spreads.

He gulps—bad move. His Adam’s apple bobs and scrapes against the blade to his throat. A cut appears.

“A gun and a knife at the same time is a bit extra, even for you,” he croaks out smoothly.

The man of his dreams and nightmares and pining materializes out of the shadows like a wraith. “Let’s end things tonight,” Yixing says.

There are no colored lenses or fond touches. Yixing’s orbs are black as coal and they burn with darkness. Luhan’s sad, almost disappointed, that his well-thought-out fantasy will forever remain a fantasy. He should be feeling other things, he knows, but he doesn’t.

“Why tonight?”

“Haven’t we dragged this out long enough?”

“I still want answers.”

Yixing arches an eyebrow. “I thought I told you everything when I left.” His nonchalance is dry and chafing.

“You said you’re taking a break,” Luhan retorts. “Then you killed Yifan and I realized you lied.”

The liar shrugs but both his hands and weapons remain steady. “So then you decided you need to kill me?”

Luhan purses his lips. “I was told to.”

Yixing leans in closer and so does the blade. The sharp bite is more intimate than Yixing’s gaze and his sultry whisper in Luhan’s ear, “So why don’t you?”

“I’m going to.”

The man probably smirks. Luhan can feel the lips curling against his skin. It says, no, you’re not because you’re dying now.

Then Yixing asks, “Would you rather die under my hand or Boss’s?”

“Boss? You say that like he’s still your boss.”

“He is.”

Luhan’s eyes twitch—they struggle between widening in shock and narrowing in suspicion.

“Who’s the real traitor? Me? Or you?” Yixing coos.

Luhan finally drops his phone. It clatters onto the table.

“Who’s the one that sold all our secrets to the Koreans? Not me, no.”

“So I got played, huh?” Luhan asks, resigned.

An extravagant ploy. The sort of thing that fits their line of work well.

Yixing’s smirk deepens and Luhan takes one last glance at those fatal eyes.

Bang.

Yixing topples forward.

Luhan catches him; both the gun and dagger fall to the ground, scraping past him. He meets Sehun’s eyes. The man’s lips twist into a sneer as he steps out of the shadows—the same place Yixing had come from.

“Hey,” Luhan murmurs.

“Hey yourself.”

“You saved me,” Luhan states the obvious. Yixing is still in his arms, staining his chest and arms with cooling blood.

“You planned it well.” Pause. “Your cover is blown though.”

Luhan nibbles on his lower lip. “But they have no excuse to get rid of me…”

Sehun’s sneer softens into something like a smirk, but then he his head and his eyes narrow dangerously. He hasn’t lowered his gun yet. “You gonna keep hugging another guy when I’m right here?”

Luhan tosses the body aside.

And he gets his heart shattered into too many pieces to count.

Quite literally.

(Luhan’s blood joins Yixing’s on his chest.

Luhan’s body joins Yixing’s on the ground.

Luhan’s name joins Yixing’s on the list of people stupid enough to fall for these extravagant ploys.)

this was supposed to be kaixing but then some peOPLE kept making me think of layhan. then it was supposed to be an angsty lovey dovey post-breakup maybe amnesia thing but then i decided they should just kill each other...so parts of the beginning don't actually work out that well but i didn't feel like deleting it all and starting over TT

please comment ok thanks