“Wake up, baby deer.” He whispered into his ear.

Lu Han blinked a few times, landing his eyes upon the man in front of him, allowing a small smile to form on his face. The man was only six months younger, yet he was the one who looked much older than Lu Han. His thumb traced over Lu Han’s lips and touched his cheek gently as the younger’s mouth wore a wide grin. When the blonde’s hands found his, he lifted the tinier body into the sitting position.

Lu Han was exhausted from a birthday party the night before. He couldn’t fathom why his boyfriend could be so chipper at an early hour until he read the numbers on the digital clock at their bedside.

“Yi Fan, you let me sleep in?” Lu Han asked in an “Aw, you’re so sweet” tone.

His boyfriend nodded. “Yup, now come on. Let’s eat breakfast!”

Wu Yi Fan was eager for his boyfriend to head to the kitchen and devour what he slaved over a hot stove to prepare.

He felt that he really went all out with cooking that morning. There were scrambled eggs, rice, toast, sausages, bacon, and three receptacles containing coffee, milk, and orange juice. Lu Han’s mouth dropped and watered at the buffet. Once he received the go ahead, he snatched a plate and tossed nearly three of everything onto the dish.

Halfway through his meal, Lu Han heard snickering. Furrowing his brows with a mouthful of food, he turned to look at Yi Fan. Hardly understandable, the latter made out, “What’s wrong?”

“You have a little something.” He pointed to the side of his own face as if he mirrored his own. “Right here.”

Struggling, he tried to wipe it but to no avail. Instead of helping, Yi Fan reached over and smeared the dollop of ketchup along the side of Lu Han’s lips purposefully. The elder gasped in fake awe. He took the yolk from his own plate and decorated the light stubble on his upper lip, creating a yellow mustache.

“Revenge is cold,” He smirked playfully. “And sweet.”

“So revenge is ice cream?” Yi Fan asked with a cocked brow, the added “facial hair” had become a great accoutrement to his question.

“Yes, revenge is ice cream!” Lu Han giggled.

---

Gasp!

Sunlight had nearly burned a hole into his cheek, awakening him, and prompting him to console the tender wound it created. From the side of his face, Yi Fan’s palm glided up along his temple to his forehead, soaking itself in the sweat that collected there from a restless night. He panted at the attempt of regaining his regular breathing.

Something was caught in his throat: emotions.

It had been a month and a half since that fateful night. The drive to the hospital dealt with more self-abuse than a suicidal help clinic. Lamenting had become a morning routine as dreaming of that evening had become a mercilessly reoccurring nightmare.

Clutching his bare chest, he felt the thick chain around his neck as it clung to one of his damp pecks. the sterling silver material, he reached the pit of the loop where a small padlock stuck to his skin. He dried both sides with his thumb, looking over the engraving. On it was inscribed a drawing of a deer. It meant everything to him.

---

“Yi Fan, look at this! There’s a key and a padlock set.” He smiled. “It’s a picture of a deer! It’s fate!”

The couple had strolled through the market, admiring the few booths that sold jewelry and items for the women who often shopped there. One in particular had caught the eye of his boyfriend. The elder of the two had gushed over every piece of gold but nothing could draw his attention from those two necklaces.

Yi Fan chuckled as he walked over to him, basket in hand, his other snaking its way around his boyfriend’s thin waist. Lu Han was a child in his arms, tiny and petite in comparison to his tall and muscular build. He kissed the smaller boy’s temple as he rested his chin on top of his head.

“I like it. But don’t you think it’s a little barbaric?” He asked.

Lu Han shook his head. “It’s not supposed to be barbaric, but romantic. It’s like peanut butter and jelly or milk and cookies. Toast and butter! Things like that.”

“Your analogies sound like you’re implying that you’re hungry.” Yi Fan smirked just as his boyfriend’s stomach growled. “Why don’t we think it over during lunch?”

Lu Han nodded solemnly, putting the necklaces back on the rack. On his way out of the booth, he found himself searching for anything that could compare to the set he oggled. In his eyes, there were none.

Yi Fan had the cashier ring up the jewelry on his way out, stuffing it in his pocket shortly after, catching up to his boyfriend. In some sort of strange metaphor, he was Lu Han and Lu Han was the necklace. He could’ve spent the rest of his life looking for someone who could compare, but in the end, he knew there was no one who could replace him.

---

Drip…drip…drip…

Leaky faucet. Sigh. He’d have to fix that later. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the time. In fact, he nearly had all the time in the world if it weren’t for the few nights a week he performed. Preparing alcoholic beverages was an art form. It didn’t need a Master’s degree to do such a simple thing, but Yi Fan was set on being the best.

In high school, he had to be the valedictorian. In college, he had to go through six years instead of four. In life, that was when he realized that he didn’t always have to be number one, though he refused to be a slacker. Instead, he relied on impressions. If the customers were happy, he was happy; and the customers always loved a show.

Groan. He threw his head over the edge of the white claw foot porcelain tub and arched his back as he soaked himself in the strawberry scented oils he found. He was a er for smelling like fruits. Moreover, it relaxed him.

Taking a cancer stick between his lips, Yi Fan shelled his palm over the as he lit it. Inhale. Exhale. His eyes rolled to the back of his head when the nicotine infested his lungs. Cough. Cough. Too fast, it had been two years since the last time he had smoked a cigarette. Two years ago, he had promised he wouldn’t start up again, but he broke it.

As he almost instantly put out the , tongue in cheek, he closed his eyes tightly. A lot of things had been broken recently, a mindless promise meaning nothing next to his heart.

---

Lu Han cuddled up to him in an embrace as they both lied on their shared King-sized bed that was a quite comfortable mattress despite the fact that it was covered in pilling material. He had asked Yi Fan what was the most thrilling experience that ever happened to him. The baby-faced boy picked at his split ends, discovering it, besides the answer to his question to be the most fascinating thing on Earth. Little did he understand, to Yi Fan, he in his entirety, was the most interesting thing in the universe.

Lu Han was adorably beautiful, his hair a honey blonde color covering his light brown eyes – a soft and gentle look – with a personality to match. His skin was pale as paper but suited well to his Chinese roots. He was endlessly creative and perfect in Yi Fan’s eyes that Yi Fan considered himself nearly his contradiction. Bland blonde hair, boring brown eyes, he admitted to himself that he was another face in the crowd. Lu Han was…not.

The night Yi Fan met him was the utmost date of random. A group of his friends accompanied him to the local cinema where they would catch a movie. There he was: calm, cool, and collected. He was ultimately the most unique person Yi Fan had ever seen and yet not a single word was directed toward him.

The older boy glanced in his direction, his pink lips pursed like Derek Zoolander. His model-like face contorted into a gentle smile as he patted the seat beside him. They had a mutual friend and he only looked at Yi Fan with confusion. The latter guy did as Lu Han had requested, as he found no harm in it.

“How much do you want to bet that this guy is next?” He smirked as he popped a piece of popcorn into his own mouth.

Yi Fan snorted. “No way, he’s a scientist. They wouldn’t nail a scientist unless it’s within the first ten minutes of the flick.”

“Do I hear twenty bucks?” He averted his eyes with an innocent look to which Yi Fan grinned and said, “Deal.”

They intently stared at the screen as the deformed serial killer approached the window of the scientist’s house. The camera lens focused on the silhouette of the murder, just as Lu Han had called it. Groaning quietly, the younger of the two had readied his hand into his pocket to retrieve his wallet when Lu Han’s fingers slipped into the palm of his hand as if to halt him.

“After the movie, Wu.” He told him.

Yi Fan could only nod, even though Lu Han couldn’t see as his attention was fixed on the movie screen. Noticing that he hadn’t removed his hand, the taller boy wore a half-smile, and slowly enclosed his fingers around Lu Han’s.

Once the movie had finished, they had walked out side by side, to meet their friends who they originally arrived with but lost in the theatre. Yi Fan had pulled out the twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and reached it out to him.

He said, “A deal is a deal and I’m a man of my word.”

The honey blonde only giggled. “I obviously want to see you again so why don’t we kill two birds with one stone and just settle for a real date this time?”

Yi Fan agreed just as Lu Han’s friends called him from down the street.

“See you later.”

With a simple smile and a tight hug, the shorter had anyone in the palm of his hand. He had Yi Fan wrapped around his little finger but not in that place as to use him. His flirty eyes and his wicked grin had anyone. They were smitten by his natural charm whether or not they were physically attracted to his.

Lu Han lived life with three easy rules: unafraid, eager, and smiling.

Snapping back to the conversation, Yi Fan gave the answer some thought, taking an amount of time where Lu Han tore his eyes from his hair to make contact with his boyfriend. Finally, he responded.

“Meeting you.”

He must have shocked him with the look on his face. His answer enlightened Lu Han’s features and had them display a prolific quantity of smiles and giggles. He cracked half a grin as his amusement in Yi Fan’s answer had contaminated his feelings.

“That’s the most…what’s the word I’m looking for…unprecedented remark I’ve ever received.” He grinned. “Do you mean it?”

Yi Fan took the smaller in his arms and kissed him, hoping that it would answer the question. He knew it would, but to starve any doubt, he replied, “Most definitely.”

---

Yi Fan left the bathroom with the sound of the tub draining the contents and with it, his feelings. He scratched the back of his head, fooling around with his short hair as he passed the floor-length mirror. He paused and rewinded his steps to observe his reflection.

The natural lightly tanned skin disentegrated and left him with a face so white, anyone could have mistaken it to be full of sun cream. Dark bags under his eyes had made them hollow like his cheeks, days without eating much taking a toll on him. Stretchy basketball shorts that was a usual snug on his hips desperately tried to hold on. His voice barely came out in a whisper. The man in the looking glass who stared back at him, he could hardly recognize. That alone had scared him.

---

“Baby, I don’t want anybody else. Being a father isn’t everything to me.” Yi Fan leaned his forehead against the bathroom door, frowning because he knew why his boyfriend was bawling. “Being yours is all that matters.”

He tightened his eyes shut as he heard Lu Han sniffling and sighed. He wanted to know what he could do. He wanted to know if he could help him understand in any way. It killed Yi Fan to see his boyfriend so broken, so insecure.

Though he had stopped eating a week prior and if he did get anything past his lips, it wasn’t much nor stayed in his stomach. Seven days too many Yi Fan spent pulling Lu Han’s honey colored locks from his face as he poured himself into the porcelain bowl.

He had begun to look like a skeleton of himself. The boy he knew that was unafraid, eager, and smiling had disappeared off the face of the Earth.

“You’ve stopped eating, beautiful.” He had said. “What will it take? If I wrote you a letter every day, despite the fact that we live together, if I sent you a letter saying how much I’m concerned about your continuous weight loss, would you at least eat one meal a day? Two is a little much right now. But one, baby deer. Just one meal a day. One meal tells me that you have the motivation to live another day. One meal is all it takes, like a whisper in my ear. It tells me that you want to live, if not for you but for me.”

Yi Fan had wet his lips, fidgeted with his fingers as he waited patiently for anything. He needed a response from him that would let him know where he stood. Finally, Lu Han had left the bathroom, immediately engulfed into his boyfriend’s arms. The scent of his cologne had triggered the waterworks once more and he cried. Planting a kiss on his forehead, he wiped away a quick tear that leaked from his own eye.

---

He turned away from the vision and entered his bedroom. He opted for old dark washed jeans that wouldn’t require a belt to wrap around his thinner waist. He then slipped into his favorite gray shirt. With self-approval, he exited his house.

Yi Fan drummed against his steering wheel as couples crossed the street at a red light. He ran his tongue along his pearly whites and averted his attention to cleaning his sunglasses with the ends of his shirt. Driving was his escape. It was the one constant that he could do. Whether it was because of a fight or just for fresh air, he could always jump in his car and take the winding road to nowhere.

Right hand on the wheel and left hand through his thick hair, all windows down had given Yi Fan more fresh air than nature itself. He pulled up to another red light, one before the entrance to the main high way. If he had just sped up a little more, he would have been home free to clear his thoughts. Instead, more humming sounds of the engine and more drumming.

There it was, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a quaint little flower shop. It was easy to miss when one was hell bent on driving through to the main drag. But on a day like this, it was completely noticeable. Peeling off from the lane heading to the freeway, Yi Fan headed straight for the parking stall.

---

“So this is where you work.” He entered the shop with a smirk as the little chime on the door jingled just slightly. Lu Han sent him a playful smile as he arranged the flowers in the baskets. “Good. I need flowers for a guy I’m seeing and I want your opinion.”

“Oh?” The older raised a brow.

He nodded. He walked over to where Lu Han stood, glancing over the selection. He didn’t say anything, just watched him scan the bunch before pointing out that they were funeral flowers.

“I’m going to get him lilies.” He deduced.

“How attractive of you, Yi Fan.” He said dryly. “Curse the poor guy by giving him one of the flowers of death.”

The taller of the two had chuckled. “No, silly. I know what lilies mean but I’m going to get them because I think he’s to die for.”

At that moment Lu Han blushed. With a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, Yi Fan had picked up the bouquet of flowers and pointed it at the flower shop worker.

“I think you’re to die for and I can’t wait for our date tonight.”

---

The gentle breeze blew at his hair like an oscillating fan on low. Cars zoomed past the architecture almost blind to its existence but that was how it always was. His dirty brown shoes crunched the graveled pavement with each step closer to the florist.

Exactly like every other time he walked right in, the door bell jingled, yet this one sounded sadder than the last. Come to think of it, the last time he came was when he still worked there. Routinely, he gazed over the four walled room, inevitably searching for his face.

It was ridiculous of him, he thought as he closed his eyes and smiled, why would he be there?

Ultimately, the new worker who replaced him looked completely out of place. A black mohawk, black eyeliner, black clothes, nearly everything about this person screamed dark. It was a complete contradiction to the bright scenery around them. It was just the two of them.

Clearing his thoughts, Yi Fan had approached the cash register, his vision fixed on the batches of flowers surrounding them.

“Can I get a dozen lilies, please.” He asked.

Looking up from the magazine laid flat on the counter, yanking off the headphones that began to belt popular American rock music, the worker gave him a blank stare. “Sorry dude, the owner stopped ordering them about a month ago.”

Yi Fan gaped. “Why?”

“Don’t know.” The goth shrugged. “Said something about it being too depressing for the atmosphere for the other flowers.”

Yi Fan bit his tongue. Instead, he asked for a dozen red roses, which the worker gladly wrapped up. He paid for them and left without a second glance back at the small store.

He had one last stop before his joy ride. Crawling out of the parking lot and creeping into the single lane, Yi Fan had taken the cut off toward the city. Passing a multitude of skyscrapers and business buildings, there was one in particular where he needed to be.

The white walls and scent of antiseptic had always bothered him. Every day for a month and a half he had visited the hospital and every day, he despised it. As he strutted over to the room, a man in a white coat he recognized to be the doctor had caught up to him.

“Mr. Wu, today is the day.” He placed a concerned hand on Yi Fan’s shoulder, looking directly into his eyes that held more sadness then anything at all. Fear was a good second place. “Take your time, son.”

Nodding, Yi Fan pressed forward and pushed open the door to the hospital room with the bouquet of roses behind his back. There he was, laid up in bed, his face framed nearly into stone. He gulped to get moisture into his scratchy throat. It failed.

Beep…beep…beep…

He sat on the edge of his bed, slipping his hand into Lu Han’s, the back of his hand soothingly. His eyes drooped at the sight of the tiny chest rising and falling as he survived with the help of the intravenous needle in his arm.

“Good morning, beautiful.” He whispered. He cleared his thoat. “I miss you more and more every day.”

Yi Fan chewed on his bottom lip as the monotony of Lu Han’s breathing pained his heart. One day left with him. He could only afford one last day to see him and he was gone. He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to forget it all.

His eyes performed REM but they would never open. His fingers would twitch in Yi Fan’s grasp every now and then, but they would never hold his. He was entirely alive yet a vegetable. It made him wonder if he could hear him at all. It made him wonder if he felt his presence at all.

“Remember when we first made love? You were holding onto me so tightly and I can still feel where your fingers were.” He over his lips as he paused in thought.

The more words that left his mouth, the stronger his voice became. He hadn’t used it much over the course of nearly two months, reserving it for when he visited him. When he did, he ended up grazing his hand as he did right then, he kept quiet. He’d like to think Lu Han was asleep but his logical mind knew better than that.

He brushed back some of his hair with his free hand and rested it on his stomach. “The day that I heard you were in an accident, I nearly rung up four tickets at the speed I was heading.”

Lu Han remained still, his breathing regular, the heart monitor still going, beep…beep…beep… He sighed. He leaned over, pressing his forehead against his and grazed his lips against Lu Han’s. Hardly warm, just a coat of ice layered over the curves of his mouth like chapstick, Yi Fan knew that only time would tell.

“I love you. I told you I wouldn’t say it until I meant it. I love you. I didn’t know what it was until this very day when I am forced to say goodbye. I didn’t know what it felt like to hold so much emotion for one person until I knew you weren’t going to be here anymore. I love you. More than your short phrased whispers. More than your body which fit against mine like the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle. More than your laugh or your smile. Your sentences fleshed together by the years of schooling. I love you." He said to him. "Meeting you wasn't just the biggest thrill. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me."

Yi Fan nearly caught the few tears that slid down his face during his confession. He spoke from the heart, something he hadn’t done for a while, ironically finding the time to be the perfect one to spill his subconscious thoughts into words. He had wished it hadn’t come to that but it did.

He composed himself and with a final squeeze of his hands in his Lu Han’s, he reached over to his boyfriend’s forehead, brushing his lips against his cold skin just once, eyes shut strongly together. “Sleep tight, baby deer.”