never too late                                         
 (not a drabble, nor a oneshot)                     

            It hits him like a slap against his cheek, and his focus snaps from clutching the sheets between fingertips to the amusement flickering like fireflies in Luhan's eyes, his own growing wide and wavering. "Didn't you say you had a game tonight?" words slowly flow past Minseok's lips as if he didn't want to ask–didn't want to know–but his actions and intentions never seem to agree. Minseok grows stiffer by the second, grey silence creating waves of tension between interlocked gazes until time stops altogether and he can hear heartbeats tremble inside his ears.

            He waits a little longer, but Luhan keeps an amused and pretty smile, perfectly fine without justifying himself because there aren't words to explain why he did what he did–is still doing–without regard for the consequences of tonight's outcome. As Minseok's petrification stems out to the rest of his nerves, Luhan feels Minseok's hand freeze and fall as the thin streams of blood running through his wrists refuse to circulate. In spite of the weight of his decision threatening to push him to the ground, he manages to breathe a chuckle, and tightens his hand threaded between the spaces of Minseok's cold fingers, affirming that there's no place he'd rather be than here.

            "Had," Luhan clarifies, "I had one, but," he shifts the conversation back to focus, "You said not to let the less important things get in the way of what really matters."

            Minseok gradually diverts his stare back to the tips of his toes, fidgeting beneath whitewashed sheets.

            "You shouldn't be here," he settles for, too stricken to come up with something worth saying.

            "But I should, and I am," Luhan counters, stifling a smirk because he expected this kind of forced nonchalance. "I heard what they did to you. I had no idea. All those times we were so close and–" Luhan lifts Minseok's shirt and swears he can taste the pain pressing the purple and bruising marks all along his torso, and swallows hard, barely able to continue with the guilt chiseling down his voice, "–you kept me so far away."

            "It's nothing," Minseok shoves his shirt back down. "It's not your fault. They were just annoyed we hung out, but people who nitpick at trivial things like that aren't worth attention."

            Luhan frowns, sentiments thoroughly crushed into finely ground dust, and he throws himself around Minseok, bodies crushed tightly against each other until one of them starts to cry.

            "I'm okay, really," Minseok flusters, gently patting Luhan, who squeezes Minseok two degrees tighter, until his nails are digging into his back and loud cries are muffled into his shoulder. "It's okay," he trails softly, ignoring the pains of constriction as he holds Luhan against his chest.

            "I'm sorry," Luhan says when he calms down, unlatching his tear-soaked face from Minseok, who blinks back, subtly shaking his head. "I'm so sorry."

            "There's nothing to be sorry for. In fact, I'm sorry you came all the way to visit me at the hospital when you should be on the field, stealing the show and securing a place for the team at playoffs. I’m totally fine – you could've just waited until tomorrow."

            "No," Luhan cracks, "no no no, don't say that. You–I–could have lost you if Yixing hadn't caught them before they broke out lethal weapons and god–why didn't you fight back? Why do you take these things upon yourself? I don’t understand what compelled you to think that was a good idea. I'm such a mess over you–there's no way I could wait to come see you, to come see if you were okay."

            "But," he can feel the familiar sting inside his nose, replaying the last words that contrast so sharply now, "I'm not important."

            Luhan shakes his head, thoroughly pushed to the edge. In that moment, he crushes their lips together, mouth into the other's because he's always dreamed of how it would taste, and surprise catches into Minseok's throat.

            "Why did you do that? We can't–"

            "Because I'm an idiot," Luhan laments, "Because I said something I didn't mean when I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening to me, but all this time it's been you. For fifteen years, it's been nothing but soccer this, soccer that–and when my eyes drifted from the goal to the sidelines, I thought it was wrong. Soccer was all I had, and I thought that was all there was to me. But you, Kim Minseok, have taught me that there's a world outside of some dumb game. You know why I'm here, so don't say things like you're not important when your existence means the world to me."

            Minseok blinks quickly to suppress the tears threatening to fall from the corners and the sting attacks his nose full force as he sniffles again, pulling Luhan in for another kiss. "Thank you," he breathes, voice shuddering and Luhan mouths a warm thank you right back against his lips.

            With the doctor’s consent, Minseok gets released that night on grounds that he’ll be fine as long as he spends plenty of time in bed, and Luhan assures he’ll see to that.

            "I feel kind of bad, taking advantage of an injured person," Luhan laughs good-naturedly, stripping his shirt over his head and flinging it to the floor. "Actually," he draws out, "is this really okay, I mean, you're already hurt–what if tomorrow it hurts to–"

            "Shut up and do it. It's too late to have second thoughts. If we're doing this, it's going to be tonight because I'm not sure if there will ever be a time when I'm in love with you as much as right now," Minseok sputters out like rapid fire, clear traces of pink embarrassment staining his cheeks. "But if you don't want to, I won't stop you."

            "No, I do," Luhan smiles. "You said you love me, though. I don't know how to respond to that."

            Minseok throws his arms over Luhan's shoulders and says, "Well, for starters, you could say you love me back."

            The night passes with Luhan doing just that, expressing those three words in a multitude of heated phrases that gradually lose all meaning, fingers tracing gently over tainted skin, soft kisses drizzled as a means to purify, steady rhythms at tempos their bodies can sustain, irrepressible hums of white panic coursing through veins all the way up until the final hush that settles over a pair of satisfied smiles.