“She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood. 

She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.” 
 

― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

***

Around one year ago

"Daddy."

Luhan turns at the voice which has just uttered a word now as familiar to him as his own birth name. Wide eyes, almost hidden behind the ruler straight ends of a bowl cut−time for a haircut, Luhan thinks−look up at him. 

He can sense a question coming and kneels down to his son's level. "Yeah?"

The little boy doesn't speak straight away, still occupied with a mouthful of ice cream, which dribbles down his chin like a wave of snow down a mountainside.

Luhan sighs, automatically reaching for his back pocket and extracting a handkerchief. He wipes the ice cream off, then folds the hanky in half and dabs at Taemin's runny nose. The boy coughs aggressively a few times and Luhan leans in immediately, concerned. "Are you feeling okay, Taemin?"

He nods, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and staining his sleeve; Luhan winces. "Taemin, your ice cream is dripping."

The five year old peers down at his cone, noticing the streaks of melted vanilla spidering down his fingers. "Oh," is all he says, promptly setting off to the cone and his fingers clean.

Luhan turns away, the question forgotten, but it isn't long before the silence is broken by another, "Daddy."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm..." There's a few seconds as the five year old struggles to remember what he had been about to say. Luhan waits patiently; he's used to this. "Oh!" Taemin shoots up. "Daddy, I has a question."

"Have, Taemin. You have a question," Luhan corrects him. It's not the first time, or the second. "What is it?"

Taemin's face contorts in a tight expression that Luhan recognises as concentration. "Why... Why do other kids has−have," he corrects himself quickly, "two parents?"

Luhan's eyes widen, and suddenly he finds it hard to swallow.

He'd known, of course, that he'd have to answer this question eventually, but now that he's faced with it, he doesn't know what to say, and Taemin's words open up barely healed wounds. "H-how do you know about other kids, Taemin?"

"I see them," Taemin says simply, pointing to a small family a couple of metres away to demonstrate his point. "And I saw it on TV." He points, one by one, at each member of the small family. "Taemin, Daddy and Mommy," he says, as if he's talking about someone else and not himself. "But... I have no mommy." He pouts, like his mind can't process the alien thought. "Elmo said everyone has a mommy. Where is my mommy?"

"Your mommy?" Luhan is still half in shock. "You don't remember her?"

Taemin shakes his head, dishevelling his hair.

"Well..." Luhan says, clearing his throat once. Twice. "Mommy is busy. She's somewhere far away, so she can't visit."

"Far away? Like Sesame Street?"

Unbidden, tears begin to well in Luhan's eyes. He blinks them back. "Yeah. Like Sesame Street."

Taemin leans back with a smile. "Wow. Mommy must be happy."

"I hope so..." Luhan murmurs, but Taemin doesn't hear it, and he doesn't repeat it. He clears his throat again. "Taemin, your ice cream is dripping."

Taemin makes a face, looking down at the cone in annoyance. "I don't want it anymore."

Luhan sighs, taking the ice cream out of Taemin's hand and dumping it into the bin. He wipes the five year old's face clean before letting Taemin climb onto his back.

Taemin's thin arms encircle Luhan's neck tightly, his breath tickling the back of his father's head. Once or twice, the steady rhythm of Taemin's breathing is broken by a few coughs, which Luhan tries hard not to worry about.

"Do you wanna ride the train now, Taemin?"

He hears Taemin gasp and knows without having to see his face that the little boy is smiling. "Yes, Daddy!" he exclaims. "Yay! Tangerine Express!"

Luhan finds himself smiling as Taemin whoops in excitement. A part of him feels lighter after having overcome the obstacle of telling his son that his mother is not here.

At the same time, Luhan feels empty. Emptier than he did before, because Taemin isn't the only one missing a woman who isn't there. While his son may come to long for a past with a mother who was never there, Luhan has it worse. His past is not made of would-be's and dreams that will never happen. It's made of slight smiles, secretive eyes, and pinkies linked together on late nights, head tilted back below the stars.

But like Taemin's past, it's made of things that will never happen (again) in the future.

***

Present

There's a note on the dining table that Luhan has no immediate memory of, though when he digs through his mind, he finds that a part of his brain−albeit a hazy, disconnected one that warps memories into a dream-like quality− recalls seeing it there the night before.

Maybe it's because he's just woken up that he doesn't remember, or maybe he's just having trouble connecting the dots after everything that's happened in the past few days. He frowns slightly as he picks up the note; for a moment, the face of the person who'd given it to him flashes behind his lids.

Do you like trains, Luhan? The note says. The zoo has a job vacancy. They're looking for someone to drive their train−the Tangerine Express. The address is below if you decide to check it out.

There's no name below the little note, but Luhan already remembers exactly who it's from and how the paper came to be on the dining table. But that's not what he's thinking of.

His frown deepens as he reads the note over and over again so many times that the crisp, black lines blur into fuzzy on the paper.

Tangerine Express? Why does that sound familiar?

As if on cue, something in the corner of his vision makes him turn; a flash of orange, appearing suddenly in his sight as if it hadn't been there moments ago.

When Luhan turns, however, he recognises the sight and knows that it had been there moments ago, and many moments before those moments ago.

It sits on the mantelpiece above the fireplace− the little orange train he hadn't been able to get rid of. Something stirs in his mind, pulling at the corners of his brain like hooks digging into fish flesh, but Luhan swats the feeling away, staring long and hard at the train.

He looks back down at the note.

Do you like trains, Luhan?

***

Almost seven years ago

"Her name is Im Yoona. I heard she's a ."

Luhan glances at his brother, eyebrows raised. "Bit blunt, don't you think, Sehun? I only asked for her name."

"And I gave it to you." Sehun looks unconcerned, downing half his bottle in one go. "Besides, I didn't personally call her a . I was just passing on rumours."

Luhan snorts. "Isn't that just as bad?"

Sehun gives a shrug. "Do I really look like I'm here to care about that sort of thing?"

"No, of course not," Luhan mutters, more to himself. His eyes latch on the girl across the room for the umpteenth time of the night. Normally, he isn't particularly enraptured by faces, but hers had immediately caught his attention the second he'd seen her, and he can't seem to forget it. Even his body seems to be aware that she's sitting across the room; his palms are sweaty, and his lips are suddenly chapped.

"Look, if you like her, grow some balls and ask her out," Sehun says, following his gaze. "Not that those balls will help you. She'll probably cut you down, anyway."

Luhan tears his gaze away from Yoona. "You know her, don't you?"

"Distantly."

Luhan raises an eyebrow, and the other rolls his eyes. "She's in a couple of my classes," Sehun elaborates. "Same age as me, or so I've heard."

"So you've heard," Luhan repeats flatly. "You mean you've never spoken to her?"

"You think I'm crazy?"

Luhan averts his stare away from Sehun's face and back towards Yoona. "What's so bad about her?"

"I heard she's a tight . Flies solo. Strictly antisocial."

"What's she doing here, then?" Luhan shakes his head. The things his brother hears. Though some of his sources had proved to be reliable in the past, Luhan is pretty sure that half of the information in Sehun's head is pure .

"This club's near campus," Sehun says, in a deliberately slow voice, as though Luhan should have known better than to ask such a stupid question. "Maybe she got dragged here by a friend after class."

Luhan snorts again, because he's in the same situation; he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Sehun's whining that he had no one to drink with. Which doesn't make sense, seeing as neither of them will be able to drive home now. "You're saying the so-called tight who flies solo and is strictly antisocial has friends?"

"Hey, everyone has friends in college." At this, Sehun nudges Luhan with a knowing look, tempting the latter to slap his brother in the face.

"Yes, everyone has friends in college. Some happen to be more friendly with my family than others." Luhan shoots his brother a glare and puts a hand up as Sehun opens his mouth. "Just in case you didn't get the tip, no, I don't want to hear about your life, or what you do to my best friend late at night, because I get enough of it from Kris himself. Plus, you're my brother, so it's weird. Just don't."

Sehun rolls his eyes. "As if you don't have any interesting stories."

"I don't."

"Oh, really?" Sehun is talking in a slur now, but his eyes are still unnervingly focused. "What about that girl who−"

"I lied about that," Luhan admits, hoping his brother doesn't remember anything in the morning. "I lied so you and Kris would shut up about me being a ."

Sehun bursts out laughing. "So it's true! You've never been lai−"

Luhan stifles what would have been Sehun's next words by roughly covering the latter's mouth. It's too late, though; some people have started looking at them and are eyeing Luhan with fresh eyes.

He feels moisture against his hand and withdraws it quickly, rubbing Sehun's saliva on his trousers. "'The hell, Sehun," Luhan says, wrinkling his nose. He'd like to think that it had been a while since his brother had him, but it's not true. "How old are you, 2?"

"It's just saliva. Quite useful, if you ask me." Sehun grins, propping himself against the bench and taking a swig from his bottle, emptying it. "If you don't want it to happen again, go and say hi to her. Otherwise, I'll let everyone know that you're still a vir−"

"Okay, okay, I got it, shut up." Luhan throws both hands up, backing away from his brother. "See? I'm walking."

Sehun narrows his eyes. "I'm watching you."

Luhan swallows. He's less than two metres away from her now, and his heart is pounding in his ears, crashing and dumping like choppy waves on the shore of a quiet beach.

He wonders whether or not he should just walk up to her, and his mind is weighing the pros and cons of approaching a beautiful stranger at the bar, and right now, he's coming up with more cons than pros, and all his imaginary situations end with him being rejected from the get go.

He thinks maybe he'll have a better chance if he meets her in the daytime, under normal circumstances. Maybe he can arrange to 'bump into her'.

But it turns out that he doesn't even need to make the first move. Just as he's about to turn around and face whatever taunts Sehun throws at him, Yoona looks up, locking eyes with him, and beckons him over.

Luhan glances over his shoulder at Sehun, who is holding up two thumbs, then back to Yoona, who is starting to look irritated; she beckons again, impatiently this time.

He stabs his index finger towards his chest with an expression of bewilderment. Me?

She rolls her eyes. Yes, you.

He starts walking towards her, one heavy foot in front of the other, and finally, he's standing at the head of her table, blocking the booth from the view of the bar's patrons.

There's someone else there, he realises−another female. Black hair, slim build, wide grin. Her eyes slide down his body with more eagerness than the total amount of emotion on Yoona's face, which is close to expressionless.

Now that he's actually here, Yoona hardly even looks at him, despite the fact that she had so urgently beckoned him over.

 Maybe Sehun was right about Yoona, after all.

Luhan takes a seat when Yoona's friend gestures for him to, across the table from the two females.

Yoona's friend speaks first."You're Sehun's older brother, aren't you?"

He nods his affirmation, offering a hand, which the unknown female shakes immediately. "Lu Han." Yoona takes his hand a moment later (and only when he offers it to her), barely moving it before letting go.

"Kwon Yuri," comes the quick reply, from the raven haired female. She turns to Yoona. "And this is Im−"

"Yoona," Luhan finishes, before he can stop himself.

Yoona frowns slightly, arching a delicate brow. "Do we know each other?"

Luhan swallows hard, shaking his head. "Uh, no, my brother... told me about you."

"Hm," is all Yoona says.

"Speaking of Sehun," Yuri says in a lilting voice. "I know him. He's a pretty nice guy." She looks over Luhan again with her sultry eyes. "I can see you passed on your good looks to him."

It's then that Luhan realises that he hadn't been called to their table because Yoona was interested, but probably because Yuri wanted to know more about Sehun. This isn't the first time something like this has happened; she's only the nth girl in a long line of Sehun fangirls who have bitten the dust.

"My brother is gay." He sighs. "You know that, right?"

Yuri in her cheeks, horror colouring her expression. "He's what?"

"Gay," Luhan repeats simply. "He has a boyfriend."

While Yuri starts spluttering, Yoona smirks very slightly, the corners of tilting upwards. Luhan feels his throat go dry; it's the first hint of emotion he's seen on her face. He likes it probably more than he should.

"I told you," Yoona murmurs, casting a sidewards glance at her dumbstruck friend.

Luhan blinks. "You knew?"

She shrugs slightly. "I guessed."

"How?" Luhan doesn't realise he's leaning forward until Yoona does, too; her smirk grows as she watches him move back, straightening. "Do you know him?"

"Distantly."

Luhan growls internally, remembering how Sehun had given the same reply as Yoona. "What exactly does 'distantly' mean?"

"It means I know of him, but I don't know him."

"Doesn't that just make you two strangers?"

"Think of it this way," she says. "Imagine that when you look out of your bedroom window, you see a mountain every day, one that slices the horizon line in half. You have nothing to do with it, but it's just there. You can't ignore it, and you can't make it disappear, and it's somewhat a part of your life without actually affecting it. It's distant."

"So... you're saying my brother is a mountain?"

Most people would have rolled their eyes, but Yoona smiles. "Metaphorically."

Luhan shakes his head. "You think strangely. But I like it."

Another slight smile. "I can tell."

Yuri's eyes dart between the two of them, clearly not following. A pout plays around the edges of and she stands, smoothing her dress. "I'll get some drinks," she mutters, leaving the two of them alone.

"I'm afraid you've scarred her."

"Excuse me?" Luhan watches Yuri's figure retreat into the crowd, raising his eyebrows at Yoona questioningly.

"She really liked Sehun." Yoona stares at him intently, and although she is speaking of someone else, her voice is absent, like she's not really aware of what she's doing.

Luhan is no longer looking at Yuri, and thoughts of Sehun have long since left his mind. "Hm," he murmurs. "That's a shame."

Her gaze is unwavering, eyes piercing his. "Shame, indeed."

Luhan holds her gaze for a moment, taking in the depths of her eyes. He notices that they're shining a little brighter since he first arrived at the booth. He clears his throat. "Are you busy on Friday?"

There. That wasn't so hard. His heart thumps unevenly as a smile curves her lips.

Maybe Sehun was wrong about Yoona, after all.

*

Friday is more like Thursday, and it's less like Luhan's image of strolling through the park, and more like lying, panting on wet bed sheets after a long, long night. It's less like electric space between them and more like bodies pressed together as close as they can possibly get and hands all over. By the time morning rolls around, both of them are exhausted.

Yoona's head is buried in Luhan's chest, hair wild and quivering with every breath she takes. Her eyes are closed, the rest of her being currently attached to the world of sleep.

Luhan stares at the ceiling, and part of him wants to run away. He feels no closer to Yoona than he had the first time he'd met her, and this wasn't supposed to happen. None of this had happened according to what he had imagined, and this was never part of the plan.

He'd like to be able to say that they made love, but he knows it's a long way from the truth. It wasn't love, and right now, in the early hours of the morning, it's clear to Luhan that Yoona only wanted .

He doesn't know whether to be frustrated or disappointed (to say the least) that he'd been the only one of them who had thought of something more than a one night stand.

Yoona stirs in her sleep, murmuring slightly as she turns her head. It won't be long, Luhan knows, until she is fully conscious again, and when that happens, what is he supposed to do?

"Yoona." His voice comes out thick and I-just-woke-up husky. He clears his throat. "Yoona."

"Mm?" She raises an eyebrow, eyelids still glued together. The beginnings of a frown crease her forehead as she realises that his voice is not part of whatever she had been dreaming.

Luhan decides to just go for it. "I was wondering," he mumbles, "about what happens after this−"

She makes a noise of annoyance, toes curling against his calves as she stretches. "Haven't you done this before?"

Luhan ignores this. "Are we...I mean−"

Yoona gives a harsh laugh, rolling lazily onto her stomach and cupping her chin in the heel of her palm. "After this," she says, "you can decide what you want to think of me. Maybe you'll never want to see me again. Maybe we can be acquaintances. Maybe this'll happen again."

"But I want−" His sentence is cut off when Yoona puts a finger on top of his lips.

"No," she says firmly. "Stop." Her finger leaves his lips, trailing down the side of his mouth and coming back up, along his jaw line and the soft skin between his eye and cheek. The movement is lazy, as if she's only doing it because she has nothing else to do, and it's less of a tease and more of an insult to Luhan's crushed feelings.

"Don't tell me you didn't feel anything," Luhan says, half a hiss.

"Feelings are out of the question." Her face is stone, carved from marble with a cold hammer and an iron chisel.

"I thought..."

"Thought what?"

"I thought you wanted me."

She smirks a little. "I did. And isn't that what I got? You?"

"I meant something more." Luhan's voice rises in desperate frustration. "Doesn't this−what we did−mean that we're more than strangers, or even friends, even though we were never really either of those things?"

Yoona's face flattens when she realises exactly what he means. "You mean a relationship?"

"Yes."

Something flits across her face, leaving behind a narrow expression. "I don't do the whole love thing."

"But clearly, you do everything else." He hadn't meant for his voice to come out as a growl, but it does, betraying the pent up frustration inside him.

She laughs again. "I don't see why you're so mad about that."

"Am I the only one here who didn't realise that this was just a fling?"

"Well, there's only two of us, so it's likely that you're the only one."

Luhan scowls, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and getting to his feet. He finds his clothes, located haphazardly in piles all over the floor, and begins tugging his underwear and jeans on. Yoona watches him with empty eyes; her eyeballs may have been glass for all the emotion she displays.

"Where are you going?"

He looks back at her with a glare, driven by barely suppressed hurt. "What's it to you?"

"I would have thought that you'd be the type of person to try harder."

A disbelieving frown crinkles his brow. "Excuse me?"

"People like you don't give up easily. You're really just going to let this go?"

Luhan narrows his eyes. "That seems to be what you're planning to do."

She collapses onto her back, hair fanning all over the pillow. "So this is goodbye then, Luhan?"

Luhan tries to pretend that the way she'd said his name didn't hurt. "I don't see why you care," he says, "and why it matters. But I'm telling you now that I'm not going to be just another toy. I'm sure you have others, anyway, who are willing to be played with for your false affection."

And with that, Luhan leaves the room, slamming the door shut.

It's not until the elevator doors connect with a soft thud behind him, leaving him alone in the metal box, that he sinks to his knees, burying his face in his hands. Deep down, he'd like to believe that he really wants nothing to do with Im Yoona, but he knows that telling himself that would be a lie.

Maybe this is good, he thinks. Not seeing her is better than seeing her and knowing that he's nothing to her.

Too bad fate isn't really on Luhan's side.

***