Luhan’s torn between reaching out to the man and asking him something (what, exactly, he doesn’t know, but what he does know is that he needs answers, and he’s certain that this man can give him some), and remaining silent, but before he’s able to speak a single word, the stranger walks straight up to him, and Luhan finds himself unable to move, paralyzed while the man leans up towards him and whispers into his ear.

“Meet me here tomorrow at four, Luhan. I’ll be waiting.”

And with a blink, the man is gone, leaving Luhan even more bewildered than before.

“Hey, Lu, are you done yet?” flashes across his left eye, and he sighs.

“No,” he relays back to Zitao, and Luhan sighs, entering the bathroom (at least the public restrooms don’t welcome him by name when he walks in; that’s just downright disturbing).

He realizes that his hands are shaking when he can’t get a proper hold on the zipper of his pants, and he gives up, deciding that it can just wait until he gets home.

“What took you so long?” Zitao asks, his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised as he leans against the wall. “Constipation?”

“Shut up, you brat.” Luhan pushes Zitao lightly on the shoulder, letting slightly forced laughter escape his lips. Zitao’s dark eyes narrow slightly at him, but he says nothing, even though Luhan knows that Zitao can see through any lie that anyone’s ever told.

Zitao sighs dramatically, slinging an arm around Luhan’s shoulder. “It’s getting late, I guess, and I’m hungry. I’m inviting myself over to your place.”

“You—what?” Luhan splutters, and Zitao’s mouth curls up in a feline grin.

“Come on, I haven’t been over in a while, anyways. We can invite Yifan and Yixing and Jongdae over, too.”

“My place is a wreck,” Luhan argues feebly, but Zitao just laughs. They both know that the robots in their homes keep everything spotless all the time, and Luhan’s just making excuses now.

“Please? It’ll be fun!” Zitao pouts, lifting up one hand to the side of his face, about to curl it into a fist before Luhan slaps it down.

“Fine, fine!” he concedes, giving Zitao’s hand the evil-eye. “No aegyo. Especially not in public.”

“I’ll just have to do it on Yifan later, then,” Zitao sighs. “There’s only so much that you can do by yourself, Weibo’s gotten boring.”

“You’re still doing that?” Luhan rolls his eyes as he walks towards the escalators to take them down to the ground floor. “I thought you’d grown out of that when you were, I don’t know, fifteen?”

“There are many more people who are older than I am that do it,” Zitao argues, shaking his head. “And none of them are nearly as attractive as I am.”

“You keep telling yourself that, but I had more likes on my pictures than you ever did when we were in high school,” Luhan huffs, flagging down a two-seater pod and tapping in his address.

“That’s because people thought I was an assassin and you looked like a girl!”

Luhan pretends to shove Zitao out of the pod, but Zitao’s quick reflexes keep him sitting mostly upright, and he shoots Luhan one of those glares that make Luhan wonder why Zitao refuses to believe that people thought he was a killer.

“You’re mean.” Zitao scowls, tapping the side of his glasses. “Message to Yifan, Yixing, and Jongdae. Begin message. Let’s storm Xiao Lu’s place at six. Be there or be whacked by nunchuks. I just got a new pair the other day. End message.”

“And you wonder why people think you’re scary,” Luhan mutters.

“Shut up.”

~*~*~*~*~

When Luhan and Zitao arrive at Luhan’s house, three figures are already standing outside, varying expressions of boredom on their faces.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Yifan drawls, his eyebrows furrowed in an impressive line over eyes.

“I’m not the one who invited you, Yifan,” Luhan sighs. “Blame Zitao.”

“He can’t blame Zitao.” Jongdae smirks. “Because Tao-baby has him whipped.”

“Watch yourself,” Yifan grumbles, pinching the back of the younger’s neck, causing him to let out a surprised yelp.

“Don’t do that,” Jongdae mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “That hurt.”

“It was supposed to.”

“We’d have gone inside already,” Yixing cuts in, scratching the back of his head sheepishly, “but your house wouldn’t let us in.”

“Oh.” Luhan had never felt the need to allow his friends in the house without him present, so his house automatically barred entry to everyone except him.

(And the godforsaken government, Luhan’s subconscious reminds, but Luhan doesn’t even want to think about that.)

“I’m hungry,” Zitao groans, “so can we go inside now?”

Luhan rolls his eyes. “Fine, you overgrown brat.”

Zitao aims a kick at Luhan’s as Luhan leads them through the front door, but he misses by a hairsbreadth, the tip of his sneaker catching on the end of Luhan’s jacket.

Luhan looks over his shoulder and narrows his eyes at Zitao, who does a fine job of suddenly inspecting the walls of Luhan’s entryway while whistling.

“Punk,” Luhan mutters as he takes off his shoes. “Just go to the dining room,” he says, louder this time. “One of the bots will offer you food.”

“About time,” Zitao moans, already imagining the delights he could wrangle from Luhan’s kitchen.

“Hold on,” Luhan says, changing the meal settings so that Zitao’s allowed no more than two. “Okay. I’m just gonna go put my glasses away.”

“You go do that—dammit, Luhan! What did you do?”

Luhan just laughs as Yixing tries to console Zitao over the fact that yes, he’s only allowed to eat two meals.

He sighs as he folds his glasses up and places them on his bedside table, and he sits heavily on his bed, staring out into the darkening landscape of the city, the sky shades of pink and yellow and gold and blue, but still obscured by a smoky haze.

Luhan’s seen pictures of the sky in the past—everyone has, in the history lessons at school; clear, light blue skies, with white, puffy clouds, that seem to stretch on for miles and miles until the edge of forever.

And although the sky is still blue, there’s a certain sort of melancholy feeling that Luhan just can’t shake.

Maybe it’s the buildings, forever growing taller and taller, to the point where sometimes, Luhan can’t even see the tops anymore when he stands on the ground.

Maybe it’s the clouds, always some sort of shade of grey, even when it’s not going to rain.

Maybe it’s the sky itself, because no matter what day it is, no matter what time, it just feels so empty.

“Luhan, hurry up!” he hears Yixing yell, “Zitao’s making Yifan get more food for him because you didn’t limit him!”

“,” Luhan curses under his breath, and sprints into the dining room. “Zitao, stop eating all the food!”

“But I’m hungry,” he whines, and Jongdae throws a spoon at him.

“ it up, you black hole.”

“Ew, you’re disgusting!” Zitao frowns as he ruffles his midnight-black hair to try and rid it of any imaginary food particles that Jongdae might have flung in.

“You’re such a diva,” Yifan chides. “There’s nothing in your hair.”

“You’re sure?” Zitao asks, his eyes widening slightly, and Yixing starts cackling at them.

“You look disgusting, staring after him like you’re in love or something. You’re ridiculous.”

“Not nearly as ridiculous as you,” Zitao retorts. “Who cut your hair? A child with a bowl and a pair of scissors?”

Yixing fingers his bangs wistfully, sighing. “Someone changed the settings on the bot before I was going to cut my hair, I know it was one of you idiots,” he says, poorly veiled malice on his face as he eyes Jongdae, Zitao, and Yifan. “You three were the last ones to come over to my place!”

“And I wasn’t invited?” Luhan asks, holding his fist over his heart in mock hurt. “How could you do this to me, Yixing? I thought we were best friends!”

“I thought I was your best friend,” Jongdae cries, false pain filling his voice. “What are you saying, Luhan?”

“Oh God, not this again,” Yifan grumbles, smacking one of his overly-large palms to his forehead. “I don’t need another one of your mock-dramas, Zitao made me watch enough of that trash last night.”

“Excuse you, it’s not trash!” Zitao frowns, throwing his hands in the air. “It’s beautiful! The tragic love lines between—”

“I’m leaving,” Jongdae says, standing up abruptly from the table, “I have to study for my biology exam tomorrow. And I don’t want to listen to Mister Melodrama here.”

“Yeah, it is getting kind of late,” Yifan agrees, grateful for any excuse he can grab onto so that he doesn’t have to listen to Zitao rant about dramas. “We should go.”

“Thanks for having us over!” Yixing chirps. “Come on, Zitao, let’s go!”

“But—”

“Don’t you have a test tomorrow, too?” Yifan asks. “You should study. No dramas.”

“But—”

“Yifan, you’re like his mom,” Luhan chuckles, “it’s kind of cute.”

“I am a man,” Yifan hisses, “I am not his mother. Besides, I’m too damn young for that, anyways.”

“Whatever you say,” Luhan sing-songs, waving him off. “Bye, guys.”

~*~*~*~*~

Later that night, after Luhan had showered and brushed his teeth, he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

Now that he doesn’t have anything else to occupy his mind, the stranger from the mall fills his mind, the flash of red hair the only thing he can see.

Luhan didn’t even have the chance to ask the stranger for his own name, let alone how he knew Luhan’s own.

“Who are you?” Luhan whispers to the air, his eyebrows furrowing. “And how do you know me?”

He closes his eyes and pulls his blankets around them, deciding that yes, he’ll meet this mystery man tomorrow, and try and find the answers to all his questions.

thank you all so much for your overwhelming responses already >.< i wasn't expecting you guys to like this so much since it's really quite experimental for me haha