His sleep is restless, his dreams constantly displaying flashes of bright red in the darkness of his mind, the soft whisper of “I’ll be waiting” wafting throughout his subconscious.

When Luhan finally opens his eyes, fatigue hits him like a tidal wave, and he’s barely able to lift his body up enough to peer out the window.

“Time?” he mumbles, and he is promptly answered with “1:31 PM, Master Lu.”

“Damn.” Luhan slumps back down onto his pillow, pulling his blankets around himself to form a cocoon around his body. He can’t find the strength to get out of bed, even though he’d done nothing extremely strenuous the previous day.

As his eyes wander around his room, he finds himself thinking about the red-haired stranger, the vibrant hue forever imprinted in his vision whenever he closes his eyes. He curses himself for not asking for the man’s name when he had the chance, and then he starts to think of names that might suit him.

And yet, every name that Luhan thinks of just doesn’t seem to fit.

The Stranger, Luhan decides, is occupying far more space in his mind than he theoretically should. He has much better things to do than think about random men bothering him in department stores.

Or so he thinks, as the minutes tick by and Luhan finds himself unable to think of anything else except The Stranger, and he sighs.

Well, that settles that then, he decides, swinging his legs over the side of his bed with a soft thump.

He’s going to have to meet this man.

And after that, he’s going to have absolutely nothing to do with him.

(But he’s wrong, oh so wrong about that.)

~*~*~*~*~

Luhan spends the next two hours stalling time by taking an extremely long shower, alternately styling his hair and deciding he doesn’t like the way it looks and washing all the product out again, and asking his closet to continually choose random outfits for him (the end result is him wearing a navy plaid shirt and grey jeans over a white tank top, and him wondering where at least half of the contents of his closet originated from.)

Eventually, though, he realizes that it’s already half past three, and even though he’s not really sure if he wants to see The Stranger, it’s rude to keep people waiting.

He slips his glasses on his face grudgingly before exiting his house, then summons a pod and types in his destination.

Luhan lapses into a sort of half-conscious state during the ride, oblivious to his surroundings other than the fact that all he can see in front of him is white.

The ride is over faster than he expects, a mechanical voice jolting him out of his stupor as the door to the pod slides open.

“Time?” Luhan asks, and is answered with a soft glow of ‘3:55’ emanating from the pod.

“Thanks,” he says, but receives no reply as the pod speeds off to transport some other person.

So with a soft sigh, Luhan enters the department store and walks to the bathrooms where he had met The Stranger for the first time.

Once he arrives, however, there is no one matching The Stranger’s looks in sight, and Luhan frowns, lifting his hands up to straighten out the collar of his shirt.

It is only then that he realizes that his hands are shaking.

“You’re late,” Luhan hears from his left side, and he whips around, only to see The Stranger standing behind and slightly to the side of him. He’s instantly sure that it’s the same person from before when all letters fade from the lenses of his glasses, and he scowls.

“D-don’t do that,” Luhan mutters, his heart still beating erratically from the shock. “And I’m not late.”

“Oh, dear Luhan, time is of the essence. It is now five minutes past four, and I said to meet at four, did I not?”

“Whatever.”

“No, not whatever.”

Luhan narrows his eyes at The Stranger, facing him head on for the first time.

The Stranger is short, several centimeters shorter than Luhan, pale, with round cheeks and slightly narrow eyes. He wears a battered black leather jacket over a black t-shirt, jeans in a faded sort of color that Luhan guesses was originally supposed to be black but is now an odd sort of grey, and navy high-tops that look like they’ve seen better days. Luhan can see a few strands of red hair peeking out from beneath a black beanie, and Luhan finally realizes what’s been nagging at him.

“You’re not wearing glasses,” he says, pointing at The Stranger’s face, despite the fact that he’s being rather rude.

“That’s right, I’m not.” The Stranger smirks, seemingly amused about the whole thing, which only serves to make Luhan’s temper flare up.

“Then how are you here?” Luhan asks. “You can’t leave home without glasses on.”

“What if haven’t come from home?”

“That’s ridiculous, where else would you have come from?”

“I’ll explain as we go,” The Stranger says, taking hold of Luhan’s arm. “We can’t stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else can see me, and I don’t think you want people to think you’re insane and talking to yourself.”

Before Luhan can ask any more questions, though, he’s tugged off by The Stranger into a corridor, and something black covers his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, lifting one hand up to try and remove the obstruction, but his hand is swatted away.

“Secrecy. Just follow my lead.”

“I don’t even know your name,” Luhan grumbles, but allows himself to be dragged along (he’s not really sure why he doesn’t resist, but something about The Stranger is oddly comforting, despite the fact that they’ve barely been acquainted.)

“For now, you may call me Xiumin.”

“Xiumin? But you don’t sound Chinese,” Luhan murmurs. As a native Mandarin speaker, he’s particularly adept at picking up Chinese accents in Korean speech, and this Xiumin’s voice thoroughly Korean.

“I’m not,” Xiumin replies, “but like I said, that’s what you’ll be calling me for now.”

“That hardly seems fair,” Luhan retorts. “Here you are, spewing nonsense about me, and I don’t even know how you know, wait, never mind. Everyone knows everything around here.” He stumbles, and curses as he regains his footing. “But I know nothing about you.”

“All in due course, Luhan. You have many questions, and I cannot answer all of them for you right now. Lift your leg up, won’t you?”

Luhan obliges, and hands guide his leg onto a raised partition.

“We’ll be traveling by pod now,” Xiumin says, and Luhan’s vision is filled with blinding whiteness.

“Pod?”

“A hacked pod,” Xiumin says, shrugging, “but a pod nonetheless.”

“You’re scaring me more and more by the second,” Luhan grumbles, wrapping his shirt tighter around him, as if the thin material could serve as some sort of barrier between him and Xiumin.

“Don’t worry. But I suppose I can answer some of your questions now.” Xiumin leans back in his seat, holding his hands behind his head. “Go on. Let’s hear them.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“That’s better shown, not said.”

“You said you’d give me answers,” Luhan hisses. “Now you’re giving me riddles.”

“Ask again. Maybe you’ll have a better question this time.”

“Alright then, why are you taking me?”

“Do you ever wonder, Luhan, where your parents are?”

“Stop answering my questions with questions!”

“Answer mine, Luhan, and maybe we’ll get somewhere.”

Luhan decides that he doesn’t like Xiumin very much.

“Probably dead, although I really don’t know.”

“Well,” Xiumin sighs, “that much is true. They have passed away, many years ago.”

“But I already knew that.” Luhan rolls his eyes. “Tell me something I need to know.”

“Do you know why your parents died?”

“Because they were rebels, right?”

“Correct. And that’s why I’m taking you with me today.”

“What—”

“We’ve arrived.”

The door of the pod slides open, and Luhan is greeted with the scent of something burning, and the sight of machinery scattered about over numerous tables.

“Welcome to EXO, the headquarters of the government rebellion that your parents began. And the rebellion that you, Luhan, must continue.”

...so i'm probably not going to finish this by luhan's birthday. oh well XD

sorry for not updating, i had a lot of stuff going on irl the past couple of weeks and i hit writer's block (ew)

hopefully i'll be able to update more frequently now, though.

also this is unedited so yeah i'll fix things later lol