stay where you are
after hoursa/n: i don't know what i'm doing here ;~;
tagged: a bit of angst, xiuyeol interaction (woot \o/), puppy chanyeol, fanxing/krislay/kray + luhan unintentional guilt-tripping
after hours
(one grows curioser and curioser)
"Well, when one’s lost," said Alice, "I suppose it’s good advice to stay where you are, until someone finds you."
"But who’d ever think to look for me here?"
It always happens. There’s never been a time it hasn’t, and so the fact that Minseok takes a few days leave after their last “session” doesn’t faze him in the least bit. There’s a feeling of emptiness itching at the side of his face, and it sinks into a permanent scowl, causing his lips to tug every so often. Slouched back into his desk, low and restless, his actions cycle through running a hand over his face or impatiently tapping the end of his pen on wood until class dismisses for the day.
Sensing something off, Kris scoots his desk over towards Luhan, who's already too preoccupied with regretting his food choices for lunch that afternoon when a case of indigestion takes over him. He feels a pair of eyes on him, and it sort of takes all of Zeus and Hermes and whatever deities there may be to stop him from lashing out.
“What?” Luhan turns his head sharply, indignant and hissing. It all but answers the question that played in Kris’ mind.
“You’re angry,” Kris states simply. Luhan hates that. Hates that he doesn’t ask, doesn’t say anything more, just states the obvious and it’s like an implicit demand to spill out why.
“What are you saying?” Luhan plays it off. “I’m perfectly peachy.” The fact that his lips never curl a smile, his tone ends in stringent syllables and tight grips, stagnant facial expression, and the way the anger literally seems to use the ends of his mouth as sunken ballasts, forming that uncharacteristic scowl he wears at random. Except it’s not at random—Luhan only pulls sour faces when he feels like this—feels like pecking vultures eating him alive, prickling and frustrating his entire being from the inside out.
“You’re angry.” Kris echoes, and says nothing further.
“I’m not angry,” Luhan says, and believes it. “And it has nothing to do with you, so why don’t you go hold hands with your boyfriend’s .”
“What about my d—“ Yixing starts to say as he pops up behind Kris, who promptly mutes him with an over-sized hand over his mouth. Actually, the entire lower half of his face.
“Vulgar,” Kris admonishes him. “That kind of talk is dirty.” Yixing sheepishly casts his eyes to the ground, mumbling something akin to an apology, but Kris can never be too sure—it seems like Yixing’s always apologizing and bowing and retreating his presence about something.
It takes Yixing spacing out for nearly half a minute, and a few swipes of Kris’ eyes from his own to Luhan’s general state of apprehension before he actually catches on that he’s intruded on a moment, but once he does, he promptly takes a seat backwards in the desk in front of Luhan, now currently fiddling with the apps on his phone.
Luhan looks up for a split-second to see that both Yixing and Kris have zoned into his personal space, and quickly reverts back down to his screen only to discover that he lost that round.
“! You idiots made me lose!” Luhan bursts loudly, hands thrown up and he tosses his phone along the desk surface. They don’t particularly seem impressed by any of it, so Luhan recedes to sliding his fingers into his hair, clutching his head between his elbows like his head hurts, and it starts to, actually.
“ing—what? What! What do you two want?” The shouting echoes the room. Kris can literally taste the frenetic frustration barking from his voice. Yixing winces, feeling a sharp pain well into his chest, like he’s feeling what Luhan is feeling vicariously, and it’s kind of creepy to Kris that he can do that, and it makes him kind of jealous at how long Luhan and Yixing have been best friends.
They’re like brothers. And Kris is glad—relieved, even—that the two have established a strictly platonic relationship because he worries sometimes, when Yixing stays the night at Luhan’s, or makes breakfast for Luhan, or kisses Luhan on the head when he’s down, and he still feels the jealousy well up inside him, and he wishes they weren’t so close, but Yixing is the type of person that seems to be everyone else’s better half. Kris understands that.
But it doesn’t help much.
“You’re angry.” Kris repeats a final time.
Yixing joins in. “You’re not going to say anything?”
“I’m—nothing, there’s nothing to say. I’m not angry.” Luhan starts to laugh awkwardly, gesturing his hands. Yixing shakes his head disappointedly. Kris has his hand balled into a fist, breathing a sigh into it, unimpressed and stoic.
“Look, I have nothing to say. It has nothing to do with you guys.” Luhan says, tossing his phone between his fingers.
“Nothing to do with us,” Kris speaks up through the fingers parted over his mouth. “Does it have something to do with that theater kid?”
He doesn’t mean to do it—it just happens. But it’s all Kris needs to know that he’s got it, because when Luhan falls deathly still, murderously silent and Luhan knows that Kris sees the way his limbs lock and chest stills, and the air around him falls stagnant under the weight of the matter at hand.
“Who?” Luhan squints, side-eyeing Kris because that was blatant, sheer, unadulterated provocation. Yixing sees him swallow visibly and reads all his little habits before looking at Kris like there’s an intervention clearly in the making. “I don’t know any—I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, it doesn’t.”
Kris exhales before noisily standing up, throwing his book bag over-shoulder.
“Whatever,” his classmate shrugs. “Suit yourself. Yixing, let’s go.” They leave, and Yixing peers over his shoulder a moment before Kris tugs on his arm.
“It doesn’t.”
Luhan repeats to himself, when he’s alone, like he’s trying everything in his right mind to convince himself that it’s the truth, and if he twists it far enough, it is. Because the truth is—
It has everything to do with him.
“Hyung.”
There’s a pause, and Minseok feels a warm hand brush over his forehead.
“Hyung, look at me.”
“Wake up, hyung.”
“Hyung, I’m leaving.”
Minseok can still hear the soft whine in Jongin’s voice and the even softer Hyung, I’m gone after he’s closed the door, skulking down the hallway. Whenever the boy walks into his room and pushes him in his sleep, Minseok feigns like he’s in such a deep coma that even police sirens and an earthquake wouldn’t be enough to wake him. But it’s not like he’s been able to sleep easily anyway. Through slitted eyes, he clearly sees the worry and concern scribbled over his younger cousin’s face, and has this look like he has no idea how to cheer him up or what to do to make him feel better, but he guesses no one would. It’s not Jongin’s fault.
If Minseok had to blame anyone, he would blame himself.
Cue the wallowing in existential martyrdom. That’s the real reason Minseok takes a few days’ absence.
It’s been awhile, and the physical pain dissipates from his body after a day and lots of rest. It’s the scars he worries about—the scars left on his psyche, his pride, his entire existence that last much, much longer. He wrecks himself over why he would let this happen, why he doesn’t do anything about it, what’s wrong with him, why doesn’t he stop it, why he’s so useless, so easy to use, and maybe it will go away if he doesn’t think about anything at all—runs through his mind among other things.
Sometimes, most times, all the time, really, he vividly replays Luhan’s witting smile, the eager That was good, can I hear more? and Minseok willingly obliges to recite more lines. The moment quickly shifts dark, all too sudden, shadows and filth, and he feels Luhan’s “Minseok-ah” breathe against the nape of his neck, a numbing paralysis falling over his knees. Those are the times that Minseok buries his face into his pillow and screams his throat raw, when Minseok can’t see clearly because there are too many tears stinging his eyes and the backs of his hands can’t wipe away fast enough and ultimately Minseok ends up crying himself to sleep.
He just wants to drown out the hurt of his being into the comfort of his bed.
“Look who’s risen from the dead,” Minseok hears when he walks into the auditorium. It's after school hours. “Where’ve you been, man? The stage is lonely without you.” The boy hops off the stage prop, not without some struggle, complete with lanky limbs and goofy grin. He swings an arm around Minseok, currently overdressed in sweats and a hoodie over his head and hands shoved into his pockets, leading him to the dressing room backstage.
“You kind of missed a lot, hyung.” That’s no surprise. He’s probably failing half of his classes by simply not attending, even if Jongin dutifully delivers all his homework and photocopies of lecture notes from Junmyeon. “Oh, yeah, hey—listen to this!” Chanyeol pulls out his guitar and sits down on the old sofa and Minseok can literally see the dust scatter into the air from the impact. His eyebrows furrow together. Chanyeol strums a bit, then starts playing something, something different, something that strikes him as carefree, without a worry, without a reason to scowl or frown.
Minseok smiles, gummy and genuine. It’s the first positive feeling he’s had in a while.
Chanyeol finishes with a flashy of his hand and clenches a fist triumphantly. “So, hyung, did you like it?” His smile is big, and toothy and happy, and it makes Minseok happy, too. Maybe a little too much, and Minseok can feel his eyes wetting and a runs a finger across his eyes.
“Dude—you’re crying? I made you cry? Was it that good? Hyung—Minseok hyung—you liked it?” Chanyeol rambles and asks enough questions to entertain a child. He hops up and around his sunbae like some sort of adorably annoying puppy and Minseok doesn’t have the heart to stop him. It’s cute.
“I liked it,” Minseok finally says. “I needed that. Thanks.”
“You liked it? Do you want me to write one for you, hyung?” Chanyeol seems particularly eager and chipper and it’s getting rather infectious. Minseok laughs.
“You’d do that?” Minseok smiles, wide and pretty, and bites his lip playfully.
“I would.” Chanyeol nods excessively, head bobbing until it turns too much. Minseok knocks him on the head. “Okay, fine, I won’t. No need to hit me!”
“Idiot.” Minseok laughs again, pulling Chanyeol down to ruffle his hair (and it takes a lot, really, because Chanyeol’s such a giant freak of nature, Minseok has to stand on his toes to swing an arm around the kid's shoulders). “C’mon, we have to get dressed.”
For the moment, Minseok forgets everything else. He just lets the stage take over, and lets only the script and lights and the constant reminder to stay in-character occupy his mind. For the moment, he loses himself to deliverance, and it’s his only escape, his only way out.
For the moment, he sheds his own skin and everything is okay.
post a/n: idk what to update now. ask me things--prompt me, spam me, whatever you like >->-o
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