Year: 2007

Xiumin: 20

Luhan: 17

When one thinks of it, time passes by slowly in the present. Maybe a week or a month seems to pass faster than others, but, overall the present is fairly slow. When one thinks of time as a whole, however, life flashes by so fast, memories are forgotten easily, freeing space in the mind for fresh memories.

It had been a long two years since Minseok had showed up, but thinking back now, it wasn’t that long since I had seen him at that age. Time just seemed to drag on when I was sitting in that time period, but now, I see I was an angsty teenager waiting too hard for something that would inevitably show up at my doorstep once more if I just waited a bit longer...

~

Junior prom was right around the corner and I had absolutely no idea who to ask to the rather ridiculous event nor did I know how to ask. I had gotten over Tiffany ever since she found happiness in the popular, toned jock every girl wanted to be with - Choi Minho. Sure, I still felt for Tiffany, but my feelings were more protective than anything at this point. So, I was left dateless seeing as I didn’t know any other girls to ask.

“Yah, Luhan!” a voice called from over my shoulder. I turned around, realizing I had spaced out in the middle of the dining room to face a displeased Mr. Oh.

“Yes,” I replied, bowing my head slightly.

“Get back to work and stop fantasizing about girls on the clock.”

“Yes...”

I cringed, turning back to the table I was spacing out above, wiping it down clean with sanitizer. I buzzed through my break down and clean up activities, humming to myself. It was a typical night at the local ramen shop that employed me after I applied to what seemed like every entry level job in the city. The job kept me busy. With school and work, I was having even less time to socialize than before (not like I talked to much of anyone, but Mir anyways). Maybe this is why I have no one to ask, I thought to myself, staring at my murky reflection in the stainless steel counter I had just polished.

I finished up my cleaning, taking off my apron, throwing it in the laundry bin before signing out. I grabbed my belongings, slamming my locker shut, headphones in my ears. I walked out the back kitchen door to be greeted by pouring rain.

“Rain?!” I exclaimed, attempting to cover my head with my hands. It was proven useless when I was drenched in a matter of a minute. I began to start jogging in the rain, trying to get home as fast as possible.

The weather had other plans for me, however. The skies opened up to their full potential, dropping walls of water. It was pouring an ocean and I was surely still two miles away from home with no hope of getting there dry. I stopped jogging, trying to catch my breath without choking on the water running down my face into my sagging jaw.

Rushing water filled my ears as I popped my headphones out, grateful I had spent all that money on the life proof case for my phone a few months back. My phone was the least of my worries, but it was still good one thing didn’t go wrong in the rain. Coming up to the intersection, I stood quietly, waiting for the light to turn for the crosswalk. In the blink of an eye, a bus roared by, splashing water out of the gutter and onto me, making me even more uncomfortable than I already was. Not only was I saturated with water, but now, I was dirty.

Head hung low, I walked into the crosswalk, my pace slowing down as my motivation to get home in a timely fashion decreased. Nearly about to call and beg my family for a ride home, I felt the storm let up. That’s weird, I thought to myself, stopping in the center of the intersection. I don’t feel the rain, but I can still hear it. I looked on the ground next to me and watched the rain droplets pound the stripes painted on the pavement.

“Have you solved the mystery yet, Sherlock?” a voice asked. It was a voice I knew from the distant past. It was a voice I longed to hear for nearly seven hundred and thirty days.

I turned around, rubbing the water out of my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing what I wanted to see. He smiled, a warm smile that heated me up, even if I was soaking wet with cold rainwater. I reached out, hand shaking, because it couldn’t be him. I expected to never see him again. I expected him to be apart of my imagination. He wasn’t real....he couldn’t be real. My fingertips told me otherwise. I made contact with his fleshy cheek, feeling the smooth skin under my digits. My mind was not smart enough to make me feel things I wanted to feel. He was there.

“Xiu,” I whispered, feeling a rush of emotions explode from the pit of my stomach all at once. I was happy. I was sad. I was angry, but I was glad. Everything flowed so quickly through my brain, my eyes began welling up out of confusion. I tried to blink away the tears, but it was no use.

“Don’t cry. Do anything but cry,” he responded, wiping the tears away from my already damp face. “Let’s get you home before you get sick.”

All I could do was nod without letting tears flow from my eyes again. The lump in the back of my throat was prohibiting my speech, but I’m sure Xiumin understood, especially when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in closer to him so I would completely be under the umbrella. Lump still present, I couldn’t object the sudden closeness, but I don’t think I could mind either.

We reached the doorstep to my house too quickly, both of us just standing there under the safety of the porch as the storm roared on around us. I didn’t want to step inside and leave him after I had been waiting so long to see him. There were so many things I needed to say to him, but I couldn’t find the heart to speak first.

“Go inside. You need to change your clothes,” Xiumin said, turning to walk back into the storm.

“Don’t. Stay with me. Come to prom,” I managed to whimper.

“Luhan, go,” Xiumin ordered.

Without a second thought, I stepped out into the rain, turning Xiumin around, finding his lips with my own. I felt weak and desperate trying to make him stay this way, but in the back of my mind it felt like this was the right thing to do. He didn’t kiss me back, but didn’t push me away. He just stood there and took it, as I needily tried to get a reaction out of him. I pulled back, searching his face, begging with my eyes.

“I need to go,” Xiumin muttered, shaking my arms off of him, disappearing into the storm. Confused, I sat down in the very spot, still being drenched by the rain, wondering if I made a grim mistake.

A/N: Sorry again for the long gap. I am finishing another chapter as I post this one. I am literally in the world's most unorganized and off topic majors course right now. I can't seem to get a grip on my studies so I broke down and started writing again....what do you think?