Credits to the wonderful maryamaru (tumblr) for this beautiful KrisHan edit :)

 

Guangzhou airport turns out to be just like Swarnabhumi – the only difference being the fact that this time there is no Luhan getting pushed and pulled along with him by the crowd. He doesn’t need a translator for the China Love Big Concert so Luhan had stayed back to work on his album with Kyungsoo.

Kris had popped in to see him in the recording studio that morning because the thought of going for seven days without seeing Luhan had made him uneasy. Luhan had smiled at him, tapping his fingers to the beat of the music, as if he knew Kris would come before he left but also as if he hadn’t been so sure of this.

“Off to Guangzhou then?”

“Yup. Seven days of promotions before I get a break for my comeback prep.”

“Aww look at you all grown up and going off to conquer the world without a translator in tow. Soon you are not going to need me at all.” There’s a teasing tone in Luhan’s voice that Kris doesn’t really believe. He doesn’t know how it will be possible to ever look at someone like Luhan and not need them.

“Where’s Kyungsoo?” he asks instead of replying to the comment.

“He went to murder somebody or other for stealing his lunch box?”

Kris winces at this. “That would be Tao – he never learns. Last time this happened Soo took away his Wushu stick. Tao had to cry and beg on his knees for a week to get it back.”

Luhan laughs, his eyes crinkling into what Yixing calls the “Old Man” look. “Soo is pretty strong for his tiny size.”

“Don’t let him hear you call him ‘tiny’. You are one of the few people left on his good books here.”

“Mmmm, true.”

Silence descends on the room as the music comes to a stop. The track had been called ‘the star’ - a song about liking someone as bright and unreachable as the star on top of a Christmas tree. Kris looks at Luhan – he has never been that good at words. Luhan looks back at him and for once he looks as if words have failed him too. He opens and closes his lips quite a few times before he looks down to fiddle with the zipper of his hoodie.

“Be- be safe. Don’t let anybody- just.. at the airport – and everywhere- just don’t let it all get to you. You will be okay.” He looks up as he says the last part and Kris sees something in his eyes that he usually sees only in the middle of the night, in a dim dance studio with a broken A/C vent and cracks on the ceiling and the smell of coffee wafting about.

The door slams open and Kyungsoo strides in, adamantly slamming the door in the face of a tearing Tao. The moment is gone and both Kris and Luhan look away from each other hastily. Tao bangs on the door his voice muffled but desperate. Kyungsoo just nods to Kris and starts drawing ugly bunny faces with a black permanent marker on the Wushu stick he is carrying his hands. “I warned him! I warned him- he said never again- ” he mutters under his breath maniacally as Tao sobs outside. Kris takes this as his hint to leave and he tiptoes backwards to the other exit – but not before he pats Luhan on the head affectionately. Luhan swivels around in his chair and watches him until the door closes behind Kris.

Seven days in Guangzhou had lead him right back to the recording room for some additional correctional work on the tracks for his next album the minute he landed back in Korea. Kris is exhausted and missing someone bright (and something yellow) but he has a dance rehearsal to get to before he is allowed to go home. All he can do is put on a bright smile, take on a light voice and wonder silently why a certain someone with shinning eyes has not been around to see him yet.

“Kris, really? Really? Really? ” Yixing looks like he is ready to bang his head against the table. “What gave you the idea that it’s ok to call yourself Kriscasso on national tv? What?”

Kris grins at him and wriggles his eyebrows. “It’s my new thing.” Confidence, especially when it’s newly found, can be so addicting.

“That thing you drew was in so much pain when he saw it that its ancestors felt it.” Kyungsoo deadpans as he fixes an off high-note in the bridge of a new song that they are working on. His fingers are small but nimble and sure on the multitude of knobs and buttons of the mixing console.

“Hey!” Kris says indignantly. “It was an alpaca and it was freaking cute. CUTE. Even the fans said so- I saw it on weibo. You are just jealous you can never be that cute.” He finishes lamely.

Kyungsoo merely fixes him with a dead-eyed stare as if to dare him to really declare that his owl eyes and fluffy hair and bowed-lips are anything but cute. Kris throws his hands up in the air in submission. “Fine! You are cuter than my cute alpaca. I admit it. You will always be cuter than anything cute that I can ever draw.” Kyungsoo shrugs and turns back to his many buttons and knobs but there is a little pleased grin on his lips. Kris pats him affectionately on the head and the grin immediately turns to a ferocious growl.

Yixing snorts at them. “Your weird brand of love-hate crap is really getting old now. And also where on earth did you even learn to violate alpacas like that?” 

“My alpaca was BEAUTIFUL. Just shut up and teach me how to dance, lăoshī. ”

“I don’t think it’s possible but let’s go try. I can at least laugh sadistically at your attempts to do y hip s.”

Kris lets Yixing lead him to the dance practice rooms, bickering and poking at each other, as he thinks of the little sketch of an alpaca at the corner of every yellow letter he has ever got with a small smile.

The minute he gets home he sighs in relief. Luhan had not even come to the company that day, Yixing had told him, but there is a yellow letter on his coffee table that makes him feel like he will have at least one reprieve that day. The contented feeling changes the second he rip