(A/N : That look in his eyes as he is looking at Luhan just kils me. Literally.)

When they are about 5 minutes away from his apartment Kris jerks up as if from a trance. Luhan’s hand on his is the only thing he can feel right now except for the bubbling hysteria in his chest.

“Stop! Stop the vehicle!”

The driver starts and glances back questioningly at them.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Kris looks out of the window. So close. They are so close to the place where Luhan will drop him off and go away, so close to the place the yellow letters lie strewn across a lonely table. He is known to be one of the most level headed artists of SM entertainment – no scandals, no pre-performance hysteria, no hissy fits during schedules – but right now Kris feel like everything about him is numb and on fire at the same time and being sensible feels near impossible.

“I-I can’t go back in there. I don’t want to go home. Let me off here.” He bangs on the door and Luhan grabs on to him in panic.

“Kris. I don’t know what’s wrong but you need to go home. Get some rest and-”

“No. Just no. Let-me-out!” he snaps at the driver.

“Kris! KRIS!” Luhan’s fragile looking hands are strong around his wrist. “wait, you can’t just- there are so many people around-everybody knows u-”

Kris struggles to free his wrist.

“Ok.Ok. wait-” Luhan takes a deep breath and turns over to the driver rattling off an address and Kris relaxes slightly as the car speeds past his apartment complex.

He leans his head on the tinted glass of the window and tries to breathe evenly. It’s hard. He wonders whether this is what is called a panic attack. He wonders whether the hand that seems to be squeezing his chest and pounding on his head will ever go away. He wonders for how long Luhan will sit next to him like this.

He is pulled out of his thoughts when the car comes to a stop in front of a small café in what he assumes is a forgotten corner of Myeongdong.  Luhan runs in and then back out in a few minutes, grabbing Kris’ spare bag of clothes from the trunk of the car that the driver hastily opens for him and leads him in through the back door. There’s a strange rushing noise in his ears, loud and discordant, and Kris lets himself be pulled and pushed because he is too tired, inside out, to do anything else.

It takes Kris a few minutes to realize that he is in what looks to be the employee rest room of the café. It takes him a few more minutes to realize that Luhan is actually speaking to him. Luhan looks blurred to him, maybe he has tears in his eyes, he doesn’t know. He hears Luhan’s voice is small bursts of clarity in between flashes of the rushing noise in his ear.

“friend’s café…..we can’t stay long…change…clothes.”

Luhan is waving a pair of jeans and a dark hoodie in his face, which Kris takes, his movements slow and robotic. Ten minutes later when Luhan takes his hand and walks him back out he catches sight of himself in the sliding glass door of the café and he is wearing a dark pair of shades and a ball cap that conceals his blonde hair.

Kris doesn’t exactly realize for how long he just walks and walks and walks, but the streets are not so busy in the area and Luhan is quiet beside him.

It’s that muted time between sunset and moonrise, when things seem to slow down before picking up pace again when something is shoved into his mouth. Kris, surprised and startled, chokes on it. He looks down to see Luhan standing with a determined look on his face and a packet of Dukkbokki from a street vendor in his hands.

“Chew!” he orders.

Kris blinks and chews. The strong, spicy taste of the food attacks his senses and he feels like somebody waking up after being in a coma for 2 years.

“It’s good, right?” Luhan pops a piece in his own mouth.

Kris nods slowly; the look on Luhan’s face tells him that he would not accept any other answer.

“I’ve always wanted to eat my way through all the food stalls in Myeongdong. Never really had the time though. Always busy with work or my friends are all busy with work.” He pops another piece in his mouth and offers Kris one too. Luhan takes off walking down the street and Kris follows him feeling a little less numb, a little more lost.

Kris doesn’t know how it went from him having a small breakdown to this. But Luhan is flitting from shop to shop, stall to stall, and his voice sounds so excited and carefree – pointing at little trinkets and pet stores and buying more and more snacks – that Kris can’t get himself to do anything but just drown in it all. He listens and nods and eats more food than what he thinks he usually eats in a month on his strict diet. He doesn’t really know what is going to happen tomorrow, he doesn’t know what he is going to do if Luhan goes back to not speaking to him, what he is going to do about the yellow letters. He doesn’t know what he will do about the backlash he will get from the management for this little disappearing act and he doesn’t know what he will do about his almost shattered heart. But when Luhan giggles as he tries on a hat shaped like a koala Kris finds that for now, in this moment, everything is ok in his world.

Luhan always did know just how to save him.

It’s around 3am or maybe 4am in the morning when Kris braves going back to his apartment. Luhan is leaning himself against the wall as he pries his shoes off, and he stumbles a little. Luhan is drunk too but he is not as drunk as Kris is. He feels the curious affect of soju coursing through his veins. He doesn’t look at his bed room door, doesn’t think about the yellow letters on the table inside that room as he collapses on the couch. Luhan is hovering hesitantly near the door still so Kris pats the sofa next to him invitingly.

The alcohol seemed to be making Luhan braver because he comes over immediately and flops down next to him. They have half a bottle of Soju left over and they take turns sipping from it until Kris feels his whole body buzzing with it.

“Nice place.”

“Iss ok.” Kris feels his words slur.

Luhan giggles at him. Kris reaches out to swat him but he is off balance and instead ends up leaning his weight against Luhan.

“Ooooof- you are heavy! Get o-”

Kris looks up and realizes that his face is mere inches from Luhan’s face. He could count his individual eyelashes if he was sober enough and the pink of Luhan’s lips seem darker with Soju. Luhan’s breathe stutters and his eyes flutter as Kris skims a finger over his eyebrows, down the line of his cheeks and along his jaw line coming to a stop just shy of his lips. The air turns heavy with something dark, something alluring. Luhan leans in towards him a little bit more and now Kris’ lips are brushing against the skin beside his mouth. Luhan’s breathe smells like Soju and something else, something sweet and soft- something that makes his mind flash back to falling in love with someone he has never seen before.

He thinks of feeling alive for the first time because of those letters, smiling every night in memory of them, feeling brave every day because of what they said in smudged ink. He thinks of that one line “I think I might be a little bit in love with you. I’m sorry.” He thinks anybody else would think that he is crazy, that he is stupid to feel this way but he can’t stand the thought of guilt that rakes his body when he thinks that he could almost hear the yellow letters say ‘you fell in love with me first. Me. Not him.’ Conflicted and thoughts unclear with too much alcohol, he moves his lips away, placing his head on Luhan's shoulder in apology. He takes a deep breath and gathers up his courage.

“I