The window glass was smooth and cool against his palm; Sehun gazed at the velvety darkness outside as his brittle heartstrings threatened to tear apart.

Mei.

Sehun had been awakened; his thoughts and emotions were now free to desire as they pleased, impeded no longer by conventional morality. He had had enough of negating his sentiments---of deceiving himself. To finally acknowledge and accept his genuine sentiments, Sehun felt liberated for the first time in his life.

But just because the bird is freed from the cage does not ensure that it will fly.

I want Mei. Sehun’s wish now had a frightening clarity to it, but there approached the inky shadows of anxiety and insecurity. There was also the strange premonition he couldn’t shake off, that he was running out of time. The moment he had returned the pearl pendant to Mei and seen such vivid rush of emotions in her eyes, he had been roused from a decade of dreamless slumber. He had been thrown back into a world of humanoid essence that he had once explored as a boy, where the clock ticked by too rapidly for him to savor each second that coursed with passion and zest.

He wanted to know her, to understand her; to give and share pieces of themselves; to connect and unite in the harmony of mind. He longed to hold her in his arms and bask in the heat between their bodies; to pleasurably drown in her depthless orbs and tell her how beautiful she was.

But he couldn’t. She wasn’t there. He didn’t know if she felt the same way. And the only thing he knew for sure was that fate disregarded happy endings that took place in fairy tales.  

Where is she? What is she doing at this moment---this moment that I spend thinking of her?

The tick of the clock became unbearably loud in his ears. She was probably with Luhan right now, helping him out around the stables. Again, Sehun felt as if he were lagging behind the movements of the clock hand, unable to grasp the prize that was impaled on the end of it.

But he let himself fall even further behind the flow of time, submerging back into another occurrence of the past.

*one week ago*

The scent of old books was always nostalgic and soothing, whether the pages told stories of fantasy or of counsel deemed intellectual by the higher society. Sehun devoured the printed words of the latter kind in the Manor’s main library, flipping through a dozen volumes of encyclopedia. He perched atop one of the shorter bookshelves on the second floor with a fountain pen tucked behind his ear, ready to jot down any relevant pieces of information. He was just about to shut the publication in his hands and reach for a new one, when he heard the wooden doors creak open downstairs.

“---then my old Master believed that the wolves had killed me when they showed him my broken rifle covered in blood and teeth marks. So my brothers tossed me over to a servant trader without further ado,” a mellow voice wafted into the library. Sehun peered over the railing and saw Luhan tracing his hands over the spines of books in a nonchalant manner as he walked in. He was about to let the servant know of his existence upstairs so that the peaceful quiet would return again, but completely forgot about his intentions when he spotted Mei trailing behind.

“That’s horrible of them,” she sympathized. “Is that how you were sold into this Manor?”

Luhan turned back at her and nodded. “Yes. But even though I had the favor of the Master in that mansion, I think I like it here in the Manor a tad bit more---because the servants’ food tastes a lot better!”

And because I found you.  

A muffled chuckle escaped Mei’s lips as its corners tugged up into an amused grin. Sehun’s heart stopped at this; it was the first time in ten years that he had seen her genuine, sincere smile. Her eyes were curved into charming crescents, so startlingly different from the miserable emptiness they always bared, and there was a certain aura of unguardedness around her that made it seem as if she had shed a layer of ice. A rusty sensation of happiness bloomed in Sehun for the first time in forever; he had assumed that Mei had lost the ability to smile altogether, and was so relieved, so thrilled to witness her twinkle. But at the same time, brewed thick envy towards Luhan.

“Your story is just like that of Joseph,” Mei said, looking up at the endless walls of books.

Luhan slightly furrowed his brows together in confusion. “Who is that?”

“Hm?” She stood on her tiptoes and stretched her arm for a book on a high shelf, her fingertips barely touching the bottom of its spine. Sehun’s skin prickled in resentment, as Luhan hovered over her to reach the book, diminishing any space between their bodies.

“This one?” Luhan asked. His chest leaned against her shoulder as he glanced down for confirmation, his chin brushing the top of her head as he did so.

“Yes. Master Suho wants all three of those volumes; the ones with the moss green covers.” From his second floor view, Sehun didn’t see how she trembled in fear at the close proximity. He just hoped that she wasn’t blushing---blushing like the time when he accidently collided into her and kissed her forehead, more than ten years ago in their secret library. The sight of her flushed cheeks, the euphoria in the realization of what kind of effect he had on her---Sehun didn’t want anyone other than himself to experience it; it was the natural possessiveness that arose for the object of his affection. Hence a sour, acidic aftertaste lingered at the base of his throat, even after Mei had slipped away from under Luhan.

Meanwhile, the everlasting smile on Luhan’s face faltered as Mei scurried away from him. He couldn’t help but feel hurt and rejected, despite the understanding he had the Mei was extremely uncomfortable near males. All because of Kris, Luhan thought begrudgingly.

He watched her as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, crouching down to inspect the lower shelves, and his heart clenched achingly for the girl he loved. Luhan was a compassionate man at nature; feeling the sorrow and pain of others came easily to him, but he had never felt such powerful emotions for anyone as much as he did for Mei.

When he had first moved into the Manor just a year ago, he had thought nothing in particular about the Slave; he had seen a lot of girls like her before---detached, defeated, broken. They were all the same---pitiful creatures that had been robbed of the ability to feel and love; they could do nothing more than to let the days pass by their withering bodies, kept alive only by the primitive instinct to survive.

But Mei, he realized, was different. She appeared unemotional and passive, but underneath the thick layer of frost was a heart that beat with purpose, underlined with the slim glimmer of perseverant hope.

Luhan had seen her willingly take on the burden for the ailing head maidservant, Eula, even when it sacrificed her energy, time, and well-being. She hadn’t done it with a hidden agenda to make an ally in the vicious scramble amongst the lower class citizens but had done it because she sincerely loved and cared for the older woman as if she were her own mother.

The interminable whisper of rumors had informed him of her marred history; the tragedy behind her becoming a prisoner of the Manor as a mere child, how she had been forced upon before she could even reach adolescence, how her bright smiles had been brutally murdered.

But even when the whole world had abandoned her, she hadn’t abandoned love. To love---it took strong willpower and meant additional suffering, but she clung on to it like a rope in a storm that one could not be sure if it was a lifeline or not.

Mei was Luhan’s inspiration, motivation---his devotion.

“Can you get that red book on that top shelf too?” Her soft voice was a pleasant interruption to his slight trance.

“Sure,” Luhan approached the book she was pointing at, being careful not to invade her space this time. “So who was this Joseph you mentioned?”

“Oh, Joseph from the Bible,” she replied, a bit worried that he was climbing on the bottom shelf to reach it. “His brothers did the exact same thing to him as your brothers did to you; they were jealous that their father adored him, so they dipped his robe in goat blood to deceive the father of his death and sold him away as a slave.”

“The Bible?” Luhan inquired, jumping down to stable ground with the wanted object in hand. “It’s been censored for almost two centuries---wait, you can read?” he asked excitedly, eyes sparkling in curiosity.

Mei nodded sheepishly to this; it was unordinary for peasants, nevertheless a Slave, to be able to read.

A beaming smile spread across his cheeks, and he flipped through the pages of the one he was holding. He the open book into her hands, and pointed to a paragraph. “Read me what this says,” he said, peering into her face with enthusiasm.

She chuckled, and looked up at him with amusement. “Luhan, this is Latin. I don’t know what it says.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Really? Let me see.” He took back the book and glared at the puzzling rows of letters, cocking his head in confusion. Mei giggled softly at his childish demeanor and he averted his gaze back to her with a boyish smile. “I guess you really can read; I can’t even tell the difference!”

Mei’s laughter burst into the air, leaving trails of carefree sparks like fireworks in the night sky. Sehun’s heart also burst along with it; how he wished he was in Luhan’s shoes, how he wished he could hear her laugh more often. If his wishes could kill, the whole human race would have gone extinct.

A dazzling smile lingered on her face after her laughter had subsided, and Luhan could only think of how beautiful she was, how precious she was, and how much he loved her; his impulsive desire surpassed the constraints of logic.

He leaned in and kissed her. 

If wishes could kill, Luhan would have died on the spot.

Hehehe I was slightly embarassed as I wrote this chap, but more cheesy XP scenes to come~

Please tell me what you think :D