second bloom

{where it was all Chen's fault and Luhan was just an unsuspecting victim}

Yifan made sure to check his brother once in a while especially when he could hear sniffling sounds coming from inside his room or worse, a devious laughter that indicated that his brother was having bipolar episodes again. It's not that he was diagnosed but Yifan almost wanted to sell his brother to a psychiatric facility for lab testing and research. They'd surely discover a lot with Luhan's weird mentality.

       His brother started to lose his mind ever since he bumped into that nice kid a few days ago. That kid who was named Kim Minseok. Yifan knew who that kid was, the center of the talk within the Math department of the university. He knew  how smart he was and he also knew why the was admitted to a university that he couldn’t even afford. The 'Kim Minseok' who couldn’t even pay a single penny for his tuition fee but his intelligence afforded him a full expense scholarship to the country's premier university.

       But of course, Yifan was still having fun seeing his brother suffer in a pointless one-sided battle, so maybe he wouldn’t disclose any information anytime soon.

##

“You think you can stay inside your room forever? How about university? Don’t you have any assignment to finish?”

       “Go away,” he heard Luhan shouted.

       “Maybe you should go out and socialize a bit. And don’t stay under the shade for too long. You may have pale alabaster skin but being sunlight deprived is not healthy.”

       “Easy for you to say that because there’s no potential threat on you once you stepped outside.”

       “And neither do you, Luhan, so stop acting like a kid and start acting as a responsible adult.”

       “You just don’t understand.” And the whining and bickering just stopped but sometimes Yifan could still hear curses inside which he hoped wasn’t directed to him because he could strangle his brother anytime he wanted to. After that he heard Luhan said that he couldn’t get out because a threat named 'Snow White' had casted a curse on him.

       “Snow White? I never thought you'd give that nickname to Minseok. Isn't Snow White you're favorite Disney princess when we were young?” Chen, who popped out of nowhere, teased his best friend. “But it's just fair. He has a skin as fair and as white as snow. And did you see those lips?”

       Yifan interrupted afterwards with a smirk on his face, “Isn’t it more because the magic mirror told him that his not the fairest of them all anymore?”

       Before they knew it, Luhan was already out of his room strewing what it seemed like a bottle of soju at them.

       “Hey, is that soju?” Chen managed to ask while dodging the fuzzy liquid to get to his Italian-made sweater, afraid that it might reek of alcohol later on.

       “Who cares? Just get out of my life!”

       “Did you drink again? Luhan!”

       “I don’t care. I just want to—” A falling body and a loud thud and Chen and Yifan just stood there dumbfounded – Well, Chen was more enjoying it to be honest.

       “—And you have low alcohol tolerance.” Yifan grabbed the empty green bottle from Luhan’s unmoving hand.

       “Do you think he’s dead?” Chen asked, not budging to pick Luhan up from the floor, just poking the unconscious body with his foot.

       “Mentally, yes; emotionally, he’s half-conscious; and physically, he’s almost there especially if we just let him bleed his brain out.”

##

“Just put the records there. Thanks again for helping me carry these here. Being the youngest professor sure has a lot of responsibilities.”

       “Just ask me if you need help, sir,” the boy smiled.

       Yifan could only heave a sigh seeing the smile that torn Luhan’s insanity apart. 

       Poor boy… No, he was not implying it literally but he just felt sorry for Minseok for being oblivious of how Luhan literally cursed his name inside his room every day. But if there was someone who was poorer than Mr. Poor Boy, it would be Luhan himself because now, Yifan could see Luhan standing by the doorway of the student record’s section, flaming eyeballs almost out of his eye sockets and his gritting teeth sounded like a chainsaw on wood. He was the poorest of the poor: poor in understanding, poor in attention, or maybe poor in love—

       “Yifan-ge!”

       Yifan was busy contemplating about his brother’s mental battles that he barely caught that glint in Minseok’s eyes when he Luhan entered the room. Nope, maybe the sunlight coming from the window was reflected on his eyes or maybe Luhan’s silver jacket was causing that slight glint but either way, it was too early for Minseok to like Luhan, wasn’t it? In fact, there was no way that Minseok would like Luhan when it was too obvious how his brother hated him. Maybe his eyes are glinting because he’s blind…

       “Luhan, hello!”

       Yifan took a glimpse of Chen who also seemed excited to watch the scene in front of their eyes. He knew that the other was just as pleased as him to witness another of Luhan’s embarrassing failure. 

       Luhan was stomping towards them and Yifan could only cover his face in embarrassment because heck Luhan was freaking ugly with his nostrils stretched wide in anger. His brother looked at him with eyes saying, ‘You’re a traitor.’ It was too obvious but Minseok…Minseok was really blind, he concluded.

       “Luhan, I’m so sorry…”

       Sorry? Why is he apologizing?

       “I am supposed to greet you this morning but you don’t look like you’re in the mood to talk to anyone—”

       Because he’s obviously avoiding you, kid. Yifan swayed his head.

       “—So, I just went ahead to my seat. I asked Chen what’s wrong and he said that you’re not feeling—Oh! What happened to that?” the boy shrieked upon seeing the bandage on Luhan’s head from his weekend’s drunken incident.

       “Luhan fell on the floor and hit his face because he was dru—”

       “I’m just no—not feeling well this weekend. I—I am…”

       “Are you alright now? Do you want me to accompany you to the clinic? Maybe it’s because of the concussion—”

       It’s because of you.

       “—that you’re not feeling well today?”

       Luhan was trapped in a stupor, totally not hearing Minseok’s constant lecture of the total death toll caused by head injuries, or the one hundred and one ways to avoid head injuries, or the top ten most effective Korean organic medicines to cure head injuries and so on. Luhan was totally drowned by the fluttering eyelashes, the round glittering eyes, the squishy cheeks, the twitching nose, the pearly white teeth, and most of all, the luscious pink lips that sometimes showered him with saliva because Minseok wouldn’t stop talking about head injuries and the five out of ten possibilities that it might really affected Luhan’s health one way or the other when in reality, it was all because of him that Luhan became like this.

       Is he stupid or what?

       “—A pinch of powdered ginseng then add it to the mixture of dried spiders and larva shell of cicadas and poof! It’s an effective medicine for headache according to my grandmother. At first, I thought it’s not effective but when I tried it, it’s really effective. Anyway, if you need any help, just ask me. I am always ready to lend a hand.” Minseok’s smiled widely, showcasing his healthy pink gums. That infamous gleaming smile again and Yifan and Chen were already anticipating for Luhan's reaction.

       One, two, three and…

       Luhan turned paler than he used to as he dashed outside of the office without looking back.

       “Did I do something wrong?” Minseok asked concernedly.

       “Nope. I think you did great—” Great for creating a very entertaining show, “—job for making my best friend feel well,” said Chen as he tried to pat Minseok’s shoulder for consolation.

       “But he ran away…”

       Yifan snorted. “Don’t think about it too much. I think he’s just overwhelmed by your genuine concern and well he hated cicadas so maybe next time try not to mention it. But based on his expression, I think he is just touched by your kindness,” he said, gesturing an okay sign and sending Minseok a wink.

       “Thanks for being a good friend to him. He appreciates it so much that he needed a place to let his heart out. You may go now and don’t worry about Luhan. We know where to find him.”

##

“He really looked ugly there.”

       "Did you see his face when he stared dreamily at Minseok?"

       “Stop pretending as if you don’t know that I’m here and stopped talking behing my back! You two are traitors!”

       The door of the last bathroom stall suddenly burst open, revealing a sweating and devastated-looking Luhan.

       “What happened to you? And why did you run all the way to the fifth floor restroom?”

       “Stop changing the subject and stop pretending as if you care. I thought you’re my brother but there you were talking and laughing with the evil Snow White behind my back. Maybe you told him about that incident last night. Maybe he’s making fun of me right now. Maybe he’s already plotting a scheme to take me down. Well, tell him that he’s succeeding because my one and only brother has already took his side! ” Luhan gripped on the sink and stared at himself on the mirror with tears leaking from his eyes. “He’s slowly taking you away from me!” he whined.

        please. Yifan rolled his eyes while Chen locked the door because again, Luhan looked ugly right now. He had lost a lot. At least, save the face.

       “Okay, look. I just asked Minseok to carry the records for me because the person I was asking for help earlier just rolled his eyes and ignored me. Does that ring a bell to you, Luhan?”

       “So, Minseok volunteered to help you. Not only that he gained the Mr. Always-There-If-You-Need-Help badge, he was also trying to gain your favor so he could use you to frame me up!”

       “You’re just—”

       “Shh,” Luhan put his finger up in the air, gesturing Yifan to stop talking. “I don’t need your explanation. Even if you take his side, it doesn’t matter to me anymore—” Luhan’s grip on the sink tightened, knuckles turning white, as his eyes fiercely locked on his reflection on the mirror.

       Do we need to run now? Chen mouthed to Yifan. He just swayed his head and turned back to his brother.

       “—Because I can ask someone else’s help to take Snow White down and no one can stop me now. I’ll show him who’s the fairest of them all.”

       Look who’s talking now?

       Chen tightly clung to Yifan for his dear life as they stared at Luhan who was drowned in his own fairy tale reverie. It was not because he was afraid of Luhan slowly losing his rationality. He was more afraid that he would burst into laughter anytime soon.

##

“What? What are you sa—That’s impossible!”

       Chen wiped his face off of the food bits flying from Luhan’s mouth. Yifan only snorted. His brother was flushing red as beet while shouting to that poor someone on the phone, complaining how his perfect plan failed, and how their target was always missing in action each time. The two could only conclude that it was about Minseok again. Luhan was secretly hiring some random bored student online to pull the perfect revenge plan on Minseok during lunchtime like buying all the food from the cafeteria, or loosening the screws of his desk in their Math class, or stuffing his locker with frogs. But as what Yifan predicted, it was always a hundred percent failure not only because Luhan’s ideas were childlike crazy but because first, Minseok never went to the cafeteria to have his lunch; second, they dismantled a desk from a higher Math level class; third, the poor boy couldn't even afford a locker. And most apparently because Minseok was always missing during lunchtime for some reasons no one knew.

       “Just give up.”

       “I’m not talking to you.”

       Yifan was too mature for Luhan’s childish I’m-not-talking-to-you attitude so he raised his hands in defeat and returned to his food. “Let me just warn you that you’ll face the consequences of what you’re doing and it’s worse.”

       “Whatever.” Luhan wiped his mouth, put the napkin down, and grabbed his bag.

       “Where are you going?”

       "I'm going to find Minseok myself."

       Yifan snorted. Chen just watched them from his seat.

       "Then what? Are you going to kill him?"

       Luhan's lips twitched ever so slightly before sporting a devious grin. "I can do worse than that."

       Chen thought he was out of this but when he felt his sleeves being lifted up by Luhan, he never struggled anymore, knowing that were better things to watch than Yifan’s stern-looking face.

       The two were already out of sight when Yifan realized one thing. “Am I tricked again?” he mumbled, clicking his tongue over the unpaid lunches.

##

“I don’t really think you’re brother will ever let me borrow his credit cards anymore. I’m sure he’s already calculating all the bills we never paid ourselves.”

       “Who cares about my brother? The most important thing now is to find where that—” Luhan somehow find his tongue tangled inside his mouth.

       “Can’t you just say his name? It’s not hard to do. Come on, repeat after me. Say, ‘Minseok’.” Chen’s voice was full of mockery and mischief obviously but what he had said was true that Luhan couldn’t find a chance to retort a counterattack. “Min—” Chen dramatically emphasized how his tongue moved with every sound “—seok.”

       “Stop that childish nonsense or else I’m going to—Oh he's here!” Luhan’s eyes tripled in size, like a deer caught in the headlight, as he hastily scrambled backwards to hide to the nearest shrub, which in Chen’s opinion wasn’t really a nice thing to do. “Ouch! That ing hurts!”

       “Well that’s a rose bush. Naturally, it’s painful to dive into it.”

       “Why didn’t you—” Luhan clamped his mouth shut when he realized that his real agenda was just nearby. Minseok was, as always, oblivious of their presence. He was just sauntering under the midday sun, smiling so brightly with head faced up to the heavens. He was glistening, like literally, with the sweat on his forehead and all. And Chen found Luhan completely basking under the boy’s presence—jaws slacked horribly with a tad of saliva dripping from the side of his mouth.

       “God Luhan, close your mouth,” he warned but Luhan remained enamoured—yes, he’s evidently falling for the boy's carefree charm.

       Chen found the initiative to close Luhan’s mouth by himself when his friend started to demand things. “Give that something from your bag.”

       His eyes widened. “What? Are you really gonna kill him? Will you rethink this over? You can’t kill an innocent person and I won’t be your accomplice. Sorry.”

       “What are you saying? Give me that,” Luhan pointed to the shiny object in his bag.

       “You can’t have my cutter,” Chen shrieked. Not when he planned to put cut-outs of Yifan’s embarrassing high school photos to be posted on their announcement board when the elder warned that he’d fail Chen’s remarks in math.

       “Who says I’m talking about the cutter? That!” He looked again, only to see Luhan pointing to the foil-covered burger in his bag.

       “Ah, this!” he laughed nervously. “You’re just hungry, of course. I shouldn’t have thought that you’re really going to kill—Oh my friggin’ Luhan, what did you do that?!”

       “Ssh!” Luhan clamped his mouth again for the second time, being pulled under the staircase of the building’s entrance. They waited for Minseok’s anticipated reaction as Luhan threw the burger straight right at him that completely led Chen to sheer panic.

       What if Minseok died right there and then due to acid burn from Chen’s extreme purely concentrated tomato ketchup? Or, what if Minseok died due to a staircase accident as the burger blocked his sight? What if—”

       “Woah! Where does this come from?” they heard Minseok amused voice. “A free burger from heaven,” he sounded like a kid who just received his Christmas present.

       Luhan gritted his teeth and was about to come out to confront Minseok when Chen stopped him, wordlessly swayed his head to show his disapproval.

       “This is awesome!” the naive boy cried out, totally delighted, when it was interrupted by a grumbling sound.

       Chen looked up at the sky but it was bluer than blue and clearer than clear. There’s no way the sound came from an impending storm, was it?

       Luhan finally went out from hiding only to find Minseok already gone. “Darn it! We lost him again.”

##

Nope. Luhan wasn’t the type to surrender either the type to just go home without accomplishing anything. But then again, like what Yifan asked him over and over again, what was he trying to aim for anyway? It wasn’t as if Snow White was doing harmful to him since the day they collided under the cherry blossom trees, which, by far, was the most dramatic and overrated scene Luhan encountered ever in his life. As if it was so breathtaking when all he remembered that day was Min...Min...

       Whatever! He couldn’t stay complacent and wait for Snow White to backstab him. Snow White might already have a plan to destroy him through undercover alliances. Who knew he might have hired all of Luhan’s enemies he accumulated over the years?

       WHAT IF HE INTENTIONALLY PLANNED THIS STALKING WHATEVER THAT LUHAN WAS DOING RIGHT NOW, IMPLANTING SUBLIMINAL COMMANDS TO LUHAN’S INNOCENT MIND AND PURPOSELY LURED HIM TO FOLLOW HIM ON HIS WAY TO GOD KNOWS WHERE?

       It was all Chen’s fault! If only he stopped him from being obsessed—no, that didn’t sound right—curios, then he wouldn’t probably die in a place where no one knew him. The peasants would probably feed on his rotten flesh. Worse, they’d leave him after their feast.

(You should stop following him, Luhan. Haven’t you heard? Everyone’s talking about his lavish family background. There’s even a story going around the he’s an actual prince of a land far far away. I won’t be surprised.

Then, how will you explain his mysterious disappearance every lunch period? What if there’s a secret society only meant for high-achiever individuals to break in? What if he’s keeping it a secret to you, to us?! He’s selfish.

You’re crazy, Chen groaned, scrambled a bit in his seat to find the most comfortable position to sleep inside the exclusive library. Luhan even wondered why he never saw Snow White inside this grandiose library. Maybe, there’s a library more grandiose than where they were now.

I have to follow him. That’s the only way I can save us from being left out. I have to know his princely hideout)

       Yup, it’s Chen’s sole fault.

       “Hah!” Luhan exagerratedly clutched his chest. “So I’m the victim all along. How could he?”

       But what would he do now especially when he was in some otherworldly place that only low-life peasants could comfortably live in. He was totally focused following his enemy home that he didn’t know anymore where his curiosity took him.

       Luhan’s head was pounding. The smell of the street was incredibly awful. And he never tried to walk long distances before. His German-made boots were starting to appear like a hand-me-down counterfeit leather boots.

       He was walking dumbly when he noticed the boy he was following stopped his tracks in front of what looked like a worn-out—or for a better description, abandoned—coffee shop. Snow White fumbled under the door rag as if looking for something. And there it was again, he smiled a thousand watt worth of smile when the door suddenly opened. A kid scrambled on his feet to reach for him.

       “Mintheok-hyung!”

       “I brought something for you,” Snow White beamed happily as the kid clung onto him like a monkey.

       Luhan didn’t even find them cute. Pft!

       He watched as Snow White had drawn out something from his bag.

       “That’s the...”

       “You wouldn’t believe where I get this,” he said excitedly.

       The kid smiled at him, eyes big and inquisitive, “Where?”

       “It fell from the sky. It’s a miracle bun!”

       “Really!? Can I wait here? What if it rain chocolateth?”

       “Ey, just go back inside.”

       The kid went ahead as he remained standing outside to remove his shoes and placed it in an old shoerack standing on their foyer. It was only then when Luhan noticed his worn-out Chucks. That actually never left the eye of the fashion critics in their school, saying how the boy was so fashionable, purposely wearing tattered sneakers for the sake of fashion. But if someone would ask Luhan, he could only derive one thing from it: that the boy only wore it because he had no choice.

       Luhan remained hidden behind the lamppost when he heard it again, the same grumbling noise they heard earlier in the university. And as if by instinct, he looked up only to see a perfectly calm afternoon sky.

       He turned his head when he heard the sound again. Obviously, it wasn’t from the sky but from the stomach of the boy standing in front of him, holding his stomach tightly.

       It was him all along. Why didn’t he eat the burger if he’s hungry? Who cares about that kid? He didn't even have teeth to begin with?

       Luhan’s head was pounding again but not because of the smell or the condition of the place he was standing at. But it was all because he couldn’t discern anything from this—this—what’s even this painful feeling in his chest?

       “I have to go to my night job. I have to leave you now. Just behave, alright?” the boy shouted from the outside. He was still clutching on his stomach, the pain was evident on his face.

       “Oh no!” Luhan panicked. Snow White was walking towards his direction and he had nowhere to go—really nowhere to go. He didn’t even know how to get home. He knew nothing from the peasant’s way of living. He dumbly left his bag in his car which he already commanded his driver to bring home. He couldn’t ask for anyone’s help and there’s only one person he knew in this place—that one person he couldn’t even say the name.

       Come on, say his name. Minseok, Chen’s voice repeated in his head like a cursed mantra. Repeat after me. Min—Seok. Is it that hard? He could only imagine Chen’s feline like mocking grin directed at him. Again, it was all Chen’s fault.

       “Mi...” he stuttered. “Min...” The sky was getting dark and the streets even darker. He’d die in this place alone and they’d eat his body. “Minseok!”

       There’s a reason why Luhan used to like Snow White. It might be about the skin as fair as snow or the lips as red as blood or the hair as black as the ebony wood. However, that was only the classic telling tales to him. He believed otherwise now. There might be something about Snow White that’s worth liking more.

       “Lu—” Minseok’s smile faded together with his falling body before Luhan stealthily run after him.

       Maybe because he had the reason to play a fitting role he had always dreamt of playing before—to save a damsel in distress—and be someone's prince, his Snow White's Prince Charming.