Hey lovelies! Dust again with another entry! 

I'm hoping I will give you lots of entries today! ^^

Okay! So, this one is named "Loving You" and its prompt/topic is "death of a friend". Purpleturtle choose to make this one a metaphorical death.

This topic was one of my topics and was the most important one to me, 'cuz I've lost my friend not too long ago. (I'm still happy though, I know he's somewhere better ^^)

Ahem, yeah, the story!

_______________________________________

Sometimes you lose someone you truly cherish, not because you were too late in understanding that, or because you mistreated that person, but because the way you cherish that person, he cherishes someone else the same way.

This is the story of my journey, for the past four years I’ve been trying to understand what my friendship with this guy really meant, and now that I know, he’s gone.

SM Entertainment. That’s what brought us together, because in all honesty there would have been no chance of us meeting if it weren’t for our shared dream. I like to call it fate. Six years ago, I had a dream, the dream had been an idea for a long time, but when I decided to audition for SM Entertainment, that idea morphed into a dream. I wasn’t good at singing, but I wanted to sing and perform and be loved by the whole world. I was young and my family supported me, so when I got accepted to be a trainee, I got a little closer to achieving my dream. I was, and still am, a fairly good looking guy, but that doesn’t mean life is easy for me. During my trainee days I was very lonely. Many people picked me on because I wasn’t truly talented. There were people amongst me who I could tell would make it very far in life because they were so good at what they did. Whenever I tried to make friends, the subject of my talent would eventually come up, and when I’d open my mouth to sing, people would leave. Everyone, including myself, thought I wouldn’t make it past being a trainee, but there was one guy that thought otherwise, and I met him two years into my training.

“Wh-where’s uhm…..”

“What?”

He was so clumsy and looked extremely strange when I first met him.

“I need to uhm….where’s the….”

“Can you speak up?”

I didn’t know it at that time, but I should have, as he did look like a foreigner.

“Uhm….bathroom?”

“Oh, the bathroom’s over there, turn right after you pass the first corner and it’ll be on your left.”

He didn’t understand a word I said, and because he looked so clueless, I had decided to lead him there, assuming it was his first time in the building. I walked ahead of him, and he stayed pretty far back, but followed me nonetheless. Once I opened the door for him, he rushed in and whispered a thank you that I didn’t completely catch, and then I left. 

-----

I had lunch all by myself, as I usually did, and when it was time for dance practice, I went to room D (the lower the letter was in the alphabet, the better you were at dancing) and I was pretty happy because last week I was in room F, the last room, so clearly I was making improvements. One my way to the new room, I saw that guy again. He was standing with some other guys who I had never seen before and they were speaking in what I understood to be Chinese. It suddenly dawned on me that the guy was from China. I had to walk past them to get to my room, but as I was doing so, the guy caught a glimpse of me and suddenly grabbed me by my elbow. He tugged me towards himself and pointed at me while talking o the other guys in Chinese. I was pretty baffled, but because the conversation seemed so intense, I just stood there and let him talk about me for another five minutes. Once he was done saying whatever it was he was saying, one of the other guys turned to me and spoke to me in Korean.

“You helped Luhan today?”

So that was his name.

“Uhm, he couldn’t find the bathroom, so, uhm…yeah.”

“Oh, well Luhan wants to thank you. It’s his first day in the building, and he just recently came from China, so his Korean is not too good.”

“Yeah, no problem.” 

Luhan was smiling at me the whole time, and I guess that’s when it all began. I was getting a little mesmerized by that smile, probably because I knew it was genuine, but at the time, I didn’t think much of it.

“Well, uhm, I have to go now.”
I left without really saying goodbye to anyone, because I didn’t know those guys at all so there would be no point in being formal with them. I entered the room a minute late as I noticed dance practice had already begun. I merged in with everyone else at the back of the room and began to dance at a faster pace then I was used to. I believe that if I had any talent at all, it would be in dancing, so I made sure to give it my all when it came to dancing.

----- 

I left the building sometime around midnight, because I had practiced more than usual. It was getting a little chilly out, and unfortunately I had no sweaters or jackets. I had a small apartment with no heat or air condition, and as cheap as it was, I couldn’t always make the rent. My part time job, as a cashier, wasn’t enough for me to pay my rent and feed myself so there were days when I slept hungry, but I kept telling myself that if, and when, I made it big, it would all be worth it.

As I made my way home, passing by closed convenience stores and dark alleys, I saw someone, with a hood over their head, sitting outside my apartment building. Based on the physic of the individual, he appeared to be a scrawny looking guy probably around my age, and on top of that he was smoking. I ignored his presence and took out my keys, but when he heard the jingle of my keys, his head snapped up, and to my horror, the guy was Luhan. He looked so different, so cold, so distant, and nothing like that bubbly guy from earlier. I stopped walking and just stared at him, and he stared at me, and as I thought about why fate kept bringing us together, a lone tear slipped past his eye, so I grabbed him by his elbow, hoisted him up, and opened the front door to my apartment building. 

“Wh-what?”

“Be quite. I know you and I won’t be able to communicate properly but just spend the night at my place.” 

He threw away his cigarette and followed me silently. Once we reached my little apartment, he set himself down on the floor, as I had no sofas or chairs, and took off his hoodie. I went straight to the kitchen and started making some soup. It was a very basic soup that I had seen my mom make occasionally, but it had a good amount of vegetables and could keep both Luhan and myself full for the night. 

Luhan didn’t say anything for the remainder of the night. He looked through my apartment for the bathroom as I tried to sleep, and luckily he found it on his own. My heart was pounding for no real reason, but I knew I couldn’t leave Luhan alone, because he looked just as broken as I felt.

----

“Morning.”

“Mmmm…..no….”

“Luhan, get up. I have to go to work, and I’m taking you with me.”

“W-work?”

Luhan finally opened his eyes. It was obvious he did not enjoy sleeping on the floor, but I had to remind myself that at least he was sleeping in peace. He looked groggy as he was getting up, so I pulled him up and pushed him into the bathroom. Apparently he had brought a book bag with him, which I looked through just because he was taking a shower and probably needed some clothes, but when I opened the bag, I was shocked to find nothing more then bundles on money. What the hell? Where did Luhan get all this money from? And why didn’t he have anything else with him, like clothes or food? I took out all the money and reached down to the bottom of the bag, hoping that there was something else in the bag, but there wasn’t. Either Luhan had just robbed a bank, or….or nothing, that was the only thing that made sense. I heard the water stop, which meant Luhan would either put on his old clothes or come out in my towel. I didn’t bother putting the money back in, because I had to ask him where it came from, so when the door opened, Luhan ran to me and tackled me onto the ground.

“Don’t touch!”

He punched me hard in the face, and when I made no move to punch him back, he got off me. He crawled to his money and counted each bundle, to make sure I didn’t steal one I guess, and when he realized everything was in its place, he put all the money back into his book bag and zipped it. I was still laying there, realizing that Luhan would have to wear my clothes now because his towel, my towel, had fallen off his waste.

“Luhan, let’s go meet your Chinese friends so I can get something through to your head.”

----- 

“Oh, well that was nice of you.”

“Yeah, but that’s besides the point. Tell Luhan that I need help paying my rent anyway, and that if he stays with me, I can get him a part time job and he can pay half the rent.”

The guy, Yifan was his name, spoke really good Korean, so I had to make sure he could tell me everything that was on Luhan’s mind.

“Luhan agrees, but he wants to know why you opened his book bag this morning.”

I eyed Luhan, who wasn’t smiling at me, and figured I had nothing to lose.

“Ask him if he robbed a bank.”

“What?”

“You heard me, ask him if he robbed a bank.”

Yifan translated what I said to Luhan and Luhan actually laughed. He then said something to Yifan and Yifan also laughed.

“He said no. He ran away from home to audition for SM and the money you found this morning was the money his parents had set aside for his college fund. So he did steal it, but not from a bank.”

“Ask him, if he’s so rich, why doesn’t he have a place to stay?”

“Wait, I can answer that. Originally he was supposed to stay with me, but my other friend, Zitao, you saw him yesterday, got kicked out of his place because of rent problems, so I took him in. I was going to find Luhan a place, but he just left last night. I’m so glad you found him though.”

“So I guess he doesn’t need a place to stay.”

“No he still needs it, and he would love to stay with you because you know your way around here and are willing to help him find a job. Luhan doesn’t want to spend his parents money.”

I smiled at Luhan, I guess he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

“Oh, and tell him no smoking in the house.”

-----

Luhan lived with me for two years, up until the point we debuted as a group called EXO. It’s funny how things turned out. I didn’t think we would end up in the same group together, along with Yifan and Zitao, but I’m glad we did. Our friendship had blossomed from the time we spent together, and Luhan was very good at Korean now. We were put in a group that had a total of twelve members, including myself, and I no longer felt lonely, but because there were more people, Luhan began to make friends with the other members, and once we were separated in EXO M and EXO K, I didn’t get to see him that often. That’s when I started getting these weird unexplainable feelings. I missed Luhan more than I missed my family, and when I came to realize that, I started to wonder why I had such a strong connection with him. I had five other members to keep me company now, and they were just like brothers to me, but Luhan, I didn’t see him like a brother. He was something different to me, something I needed constantly in my life. I would call him almost everyday just to hear his voice and know that he’s okay. He would politely pick up each time even though he was busy, and I guess I mistook that gesture for something more. We had just finished a concert as twelve members one winter night when Luhan decided to stay out rather than come home with the rest of us. I had asked him if he needed company but he assured me he did not, so I fell asleep early that night due to a packed schedule I had the next day.

Luhan came home past midnight around, apparently wasted because he struggled with the main door, and I believe it was Suho who opened the door for him and gave him a good scolding for being drunk. I was half awake by the time Luhan reached my room, and it wasn’t until he collapsed on my bed that all my senses woke up. He looked into my eyes with a glazed look in his eyes, and I stared back at him. I had never seen him like this before, so I didn’t know what to expect. He his lips before moving closer to me, and I just stayed there, not able to function as he got closer and closer until his lips touched mine. He closed his eyes slowly and poured out all his emotions into my mouth. I couldn’t believe what was happening, or why it was happening, but I did realize that I enjoyed it, so I closed my eyes and put my arm around his back and pulled him even closer to my body. He let out a low moan and bit my bottom lip until it started bleeding. I opened my mouth and shared an extremely wet ands sloppy kiss with him, to the point where our saliva was dripping down our chins.

Things got aggressive pretty quickly because Luhan was still drunk and in no mood to take things slowly. He pushed me down on my back and started taking off my clothes, and I was so lost in lust that I couldn’t stop kissing him. We made out for hours, out into the night and gasping for breath, up until Luhan passed out and I snuggled with him in my blanket.

----

The next morning, I got up first, thinking everything that occurred the night before was just a wet dream, but it wasn’t because Luhan was out cold next to me, and he had several large hickeys all over his neck. I panicked just a little, but then I remembered that it was Luhan who had started it, so I wasn’t really at fault. I went straight to the bathroom to check up on my own appearance, and as expected, I too was adorned in big pink marks, all over my neck and chest. I didn’t know what to make of it. Did Luhan and I become something overnight? Did he have feelings for me, or was last night just something produced from sheer lust? I definitely had to speak to Luhan about this, and before I knew it, I came face to face with him as I was leaving the bathroom and he was entering it. 

“Lu-Luhan, we need to talk about last night.”

“Uhm, sure…”

“You wanna talk here or in my bedroom?”
“It doesn’t really matter.”

“Why wouldn’t it matter? What happened last night was pretty serious.”

“Not really. I’ve come home drunk before without you guys realizing it.”

“That’s…that’s not what I’m talking about…”

“Then what are you talking about?”

And at that point, I came to understand that Luhan really didn’t remember things after being drunk, regardless of how significant those things were. The next year was very difficult for me, as I purposely distanced myself from Luhan to try to get over these weird unexplainable feelings I had developed. I didn’t lead myself on with false hope or misinterpreting little things, and I guess that got to Luhan too, because last year he got a girlfriend. She’s a model from China, not very well known, but cute, just like Luhan. She’s closer to EXO M, but she’s had dinner with the whole group a couple of times too. I can’t say I envy her, because I don’t want to be Luhan’s girlfriend. I don’t want him to flirt with me, or say things that will make me blush, or kiss me out of the blue for no real reason. Instead, I want him to show his true colors to me; to tell me what’s on his mind, to show me what’s inside his heart, to let me in so far that I might get lost and never make it out. Luhan is someone who I will never figure out, but if I could give him my love, I would, and yet he hasn’t even realized that love is all I’ve ever given him. He’s a part of me that I didn’t know existed. He’s a form of me that I’ve always wished to be; talented and beautiful but inside and out, but at the same time, he’s nothing like me, and that’s why I love him and cherish him, the way he loves and cherishes his girlfriend. Luhan and I don’t talk on the phone everyday anymore, or share the same group of friends, or hang out together when we’re finally in the same county at the same time, but—

“Sehun, can you make me something to eat? I’m tired…and hungry….”

“Sure Luhan I’ll be down in a minute, I haven’t had dinner yet either so we can have it togeth—“

“Oh my girlfriend’s coming over too, so can you make her something as well?”

“I…I guess.”
— I’m always going to love him, the same way I’ve been loving him since the day I met him.