••••••••

            Sehun finds Luhan already strapped into the passenger’s seat of his car. He tosses the luggage in the back and jokes, “You could have warned me I was being employed as a packmule.”

            The wisecrack isn’t enthusiastically received. Luhan just glances around blankly. His eyebrows are knit together unconsciously, his eyes focused on nothing and everything at the same time. They look right past Sehun when he climbs behind the wheel and cranks the ignition four times, but they still seem to take him in. They look out into passing moments, not connecting with them but trying to, and his body doubles in on itself. It’s almost like he’s trying to stop his world from going in the same circles it’s always tread. It’s almost like he’s trying to stop himself from going in the same circles he’s always tread.

            And it’s almost like he’s failing. Like he’s given up on breaking his own pattern at the same time.

            Sehun drives them home in silence because he’s scared that saying something will make him a part of the circle that Luhan can’t break.

            When they’re back at the apartment, Sehun has to announce their arrival for Luhan to notice. He hops out of the car and plods ahead of Sehun, eyes caught on all the marred digits of the ground. Sehun has to stop himself from clearing his throat four times before they make it to right floor. He pauses next to a pot of flowers, playing with the idea of pointing them out to Luhan, but Luhan walks by them without a second glance. Sehun follows docilely, deciding they aren’t rosy enough for him, anyways.

            Luhan lays himself down on the couch as soon as Sehun unlocks the door. His eyes seem to close even before he settles, and he’s curled so tightly in a ball that Sehun thinks he could use him for a middle school dodgeball match.

            Sehun could leave him to sleep it off, technically. He could let him figure everything out on his own. Luhan knows the situation better, just like Minseok. He is the only one who can ultimately make the best decision, and Sehun, despite being generally young, apathetic, and spiritually stupid, knows that.

            But Sehun feels like, if he leaves him alone now, he’s not going to wake up again in the strictest sense. It’s not going to be like a transformation, a sad Luhan caterpillar rebirthing into a lovely Luhan butterfly, or a silly Luhan child reforming into a matured Luhan adult. It’s going to be the same thing, over and over again. Luhan is going to wake up without his wings, and he’s going to think that going to sleep will somehow make them grow. He’s going to seek sleep in daylight, seek sleep in public, seek sleep even in his dreams. The sleep gets longer and longer, more and more desperate. Sleep becomes the only real thing, even when it isn’t.

            Some people are frantic enough to seek its permanence. Dyed-in-the-wool. Forever.

            Sehun knows because he’s been that person. The same way Luhan returns to places in drunken stupors, Sehun had returned to them in dreams. Sleep once became so important to him that he forgot temporarily that the things of his unconscious mind were once real.

            The logic is a circle. It keeps happening until an outside force stops it. Sehun’s outside force was age. Luhan’s outside force, Sehun figures, is himself.

            He sits heavily next to Luhan, locking a hand around his ankle. Luhan doesn’t move, but he does whisper, “Leave me alone.”

            “I want to know what happened with you and Minseok to the point where you’re both these giant messes of sorry and mad.”

            “Minseok isn’t sorry or mad,” Luhan says. “He’s just Minseok. He’s cool with everything. Cool if I stay, cool if I go. Cool if I come back, cool if I never do.”

            “That’s not true.”

            “And what? You talked to him once? Had a conversation with him while I was crying in the car and decided that was enough to confirm to you that he’s a good, repentant soul?” Luhan snorts. “I’ve known Minseok for four years. I think I can guess exactly what he’s thinking right now, and it’s probably something along the lines of, ‘Damn, why is he even mad? I didn’t do anything. I just sat there like a slug.’”

            Sehun quiets. “You’ve only known me a few weeks, and you’ve already decided I’m decent enough to move in with.”

            Luhan doesn’t respond. It’s probably the best response he can give, anyways.

            “He told me how sorry he was, you know,” Sehun tries again. “He didn’t tell me what happened, but I could tell how bad it was just by the way he talked about it. He was torn up. He started crying, and made me promise that I’d make sure you were okay, and—” And that I’d eventually make you come back. The words are on Sehun’s lips, but they die in this throat because he’s not sure how he could possibly say them. “…and that I’d keep you safe. Even from yourself, which is what I’m trying to do right now.”

            Luhan pulls his ankle away from Sehun’s hand and tucks his knees further into his chest. “I find that really hard to believe.”

            Sehun scoots closer, resting a careful hand on Luhan’s hip instead. Luhan is still rigid. Sehun kind of wants to get up and leave. Instead, he crawls even closer, sliding a hand up Luhan’s side, and loops his body around him. He hears a stutter in breathing, but he can’t tell if it’s his or Luhan’s.

            “Even if it’s not true,” he whispers, “I’m not Minseok. I’m not going blacklist you over something you do and leave you on the side of the road. I’m not going to sit back and watch people push you around. And I’m not going to let you push yourself around either—”

            “I kissed him.”

            Sehun stops cold in his tracks, eyes widening to Luhan-size. “Wh—”

            “That’s what happened that night.” Luhan’s arms are taut, folded as far into his body as they possibly can. He looks more like a hand fan than a person. “We were way drunk, and Minseok was laying on me in the backseat. And I had thought… I’d been thinking for a while, what if Minseok felt the things that I felt? We were always so similar in thoughts and opinions, so I thought…there was a chance…” Luhan swallows at nothing, but his voice still sounds caught. “I’ve just been so…lonely, for so long, and Minseok isn’t reliable, but he’s still always there, and even when he doesn’t stand up, he’ll talk to me afterwards, you know? So I thought he could care the way I cared—”

            “Luhan,” Sehun breathes. “Luhan, they kicked you out for kissing him?”

            Luhan smiles deplorably. “My friend is a bit of a…homophobe. And I guess Minseok isn’t really into the same-gendered thing, either, because he was off me in an instant, all wide-eyed and freaked out like a rabbit.”

            “That is that stupidest reason to leave someone to walk home in the dark that I’ve ever heard.”

            Luhan laughs, talons on wooden floors, and it gets so bad that he starts crying a little and slapping his leg for emphasis. “Of course it’s the stupidest reason you’ve ever heard. That’s because it’s the stupidest reason ever.”

            Sehun presses his face into Luhan’s back, rubbing his cheek absentmindedly on the fabric of his t-shirt. “That’s not even that bad. The way you both reacted, I thought you’d murdered a baby or something and given it to him as a present.”

            Luhan smacks at his leg because it’s the only thing he can reach, but his muscles are relaxed now, molding unconsciously into Sehun’s solidity. “I’m gay, not homicidal.”

            “You mean those things aren’t synonymous?” Luhan giggles hard enough to start hiccupping, and Sehun pats his back dramatically to get him to stop. When it’s dwindled into silence, Sehun clears his throat and opens his mouth after a moment’s hesitation. “So, you…you liked him then? Minseok, I mean.”

            “Yeah.” He shrugs, and Sehun wonders if Luhan has picked that up from him. “I don’t know to what extent, though. I think it was sort of like…an infatuation. To fill some weird, empty hole in me or something. I just figured out the extent of all this…uality stuff, I guess you could call it, so I was probably eager to…to try it out on someone.” Luhan is reddening, stumbling over his words, and it’s Sehun’s turn to laugh.

            “So you’ve never really liked someone?”

            Luhan bites his lip, and Sehun is suddenly aware of exactly how close they are, clothed skin on clothed skin, his hands drifting lazily along Luhan’s stomach and his face pressed into the indention between Luhan’s shoulderblades. He suddenly realizes that although Luhan is more relaxed, he’s also decisively motionless in response to Sehun’s movement. Sehun pauses, all at once unsure if what he’s doing is even allowed. Luhan notices, and he places a comforting hand on Sehun’s, then removes it, then rests it there again, as if testing the waters, too.

            “Two,” he says quietly. It distracts Sehun from the creeping pressure in his head caused by their proximity. “I’ve liked two people. The first… I didn’t know what liking was when I liked them, but I know I did, because I still can’t forget about them. I still can’t stop wanting them to come back.”

            Sehun still doesn’t move. His breath is stuck in his throat because, for a moment, he’s forgotten how to use his lungs. Luhan’s hand encases his in a sudden burst of bravery, dragging it up to his chest as he dips his chin lower to meet it. Sehun can feel his nose brush his fingers. Luhan clears his throat. Sehun thinks Luhan must have gotten that from him, too, and he’d be sorry for transmitting his awkward like some sort of disease if he wasn’t completely mortified.

            “Sehun,” he says, and Sehun’s world is in grayscale because his eyes have stopped working next. His entire body is suddenly failing, falling into disuse at the sound of his own name. For a second, Sehun thinks that Luhan is calling him that – that he’s figured out his secret somehow, in Sehun’s body language or in the feel of his hands as Luhan links them together or in the recognition that must flicker in Sehun’s eyes when he looks at him. Then, Luhan continues. “I… I liked Sehun. Loved him, even. In love?” And it’s a question, but it doesn’t waver on his tongue in the same way that questions usually do. If Luhan hadn’t already noticed Sehun’s offness, he’s sure that it’s palpably obvious now, because he’s fallen into complete silence. He can’t even cough. There’s a lump in his throat preventing him from saying anything. “And I’ve never been able to stop thinking about him, ever since he left ten years ago and never came back.”

            Sehun slips his hand away from Luhan. He feels Luhan tense all over again, but it doesn’t stop him from drawing away and sitting up, stretching to hide his discomfort. “He must have been a really special kid,” he says dully. “A really stupid, really special kid.”

            “It wasn’t his fault,” Luhan protests, but it’s half-hearted, and Sehun wonders if he really does blame him for having to go away, the same way he seems to blame Minseok for wasting away in loneliness. “His mom… My mom… It was complicated. I still don’t really know what happened. I just came outside one day, and everyone was telling me that he couldn’t stay here anymore. Person after person after person told me that. Right after I told him I’d never leave him, he left me, instead.”

            “It wasn’t his fault,” Sehun repeats somewhere beneath his breath, but Luhan doesn’t hear him. He’s scared to speak up because he’s sure that Luhan will hear his voice quake if he does. Luhan returns into his little sphere of cramped extremities as soon as he’s released. Sehun wants to pull him into his arms, the same way Luhan had the night he came in hurt and scared, but Sehun is starting to realize that there hasn’t been a night since that those feelings have really dissipated for him. He can’t very well take care of someone when he’s stuck in his own despair, caught in his own torment. So he doesn’t. He gets up off the couch, lingering only briefly in the living room. Luhan looks up at him, panic sullying his features. Sehun doesn’t meet his gaze, only pads off to the kitchen in silence.

            “Kyungsoo—” Luhan’s tone is frenzied, so Sehun holds up a hand.

            “I’m making tea,” he says. “Did you want any?”

            Luhan falls into a silence that permeates the air like humidity. It weighs heavy on Sehun’s shoulders as he busies himself with pots and mugs. At least it won’t make my hair frizzy. He would snort at his own joke, but nothing is all that funny right now.

            “The other one was you,” Luhan whispers quietly.

            Sehun pauses in front of the burners. Then, he clanks the mugs together louder.

            “I’ve almost entirely forgotten his face because the only one I can remember now is yours.”

            Sehun drops the teapot on the ground. Cold water spills at his feet, but he doesn’t say a word. He only moves to pick it up.

            There’s a small sigh. “No, thanks,” Luhan finally voices. He sounds drained. Resigned, even, and Sehun pretends that he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. “I don’t want anything.”

            Sehun hears unspoken words in his answer. I don’t want anything because I can’t want anything. I don’t want anything because no one will give me anything. Sehun feels like Minseok, ignoring Luhan’s silent pleas for help, but he can’t deal with them right now. The only thing he feels capable of doing is making tea. The only thing he feels capable of feeling is nothing.

            Sehun can hear Luhan shift behind him a couple times before the room is completely still. When he finally feels capable of looking back, he sees Luhan’s eyes closed and his lungs rhythmically moving. He’s fallen into his metamorphosis sleep.

            A circle he won’t break.

            Sehun turns back to his tea and debates going for round three of bathroom crying when he realizes that sleep has made Luhan’s worry lines even more visible.

기억 – VIII

상기하다 2002-6-3

“Dad came today.

I got scared and tried to run,
but I fell out my window.

Luhan’s mom is really nice.
She’s taking care of me
even though she thinks it’s Mom’s job
and keeps saying
that I need to go home.

Maybe, if I ask Mom, she’ll let me stay
forever!

Wouldn’t that be something?

I’ll ask her once she remembers.”