••••••••

            After having the beast inside him unleashed by sugar, Luhan is a tired mess of limbs and soft breathing. He falls asleep the second Sehun gets them out on the highway, and Sehun watches him the way he was watched earlier, trying and failing to remember back to a time when he thought his life was boring.

            When they get home, Luhan is stubborn in resisting Sehun’s attempts to rouse him from sleep. He turns onto his side, not even bothering to release his seatbelt, and falls back into cadenced breathing when Sehun prods at him. Sighing, Sehun undoes it himself, sliding Luhan into his arms and pulling him up off the seat with a grunt. He slams his car door shut with a foot and adjusts Luhan in his arms, cradling him in what he imagines is the same manner as a first-time dad – awkward and afraid of his own lack of balance. He gets him up to his own floor without incident and sets him carefully down on the couch inside, trying to escape before he inevitably wakes up, but he is too late. Luhan blinks twice as Sehun staggers out from under him, peering up at his face with a dazed expression. Sehun smiles back sheepishly. “Go to bed, Luhan, you’ve looked ready to pass out for a straight week now—”

            “Sehun?”

            Sehun stops in his tracks, eyes widened. He has the sudden urge to cover his face. He can’t tell if Luhan is asleep or awake, so he says nothing. Luhan blinks again and sighs contentedly.

            “Your hair is so colorful,” he murmurs. “You used to say…purple hair was…unrealistic…”

            His eyes droop methodically as he speaks, every word drawing them closer together until they’ve successfully shut out the world a second time. His soft snores resume, and Sehun breathes easier before colliding all his weight with the edge of the couch that Luhan isn’t currently occupying.

            That was way too close.

            It’s time to set some things straight with himself, he’s decided.

            First, he is Sehun. Not Kyungsoo. Not Minseok. He is lazy, and Sehun is lazy. He is stubborn, and Sehun is stubborn. He coughs when he’s nervous, and Sehun, surprise surprise, coughs when he’s nervous. He, therefore, has to be Sehun, and this business of pretending is getting far too complicated far too fast. At the end of the day, no matter who he tells otherwise, he is still the same Sehun that left and the same Sehun that didn’t want to leave. He is the Sehun that was Luhan’s best friend, no matter which gender Luhan prefers to call him by, and he is the Sehun that Luhan loved.

            Which brings him to his second point, of course – the one that still makes him nauseous and unsure of his every step in the world. Luhan liking the fake him is enough to send him stumbling, but that’s not the part that bothers him.

            In love?

            It had been a question, but it had also been rhetorical. Luhan had already known the answer to it. Sehun isn’t entirely sure how deep Luhan imagines that this affection ran – or still runs, for that matter – and he’s so scared to ask that it nearly paralyzes him just to think about it.

            Not to mention how he might feel in return. He has yet to go anywhere near that tsunami wave of chaos. Every time he’s so much as brushed up against the thought, he’s abruptly gotten up to make tea as a distraction.

            (He belatedly realizes that he’s moved himself to the kitchen somewhere in between his thoughts and is robotically making tea right now.)

            He knows he needs to be honest with Luhan, but he also knows that he knows nothing about how to handle other peoples’ feelings, romantically or otherwise. He’s had so few friends since he moved, and even the people he likes are simply targets for whatever discord he feels like brewing. He’s had no significant others as long as he’s lived, male or female, and he’s really considered nobody particularly worthy of the task of taming him for the job.

            (Luhan is worthy. Sehun knows that because he knows Luhan better than his own body, better than the forestry at the edge of his old neighborhood and the names of all the districts of Korea. He knows him better than Kyungsoo knows cleaning products, and he knows him better than Jongin knew animal species. And Luhan knows him the same way.)

            (He’s unconsciously started making a second cup of tea that he also doesn’t plan on drinking.)

            He knows that being honest will pose certain….difficulties. It’ll compromise the living situation. It’ll compromise Luhan’s feelings towards this “Kyungsoo” character that he’s come to blindly trust. Hell, it might even compromise his feelings towards the actual Sehun. Sehun thinks that’s the most frightening part of all.

            Which blends easily in with his third point, which is not so much a point as it is a potential plan of action.

            A plan of action that he doesn’t entirely know yet.

            Sehun sighs into his small cup army, draping himself over his own counter in despair. Romeo didn’t have it this hard. All he had to do was see her to know he loved her. Everything else was cake from there. Even dying.

            (He becomes unexpectedly aware that he’s started a third and fourth cup simultaneously. He promptly dumps both mugs of hot water into the sink, accidentally scorching his own hand with the backsplash. He swears.)

            I hate everything.

            Luhan stirs behind him, and this time, he looks suspiciously more awake, sitting up and stretching instead of just blinking up at Sehun like a lost deer. “How long was I out?” he mumbles distractedly past a tiny yip as he extends his arm too far. Sehun ambles over to him, rubbing Luhan’s shoulder as he tries to roll it back. Luhan peers at him in some mixture of drowsiness and appreciation before rising from the couch.

            “A while,” Sehun says honestly. “It’s eleven. You might as well go back to sleep.”

            “No, no,” Luhan protests, reaching down to touch his toes. “I’m not… I don’t wanna sleep, I wanna…” He yawns in the middle of his sentence. Sehun tries to press him back down to sit on the couch, but he resists.

            “You want to sleep. You’ve looked ready to die the past few weeks, you’ve been so tired.”

            Luhan brushes him off, making a face. “But this is the first time that—” And he stops just as fast, clamping a hand over his mouth before realizing that’s way more obvious and throwing it off. His eyes are fully awake now, wide in alarm. Sehun doesn’t understand.

            “First time that what?”

            Luhan bites his lips. “Nothing. Nothing, I just didn’t feel like going to sleep yet.”

            Sehun shrugs. “Well, I was planning on hitting the hay soon, anyways, so goodnight either way.”

            Luhan’s face falls, and Sehun understands even less. Then, Luhan catches sight of the little mugs of tea on the counter. He perks up and immediately points, leaning onto his toes. “Did you make both of those for us?”

            Sehun turns back, caught a little off-guard. “Oh, no. I mean, I made them, but they weren’t for—”

            “Let’s drink them together.” Luhan grabs onto Sehun’s wrist. He doesn’t let go when Sehun tries to shake him off, only covering his first hand with a second and pouting. Sehun relents quickly, smiling in spirit but frowning in face. Luhan admittedly looks a little guilty, but they’ve both forgotten by the time that they take refuge on the couch, cradling their mugs in their laps. Luhan blows over the top of his, grinning when it makes ripples in the water. Sehun ignores him in favor of tilting his own to his lips.

            “Kyungsoo,” Luhan says, and Sehun looks up from where he’s taking a sip. “Tell me a story about your childhood.”

            “Why?” Sehun maintains nonchalance, accidentally dipping his nose into his tea and wiping it off with the back of his hand. Luhan snickers but doesn’t let up.

            “You know so many things about my life. Isn’t it fair to make it even?”

            “A person should know things about someone he’s letting into his home.”

            “And a person should know things about someone they’re living with.” Luhan’s face tints pink as the words tumble from his mouth, but he doesn’t try to retract them. Instead, he says, “Just one thing. I don’t even know if you’re a good storyteller yet because you haven’t told any!”

            “Are you going to be sitting here, judging my skills the entire time?” Sehun laughs, but it doesn’t sound right, even to himself.

            He’s scared.

            He’s scared of lying anymore. He’s scared of telling the truth. He’s scared of Luhan losing the laugh from his eyes, too, because of him. All he wants is for Luhan to stop, for Luhan to slip into his transformation sleep and let it go for a few more days, just long enough for Sehun to prepare some kind of explanation. Just long enough for Sehun to hammer at the circle.

            Luhan doesn’t.

            “Maybe,” he says, drifting farther and farther from the sleep Sehun wants from him by the minute. “Wouldn’t you want to know where to improve?”

            Sehun quiets. “What if I told you I didn’t?”

            “Then I wouldn’t judge you! I’d just listen—”

            “What if I told you I didn’t want to tell you at all?”

            Luhan blanches at the words, and he holds his cup a little tighter. Sehun does the mental correspondent of bashing his head into a wall and reaches out to pet Luhan’s leg because he’s never been good at communicating, but Luhan cringes away from that, too. He stands up suddenly. “I’m going to—”

            Sehun stands with him. Some of his drink sloshes out, but it’s cooled enough not to scald him. Luhan bites his lip, and Sehun wishes more than anything that he could pry his mouth apart so he would stop.

            “I’m tired,” Luhan says. “I think I’ll just… I think I want to sleep, if that’s alright with you.”

            Sehun doesn’t know what to say, but he’s still saying things, anyways. “It isn’t alright with me.”

            Luhan’s eyebrows draw together, and his mouth turns down. “Then what the hell is alright with you?” he challenges. Sehun steps back because his tone is suddenly way too serious.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

            “You ask me my secrets, I tell you, and you walk away like you’re scared of them. I keep my distance because I think that’s what you want, and you take the initiative to invite me out instead. You ask about me, I let you in again, but the second I act curious, the second I ask anything at all of you, poof—suddenly that’s not alright either. And now I can’t even sleep when I want to?”

            “You could sleep if you wanted to,” Sehun snaps back, “but you don’t want to, so you can’t.”

            “You know what I want to do right now?” Luhan isn’t yelling. Sehun doesn’t think he’s capable, even after all these years, but he’s definitely doing the Luhan equivalent of it. His tiny hands are fisted at his sides, and the veins in his arms, usually hidden by long sleeves and bone, are sticking out in little tendrils. His face looks so furious, and Sehun has seen it before, when Tao crushed Luhan’s toe under his purse, and when Jongdae dropped Luhan’s phone in the bathtub as a prank, and when Jongin accidentally released his arsenal of spiders in Luhan’s room, but he’s never received it. He hunches a little, feeling ashamed, even though he doesn’t know why, even though he feels like the only things he’s really done wrong are the things that Luhan doesn’t even know about yet.

            Luhan turns his gaze down to his curled hands, and he takes a deep breath. “You know what? Nevermind. You wouldn’t get it even if I spelled it out for you.” He gathers himself in crossed arms and makes for the door. “I’m going out.”

            “Wait,” Sehun says. It feels like the first night they re-met, except he’s on the pleading end and Luhan isn’t listening. He runs out after him, but Luhan bolts. Sehun almost takes off after him, but then he reconsiders. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he caught up – tackle him? Hit him from the back? Trip him up? – and he’s very much under the impression that Luhan doesn’t want him to, anyways.

            Besides, Luhan has always been faster than him.

            He slides down the outside wall of his apartment as Luhan disappears down the stairs. He can hear his boots thudding down all the flights, and he counts the footsteps until they’re too quiet to make out from the throbbing silence around him. He covers his face with his hands. He understands less than anything now. He understands negative things.

            I don’t just hate everything. I hate anything, too.

            Sehun wants badly to call somebody. He wants to sit in Jongin’s front yard. He wants to climb Jongdae’s fence and play with his dog. He wants to take refuge in Tao’s garage and dig through his giant bins of dolls for the ones that aren’t terrifying or disfigured.

            He wants to climb Luhan’s tree and sit. He wants to soak up moonlight from its branches and rap on the window until Luhan comes out, all crinkled eyes and wide smile and abrasive laugh. He wants to make pinky promises with Luhan about being together forever, and to go ahead and link the rest of their fingers together, too. He wants Luhan to laugh and let him.

            Those days are long past for him now.

            They’re long past for Luhan, too. This Luhan is the one that drinks enough to estrange his friends and hangs in bad company. This Luhan is the one that sleeps more than he talks because he’s secretly too exhausted to be alive. This Luhan is the one to run away because he’s terrified of people running away from him first.

            And this Sehun is the one who lets him.

            Sehun takes a good, long look at his hands. He pretends he can read his future in them, like the palm mystics that hide behind curtains in marketplaces. Your name is Oh Sehun. You’re eighteen years old. Your life line says you’re going to live forever, but your love line says you’re going to die alone. Your line says that even when you have the opportunity to stop people from leaving, you won’t, because it’s all you’ve ever known.

            Actually, your “you’re-a-giant-” line says it’s because you’re a giant . Yeah, that sounds more accurate.

            Sehun finally gets his phone out.

            Luhan. Where did you go? Please come back before something bad happens.

            He sends it, but it doesn’t feel like enough, so he types up another message.

            I did something wrong. I don’t know what it is because I’m an idiot, but I know I did something wrong. And I know that I’m still doing something wrong because I let you leave, and I never should have.

            Fifteen minutes pass. Sehun tries again because he can’t think of anything else to do.

            I said I’d never leave.

            He wants to put You said you’d never leave, either, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

            There are tears on his screen. Sehun can’t really see anymore, so he types his last message blindly.

            I’m coming to find you.

            He’s up and moving before he even has the chance to press send.

기억 – XI

잊다 2012-4-12

“Next year, I’m eighteen.
They say they won’t take care of
someone that old.

I say
they don’t take care
of people who are young,
either.

They keep reminding me
that once I’m old enough,
I’m out.

As if I’d ever forget.”