Jongdae is late for work and he knows that Kyungsoo’s wide eyes are going to glare a hole through him when he gets into his office but he remains unhurried, taking his own sweet time to wear his jacket while collecting his coffee from the café.

Late or not, coffee first-thing in the morning is essential for him to survive through the dreary uninteresting days. Even so, the crazy amount of caffeine he takes daily is barely enough to sustain him through the boring parts before he can finally get to the more interesting activities at night.

Last night was especially demanding, he winces slightly as his hip bumps into the side mirror on his car and he could feel the scratches all over his back. That’s probably the only downside to bedding the fairer ; women and their obsession with keeping their fingernails long.

But twitched lazily at the thought of the woman last night. She was wickedly flexible and certainly experienced, from the way she touched his body at all the right places with the right degree of pressure, pleasuring him to no end before he ed her hard, the way they both wanted. 

He certainly wouldn’t mind meeting up with her again tonight. 

That is if the young widow still needs comforting from him.

 An emphatic sigh escapes the other’s heart-shaped lips as he enters his office. He isn’t entirely sure whether the sigh is of relief or exasperation but hey, at least he has the decency to look apologetic, going so far as to put on an expression closely resembling contriteness when the younger doesn’t seem convinced. “I’m sorry, long night yesterday.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t even bother to hide his utter derision as he scoffs and throws the file down unto his table. “Which one was it last night?”

He could feel his lips curling into a smirk at the mention of last night and he his lips, somehow still being able to taste the acrylic bitterness of her thick lipstick when their lips crashed together in many desperate kisses. “Mrs Wu.”

“M-Mrs Wu?” Kyungsoo chokes, eyes widen to a proportion that he doesn’t think it’s humanly possible. “Her husband just died two days ago!”

“Yeah? Which is why she needs someone to console and hold her in her time of grief.” He casually shrugs his shoulders, not really caring about whatever his excuses for his promiscuity he throws out at this point. (But even his words are starting to sound ridiculous to him.)

“Hyung, you need to stop hooking up with the widows!” 

The younger sounds genuinely upset but he decides to ignore the nagging dull ache in his heart and turns to his friend (quite possibly his only friend, other than Baekhyun). 

 “Kyungsoo, I am offended. I don’t neglect the widowers too! Besides, I don’t see the problem with me giving them the momentary comfort they need and them fulfilling my basic need. It’s a fair exchange and no one gets hurt by such an arrangement.” 

(He knows that the other means well, knows that Kyungsoo doesn’t approve of his dalliances because they are nothing but a way of filling the emptiness in his life, temporal distractions from the regrets seeping into his veins when he isn’t guarding his thoughts. 

This is why he doesn’t like sleeping alone at night.)    

“Whatever rocks your boat, or should I say, your bed.” Apparently amused by the clever pun he just made, Kyungsoo sniggers to himself before straightening his face. “Anyway, we are 30 minutes late for our appointment this morning so we better hurry. They are already here, waiting in the blue room.”

“Excellent, let’s meet our new client.”

Sitting in one of the colorful plastic chairs, Minseok anxiously taps his foot on the thick carpet that is, thankfully, softening any sound he is making because he doesn’t want Joonmyun to notice how uneasy he is feeling right now. But of course nothing escapes the sharp eyes of the younger and he lets the other gently wrap a hand around his tiny one, squeezing it back to let Joonmyun know that he is fine. 

Being in the room makes him uneasy and nauseous because everything feels so wrong to him. Though he knows that it is an effort in the part of the funeral home to lessen the somber atmosphere hanging in the place, he finds the pastel-blue walls and decorations too bright and cheerful to be a part of a funeral home. 

It was wrong to be here. There is an air of finality in this place that makes Minseok’s heart throb. Being in here makes him feel that this is where he crosses the line, where he finally accepts the fact that Luhan isn’t going to return to him and he has to put the parts of himself that Luhan grew and nurtured into a bottle, leaving it in a top shelf and never opening it up again. 

(What he fears the most is that one day, he will stop pining, stop loving and stop remembering.) 

However, it was the heavy climate of depersonalization in here that encloses around and suffocates him. Death has a way of stripping an individual, filled with contradictions, nuances and little gestures, to just memories framed by a bunch of photos on the walls and things in a box marked with “Dead and gone”. No matter how grand and elaborate they make Luhan’s funeral to be, they will never be able to fit in all the intricate details of his life, all the small moments he shared with everybody who loved him. 

Funerals only consist of lists – list of anecdotes and embarrassing stories to tell, list of people who will weep and mourn for the loss – but they will never be able to encapsulate the vivaciousness of a person who existed, loved and hurt. The photo hung beside the coffin will never be able to capture the twinkling in his eyes or the playful grin always hanging on his lips.

Soon, all that remains of Luhan will be nothing more than a name on the list of people Minseok ever loved and this is something that he cannot allow to happen.

Before Joonmyun could even have time to react, Minseok throws off the grip the younger had on his hand and is halfway through the room when the door swings open and two young men let themselves into the room. The taller of the two stops in front of Minseok, glancing at the tears welling in his eyes and he looks away in embarrassment. The stranger holds out a hand and when he looks up, a kind smile is on the stranger’s face.

“Hi, I’m Kim Jongdae. I’ll be the one who will be planning and arranging your loved one’s funeral, according to your wishes of course.”

“We will just like to hold a simple memorial service for him before he is cremated. After that, his ashes will be scattered into the sky from an airplane, as according to his wishes. That will actually be arranged by my company so you just have to assist in the planning of the service.” Joonmyun explains. For a moment, a bemused expression settles unto his face, as if baffled by the way fate has turned out for all of them. Just a week ago, Luhan was teasingly asking him when he was going to marry Jongin and now, here he is, planning the other’s funeral. 

Minseok sits quietly to the side, his head down and his eyes boring holes into the carpet. Not a word or even a sigh has escaped his lips ever since he tried to leave the room in tears and even though he has calmed down considerably, Joonmyun and the two funeral directors took turns to cast worried glances at him. 

“Oh I think there might be quite a number of people that will be coming since most of the workers in the company will like to pay their last respects.” Joonmyun adds as an afterthought.

The funeral director with the glasses – Kim Jongdae, Joonmyun recalls - nods in understanding, making sure to take down all the information in his mole-skinned notebook. 

“We understand. After all, he was the first Chinese commercial pilot to ever become a captain in South Korea and there must be a lot of people who admired and respected him.” Do Kyungsoo, the other funeral director with comically huge eyes, chimes in with a smile but quickly quietens down when he notices the sudden dark expression on Minseok’s face.

“Where will you like to hold the memorial service? We have various rooms and halls that you can use here but if you already have a place in mind that is outside, we might need a day to get permission and prepare the logistics.” 

A few options run through Joonmyun’s mind: the airport will probably be a good place or maybe the church that Luhan once said he will like to hold his and Minseok’s future wedding. The last thought appeared so fast in his mind before he could even stop himself that he quietly gasps and bites his lower lip. It still hurts to think about all the possibilities and future happiness they all could have had, especially Minseok, if only the car accident didn’t take Luhan away from them.

“In the garden.” Minseok’s sudden soft voice catches the other three’s attention and they keep their eyes on him as he continues on. “There is a little glass house in the garden, right? Can we hold it there?”

After flipping through the schedule of wakes and memorial services, Jongdae looks up with an apologetic expression. “The glass house is extremely popular so the earliest date we can set for Mr. Luhan is next Thursday if you want to use the place.”

Joonmyun shakes his head because he knows that everybody needs one more opportunity to say goodbye before they can finally move on and a week of waiting for this sort of closure is simply too long and painful for all of them. 

But Minseok remains resolute in his decision. “Joonmyun, Luhan loved the sky. Even when he wasn’t flying, he will always be looking up at the sky, awed by its mysteries and vastness. If we’re going to keep him indoors for his own memorial service, I think he will be extremely upset and restless. We wouldn’t want him crawling out of his coffin in displeasure, would we?” 

The atmosphere in the room shifts uncomfortably at the unexpected joke from the smaller male. Minseok laughs hollowly, the curl in his lips not really reaching his eyes. Kyungsoo coughs nervously and Jongdae raises his eyebrow, gazing at Joonmyun who is shifting uneasily in his seat. 

 “I can’t think of a better place to say goodbye to him.”

Joonmyun can’t find it in his heart to say no anymore.

(“Joonmyun, how long have we known each other?”

“About four or five years? Can you believe that I used to dislike you when we were in the pilot training program?” 

“Ah yes, I remember those times. But now look where we are now!”

“… hyung? I’m pretty sure you didn’t bring me up here to feed pigeons and talk about the good old days.”

“I… just… I think I have found the one thing I love more than the sky and flying. 

“Finally, hyung!”

“Yes. His name is Kim Minseok.”)

Seven days. Minseok has seven days before he finally has to say goodbye to Luhan and close the door on the four years that they have spent together. 

How do you get someone out of your heart when you have pushed him down deep in your heart for far too long that you can no longer distinguish his limbs from your veins? How do you get used to being alone again when you have spent every waking moment of the last few years with someone, whether in thought or in person, who has never given you any need to worry about loneliness?

He doesn’t know and he pulls the comforter tight around his tiny frame, feeling the cold and emptiness of the double bed without another person to hold and keep him warm.

Perhaps the first step of moving on is exchanging the double bed for a single one.

The second step is to pack everything that belonged to Luhan in boxes that he swears never to open up again. 

(He did consider putting himself in a box marked with “Luhan’s. Forever”.)

It was easier thought than done because hours later, Minseok is still stuck on the floor of his study, looking through polaroids of them and silly love notes written on paper napkins. Tears stream down his cheeks but he is laughing at the memories of stupid and impractical things they have done. 

Like the time they were on a holiday in France and their rented car had run out of gas so they decided to take refuge in (break into, actually) a beautiful castle along the way, drinking wine (that they had conveniently taken from the castle’s cellar) and proceeding to make love to each other on red satin sheets. It was quite heavenly, he had to admit.

Or the time when Luhan was star-struck with some new ballad singer, whose name he can’t even recall now, and had practically pulled him to wait for said singer outside the company in the bitter cold of the winter.  

(“I’m not a stalker! I just want to see him and pass him a gift!”

“I’m beginning to think that you love him more than you love me.”

“How could you! I’m hurt.”)

His lips curl into a loving smile, recalling how they bundled together in the cold, drinking hot soup and eating piping-hot dukbokki to keep themselves warm. The alcohol they’ve taken during the long wait loosened their tongues and they ended up sharing about everything, from embarrassing stories to their deepest fears and worries about each other. Even though they left without meeting the singer and Luhan had to pass the gift (Minseok recalls that it was an expensive thick moleskin notebook) to the manager, he still feels that it was one of the sweetest dates he has ever been on. 

The memory brought to him a sudden whim to listen to the unknown singer again and he pads into the living room where the home entertainment system is. One last time before he has to pack the CD into the box too, he tells himself as he switches on the player before settling into the armchair, watching the CD spins and the piano keys of the first song drifts into the living room.

 “Without sky shaking and earth moving
Without the praises and clapping
The path ahead is far and without air
But I still hope that we will be together in the end.”

For some odd reason, his thoughts keep directing to the funeral director he met yesterday with Joonmyun. The one with the glasses, sharp jawline and a confident grin hanging on his cat-like lips, Kim Jongdae was his name.

“Until the sky becomes ice and the earth ends
There will be roses blooming everywhere
Not hoping for perfection
Maybe looking back there will be surprises”  

There was something about Kim Jongdae that strikes him as familiar. It was the way he looked down and the way his prominent cheekbones accentuated his handsome face. 

Minseok is pretty sure he has seen the young funeral director somewhere.

His eyes widen as the realization came to him. Scrambling to get out of the armchair and rushing to the stack of CD cases, his hand tremble slightly when he finally finds the picture of the ballad singer on the CD cover. 

“If we are separated by heaven and earth
I will change to another way of loving you
Stopping the time or the atmosphere
We will be together every time I close my eyes”

The CD case clutters to the floor. 

It is him.

“Having the best dream
Expecting the most painful ending
Have never forgotten the way we started
And of kissing you in my memories”

I know the last part of the chapter is confusing but the next chapter will explain everything lol.

This is the song that I took the lyrics from: 换个方式爱你 by Raymond Lam (just imagine that it's in Korean and not in Cantonese lmao)