Luhan - Tian Mi Mi

Luhan was the air. The sun. The leaves rustling in the breeze. The morning dew on budding flowers. His smile could light up an entire room filled with the gloomiest people, and his laughter could make even the angels sigh. He had features soft like daisy petals and eyes that shone like jewels. His collarbones were always so dainty and fragile, but his heart was unquestionably sturdier than a rock.

Luhan was everything that I was not. I was the darkness. The night. The cold. The forgotten. And always, always alone. I had thorns growing around my ribcage; vines weaving in and out between the bones. Whenever I breathed, it pricked my insides, causing droplets of blood to form. My skin was of an unnatural pallor, eyes as dark as coal, and lips chapped and bleeding. I was nothing special. Possibly a weed in the middle of a garden or a book with its binding ripped off. In short, I was unwanted. Unneeded. A nuisance.

I did not know the reason why I had ended up this way. Maybe I committed some inexcusable crime in my past life, and the only way to carry out my sentence was to the live the rest of eternity cowering in the shadows and being blinded by Luhan's light. Maybe I did something to him in the past, or another timeline, or parallel universe, or whatever the heck you wanted to call it, and this had become my ultimate punishment: where he is so kind and gentle to me in every which way and every which when, and all I could do was push him away because I didn't deserve any of his affection.

Luhan was the good. I was the bad. Yin and yang. Night and day. And however strange this may sound to some, the last thing I wanted was to taint him.

~~~~~

The two of us were now in a classroom scene. The east wall was lined with windows and the north had a blackboard stretching from end to end. The multitude of desks inside the room were of uniform order. The boys wore their button-downs and ties, and the girls wore their skirts and socks. I sat at the back of the class with Luhan sitting a desk in front of me. If I inhaled sharply enough, I would be able to catch a whiff of his shampoo or the scent of detergent that lingered on his clothing.

Once in a while, when the windows were open during a hot humid day, the wind would find its way into the classroom and tousle his hair. This was the view that I wanted—a never-changing, forever remaining Luhan. This way he would be blind to all the harm I would cause others, and remain unaffected by the sins I would commit. Luhan was pure, and I was not. I was a mere human, a mortal, a sinner, pining after an angelic being.

However, whenever the teacher turned his back to the class whilst writing on the board, Luhan would pivot in his chair to smile at me, doodle on my notes, or play with my fingers and writing utensils. Again, something I did not want, because in this frame of time he was the star of the school. People idolized his athletic ability, his brains, his looks, and for some reason the girls fawned over his awkward turtle behavior. What they could not comprehend, however, was the reason why someone like him would want to linger around someone like me, and I was just as confused as them. Why would he want to stay? I wasn't particularly gorgeous, or funny, or witty. Nor was I a talented musician capable of serenading him into a trance. I was absolutely average from the neck up to the chest down.

Possibly the only thing keeping him here was the fact that we were presumably childhood friends, and our mothers just the same, however, things were different now. My mother had passed years ago so there was absolutely nothing left to tie him down to me. He was a dove trapped in a cage and the door was wide open for him to leave at any time. Luhan was just unwilling to fly out.

During lunch he would hold my books while we were in line for food. I could feel their stares without even looking. It caused a chill to run down my spine and the knots in my stomach to fester and writhe. Directing my attention away from them, I turned back to Luhan: the center of my universe. He spoke amiably about soccer, his friends, and his parents at home. He wanted to take me to a new boba place he had heard of once practice was over, and I agreed to go, albeit reluctantly.

The two of us arrived at a small metallic table and placed our trays down just as a trio of girls approached with their tight smiles and wired lashes.

"Hey Luhan, do you want to hang out with us after school? We were thinking of going to that new milk tea place just around the corner."

The apples of his cheeks were put on full display at the n