iv. " Crush." 

Everything starts with that one glance, that one fleeting touch, that one moment in time when the realization sinks in, a crush.

Crushes have all different types of paths, as does its stages. Most lead to relationships, some end in heartbreak, some are over even before it begins.

But there is always darkness where there’s light.

There are twisted pathways. Ones that end in bloodstains and trauma, some so dark that they need to be forgotten. There are much darker paths.

Yixing decided to go path less taken.

For him, his crush started with plain admiration.

Stage One: Adoration of an Angel

Yixing happened to arrive at school early that day, a rare event for a person like him, who was the personification of tardiness and an absent-mind.

Minseok, his friend, was the only person in his life to regulate him, and was one of the only reasons he managed to make it to school on time everyday.

They strolled about the school, Minseok complaining about his classes and Yixing only half listening, lost in his own cloud of thoughts, when his eyes lazily swept over the sea of students in the hallways. He could never keep his gaze on any one person for too long, the faces began to blur together in his mind.

And that’s when he saw him.

A boy glided past him, seemingly unaware of his surroundings and brushing hurriedly by students without a backwards glance or apology.

Yixing could feel his cheeks heat up; his heart was pounding hard in his chest. Bashfulness and embarrassment immediately washed over him as he shyly kept his gaze on him. He wondered why it was suddenly so hard to breathe.

Yixing couldn’t tear his eyes away. The longer he looked, the more the boy seemed inhuman, he was ethereally beautiful. Yixing noted everything about him, etching all of him into his mind. The perfectly sculpted details of his face, the tousled strands of his dark locks that framed his milky white skin, everything.

Minseok looked over at Yixing’s dazed expression, and with a laugh, nudged him on his shoulder. “What’s with that look, Yixing? It’s like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“Perfect,” Yixing mumbled underneath his breath, “He’s perfect.”

Stage Two: Thinking of Him

Yixing’s focus was non-existent for the remainder of the week, his mind always wandered back to the flawlessly boy. He couldn’t think of anything else if he tried. Every time he stepped into the hallway, he found himself looking for him, desperately to see him, even if it was only for a moment.

Being the observant person he was, Minseok immediately noticed.

“Hey, Xing. You’ve been spacing out more than normal,” Minseok pointed out, “Is it that kid you’re always staring at in the hall? Do you have a crush on him or something?”

Yixing sputtered, a light blush dusting his cheeks. “I-It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?” Minseok asked playfully, a smirk growing on his lips.

“I’ve never seen him before, that’s all.” Yixing lied. He knew what he felt was more than a little curiosity.

He had never seen someone as beautiful as he was. To him, he could only be described as one thing, perfect, the apotheosis of perfection.

Yixing could see him from where they sat. He was with his own conversation in a small group of friends, the faint sounds of his laughter drifting over to his table. Yixing smiled hearing his voice; it was soft and sounded warm, almost inviting. He imagined how nice it would be to fall asleep to the sound of it.

Minseok sighed as Yixing’s short attention fell back onto the boy who was sitting a couple of tables over from them, and allowed him to slip back into his own fantasy land.

‘It’ll pass,’ Minseok reassured himself, turning to his other friends to start up another conversation. ‘It’ll pass soon and he’ll be back to normal.’

Minseok wasn’t quite sure himself.

Stage Three: Dreaming of You

By the week after, it had escalated so far Yixing had lost all control of himself.

Every time he got, he would shamelessly stare in the boy’s direction as he thought about him, often having to be coaxed back into reality by his annoyed friends. He couldn’t help himself anymore; no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stop himself.

Watching him was Yixing’s new task. He would do it for what seemed to be hours on end. He took in every little detail, like the way he brushed the bangs out of his eyes with his left hand, or the way he always fidgeted when he was alone.

The only thing that filled Yixing’s mind was him.

Through his daydreams, he could hear snippets of his friend’s concerned whispers, mostly Minseok’s.

“It’s fine. I think it’s his first crush of something. He’ll get over himself.” Minseok murmured to a friend of his, Taekwoon, who had been exchanging worried glances with the others who had noticed.

Yixing almost laughed. Fine was a funny way of putting it, because Yixing felt that no matter how long he stared at him, he would never get tired of it. It could stare for hours on end, and he would still feel the same.

‘Perfect. Perfect. He’s so perfect. I think I love him.’

“And so, all you have to do for this question is …”

Yixing fiddled loosely with his pencil trying his best to concentrate, but with no avail. Junmyeon, his best friend, was extremely smart, and normally, his tutoring would help a lot, but now, he couldn’t focus.

Yixing wrote down what he said mindlessly, not listening or taking in the information. He was concentrating on other things, his crush.

They were in the library, and he was there, right across from them, with one of his friends.

Yixing had just started his third worksheet, and he still hadn’t listened to a word that had been said by Junmyeon, all because of him.

“Yixing?” 

Yixing wondered what he looked up like up close. He leaned in with his eyes locked, trying to scan his features closely from where he sat. He was probably just as beautiful up close; maybe even more beautiful if it were even possible.

“Yixing.”

The boy twirled his pen in his hand, and Yixing let out a soft, forlorn sigh. His hands looked so gentle when they touched things. Did he have a soft touch? He wondered how his touch felt. Would it be just as delicate against his skin? Shivers ran up Yixing’s spine at the thought of it.

“Zhang Yixing!”

Yixing jerked his head up to see Junmyeon looking over at him with a frown.

“Yixing, I’ve been trying to tell you something for almost fifteen minutes. What’s wrong?” Junmyeon asked wearily.

Yixing felt bad as he saw Junmyeon’s distressed face, he always worried too often.

“I-I’m sorry Junmyeon. I was just thinking about something,” Yixing mumbled ashamed. “I’ve been taking notes though.”

Junmyeon raised an eyebrow in suspicion as Yixing passed over the sheets of notes. He quickly scanned through it once. Then twice. His face twisted more and more with concern after each time.

“Yixing, are you feeling sick? I-I think we should maybe cut these tutor session short.” Junmyeon said uneasily.

Yixing was already beginning to fade back into his world of daydreams, not paying attention to anything but his crush. “Hmm? Why do you say that?”

Junmyeon lifted up the sheets of paper he had been writing on. Every line was filed with one word, perfect. It had been written over and over again so many times it filled every last inch of the sheet.

Yixing blinked in astonishment.  “I-I … I must not have been paying attention to it.”

Junmyeon was quick to shake his head.

“You wrote this on every sheet of paper.”

Stage Four: Learning of Him

A week later, and Yixing still had him infesting his mind.

Watching him in the hallways feed his cravings. Yixing needed more.

He pleaded for Minseok’s help, and after a couple of days of them both scouring information, he had the boy’s schedule, locker combination and all four of his classes memorized by heart.

Persistence was key; every day before class started he lingered by the boy’s locker, at lunch he was a table across from where he sat, and afterschool he made sure to catch of glimpse of him before he walked home.  

Now it was third period, English class for Yixing, a class he wasn’t particularly fond of. But, third period was his favorite, because the boy had gym.

Yixing excused himself from class with a drawn out lie about how terrible his headache was getting and how his stomach was killing him. The teacher quickly sent him to the nurse’s office.

Lying wasn’t something Yixing was fond of either, but he couldn’t miss an opportunity to see his crush playing gym, the detour to the gym wasn’t that long of a walk, and his was failing English anyways.

Sneaking down the hallways past the wandering teachers and monitors, he slipped outside onto the field where his gym class was playing soccer. 

Finding a good hiding spot among the bushes, Yixing immediately saw him. He swore his heart stopped.

The boy wove in and out between other students, his footwork precise and his face lit up whenever he scored goals, multiple goals with ease. He was an amazing player, not that Yixing could think anything less of him.

Yixing was uninterested with the game itself, what he was fascinated by were the way his sweaty uniform stuck to his chest, his cute tied back hairstyle that revealed more of his face, and the way his stances emphasized his lean figure.

Time passed quicker than he hoped, and the period was close to its end.

Yixing strolled back inside with a brighter than ever. Skipping class had definitely been worth it.

Making his way to the nurse’s office, he caught something in the corner of his eye. The boys’ change rooms. The boys’ change rooms where his things would be.

Yixing knew it was wrong, he could feel it in his stomach, but he did know that there was nothing wrong with a little curiosity, and he convinced himself that’s what it was, a little curiosity.

He cautiously cracked open the door and took a small peek inside. It was still completely empty. He let out a sigh of relief and headed inside.

Right beside the door, a navy blue satchel lay on the floor in a heap with a school uniform. Yixing’s heart fluttered away because he recognized who it belonged to. It was the boy’s uniform. 

He stooped down and gingerly picked it up, taking in all of the plain button shirt’s faultless creases. His hands slightly trembled. He was holding the boy’s shirt in his very own palms.

He pressed it up against his cheek and sighed contently as he began to sniff the lingering scent of the boy that had once worn it.

He inhaled; the smell was surprisingly sweet with a faint musky smelling odor. He exhaled with took a shaky breath; it was heavenly.

Stealing was wrong, Yixing knew that and would normally never even dream of doing it, but the shirt felt so right up against his palms, like it was meant to be his. Right and wrong didn’t matter anymore.

Yixing stuffed the shirt into the bottom of his backpack and was out of the change rooms before the sweaty gym boys could clobber inside. He began to make his way to the nurse’s office with a smile covering his face.

Later that night, before he went to bed, Yixing found the perfect place to lay his treasure. His decided it would be a substitute for his pillow case, just so he could fall asleep to his scent every night and dream of only him.

Stage Five: Stalking Admiring

After stealing his shirt, Yixing gladly let go of the last of his self-control and threw himself at total submission to his own desires.

Every morning, right before he left for work, his father used to tell him that dedicated was the key to achieving all of his dreams. The boy was his new dream now, so his love kept growing.

He printed off picture after picture of his crush, taking whatever photos he could find. Old yearbooks, profile pictures, his phone camera, the school’s information system; anything he could find was useful. It never mattered what he was wearing or how he looked, but it never mattered because they all looked beautiful.

He also found a new knack for collecting. Everything the boy touched was a cherished item in his eyes, so he took all he could find.

He found a worn bandage in the garbage from his knee injury after a soccer game (he had seen him throw it there himself.) He wondered why he would throw it out in the first place, there was some of his blood still on it; it was such a pretty reddish colour.

The days he was sick, he took the time to follow after him and clean up all of his used tissues, which he, of course, collected in his backpack for himself.

Yixing even found the gum he had stuck underneath his desk. It was pink strawberry flavored bubblegum, he had tasted it himself just to make sure.

In a week’s time, Yixing’s room was littered with his collected items, cluttered on his dresser, posted onto the wall, everywhere. His room was it’s own dedicated shrine to him.

But it wasn’t enough for him. It never was.

Seeing at school wasn’t enough either. After all, he could only spend a couple of hours a day gazing at his angel. That wouldn’t be sufficient.

Yixing couldn’t see how his once innocent behavior was morphing into something else, something predator-like; he was oblivious to the way his mind was working.

The boy held his attention like a magnet. There was something that kept tempting him forward. His twinkling eyes, framed with sweeping lashes. His gliding, airy movements; just an upturn of his lips could brighten Yixing’s day instantly.

As the bells sounded to signal the end of another school day, Yixing;s eyes carefully watched the boy who was walking down the hallway. From where he stood, he could see him strolling out of the school’s gates, alone.

And he followed after him, all the way to his house.

Just like his staring and collecting, it became second nature to him.

Every day after school, he would brush of his friend’s with an empty excuse. Every day, he would follow in the exact footsteps of the boy walking in front of him, whether he was walking with someone or not. Every day, he watched him as he opened the door to his house before turning around and heading home himself.

The first couple of times he did it, he tried to convince himself it was just his curiosity acting up. After an entire month, he stopped thinking altogether.

Yixing had only realized his crush, or what had begun as his crush, was spiraling out of control when he found himself curled up on the edge of the boy’s bed, staring wide eyed into the pillow he was clutching in an empty house; his empty house.

Yixing swallowed the growing lump in his throat as panic finally set in.

‘What am I doing here?’

His memory slowly came back to him.

He had been following the boy home that day, like any normal day, but something else had happened. The boy didn’t go inside like he normally did, he opened the door and headed in the other direction.

The door was unlocked, the house was empty; it was an opening.

His body worked before his logic had a chance too, a feeling he had grown numb too.

Yixing had let himself in, and found the boy’s room. The rest was a blur.

His panicked thoughts were disappearing as he relaxed in his sheets, thinking about how much better it was than a single shirt, not once thinking about getting caught or consequence.

Yixing wanted nothing more in the world than to lie in the warmth of the boy’s bed sheets, imagining lying down with the boy’s arms wrapped around him.

He would have been there for hours if the jingling of the keys at the door hadn’t interrupted his thoughts.

Someone wash home. Yixing froze.

“He left the door unlocked?” mumbled the quiet voice of another boy.

It wasn’t the familiar soft tone of his perfect boy. This boy’s voice was stranger; he sounded exhausted.

Did he have a boyfriend? Yixing’s stomach churned at the thought.

Yixing tensed as he heard the thumping sounds of feet climbing the steps, whipping his head around to try and find a place to hide. His eyes fell on a half-empty closet.

He carefully slid himself inside, only leaving a sliver of the door open, enough so he could see what was happening outside.

He patiently waited for the figure to pass by the room and go into another, but they didn’t.

The feet pattered inside.

Yixing saw a scrawny body plop himself face first down into the bed, closing the door behind him with his straying foot.

At a closer glance, Yixing recognized him. It was the boy that always waited for his crush by the ends of the locker, the quiet one that all the popular kids adored.

The boy plopped himself onto the sheets and curled up in them, the same way he had. Yixing slightly pouted.

It was silent for a couple moments with only the sounds of soft breathing from the quiet kid and Yixing trying his best to hold his breath before the bedroom door slammed open, startling the both of them.

It was him. He looked as perfect as Yixing had imagined him to be, even with his messy hair pinned back and arms hung loosely at his sides. Yixing felt his heart skip a beat, a feeling he had grown accustomed too.

“Where’d you go?” The boy lying on the bed asked as he stretched himself out, turning over to face the perfect boy still standing by the door.

The perfect boy wordlessly dropped his schoolbag onto the floor by the bottom of his bed before climbing into bed beside him.

Yixing felt the jealously boiling up inside him, but he quickly choked it back down.

“I had to take care of something,” the perfect boy told him as he shuffled closer, wrapping an arm around his waist. “You know how the people at school can get.”

Yixing’s face flushed as he heard his voice so closely for the first time; it was gentle, like a caress.

The other boy replied with a yawn, “I was scared when you didn’t come home right away. You know I don’t like to be alone.” 

“I’m sorry. I’ll be faster next time.” The perfect boy nuzzled his quick against the other’s, drawing an almost silent scowl out of Yixing. There was a long stream of quiet mumbling that Yixing couldn’t hear before the room fell silent again.

Yixing hesitantly slid his way out of the closet, clutching closely onto the pillow he had brought inside with him and slinging his school bag around his back. As soon as he had made it down the steps, he swung open the front door and sprinted, running all the way home until he was back in the safety of his own bedroom.

After calming his chaotic mind, he plopped half heartily onto his bed, letting out a dejected sigh, guilt washing over him.

“What if I had been caught? I shouldn’t have done that. I’m such a bad person. What a stupid idea.” Yixing chastised himself out loud, blinking back the nervous tears he had been trying hard to keep in.

But as quickly as the guilt came, it was soon done and dealt with. He looked back into his arms where he held tightly onto his pillow, his crush’s pillow.

He pressed it to his face, all of his previous thoughts of doubt escaping him as he breathed in the scent of his newly prized possession.

“What a great idea,” Yixing mumbled; burying his face into the pillow to inhale it’s soothing and comforting smell. “I’ll add this to my collection. It smells just like him.”

And with that, Yixing fell into a much needed slumber with an eerie smile plastered onto his face.

Stage [error]: You are MINE. 

---

a/n: 

Hoho~ I wonder who could be his crush? v(・∀・*)

Thanks to HappyPistachio!!

Who should be next? ~