(( Wait, didn't we update a week ago?

Yes we did~

Guess what that means :D

That's right~ our hiatus is officially over~

Something got into me yesterday and I cranked out 9k, completeing 3 chapters and starting on a 4th, which means that we have chapters in reserve for the first time in who knows how long.

So~ we are going back to updating each Friday n.n *throws confettie*

Thank you to everyone who has stood by us and given so much patience to us, no matter how long we had between updates. We are so greatful to you all and we want you all to know that this story wouldn't be here without you, no matter if you're a new fan or if you've been here with us since the launch over 2 years ago. Angel and I both find it hard to think about how many of you there are reading this, or how many views this story has gotten because it can become so overwelming and our hearts can't take it xD But we are aware of you all, and we love and appreciate each and every one of you.

The last 6 months have been hard on the two of us, and probably for many of you as well. But you supported us in the breaks we had to take, and because of that we're able to be here again, confidentally saying:

We're back. ))

“Now boarding flight 287, non-stop to Beijing.”

Minseok read the description on his plane ticket as a voice called over the intercom and he took a deep breath as he stood with the other passengers, lining up at the boarding dock. His stomach was in knots, getting tighter and tighter with each step and he was thankful when he finally found his seat. At the same time, he knew that it meant that there wasn’t much of a chance to back out of the flight as he watched the flight attendant close and lock the boarding door. Buckling in, his eyes slid closed and he leaned his head back against the headrest of his seat, trying to not listen to the part of him that was telling him that this was all a mistake. That he was just wasting his time and his money- LuHan had hung up on him several times after all, even when he had switched to calling of the office phone and once using ZiTao’s.

But what if he turns me away? What if I can’t make him see that he’s being stupid and that everything will be fixed if he just comes back? Minseok shook his head, trying to chase the thoughts away, one of his hands coming up to rub at his eyes.

It was going to be a long flight.

Once the plane had landed, Minseok remained where he was seated, watching the other passengers collecting their bags and shuffling slowly off of the plane without really seeing much. In fact when he was addressed he jumped a little, looking up at the flight attendant before around him- he was the only one left on the plane other than the crew. He quickly got his bag, bowing his head as he offered several apologies, making his way off of the plane, situating his backpack over his shoulder.

Following the exit signs he soon found himself outside of the airport, locating an empty taxi, slipping inside before offering a piece of paper with LuHan’s address written on it to the driver. Once the taxi started moving he rested back against the seat, closing his eyes as he sighed. What am I even supposed to say? What do I do if he’s not home? I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell his parents, if I left my name and number with them I know he wouldn’t call me back even knowing that I went through all of this trouble to see him, he thought, one hand coming up to rub at his face.

“Gěi nǐ,” the driver said as the car came to a stop, and Minseok looked out the window; the house was both bigger than he expected and not at the same time, and he gave a small nod before offering several bills to the driver, slipping out of the cab after. The cab took off as soon as the door shut behind Minseok, taking with it Minseok’s last chance at backing out. Stop being a coward, he mentally hissed at himself, straightening his back taking slow steps up to the front door. He stared at it until there was an ache in his feet from remaining still, hesitantly knocking on the door, holding his breath as he heard a voice from the other side.

“Nǐ néng dédào mén ma?”

“Hǎo de.” Minseok felt his stomach tighten at the familiar voice, forcing himself to breathe when he heard a soft click from the lock shifting out of place, the door handle turning; Minseok dug his toes into the material inside of his shoes as the door opened, the black hair making the figure in front of him seem like a stranger. If he hadn’t paled at the sight of Minseok, the older might have thought that he had the wrong address.

“We need to talk,” Minseok said, hoping he sounded louder than he thought he did. The way LuHan’s mouth opened made him believe so, and he watched the other flinch as they head someone call out to him.

“Shì shéi ya?”

“Wǒ de péngyǒu cóng gōngzuò,” LuHan called back, starting to close the door, Minseok slamming his hand against it to keep it open.

“If you still consider me your friend, like you just called me, you won’t shut this door.” LuHan looked to the older, sighing softly; slipping through the doorway he closed the door behind himself, leaning back against it. He kept his eyes on their feet, scuffing one of his shoes against the wooden porch.

“Why are you here, Minseok?”

“To convince you to come back to Seoul with me.”

“I-I can’t do that.”

“What do you mean you can’t? It’s not like your parents are keeping you locked in their basement and holding you captive. You’re an adult, LuHan, you’re free to make your own choices. I don’t know what they said to take that away from you, but I’m here to remind you of that fact, to remind you that you have a life in Korea. You have people who miss you and would be begging you to come home if you hadn’t lost your mind and destroyed any way for them to be able to contact you.”

“You don’t understand, Minseok,” LuHan sighed, running a hand through his hair before looking at the older.

“What do you mean I don’t understand? I know that ZiTao and I were fighting for part of Yifan being gone, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know about what happened there. Yifan thought he was making the right decision because he didn’t bother to talk it over with anyone, he just made a choice and he left and it tore ZiTao and Yixing apart because they weren’t given any kind of an answer,” Minseok countered, watching LuHan pace.

“This isn’t the same as that. I’m not here taking over some business or because my mother’s sick,” LuHan said, coming to a stop as he ran a hand through thick black hair. “I just… couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Thinking that I could be some homoual music major?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “I was fooling myself and everyone around me in Korea, that’s why I left. You all can get on with your life now that I’m not there being something that I’m not.”

“You’re trying to say that everything, everything with Sehun, was a lie?” LuHan didn’t look at him, simply offering a nod, and Minseok’s fingers curled into a fist.

“Who the are you and what have you done with my soulmate?” He snapped, LuHan staring at him with wide eyes. “Because what you just said is absolute bull! The only way that you could have acted, all the things that you braved through, the shell you came out of… How close you two got… The way you looked at Sehun…” Minseok’s voice softened as his fist did, slowly looking down. “The person I knew… My best friend, the person who’s been there for me through everything, who all but broke down my door when I was hurting so badly that I didn’t know how to even try to vocalize…” He looked up at the younger through copper bangs, LuHan’s stomach tightening at the tears that laced his eyes. “Don’t you dare tell me that person was a lie,” he finished, the crack in his voice breaking LuHan’s heart and the black haired male swallowed hard, hesitating to look away again.

“N-no… I…” LuHan sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “I just… don’t know what to do. I can’t have my life there if I want to stay with my parents. When I told them about Sehun, which was terrifying, by the way… But when I did, my mother acted as if it was just some kind of phase… Like it wasn’t real. She was constantly calling me up saying things like ‘this girl would be perfect’ or ‘oh if you and that girl got together just think of how strong of a company our families would make’ and I guess it just… Wore me down after a while. And then Sehun, he…” he trailed off, leaning against the front door and sliding down to sit. 

“Sehun did what?” Minseok pressed, kneeling down in front of LuHan. The younger bit at his lip, pulling at stray strings on his jeans for nearly a full minute before he could reply.

“He bought a ring, Minseok.” The copper haired male’s eyebrows knitted together at the statement, LuHan eventually looking back up at him. “An engagement ring.”

“He proposed to you?!” Minseok exclaimed, LuHan flinching and scrambling forward, clamping his hands over the other’s mouth.

“Will you be quiet?” he hissed, looking over his shoulder at the window imbedded in the door. The curtain was drawn over it, but it was thin enough to show if someone was making their way over to the door. When it didn’t appear as if his mother had heard - or at least understood enough - to perk her curiosity and pay the two a visit, LuHan relaxed, lowering his hands from Minseok’s mouth with a sigh of relief. “He didn’t propose, no.”

“But he was going to.” LuHan nodded, staring down at his hands in his lap. “I had a fight with my mother… She called about some other ‘promising fiancée’ and it put me in an awful mood. Sehun suggested staying in and getting take out, watching movies, a stay-at-home kind of date that we hadn’t done in a while. I went to go get some more blankets from our closet and I found the ring box and I-… I got scared. And I did what I do when I get scared; I ran.” He slipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out what Minseok assumed to be the ring Sehun had bought. “While he was at class I shoved as much as I could into a suitcase, paid the apartment’s rent six months in advance, booked a one way flight to China and changed my phone number as soon as I landed.” He sighed, leaning his head back against the door with a small thunk. “After how much I’m sure this ate at him… I doubt he’d ever take me back even if I did go with you.”

“But that’s the thing! I can tell that this has been eating you up too. Why can’t you just- stop all of this? Stop being so blind that you’re unable to see that you need him and he needs you!” LuHan turned his head a little, attention shifting back to Minseok.

“I can’t face him after what I did. I don’t know how I would apologize… Because he and I can never go back to what we were. This,” he gestured backwards towards his house. “Is where I belong. This is my life now… You and I-”

“Don’t. You can’t just break up with me, that’s not how soulmates work.” LuHan frowned, and then turned to play with the strings on his pants once more. “Please… don’t cut me out of your life again after I fought so hard to find you again.”

“Can you keep a secret?” Minseok blinked, head tilting a little to the side as LuHan kept his gaze away. “If you can keep it a secret, I won’t change my information again… We can call and text… But you can’t tell anyone. Not even ZiTao.” Minseok’s silence caused LuHan to look up at him. “Do you promise?”

~

“Minseok-Hyung, your phone’s going off~” ZiTao called, playing with his own mobile as he was laying on the couch. “Want me to answer it for you?” he asked, looking over to the doorway into the kitchen.

“Who’s calling?” The older called back, the blond reaching for the device on the table, blinking at the ID. 

“It says ‘Mr. Han’,” he said, hearing a clatter from the kitchen and Minseok was beside the couch, taking his mobile out of the younger’s hand before ZiTao had realized he had come out of the kitchen. “Who’s Mr. Han?” he asked, Minseok answering the call, holding the device to his ear.

“One of my new clients,” he said to ZiTao, offering a ‘hello’ into the speaker of his mobile.

“I thought you were at your max,” ZiTao pointed out, sitting up.

“Hakyeon-Hyung asked if I would be willing to do a special project for him as a favor since he has too much going on right now,” he replied, sounding more like he was brushing the blond off rather than explaining, causing a frown to paint itself over ZiTao’s lips as he watched Minseok wander into their bedroom, closing the door behind himself. ZiTao huffed a sigh, before his heart gave a small throb as he thought.

Minseok had been… Doing things like this for a few weeks. Getting calls that he would seclude himself for, and ZiTao was trying to convince himself that it was for the confidentiality of his clients… which made sense, but it wasn’t as if ZiTao would have understood what was going on if he only heard Minseok’s side of the conversations, right? ZiTao curled a little in on himself, swallowing hard as a voice in the back of his mind came up with something awful. Was Minseok cheating on him? No! Minseok would never do something like that, he loved ZiTao too much… And after the whole thing with Chanyeol, surely Minseok wouldn’t have wished the pain that he had caused to happen again, just with the two of them trading places, right? He knew how much ZiTao beat himself up about the whole thing, even now nearly a year later he still had times where he found himself wanting to apologize to Minseok for the whole thing. That’s why he had decided he wanted to be the one to propose to Minseok back when he had been talking with Sehun about how Sehun had bought an engagement ring for LuHan…

ZiTao sighed, leaning against the back of the couch as he looked up at the ceiling. LuHan… what was he thinking? They were all still stuck in the dark over the whole think with the pink haired male. He knew Minseok was hurting over it, especially after being able to have his new number and know his address… He had come home from China empty handed, and refused to talk about what had happened, which lead ZiTao to assume that it had been nothing good. They probably fought, though it was also likely that LuHan had straight up refused to see Minseok let alone listen to him. Minseok was probably strong enough to force him, but unless he was some kind of police officer there was no way that the airport would have allowed him to drag LuHan onto a plane, kicking and screaming.

The bedroom door opened and Minseok came back out, slipping his mobile into his pocket as he wandered back into the kitchen, ZiTao standing and following after him. He watched the older’s back as he went back to cutting up vegetables for dinner, slowly making his way over to stand behind him, wrapping his arms around the copper haired male’s waist, resting his chin on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he asked, Minseok glancing at him from the corner of his eye before he turned his attention back to his task.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just… You’ve seemed different… ever since you came back from China. You still won’t tell me what happened with Lu-”

“There’s nothing to talk about. He refused to come back, that’s all there is to say about it.”

“But-”

“Can you fill one of the pots with water?” Minseok cut in, his tone showing he was done with the direction of the conversation, and ZiTao sighed before he did as he was asked.