the glow of his phone hits the jaunt of his cheekbones and lights the slow drag of his tongue along the gloss sticky curve of his bottom lip.  the taste it left along his palate was too sweet to be anything but artificial.

his heart feels like it is about to leap out of his chest, he can feel his sternum shivering rapidly beneath the lace bandeau covered by the heavy drape of his maroon soccer hoody.  the trimmers are slowly making their way through the rest of his taut body and when he finally manages to draw a full breath it sobs out in a wet scoff.

he doesn't know why the first step into the dark is always most terrifying.  luhan had tried to explain it to him once with long psychology terms and reassurance that he wasn't alone, but at the moment he is.  there is no one by his side as he steps between a cluster of half dressed pretty people that slide interested eyes down the miles and miles of lanky limbs that he has just now began to be able to gracefully control.  there is no one to hold onto his side as he piroettes to miss clashing into the short girl that appears in front of him out of nowhere.

he is regretting his decision to come out for drinks until he finally catches sight of luhan draped over his boyfriend in a booth at the back of the bar.  his anxiety levels down when his friend waves him over with an open smile.

at first, second, and third glance sehun doesn't stand out in the sea of denim and black and gritty skin stretching out in loose waves of shifting hues of personalities.  he layers himself in clothing like battle gear, hiding his raw core away from wandering hands that shiver over the press of his wide back.  someone grabs at the waistband of his khaki joggers and he pauses to wonder at what their reaction would be to the forest green silk cutting into rounded mounds of his hipbones beneath.  his anxiety flares until he is herded away by luhan who has come to speed his too slow pace away from the masses.

'stop with the deer in the headlights look.  that just makes them hungrier,' his best friend whispers into his ear while leading him toward the narrowed gaze of minseok.

luhan is everything sehun is not.

he was effortless top grades in their pricey private high school back in the day and soaked in lana del ray and allergic to gluten and impossible.  he ate 100% juice popsicles and bandaged sehun's bloody shins after multiple fouled soccer tackles and liked three blankets on his bed but refused to sleep in anything more than ratty boxer shorts.  he is like a mythical creature.

they met in eighth grade after sehun stood snot faced in the first floor boy's bathroom staring as luhan ritually picked his lunch of almond butter and coconut bread from his fluroscent banded braces.  luhan had taken one look at him through the mirror and scoffed with a tight shake of his shaggy head.  two weeks later they were leaned against the wall of a dark cafeteria as their classmates grinded obscenely to the top 40 countdown and swore to each other to never become one of the android sniffers popping boners left and right in front of him.

seven years later and luhan was climbing back into his boyfriend's lap and sehun is actually wearing as he slides across the cracked leather bench seat opposite them in the booth.  he is almost afraid to touch the table top and sighes when he does and it isn't nearly as disgustingly sticky as he thought it might be.

'long time no see,' minseok puffs away a stray loch of luhan's bubblegum hair to be able to send a warm smile sehun's way.

'midterms nearly killed me and all the extra practices we have been running almost finished me off,' luhan makes a vague string of sign language at the bartender whose attention he finally catches.  a few minutes later a tray of beer and fruity highballs are deposited onto their table and sehun sniffs a shot before the fireball burns straight through his esophagus to set his empty stomach ablaze.  luhan sends him a knowing look over the froth of his icy pina colada but takes a dirnk instead of bombarding him with questions as sehun suspected him to.

neither of them mention the late night call a month before that had sent luhan scrambling through the dark to find his best friend strung humiliated to the university flag pole with nothing but slurs written in permanent marker across his skin to keep him warm.  it is a silent elephant in the room that they have been pretending doesn't exist since the first time sehun was actually able to step out of his apartment into the night air.

'are you starting for the homecoming game,' minseok sips at his beer with an eyebrow raised in question and sehun can easily see how luhan had managed to fall head over in love with the quiet master's student that had given luhan the worse grade of his life on a final two years before.

'got my new #9 jersey yesterday,' sehun knocks back a second shot, fireball again, and finally feels like he can unclench under the imagined stares of everyone around them.

'what,' luhan screeches and the stares aren't a figment of his imagination anymore.  'you didn't tell me that!  what the , man?!'

sehun smiles lopsided with a shrug and rolls his eyes at the pout that blooms over luhan's pretty face.  'i just told you, moron.  i didn't have time to tell you when you called me out, you wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.'

'cause i knew you were going to try and punk out on us,' luhan throws his drink's umbrella across the table and sehun hisses at the cold blob of crushed ice that lands on his cheek along with it.

it takes a too long makeout session that leaves sehun sitting awkward in silence to shut luhan up after he gets riled.  just enough time for a tall stranger leaning agaisnt the bar to catch his attention.  the guy is too silver at the temples to know about sehun's public humiliation on campus and lets his eyes linger too long at his slender throat to be just curious.  the suggestive cocking up of his eyebrow sends a flaming arrow straight down to clenched pit of his stomach and he fights to break their gaze. 

if he got up, sehun knew the quick fumble in the bathrrom stall would be nothing extraordinary.  he had felt hands before spreading his ribcage and attempting to attach revved up jumper cables to his constricted bronchii before.  he knew that the air would taste like humid, spilled liquor and how the hair of the man's forearm would catch on his tongue when he would bite down to muffle his sounds.  he was never able to be quiet.

it would be all too familiar.  a pace of flexing muscles beneath a layer of too much flesh. the scratch of exposed brick catching at the shadow blooming already along his cheeks.  there would be a scent that clung to him no matter how many showers he took or how hard he scrubbed, and only he would be able to smell it.  almost a tangible thing that he never had learned how to shed.

for a second he wants that anonymous, elusive bite of pleasure so bad he starts to shake.

then luhan leans into his space, captures his gaze with a soft acceptance and silently makes him promise to himself that he deserves more than to be some old man's personified in a filthy bar toilet.

sehun makes that first step back into the light, and although it is a million times harder than just letting the darkness simply drown him, he clings on to the dim burn of the bare light bulbs illuminating the area around their booth.

his tongue sweeps over the fake sweetness lining his lips and he is spilling out plays to minseok and catching them up on the latest locker room gossip and he doesn't once glance back at the guy at the bar.

when he imagines the disappointment that must be lingering on that anonymous face, he smiles for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

-.-.-.-

' this ,' is the repeated mantra between bleary eyed yawns.

five a.m. is frigid in the middle of october, partly from the dew just beginning to mist beneath their cleats and mostly due to the fact they all just rolled out of warm beds to endure the absolute bull practice their coach requires even though his skinny is still nestled against his gorgeous wife in their bed five miles away.

'line up for two man drills,' their captain bellows with too much energy to even belong to an actual human.  sehun had been convinced he was a robot since freshman camp, the brickwall of a douche bag was only proving his point more by each passing day.

sehun instinctively seeks out his fellow striker, kim jongin, and huffs out a fogged breath in relief to see the other guy already approaching him at a lazy jog from half the pitch away.

'i swear on the midget soccer lord messi, that dip is not human,' jongin pants halfway through their second set of drills.  'seriously, ing hell.'

if sehun could breath he would have tried to form words in agreement but all he can manage is a tight chirp of what sounds like excruciating pain that everyone around them chuckles at.  he catches the leer one of the defenders sends at him but jongin sends the ball back his way before he can even flinch under the stare.  sehun boots it back and pretends that the unnecessary attention doesn't pull back memories of that exact gaze pinning him like a prized butterfly and keeping him more still than the rough ropes tethering him to the cold bite of a metal pole along his spine.

'alright!  ten laps then you lazy s can go,' the captain sprints away to his own set of laps and no one is stupid enough to even attempt and shave a lap off while he is distracted for fear of being caught.

but this, sehun can handle.

he lets his legs count the laps and zones out to the rhythmic thud of his heart beneath the smooth fit of his long sleeve training shirt.  he doesn't dare wear his underthings here.  no lace or silk or bows, just black cotton boxers under his sweats.  there is no room for lipgloss or that soft shade of grey eyeliner that luhan had helped him pick out amid thousands of products online.  yet this,the sweat and strain of muscles and closemindedness of the game, is as much a necessary part of him as the late night masquerades beneath yards of pluming skirts.  he can't give this up, but neither can he the weak knee rush of feeling feminine at times.

so he divides himself.  at first into soccer and softness.  then he has to split another part of himself and accomodate for the peer pressure of attending lectures in society acceptable form.  a quarter is added to make up for the responsibility placed upon him from his parents to better himself and achieve what they were never able.  he stretches himself thinner and thinner until he carries around a roll-a-dex of personalities that he slips in and out of with a fake smile and heavy breath. somedays he doesn't even know what his reflection will show in a mirror.

as he runs, he forgets about everything.  all he knows is his body's instinct to continue forcing oxygen into his lungs.  he pounds his feet harder and harder, to run away from all his demons behind him until jongin is calling him from the mouth of the tunnel leading down to the locker rooms and he is wiping at the blood beginning to drip from his nose.

he showers after jongin deems the coast clear and makes small talk to his friend with his eyes closed until he slips on the correct mask for the situation and laughes at jongin's joke about a goat and two lesbian sheep.

-.-.-.-

they win the homecoming game and jongin convinces sehun to let him join them to celebrate.  them meaning luhan, minseok, and a teaching assistant named kris.  they meet at sehun's apartment because it is the most secluded and he is the only one without any sort of roommate besides the gigantic stuffed panda that luhan insists knows kung fu and kris named tao.

he doesn't mind having them over.  luhan does most of the work, cleaning and buying the alcohol with his father's credit card and forcing minseok to cook because he is the only one incapable of burning toast among them.  kris sets up a makeshift dj booth in the corner by the balcony and has the decency to keep the volume just low enough to keep the neighbors from calling the cops.

they all know his secrets and respectfully keep them quiet. jongin included.

but jongin doesn't come alone.

he drags along his best friend taemin, a dancer that hits it off with luhan over a mutual love of being sassy , baby faced, pieces of that are constantly attempting to micromanage every one's ing lives.  and with taemin comes a transfer student named yixing with his black hair and dimpled cheek that perches quietly betwen kris and the overstuffed tao on the couch.

'i hope you don't mind,' jongin whispers on the balcony into sehun's ear as he adjusts his bra strap under the printed shirt declaring him 'heaven's gift to mankind'.  'tae is super cool and xing barely even talks to us, let alone anyone else.  they won't mind.'

sehun flinches.

'of course not. go get a drink and stop worrying about stupid , ' he flicks jongin between his eyebrows and stomps out his half smoked cigarette before he makes his way to the kitchen to make sure luhan isn't distracting minseok into forgetting the stuffed peppers in the oven until they burn.

he finds yixing expertly handling a flaming pan and luhan watching on wide eyed with his hands tucked in minseok's front pockets.  kris is standing nearby, twitching like he is ready to lunge for the fire exstinguisher at any second, and minseok claps with a look of glee plastered across his face.

'dude, that was like watching the cooking channel,' minseok shifts in luhan's embrace until he is comfortable and laughs at the way kris visibly relaxes when the flames finally die down.

it turns out yixing works part time at kris' favorite chinese restaraunt across town in the more urban hub of the quiet college town.  they find out between each delicious bite as they gather around sehun's coffee table like it is thanksgiving dinner.  taemin had taken yixing under his wing after he had transferred into their dance program and sehun almost spits his drink out when yixing tells a colorful story about finding taemin calling their very female instructor daddy as they ed 'like rabid bunnies' in an empty practice room yixing had been assigned for personal practice. jongin ends up choking on a bite of chicken because taemin's dance instructor just happens to be his older sister and jongin lunges for taemin's throat across the table.  it takes kris literally picking jongin up off his best friend to end the tussle.

that's how sehun ends up rubbing salve into finger shaped bruises along taemin's throat as the older guy sits on the edge of his bathtub.  they hear jongin knocking back an entire pint of beer as luhan's steady encouragement seeps through the closed door.

sehun glances away from the shorter boy's pretty pouting lips and shifts awkwardly to try and stop his bra strap from sliding down yet again without blatantly stopping it's decent.  when he glances back up, taemin is smilling at him and watches avidly for discomfort as he slowly reaches toward sehun.

he is prepared to be pushed away roughly or pulled into an angry embrace, he shifts his weight between his feet to balance for the other man's move.  that is how his knees almost give way when taemin's deft fingers easily adjust his bra through the baggy fabric of his shirt and lifts an eyebrow as he reaches through the loose collar to tighten the strap.

sehon looks down at him with puzzled eyes as the fabric shifts and suddenly his undergarmet fits so much better than before.

'i have had a dozen girlfriends who shamelessly taught me the ins and outs of proper bra wear.  i can see an uncomfortable one through a pea coat half a mile away,' he laughes with a wince before cradling his throat in his own palm.

this is new to sehun.   a practical stranger making small talk about his biggest secret like it is nothing out of the ordinary. he doesn't know whether to cry or run away.

'jongin didn't say anything, just to let you know.  he threatened our balls if we were rude but didn't tell us why.  i just sort of noticed,' taemin stands and approaches sehun like a wild animal.  he doesn't touch him again, just side steps around him to glance at himself in the mirror.  his eyes turn glazed over as he gently at the angry blood welling beneath his skin.  'we all have secrets, you know.'

-.-.-.-

he is eleven when he notices that how he feels inside is expected to be expressed externally in a socially acceptable mold.

he stands in front of his floor length mirror in the middle of the night and tries to understand why the slim curve of his waist can't be called pretty like a girl's.  his mouth is as soft, his eyelashes are twice as long, and no one tells him he is anything but handsome because boys aren't suppose to be pretty.

when he is fifteen he tries on a dress with his back turned to luhan in a small cubicle fitting room.  it is a prank, he is going to turn around as soon as luhan finishes pulling up the zipper and they will laugh.  he smoothes a hand over the princess fluffy skirt but before he can laugh he catches his reflection out of the corner of his eye and luhan gasps with a hand to his mouth and calls him beautiful.  he stands, tilting his hips to making the hem swish against his ankles and when luhan kisses him on the cheek his heart stops and forcibly kickstarts back up into a irregular rhythm.  he keeps the dress on until the intercom announces the store is closing for the evening.  when his mother asks why he is smiling so much the next day he flexes his fingers instinctively at the memory of tulle beneath his fingertips.

he is seventeen when he says the words for the first time.  luhan snuck him in through his back door and up to his room where they get drunk off cheap gin.  they end up wrapped around each other and luhan whispers they should play truth or dare and sehun is spilling out words he can't seem to stop.

'sometimes i feel like a girl and sometimes i feel like a boy and sometimes i feel like both or like neither at all.'

luhan pulls out his laptop and they wade through non-binary and gender terms for three hours before they stumble upon a fuzzy clip of someone coming out as genderfluid and sehun almost cries because he isn't the only one who feels like a kaleidoscope constantly revolving on the inside.

but not everyone is as accepting as luhan when their soccer captain shows up to senior prom in a sleek black dress and makeup on his face and that night is the first time he learns how scary a dark room can be.  he wears the bruises like proud badges for a week, everyone looking at him but never actually seeing him.  when his coach calls his parents into the situation he feels the hot shame of being a disappointment for the first time.  he listens to his father lecture and his mother sobbing until he lies and says everything was a joke and he won't let it happen again.

he feels hollow on the inside, only half of a person anymore.  it hurts, but he buries it.

he tells luhan it was a phase, a joke, something they can laugh about.  luhan punches him instead then kisses him until his busted lip has them covered in blood.  in the dim lamplight luhan tells him he is still pretty and they fall asleep when sehun finally stops crying.

luhan finds a line of boyfriends and takes sehun shopping for lingerie three towns over so no one will recognize them and he finds a calming balance with soft fabric cradling his body beneath the mask of clothes he constantly wears.  the hollowness inside settles into a pleasant buzz and he begins to learn how to guard his own secrets.

-.-.-.-

after taemin rejoins the party, sehun slips into his bedroom craving for something a bit harder than a cigarette and is half way done rolling a joint when his bedroom door swings open suddenly and yixing looks around like he is lost.

'this isn't the bathroom,' he states to sehun like this isn't his apartment and he couldn't obviously see that himself.

'no, tha tis the next door over, ' he neatly finishes his task and glances between his intruder and the spliff repeatedly before sighing.  he tucks the tight roll of weed into a copper case and mourns at the fact that he still has guests to entertain.

'oh, i don't care if you smoke,' yixing idly gestures with two long fingers miming at his mouth.

'it's fine,' sehun bends to tuck away his stash box beneath his night stand and reels backwards when he feels the hemline of his loose shirt float up around his shoulders.  he closes his eyes and prays yixing didn't notice the white satin lines of his bra.

when he finally braves turning around, the dimple is popping even though yixing is frowning and sehun realizes the underestimated attractiveness of the silent man that he didn't notice before.

yixing had a dancer's frame, slightly wide shoulders and impossibly slim hips and thighs that made most of sehun's teammates look like prepubescent boys.  he had eyes nearly as dark as his hair and a curiosity to his entire person that sehun would bet money that he was the kid that let nothing rest until he had discovered every piece of information he possible could before he would ever let anything go.  that is what frightens sehun the most.

'let's go back to the others. i will show you were the bathroom is,' sehun walks forward and attempts to usher the other guy from the room but he stands still as a statue.  he starts to open his mouth but sehun doesn't want to hear what he will surely say.  he clenches in anticipation and flinches at the first sound of his voice.

'i have never seen someone able to wear white as a flesh tone before.'

sehun chokes on a startled laugh and goggles at the clear amusement on yixing's face as he reaches out without permissions and pops sehun's bra strap like a teenager chasing after his crush in a high school hallway.

'what?!'

'dude, you are so pale.  like paler than me pale and i thought that was impossible,' yixing snorts and sehun hates himself for finding that quirk anything close to cute.

'that is rude as ,' sehun shoves him in the center of his chest and he feels like someone just slammed on the brakes and the seat belt constricted tight around his chest until he can't even breathe.  yixing doesn't even so much as sway at the force.

'but seriously though,' he snorts again and sehun gets over finding it adorable because he suddenly realizes they are laughing at a joke that involves the lingerie beneath his clothes and it isn't really all that rude and it is nowhere near derogatory or hateful and sehun feels like he is on the verge of a panic attack.

'whoa.  breathe for me, you are turning blue in the face.  easy now,' yixing's voice is steady and soothing and sehun wants to punch him for ending his attack just as fast as he had caused it. 

'sorry,' sehun takes a step back and another deep breath.  ' i am not used to people seeing... and not freaking out or actually being rude or-'

yixing shrugs nonchalantly like this isn't such a ing big deal to sehun as it is.  his hair flops into his eyes with the move and he sweeps it back with a hand that lingers. he glances up at sehun from beneath lashes even longer than his own and smiles just enough so it can't be categorized as a smirk.

'it is none of my business what you wear or how you choose to present yourself.  i have no right to say you are wrong whether you just like to wear women's clothes or if you relate more closely to that gender.  you know who you are and i don't.'

sehun doesn't know what else to do beside just stare.

'i have really got to use the restroom though,' he says over his shoulder before he disappears out the door.

when sehun finally walks back into the living room he has changed clothes.  the top is barely there, just folds of impossibly soft mint fabric billowing around his torso from thinly braided spaghetti straps.  his shorts are just as loose but almost too short on his impossibly long legs, the tattoos blooming dark against his muscled thighs that stretch slender and so smooth.

he stands frozen, eyes closed and teeth scraping away the gloss along his lower lip.  this is the first step into the dark scary, his knees nearly knocking as his entire body shakes.  he waits for the first noise of disgust or ugly slur.  he waits for them to react.  he waits and waits and waits until he finally starts to breathe properly again and opens his eyes at the curiousity the silence is drawning out of him.

luhan is crying.

luhan is crying and suddenly flying across the room to lock him in an embrace that they have to spin their way out of to keep from tumbling over.  minseok somehow ended up on the floor in luhan's gravity defying sprint and laughes rambunctiously at the fool his boyfriend is making of himself as he alternates between cooing and sobbing and spinning sehun around in a dizzy circle again.

when sehun's vertigo finally settles, he realizes taemin is beaming at him and jongin is slow clapping like a proud father and kris is clutching tao in a death grip as he firmly keeps his eyes on sehun's face.

and he doesn't know what to do next because that was easier than he ever thought it possibly could be.

'what is all the commotion,' yixing comes around the corner from the kitchen with a dish towel slung over his shoulder but he still wipes his damp hands along the denim clad thighs.  taemin points sehun's way and when his soft laughing eyes finally catch sight of him he blinks repeatedly.

'pale.  like so pale you are almost translucent,' yixing finally chortles and no one else catches the joke but sehun does and he starts laughing so hard he is afraid his mascara will start to run.  luhan dabs at his inky cheeks and sends yixing a look like he can't even believe what he just heard through his ears.

when sehun can finally see clearly again he catches yixing's easy smile and feels heat thunder under his skin from his neckline up his throat to his cheeks when he deciphers the silent shaping of yixing's lips into the simple word, 'pretty'.

a/n: thank you all for the support i have received so far for this fic.  the topic of this au, the genderfluidity of the character sehun, is one personally dear to my heart.

please leave a comment, i live for them and hope to hear from each of you wonderfully beautiful readers.  thank you.

also, any of you talented people that make gorgeous things, if you feel the urge to make a pretty something as a potential cover art or simply something inspired from this work, please tag me in them so i am able to see all of them.  you can tag me with my tumblr url: jaybethlives

-jay