A/N: hello everyone, this is text-me-luhan. thanks for reading letters to beijing! please, if you enjoyed it, leave a comment. they make me really happy. I would also recommend listening to this song while reading because it's, like, 10 times better.

letters to beijing

1879

Life, little Luhan decides, with his small button nose pressed heavily against the glass and warm breath fogging the cold surface, is really unfair. His sticky fingertips stick to the shop window like glue on paper, and even though his mother tries to gently tear him away to not make the owner angry (that Korean man can be really scary when he’s angry), Luhan doesn’t move at all, afraid that those delicious and juicy sweets will disappear from his eyes. He can even smell their addicting scent up his nostrils, and with a fast but sad move, he hungrily his chapped lips. There are so many colors, so many types of candy, so many different flavors, so many shapes and so much sugar that Luhan wishes he could spend even just a second in that shop to inhale as much air as possible. He wishes his tummy would also be like an air balloon so he could store that heavenly scent inside him, and he also wishes, if it’s not too much, that his tongue would remember their taste until the day he dies.

When his mother softly calls his name to bring him back to reality, Luhan finally peels his scraggy face off the glass but his eyes remain stuck on those little pieces of heaven that his mouth misses so much. He can’t even remember the last time he chewed a gummy bear or a lollipop. He would give anything, literally anything, even a lung or a kidney, to hold in his palm a bunch of those sour candies that explode right after you put them on your tongue, or a small bar of white milky chocolate that is basically just butter mixed with sugar. Luhan throws one last glance at his favorite candy shop and tries to ignore that bright flashy sign that screams come in, come in! but it’s so hard. It’s so hard to just keep on walking. It’s so hard to simply shrug and pretend that shop does’t exist. It’s so hard to ignore his aching tummy, but Luhan, even though he’s as young as dew and as tall as a flower, is used to it. His small hand reaches for his mother’s warm one and his short legs try to walk as fast as hers, but it’s Saturday and it’s market day, so he stumbles a few times before being able to finally grab his mother’s dress to not lose her in the crowd.

They reach home when the sun has almost completely disappeared behind the horizon. Luhan stares at his consumed black shoes with a gloomy aura surrounding his slightly big head. His finger plays with a hole in his traditional jacket, that one jacket that will be his companion for the whole winter, and that is way too big for him. There are small holes in it, the sleeves are too long, one of the buttons has disappeared long ago and the fabric itself smells like dirt, but it’s the only thing that he owns. It probably won’t even keep him warm, but Luhan is a strong boy and cold doesn’t scare him. He carries a bag with a couple of vegetables and a fist of rice with a small grin on his face because they are finally gonna eat something for dinner that isn’t broth.

“Mama, my birthday is coming soon” the little boy says with a small voice, placing the bag somewhere in whatever is supposed to be their kitchen. Luhan is so excited that he can’t stop fidgeting around the whole shack. Living in the countryside isn’t luxurious at all, but nights are quieter and those fancy apartments in Beijing are way too expensive for his family. There is also a pretty river not too far as well, with bushes and flowers and trees and fishes, and Luhan loves spending summer days soaked in its waters until his skin looks like a dried plum.

“I know, little dumpling” Luhan’s mother laughs lightly, deep wrinkles decorating her eyes and forehead. She ruffles her son’s thick black hair with her left hand, placing a small caress on his cheek right after. She knows what he wants, but she also knows that the money in her pocket probably won’t be nearly enough to buy it. Selling silk has become so hard these days that even buying rice or vegetables seems like a miracle. With those big companies exporting and importing expensive fabrics and spices, well, everything seems a little bit harder.

“I really want a soccer ball, mama! A real one!” Luhan exclaims during dinner, chopsticks stuck in his bowl of rice and some sticky grains still on the corners of his pouty lips. He gets up from the ground and starts kicking the air, thinking about how cool it would be to actually play soccer with his friends, using a real ball on a real field. His mother laughs along with him, secretly adding a spoonful of her rice into Luhan’s half-empty bowl. It’s okay if she doesn’t eat enough. Anything for her only son.

It has been raining for weeks now. There are water puddles everywhere: near the trees, around their little wooden house, on the curvy path that leads to the forest and there is some water leaking from that unsteady rooftop too, and Luhan notices it only when a raindrop as big as a bowl falls on his forehead while he’s about to fall asleep. He tries to move the mattress somewhere else, but water keeps leaking from every corner and before he even knows it his whole room is filled with cups and buckets to gather raindrops. He ends up sleeping in the kitchen with his head resting on the table and a very stiff neck the morning after, but at least the big bucket behind their house is now filled with water and that means that he can finally take a bath. As soon as his little toes test the temperature, though, shivers run down his back and he keeps feeling them until dinner time, when his mother tries to warm him up with a bowl of steaming broth.

“Mama, why is life so mean?” Luhan wonders the day his mother comes home with the same bag of fabric she left with, no money in the pocket of her dress and red rimmed eyes.

“Mama, my tummy keeps on hurting” Luhan whines with the palms of his hands pressed against his flat stomach. She tells him to just go to sleep because sleep will make him forget hunger, but it’s been two days now and the hunger is still there, angrier and more persistent than ever. Luhan tries to eat whatever his short fingers can grab, from tree barks to grass, and at some point he’s so desperate that he tries to eat berries from a bush near the river. He doesn’t even care if they are poisonous or not. They fill his tummy, and if his tummy is happy, he’s happy too.

Eventually an year passes. Luhan is now sixteen, but his limbs and torso are so thin and scrawny that he looks twelve -maybe even ten, depending on how tired his eyes look-. He blows the candle on that little sweet dumpling with a content expression on his face, eyes sparking with anticipation and hands pressed together to silently thank his mother and whoever helped them survive the winter.
It’s spring again and the forest is alive, with trees as green as jade, buds that timidly make their way through the dirt, sweet and colorful flowers that bloom when the April sun finally bathes them with its rays, birds chirping and the water of the river that isn’t frozen anymore. It’s beautiful, and Luhan tastes the flavor of life everytime he sticks his head out of the door.

“Little dumpling, can you go to the market today?” his mother kindly asks with a couple of cabbages in her arms. She still needs carrots, celery and some onions too, and maybe if there’s some money left, Luhan could also buy himself some candy. It’s his birthday after all.

Luhan doesn’t waste any time and runs towards the city with a small fabric bag held in his hand. The market is always such a wonderful place to visit. There are so many colors and scents and people that for a fraction of time Luhan feels dizzy; he has to blink a few times to focus on the products, but in the end he’s quite alright. He buys the vegetables his mother asked for, but as expected money isn’t really enough for a little treat, so the boy does what he does best and sticks his whole face against the window of the candy shop. This time, unlike the previous ones, his gaze doesn’t travel for hours without a purpose. His eyes are fixed on that particular red lollipop, redder than rubies and probably juicier than apples, and his mouth starts watering. It’s enormous and glossy and round and he stares at it until someone opens the shop door and clears their throat to catch his attention.

“Hey kid” a young man calls while resting his shoulder against the door frame, a pink and mint striped apron tied around his neck and waist and sharp eyes judging the little boy still glued to the glass. Luhan assumes that to be the owner’s son. He stops smearing his drool on the transparent surface and lowers his head to apologize, receiving a slow chuckle from the older.

“Do you see anything you like?“

Luhan quickly nods, pointing at that delicious red lollipop that basically is everything he has ever wanted in his life.

“Do you have enough money to pay for it?”

Ouch. Luhan shoves his hand in the pocket of his dirty pants to count the remaining coins he has, but they are just a few and that candy probably costs three times as much. He then shakes his head in defeat, not really expecting the young man to disappear inside the shop with a sigh. He comes out a second later with the red globe carefully wrapped in a thin colorful paper and he hands it out to Luhan, who stares blankly without actually understanding the situation.

“So do you want it or not?”

“I don’t have enough money” Luhan whines embarrassed, trying to soften his wrinkly traditional vest.  

“Just take it. It’s on the house.”

And so Luhan walks away (after bowing for approximately ten minutes straight) with the lollipop in his hand and warm cheeks. He’s turning around one last time to look at the big ‘Oh’s candy shop’ sign when something wet dirties his lips. As he wipes away the warm liquid with the back of his hand, Luhan realizes it’s just a nosebleed and doesn’t really pay much attention to it. He shoves the candy into his mouth and sighs. Even though he feels like fainting on the spot, he blames that lollipop because holy , he’s pretty sure he has just tasted a piece of heaven.

—

After what happened, spending entire mornings just staring at the candy shop becomes quickly an habit. Luhan would go to the local market to buy a few things for his mother and then, right before heading back home, he would stop by the door to wave at the owner’s son, who then would give him a little treat like the dragon’s beard candy or sweet soft jelly because honestly, he pitied Luhan a little. With his big clothes and enormous sparkly eyes, pale cheeks and pitch black hair, Luhan was too poor to purchase anything but his heart was the purest in the whole village. Sometimes the boy would politely decline Mr. Oh’s offer saying that he wasn’t feeling well, but the young man would give him something anyway to take home just in case he felt hungry.

It’s the end of August when Luhan understands that maybe, just maybe, something is wrong. Nosebleeds shouldn’t be so frequent, right? Coughing and then feeling a metallic taste on your tongue isn’t healthy, right? Fainting shouldn’t happen, right?

Anyway, that isn’t important. He’ll get well soon, just like the doctor said. His mother promised to get him a real soccer ball, and Luhan literally can’t wait to play with it. He swallows another gulp of that medicine that tastes like baby’s tears and death and pushes that thought deep in a corner of his mind.

At some point, maybe because it’s a particularly hot day or perhaps because he has been running around for so long, Luhan falls on his knees right before scoring a goal. If those are blood stains on the green grass, well, Luhan decides to ignore them, and if his ears are ringing, well, he pretends the bells of the temple are dancing.

—

December has just begun when snow slowly starts covering everything with a soft blanket of pearly white. There’s a thick layer of transparent ice on top of the river that used to flow so fast during spring. Flowers, those enchanting colorful gems with their alluring scent, are gone just like clouds after a storm. Birds don’t sing their song anymore, too busy trying to find somewhere warmer to lay their eggs. The forest is slowly dying, but it’s not the only one.

December has just begun when Luhan is laying on his bed with a wet cold tissue pressed on his boiling forehead. His eyes can’t focus anymore. Two weeks ago he was running down the streets with his friends and now, fourteen days later, he feels like the world is about to crush him. He keeps coughing and coughing until a thin red stripe runs down from his nose, staining his neck and his vest. Luhan keeps thinking about that red lollipop he tasted last spring, that massive pearl made of sugar and paradise, and he feels like crying because if he tries hard enough, he can still taste it on his tongue. Luhan thinks about the soccer ball he really wants, the one with red and white patterns, and he also thinks that life is really unfair.

December has just begun when Luhan’s body can’t take it anymore.

“I can’t understand his problem, but I sincerely hope he will get better soon” the doctor says on the doorstep, expensive glasses on the tip of his nose and a hand on Luhan’s mother’s shoulder. She’s crying, the boy can still hear the faint noise of her tears falling down her chin, but he’s too weak to even raise a finger. A metallic taste fills his mouth once again and this time Luhan can’t suppress it anymore, so he coughs so hard that his own blood almost chokes him.

December has just begun when Luhan breathes for the last time, dried blood on the corner of his pretty pale mouth and misty eyes staring at the ceiling.

“I keep going to the river to pray
'Cause I need something that can wash out the pain
And at most I'm sleeping all these demons away
But your ghost, the ghost of you
It keeps me awake”

2016

Why is this damned forest so big. Sehun is still trying to understand if the thing in his mouth is a spiderweb or one strand of his hair when a branch almost twice the size of his arm gets into his eye. Awesome, now he's not only being attacked by angry spiders, but he’s blind too. Eventually, after spending five minutes trying to fight whatever is crawling all over his body and screaming his lungs out, Sehun can finally breathe normally. He still doesn’t know if there are any spiders left in his hair, but for now his body feels safe enough and that’s the most important thing. He keeps walking (walking? more like surviving) through bushes and trees until he finds something similar to a path that leads somewhere. Should he follow it? Before the angry friends of the spider he crushed with his foot come to take revenge of what is now a corpse, Sehun sighs and decides that it’s worth a try. The woods would be a rather nice place if you didn't have to slap an ant away from your arms every two seconds, or if the light didn't disappear at five in the afternoon just because the trees are so tall that their leaves cover up the entire sky.

“Sehun, why don’t you go and pick some blackberries in the woods? They are much more delicious than store-bought ones and they are really easy to find!!” Sehun mocks his grandmother’s voice with a very annoyed face, carefully looking around so he doesn’t get blinded for real because of those branches sticking everywhere.

“There are tons of different kinds of pies but no, she wants to bake the one with blackberries at all costs! Who cares if I die! Who the hell cares if I trip and stab myself with a mushroom!” Sehun complains and complains for what seems like a century, but there are no traces of those berries. Just dirt. Leaves, acorns and dirt. That path doesn’t seem to be helpful, now that he’s thinking about it. He’s been walking for miles and every tree looks exactly like the one he saw an hour ago. He could even turn around and go back home, but his grandma would probably yell at him and say that he’s incapable of anything, so he just keeps on walking in silence until a strange noise catches his attention. It sounded like a whisper, something soft, but it was definitely a voice.

“Oh my god” Sehun moans painfully, now really scared for his own safety. First the spiderwebs, then the branch, and now the voices. The forest is totally haunted, Sehun bets his Playstation on it. He better find those blackberries and he better do it soon, before his body becomes food for squirrels and hummus for roots. He might be fifteen, but he’s one brave guy, and brave guys aren’t afraid of strange voices that appear in the middle of a thick forest situated twenty light years from the city. He can do this. He just needs to look closely around him and fill his plastic bottle with fruit and then sprint his way back home. Easy.

There’s a river at the end of the path. Sehun was running so fast that he almost fell into it. Now that the sunlight isn’t trapped anymore, the boy has to admit that the scenery is actually pretty. The sound of water hitting rocks is really pleasant, exactly like the wonderful shades of blue and aquamarine of those waves. It looks almost surreal. Sehun takes out his phone and a loud ‘click’ fills the silence.

“This goes on instagram” he mutters proudly to himself, scrolling down with his thumb to choose a nice filter that would complement the breathtaking picture he has just taken.

Yeah, but where are the blackberries? He can’t put that pic inside his pie. As soon as he lifts his eyes from the cellphone screen, a pale shadow hides itself behind a tree on the opposite side of the river. Sehun blinks a few times to make sure he's not seeing things, but he's pretty sure there’s a ing shadow with a face and a very weird semi-translucent body not too far, and it’s looking directly at him. And it’s dumb too because it’s not like Sehun ca