Drip.

Drop.

It was calming to say the least.

Luhan stared at the white ceiling with a stone-cold expression. No emotion reached his features, not even his eyes. There was only this emptiness, and the silence around him. And he basked in it like a pig in a muddy pit.

Somewhere across the room, Luhan could hear a fly buzzing ever so loudly, disturbing the quietness and stillness of the room. There was this stink too, but he enjoyed the smell. He was sure the open window would most likely lure some more of the flying scavengers inside, but he moved not to close it. He let it be.

Yes, he let everything be.

He let everything roll in the direction it should—there was nothing that could stop what was coming.

He could already feel the end, and it was so close to him he could almost inhale the freedom.

Luhan huffed at himself and turned to his side. His eyes stared into the darkest corner of the small bedroom. There, something shinned, barely catching his attention, and his whole complexion relaxed just the slightest.

It was funny his love believed in nonsense such as lucky charms. It was also ironic he was still wearing it whilst his body lay there without any trace of blood.

Luhan snickered at his lover’s foolishness.

Only to have that spark of happiness stolen.

It was coming.

The end was near.

It’ll all be over soon.

He’d been waiting so long already.

For this paradise.

***

Jongin was always busy. There was always something for him to do, always somewhere to go, always somewhere to be. He was of the kind of people who withered if they stayed in one place and thrived if they were constantly on the move.

That alone had made him into the fit dancer he had become. With a muscled figure, with a tall built, with skin soaked in sweat most of the time. His teachers didn’t like his inability to stay put, and consequently, neither did his parents when reports and warnings arrived in their mail about their only-son’s unacceptable behavior during classes. When that happened, Jongin got a nice scolding and had his activities restricted.

But that never stopped the ever-troublemaker in him.

It was after he was sent to university in the capitol of Korea that he started to venture even further. There was something intriguing in the nightlife that made Jongin wander through the alleyways after midnight, clutching on some bottle of alcohol and a random woman wrapped under his arm. His friends were the kind parents would characterize as bad influence but Jongin would be too immersed in dancing and his own little world to notice anything like that. If anything, he saw the exact opposite.

He saw the same disowned sons and daughters who wanted to follow their own path but their parents refused. So cute, Jongin often thought, that they had found solace in their little group of friends, some empathy in one another. They should have been way past the age of arguing with their parents because they “didn’t understand”, but Jongin was sure they all felt the same.

Their parents didn’t understand.

The girl giggled, Jongin took another mouthful of alcohol, and it burned his throat as it went down and into his empty stomach. He knew he was practically poisoning himself, but he wanted just that. It was sweet, the taste of vomit in his mouth after a full night of heavy drinking. And he refused to have it any other way.

“And then—“ the brunet male hiccupped, laughing some drunkenly, “Jongin pushed him off the counter! Wonder how drunk the -er was!”

Jongin grinned lazily at the story as he leaned down to peck the woman’s lips. He didn’t know her. In fact, he doubted he even remembered her name after such a long night. Sometime a good while ago, he’d started calling her “bunny” so now he couldn’t refer to her some way different.

“Suits him right. Those gays are not meant to be alive. If it was me…” the tallest in the group clenched his fists and Jongin had to look up from heavy eyelids and smirk.

“I had to keep dancing, Chanyeol. Otherwise, how were we supposed to get all this free alcohol?”

Chanyeol silently agreed but wore a sour look nonetheless.

It was no secret that they hated such people. Truthfully, Jongin doubted Chanyeol and Baekhyun even thought they were humans. Homouals were just an abomination and it wasn’t a few times he had seen them bully and beat up some just for that. It was a pained story but he didn’t care much. They were his friends so he accepted however they came, with whatever mind they carried in their heads.

“Should we go to the park?” Yixing asked as he stumbled in the corner of Jongin’s eye. He was the most messed up of them all, if his drinking and drug use were anything to go by. He had also an arm wrapped around a woman and, truthfully, the blond didn’t even remember her face. “We still have alcohol, right?”

Jongdae, who shuffled his feet lazily against the pavement laughed giddily. “I have like three bottles on me!” The young man was holding onto three for dear life, and Jongin wondered if they’d paid for them or just grabbed them from behind the bar when no one was looking—which Jongdae had done far too many times by then, and had their group kicked out of big clubs more than a couple times already. Joonmyun helped him by taking one off his grip, holding on two more himself.

“I think we have more than enough.”

Baekhyun’s grin was wide, eyes shining from drunkenness as he leaned against the wall for a couple seconds. Then, once his head stopped twirling around, he continued to lead the group ahead.

To where, no one knew.

They just wandered.

And hoped life would spare their poor souls on their way there.

***

Mornings were always Hell on Earth for Jongin. The drawn curtains would prevent the sunlight from coming in and it’d only be his hangover that would wake him up sometime during noon or early afternoon.  His head would feel like being torn in two, his insides burned, and his bones felt rusted and sore after dancing, clubbing, drinking and what-else. He’d turn to find a back lying under the covers, belonging to yet another woman he didn’t know the name of.

And he’d stand up—slowly, because everything spun.

And he’d walk out of his room into his bathroom—not fast movements, his stomach couldn’t handle it.

And he’d retch his thoughts into his toilet because so be it.

As long as he had his sanity intact, he was pleased enough.

The wallet hung dangerously from his pocket and he tried to grab at it in the air as it slid, only to tackle it and lose it somewhere on the floor. He guessed that since he still had it, last night was a success.

Mornings like these, he’d be hesitant to face himself in the mirror. There was something in his empty, tired eyes, something in his exhausted expression, something in his unkempt dye-burned hair and spotted complexion that made him wonder how he’d turned so ugly. And mor