The first time they meet is as children. Xiumin teaches Luhan how to fly, and soon they’re whirling about the room like unsteady, excitable ducklings, dusting furniture with a fine layer of gold powder as they sail across ceilings swashbuckling pirates for treasure.

“I can’t get in trouble because I’m not bouncing on the bed!” Luhan laughs, just before Xiumin trips over his arm and drops onto a nightstand, knocking it over mid-fall. The footsteps that come up the stairs are heavy and angry and Xiumin disappears out the window with a puff of ticklish laughter before punishment can arrive on his sweet buttcheeks. Luhan is left staring out the window wanting more, his mind still lost in the sensation of flight.

On the second night, Xiumin flies to him with a hand outstretched. “Come with me,” he says, flying Luhan outside the confines of his red windowsill, above the uniform tiled rooftops, the pigeon roost clock tower, and into the twinkle of the brightest star in the night sky. Everything becomes a headache-inducing white—“Close your eyes,” Xiumin says, his voice distant even though Luhan can feel his palm in his grasp—and then the light dims to a warm glow and Luhan looks down to see that they’re flying above a forest of golden treetops. Far below, a group of boys in animal onesies shoot stones and holler at a family of badgers. Ahead, a pirate ship sails across a lagoon dotted with sunbathing mermaids. Xiumin flies beside him, raising an eyebrow as if to say, “Like what you see?” 

Luhan laughs. “What is this place? It’s so...wow.”

Xiumin shoots him an elfish smile. “Welcome to Neverland, Foreverland, where you’ll never grow old,” he says in a sing-songy voice, and leads Luhan down to a vast hideout on a hill by the forest where they hit the ground running. “Come on, we have to figure out Pip’s treasure map before The Captain takes it from us!” He waves for Luhan to hurry, and within seconds, the brigade of forest critter boys come hooting and galumphing out to meet them. They wave a map drawn in crayon between them like a flag.

The map guides them to the beach. There, something boings, followed by “Oops.” Everyone turns to look at Skunk boy as he guiltily steps off a taut string, one of the dozens of wires Luhan notices is netted across the cove. A sound like a fishing line being wound up echoes off the walls. “Duck!” Xiumin shouts. Rapidly closing in is The Captain, a crazed stuffed man on wheels, pulled toward the area of movement like a giant spider in a web. Its limbs wave like limp noodles, one hand brandishing a hook, the other a gold sword, and Luhan and the forest boys scream as it lunges toward them.

“Ha, ha, parry, strike!” Xiumin shoots out like a dart, countering all of the doll’s random jerks. Luhan hides behind Raccoon boy while Xiumin parries until the doll turns and speeds away like it felt a fresh tug on its net and was needed elsewhere. Surely it was an adult who y trapped the beach. The thought scares Luhan. Whoever it was, they were a jerk.

The day is long, the afternoon spent with Xiumin showing him diamond caves, frogs in logs, little crabs that scuttle out of reach when they overturn rocks at the cove. They run across rough, scaly beaches and chase seagulls until they find one that won't fly away because its left wing drags at a right angle. Luhan gives it a twig splint, then proudly declares, “I've always wanted to be a doctor.” He sets it in a box lined with cotton. By the time night falls it is dead.

Xiumin feels a distant kind of sadness. Luhan sobs on his shoulder as they send it out at Pearl Coast, where it rolls to an infinite rest across wave after wave of seawater, floating with the support of a million pink pearls from below, little buoys braving rough crests for a heavy ship.

At night, they lie back in the grass and ponder the stars. Luhan yawns widely and passes it onto Xiumin. Something keeps nagging at him. “Xiu, how does this place work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is this heaven? Have I died? Is this some special place God made?”

“God? What’s that?”

“Well, I—” Luhan splutters. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t know about school things! This is Neverland. You don’t go to school, or whatever it is you do in London. All you need here is magic, easy. You just have to believe.”

Luhan forgets all his Sunday schooling. Xiumin doesn’t care, and Luhan doesn’t want to either. “What if you don’t have anything to believe in?”

Xiumin frowns. “I guess we wouldn’t be here then. Maybe we’d just go poof.”

“Poof. My grandpa says we all go poof anyways.” Luhan’s brain processes one step behind. Something still nags at him. That star in the sky…

He sits up like a match was lit under his seat. “Oh, I forgot! My parents! They’re probably wondering where I am—I’ve missed dinner!”

“Wait—”

But Luhan is rising, has already taken flight. Xiumin is left wanting, staring into an empty sky.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“I want these papers on my desk filled out by tomorrow.”

“Yessir.” Luhan nods and fumbles with the work, a sinkhole in his chest. He's been feeling that a lot recently.

There’s a knock at his window. “Busy,” he says. Force of habit. Then he freezes and slowly looks outside. Two round, catlike eyes stare back. He screams and drops the papers.

Silence. “Everything okay in there?” asks Tom from the neighboring cubicle.

“Yeah, no, I'm fine. Just...just dropped some papers.” To the window he hisses, “What the hell!” Xiumin wildly gesticulates to the latch and Luhan huffs as he lets him in.

Xiumin topples in, all gangly limbs across the floor. He doesn’t like how Luhan's frowning down at him, arms crossed. Doesn’t like how Luhan is busy now—busy and uptight like he’s holding a sharpened pencil in his . Xiumin looks him in the eyes and remembers a day from two summers before, when Luhan was just 19.

─── *.｡:｡*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡ ───

They’re standing on Luhan’s balcony, backs to the city glimmering below. Xiumin notices how the chapped wind has bitten Luhan’s cheeks a slight pink, and he feels irritated again. Of course Luhan’s not actually blushing—he’s never abashed about anything.

He’s counted three full moons since the last time Luhan visited him. It’s been a restless time. Again, it is Xiumin who seeks him out, Xiumin who comes to London to play. But Luhan is reluctant to fly around in London, reluctant to explore and laugh and shout like they do in Neverland. He says that the people walking the streets will see him floating around like he has an invisible jetpack on, and then he’ll be arrested on suspicion of being a Chinese spy.

Xiumin wants to stomp his feet every time Luhan calmly repeats his same old reasons for not visiting. “Aren’t you a Londoner?” Xiumin asks, an edge to his voice.

Luhan only laughs and shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter here, especially now that it’s wartime.” He clasps Xiumin on the shoulder, suddenly serious. “You should be careful.”

Xiumin shrugs him off. “Why can’t you just let your parents confirm you were born here? Didn’t you say that people have birth papers? Come to Neverland with me! It’ll be quick. Please Luhan, please. It’s so boring here.”

But when Luhan’s made up his mind he does not budge, so Xiumin decides to wait him out. Maybe then, Luhan will grow impatient and come to him. Xiumin can wait. He can.

─── *.｡:｡*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡ ───

Today the dewy grass feels cool and refreshing between Xiumin’s toes, the morning chill crisp and biting. Luhan flew into his hideout this morning and crashed loud enough to wake a cow (he’s never been great at landings), and for the first time in years, Xiumin knows what it’s like to wake to see the sunrise. He’s never been a morning person, but now that Luhan’s here—has finally flown here on his own—Xiumin feels awake and jittery like his eyeballs have been stretched open and doused in ice, and he can’t stop chattering about whatever fluff slips into his mind. Something interesting. He wants to say something interesting.

“Have you heard about the loneliest whale in the world, who can't communicate with other whales because he sings in his own unique frequency? I heard he flies around in space, replying to his own songs when they echo back. But maybe he has stars to keep him company. And I've heard that a hunger for company is a good thing to have.” He quiets, watches Luhan crack an egg with concentrated effort. Pipes up again. “Whales are sad animals.”

“No, I haven't.”

“Haven't what?”

“Haven't heard of that. Pass me another egg.”

Xiumin looks down at Luhan’s hands and becomes entranced with how they move.

─── *.｡:｡*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡ ───

“I call this the Steamboat Sauna,” Luhan says proudly, revealing two bowls of steamy fresh noodles. They eat like space whales. When Xiumin sets his plate down, his face is red. He lies back and closes his eyes with a dreamy sigh like he believes he can flutter his toes and his feet will fly away. “I can die happy now.”

“Well don't. You still have to fly me home.”

The grin slips off Xiumin’s face. He looks at the sky and his gaze goes straight through.

“Come with me. Please. I can’t leave my family behind.”  

Xiumin is quiet for a moment. “But I don’t want to grow up.” And I don’t want you to, either. But maybe he’s being selfish. He sees Luhan’s silhouette outlined against the gold of the sunset and then he’s gone, flying a thousand miles home on borrowed pixie