when the air clears
(maybe you'll see the heart i drew on the bottom right corner of the bathroom mirror)

when luhan kisses minseok for the first time he thinks the world explodes behind his eye lids, the shrapnel glittering like crystalline shards of the blood his heart is pumping on overdrive, and everything turns to dust around them (and that’s okay because minseok is still solid and warm and oh my god, he’s not dreaming). after debuting, he thought he had all that he wanted and more, but at the sweet, innocent press of their lips, a puzzle piece he didn’t know was missing fits into shape in his chest. he curls and relaxes his fingers, arms feeling heavy dangling by his sides, but just when he gathers the courage to even fathom wrapping his arms around minseok, the cookie stick shared between their lips snaps and minseok jerks his head back amidst the overexcited laughter of their bandmates. the kiss can’t have lasted for more than a second or two but luhan, with his disillusioned mind, pretends it went on for much much longer and not for a stupid game on a stupid variety show.

he chews the remnants of the pepero stick in his mouth, making sure not to gag over the saliva sodden treat having sat too long on his tongue. ignoring the pestering of his bandmates and the annoying pokes into his forearm from sehun, he maintains his focus on minseok who is stage-whispering to jongdae. (when minseok lets zitao lean into his side and makes a joke about kyungsoo during their trainee days and punches yifan when he calls him short, it hurts because he acts his usual hot-and-cold self around luhan and seriously, what is so wrong with me that you can’t treat me like you do them).

he finds yixing in the living room after everyone else has gone off to sleep, fingers plucking absentmindedly at the strings of his guitar. instead of finishing his trip to the kitchen for a glass of water, he collapses onto the floor and opens his ribcage, lets his heart spill out onto the carpet, staining the cream fibers with his love sickness as he talks in circles about kim minseok this and kim minseok that and never fall in love, yixing, it’s the worst feeling ever. yixing says it'll be alright but luhan knows what he says is just an empty collection of words meant to be comforting but aren't. he wants to say something else, but then he hears minseok pretend to scold zitao for hitting him too hard from behind the closed door of their shared room and luhan decides he's going to fill the bath tub with water and waste away in the water until his skin shrivels into his body, until the water freezes, or until he overflows it with tears -- whatever comes first.

when luhan kisses minseok for the second time, minseok pulls away just as soon as their lips brush, before the world can explode, before luhan even realizes what is (or isn’t) happening, to glare at a smirking jongdae behind him. he shoots luhan an apologetic glance as if to say i’m sorry about that, just forget about it. but luhan knows he won’t forget about it and that he’ll go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning thinking about nothing but minseok, minseok, minseok. the love of his current life offers to finish fixing his tie, but luhan refuses with a small wave of his hand.

"it's okay. i'll ask kris to do it."

and then he walks off because his face is burning and he isn't sure if it's because of the kiss, because he's embarrassed he's happy jongdae decided to push their heads together in a silly prank, or because he's upset minseok wanted to brush it off as if it was nothing. but maybe it was nothing and luhan is too emotionally intoxicated to understand.

his mother calls to say hello one night after they’ve settled in their hotel in taiwan. she asks how he and the other boys are doing and he tells her yixing is still the same, yifan is increasingly more cheesy, zitao has taken to singing in his sleep, and...

"we try to sneak out to eat something other than the usual grilled chicken and this one time we went to this really good vietnamese restaurant and --"

"honey, you do realize you have been talking about xiumin alone for the last thirty minutes, right?"

"i...i have?"

and she demands that the next time he visits home again he brings minseok as long it's okay with minseok, his family, and the management because she wants to get to know her son's best friend better. he doesn't bother to tell her minseok isn't his best friend, that's he's on some other level he doesn't exactly know how to describe. he doesn't bother to tell her that minseok is the moon and the stars, that he's etched minseok's astronomy in the chipping paint beneath his windowsill with a thumbtack -- from the sill to the floor just lines and lines scratched into the wall about him -- and thirty minutes of rambling about minseok is nothing in comparison.

the third time they kiss, their lips don't even touch. they're in the practice room, running over the choreography for their comeback single. after the sixth time in row of going through the moves, jongdae collapses into a heap of aspiring-dancing-machine and yifan declares a ten minute break. luhan makes for his water bottle and guzzles down the liquid, afraid everything around him is a mirage -- afraid jongdae is really a sand dune and zitao is a cactus, afraid minseok really isn't stealing his water bottle away and pressing the rim to his own thin pink lips, but then minseok hands the bottle back with a quirk of the lips.

"you just had to take the last dragonfruit flavored water, didn't you?"

luhan breathes in deep through his nose. "i...wasn't exactly paying attention to which one i grabbed," he replies and for some reason his words are slurred, syllables twisting together. he dismisses it off as tiredness and sits with his back propped up against the wall.

closing his eyes, he expects minseok to run off to bother jongdae, but instead he hears shuffling and then a weight settles in his lap. blinking his eyes open, he resists the urge to throw up (because how romantic would that be) when his stomach starts its daily gymnastic lessons and vaults over his liver, does a back handspring into his pancreas. minseok presses his cheek into luhan's thigh and smiles up at him, lips curling around awkward (yet still endearing) teeth and eyes alit with amusement. minseok presses his cheek into luhan's thigh and smiles at him and luhan hates it. he hates it because when they go back home minseok pretends he doesn’t exist, and he's used to it, but instead of holing himself up in his room and drenching yixing in the storm of his emotions, he finds a pen and paper and writes out the lyrics to his heart's song.

however many weeks later, minseok pokes his head into his room, calling out to tell luhan the bathroom is free. luhan glances up from his laptop (the screen is black, turned off, but he wants to look like he's actually doing something productive). his finger twitches with a small desire to touch the wet strands of minseok's hair, slipping over the power button and sending the mechanisms of the computer into a frenzy. he yells out an obnoxious okay, got it, thank you. he's given a strange stare before minseok leaves to finish getting ready for bed and as soon as he's thirty percent sure the other is no longer able to hear him, he screams with his lips clamped shut because god, i'm an idiot.

in the shower he sits cross-legged and allows the water to fall over his skin, head hanging with his chin to his chest. he chokes a bit when a stream of water finds its way up his nose just as he inhales. his skin has long since been pelted with the sting of the ice bullets pouring from the shower-head but he doesn't get out until yifan comes banging on the door for the third time, threatening luhan with something that isn't in the least bit frightening. by the time he twists the knob of the shower, cutting off the water flow, the air in the bathroom has chilled and cleared (the mirror as well) and luhan grabs for his towel. nothing is out of the ordinary but it's not like he really expected it to be.

the fourth time they kiss luhan wakes up to the whip-crack of thunder outside the window closest to his bed. he compares the flash of the lightening to minseok's smile and ten minutes later he doesn't remember what he dreamed  about.

they have a mini concert and fanmeeting in singapore the next week. his signature awkward smile almost slips from his face when minseok grabs his hand and intertwines their fingers, but he catches it before it has a chance to fall to his feet and burst into a cloud of depression rumors and oh my god, he's so rude, why isn't he smiling. his eyes line up with yixing's and the changsha boy gives him a smile and a thumbs up but that isn't what he wants. he wants to know what 's going on because even though he's immensely happy and that pesky thing that pumps his blood is beatingbeatingbeatingbeating so fast he thinks he's going to start hyperventilating, minseok never initiates skinship and the world must be coming to a very quick end. when minseok refuses to relinquish his hold and and even has the nerve to squeeze his hand, luhan squeezes back, having just a small bit of hope that he'll get some kind of reaction. minseok only says something to the collection of screaming fans before letting go to take his seat like the other four. luhan scolds himself. of course he wouldn't do anything, he thinks, what were you expecting.

they fly back to china two days later. minseok sits next to him on the plane and leans his head on luhan's shoulder. as they push through the airport crowd, minseok leans over and invites luhan to go out to eat, just the two of them, secretly. they place a raincheck on the food outing because their manager buys them food on the way to the way back to the hostel. luhan waits until everyone has finished getting ready for bed to remove his makeup and shower. he finishes in ten minutes and the water is still fire on his skin, the air in the cramped room is still fogged with steam. tossing his towel onto the closed lid of the toilet, he stands in a pair of calvin klein boxer briefs and wipes his hand horizontal across the mirror to see his face. he plays with the ends of his hair as he looks over his form of lean muscle and awkwardly angled limbs. sighing, he reaches for his towel when his eyes catch the shape of something drawn in the corner of the mirror. leaning over the sink, luhan stares at the lopsided heart and the smushed together lettering of what may or may not be luhan, i like you. he vaguely remembers minseok was in the bathroom before him but it doesn't look like his handwriting and it's probably just his mind deluding him. he shrugs his shoulders. maybe it was jongdae and one of his silly jokes.

the next sunday, they have a break. luhan spends a greater portion of the day on the phone with sehun. he's not sure why he didn't hang up after the first ten minutes because all sehun talks about for two hours is some girl at his school and how he needs to ask the wizard of oz for courage to confess his bordering-on-insane love for minseok. he hangs up when the object of his affection strolls into his room and asks if luhan wants to watch a movie with him and applauds himself for convincing everyone he actually enjoys sehun's company. losing his phone in the disarray of his blankets, luhan settles with minseok by the head of his bed. the movie is some overly dramatic romantic tragedy neither of them have ever heard of before and by the time it's half over, luhan is conflicted by thoughts of if he should just come out now and a sudden desire to fall asleep.

when luhan kisses minseok for the fifth time, luhan's dreaming about robots taking over the world and the soft pressure against his lips isn't enough to stir him awake.