Warning: UNBETA'D. Rusty. Rushed. Long and pointless; Kristoria pairing is so beautiful they make me blabber on endlessly for paragraphs without me noticing.



“They’re lying.”

Kris opens his eyes, the blazing sun gratefully shaded from his line of sight by the person leaning over him. He shifts himself on the bench in his position so that his palms are supporting the back of his head, blinking the sleepiness out of his eyes.

She smiles, and he finds himself smiling back. “Good morning, princess.”

“You’re early,” Kris says, ignoring her degrading comment.

Victoria laughs and reaches out with a hand, brushing his fringes out of his face with her slim fingers. He stares back at her, eyes surprisingly firm despite being hazy and clouded by exhaustion. “It happens,” is all she says, but he knows there’s much more to the story than two simple words.

Taking her hand by the wrist, he pulls her down closer. She can feel the heat emitting from his skin—burnt a faint red by the rays of the sun. “We—“

His words are cut off by the sudden contact of her lips against his. In this moment, he can only relish in the softness of her kiss—the barely present scent of peppermint and chocolate in her breath muzzles him.

Altogether they intoxicate him, forcing him to forget his trail of thought.

When she pulls away, there is the trace of a smile in her sweet gaze. “You taste like the sun,” she tells him, large eyes blinking into his.

In an effort to hide his embarrassment, Kris stands from the bench and stretches his arms over his head. His clothes crinkle and he feels the heat seeping into his skin, warm and tingly. “Let’s go,” he says, reaching for her hand. “They’re waiting for us.”

Victoria allows him to hold her hand, their fingers molding together in that familiar way it always does in times like this. She doesn’t know why, but Kris has become a constant to her—a shelter, a protection, a safe place to turn to.

They don’t speak of the things between them; not the secret touches, not the way they hold hands, not the spontaneous kisses, subtle touches and the knowing looks. It’s as though nothing exists between them, but they have everything they should all at the same time.

Kris doesn’t ask and Victoria chooses not to inquire.

It’s just the way things are and, though it’s not the way they might want it to be, they swallow all doubts and live with it. Things are easier this way, Victoria thinks, and there’s so much more freedom for them to enjoy when they aren’t constricted to certain roles in the other’s life.

Like this, the person dearest to her heart can keep their place without her having to make room for another and Kris can remain the person by her side, even if he wishes to hold another deep in his memories.

Just like this, Kris can seek out all the perfection in the world and, if he’s willing, he can still return to Victoria for what the world does not have to offer him.

It’s a double win situation, one could say, and neither of them would turn it away.

That’s what Kris used to think. Now, as they travel hand in hand, the music of Victoria’s laughter bubbling from her lips to his, he thinks a little differently. Whether Victoria does or not, though, only she will know.

-

It takes her only minutes to build a pinwheel, and when she’s complete, she holds it up to his lips.

“Blow,” she urges, and the anticipation in her eyes gleams bright under the heavy room lights. He chuckles and knocks her on the forehead with his knuckles softly before leaning forward and blowing into the instrument.

Victoria seems content when it spins at the contact with his breath, and the sound of the wheeling plays brilliantly in the silence of their company.

“What does this mean?” He asks her.

She shrugs and taps the ends of the pinwheel to make it spin faster. “Nothing?”

Everything, he corrects mindfully, but doesn’t utter a word. “We have until tomorrow,” he whispers.

The smile momentarily fades from her lips, but she manages to revive it within the minute. Victoria props herself on her knees and reaches up to press her forehead against his. “We have until this pinwheel stops turning,” she tells him, and she keeps tapping it to make it spin endlessly. “I decide when we—when our relationship ends.”

Changmin sighs, his breath warm against her cheek. He plants a kiss there, gently, before wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her into his lap.

She throws her arms around his neck and he kisses her collar, holding her still. A staggered breath escapes her.

“Tomorrow is the limit,” he breathes against her warming skin. “There is no more we after tomorrow.”

Victoria laughs. “You never fail to surprise me with your cruelty.”

She let herself fall asleep in his arms, too tired to continue arguing with him. They had it all—intimacy, affection, what she thought was more than just a simple attraction (and it was, even if it becomes too hard for her to admit).

Sometimes, though, she realized life was about more than just love and games; he loved her, a lot, but there were too many obstacles and he aspired for more than the relationship he had with her.

Changmin wanted success. Victoria couldn’t give him that.

So, he let her go and she watched him leave. Ever since, she’s refused to speak with any man about the things they had between them. Feelings, jealousy, care—no matter what it was, small or large, she would pretend that it didn’t matter.

Just like the pinwheel she once held in her hands; it spins as fast and long as she wants it to, but eventually it comes to a stop. (It all comes to a stop.)

She believed hers would never start spinning again.

-

When he stands at the top of a cliff, bordering on the edge, he feels the world whirling through his entire existence. The wind through his fingers, blowing in his hair; it makes him feel so alive.

“Kris, you’re falling behind!”

He opens his eyes, his friends grinning widely in the distance. Slugging his backpack over his shoulders, he hikes his way back down the hill to catch up with his friends and they’re laughing—inside jokes were never his thing.

“Thinking about something?” Suho asks him.

“Nothing in particular,” Kris replies. “Everything, in a sense.”

Suho laughs dryly. “Jongdae says you’ve fallen into dangerous territory lately. Mind sharing?”

“I’ve just been thinking a lot about a certain her.” Kris sighs. “There’s too much to think about.”

Xiumin and Kyungsoo turn to wave at them, telling them to hurry. Kris rolls his eyes but pushes a little harder with every step. (Everything feels heavy—nothing has ever been light for him.)

A quick glance tells Suho all he needs to know. “Which ‘her’ are we talking about? The old one or a new one?”

“Jongdae would know,” Kris jokes.

Suho laughs. “Yixing?”

“Yeah,” Kris nods. “Yixing knows.” Because she’s close to Yixing, and that means she must be close to Jongdae, too. Somewhere between Yixing and Jongdae was where Kris found her.

“Don’t think too much.” Suho advises, patting Kris on the back. “The answers will come to you soon enough.”

-

She snuggles up close to him on the couch, both legs off the ground and curled up under a pillow. Their fingers are intertwined and her head rests on his shoulder.

“Are you cold?” Kris asks.

Victoria shakes her head. “Lonely,” she corrects, but there is only so much for her to admit.

He tightens his hold on her cold hands and tugs her closer, an arm around her waist, hoping it suffices as a form of security. (He wants to tell her to look at him—that he’s right here, beside her, and he always will be if she’ll allow for it—but he’s too afraid. They don’t speak of things like that—things of the nature circling around ‘us’.)

When she angles her chin to look into his face, he peers down at her and closes the distance between their lips. Victoria still tastes like peppermint; the refreshing spice running over his tongue like wave—breathtaking.

They do nothing more than kiss, but it’s enough for now.

Not long later his doorbell rings and he hesitantly rises from his seat to answer the door. It’s Luhan, with a couple other friends in tow.

“We thought we’d drop by for a round of games,” Luhan grins toothily.

When he spots Victoria situated on the couch, he stops dead in his tracks. Kris rubs the back of his neck and steps aside to allow the rest of the guys’ entrance. “Who else is coming?” He asks.

Luhan waves at Victoria and she smiles back. “Bad timing?”

“You’re fine,” Victoria chuckles softly. “I was just going to suggest calling some others over. It’s quite lonely, just the two of us.”

Kris fancies the thought that he’s not enough for her.

She pulls out her phone and grins brightly. “I’ll dial Yixing.”

“Then I’ll call Xiumin! Kyungsoo should be here with Baekhyun soon,” Luhan cheers. He drags Chanyeol over with him as he joins Victoria on the sofa and they start conversing heartily—about yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows; all the things that Kris has no confidence in when he thinks about the past, present, and future with Victoria.

He watches as Luhan places a hand over Victoria’s and she lets him. Something inside his chest curls and Jongin pats him on the shoulder, his eyes knowing. Kris wonders what Jongin thinks he knows; he wonders what is happening to him.

The rest of the boys join them within the hour and the apartment is lively, too lively—with smiles and laughter, voices to low and too loud all at once. There are so many people, yet, Victoria and Kris still feel the loneliness settled too well in their bosom.

Victoria feels as though she doesn’t belong, but she ignores the feeling. (She’s never belonged here, with him, and she’s too well aware.)

“Are you and Kris dating, noona?” Chanyeol asks.

The moment of hesitance is too short for any of them to notice. “No.” Victoria replies, almost immediately, and they all feel the atmosphere take a wild dive down.

Luhan turns to look at Kris with sympathetic eyes, and Jongin looks away altogether. They all curse Chanyeol at this moment, but Victoria really only blames herself.

“We are.” Kris then interjects. “We’ve been together for a while now.”

He doesn’t know where his courage came from—where the desire to confirm their relationship and make it real—solid– surfaced from, but he takes his own word for it. No one dares to take a breath, everyone as still as daylight.

Victoria hears a voice in her mind—“We have until tomorrow,” he had said—and she turns her head away, staring at the clock perched on the high wall. Kris continues speaking,

“I haven’t said it yet, those words that finalize us, but I feel like we’re running out of time. There’s never enough time when we’re together,” he drawls awkwardly. It’s hard for him to say things like this—things that show how weak he is in his own eyes.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. (“Tomorrow is the limit,” she remembers him saying very clearly. “There is no more ‘we’ after tomorrow.”) It’s suddenly so cold.

Yixing watches closely; he watches as Victoria curls into a ball and hugs her knees to her chest, he watches as Kris approaches her, his arms hanging too stiffly by his sides. He lowers his head and laughs, standing as he motions for the other boys to follow him out.

They do, but with reluctance.

Kris finally speaks every word on his mind when he hears the door shut behind them.

“What are your thoughts?” He asks her. “If I told you I wanted us to take that final step, would you?”

Victoria closes her eyes and she can almost feel the way her cheek felt against Changmin’s collar as she fell asleep against it, his warmth engulfing her entirely. She remembers that Changmin smelt of faint cologne; sweet, subtle, but so distinct.

They are nothing alike.

“Every relationship has a time limit,” she finally says, raising her eyes to meet with his. Kris kneels beside her and takes her hands on her knees, leaning his forehead against hers. “I don’t want to put a limit on us, Kris. I want to be with you, forever.”

Even if forever is too long, it’s a distance she wants to travel with Kris.

“With the restrictions of a relationship, we won’t be able to make eternity a reality. Isn’t it easier as friends—as what we are, without becoming the item known as ‘us’?” She questions him in turn. The wheels in her head spin and she hears it—the wheels, the wind through the paper of pinwheels she was once so good at creating.

Kris doesn’t know what to say, so he remains silent.

Her heart is pounding in her chest, the fear so strong that it’s suffocating her. Victoria reaches out to cup his face, pressing their lips together briefly. When she pulls away, the emptiness is unbearable and Kris pulls her back, kissing her hungrily.

She leans back on the couch and he settles above her, one hand circled on her neck and the other resting on her hip. Her breath is hot against his lips and she tries to push him away when she can’t breathe.

“Are you afraid of me?” Kris asks her, their foreheads pressed together. “You refuse to let me hold you like this because I’m nothing more but a friend. The term ‘friends-with-benefits’ isn’t something in your dictionary, Victoria. This is something I want, with you, and I’m willing to wait for it but if you are so intent on keeping such a platonic relationship with me, what is there for me to wait for?”

Victoria clutches her hands into fists at her sides limply.

“You want this too, don’t you?” He asks, a bit too desperately when he lifts her face by the chin and kisses her again. “But you’re scared—too scared of what we’ll become if we become too intimate.” Kris continues. “But I’m not him, and you’re not her. Our story won’t end the same way, as long as we’re willing to play it out differently; as long as you can choose to trust me.”

“It’s tiring to be in love,” Victoria says, “isn’t living tiresome enough?”

Kris laughs. “If you gave me the chance, I could show you just how wrong you are.”

She smiles back at him and Kris takes this as a cue of her agreement. Maybe he’s wrong—maybe she was smiling because that was all she could do to not hurt him, because Victoria never hurt anyone, but he’s not really thinking about that right now.

It’s not until months later, when he drags her into his apartment with a luggage of her belongings and grocery bags filled with newly bought daily use products that he remembers the exact words of the question she had asked him that evening.

“What did you mean?” He wants to know.

Victoria purses her lips at him, pushing her luggage into the empty guestroom. Kris follows her and drags the luggage into his own bedroom. Victoria sighs. “About moving in later?”

“No,” Kris says, “when you said that living was tiresome enough.”

It’s been a while since she’s last thought of it—of him. “It was his last words to me,” she replied, wrapping her arms around Kris’s waist from behind and peering over his arm into his face. Kris turns around to hug her. “He told me he was tired of loving me, because living was tiresome enough.”

“What happened to him?” Kris asks, genuinely curious.

Victoria ponders the question for a moment and buries her face in his chest. “Got married? I heard he met a nice, wealthy heir to a hospital chain director and they married. Then he called me years later, telling me he’d fallen in love again and that karma does exist.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not important,” she smiles up at him. The lies come to her at ease, but Kris can read them as clear as day. “I don’t know all the details, anyhow.”

They cradle each other in the room, comfortable and at peace.

“All I know is that he had a lot of regrets, but I wasn’t one of them.”

-

They sit in a small yard, pinwheels decorating the grasses around them. They spin and wheel, playing a beautiful melody in the windy afternoon.

Victoria holds Kris’s hand in her lap, playing with his fingers as they admire the sunlight. “It will start raining again after tomorrow,” she sighs, “let’s take the pinwheels in.”

“Leave them.” Kris tells her, watching her tug on his long fingers and flicking at them with her own. “They’ll be fine.”

“What if they don’t make it?” Victoria asks, frowning.

Kris plants a kiss on her forehead and flattens out her fringes. “Then we’ll make new ones, together. We’ll make them tomorrow, the day after and the day after that—until the sun comes back and we don’t have to worry about losing them anymore.”

She lowers her head with a secretive smile. “Okay,” she says, biting back a grin, “sounds good.” The breeze is cool against her skin, the sun warm and lucrative. Kris leans his head on hers and they sit there, no longer wavering or afraid, listening to the melody playing in their hearts.

The leaves blow away, the pinwheels keep turning, and their story continues unfolding—every page turned, every moment passing elongating into the distance, as far as the sunset runs.

This is a story that we should have kept—the story between us, forever and always.

 

A/N: I can never shut up when I'm writing Kristoria so, obviously, this is much longer than necessary. This is inspired by the song 我們之間的事 (The Things Between Us) by 范瑋琪 (FanFan Wei Qi). I know this isn't as good as it should be, but I tried really hard >_<. Thank you for reading! Comments would be greatly appreciated if you liked this~♥