Sometimes, when Xiumin turns his head and finds Luhan looking at him, he thinks he sees something in the depths of deer’s irises. Often then not he’s sure he’s just imagining things, and Xiumin turns away, not noticing a shadow in those same irises creeping when he’s not looking anymore. But lately, something pulls him and Xiumin doesn’t face away, he just keeps looking at Luhan and suddenly, the voices around them turn a little quieter, faces a bit hazier, Luhan’s eyes somehow shinier.

Time stops.

Luhan seems to be searching for something around Xiumin’s lips, something important to him, and Xiumin can’t help but hope he’ll find it there. Everything feels so slow, so intense, almost maddening. But he doesn’t want it to stop. He wishes he could drown in the way Luhan’s eyes caress his face.  Still, in the midst of it all, Chen, the ever charming troll, finds a way to push himself into their world and reminds them there are other people around. In just a moment, what seemed like an eternity, the only thing real, is gone. But the feeling remains, like the smell of dry petals in grandma’s old boxes and chests. The feeling is warm and makes him feel safe and giddy.

When they walk side by side, hands aching to touch , fingers begging to be entwined, they say nothing, acting as if they have everything under control, but knowing far too well they’re far too lost now. Then Luhan gets a bit restless and puts his arm around Xiumin’s shoulders in a totally friendly manner and Xiumin feels something’s missing. The wrong placement of the touch makes the feeling different too.

Next time, Xiumin promises to himself.

Next time, prays Luhan in his mind.

But the time flies and not much is done. Everything is filled with quick glances, unspoken truths, unfinished words, suppressed wishes laced with yearning, hesitant smiles soaked in hopes. 

Sometimes, Luhan wants to scream. He has Xiumin so close to him, to the point where he knows the number of his eyelashes. He easily recognises  Xiumin’s voice in the room full of people, even if he himself is another room. His own existence clings to everything that is Xiumin, his soft voice, crooked smile, puffy cheeks (or what’s left of them, SM be damned!). He clings to everything, yet Xiumin’s not his. It’s not that Luhan wants to poses him, no. He just wants to know that, every time his heart makes a beat, Xiumin will be there to hear it and know it’s for him, only for Xiumin. He wants Xiumin’s smiles to be pearls so he can collect them all and save them in a box made for everything Xiumin in Luhan’s heart. For Xiumin often smiles, but sadly, not always for Luhan. That's why he spends more time with other members. It hurts less not to see what you want, but others have. Xiumin, on the other hand, sees only Luhan focusing his attention on other people and he tells himself that the pressure in his chest is caused by intense training and diets (the same ones wich caused him to lose his cheeks, ing SM be damned!!!!). 

Still, no words are spoken. They still just linger, like a teasing dance of the breeze in the summer night.

Like Xiumin’s lips above Luhan’s while Luhan’s asleep and Xiumin’s begging for Luhan’s eyes to open and end this ridiculous stage they are in, everything be damned! Because stolen kisses have no taste. And he wants them to taste like Luhan.

But Luhan’s eyes are so stubbornly closed and his lips feel colder than they should. In those moments Xiumin thinks Luhan’s the one with the power of frost.

This night is no different. The Moon accompanied by his flirty friends stars are the only witnesses of Xiumin, who’s hovering over sleepy Luhan, stealing one of those kisses glazed with the cold of one-sidedness. He tells himself it's enough, that he can live with that, but even the Moon knows he's lying and the stars twinkel in mockery.

It doesn't matter, Xiumin keeps telling himself, it doesn't matter the lips are cold.  

But the hand which grabs his while he’s trying to get away from the supposedly sleeping form and sleep trough his sorrow for a few hours at least, that hand isn’t cold. It’s soft and warm and inviting, much like the eyes Xiumin finds sparkling in the silence of the night. Xiumin doesn’t know how the other members in the dorm aren’t woken up by the sound of his screaming heart when Luhan moves closer to him, and all he can see is Luhan, Luhan’s eyes, Luhan’s lips (and maybe that small blemish on Luhan’s chin, a proof that, no matter what his child-like face claims, he DID hit his puberty). And Xiumin can feel his eyes getting irritated by his effort not to blink, because he’s scared that if he loses the sight of Luhan for those 350 milliseconds an average blink lasts for, everything will be lost and Luhan will have his eyes closed again, and Xiumin will feel like a thief again, for taking something that wasn’t meant for him in the first place. But, while he feels Luhan’s thumb dancing across his lips, he thinks that maybe, just maybe some of it was meant for him.

And while he looks at the way Xiumin’s eyelashes flutter when their lips finally meet, Luhan realizes that the words were never really their thing. They were just empty syllables, not really needed. Xiumin’s smile was ‘I like you’, Luhan’s stare ‘I love you’, a hug ‘Stay’, playful fingers ‘I want you’. In the end, they said so much to each other,  but not in the way they were aware of .

And when Xiumin’s hand ends up on Luhan’s speeding heart, they don’t linger anymore, they jump, and a promise is made. Their hearts being tokens and the Moon with his flirty little friends the only witnesses.

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It seems as if the picture is bigger than the text. Oh well.........