Luhan wakes up to the sound of silence. He opens his eyes after waiting for his ritual seventeen seconds, and he gazes at the ceiling. He pricks up his ears. Nothing. Luhan dies a little inside. But somehow, he still manages to get up.

                He notices the bedroom smells an odd sort of smell; it’s because it’s too hot. He turns the heating system down (maybe he will feel cold later but he prefers feeling cold rather than hot). It’s almost one p.m. Luhan slips into clean boxers; he shivers when the cold hem touches his skin and he finally puts the shirt he had intended to wear on his unmade bed – actually, he really feels too hot to wear anything else.

                It’s already the beginning of June. The weather has been horrible for several weeks, but a couple of days ago it started to get really hot and sunny. But Luhan is always slow and he hadn’t turned the heating system down yet. His house is burning. Rectification: it’s not. Of course it’s not. It seems to be.

                Luhan opens the door of his bedroom (even if he lives alone, he hates sleeping with the door opened) and steps out. His feet stick a little to the steps when he goes downstairs. The kitchen is hot too, but Luhan decides to open the window. Birds are singing in the garden but he doesn’t really listen to them.

                He eats a light breakfast/brunch/lunch, just because he is used to it, not because he is actually hungry. Half past one. Luhan turns the TV on to watch his favourite show. He had never really understood how it worked since it’s in English and he doesn’t attend school or even speak English anymore, but he likes it.

                The MC has a funny face and seeing laughing people distracts Luhan – it’s almost entertaining. The corners of his lips even tuck up once or twice. Today is a good day, apparently. The MC is on form; his jokes are a little better than usual. And the candidates seem to be slightly intelligent, somehow. That’s exceptional.

                Luhan starts to feel bored after watching TV for half an hour. He presses the red button on the remote and gets up. He walks like a zombie, aimlessly, and collapses on a chair in front of the first screen he finds: his computer.

                He surfs the Internet for a while before his orange juice starts to communicate with his bacon and his eggs and his entire meal decides it wants to see the sky and breathe the fresh air; in short it wants to get out, Luhan rushes to the bathroom and throws up into the toilets. He flushes the toilets and drinks a little water before going back in front of his computer.

                He watches videos. He reads stories. He writes a little. He scrolls through blue and green websites. He watches videos. He laughs with his body but not with his heart. He watches videos.

                At about five p.m, Luhan’s stomach growls (it sounds angry, he thinks. After all it has been deprived of food today). He gets up reluctantly and fetches cookies into the kitchen. But he realises he has made the same mistake again at the supermarket: he has bought the hazelnut ones and not the coconut ones. He curses because cookies are usually what brightens his day, and he drags himself back to his bedroom.

                He walks past his mirror and stops. He blinks. He hasn’t looked at his reflection for…four, five days, maybe a week. He sees a tired-looking boy holding a box of hazelnut cookies and chewing a piece of one of them; he is staring at himself. Well, he is staring at the boy, who is staring at him.

                Basically, Luhan isn’t pretty. At least, he thinks so. He isn’t tall, he isn’t well-built and actually, he’s skinny. He has blonde hair and brown eyes that seem black. His skin is pale and his lips pink but he bites them when he’s bored – so most of the time – so there are a few tiny scabs over them. He has bags under his eyes, not caused by the lack of sleep but rather by the amazing amount of time he spends in front of screens.

                Luhan looks at his stomach. His bellybutton in one of the few things he likes in his body. He looks down again. His boxers are too large. His legs are too thin and his knees are ugly, because as a child, Luhan used to fall down all the time, scraping his knees against the ground.

                Luhan walks away from the mirror, eating his disgusting cookie. He doesn’t hate his appearance but he doesn’t like it either. In fact, he would have liked to be taller, to have blue eyes and less petite hands, but oh, well. It’s okay.

                He swallows the bite of cookie. When he sits down again, his chair with wheels is still warm. Luhan fidgets a little. He decides to watch the first episode of a series. He watches it, and meanwhile he draws a hundred of tiny circles on a paper, without looking. In the middle of the third episode, he notices he doesn’t like the series at all so he stops.

                Ten past seven. Luhan still has time left, but the day has been really hot so he trails to the bathroom, carrying clean clothes with him. When he has finished having a shower, he throws his empty shampoo bottle into the dustbin, but he realises he has forgotten to bring clean boxers, so he cannot get dressed and he has to go back to his bedroom – finally bringing clothes with him was completely useless – he grabs the first underwear he finds and  gets dressed.

                 (A little angrily, because things like that hurt his feelings – Luhan hates realising he’s done something stupid, useless. But of course the boxers problem is not something big, albeit a bit annoying.)

                Then he sits in front of his computer again. He waits. While he is waiting, his heart starts to beat a little faster because it’s almost eight o’clock; the thing that brightens his day once a week is going to happen. Luhan is a little impatient. He nibbles his lower lip although he knows it’s bad, and he waits.

                He checks whether his clothes look fine (clean, at least), he fixes his hair and he breathes in. He stares at his computer, waiting for the little numbers in the lower right-hand corner to turn into 8:00.

                7:57

                7:58

                Luhan breathes in deeply.

                7:59

                8:00

                Luhan almost starts, as usual, when the little notification ‘Sehun is connected’ pops up on his screen. His hand flies to the webcam, which he turns on instantly. There’s a microphone on it too.

                “Hi, Luhan-hyung,” he hears. A smile forms on his lips.

                “H – hi,” he says, waving slightly. Sehun’s image on the screen waves back. Sehun is dark-haired, brown-haired actually, he has a very fair skin and he his lips really often. He has a little scar on his right cheek. “How are you?” Luhan asks.

                “Fine, and you?” Sehun replies. Luhan nods silently. He has known Sehun for almost eight months now – they met on the internet. But it’s a real friendship. Every Saturday night, they talk to each other using their webcams. Sehun is sixteen years old and he still attends high school so that’s why he can only do it during weekends. Of course, they exchange text messages, but it’s different.

                Luhan loves talking to Sehun because even if the boy is four years younger than him, he’s mature and gentle. Cute too, though. “Did you watch the new episode of Downton Abbey?” Luhan asks. The dark-haired boy nods enthusiastically. They talk about it. They laugh. Then Sehun says he has read a post on Tumblr saying the teaser of their favourite group’s new MV is going to be released during the night. They spazz a little.

                Luhan asks Sehun whether he’s eaten enough today and how his maths test went the previous day. Great. It went great. He only left one question without an answer. That’s a good thing; he is improving. He is glad. Luhan is glad for him.

                “Oh, I forgot, I wanted to show you something!” Sehun says. He gets up and fetches something in his bedroom. Luhan smiles and he waits. A few seconds later, the young boy comes back, holding a wide sheet of paper. It’s completely white.

                “What is it?” Luhan asks, curiously. Sehun turns the sheet around.

“TADAAAAAAAH!” he exclaims. The webcam and the computer speakers crackle – he is shouting too loud. Luhan giggles. But then he frozes. He opens his mouth. There’s a drawing on Sehun’s sheet. And Luhan recognises perfectly his own face, delicately drawn with charcoal. He is speechless. The drawing is soft and light.

                “I did this in my drawing class the other day,” Sehun goes on; he seems oblivious to Luhan’s silence. “I know it’s no perfect, but… Do you like it?”

                Luhan swallows. “It’s gorgeous, Sehun,” he says. “I don’t even know how you do that, it’s magic. But – did you take a picture of me?”

                Sehun laughs. “No! No, I didn’t,” he answers. Luhan is even more impressed. That’s marvelous.

                “But how did you manage to make it – look like me?” he asks. Sehun’s cheeks flush slightly.

                “I see you often. I know your face by heart, hyung,” he replies. Luhan beams but all these romantic things are starting to make him feel dizzy and nauseous. “I wish I could meet you and give it to you,” Sehun says with a slight sad smile. Luhan giggles awkwardly. But he’s sad too.

                Sehun lives in Korea and he himself lives in China. (Fortunately he has learnt Korean since he was a child.) He sighs. Every week or almost every week, it’s the same thing: why don’t they go on a trip and meet somewhere? They’ve known each other for long, so why not taking the plane?

                It’s too expensive. They’re too far away from each other. They don’t have the time, their holidays are packed. (Well, Sehun’s are, because Luhan’s are as empty as his usual weeks.) Maybe they’re lazy, kind of, even if they don’t want to admit it.

                “Someday I’ll fly to China to see you,” Sehun says for the twenty-eighth time. Luhan nods, enthusiastic. He breathes in as he looks at the dark-haired boy. For two or three weeks now, he’s been facing a problem. He misses talking to Sehun when the young boy is sick or cannot use his computer, sometimes he misses seeing his image on the screen, but – always, all the time, he misses him, in the sensual dimension.

                Actually, he loves Sehun.

                He is in love with him, totally. But he’s still a teenager, well he’s young, and seeing and talking to someone just isn’t enough. He feels like a ert and a e but he likes Sehun’s lips. And sometimes he just yearns to kiss him. But then he remembers he will surely never meet him and – he’ll have to forget about him someday. He’d better not become attached to him.

                “Will you go to Fun.’s concert in August? They’ll be in Seoul, I heard,” he says to think about something else. The younger boy buries his face in his hands in theatrical despair.

                “I can’t!” he exclaims. “I’m broke – I even owe money to friends – and mum doesn’t want to pay for me…”

                Luhan sympathises. “Ah, shame…” he says. “You’ll go next time.”

                Sehun fidgets on his chair to get closer to the webcam. On the screen, he seems to be staring at Luhan. “We’ll go together,” he replies. Luhan says yes but of course he doesn’t believe him.

                They talk and laugh for several hours and finally Sehun apologises, as always, and says he has to go to bed. It’s three a.m. Luhan says it’s okay and he replies that Sehun’s still young so he must sleep. Goodnight, Sehun. But as the dark-haired boy is about to turn the webcam off with a little smile, he stops.

                Luhan waits for something unusual to happen because he knows it is going to. He smiles as Sehun hesitates. “What?” he asks. But he knows he’s going to hear something that might cause something bad to happen. Sehun tilts his head and breathes in deeply. At last he speaks.

                “Luhan – Luhan, I love you.”

                Luhan turns the webcam off.

A/N: Maybe it wasn't what you expected... :P

Did you like it? Please comment and/or subscribe, it makes me really happy ♥

Oh, and, I don't really plan to write a sequel. Normally, the story ends here. (I know, it's strange.)

EDIT (about one hour after I posted the chapter)

I lost a subscriber, apparently. I wonder why. It had never happend to me before. Maybe that oneshot was really bad x'D