A/N: Whaaaat how late is this update?????? wanted to post this for val's but that didn't happen. anyway, sorry for my horrible updating skills as per usual. and excuse me while I go catch up on the freaking drama... i am SO busy at school. thanks for comments, subs, and upvotes <3 

Chapter 2: The Neighbour

“I’ll head up first. You can just bring my stuff in later,” Lu Han says, shading his eyes from the sun as he blinks up at the building—his new home.

Home. Can it even be called that, when he’d no doubt be moving out in less than a year?

Manager Kim sighs. “It’s the top floor, okay? Room 4673. Don’t forget to change the pin once you get there. It’s 1-1-1-1 right now—Yah! Lu Han, you brat, are you even listening?”

Lu Han salutes him with a cheeky smile. He gathers the thick leather jacket into his arms as he steps through the revolving doors and slips his Aviators back over his eyes.

“1-1-1-1,” he grumbles. “What does he think I am? An idiot?”

He jabs at the elevator button, just as his phone rings, trembling violently in his pocket. He pulls it out in annoyance.

Call from: Manager Baozi

“What?” Lu Han snaps without preamble.

“Is that any way to talk to your hyung? I’m just checking to see if you made it up safely. You could show a little more gratitude.”

Lu Han snorts. “It’s been, what…” A quick glance at his watch makes him roll his eyes. “3 minutes since you last saw me? I’m not incompetent. I can ride an elevator—”

“Are you sure about that?” a deep voice scoffs.

“What are you…?” Lu Han lowers the phone and turns around, blinking in shock at the sight of the tall blonde from the airport. He points. “It’s you! You… followed me! All the way…” He brings the phone back up to his ear. “I’ll call you back,” he barks, and hangs up in the midst of Manager Kim’s protests.

Stony faced, the airport stranger stares down at Lu Han, and the smaller feels unnerved. He doesn’t dare show it, though, opting to cross his arms over his chest. “W-Why are you here? Are you a stalker? You must be. , I just got here and someone already knows my address? Seriously, the security around here, it’s ridiculous. It was much better back in China—”

The stranger takes a step forward.

“—What the hell are you doing? I’ll scream, I swear, don’t come any closer! Stop!”

Lu Han cowers against the wall as the boy looms over him, his lips set in a tight line.

“Don’t touch me!” he squeaks, slapping away the hand that was reaching out.

Finally, a crack appears in the blank demeanor. The stranger scowls in annoyance. The hand reaches out again and Lu Han can’t help but cringe, as if waiting for a blow.

“Give it here.”

“I said don’t touch—wait, uh. What?”

“My jacket. I want it back.”

His jacket. His.

Jacket.

Lu Han feels mortification hit him like a tidal wave, and he clears his throat with great fervor. “Right. This. I was wondering when I’d get a chance to give it back to you, but I was thinking I’d wash it first, you know, ‘cause, well, yeah. It would be… rude… if I didn’t.”

The boy’s face has slipped back into its default emotionless-brick state, and Lu Han squirms.

“I guess not?”

No response. Not even a lip-twitch.

“You want it back now?”

Nothing.

“Should I wash it first, then?”

After a prolonged silence that has Lu Han feeling uncomfortably vulnerable and pinned under that hard stare, the boy finally speaks.

“Nevermind. Just keep it.”

“O… kay. Thanks? Did you plant a secret camera inside it, or something?” Lu Han asks suspiciously, shaking out the leather jacket and rifling through the pockets.

The stranger his lips and rakes a hand through his hair. “Or throw it away. I don’t care. Anyway, if you’re not going in, can you get out of my way?”

“I… What?” Lu Han whips around, and sure enough, the elevator door is open. He flushes in embarrassment and stomps in, seething when the cocky and arrogant stranger follows him in. The small cube of a space seems suffocatingly small with the addition of the tall man’s presence.

“You’re going to follow me all the way to my home? I can call the police on you, you know.”

The stranger doesn’t seem bothered by this. Lu Han huffs and clicks the button for the top floor, and clutches at the rail as the elevator lurches up. He tries not to think about how he’s essentially dangling from a metal box hanging from precarious wires that could malfunction at any moment.

Tries.

Glancing at the stoic stalker, he grows annoyed at the composure he seems to have. What would it take to shake him up?

“If you’re looking for an autograph or something, I’ll give it to you. But you can’t tell anyone where I live.”

The boy doesn’t even glance back as the elevator doors slide open and he stalks out with long strides. Lu Han gapes before scrambling to follow, cursing his innate clumsiness as he stumbles over his own feet.

“Wait! Seriously, I’ll pay you. Just don’t tell any… one…”

The stranger sends him an odd look before punching in the pin to room 4672. He disappears behind the slam of the door and Lu Han is left standing in the vacated hall.

He has never felt more like an idiot.

“Oh. He lives here. Neighbours. Of course. Right. I. Right.” He slaps a hand over his own forehead and groans. “Who does that brat think he is, messing around with me? Insolence! I’m Lu Han! He’s just…!” A handsome, blonde stranger with a figure of a supermodel and a face that rivals Adonis? His mind supplies. “Yeah! A handsome—wait, no! He’s an insufferable, smelly jerk! He should feel lucky to be my neighbour!”

With that, Lu Han marches over to his own room, cheeks still flushed and feverish. He stares at the keypad blankly, too blinded by fury.

He slips out his phone.

“Baozi?” he greets timidly as the line connects.

“… It’s 1-1-1-1, Lu Han.”

“… Shut up. I was just going to ask for takeout.”

--

Sehun rubs a hand over his face as the door shuts behind him. It’s unbelievably difficult, giving that loud and obnoxious human the cold shoulder. More than once he found himself wanting to snap back in response or finding himself staring at those soft pink lips as they moved and twisted in a wide spectrum of emotions.

It’s strange how that human is the epitome of everything Oh Sehun hates in a person, and yet he finds himself undeniably interested in that loudmouthed enigma.

He pulls out his journal, slumping down on his couch and pinching the bridge of his nose. From next door, he can hear the loud rambling of the Chinese superstar with perfect clarity.

“School? Kim-Manager, have you lost it? How can you send someone like me to school?”

“My Korean is perfectly fine!”

“… Maybe I wanted to pronounce that way! Ever thought of that?”

“My fans think it’s cute! Leave me alone! I’m not going to—did you just hang up on me? Hello? Hello?”

Sehun feels the onslaught of a headache, and wonders if he should consider moving out before his new neighbour drives him up the wall, but shakes off the thought. He’d worked too hard on this damn place for some noisy kid to drive him away with just one encounter.

Last 3 Months on Earth…

Pen poised above the empty page, Sehun snaps the journal shut. 3 more months.

Placing the notebook on his coffee table, the blonde shuffles out to his veranda, breathing in the crisp, Earth air. It had taken him a while to get used to it, back in the beginning. Everything was new. From the language, the strange air pressure, and to the fragile beings that inhabit it.

Sehun shuts his eyes, leaning his elbows on the rail.

“Can you not speak?” the small human asks, eyes glossy and wide and curious, and Sehun wonders what this being is saying. But already, he feels himself absorbing, adapting. His kind is superior in many ways, intellect being one of them. He’d pick up on it in a matter of hours. Maybe even less.

The boy reaches out to take Sehun’s hand in his own.

“Do not worry. You saved me, so I’ll protect you. I don’t know what you are, but it doesn’t matter. I know you’re a good person. You may stay at my parent’s house. I am sure they will welcome you, if I tell them what happened.”

Beautiful, is all Sehun thinks. He doesn’t know where he found the word.

“Come with me, my lord. It grows dark.”

Sehun hates it, he thinks. The fragility that makes up Earth. But mostly, he hates the feelings that come with it. The pain. How quickly things come to an end.

Sehun hates it all.

3 months can’t come soon enough.            

TBC