I like this place Junmyeon said, hunching his shoulders up in defense as he glared at Luhan. Luhan had drawn his head back towards the younger male, lips tugged into a teasing grin, and eyes bright with amusement.

“I haven’t said a thing,” he retorted, taking a sip of his bitter drink. “You always manage to find the most obscure places,” he continued, his eyes drawn towards the large multicolored vase behind Junmyeon’s head.

“It’s peaceful,” Junmyeon replied in the quiet of the cafe, his honey brown eyes roamed along the cafe like Luhan had previously done, the red ceramic mug gripped tightly in his hand. “It’s like escaping the city for a moment.”

He’d turned his eyes back to Luhan, and Luhan had taken the chance to really look at the younger male. Junmyeon’s brunette hair was styled simple, his leather and steel watch stood out on his wrist, drawing attention every time the large timepiece caught lamplight. He had smiled when he noticed Luhan staring, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was a man of District One, a boy trying to appear older than he was, dressed in his expensive clothes. It had always bewildered Luhan. He didn’t understand how the children born into his world of power and money still looked as out of place as he felt. How were they unused to the only life they knew?

Luhan leaned forward, head cocked to the side and resting on his palm. “What did you need to tell me,” he asked. The fake smile on Junmyeon’s face had eased away as he looked into Luhan’s eyes.

“I,” he begun, pausing a moment later to take a sip of his cappuccino. “I’m joining the security training program.”

Luhan had lifted his head from his palm at the statement, eyes wide as he stared at the teen in front of him. “You’re what,” he asked, pronouncing each word carefully. “Do your parents know?”

“Of course not,” Junmyeon retorted, glaring at Luhan as if the older male had threatened to tell his parents. “I’m not telling them,” he admitted. “I’ve done everything else they’ve wanted. I’m doing everything else they’ve wanted, but I don’t want to follow the family business. I’ve never wanted to, and now, after seeing all of you doing interesting things...” He trailed off.

“Kris,” Luhan began only to cut himself off. Kris was a taboo topic to the group of them.

“I don’t want to be Kris,” Junmyeon had replied sharply.

“When do you...” Luhan trailed off, unsure of the proper terminology for being a CNS trainee, “start?”

“After the engagement party,” Junmyeon answered. “There’s no point in fighting with my parents about it if I don’t make it, so I won’t be telling them to the last minute, and,” there was a true smile on his face as he continued speaking. “And, I want to surprise Yixing.”

Luhan had sat back in his chair, his own smile appearing as he stared at his giddy friend. “Fine,” he huffed out in false annoyance. “I’ll take your secret to the grave if I must.”

A week after his final exam as a CNS trainee, Junmyeon and Luhan had attempted to find the small discreet cafe in District Four only to see that it had turned into a one-stop shop.

****

A knock on his window jerks him out of his thoughts, and he turns towards the shadowed figure asking for his attention.

“I wasn’t sure if you were ever going to get out of your car,” the familiar voice tells him. Luhan turns the car off, the click of the door unlocking loud in the silent night. The figure moves away and he exits the vehicle, using the faintest city lights to look at the man in front of him.

“I don’t think I was,” he says, following the male into the bright house. “I was in the neighborhood.” The lights hurt his eyes as he tries to get adjusted to them, and his throat burns with every word spoken but he’d gotten used to the pain after his breakdown in his bathroom. He wasn’t even supposed to be out. Kris had found him and helped him through what he’d called an attack of some sort, and had put him to bed with a command to rest.

“Doing what,” he’s asked, as they stop inside the kitchen. Luhan reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the pills he bought hours ago, giving it to the man in front of him. The bottle is examined, and the man frowns at him handing the pills back to Luhan. “You’re taking illegal pills now?”

“Anything to survive right,” Luhan replies. “Everyone else has that mindset, so I figured I’d adapt it as well.” There’s silence for a moment, confused eyes stare at him trying to read him and Luhan looks back, waiting.

“What’s wrong,” he’s asked.

“There’s a lot wrong, Minseok,” Luhan retorts. “The world is going to right before my very eyes, or are you asking about something specific?” Nothing is said, so Luhan continues. “I think Kris is dating an Imperfect.” He stares across from Minseok waiting for a response or some kind of reaction to his words, but Minseok simply stares back at him.

“The first time I got those pills, someone had stopped in front of my car, he was having a fit or something. I think that’s the man Kris is seeing,” Luhan explains. “I think Kris knows.”

“What am I supposed to do,” Minseok asks, finally handing the bottle of pills back to Luhan.  “I don’t know every Imperfect in this city.”

“If I had looked, truly looked into you and your background, would I have figured it out,” Luhan asks.

“Maybe,” Minseok admits. “I didn’t hide it as well as I should have. It’s too expensive to do so, and I’m sure you have the means and techniques to find a flaw in the most well-vetted profiles.”

“Then he knows,” Luhan says. “I’ll have to tell him regardless. There are not many things crueler than a close friend not telling you that the person you’ve cared so deeply about is hiding a huge secret like that. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t.”

Minseok’s eyes close, and the breath he draws in is long and deep. When he opens his eyes, he’s looking at Luhan’s ear rather than staring in his eyes. “Why are you here Luhan, why do you look like you’ve been crying?” His hand reaches up on instinct, pressing the pads of his fingertips just below his eyes. He’d thought he’d looked exhausted, sleep deprived, and stressed, but not as if he was crying.

“I haven’t,” Luhan says. The tears shed hadn’t been on purpose, so that wasn’t actually crying, was it?

“Okay,” Minseok says, still refusing to meet his eyes, “but you haven’t answered my questions. Why are you here? Why do you look the way you look?”

“I needed to see you,” Luhan replies, he feels the mask slipping and so he adverts his eyes as well, staring at the wallpapered wall behind Minseok’s head. “I hate you.”

“I know,” Minseok says, and Luhan can feel the burn of his gaze on his skin.

“I really do,” Luhan presses, “you’ve hurt me. You’ve used me, and you honestly deserve whatever you’re fated for.”

“I agree,” Minseok says softly.

“But,” Luhan starts. “I needed to see you. You’re...” He stops and swallows. There’s a hickory wood table in the rather large kitchen and Luhan takes a seat. His fingers trace the polished surface, thoughts racing around his head much too quickly for him to even sort through them.

“Have you ever seen a dead body before,” Luhan asks, “I never seen one. Not up close, that is.” There’s a dip in the wood of the table and Luhan sticks his nail into it as he continues to speak.

“When my father died, they only allowed me to look through a glass window at a sheet covered body that was supposed to be him. He’d died when I was in school, had some type of lung trouble at work and was sent to the Institution. When I got there, I waited 45 minutes and then some man came out and told me he was dead and led me to the window so that I could see for myself. They don’t get funerals. He was cremated two hours later and I didn’t even get to see the ashes, they probably tossed them in the trash right after.”

Minseok moves away from the kitchen counter, moving to stand behind Luhan. Luhan waits, nail digging into the crevice of the wood with more urgency as he feels the presence at his back. When a hand clasps down, light and barely there, on his shoulder he continues speaking.

“They’re so cold,” he states. “I knew that when they died their eyes go blank from seeing the executions, but they are unnaturally cold. Why do they get cold like that? I’ve seen death before you know. I know what it is but I don’t understand it, Minseok. I––

He cuts himself off as the hand on his shoulder grips him tighter. “Calm down,” he hears and it makes him want to laugh. He’d been trying to calm himself down for the past few hours. He leans forward, resting his head in his hands and breathes in a deep broken breath. He doesn’t know how to tell Minseok his confusion, doesn’t know how to explain that the idea of someone being there physically but so cold and unresponsive was what confused him. That is the part of death he doesn’t understand.

“Who died,” Minseok asks him, both hands now gripping his shoulders as he speaks each word slowly.

The heels of his hand dig into his burning eyes, and his voice cracks as he whispers the name to Minseok, “Junmyeon.”

****

The sun creeps past the trees in front of Minseok’s house, golden light surrounding them. There’s a part of Luhan, so minor that he’s able to push it down, that feels guilty at having Minseok out here with him. There’s an even greater part that feels the same churning vindictiveness at Minseok, believes that Minseok can at least sit here with him after leading him on, and unknowingly having the help of Junmyeon in his charade. The greatest emotion he feels, the one that allows him to rest his head on Minseok’s shoulder as the sun continues to rise is gratefulness. He’s thankful that Minseok’s willing to sit outside in silence with him, watching the dawn approach as he sorts through his thoughts and emotions.

“It’s unfair,” Luhan proclaims, his voice sounds raspy as he speaks. “I always thought this was a possibility. I don’t think anyone is naive enough to have their friends go into one of the most dangerous professions and believe that they’ll come out completely alright. I always figured I’d hear that one of them died in some faraway place I’d never heard of, yet he goes and gets himself killed in this -hole.”

Minseok holds his hand, and Luhan grips it tighter.

“His death is being used as propaganda as we speak,” Luhan says. “And, I can already imagine the circus that will be his memorial service. It’ll be televised so the whole world can play along like they knew Junmyeon when they didn’t. They didn’t know that he hated District One as much as I did, probably more than I did because that was all he was taught to know. People think he’s never returned home because of the shame of his fiancé leaving him, but it was more than that. He hated those functions, hated his family business, and had forgiven his fiancé the moment she’d left him. I don’t even think Yixing knew just how much Junmyeon loved him. He could have chosen any other job to rebel against his parents, but he chose to work for the CNS because Yixing had chosen it.”

The wet warmth of tears glide against his cheeks and drop onto Minseok’s shoulder as Luhan closes his eyes, his head’s pounding from a pain he’s unable to trace. All his ugly emotions resurface once more as his tears escape through the hard press of his eyes. The feeling from his breakdown in the bathroom returns, but it’s less intense, less consuming. He feels as if there’s something trying to claw out through his throat, as if all those emotions within him have formed a monster trying to rip out of his body, and he wants to let it go. He wants it out of his body, whatever it is that’s inside him, but he doesn’t know how to remove it.

“I forgive you,” he says into the early morning light. The monster is still there underneath his skin, but it settles down a bit at the statement. Minseok moves beside him, but Luhan holds harder onto his hand.

“Don’t do that thing you do,” Luhan says. “Don’t try to be understanding, don’t say I don’t have to, don’t speak a word.” He’s unsure of if what he says is true, but it feels real and honest, and he doesn’t care how pathetic it might make him.

“I forgive you,” he repeats, this time for himself and not for Minseok.

It's been a while. I'm really sorry for how long you've had to wait, school and work made me extremely busy the last few months, but now I'm less drained and with much more free time, so I'm back to updating with some sort of schedule.