“Why is he involved?” Sehun’s eyes darted accusingly toward Joonmyun.

“I had to tell him,” Lu Han said, his large round eyes now blinking apologetically. “Maybe I should have consulted you. And called you before coming here. I’m sorry.”

Even Sehun seemed to soften a little at Lu Han’s regretful expression. Yixing still hadn’t said a word. He looked to Joonmyun again and then at Lu Han before he asked, “Sorry, but...how do you two know each other?”

He thought maybe he should have segued into the question more politely somehow, but Lu Han looked at him calmly as he answered, “We work together.”

“I’ve never seen you before at the company. Or the jazz club,” Yixing said.

“My line of work is a little different,” Lu Han said, crossing into the kitchen and pouring himself a glass of water.

Yixing wanted to ask more questions, but Joonmyun beat him to the punch. “Yixing,” he said, stepping closer, close enough for Yixing to see the uncertainty in his eyes. “I want to hear the truth from you. Are you really from China, or...or not?”

Yixing felt everything inside him lock up as he glanced briefly at Lu Han again, who was now sitting at the table and watching the exchange like they were a mildly interesting TV program. “You know?” was all he managed to say, voice quiet. “How?”

“Lu Han...” Joonmyun began, pausing to look at the other man,  “...says that he and Sehun are Guardians of the worlds.”

“What?” Yixing lowered himself into a chair again, staring, awestruck, at Lu Han and then staring at Sehun as if he’d just noticed him there. “Sehun?”

“It’s true,” Sehun said with a shaky breath, still nervously running his hand through his hair. “That’s what I wanted to tell you, Yixing.”

There was a silence then, until Joonmyun spoke up once more, his own voice sounding thin. “I’m sorry,” he said in a strained sort of way, “I just still don’t understand. How can you be from a parallel world, Yixing?”

“Consider this,” Lu Han said before Yixing could say anything, gesturing gracefully with his hands as he talked. He commanded everyone’s attention with the seamless way that he glued his words together. “There were two earthquakes shortly after Yixing arrived, not the most common of natural disasters here, and to coincidentally have two in one week would have to be an extremely rare occurrence. Both of them took place in an extremely small, isolated area, where Yixing happened to be both times.”

Joonmyun tried to point out that he and Chanyeol were also present for both earthquakes, but Lu Han was talking so fast that he didn’t get a real chance to make the argument.

“Also, there was the power outage in Sehun’s office, another isolated incident that happened directly where Yixing was. These are not random occurrences. Weather, electrical, or cell signal disturbances are characteristic of a disturbance in the balance of the universe. Those were not natural earthquakes, and there was no power failure in your building - all these events were the result of an imbalance of the energy among the worlds that keeps them parallel…a tilt in the axis of the universe.”

No one spoke and suddenly everything, the filing cabinet, the text conversations, even Sehun’s mysterious phone conversation the night Yixing had first seen him, made sense and fit together like chain links in his mind. There was only one piece left that he didn’t understand. “So what happens now?”

He was looking at Sehun, but Lu Han was once again the first to answer. “On October 31st next year, Sehun is sending you back to your world.”

Yixing couldn’t stop staring at Sehun, silently begging him to look back at him and acknowledge what Lu Han said, but he was leaning against the kitchen counter with his head angled down, not looking at anyone.

“Perhaps we should leave the two of you alone to talk,” Lu Han suggested quietly, standing up.

“That might be a good idea.” Everyone’s eyes were on Sehun now that he’d finally said something.

Lu Han approached him and Sehun glared up at him through the choppy ends of his dark hair.

Yixing stood up too, but now he turned away from Lu Han and Sehun to look at Joonmyun, who was still standing in the entryway to the kitchen. “I’m sorry I kept this from you,” he was suddenly blurting out, quietly enough that he thought the others might not hear. “I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you my real story.” He’d said the words already, but it didn’t satisfy his impulse to apologize. He hadn’t needed to hide everything, like him and Sehun, but he’d grown so comfortable hiding that he felt like even one thread of truth might unravel the rest of his secrets. There was also the drawback of it being so difficult to tell Joonmyun anything you thought he might not want to hear.

Even then, Joonmyun looked at him with that expression of concern that was so familiar now, and it only made him feel guiltier. “I...I think I understand. I’m not angry. I just...need to process all this.”

“I’m sorry, Sehun, for just showing up like this,” Lu Han was also apologizing from across the room, turning Yixing’s and Joonmyun’s attention back to the other two, “but Joonmyun needed to know everything, and he needed to hear it from you and Yixing too, not just me. He is like Yixing’s family in this world. You knew he’d be the one who has to know the truth.”

“I don’t care,” Sehun cried out. “This isn’t about that. This is about you...outing me, when I wanted to tell Yixing myself, Lu Han. It’s just like you to pull something like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Lu Han said again. His eyes were large and full of sympathy as they watched Sehun sit down at the table, his thin arms and legs that usually were graceful suddenly making him appear fragile. “I didn’t mean for…” He trailed off and sighed. “You’re like a little brother to me, Sehun. I only ever want to make things easier on you.”

“Don’t pretend to know what this is like for me, because you don’t,” Sehun said roughly. “You never have.”

Lu Han looked like he wanted to say something more, but couldn’t think of what it should be. The two of them hardly seemed to notice that Joonmyun and Yixing were even still there. It was uncomfortable for Yixing, feeling like he was listening in on their argument.

“Just go,” said Sehun finally, but all the command was gone from his voice. It was more of a tired request.

Lu Han wordlessly obeyed, murmuring something to Joonmyun as he led him to the door. When Lu Han had retrieved his rain jacket and they were gone, Yixing slowly came back to the table to sit beside Sehun. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just reached for Sehun’s hand underneath the table and hoped that he wouldn’t let go.

He didn’t, and Yixing wondered how long they would stay there like that, until Sehun said, “I wanted to tell you myself. But Lu Han is…” Sehun paused for a moment, as if thinking. “...He has to make everything a show.”

Yixing watched as Sehun threaded their fingers together in a way that was more comfortable. “It’s been that way for as long as I’ve known him, and that’s a long time. Our teachers, who helped us learn to use our powers, made him my mentor at first. He treated being a Guardian like it was some grand honor. He tried to get me to think of it that way, too. But then the teachers discovered that my power was greater than his...that I could be an Enforcer, actually send people across worlds.”

Sehun stopped and looked at Yixing, who was drinking in every word with the kind of amazement that was definitely reserved for hearing about blue moons and parallel worlds and legends that were actually true. “It’s not that he’s jealous. He just doesn’t understand that what I have to do...it doesn’t feel like an honor to me.”

Yixing was still speechless, just remembering how before, he’d thought Sehun appeared like a senior executive even though he was just a low level employee, the youngest out of Joonmyun’s inner circle in the company and maybe the whole building. Joonmyun had vouched for him, saying that he was capable of more than anyone gave him credit for. That seemed true in an entirely different way, now that Yixing knew that he literally held the fate of the world--or, worlds--in his hands.

“You know the blue moon only happens once every two or three years,” Sehun went on. Yixing let him talk, acutely aware of the place where their hands were still connected. “A lot can happen in that amount of time. People find places to live, they make new lives, they fall in love. But none of it can be permanent, and I have to be the one to tell them that. If I want to have any hope of getting them back to their own worlds with their souls still intact, I have to make sure they want to go back.”

He took a breath and turned away a little, his curtain of hair hiding his eyes. When he continued, he sounded like he might be trying not to cry. “And...I’ve done horrible things to make sure of that, Yixing. I’ve committed crimes, I’ve broken up relationships, I’ve ruined lives, Yixing. All because of this ability I have, this ‘honor.’ But the truth is, I would give anything to just be...normal.” He turned back to Yixing, letting him see the couple of tears that now shone on his pale cheeks, even though he was clearly trying to hold more back. “I’m so sorry. I’ve done this same thing to other people so many times. Now I guess I get to know what it feels like on the other side.”

Yixing gave Sehun’s hand a squeeze, wishing he could do more. Although he knew now he’d be going home, and as much as he missed it, he hated the thought of Sehun still here, stuck in a life that he didn’t want, without anyone to brush away his tears or to kiss the warmth back into his lips. “Can’t you say no to the job? If you don’t want to do it?” Yixing asked, finding his voice at last.

“I don’t have a choice,” Sehun answered, taking his hand back into his own lap. A hardened look came into his eyes then and his words sounded rehearsed, like he’d said this same thing to many people. “I’m not even from this world originally, but I was sent here a long time ago to be this world’s Guardian, with Lu Han, and there’s no one to take our place. When the blue moon comes, I have to take you back to your world. To not do my job would be to break laws that can’t even physically be broken.”

Yixing let that sink in before he raised the next question that came to his mind. “But...if you’re from another world too, how can you stay here? Aren’t you affecting the balance of the universe just like I am?”

Sehun shook his head. “No. The energy of a Guardian’s soul is fundamentally different from a normal person. Lighter,” he explained.

Yixing was quiet for a moment. He reached for Sehun’s hand under the table again, this time only covering it with his own, not expecting him to hold on.

Sehun his lips, looking down instead of at him. “Please don’t, Yixing. Don’t make this harder than it is,” he said, but he didn’t take his hand out from under Yixing’s.

“I know this is hard,” Yixing said, “harder than I could have imagined. There’s still a lot I don’t understand, and probably never will.” He searched Sehun’s expression as he considered whether he should say what he wanted to say next. Sehun looked so young again, but his armor had chipped and been plastered haphazardly back together so many times that it was like he’d lived dozens of lives, few of them ending peacefully. Seeing those chipped edges of Sehun now, he was filled with a new resolve that he’d never felt before, and he went on, “But...I don’t want you to be alone in this. When the blue moon comes, I’ll go willingly. But until then, let me be there for you.”

“I want to,” Sehun said, looking at Yixing but it didn’t seem like he was seeing him. It was like he was seeing the future, and all the ways that this might end. Yixing didn’t want to think about it, and he didn’t want Sehun to think about it. He was reminded of something his friends said to him a long time ago, when he’d always wanted to stay in instead of letting them coax him out.

“So let me,” Yixing said again, not knowing where his sudden bravery was coming from. Sehun seemed to bring it out of him. “Just let me.”

Sehun was sitting at the edge of his chair, so close to Yixing that he could see the miniature dot of a beauty mark near his Adam’s apple, the fine lines in his pale pink lips. Sehun was the one to lean forward and brush Yixing’s lips with his. Yixing’s nerves whirred to life and he was kissing back, catching Sehun’s small top lip in between his fuller ones.

One of Sehun’s broad palms spread its warmth across the small of Yixing’s back and slowly pulled him closer until he was out of his own chair, the back of his thighs resting on the tops of Sehun’s and steadying himself with his hands on Sehun’s shoulders. Sehun kissed him harder, making Yixing stumble a little as he stood up suddenly.

Their hips were right up against each other’s but Yixing still wanted Sehun closer. He registered that the kitchen counter was digging into his back and he was standing where Sehun had stood earlier, talking to Lu Han. It was that memory that brought him back to the present moment a little.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Sehun murmured against Yixing’s lips, as if he’d had the same thoughts.

“I know,” Yixing said right before Sehun connected their lips again.

Sehun’s fingers shook when he undid the buttons on Yixing’s shirt. He was gentle when he eventually guided him onto the bed. Yixing didn’t want Sehun to think about what might happen next year, so he tried his best to make every moment they had right now require his full attention. He pressed his lips to Sehun’s neck, his chest, the delicate curve of his hips. Yixing could feel it in the way that Sehun didn’t rush, how he took Yixing’s uneven breaths like he could keep them with him even after tonight.

Sometimes, no matter how hard Yixing tried to erase a line drawn in pencil, it just wouldn’t quite disappear. And after the whole piece was finished and it had been drawn over, Yixing could still see that line, if he looked hard enough. He thought that being with Sehun was a little bit like that. He could disappear from this world, but Sehun would never disappear from his.

*

“Thanks,” Joonmyun said to Lu Han as they walked back to Lu Han’s car that they’d taken from the office, “for helping me talk to him. I’m not sure if I would have otherwise.”

“I know,” was all Lu Han said, his face mostly hidden by the baggy hood of his jacket.

“Right.” Joonmyun laughed a little as he got into the car, even though he didn’t find it particularly funny that Lu Han seemed to be able to infer anything and everything about him.

“I don’t know everything, you know,” Lu Han said, ironically replying to Joonmyun’s thoughts again. “I never claimed to.”

“Seems you know a lot, though,” said Joonmyun, “being a...Guardian.”

“So you believe me?” Lu Han asked as he turned the car out onto the street.

“I don’t know. It’s a lot to take in.” Joonmyun watched raindrops chase each other on the outside of his window.

“I can be satisfied with that.”

The only sound for a while was the rain and wind outside the car.

“What would it be like for you, without Yixing?” Lu Han asked, carefully, as if the words themselves had the power to inflict pain.

“I don’t know,” Joonmyun answered, even though it was nothing he hadn’t thought about before. “I’d be living by myself again, I guess. I would miss him.” They were coming up on the turn for the driveway of Lu Han’s office and he could see his own car parked out front. He suddenly wished they’d get there faster, wanting to escape more of Lu Han’s questions.

If there was one thing Lu Han never seemed to tire of, it was asking questions. “What is it that you like about him?” he asked next.

That really did make Joonmyun laugh. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Yes, you do,” Lu Han insisted. “Think about it for more than two seconds and then tell me.”

Joonmyun tried to do what he asked, even as Lu Han pulled his car into the space next to Joonmyun’s in the parking lot. Lu Han was looking at him with those magnifying glass eyes again, and Joonmyun felt small under their scrutiny. At the same time, though, the way that Lu Han looked at him also made him feel like an important detail, like a clue that a whole case hinged on understanding. Like it was Joonmyun himself who was worth looking at, not his name or his reputation or all the things he was responsible for.

“Yixing needed someone, when I first met him,” Joonmyun said, looking straight ahead so it was almost like he was talking to the glove box rather than Lu Han. “I wanted to be that person…I want to keep being that person.”

“Joonmyun,” Lu Han said as two pads of his fingers met the bottom of Joonmyun’s chin and gently tipped it up to get Joonmyun to look at him. “It’s okay for you to need someone, too.”

His breath seemed to stop short and then he was conscious of every inhale and exhale. Lu Han slowly took his hand back, but Joonmyun barely noticed. He was looking right into Lu Han’s dark eyes and was reminded of that moment in Lu Han’s office when he’d asked Joonmyun to trust him, how his eyes had shimmered then under the fluorescent lights, how they always seemed to be able to shake up Joonmyun’s heartbeat with their brightness. Lu Han’s eyes were like searchlights now, and Joonmyun’s heart faltered in his chest.

He turned his head away once more and let his breathing even out so he could say, “Thank you, again.” He climbed out of the passenger seat and he had his hand on his own car door when he heard another door slam shut and Lu Han called his name again.

“Joonmyun.” Lu Han sounded frustrated and Joonmyun turned around again. He had gotten out of his car without his jacket on, and his sandy colored hair was already darkened by the rain. “Are we just going to act like nothing happened just now?”

“Nothing did happen,” Joonmyun answered, trying to convince himself as much as Lu Han that it was true. Maybe Lu Han’s hand on his face and his gaze on his lips had made his heart jump a little, but now it was beating steadily again. Maybe there had been a moment in which he’d wanted to kiss Lu Han, but he hadn’t kissed him. “Have a good night.”

He got into the car and closed the door, and it was only a few seconds later that Lu Han appeared in his passenger seat, dripping all over it. He ran a hand through his wet strands of hair and said, “Fine, let me rephrase...are we just going to act like nothing...didn’t...almost not happen?”

Joonmyun stared disbelievingly. “I can’t believe I understood that,” he said, finding himself looking again at the rosy red of Lu Han’s small mouth and the perfect bow in his upper lip, his long eyelashes that clung together with raindrops. Joonmyun swallowed and looked away. “But...yes. I think we have to.”

“Why?” Lu Han challenged. “Technically we don’t have to do anything.”

Joonmyun sighed shakily. “Don’t get all philosophical on me, Lu Han.”

“Is it because of Yixing?”

Joonmyun said nothing.

“Joonmyun...you’ll have to let him go,” Lu Han reminded him, but his voice was still gentle. “You understand that, right?”

“I know.”

“You weren’t even sure you were going to confess to him before you knew he was leaving,” said Lu Han, his words hardening just a little. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that relationship is never going to amount to anything more than it is. Why are you holding onto it so tight?”

Joonmyun couldn’t say anything. He didn’t want to be having this conversation, because he couldn’t help the way that he felt about Yixing, even though Lu Han was right. But the thought of being with Lu Han instead, letting himself love someone who might actually love him back someday...scared him, somehow.

“It doesn’t have to be anything more,” Joonmyun said eventually, looking down again. “I’m not sure I even want that. At one point maybe I did, but now...”

Lu Han realized he wasn’t going to continue and said, “Then...what is it that you want? Right now, in this moment, if you could have anything?”

The question took Joonmyun by surprise.

Lu Han seemed to know immediately this time that Joonmyun wasn’t going to say anything. “You know...for a moment, earlier, I thought maybe you were going to let me in. The walls are back up, I see.”

“I…” Joonmyun moistened his lips with his tongue. He suddenly noticed his hands were shaking and he balled them up in his lap. “Why are you asking?”

“Because figuring things out - figuring people out - is what I do for a living, and I do a damn good job of it. I’m observant. I can read people by a quirk of their lips, a twitch of their fingers. I know what they’re hiding in no time at all, just by watching. But you…” Luhan let out a breath, dragging a hand through his hair again and looking older and more tired than Joonmyun would have ever thought possible. “I can’t figure you out. So, I need you to tell me.”

There was another long pause while Joonmyun took in Lu Han’s words.

“That wasn’t easy for me to admit, alright?” Lu Han prompted eventually. “I’d appreciate it if you’d say something. Anything at all.”

Joonmyun finally tried to respond, saying the first thing that came to mind and stammering it out. “I...it’s just...I need some time, okay? I just found out that Yixing is from another world, that you are...not who I thought you were, and...I didn’t write this on that clipboard, but...maybe you already know.” Joonmyun felt brave enough to search Lu Han’s eyes, but he didn’t interrupt and just waited for him to go on. The quiet display of patience was more encouraging than demanding an answer. “I’ve never actually...been in a relationship. I’m not sure I know how.”

Lu Han’s expression suddenly changed into one Joonmyun had never seen on the detective’s face: confusion. “Okay, the first part of what you said I can understand, but...Joonmyun,” he said, his features softening, “you’re...gorgeous. It doesn’t take a detective to figure that out. Are you telling me that in all this time you’ve been working as a bartender, no one has ever slipped you their number?”

Joonmyun shifted in his seat, amazed that they were still in his car, having this conversation. “Some have,” Joonmyun admitted, “but I never called them.”

Lu Han gave him a long, calculating look, like the ones he would give him in his office, but also somehow different. Lu Han wasn’t treating this like it was work anymore. “Joonmyun...have you never kissed anyone before?”

Joonmyun froze, caught off guard, and he knew the answer was obvious from his hesitation. He shook his head helplessly. Lu Han didn’t ask for an explanation, but he felt compelled to give one. “There’s never been anyone who wanted to kiss me, who I wanted to kiss back.”

Lu Han wasn’t touching him anymore, wasn’t even looking at him, but Joonmyun felt like they were closer than they really were when Lu Han asked, “What do you want, Joonmyun? What would make you happy?”

Suddenly, it was like they were no longer in Joonmyun’s car, but in an interrogation room where it was only the two of them and a bright light and Lu Han could pick up on every twist of his hands in his lap as he lied. He felt put on the spot and he wanted to deflect the question again, but somehow the light in Lu Han’s eyes demanded an answer like it always does.

“I don’t think I know what I want.”

“You deserve to find whatever it is, you know,” Lu Han said, his features feather soft in the dim light of the parking lot.

Joonmyun nodded. “I know.”

“I’m not so sure,” Lu Han said. The corners of his mouth pulled upwards, but his eyes stayed serious. Joonmyun watched his mouth fall back down into a straight line of bright pink on his pale face as Lu Han turned away to open the door, and then he stepped out into the rain.