The clock stops moving

the awkward dinner goes on quietly

as if trying to reveal something…

Yixing stares at Yifan quietly, placing the spoonful of warm broth against his lips. The entire room falls silent, and their two gazes which never meets run wildly in a loop, reminding the dimpled boy of the Moebius strip he had learned about not too long ago. Just like the Moebius strip, the man who has always been protecting his heart by shutting it closed and the gentle boy who had always been too kind to build any real relationship never meets eye to eye nor heart to heart. An invisible barriers separate the two, and even after six years of dating, Yixing is not even close enough to touch his boyfriend’s heart.

The night passes on quietly. Their backs are placed against one another, and Yixing silently watches the bright yellow moon outside the window. Yifan doesn’t sleep either. With his eyes opened, he thinks of Luhan. Of the other boy’s beautiful face, of his gentle fingertips brushing away the man’s childish tears, and the way the other boy moans as he sobs, desperately clinging onto Yifan. Luhan needs him, and he knows that. Everything is spiraling out of control ever since he encounters Luhan, out in the cold that day. He did not expect for things to move so fast, but two days ago, he made love to Luhan, in that shack, under those rain. Those endless pouring raindrops still resonate in his ears. He dislikes the sounds of rain, but now they are slowly being replaced by Luhan’s breath.

oh, won't you please shut up already

I doubt there's an answer anywhere,

as to whether we understand one another.

If that's what you're looking for,

why not just bring yourself over here.

Even while Yixing is smiling listening to Sehun’s crude jokes, his mind is constantly trapped in a maze. He notices the strange way Yifan has been behaving. The way the man sometimes sigh to himself, eyes glued to the rainy scene before his eyes. Yifan dislikes the rain, and Yixing knew that. The rain reminded Yifan of his parents, or the lack of his parents. Yixing knew all of that, not from the man’s mouth himself but the priest who found Yifan, a toddler, bundled in a basket, dropped outside of the church.

Yifan used to kiss the dimpled boy tenderly, pulling Yixing to an embrace, but he doesn’t do that anymore. It started three days ago when he returned home completely soaked. Yixing had taken the suit off for him, smiling to himself as he carefully washed the expensive suit and then ironed it. Yifan had thanked him, mumbled something strange and then disappeared into their bedroom. Yixing doesn’t know what happened, but whatever it is had change the man he knew.

Slowly, Yixing sees less and less of his boyfriend, but when he does, Yifan is always smiling happily, more than when he ever was next by Yixing’s side. At first, the dimpled boy enjoys those smiles too. Like a fool, he finds himself smiling responsively to Yifan’s every laughs, and every lame jokes. Yifan sometimes cuddle the smaller man in his arms, resting his chin onto Yixing’s nape, breathing in his soapy scent. But his boyfriend is not the same. The only thing that Yixing knows that has yet to change is the fact that the dimpled boy is still not even close to his true heart. Someone else has seized it. Frustratingly, Yixing buries his head deeper into the taller man’s chest, attempting to remember the way Yifan smells, the way Yifan feels like, and even the way Yifan’s chest slightly jumps.

Yixing cuddles closer to the man’s chest. He is nowhere close to it. He already knows farewell is approaching, and quietly, he mumbles to himself “please, don’t go.” His tears are left unseen, and his desperate cries are left unheard.

Slowly, Yixing’s mind is deteriorating. When he is called down to meet with Kyungsoo and his unfaithful boyfriend Kai, and Baekhyun and his forever bickering boyfriend Chanyeol, he is constantly watching the clock, afraid when he returns home, Yifan would no longer be there. In the last two months, he had noticed the way Yifan sometimes disappears for a long period of time, and he had noticed that sometimes new items would appear around the house or on Yifan’s. A gold bracelet not much of Yifan’s usual taste. An expensive wristwatch. A golden ring engraved with the motif of a raindrop.

When Yixing reaches home, he is beyond overwhelmed that Yifan is home, sitting on the sofa quietly reading a novel. He wraps his arms around the man’s neck, inhaling Yifan’s shampooed hair. He breathes the scent in, but that scent which he is so familiar with, is now mingled with a strange, unfamiliar scent. Yixing knows goodbye is drawing closer, and he kisses Yifan on the nape desperately, trailing around the man’s flesh until he touches Yifan’s sealed lips.

“What’s with you today,” Yifan laughs, cupping Yixing’s cheeks with his large hands. Yixing simply nods, climbing into his boyfriend’s lap. He locks his arms around Yifan’s neck, and kisses the man more roughly, recalling every techniques he had used on the man before. Yifan likes kisses on the collarbone. He would sometimes grunt when Yixing gives him an oral job. Yifan likes slow, smooth riding that feels as if small butterflies are flapping their wings around his stomach. Yixing recalls all of that, and desperately, he pleases the man, kissing down his neck to his growing . With Yifan’s neck arched against the couch, Yixing impales himself with his boyfriend’s member, smoothly sliding in and out. He makes love to Yifan, slowly and lovingly. The pain that tears his body and the pleasures that joins him together never meets. Just like the two of them, no matter how many times Yixing joins his body with Yifan, they have never opened up to one another. And Yixing cries from the pain and pleasure, mumbling repeatedly a “sorry” to Yifan.

I'm very afraid of kindness

so I end up crying, because you're kind

Yixing is counting the days until goodbye. He wakes up early in the morning to prepare Yifan a healthy and bountiful lunchbox, and takes it to the man’s workplace. When he brushes past the beautiful doe eyed boy he had met a few months back, he smiles at Luhan greeting the boy casually. The two of them barely talks much, but for whatever reason that day, Yixing stops to speak with the boy. When he breaks down from the frustration, the words suddenly slipped out.

“I think Yifan is cheating.”

Luhan stares awkwardly at him, slipping his hand away. But Yixing catches a glimpse at his slender, pale finger adorned with a golden ring. Luhan tries to console him for the rest of the hour, desperately, almost too desperately. Softly, he touches Yixing’s trembling palm, and tells the dimpled boy the words he hates the most. “You’re too kind. You should approach him.”

Yixing wasn’t born to be an angel. Sometimes he wishes he too can be selfish. Sometimes he wishes he can voice how he feels. But the cruel reality of love is people falls out of love with selfish people. His father and his mother, too. At a young age, Yixing was already well aware of his uality, and it had pained him listening to his parent’s dreams. “Someday you’ll take over our business and marry a beautiful wife,” his father had said. “Your wife must be beautiful because I want adorable grandchildren,” his mother had said. Yixing’s dream and his parent’s dream never met either. They were both headed for different endings, and the day Yixing left home forever, his mother pushed him roughly on the back. “You are too selfish,” his mother had cried, slamming the door on him. Yixing was left alone in the world. He was sixteen at the time, still a teenager and a claimed runaway. Kindness was his weapon. He had stopped being selfish since then. When he is kind to others, they accept him with open arms. Yixing had stopped telling people no. His assertiveness is gone, and so is his voice.

Yixing is kind. But Yifan is far more kind, kind to the point of scaring the dimpled boy. The man had accepted his everything from good unto bad. But Yixing has yet to embrace even a piece of his boyfriend’s nightmare. Yifan never speaks about his past, but he sometimes cry in his sleep, and when he does all the dimpled boy could do is gently touch his quivering fingertips and wait until the trembling passes.

Yixing cries himself to sleep that night as he watches Yifan mumbles in his sleep for the first time. The name that slips out is not his own.

“Luhan.”

The dimpled boy pinches himself hard on the arm. He had stopped being selfish long time ago. He had always been kind and understanding. So why has everything come to this? Why is Yifan drifting further away from him? He wants to ask the man, but Yifan is kind. Even if he blames the man, the boyfriend he knew would just accept the blame and apologizes. Kindness is his weapon. Kindness is his fear. Kindness is everything he wishes none of the two of them possesses.

Don't dance on your own,

because you're afraid to hurt someone

please waltz with me

Yixing thought he could continue to endure. He thought maybe he can continue to pretend, but after discovering the stash of hidden polaroids behind Yifan’s desk, he knew his boyfriend is no longer his. Staring at the unfamiliar man smiling next to the beautiful doe eyed Luhan, Yixing realizes his six years with Yifan is nowhere close to the short half year spent with Luhan. Inside of those black and white polaroids that lacks pigment and colors, Yifan is brightly smiling, his arms attached to Luhan’s thin nape. The places that the two of them traveled to are unfamiliar to Yixing— a beautiful pond, the night scene from an unknown tower, a garden patch filled with lilies, a merry-go-round in motion. Yixing’s gaze stops at the final portrait. Luhan is embracing Yifan inside of his frail arms. The two are smiling brightly, and behind them, is the church where Yifan was left behind, bundled as a toddler. The same place he grew up in. Yixing knows all of that, but not from the man’s lips. Every little things he knows about Yifan are through his own efforts, secretly investigating without Yifan’s consent.

Yixing breaks up with Yifan that night, neatly placing the portraits out on his desk. He bids the astonished man goodbye, and slowly struts into the night, keeping his head high. Just this much won’t kill him. Yixing had been through worse. Yixing has always been bad, never good enough. So he thought by being kind, other would return his kindness. Kindness is his weapon. Kindness was the barrier between him and Yifan. He cries softly with his head high. He won’t die. Even after goodbyes, people continue to move and to live, just like usual.

When Kyungsoo, Kai, Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Sehun finds out about the break up, they angrily retaliates, calling Yifan to give him a piece of their mind. Yifan continues to apologize tirelessly, and hearing his kind voice, Yixing too breaks into tears. His sudden outburst surprises his friends, and they stops bothering Yifan.

Yixing continues to live normally, arriving to class on time and dedicating himself to work. The dimples on his cheeks lightly fade, but he continues to smile. His friends, who as usual are overly concerned, drags him to a nightclub, and there he sees Yifan and Luhan in the corner of the bar, silently drinking. Luhan is moving his lips, chattering but Yifan’s silent gaze is wandering until he meets Yixing. He rises up abruptly, staring at Yixing for the longest time until he sits back down again. No one dances. The night moves on, passing over.

If you're being burnt by a mysterious flame

cry out, and call my name

even just once, even if its the last time

When Yixing thinks he has finally moved on, Yifan is at the door, begging to be let in. The dimpled boy awkwardly opens the door, and the taller man begins to cry, clinging onto Yixing. His hot tears are pressed onto the smaller boy’s shoulders, and barely, Yixing can hear his voice. Crawling on his knees, he repeatedly mumbles “I’m sorry,” and “I was wrong.” Yixing watches the sight of the child-like man clinging onto him, desperately crying. He touches his own cheeks, and the tears are there frozen, just like yesterday and the day before.

Yixing slowly pulls his hand out from its frozen posture, and gradually the tip of his finger brushes against Yifan’s trembling face. The gap between the two of them closes, just a finger further.

Yifan bought the dimpled boy a ring, proposing on his knees, and Yixing notices the sad, silent stares from Luhan across the room. When the two of them kisses promising an oath of forever, Yixing notices the same sorrowful gaze in his direction.

The events in Yixing’s world return to normal. Perhaps the events in Luhan’s world stop moving, but the dimpled boy doesn’t knows. Christmas approaches, and he is standing at the window, watching the snows fall. Yifan walks behind him, enveloping his tiny body within his husband’s embrace. Warmth fills up the gaps in his heart. He feels much closer to Yifan now. As if Luhan is the mark in their loop, the Moebius strip in their life has been cut free, slightly free. Yixing tightens his grip around Yifan’s arms.

He notices the way his husband stares into the distance, eyes glued to the fallen snow. A heavy feeling approaches his caged chest. When Yifan had promised him an oath of eternity, he had wondered to himself : how long exactly is eternity? How long can he keep Yifan by his side?

Snow is falling outside of the window. The gaps inside Yixing’s heart is filled, and Yifan is staring longingly at the scenery. His eyes sparkle with a glint of sadness, and noticing this, Yixing pecks the taller man on the cheeks, sweetly smiling with his deep dimples.

There are certain things about Yifan he will never know. He may have the man by his side, but he knows deep down, there are certain things about his husband only Luhan can ever have. But until the day Yifan can completely opens up to him he is willing to wait.

Yixing is going to wait even if it takes an eternity as promised by Yifan.

He stares back at the falling snow, pretending to not notice the way Yifan is furrowing with his brows. Yifan’s hand slowly draws away from Yixing’s touch, and for a mere second, his heart wavers again.

“I’m sorry, there is something I need to do,” Yifan suddenly says as he turns around to grab his scarf and coat. Yixing is kind so he nods, and watches his husband hastily stumbles into the cold. From the window, he sees Yifan rushing down the empty streets. A bell can be heard.

Yixing waits. He is willing to wait forever until Yifan is willing to open up to him… or at least, until goodbye separates the two of them once again.

Don't dance on your own,

because you're afraid to hurt someone

Waltz with me.

Please waltz with me.