"good morning, beautiful."

luhan slithers out of bed at 11 pm when the skies are glazed in star-frosting behind a dark navy façade and crawls back under the covers after daylight, lingering five in the morning when the sun just flickers to be.his mornings star with an ugly growl stolen from minseok's lips and end with the late fragnance of freshly brewed coffee in early haze, golden halo drawn onto the curtains and lazy pecks all over his face, shy touches and sweet whispers. they're tired and they're dripping of that mysterious heaviness hours of sleep spread onto human beings, but it's good, it's great, it's caramel syrup accidentally poured into strong americano.

 

minseok gets up somewhere around thirty five between when luhan arrives and six, spending perfectly wasted minutes with him in bed, two quarters of beloved nothing but stealing glazes glittering of tiny stars from eacother's bodies, kisses light as feather and words unsaid, deaf and voiceless, mute 'i love you's hanging on their lips. they get lost in the thunder of soft sighs and vanish away to be kept for the night.

 

on saturdays, life plays dice and wins double six. luhan stays the night and minseok doesn't leave the bed either. legs tangle up into inseparable, arms lace together, fingers seeking one another in the dim lights of late eight, nine, ten, filtering through the heavy curtain-veil smoothed on to the morning, saturdays mean dayoff and consist of nothing but lingering and lounging back and then on the bed linen, breakfast in the late forenoon with the sight of a district bathed in scuz and hints of snow from perhaps one day earlier. saturdays mean those brunches that sooner or later become spent laughing and smiling at fresh berries stuck to the very middle of just perfect hot cakes, crusts dipped in chocolate and watered with maple syrup left over from last year's christmas when their friends flew cross the globe; they include showers spared for being together and quiet music seeping from the walls, bodies pulled into silly waltz that end up falling, curling up together on the very cozy rug in the chamber dedicated as the living room. minseok rolls onto his side with a mischievous smile and magnets luhan back into the bedroom.

 

they find themslves between the sheets again, rumpling the white linen for hectic hedone, pure pleasure.

 

"screw it-" luhan tears the light sweater off minseok, fingers wandering up his bare side, tips tracing cold ribs and he glues his soft plush lips to the older's white neck. he groans in anticipation.

 

"what?" the younger laughs as his mouth lets go of early sweatdrops beading on luscious skin. his teeth don't give up yet and cling reluctantly to minseok's light neck. sweet and salty, with the curious taste of something extraordinary luhan swallows to learn, fitting perfectly into overcast wintery afternoons.

 

"me."

 

luhan's got tan but it's strongly fading: summer's long gone and sunny days come with the temperature of ice age, light cold as the cutting air chapping their lips. minseok remembers how y he looked like when his complexion got darker and his eyes, teeth and hair seemed at least two shades brighter immediately whenever he glanced at him in the hot breeze that welcomed him every time he came home from work to find him lazing spread on the couch. shirt off, lids closed down and lashes brushing his tearwet-sundried cheeks sprinkled with a blow of glittering peach. minseok knew him to let his eyes water sometimes when he felt homesick because he obviously had all the rights and reasons to: he was far away from his homeland china and both his parents, his brothers and sisters - minseok knew because luhan told him long ago, on a date they spent roofless and saw stars, counted as much as they could and then walked home by the seaside with the grumbling waves lapping their bare feet, two shoes in each hands and the empty ones entwined. then was the time luhan sang along with the billows and shed tears to the dark night, warbling minseok his loneliness that his company could even barely erase. the beaten hole in his heart missed the things he once had to face everyday. his feet never tasted the sand towering the downcoast ever again, anymore, and his ears never heard the same voices as before.

luhan sang in chinese that minseok barely understood but still tried to because it made him feel as if he could, even if just a little bit, get closer to the boy whose does eyes and pink tongue still said mandarin.

 

perhaps he could get closer to plaster the hole in his beautiful heart if he couldn't fill it, perhaps he could get closer to his lover's words that got lost in translation. luhan was amazing both in korean and chinese but he sounded like an entirely different person talking in his mother language - and so was he. he was strong, he was fierce, he was gorgeous and most important he was happy, ethereally happy and minseok reckoned he'd give upon what he's been speaking all his life up to that holy moment if he could see that smile on luhan's face everyday that he wore when he whispered to him in chinese.

 

he thought their love was like the lady and the tramp.

 

he was delicate and luhan was stray.

 

"you've lost weight again." luhan murmurs quietly as he's sitting top of minseok, his bulge against the older's stomach in the pitch valley between hipbones jutting out, each legs at the two sides of him. he's toppless and so is the boy under him - there's nothing but scrubby jeans tearing their skin apart. minseok has his body covered in sparkles when luhan's dark hands sweep across its fair being, fingers pressing the light flesh and long nails drawing ruddy lines wherever they stray up and down, back and forth. it's warm inside and it only gets warmer with every single move the younger dares to step. he undresses his lover and himself too, binding their bodies together and changing positions.

 

"i know." minseok replies, serene and distant. "it's the work. i never have time for anything else anymore."

 

he gasps when luhan pounds inside him and loses control.

luhan is perfect. luhan looks perfect, at least, and he's minseok's. he's minseok's but minseok always forgets that because he's on low terms with himself and he doesn't feel himself nor pretty or handsome standing next to luhan, he doesn't feel fit and well-built but a no one. he's short and he's not strong and he has only gotten thinner during the failed process of trying to get more in shape. he's lighter than luhan who has the body of a wimpy teen but it doesn't make him feel and better. his hair is a mess sitting on top of his head, it's barely rufous anymore like how it once was and how luhan said he fell in love with it, and minseok worries how he feels about it now. because he's one the older thinks he doesn't deserve but has anyways. he's one he doesn't fit but owns anyways. he's one he doesn't look good with but stands beside him anyways.

 

 

he asks his reflection the same staring back at him from the mirror, bags under his eyes, puffy corners and cheeks that look like a squirrel's, plump and he woke up as if one beat him during the night he barely spent sleeping - just counted the minutes that passed quicker he expected them to, from two in the morning till he finally fell asleep with luhan's bare long arms and legs tangled around him. but it was too soon sunday and sunday meant he had to wake up much before lunchtime what literally seemed possible after such a night vigiled being ed against the headrest and then the sheets. minseok always felt horrible on sundays which he in regular spent out for work but luhan stayed home. there aren't many performances at the patio-sunroom bar he's a singer of, on sundays, and he doesn't attend any of them. he doesn't intend to leave the bed for anything but a drink and food, lazing throughout the day and waiting for a tired minseok to come home and crave for something beyond a long talk after an even longer day.

 

"i found a box today." luhan starts when minseok walks into the bedroom and crashes down beside him. he closes his eyes but it doesn't stop the younger of continuing. "it was pretty interesting."

 

minseok feels a hand on his head, fingers running through his hair. luhan breathes a kiss onto his parting.

 

"was it?"

 

"yeah."

 

"what was inside of it?"

 

"letters."

 

minseok opens his eyes. he remembers letters that were written and given to him, both anonymously and face-to-face, he remembers reading them and he remembers keeping them, he remembers organizig them, putting them into a box, bringing them with himself when he moved in with luhan but he most definitely forgot storing them where one could easily find them. not like he was ashamed or felt like it was something to hide, but that were written down in them were only his and their senders' business.

 

"are you angry?"

 

"i should be?"

 

luhan watches his stormed-up face serenely. he's not angry.

 

"listen; those letters are from high school. i don't even remember their author anymore."

that is a lie, but lies are sometimes acceptable if they are meant to protect the feelings of who they are told to, and also, they make lives easier. unless they fail to cover the truth.

 

minseok stares at him with his mouth ajar when he picks a simple envelope up from the night stand beside their bed. it's a quiet smile that plays on his plush lips while he's fidgeting the the white paper with his long tan fingers; it cuts pinky lines into his tips, leaving its traces for just eyeglimpses to then disappear as if they never even were there.

 

"i liked this one."

 

he hands him the envelope and minseok opens it; a notepaper slips out of it onto his palm, opening up for him by all itself at its folding. the letter's long but the lines are short, they are written hectically and they are erratic, capitals and characters illegible, lost in the cramped handwriting of a mysterious someone under the - probably - pen name of chen, luhan has earlier squeezed his eyes hard to read out the signature in latin type-subtlety. another one was given under the same name and then, maybe, he doesn't remember, but perhaps has read a third letter (poem, confession, an ode, whatever they were at first and last thought supposed to be) marked with the roman scratch just one inch lower from where the last line ends.

minseok only has to read the first row to know who was it written by and what it contains - fatigue of life and pain, sorrow that wasn't only the poet's but also his, very much of his.

 

 

"i think i haven't told you anything yet."

 

he thought their love was like the lady and the tramp.

 

luhan was once stray and he was delicate. it was written in the stars and it was the whisper coming with the breeze of the eastern winds they only saw the outcome of, it was reverberating on luhan's snow-white teeth and it was in the book minseok was back then reading even on that very day they met; fate, they had to be together. luhan had his hair in a messy stack and his skin, body dirty - minseok had his clothes fresh and neat, his ears and eyes clean. and minseok knew where and how to find jewels that were the ugliest being unchiselled, but came out as one of the breathtaking once adept and keen hands took them over.

he probably wouldn't have found luhan if he weren't challanged by the dare to tame him for that he was an but what he

 

people only are afraid of the wild as long as they have it out of their hands, anyways.

they both work on monday, it's a horrid time and the lassitude steals tears from minseok's eyes. they only have two days off but they differ - luhan stays in alone on sundays but the older has himself free every (almost every) tuesday. he then has to go back to work and seldom regrets twenty hours of break put between monday and wednesday.

 

the sky is coral when he wakes up alone in bed that is unusual on tuesdays; there's a pair of slanky legs from around him and two clingy arms, hands, slim fingers tangling up with his own missing - luhan's gone what scares minseok because it's unlike him but not something that has never happened before. he rarely, althought, does have performances to attend during daylight and he not often, but does go out for fun (whicih, he never forgets to clearly state, is not even that of fun without minseok, and minseok turns him down every rare occasion) or events that are, naturally, alot less fun. it can only be one of the above but it's time the older falls back into bed, pulling the blanket over his head in hopes of some extra minutes, or even, hours of sleep that are eventually going to end up with him having to wake up and clean around. it's warm under heavy sheets and the feeling of soft cotton, the scent of freshly washed bed linen and the taste of late-night soju in his mouth just even more seduces him to stay in bed the whole day. but one time he well have to wake up anyways and that one time comes solid eight minutes after eleven in the morning.

 

there's a lot to do because when luhan stays home he never does anything other than sleeping and probably once in a lifetime, cooking he does pretty ing well but he's used to forget it, since there's nothing else on his mind, just minseok's body and the flavour of the night's colourful shaved ice they fancy to lighten and milk up with hints of kalinka or if they're out of some fine russian vodka, two pints of baijiu (which luhan is very, very much keen on for its strong spirit) also makes it. what he lets out of his hands tastes far better than food in popular local restaurants but what he leaves for minseok to clean up is worse than his motherland after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake. (fortunately or not, he does not intend to cook anything that morning.) but minseok enjoys the whip and he enjoys desserts luhan simply calls ty tteoks for their icing he arranges so precisely the older doesn't know whether to cry or laugh and the tiny little stars coming in various girly shades such as pastel magenta and violet, pink, light pink and babyblue that are glued to their top after another, final gilding layer of cream.

 

they looked weird as with their shrill blinging luhan sprinkled over them, cynically stating how they were pieces of art, but damn, even if their frosting and topping were quite uncalled for, they tasted like heaven.

nonetheless, minseok still had to clean up the intimidating mess luhan left in the kitchen after his masterpieces were done (and consumed).

 

those times he were alone, he often found himself in the bathroom again, looking at himself in the mirror and wondering how he's become the tramp and luhan the lady.

 

and then, he wonders why is he still there.

 

so does now. and he thinks about letters he's received when he was nineteen. he's come a long way since then, longer than he expected because it still seems like as if it happened just yesterday when he opened his locker and a neat beige envelope fell out of from between a great pile of books and crumpled sheets of paper, meeting his hands for first time in forever.

 

and then, another came. and another one following just two at the same time until his drawers were filled with envelopes and just letters in their own . minseok was surprised how this all happened but he felt happy and appealed by them, even if he had a boyfriend and even if he did not know who the doodles were sent by, it made his heart beat faster and his stomach grow narrower at the thought that someone liked him so much they made art for him (even if one would say it was not of art, he found it nevertheless) and yeah, they probably wasted at least one hour thinking of him. he never considered himself one who was pretty, or good-looking, whatever boys thought of other boys they fancied, or even one who was nice to keep around and had a spirit to be keen on.and after he broke, what he never told luhan, those papers became flesh and blood, bones and muscles to help him up from the ground so he wouldn't freeze and they become a shoulder then to cry on, a chest to lean against and a lap to sit on, feet to stand onto and a face to seek in the dark.

 

because it was all dark back then.

but it was somehow getting brighter and as all do, minseok as well overcome what's been ripping him apart and keeping him awake at night before. after one long summer and one long semester at universtiy studying medical specialization, he gave up on his past with a drink in his hand at a college party and down the throat of a beautiful stranger he'd never seen before and thought will never see anymore but failed in suggest when the student wrote his number across his arm in red permanent marker, drunk characters under the contacts saying l-u-h-a-n. and a small heart. or perhaps something obscene, minseok was too drunk to care.

 

it was his first time (and last, ever since then) to lay with a smudgy, amateur but very ambitious soccer player who couldn't even spell his name - and after another few sips of booze, neither could he his own - correctly but somehow it did not bother him the least, especially not then when there wasn't much beyond in his car and the stranger only screamed his name when he came in hard anyways.

 

minseok thought it would be a one-night stand but the next day he couldn't wash luhan's number off his skin. the name neither. and the heart, the heart stayed there as well.

 

 

minseok gets a call while he's cleaning up what the weekend left over.

he does not only break the vase in his hands but his heart too when he whispers an obligate "yes" into the speaker of the landline phone.

 

"minseok?"

 

luhan opens the door of the small bathroom opposite the kitchen to find a small body curled up right beside the demister box. a smile creeps onto his lips when he recognizes the tiny feet and hands that are uncovered, laying bare on the floor and he reckons how sweet it looks like but he doesn't see the diamond eyes that are hiding away from his sight. minseok's awake but he pretends not to be so the younger squats down next to him and caresses his face then his hair, whispering a syrupy greeting and an amen into minseok's ear. he finds his right hand somewhere squeezed between the floor and his fragile ribs and he entwines it with own.

 

"what happened, baozi?"

 

that's what luhan calls him. no baby, babe, bae, sweetheart, angel, cutiepie, cutie patootie, kitty, bird - just a silent baozi that still means and carries so much more than any of the usual and gotten-boring nicknames could ever. it means the universe regardless of how it was made up one night out at an izakaya where neither baozis nor anything sugarfree was being served, regardless how sillily he laughs it whenever he's eager for something minseok is apparently the one in supply of, and regardless how meaningless luhan says it to be since he obviously only gave stuck it to him because his round cheeks always reminded him of plump dumplings he loved the taste of.

 

luhan moreover finds a cut on minseok's hand he becomes scared by - it's just one small, slightly even tangible slit but his senses spring conscious touching it; he remembers what minseok told him in the evening of sunday two (three?) days ago. it's scary and it's giving him twitches in the stomach so he pulls the boy onto his back and bares his abused finger from the other four and his in the inky bathroom. "you cut yourself?"

 

"broke a vase" sounds the groan back of being pushed down, hips straddled by luhan's bonecrushing thighs and the cut exposed.

luhan lavishes it with thousands of kisses and apologizes a million times before getting himself off the older. minseok sits up and leans back against the demister that doesn't cease to work even after have gotten a bit of beat by them fighting a little.

 

before he could say anything else, luhan grins and his teeth blinds the room. he hooks for the swtich to flick it up and light engulfs the bathroom, revealing two slick strips of pied paper. minseok rubs his eyes at the sudden deluge of brightness that burns like alcohol creeping down alongside a tongue having a scar bitten into its mauve flesh. it hurts for an eyeglimpse like the vase did when it sank itself into his finger but like then he gets accustomed to it easily and the next thing he catches himself doing is leaning in for the scraps but getting an open-mouthed kiss instead. he doesn't mind as luhan pulls him into his lap but he steals the paper from the younger's grip, locking them up in his own grasp that may not be as strong as the boy's, however lasts longer and he breaks the kiss with guilt in his heart. "this?"

 

"tickets to the cats. yesurui jeondang. next week, saturday, five pm. i know you love it and you'll love it."

minseok feels like bursting into tears and he pushes luhan away from him.

"baozi?"

"luhan" he tears up,

"i got a call today."

luhan doesn't know what the is up but he crawls back closer into minseok and now he lets him. he hugs him as he cries and minseok doesn't hug back, he soothes him as he dies and minseok doesn't call back.

"my parents want me to get married" however he still calms down enough to save his voice from breaking so he can break another like one did with his heart just hours earlier; he gets on his knees like the beginning of a prayer and seals luhan's forehead bared from his blonde strawhair with his dearest lips.

it's just one kiss but it hurts more than luhan thought any minseok'd give could.

 

 

dreams are often elusive but nightmares lounge in the back of luhan's mind as he finds out, or throbbing up in his throat to block the way up in his trachea, causing him to wake up choking, gasping for air that can barely save him from collapsing onto the small body next to his in the bed that is now pretty ample without the love that's filled it back then when the skies were grayer and the days were colder. 

 

it's now shining sunny when his eyes spring open in that funk of dying away with the suffocating power down his throttle; he snaps a hand onto his svelte neck that is throbbing and suffering just as much as he is for any oxygen what now just doesn't seem to come anyhow. it takes one big bite of luck for keeping himself up and calming down, fingers travelling up his blue veins locked under skin which has grown thinner and slighter through six months that passed since winter and now it's summer but he still feels cold because he has become smaller and he has become narrower, his bones have become heavier and his flesh, muscles lighter and he barely weighs 102 lbs by the end of may and that number drops even more as the first dumbfounding heatwave comes in early june.

 

 

"you okay?"

 

it's too deep and the guy is anyways too young, he doesn't even know how could he just hook him up at the ing bar he still has to work at because overhead obviously still won't pay itself and because he enjoys singing for moon-faced drunkards from midnight to daylight until they fail themselves and fall of their own chairs. he still has to work at the bar but now he picks up new faces like he did with the boy whose name he forgot after the first five minutes of their relationship, even if it kills him every and each day when it isn't kim minseok he kisses and it isn't kim minseok he tears clothess off of and then s them into the corner of the room like he s himself into them. it isn't kim minseok and it's bad because it should've only been kim minseok and his cute face, his cute hair, his cute hands, his cute legs and cute feet, his cute eyes, his cute screams and moans, his cute back, his cute , his cute fingers, his cute voice, his cute whole existence and being luhan misses so much he buys a cat he doesn't even fancies but the feline he names chen after the mysterious lover behind the letters sent to minseok, the ones minseok left forgotten in the box he'd kept them, but gives away later on to his friend and his boyfriend because it reminds him too much of the older.

 

"i think i've had a nightmare," he breathes in sunlight, goosebumps spreading across his bare skin, chest and legs exposed to the boy who probably barely even reaches 19 and is, how he remembers now, called do kyungsoo, at least something like that (he's really sorry for forgetting important things like the name of the one he spent the night with, but vodka after a martini doesn't exactly help his short-term that isn't too good anways). "nothing to worry about."

 

"well" kyungsoo entwines his fingers with luhan's, but the blonde singer's hand lies deflated in his. "people whose room is kept cold at night tend to have more nightmares coming around."

luhan nonchalantly nods to the boy who grinds up against him like the cat named chen did with its tiny tainted head and small pink nose. luhan ing hated it.

 

kyungsoo leaves by noon because he's still just a stranger how he always will be and the apartment is as well too hot for him because luhan has been feeling cold ever since there isn't a minseok beside him in his sleep and no matter how hard the sun shines, no matter how fast the red mercury in the thermometer rises, he'll never feel warm enough again to bare himself without shivers.

 

he wakes up from his nightmares but there's no relief afterwards;

 

life is just as - or perhaps even more - miserable as fantasy.

 

he doesn't need to read minseok's letters anymore because he writes his own melodies to him on the guitar he taught the boy how to play and how to hold properly, he writes his own melodies and sing them in mandarin so the words only the summer haze understands won't get lost in translation. luhan thought he would always understand them if they were in his language, but what love holds carries no further meaning to him now when he's broken and wrecked, when he's sad and tired, when he's lost the meaning of his own words in between korean and chinese he never talks anymore because there's no one who speaks it other than the phantom of minseok visiting him in his nightmares.

 

he dreams of minseok and wonders if minseok dreams of him, too.

summer doesn't feel the same without him around,

it's cold and sad like he thought only winter was after minseok left, but luhan realized he could only fly with the wings he borrowed from him as long as he himself was still holding onto the butterfly.