exo: a series of firsts
.a series of firsts
1319w, exo, lay/lu han
for sonali ♥ i still can't write, and this took embarrassingly long to finish. sorry ;;
Lu Han doesn’t remember much of his first few days at SM Entertainment.
A lot of hand shaking, a lot of bowing, so many people to meet and faces to learn.
Someone had sneered at him in the practice room one day, whispering to his friend, “Just another pretty face.”
Through the haze of unfamiliarity, that was something Lu Han knew well.
Before the routine churn of anger tightened in his stomach, a new voice stepped in.
“I like your face,” said the melodic voice, a hint of a smile tinting its edges. It took Lu Han a moment to realize it was in Chinese, the sudden familiarity jarring to his senses.
Lu Han spun around quickly, heart simultaneously slowing down and speeding up. A boy, maybe a year or two younger, stood there, eyes crinkled at the edges with a softness that Lu Han thought foreign in the practice rooms.
“Zhang Yixing,” the boy offered with an outstretched palm. Lu Han stared for a moment at the callouses before he could speak.
“Lu Han,” he managed to say, and was promptly startled by Yixing’s firm grip in his. He looked up at Yixing and couldn’t help but mirror the excited smile on his face.
“I think we’ll be great friends.”
“Are you sure?”
Yixing nodded eagerly, light brown hair, dyed earlier that week, falling into his eyes before he huffed and swept them aside with a careless toss of his hand. Lu Han watched quietly, ignoring the reflex to brush Yixing’s bangs out of his eyes for him.
“But what if -”
“Lu Han, you’re thinking too much about this,” Yixing cut him off abruptly. “Just trust me on this one. You trust me, right?” He tacked on a smile at the end in hopes of reassuring Lu Han, but only succeeded in making him grimace even more.
“I trust you about as much as I trust Zitao with my credit card,” Lu Han frowned. Yixing just laughed, frustratingly cheerful at the most stressful of times.
“Right,” Yixing nodded, “now put on your apron. Duizhang will be home any moment now, and we still haven’t started baking yet.”
Lu Han stared at the assortment of ingredients on the kitchen countertop, the white of the eggs reflecting off the marble. He bared his teeth at the countertop fiercely, satisfied with how they glared just as brightly as the eggs, before tying the pink apron around his waist and snapping on a pair of gloves.
“This can’t be too different from Cooking Mama, right?” he asked, just as Yixing accidentally dropped the stack of pans on the kitchen floor.
The noise was deafening in the small confines of the practice room, and Lu Han heard every single collision roaring in his ears. He watched in slow motion as Yixing crumpled to the floor like a puppet cut off from its strings, his knees hitting the wood with a clear thud. Then he fell backwards limply, the muscles in his back quietly straining against his tank top as they crashed to the floor. His ragged, shallow breathing echoed through Lu Han’s body.
Lu Han felt his lips moving, but he couldn’t hear anything over Yixing’s labored breath and the silent clenching of his fists, but then -
“Yixing,” his voice came back in a choked shout.
His voice jolted everyone into action: Zitao fumbled for his cell phone, Wufan and Minseok rushed to find their managers, Jongdae went to get Yixing’s back brace.
Lu Han fell to his knees right next to Yixing, taking his shaking hands into his own frightened, quivering ones. “Yixing,” he said again, voice almost as weak as Yixing looked. He wiped at the endless beads of sweat forming on Yixing’s forehead, shivering at how cold and clammy the skin was. Yixing’s eyes were slipping closed, and Lu Han could see his focus waning, dying, and this wasn’t Yixing, it couldn’t be - not with such defeated, tired eyes, and deathly pale skin, and hollow cheekbones, and cracked, dried lips - and Lu Han wanted to scream because how could have they all missed this? How could Lu Han have missed this? Lu Han, who knew how hard Yixing pushed himself, how stupidly selfless he was, how reckless he could be in his pursuit of perfection in performing.
“You’re an idiot,” he bit out between the roof of his mouth and the panic. “You’re a fucking idiot, do you know that?” But Yixing, wonderful, stupid, fascinating Yixing, mustered the strength to chuckle weakly at Lu Han’s blunt words, the breaths fanning out delicately across Lu Han’s neck. He weakly squeezed Lu Han’s hands, and Lu Han hated that even in this situation, when Yixing was so close to passing out, he was still the weaker one - Yixing was still the one holding his hand and pulling him along.
“It’s okay, Xiao Lu,” Yixing whispered fondly against his cheek.
A choked laughter turned sob was ripped out of Lu Han’s chest, because no, it’s not, not when Yixing was deathly pale under the harsh lights of the practice room.
Yixing squeezed his hand one last time before letting his eyes slip close, leaving Lu Han to rock them back and forth while he whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay now,” to no one in particular.
“This is okay,” Yixing whispers against the shell of Lu Han’s ear, stealing him back from his thoughts.
Instinctively, Lu Han turns to his voice, shivering when Yixing’s lips lightly brush against his cheek. It takes a moment for Lu Han to remember where he is - a burning candle, Wufan and Zitao’s muffled voices in the living room, one bottle of soju on the bedside table.
If he’s perfectly honest with himself, Lu Han admits that he’s imagined this before. Imagined it so many times that it’s become his favourite almost-memory, the transparent images of it old and cracked as a result of infinite replays on the film of his mind.
But still, painted, faded images are nothing compared to the way Yixing lightly traces patterns on the inside of his wrist with his index finger as he leans in. Lu Han holds his breath. Yixing pauses just a hair’s breadth away from his lips, and Lu Han exhales.
They stay like this for a few moments, breathing together, until Lu Han doesn’t know his own breaths from Yixing’s, can’t tell his exhales from his inhales, only knows that every breath he takes is from Yixing, and that he never wants it to end.
And then Yixing closes the distance between them, lips impossibly tender as they meet Lu Han’s.
One of them starts pushing, and the other starts pulling, until they’re a tangle of limbs and bed sheets and Lu Han and Yixing, pushing and pulling until they click into the perfect place and meld together.
But sometimes Yixing feels far away, like if Lu Han reaches his hand out, he’ll only be grasping at the edge of Yixing’s shirttail before he’s moving away, out of reach. And even if they’re sitting next to each other in the van as their knees bump with each small jolt of the car, Yixing looks out the window and blinks, blinks, stares, and is gone, his attention silently receding like the tide behind the crescents of his eyelids.
Lu Han once thought he knew the meaning of an ocean’s distance - of endless miles, never-ending interference, static. Of unfamiliarity, too many people to meet and faces to learn, whispers.
But with Yixing so far away, too far away for Lu Han to reach, a new wave of loneliness crashes over Lu Han, filling up his lungs and choking him with the silence as he blindly reaches out for -
He loosely hooks their pinkies together, trembling, but then Yixing comes back and looks at him with a smile shining in his eyes, their fingers an anchor in between them.
1319w, exo, lay/lu han
for sonali ♥ i still can't write, and this took embarrassingly long to finish. sorry ;;
Lu Han doesn’t remember much of his first few days at SM Entertainment.
A lot of hand shaking, a lot of bowing, so many people to meet and faces to learn.
Someone had sneered at him in the practice room one day, whispering to his friend, “Just another pretty face.”
Through the haze of unfamiliarity, that was something Lu Han knew well.
Before the routine churn of anger tightened in his stomach, a new voice stepped in.
“I like your face,” said the melodic voice, a hint of a smile tinting its edges. It took Lu Han a moment to realize it was in Chinese, the sudden familiarity jarring to his senses.
Lu Han spun around quickly, heart simultaneously slowing down and speeding up. A boy, maybe a year or two younger, stood there, eyes crinkled at the edges with a softness that Lu Han thought foreign in the practice rooms.
“Zhang Yixing,” the boy offered with an outstretched palm. Lu Han stared for a moment at the callouses before he could speak.
“Lu Han,” he managed to say, and was promptly startled by Yixing’s firm grip in his. He looked up at Yixing and couldn’t help but mirror the excited smile on his face.
“I think we’ll be great friends.”
“Are you sure?”
Yixing nodded eagerly, light brown hair, dyed earlier that week, falling into his eyes before he huffed and swept them aside with a careless toss of his hand. Lu Han watched quietly, ignoring the reflex to brush Yixing’s bangs out of his eyes for him.
“But what if -”
“Lu Han, you’re thinking too much about this,” Yixing cut him off abruptly. “Just trust me on this one. You trust me, right?” He tacked on a smile at the end in hopes of reassuring Lu Han, but only succeeded in making him grimace even more.
“I trust you about as much as I trust Zitao with my credit card,” Lu Han frowned. Yixing just laughed, frustratingly cheerful at the most stressful of times.
“Right,” Yixing nodded, “now put on your apron. Duizhang will be home any moment now, and we still haven’t started baking yet.”
Lu Han stared at the assortment of ingredients on the kitchen countertop, the white of the eggs reflecting off the marble. He bared his teeth at the countertop fiercely, satisfied with how they glared just as brightly as the eggs, before tying the pink apron around his waist and snapping on a pair of gloves.
“This can’t be too different from Cooking Mama, right?” he asked, just as Yixing accidentally dropped the stack of pans on the kitchen floor.
The noise was deafening in the small confines of the practice room, and Lu Han heard every single collision roaring in his ears. He watched in slow motion as Yixing crumpled to the floor like a puppet cut off from its strings, his knees hitting the wood with a clear thud. Then he fell backwards limply, the muscles in his back quietly straining against his tank top as they crashed to the floor. His ragged, shallow breathing echoed through Lu Han’s body.
Lu Han felt his lips moving, but he couldn’t hear anything over Yixing’s labored breath and the silent clenching of his fists, but then -
“Yixing,” his voice came back in a choked shout.
His voice jolted everyone into action: Zitao fumbled for his cell phone, Wufan and Minseok rushed to find their managers, Jongdae went to get Yixing’s back brace.
Lu Han fell to his knees right next to Yixing, taking his shaking hands into his own frightened, quivering ones. “Yixing,” he said again, voice almost as weak as Yixing looked. He wiped at the endless beads of sweat forming on Yixing’s forehead, shivering at how cold and clammy the skin was. Yixing’s eyes were slipping closed, and Lu Han could see his focus waning, dying, and this wasn’t Yixing, it couldn’t be - not with such defeated, tired eyes, and deathly pale skin, and hollow cheekbones, and cracked, dried lips - and Lu Han wanted to scream because how could have they all missed this? How could Lu Han have missed this? Lu Han, who knew how hard Yixing pushed himself, how stupidly selfless he was, how reckless he could be in his pursuit of perfection in performing.
“You’re an idiot,” he bit out between the roof of his mouth and the panic. “You’re a fucking idiot, do you know that?” But Yixing, wonderful, stupid, fascinating Yixing, mustered the strength to chuckle weakly at Lu Han’s blunt words, the breaths fanning out delicately across Lu Han’s neck. He weakly squeezed Lu Han’s hands, and Lu Han hated that even in this situation, when Yixing was so close to passing out, he was still the weaker one - Yixing was still the one holding his hand and pulling him along.
“It’s okay, Xiao Lu,” Yixing whispered fondly against his cheek.
A choked laughter turned sob was ripped out of Lu Han’s chest, because no, it’s not, not when Yixing was deathly pale under the harsh lights of the practice room.
Yixing squeezed his hand one last time before letting his eyes slip close, leaving Lu Han to rock them back and forth while he whispered, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay now,” to no one in particular.
“This is okay,” Yixing whispers against the shell of Lu Han’s ear, stealing him back from his thoughts.
Instinctively, Lu Han turns to his voice, shivering when Yixing’s lips lightly brush against his cheek. It takes a moment for Lu Han to remember where he is - a burning candle, Wufan and Zitao’s muffled voices in the living room, one bottle of soju on the bedside table.
If he’s perfectly honest with himself, Lu Han admits that he’s imagined this before. Imagined it so many times that it’s become his favourite almost-memory, the transparent images of it old and cracked as a result of infinite replays on the film of his mind.
But still, painted, faded images are nothing compared to the way Yixing lightly traces patterns on the inside of his wrist with his index finger as he leans in. Lu Han holds his breath. Yixing pauses just a hair’s breadth away from his lips, and Lu Han exhales.
They stay like this for a few moments, breathing together, until Lu Han doesn’t know his own breaths from Yixing’s, can’t tell his exhales from his inhales, only knows that every breath he takes is from Yixing, and that he never wants it to end.
And then Yixing closes the distance between them, lips impossibly tender as they meet Lu Han’s.
One of them starts pushing, and the other starts pulling, until they’re a tangle of limbs and bed sheets and Lu Han and Yixing, pushing and pulling until they click into the perfect place and meld together.
But sometimes Yixing feels far away, like if Lu Han reaches his hand out, he’ll only be grasping at the edge of Yixing’s shirttail before he’s moving away, out of reach. And even if they’re sitting next to each other in the van as their knees bump with each small jolt of the car, Yixing looks out the window and blinks, blinks, stares, and is gone, his attention silently receding like the tide behind the crescents of his eyelids.
Lu Han once thought he knew the meaning of an ocean’s distance - of endless miles, never-ending interference, static. Of unfamiliarity, too many people to meet and faces to learn, whispers.
But with Yixing so far away, too far away for Lu Han to reach, a new wave of loneliness crashes over Lu Han, filling up his lungs and choking him with the silence as he blindly reaches out for -
He loosely hooks their pinkies together, trembling, but then Yixing comes back and looks at him with a smile shining in his eyes, their fingers an anchor in between them.