painless (exo au oneshot: sequel to uncommitted)
title: painless
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: pg-13
pairing(s): sekai
summary: it doesn't have to hurt
a/n: this is all kinds of useless and not up to par at all and i don't like this and nothing was accomplished BC THEY'RE STILL NOT TOGETHER GDI WAE so i guess if i feel like making another part then they'll actually get together sehun pls get your shit together
On the Saturday that Sehun breaks up with Junmyeon, he drives to Jongin’s apartment and knocks promptly on the door. It’s a breezy spring evening, and Sehun wonders if the suddenly empty pots at the doorstep are to be hosts to young, green shoots within the next few weeks. He glances up once the door opens and is met with round, brown eyes that are a little too expectant as they run over Sehun’s expression. “You broke up with Junmyeon-shii,” Jongin states before Sehun can speak.
Sehun lowers his eyes-tilts his head and raises his gaze again.
Jongin is in loose cloth shorts and a t-shirt. Sehun is still in jeans and the shirt he’d worn earlier when he’d had to pick up something from the office before heading to the date with Junmyeon that’d resulted in the break-up. “Can I come in?” Sehun asks.
“No,” Jongin breathes and Sehun wonders why nothing akin to shock-not even mild surprise-runs through him. There’s just nothingness-the usual nothingness that Sehun faces every other moment of his life. He has to force himself to continue meeting Jongin’s eyes. There’s pain and hesitance and reluctance but overwhelming all of that, there’s disgustingly fierce resolve.
“No?” Sehun echoes.
Jongin shakes his head, one bare foot taking a step over the threshold and leaning in just close enough to press their lips together. “I love you,” Jongin whispers. “No.”
The door closes softly.
There’s no horrible experience, no traumatizing event, no cruel first love. There’s only Oh Sehun and the logic that he came up with and that logic is the one that he lives by-loves by. He loves people and they love him back and then it ends. He loves people and they love him back and that’s why it ends. It’s through careful observance and a long, grueling process that this law of life is born and Sehun is proud of it. He has to trade for it-has to sacrifice for it-can only manage to love with a gnawing sense of emptiness behind it, but he still gets to love-he gets to be happy without the pain.
He’s faithful to everyone he loves, and he doesn’t mind if they’re unfaithful to him because he knows that they still love him all the same and if the relationship ends-badly or well-then it ends. All sorts of things can happen when you love someone and they love you, so expecting it to end-knowing that it’ll end-makes the entire process all that much more joyful and perfectly painless.
So when Kim Jongin collides back into Sehun’s life one night at a company dinner party, Sehun doesn’t understand why they end up a little too tipsy and laughing drunken anecdotes all the way back to Sehun’s loft. Sehun doesn’t understand why he cheats on Luhan with Jongin because Sehun loves Luhan for the moment and Luhan loves Sehun for the moment and even though this thing between them will end soon, Sehun didn’t want it to end so soon-and not like this.
“Nice place,” and Jongin strides out of the bathroom with a towel hanging loosely around his hips, water dripping all over Sehun’s floor and Sehun very nearly slips on the journey from the counter to the stove. Their lips meet as Jongin passes by and helps Sehun move the bowl of rice.
Sehun yanks at a lock of Jongin’s wet hair and the older man whines. “Clean it,” Sehun points at the water on the floor. “I gave you amazing sex-stop ruining my house.”
A wicked smile twists Jongin’s full lips as he steals another kiss from Sehun’s mouth. “Sure, sure,” Jongin says easily. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” His hands ghost underneath Sehun’s t-shirt for a moment, warm fingertips pressing against hipbones exposed by sweatpants pulled a little too low, and Sehun purposefully digs his teeth into Jongin’s lip. But Jongin just grins as he pulls away and heads to tear off a sheet of paper towel to wipe the floor.
Sehun concludes that he doesn’t love Jongin and Jongin can never love Sehun.
He takes the long way home from Jongin’s apartment and once he hits the evening rush hour, once Sehun is seated in the densest part of the traffic jam, he starts to hurt. It creeps slowly through him-a slight pounding in his head that travels to an ache in his chest that gradually becomes an all-around weariness that throbs through his entire body. He leans his head back on the headrest and closes his eyes for a quick moment, tongue running over his lips. There wasn’t supposed to be any love between them.
Jongin’s not supposed to love Sehun. By logic, every time love is factored in, it has to end-it will end. Sehun’s had wonderful past relationships-all loving, all with amazing people, all with people he’s still friends with and he was friends with before he dated. He loved all of them and they all loved him, but he knew that they would all end-either he or they would leave and he’s right. Sehun is right. He’s okay with it. Things have to end and Sehun doesn’t mind when they do. He’s learned to accept and expect it.
The one time Sehun wanted something forever-
Love had to ruin that too.
Sehun lives.
Jongin lives.
They see each other at work sometimes.
Their departments don’t have much to do with each other, but occasionally there will be a meeting or two where they’ll be in for the same presentation or Sehun will sent to watch Jongin’s presentation and vice versa. Sometimes, they just see each other in the halls, at the lounge during lunch breaks. They still talk, and Sehun still feels a thud of something (of that nothingness vanishing for just a moment-the single moment where Jongin smiles and the emptiness is filled).
Sehun doesn’t date anyone after Junmyeon. He throws himself into work and he’s just busy and he doesn’t want to date anyone-and it’s just kind of a slow period anyway, a slow few months where the time just isn’t right and there’re no offers and he doesn’t feel like offering and none of it means anything. Sehun just doesn’t date anyone after Junmyeon.
“I liked your proposal yesterday,” Jongin’s pops by Sehun’s office one afternoon and the round eyes are crinkled into a smile. “Good job.”
Sehun looks up from his laptop and smiles back.
Once Jongin has vanished around the corner, the nothingness returns and Sehun wishes that he could feel something forever-wishes that he didn’t have to feel nothing.
“Ask him out on a friend-date,” Luhan orders around a sip of iced coffee.
Their legs dangle through the slots of Sehun’s balcony railing. The balmy spring wind ruffles their hair, warms their faces. “A friend-date?”
“A date,” Luhan elaborates, “as friends.”
Sehun kicks the older man’s ankle. Luhan grins.
“I cheated on you with him,” Sehun puts in conversationally.
Their eyes meet and Luhan steals a sip of Sehun’s lukewarm tea. “I know,” Luhan says and kisses Sehun’s cheek.
Sehun appears at Jongin’s doorstep the following Sunday morning with a box of doughnuts and a DVD. It’s familiar and Sehun wonders as he watches the door swing open. He takes in the sight of Jongin in rumpled boxers and a wifebeater with pillow marks on his left cheek. Jongin’s eyes narrow in confusion, still in the thickets of sleep. “A friend-date,” Sehun explains and holds up the doughnuts and the DVD.
Jongin’s sleepy face relaxes and the drowsy smile that works its way into warm, brown eyes drowns out the nothingness like never before and Sehun can feel his heart beating inside of his chest like something that lives and breathes and Sehun can breathe-he’s living and breathing and Jongin’s smile is beautiful. “C’mon in,” Jongin says, and tugs Sehun’s wrist.
They eat the doughnuts and watch the movie and Sehun falls into a short nap with his head in Jongin’s lap, and it’s late afternoon when Sehun rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Jongin promptly boots him out of the door a half an hour later, once they’ve finished off the last of the doughnuts. “Are we friends?” Jongin asks with furrowed eyebrows as Sehun stands on the doorstep to say goodbye for the day.
“We’re friends,” Sehun says, and is rewarded with another brilliant Kim Jongin smile before the door closes.
Jongin is sent on a business trip to Hong Kong for two weeks and Sehun is sent on a business trip to Malaysia for a week and a half. They see neither hide nor hair of each other for at least a full month because of their schedules and on the day that they do see each other again, it’s Jongin who appears on Sehun’s doorstep with cake in one hand and a newly released video game in another. “How was Hong Kong?” Sehun asks, as he steps aside to let Jongin in.
“How was Malaysia?” Jongin counters and places the cake on Sehun’s countertop.
They end up so swept away by the game that the cake leaves unopened in the kitchen until darkness falls and Jongin has to go home. Sehun is left with the cake because Jongin doesn’t have room for it in his own refrigerator. “Save it, if you can’t finish it,” Jongin grins. “I’ll eat it the next time I’m over.”
(and Sehun wants to kiss Jongin before the older man gets into his car, but they’re only friends-it’s already ended-Jongin loves Sehun and Sehun can’t love Jongin because he can’t have it end again-so Sehun doesn’t kiss Jongin, and just stands and waits until the car disappears around the block)
Was it so horrible that Sehun only wanted to keep Jongin forever?
(and if they’d loved each other, there’s no way that could’ve ever been possible)
Loving someone and expecting a forever hurts.
Loving someone without a forever hurts.
Sehun’s never hurt like this so he wonders if maybe he’s never loved anyone at all. Maybe all the loves he’s thought he had never were, and the love that he never wanted to happen really is. Not-loving Jongin is already this painful-Sehun doesn’t want to imagine how it’d feel if he did love Jongin.
Today, Luhan has a banana smoothie and Sehun has a strawberry milkshake. Their legs still dangle through the slots of Sehun’s balcony railing. It’s a cloudy day, sticky and humid, and Sehun’s hair sticks to the back of his neck. “It’s not that it ended because you loved us,” Luhan says.
Sehun looks at him. “No?”
“No,” Luhan looks thoughtful, sipping at the smoothie with his eyes lifted towards the gray clouds. “You didn’t love any of us enough for it not to end.”
Sehun rolls that piece of logic over in his mind. He manages to down half of his milkshake during the silence that takes over them. Luhan struggles to stir his straw through the thick drink before he resumes sipping at it carefully. “Jongin didn’t love me enough for it not to end?”
A small smile spread across Luhan’s face. “Jongin loves you too much to let it begin.”
Sehun finishes his milkshake and sets the cup beside him, pressing his cheeks into the metal bars as Luhan draws back slightly. His head leans against Sehun’s shoulder. “Do you think I love him back?” Sehun whispers. Jongin is nowhere near here, but suddenly the nothingness-the emptiness-is warmed until it threatens to spill over and Sehun’s heart sighs in relief.
Luhan raises his eyes to meet Sehun’s gaze. “You tell me,” Luhan whispers back.
This cocoon of nothingness, of emptiness, of safety, of perfect painlessness is comfortable and familiar. Sehun has been in it for a long time and he’s forgotten what it feels like to be without it. He’s made good memories in it-he’s loved and been loved, all without any hurts or cuts, bruises and stings, aches and tears. He’s made good friends, loved those friends, kept those friends. He’s learned to ignore how sometimes the lack inside of him starts to eat him from the inside out-how sometimes he curls in on himself in bed even when he’s sleeping next to a warm body.
Jongin peels that shell away. He’s the flame that burns away layers upon layers of comfort and familiarity and the brightness is positively blinding to someone who hasn’t seen the sunlight in a good number of years. Jongin loves Sehun and when they’re together, when Sehun thinks about Jongin, steady soil fills itself into the gaping hole only to be worn back down once Jongin leaves. But being with Jongin comes at a price, and every moment spent with Jongin leaves Sehun with a hungering ache-always needing more, always wanting more, and missing Jongin before he’s even out of sight.
Maybe Sehun loves Jongin back. He doesn’t know-he doesn’t want to know yet. He doesn’t want to love Jongin yet because as uncomfortable as the nothingness is, it’s familiar. It’s losing its comfort day by day-with every waking moment that Sehun spends with Jongin-but it’s still the most familiar thing Sehun has to cling to. Sehun still doesn’t know how two people who love each other can be together forever, and he’s still gathering the courage to ask if maybe Jongin knows.
He’s still gathering the courage to love Jongin.
(but looking at Jongin’s smile as he opens the door, takes the package of muffins and DVDs from Sehun’s hands, Sehun thinks that maybe Jongin will wait after all-maybe Jongin loves Sehun enough to wait-maybe one day, they’ll love each other to forever and it’ll be Sehun’s first and last forever and he’d like that and one day he’ll love Jongin)
(maybe he already does)
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: pg-13
pairing(s): sekai
summary: it doesn't have to hurt
a/n: this is all kinds of useless and not up to par at all and i don't like this and nothing was accomplished BC THEY'RE STILL NOT TOGETHER GDI WAE so i guess if i feel like making another part then they'll actually get together sehun pls get your shit together
On the Saturday that Sehun breaks up with Junmyeon, he drives to Jongin’s apartment and knocks promptly on the door. It’s a breezy spring evening, and Sehun wonders if the suddenly empty pots at the doorstep are to be hosts to young, green shoots within the next few weeks. He glances up once the door opens and is met with round, brown eyes that are a little too expectant as they run over Sehun’s expression. “You broke up with Junmyeon-shii,” Jongin states before Sehun can speak.
Sehun lowers his eyes-tilts his head and raises his gaze again.
Jongin is in loose cloth shorts and a t-shirt. Sehun is still in jeans and the shirt he’d worn earlier when he’d had to pick up something from the office before heading to the date with Junmyeon that’d resulted in the break-up. “Can I come in?” Sehun asks.
“No,” Jongin breathes and Sehun wonders why nothing akin to shock-not even mild surprise-runs through him. There’s just nothingness-the usual nothingness that Sehun faces every other moment of his life. He has to force himself to continue meeting Jongin’s eyes. There’s pain and hesitance and reluctance but overwhelming all of that, there’s disgustingly fierce resolve.
“No?” Sehun echoes.
Jongin shakes his head, one bare foot taking a step over the threshold and leaning in just close enough to press their lips together. “I love you,” Jongin whispers. “No.”
The door closes softly.
There’s no horrible experience, no traumatizing event, no cruel first love. There’s only Oh Sehun and the logic that he came up with and that logic is the one that he lives by-loves by. He loves people and they love him back and then it ends. He loves people and they love him back and that’s why it ends. It’s through careful observance and a long, grueling process that this law of life is born and Sehun is proud of it. He has to trade for it-has to sacrifice for it-can only manage to love with a gnawing sense of emptiness behind it, but he still gets to love-he gets to be happy without the pain.
He’s faithful to everyone he loves, and he doesn’t mind if they’re unfaithful to him because he knows that they still love him all the same and if the relationship ends-badly or well-then it ends. All sorts of things can happen when you love someone and they love you, so expecting it to end-knowing that it’ll end-makes the entire process all that much more joyful and perfectly painless.
So when Kim Jongin collides back into Sehun’s life one night at a company dinner party, Sehun doesn’t understand why they end up a little too tipsy and laughing drunken anecdotes all the way back to Sehun’s loft. Sehun doesn’t understand why he cheats on Luhan with Jongin because Sehun loves Luhan for the moment and Luhan loves Sehun for the moment and even though this thing between them will end soon, Sehun didn’t want it to end so soon-and not like this.
“Nice place,” and Jongin strides out of the bathroom with a towel hanging loosely around his hips, water dripping all over Sehun’s floor and Sehun very nearly slips on the journey from the counter to the stove. Their lips meet as Jongin passes by and helps Sehun move the bowl of rice.
Sehun yanks at a lock of Jongin’s wet hair and the older man whines. “Clean it,” Sehun points at the water on the floor. “I gave you amazing sex-stop ruining my house.”
A wicked smile twists Jongin’s full lips as he steals another kiss from Sehun’s mouth. “Sure, sure,” Jongin says easily. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” His hands ghost underneath Sehun’s t-shirt for a moment, warm fingertips pressing against hipbones exposed by sweatpants pulled a little too low, and Sehun purposefully digs his teeth into Jongin’s lip. But Jongin just grins as he pulls away and heads to tear off a sheet of paper towel to wipe the floor.
Sehun concludes that he doesn’t love Jongin and Jongin can never love Sehun.
He takes the long way home from Jongin’s apartment and once he hits the evening rush hour, once Sehun is seated in the densest part of the traffic jam, he starts to hurt. It creeps slowly through him-a slight pounding in his head that travels to an ache in his chest that gradually becomes an all-around weariness that throbs through his entire body. He leans his head back on the headrest and closes his eyes for a quick moment, tongue running over his lips. There wasn’t supposed to be any love between them.
Jongin’s not supposed to love Sehun. By logic, every time love is factored in, it has to end-it will end. Sehun’s had wonderful past relationships-all loving, all with amazing people, all with people he’s still friends with and he was friends with before he dated. He loved all of them and they all loved him, but he knew that they would all end-either he or they would leave and he’s right. Sehun is right. He’s okay with it. Things have to end and Sehun doesn’t mind when they do. He’s learned to accept and expect it.
The one time Sehun wanted something forever-
Love had to ruin that too.
Sehun lives.
Jongin lives.
They see each other at work sometimes.
Their departments don’t have much to do with each other, but occasionally there will be a meeting or two where they’ll be in for the same presentation or Sehun will sent to watch Jongin’s presentation and vice versa. Sometimes, they just see each other in the halls, at the lounge during lunch breaks. They still talk, and Sehun still feels a thud of something (of that nothingness vanishing for just a moment-the single moment where Jongin smiles and the emptiness is filled).
Sehun doesn’t date anyone after Junmyeon. He throws himself into work and he’s just busy and he doesn’t want to date anyone-and it’s just kind of a slow period anyway, a slow few months where the time just isn’t right and there’re no offers and he doesn’t feel like offering and none of it means anything. Sehun just doesn’t date anyone after Junmyeon.
“I liked your proposal yesterday,” Jongin’s pops by Sehun’s office one afternoon and the round eyes are crinkled into a smile. “Good job.”
Sehun looks up from his laptop and smiles back.
Once Jongin has vanished around the corner, the nothingness returns and Sehun wishes that he could feel something forever-wishes that he didn’t have to feel nothing.
“Ask him out on a friend-date,” Luhan orders around a sip of iced coffee.
Their legs dangle through the slots of Sehun’s balcony railing. The balmy spring wind ruffles their hair, warms their faces. “A friend-date?”
“A date,” Luhan elaborates, “as friends.”
Sehun kicks the older man’s ankle. Luhan grins.
“I cheated on you with him,” Sehun puts in conversationally.
Their eyes meet and Luhan steals a sip of Sehun’s lukewarm tea. “I know,” Luhan says and kisses Sehun’s cheek.
Sehun appears at Jongin’s doorstep the following Sunday morning with a box of doughnuts and a DVD. It’s familiar and Sehun wonders as he watches the door swing open. He takes in the sight of Jongin in rumpled boxers and a wifebeater with pillow marks on his left cheek. Jongin’s eyes narrow in confusion, still in the thickets of sleep. “A friend-date,” Sehun explains and holds up the doughnuts and the DVD.
Jongin’s sleepy face relaxes and the drowsy smile that works its way into warm, brown eyes drowns out the nothingness like never before and Sehun can feel his heart beating inside of his chest like something that lives and breathes and Sehun can breathe-he’s living and breathing and Jongin’s smile is beautiful. “C’mon in,” Jongin says, and tugs Sehun’s wrist.
They eat the doughnuts and watch the movie and Sehun falls into a short nap with his head in Jongin’s lap, and it’s late afternoon when Sehun rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Jongin promptly boots him out of the door a half an hour later, once they’ve finished off the last of the doughnuts. “Are we friends?” Jongin asks with furrowed eyebrows as Sehun stands on the doorstep to say goodbye for the day.
“We’re friends,” Sehun says, and is rewarded with another brilliant Kim Jongin smile before the door closes.
Jongin is sent on a business trip to Hong Kong for two weeks and Sehun is sent on a business trip to Malaysia for a week and a half. They see neither hide nor hair of each other for at least a full month because of their schedules and on the day that they do see each other again, it’s Jongin who appears on Sehun’s doorstep with cake in one hand and a newly released video game in another. “How was Hong Kong?” Sehun asks, as he steps aside to let Jongin in.
“How was Malaysia?” Jongin counters and places the cake on Sehun’s countertop.
They end up so swept away by the game that the cake leaves unopened in the kitchen until darkness falls and Jongin has to go home. Sehun is left with the cake because Jongin doesn’t have room for it in his own refrigerator. “Save it, if you can’t finish it,” Jongin grins. “I’ll eat it the next time I’m over.”
(and Sehun wants to kiss Jongin before the older man gets into his car, but they’re only friends-it’s already ended-Jongin loves Sehun and Sehun can’t love Jongin because he can’t have it end again-so Sehun doesn’t kiss Jongin, and just stands and waits until the car disappears around the block)
Was it so horrible that Sehun only wanted to keep Jongin forever?
(and if they’d loved each other, there’s no way that could’ve ever been possible)
Loving someone and expecting a forever hurts.
Loving someone without a forever hurts.
Sehun’s never hurt like this so he wonders if maybe he’s never loved anyone at all. Maybe all the loves he’s thought he had never were, and the love that he never wanted to happen really is. Not-loving Jongin is already this painful-Sehun doesn’t want to imagine how it’d feel if he did love Jongin.
Today, Luhan has a banana smoothie and Sehun has a strawberry milkshake. Their legs still dangle through the slots of Sehun’s balcony railing. It’s a cloudy day, sticky and humid, and Sehun’s hair sticks to the back of his neck. “It’s not that it ended because you loved us,” Luhan says.
Sehun looks at him. “No?”
“No,” Luhan looks thoughtful, sipping at the smoothie with his eyes lifted towards the gray clouds. “You didn’t love any of us enough for it not to end.”
Sehun rolls that piece of logic over in his mind. He manages to down half of his milkshake during the silence that takes over them. Luhan struggles to stir his straw through the thick drink before he resumes sipping at it carefully. “Jongin didn’t love me enough for it not to end?”
A small smile spread across Luhan’s face. “Jongin loves you too much to let it begin.”
Sehun finishes his milkshake and sets the cup beside him, pressing his cheeks into the metal bars as Luhan draws back slightly. His head leans against Sehun’s shoulder. “Do you think I love him back?” Sehun whispers. Jongin is nowhere near here, but suddenly the nothingness-the emptiness-is warmed until it threatens to spill over and Sehun’s heart sighs in relief.
Luhan raises his eyes to meet Sehun’s gaze. “You tell me,” Luhan whispers back.
This cocoon of nothingness, of emptiness, of safety, of perfect painlessness is comfortable and familiar. Sehun has been in it for a long time and he’s forgotten what it feels like to be without it. He’s made good memories in it-he’s loved and been loved, all without any hurts or cuts, bruises and stings, aches and tears. He’s made good friends, loved those friends, kept those friends. He’s learned to ignore how sometimes the lack inside of him starts to eat him from the inside out-how sometimes he curls in on himself in bed even when he’s sleeping next to a warm body.
Jongin peels that shell away. He’s the flame that burns away layers upon layers of comfort and familiarity and the brightness is positively blinding to someone who hasn’t seen the sunlight in a good number of years. Jongin loves Sehun and when they’re together, when Sehun thinks about Jongin, steady soil fills itself into the gaping hole only to be worn back down once Jongin leaves. But being with Jongin comes at a price, and every moment spent with Jongin leaves Sehun with a hungering ache-always needing more, always wanting more, and missing Jongin before he’s even out of sight.
Maybe Sehun loves Jongin back. He doesn’t know-he doesn’t want to know yet. He doesn’t want to love Jongin yet because as uncomfortable as the nothingness is, it’s familiar. It’s losing its comfort day by day-with every waking moment that Sehun spends with Jongin-but it’s still the most familiar thing Sehun has to cling to. Sehun still doesn’t know how two people who love each other can be together forever, and he’s still gathering the courage to ask if maybe Jongin knows.
He’s still gathering the courage to love Jongin.
(but looking at Jongin’s smile as he opens the door, takes the package of muffins and DVDs from Sehun’s hands, Sehun thinks that maybe Jongin will wait after all-maybe Jongin loves Sehun enough to wait-maybe one day, they’ll love each other to forever and it’ll be Sehun’s first and last forever and he’d like that and one day he’ll love Jongin)
(maybe he already does)