you're here pt.iv [exo]
title: you're here [pt. iv]
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: pg-13
pairing(s): xiuhan, lukai, xiuyeol
summary: would we have changed?
a/n: i don't think. you uNDERSTAND. how pissed i am. that this is not. the. last. part. im about to cut live chickens im so pissed. bUH.
[ part one] [ part two] [ part three] [part four] [ part five]
When Luhan bounds back into bed, collapsing beside Jongin on the rumpled sheets, bright morning light filtering through the blinds of the younger man’s bedroom, Jongin is gazing at him thoughtfully with waiting eyes. Luhan raises his eyebrows, mouth and hands filled with buttered toast. He rests back against the pillows and looks back simply at the younger man. “What?” Luhan says blankly, chewing the warm bread.
“Four weekends in a row,” Jongin says, tone indecipherable but a half-smile eases onto his full lips. “Hyung, should I be flattered?”
Luhan finishes the first piece of toast and immediately crams half of the next into his mouth. He’d normally pick off the crust but he skipped dinner last night, and he’s too hungry to care this morning. “Why?” He rolls onto his stomach and regards Jongin with a tilt of his head.
But Jongin just continues to smile, secretly, but not secretly enough that Luhan doesn’t get an inkling of what the younger man is getting at. Luhan’s stomach churns guiltily enough that he doesn’t feel like eating the rest of the toast. He doesn’t want to get out of bed to throw it away though so he stuffs what remains of it into his mouth and swallows fast enough that he doesn’t really taste it. He turns onto his back again, sliding in closer to the younger man and Jongin stretches an arm out to accommodate Luhan, slipping it beneath the older man’s body and pulling him in to Jongin’s side.
The sunlight makes Jongin’s bronze skin shine, and Luhan finds that he can’t take his eyes away, gazing appreciatively at the stretches of muscle and tendon that flex whenever Jongin just breathes. Luhan feels Jongin’s lips in his hair as the older man runs his palm over the flat planes of the younger man’s abdomen, just stopping where coarse, dark hair begins to form a trail downward. “Hyung,” Jongin says softly. Luhan hears nervousness and hesitance and he finds himself swallowing again in apprehension.
This has never been a game Luhan likes to play.
Jongin looks right into Luhan’s eyes, their faces inches apart, and the younger man licks his lips nervously before he asks, “D’you want to go out to eat sometime?”
Luhan has to break the gaze. He stares at the wall ahead, stares at his folded clothes on the chair near the door of Jongin’s bedroom. “I can’t,” he says and pretends he can’t see, out of the corner of his eye, Jongin hastily hiding the hurt disappointment away. “Sorry, Jongin-ah.”
“It’s fine, hyung.”
If the call hadn’t come when it had, Minseok doesn’t know if either of them would ever have broken the silent streak.
Minseok’s phone rings in the middle of the night-so late that it’s closer to sunrise than sundown and the lawyer is already in bed, lights off, curled in Chanyeol’s long arms, pressed to Chanyeol’s bare chest beneath their sheets. Both of them are awakened by the call, and normally when either of them gets calls this late, Chanyeol just reaches over to silence whoever’s phone it is. Neither of them ever gets calls from work this late-Chanyeol is still a new associate that has more deskwork than casework, and it’s hardly proper client protocol to call in the middle of the night so Minseok never gets business calls past nine.
But Minseok has one ringtone for business calls, one ringtone for friends and family and Chanyeol. And right now, it’s neither of those two sounds bursting through the otherwise silence of their bedroom. It’s a completely different sound, and Minseok hasn’t heard it for an entire month. But he’d recognize it anytime, anywhere, because regardless of how many phones Minseok’s gone through since university, he always puts the same song for this person-the only person to have his own separate ringtone on Minseok’s phone.
“Chanyeol-ah,” Minseok says blearily, one hand on Chanyeol’s arm to stop the younger man from turning the older man’s phone off. “I got it.”
Chanyeol wraps his arms tighter around Minseok’s waist, burying his face against the back of Minseok’s hair and neck. “Mm,” he mumbles sleepily, eyes still closed. “Hyung, just answer it tomorrow.”
But Minseok already has the phone in his hand, disentangling himself from Chanyeol and sitting up in the bed. He swipes his thumb over the screen and presses the phone to his ear. He doesn’t get a chance to say anything before Luhan’s voice comes into his ear, apologetic and frantic. “Minseok-ah,” Luhan says, and his voice is tired and sleepless and restless and harried. “It’s fucking late-I know-sorry-but, okay, my editor and secretary are both sick and I can’t call either of them in but I have a set of articles that I have to get in tomorrow and I can’t send them back unread and I’ve literally tried calling in anyone else I could think of who could proofread these or at least-”
And Minseok should say no.
And Minseok should apologize.
And Minseok should hang up.
And Minseok should go back to the safe curl of Chanyeol’s arms and go back to sleep and go back to a life where Luhan is just his friend and nothing else.
“You’re at your place?” Minseok asks, swinging his legs out of the blankets and onto the floor.
“Yeah,” Luhan says, and even the journalist sounds surprised that Minseok hasn’t hung up.
Minseok stands up, pulling on socks and scrambling for clothes even as he still has the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” He ends the call before Luhan can say anything further.
i don’t want you to thank me
Chanyeol is sitting straight up in bed now, eyes no longer sleepy and half-closed. He’s alert and aware and frowning as Minseok bustled around the room, trying to get his clothes on, trying to find his wallet and keys. “Hyung-hyung, what’re you doing-it’s like three in the morning-who was that-hyung, wait-”
Minseok kisses Chanyeol’s cheek. “Go back to sleep,” he says. He’s going to have to bring a change of clothes that he can change into in the car. There’s no way he’ll have time to come back home and shower before heading to the firm. He supposes if push comes to shove he could always shower at the gym next door to the firm.
He’s dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, a spare suit in his arms, keys and wallet in his pockets, when Chanyeol grabs his arm and stops him mid-turn. “Hyung, slow down,” Chanyeol says, still sounding confused, “stop-hyung-who called?”
And Minseok should look into Chanyeol’s eyes.
The older man turns his gaze towards the door. “Luhan,” he answers quietly. “It’s-he needs me.”
Chanyeol’s hand lets go of Minseok’s arm.
Minseok doesn’t give the younger man to say anything further.
what else can you say to me anyway
He leaves Chanyeol in the darkness and doesn’t look back.
Minseok doesn’t come running because Luhan needs an extra set of eyes to help him through the mountains of work. He knows Luhan, and he knows that Luhan could call any of their friends to help him. He knows that Luhan could find a way to stall the deadline.
The journalist opens the door but Minseok doesn’t move from where he stands on the doormat. He lightly puts one hand on the door, his other hand still holding his phone. Luhan hasn’t shaven, hair askew. The shirt he’s wearing is so old there are rips in it. He’s wearing sweatpants with one leg scrunched up to the knee, revealing bright green ankle socks. Minseok, if he didn’t know any better-any one of their other friends-would have thought Luhan was just coming out of his cave again. All the signs are the same-he looks like he hasn’t slept in days, hasn’t been outside in days, hasn’t eaten in days, has survived on crackers and water in a dark room lit only by the glare of his laptop.
But the expression on Luhan’s face is nothing like what it should be if this situation really was that simple.
There’s no accomplishment, no dazed pride and triumph. Luhan has swallowed all the emotion down, but to Minseok, the attempt is easily pathetic and transparent. So he doesn’t move from the doorstep. He doesn’t walk into the apartment. He remains firmly rooted outside and looks straight into Luhan’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything-neither of them says anything. It might’ve been half an hour, it might’ve been three minutes, it might’ve been just a moment.
Minseok knows.
Luhan’s secretary and editor are both sick, and there’s no one else to proofread the articles at a moment’s notice, but that’s not it. That couldn’t be it.
It’s Luhan who ends up stepping outside to meet Minseok-to fall against Minseok, to collapse into Minseok’s arms, to bury his face against Minseok’s neck and he whispers hoarsely, “My mom is in the hospital.”
Minseok closes his eyes and tightens his arms around Luhan’s body. He closes his eyes and says nothing while Luhan stutters and stammers the story in a low voice that sounds like it will shatter at the next word that he grinds out. He hugs Luhan closer and closer, tighter and tighter, right there on the journalist’s doorstep, as Luhan relays the past twenty-four hours, monitoring his mother’s condition over the phone, unable to rush into the car and drive out to see her because how can he?
Luhan’s voice shakes, blurting and rambling, incoherent and breathless and nonsensical-about how he can’t leave because of these articles, because his secretary and editor are out sick and no one can be in charge while he’s gone, not on such short notice and that’s the real reason it’s so crucial that his secretary be in office for this next week but she isn’t and he can’t book a plane until everything is sorted out but what if this is serious-what if the doctor is missing something-what if something happens and he’s not there and why did he go to Korea at all when he’s always known that his mother was never healthy to begin with why did-
“Zitao,” Minseok says, cutting Luhan off, cleanly and clearly. He takes Luhan by the shoulders and pulls him back, steadies him-grounds him. He doesn’t look anywhere but Luhan’s eyes, mouth set and expression firm. “You call Zitao. You tell him everything-tell him you’re taking the week off. Give him the articles. He’ll split it with Jongin. I’ll book you a flight. I’ll pack. You can leave tonight.”
you don’t have to be alone
It’s not just his voice. Luhan’s entire body is trembling, face tense and gaze fragile. “She’s-”
“-going to be okay,” Minseok cuts off because he won’t hear any differently and he refuses to let Luhan think any differently. “She’s going to be okay. You’re going to see her, and she’s going to call you a dumb little deer like she always does when you call her and ask if she wants you to come back.”
The breath Luhan takes is deep and shuddering, but when he meets Minseok’s eyes again, his gaze is steely and determined-scared and worried and vulnerable, but there’s something he’s clinging to now, and Minseok doesn’t know what it is (or maybe he does, but he wishes he didn’t-wishes Luhan hadn’t stopped shaking only after he threaded his fingers through Minseok’s, holding onto the lawyer’s hand like a lifeline), but whatever it is-Luhan has it, and he’s going to make it out fine.
i’ll make sure
And during winter break one year-the year they started dating-Minseok’s father slipped and fell outside on the ice, breaking his back. A man who Minseok looked up to more than any other human on the earth, a man with heart problems that he’d had a close brush with just last year and Minseok and his mother and his younger sister are all terrified. It happens in a rush of ambulance sirens and paramedics and emergency rooms and two sleepless nights wandering the hall outside of the hospital room.
There are all sorts of complications and Minseok and his mother take turns driving Minseok’s sister to her lessons and keeping watch over his father in case anything happens. He’s in pain, but awake and alert, and the doctors are worrying over the doses of medication that they can give him because of his heart condition. It’s the most frightening thing Minseok has ever been through, and on the seventh night when it becomes too much, he calls Luhan-takes the call all the way to Beijing-hoping that maybe Luhan’s voice will calm his frayed nerves, if nothing else.
He never meant to tell the entire story, never meant to give away that anything was desperately, horribly wrong.
He never meant to choke and stumble over his own voice until Luhan finally says quietly, “Hold on for a sec, Minseok-ah,” and hangs up with no further explanation. Minseok doesn’t think all that much about it-is still too scared out of his mind to waste any thought on it. He just assumes, at the moment, that Luhan means he’ll call Minseok back later.
He never thought the real explanation would come in the form of Luhan arriving at the hospital the next day as Minseok just finishes listening in on a conversation between the doctor and Minseok’s mother on how they might need to operate on his father. Luhan arrives, tired from the night flight and slightly harried after rushing around trying to find the right hospital, but he’s here.
you’re here
Luhan bows to Minseok’s confused mother, introducing himself as a friend, until Minseok pulls him to the side and whispers, “But-China-you-”
“I decided to come back a little early,” Luhan says dismissively. “Would’ve had to come back in a week anyway, right? Break ending and all-”
“But-your family-time-”
“I was just slumming it on the couch watching Saturday cartoons,” Luhan cuts Minseok off again, eyes twinkling and reassuring and familiar and here. “Parents practically kicked me out anyway.”
And Minseok doesn’t believe that for a second-doesn’t believe for even a moment that Luhan didn’t make up lies to his parents about getting coursework done and needing to be back in Korea for a head start because Luhan’s parents wouldn’t have let him skimp on even an extra day that he could rest at home.
“You never get to go home,” Minseok says, because this isn’t-it’s not-this isn’t. “My dad’s going to be fine-he’s just-”
But Luhan’s gaze kills the protests on Minseok’s lips. “You’re not fine, though, are you?”
“I didn’t break my back,” Minseok says. “We have phones for this. I can-”
thank you
Luhan squeezes Minseok’s hand, and Minseok feels like everything he’s been holding inside, stiff and suffocating and stifling and scared shitless, is starting to unwind-he still feels burnt out and exhausted and he can’t stop thinking about all the what ifs that might happen while his father is still hooked up to monitors and lying in bed crooked and broken and not healthy-not well-not the springy, young man who used to bounce Minseok on his broad shoulders.
But Minseok can breathe now.
“Can I meet your dad?” Luhan asks.
Minseok holds onto Luhan’s hand tighter and tighter, squeezing back hard enough to hurt Luhan but Luhan doesn’t say anything about it-doesn’t mention how Minseok is holding on for dear life, for steadiness and security. “Yeah,” Minseok says. “Yeah.”
Minseok doesn’t end up going to work at all that day.
Getting Luhan onto the plane ends up being all-day endeavor. Arranging things with Zitao and buying the plane ticket itself (luckily, managing to cast the last seat on the last flight that day to Beijing) takes until ten in the morning, mostly because they had to wait until Zitao was up and at work. They’d spent the earlier hours of the morning packing and reorganizing the article files onto a thumb drive for Zitao. After all that, they pack more, and then Minseok leaves Luhan to get some sleep.
He calls into the office while Luhan is literally knocked out cold on the sofa, one arm hanging off the edge and mouth open. Minseok tells his secretary that he’s taking a sick day, and to apologize as profusely as she can to the three clients he had major appointments with that day. None of them had any sort of court date or settlement date that was fast approaching, so Minseok should be safe from any of them pitching hard complaints about this to him when he returned.
He also texts Wufan and Junmyeon because they’d want to know, and Luhan won’t even remember to tell them in the state he’s in.
By the time Luhan wakes up, Minseok has already showered and eaten, and there’s just enough time at that point for Luhan to shower, change, and eat the hasty ramen Minseok had whipped up for him before they leave for the airport. It’s a night flight, but it’s still international and they have to check in a few hours early. Everything Luhan needs is just in one, small, carry-on suitcase, and they load it into Minseok’s car.
They don’t speak during the drive.
Minseok sees Luhan off with an embrace that’s too tight for both of them. It feels like Luhan’s arms are enough to slice Minseok in half, and Minseok knows that his own hold around Luhan’s shoulders is enough to bruise the journalist. But they hug like that anyway-hard enough that neither of them can breathe-close enough that Luhan won’t be able to ever doubt that Minseok is here, solid and steady.
“Call me when you get there,” Minseok says into Luhan’s hair.
Luhan pulls back, still holding Minseok’s hand. “Okay.” His hand slides slowly out of Minseok’s, and he turns, tipping the suitcase onto its wheels and pulling it along towards the first checkpoint.
Minseok doesn’t move from where he stands until Luhan disappears around the corner to security check.
They haven’t talked about that night.
When Minseok returns to work the next day, tired from the minimal sleep he barely managed to snag by last night, he’s glad for the bustle of having three appointments pushed back on top of five more. He’s glad the entire day is spent being handed over from client to client, document to document, case to case, settlement to settlement. He’s glad that his secretary has everything up to date-he’s glad that his associates only ask if he’s feeling better and don’t go any further to pry into his reported twenty-four-hour flu.
He’s glad that Chanyeol is at court today.
But the case goes by fast and quickly in Chanyeol’s favor, according to how there are congratulatory cheers from the associates section on the floor when Chanyeol returns, grinning from one of his first wins flying solo-a small case, but those add up one by one, and nevertheless, it’s always a big deal to a junior associate early on. Minseok wants to congratulate him. He wants to pull him into his office, lock the door, and kiss him breathless for all the hard hours he’s watched the younger man put into this case.
He wants to do anything and everything to stop Chanyeol from looking at him like that from across the floor, from walking towards Minseok with something undecipherable and, yet, the younger man understands something-has realized something-and Minseok doesn’t want to know what the epiphany was. He’s afraid.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol says, stopping in front of the older man. They’re standing close enough to the row of the partners’ offices that the associates can’t really see them, but far out enough that they aren’t in the safe four walls of Minseok’s office. “You’re back.”
“His mom’s sick,” Minseok says, as if that means something to Chanyeol. “She’s in the hospital.”
“I know,” Chanyeol’s voice is low and easy and light and his expression is just as easy and light, glancing down with an odd smile on his lips. “You texted me, remember?”
Minseok rubs fingers against his eyes. “I know-I remember-sorry-”
“Hey-” and Chanyeol’s large hands wound gently around Minseok’s wrists, bringing his hands away from his eyes. Minseok tips his head up and meets the younger man’s gaze, swallowing.
“Sorry,” Minseok whispers again.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol says. “Can I come over tonight? Just for a little while.”
Chanyeol’s expression doesn’t say anything, and Minseok wonders when the younger man had mastered too well how to conceal his emotions. It’s a necessary skill for every lawyer-the poker face-and Minseok is the first to admit that he’s used to outside of court more than he should, but Luhan has always managed to see through it. And Minseok wonders why Chanyeol’s suddenly seems so impenetrable-when did the younger man shift from open grins and easily read eyes to strange smiles and impossible gazes.
“Yeah,” Minseok says, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “’Course.”
His mother is okay.
By the time he arrives at the hospital, his father and her doctor only have hopeful updates to tell him. It came as a surprise, but it wasn’t anything unexpected with how her health has been for the past few years. Luhan knows that, but it hit him hard all the same because he wasn’t here for it. And it makes him rethink everything. It makes him rethink whether living his dream in Korea is worth this-worth not being here because while he’s growing up, his parents are growing old and he’s not here.
He could easily get a job that pays just as well here with the credentials he’s gathered. He’s had enough years in Korea having the time of his life, having the kind of career he’s always wanted for himself. He wonders if this is when he should make the decision to end all that and come back before he sets down roots in Korea and it becomes too late to return.
(he doesn’t want to think about what-who-he’d be leaving behind)
“I know that look,” his father says, when he and Luhan break for lunch in the hospital’s cafeteria the third day Luhan is in China. His father looks at him solemnly as they take seats, trays laden with food between them.
Luhan smiles. “I’m just thinking.”
His father points a finger at him. “Don’t.”
“You don’t miss your only son?” Luhan makes a face playfully.
The glare his father sets on him is enough to cut diamond. “Your mother would turn you out onto the streets if you came back,” he snorts.
Luhan looks down into his fried noodles, stirring them around idly with the tips of his chopsticks. He sets aside the sliced onions and begins picking away at the red peppers. “Don’t you want me to be here for you?” he asks quietly. “In case something happens again-”
His father sets his chopsticks and spoon down with a clang, the deep lines on his face moving into an expression that Luhan hasn’t seen too often and that makes him sit up straight in his seat whenever he does. “We didn’t raise you to be here for us until our dying day,” his father says, and there’s something contradictorily gentle and firm in his tone. “Your mother and I are here for each other, and we raised you so that you won’t need us.”
“But don’t you need me-” Luhan begins softly.
“You visit us as many times as you want,” his father says. “You come eat with us whenever you want. You move back if you want. You can do whatever you want, but don’t do anything because you think we need you to. That’s not how we raised our son. That’s not the kind of man a woman like your mother would give birth to.”
Luhan meets his father’s eyes. He feels his eyes sting as he tries to smile again. “She’d really kick me out, if I tried to come back, wouldn’t she?”
“Chase you out with the broom and hit you with the pan,” his father says, waving a half-eaten piece of fried tofu in the air.
She’s not strong enough to see him off when he has to leave at the end of the week, so he says goodbye to her in her hospital room. His father is going to drive him to the airport, and he’s already outside, bringing the car around from the parking garage.
The doctor says she’ll be able to head home in another nine days, and Luhan would stay all of those if he could, but Zitao has been calling him and texting him, and work can’t wait another nine days. Luhan tries to make it happen, but his father catches him and tells his mother, and she screams at him incredulously from her hospital bed until the nurse rushes in, frantic and confused. His mother looks terribly small with the monitors and IVs surrounding her, but there’s no weariness in her eyes. She’s alert and aware and even now, looks as impatient and brisk as when she’s bustling Luhan around from math tutoring to soccer practice to his friend’s house and all the other schedules in between.
“The next time you visit,” she says, as he bends down to kiss both of her wrinkled cheeks, “if you come alone-don’t bother coming at all.”
Luhan laughs, holding her hand tightly. “Your son doesn’t have anyone,” he says. “Sorry.”
She sighs. “This is what happens with a son pretty enough to be a daughter.”
“I’ll bring some of my friends,” Luhan says playfully, “I’m the manliest.”
His mother looks unimpressed. “Your friends are Korean men.”
“Mama!” he laughs.
She sniffs.
“Not Wufan and Yixing, remember?” he says. “They haven’t been back in a while either. And Zitao-you haven’t met him yet.”
She pats his cheek. “All right-next time-we’ll see if they’re good enough to stand in my house.” Luhan lets go of her hand reluctantly, letting her settle back into the pillows. “Now off with you-you’ll be late to check in.”
He hugs her, carefully lifting her into a sitting position and then wrapping his arms as tightly as he can without jostling her. Luhan walks backwards to the door, never wanting to look away from her as she gives him a tiny, rare smile, falling back against the bed slowly.
[ next]
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: pg-13
pairing(s): xiuhan, lukai, xiuyeol
summary: would we have changed?
a/n: i don't think. you uNDERSTAND. how pissed i am. that this is not. the. last. part. im about to cut live chickens im so pissed. bUH.
[ part one] [ part two] [ part three] [part four] [ part five]
When Luhan bounds back into bed, collapsing beside Jongin on the rumpled sheets, bright morning light filtering through the blinds of the younger man’s bedroom, Jongin is gazing at him thoughtfully with waiting eyes. Luhan raises his eyebrows, mouth and hands filled with buttered toast. He rests back against the pillows and looks back simply at the younger man. “What?” Luhan says blankly, chewing the warm bread.
“Four weekends in a row,” Jongin says, tone indecipherable but a half-smile eases onto his full lips. “Hyung, should I be flattered?”
Luhan finishes the first piece of toast and immediately crams half of the next into his mouth. He’d normally pick off the crust but he skipped dinner last night, and he’s too hungry to care this morning. “Why?” He rolls onto his stomach and regards Jongin with a tilt of his head.
But Jongin just continues to smile, secretly, but not secretly enough that Luhan doesn’t get an inkling of what the younger man is getting at. Luhan’s stomach churns guiltily enough that he doesn’t feel like eating the rest of the toast. He doesn’t want to get out of bed to throw it away though so he stuffs what remains of it into his mouth and swallows fast enough that he doesn’t really taste it. He turns onto his back again, sliding in closer to the younger man and Jongin stretches an arm out to accommodate Luhan, slipping it beneath the older man’s body and pulling him in to Jongin’s side.
The sunlight makes Jongin’s bronze skin shine, and Luhan finds that he can’t take his eyes away, gazing appreciatively at the stretches of muscle and tendon that flex whenever Jongin just breathes. Luhan feels Jongin’s lips in his hair as the older man runs his palm over the flat planes of the younger man’s abdomen, just stopping where coarse, dark hair begins to form a trail downward. “Hyung,” Jongin says softly. Luhan hears nervousness and hesitance and he finds himself swallowing again in apprehension.
This has never been a game Luhan likes to play.
Jongin looks right into Luhan’s eyes, their faces inches apart, and the younger man licks his lips nervously before he asks, “D’you want to go out to eat sometime?”
Luhan has to break the gaze. He stares at the wall ahead, stares at his folded clothes on the chair near the door of Jongin’s bedroom. “I can’t,” he says and pretends he can’t see, out of the corner of his eye, Jongin hastily hiding the hurt disappointment away. “Sorry, Jongin-ah.”
“It’s fine, hyung.”
If the call hadn’t come when it had, Minseok doesn’t know if either of them would ever have broken the silent streak.
Minseok’s phone rings in the middle of the night-so late that it’s closer to sunrise than sundown and the lawyer is already in bed, lights off, curled in Chanyeol’s long arms, pressed to Chanyeol’s bare chest beneath their sheets. Both of them are awakened by the call, and normally when either of them gets calls this late, Chanyeol just reaches over to silence whoever’s phone it is. Neither of them ever gets calls from work this late-Chanyeol is still a new associate that has more deskwork than casework, and it’s hardly proper client protocol to call in the middle of the night so Minseok never gets business calls past nine.
But Minseok has one ringtone for business calls, one ringtone for friends and family and Chanyeol. And right now, it’s neither of those two sounds bursting through the otherwise silence of their bedroom. It’s a completely different sound, and Minseok hasn’t heard it for an entire month. But he’d recognize it anytime, anywhere, because regardless of how many phones Minseok’s gone through since university, he always puts the same song for this person-the only person to have his own separate ringtone on Minseok’s phone.
“Chanyeol-ah,” Minseok says blearily, one hand on Chanyeol’s arm to stop the younger man from turning the older man’s phone off. “I got it.”
Chanyeol wraps his arms tighter around Minseok’s waist, burying his face against the back of Minseok’s hair and neck. “Mm,” he mumbles sleepily, eyes still closed. “Hyung, just answer it tomorrow.”
But Minseok already has the phone in his hand, disentangling himself from Chanyeol and sitting up in the bed. He swipes his thumb over the screen and presses the phone to his ear. He doesn’t get a chance to say anything before Luhan’s voice comes into his ear, apologetic and frantic. “Minseok-ah,” Luhan says, and his voice is tired and sleepless and restless and harried. “It’s fucking late-I know-sorry-but, okay, my editor and secretary are both sick and I can’t call either of them in but I have a set of articles that I have to get in tomorrow and I can’t send them back unread and I’ve literally tried calling in anyone else I could think of who could proofread these or at least-”
And Minseok should say no.
And Minseok should apologize.
And Minseok should hang up.
And Minseok should go back to the safe curl of Chanyeol’s arms and go back to sleep and go back to a life where Luhan is just his friend and nothing else.
“You’re at your place?” Minseok asks, swinging his legs out of the blankets and onto the floor.
“Yeah,” Luhan says, and even the journalist sounds surprised that Minseok hasn’t hung up.
Minseok stands up, pulling on socks and scrambling for clothes even as he still has the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” He ends the call before Luhan can say anything further.
i don’t want you to thank me
Chanyeol is sitting straight up in bed now, eyes no longer sleepy and half-closed. He’s alert and aware and frowning as Minseok bustled around the room, trying to get his clothes on, trying to find his wallet and keys. “Hyung-hyung, what’re you doing-it’s like three in the morning-who was that-hyung, wait-”
Minseok kisses Chanyeol’s cheek. “Go back to sleep,” he says. He’s going to have to bring a change of clothes that he can change into in the car. There’s no way he’ll have time to come back home and shower before heading to the firm. He supposes if push comes to shove he could always shower at the gym next door to the firm.
He’s dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, a spare suit in his arms, keys and wallet in his pockets, when Chanyeol grabs his arm and stops him mid-turn. “Hyung, slow down,” Chanyeol says, still sounding confused, “stop-hyung-who called?”
And Minseok should look into Chanyeol’s eyes.
The older man turns his gaze towards the door. “Luhan,” he answers quietly. “It’s-he needs me.”
Chanyeol’s hand lets go of Minseok’s arm.
Minseok doesn’t give the younger man to say anything further.
what else can you say to me anyway
He leaves Chanyeol in the darkness and doesn’t look back.
Minseok doesn’t come running because Luhan needs an extra set of eyes to help him through the mountains of work. He knows Luhan, and he knows that Luhan could call any of their friends to help him. He knows that Luhan could find a way to stall the deadline.
The journalist opens the door but Minseok doesn’t move from where he stands on the doormat. He lightly puts one hand on the door, his other hand still holding his phone. Luhan hasn’t shaven, hair askew. The shirt he’s wearing is so old there are rips in it. He’s wearing sweatpants with one leg scrunched up to the knee, revealing bright green ankle socks. Minseok, if he didn’t know any better-any one of their other friends-would have thought Luhan was just coming out of his cave again. All the signs are the same-he looks like he hasn’t slept in days, hasn’t been outside in days, hasn’t eaten in days, has survived on crackers and water in a dark room lit only by the glare of his laptop.
But the expression on Luhan’s face is nothing like what it should be if this situation really was that simple.
There’s no accomplishment, no dazed pride and triumph. Luhan has swallowed all the emotion down, but to Minseok, the attempt is easily pathetic and transparent. So he doesn’t move from the doorstep. He doesn’t walk into the apartment. He remains firmly rooted outside and looks straight into Luhan’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything-neither of them says anything. It might’ve been half an hour, it might’ve been three minutes, it might’ve been just a moment.
Minseok knows.
Luhan’s secretary and editor are both sick, and there’s no one else to proofread the articles at a moment’s notice, but that’s not it. That couldn’t be it.
It’s Luhan who ends up stepping outside to meet Minseok-to fall against Minseok, to collapse into Minseok’s arms, to bury his face against Minseok’s neck and he whispers hoarsely, “My mom is in the hospital.”
Minseok closes his eyes and tightens his arms around Luhan’s body. He closes his eyes and says nothing while Luhan stutters and stammers the story in a low voice that sounds like it will shatter at the next word that he grinds out. He hugs Luhan closer and closer, tighter and tighter, right there on the journalist’s doorstep, as Luhan relays the past twenty-four hours, monitoring his mother’s condition over the phone, unable to rush into the car and drive out to see her because how can he?
Luhan’s voice shakes, blurting and rambling, incoherent and breathless and nonsensical-about how he can’t leave because of these articles, because his secretary and editor are out sick and no one can be in charge while he’s gone, not on such short notice and that’s the real reason it’s so crucial that his secretary be in office for this next week but she isn’t and he can’t book a plane until everything is sorted out but what if this is serious-what if the doctor is missing something-what if something happens and he’s not there and why did he go to Korea at all when he’s always known that his mother was never healthy to begin with why did-
“Zitao,” Minseok says, cutting Luhan off, cleanly and clearly. He takes Luhan by the shoulders and pulls him back, steadies him-grounds him. He doesn’t look anywhere but Luhan’s eyes, mouth set and expression firm. “You call Zitao. You tell him everything-tell him you’re taking the week off. Give him the articles. He’ll split it with Jongin. I’ll book you a flight. I’ll pack. You can leave tonight.”
you don’t have to be alone
It’s not just his voice. Luhan’s entire body is trembling, face tense and gaze fragile. “She’s-”
“-going to be okay,” Minseok cuts off because he won’t hear any differently and he refuses to let Luhan think any differently. “She’s going to be okay. You’re going to see her, and she’s going to call you a dumb little deer like she always does when you call her and ask if she wants you to come back.”
The breath Luhan takes is deep and shuddering, but when he meets Minseok’s eyes again, his gaze is steely and determined-scared and worried and vulnerable, but there’s something he’s clinging to now, and Minseok doesn’t know what it is (or maybe he does, but he wishes he didn’t-wishes Luhan hadn’t stopped shaking only after he threaded his fingers through Minseok’s, holding onto the lawyer’s hand like a lifeline), but whatever it is-Luhan has it, and he’s going to make it out fine.
i’ll make sure
And during winter break one year-the year they started dating-Minseok’s father slipped and fell outside on the ice, breaking his back. A man who Minseok looked up to more than any other human on the earth, a man with heart problems that he’d had a close brush with just last year and Minseok and his mother and his younger sister are all terrified. It happens in a rush of ambulance sirens and paramedics and emergency rooms and two sleepless nights wandering the hall outside of the hospital room.
There are all sorts of complications and Minseok and his mother take turns driving Minseok’s sister to her lessons and keeping watch over his father in case anything happens. He’s in pain, but awake and alert, and the doctors are worrying over the doses of medication that they can give him because of his heart condition. It’s the most frightening thing Minseok has ever been through, and on the seventh night when it becomes too much, he calls Luhan-takes the call all the way to Beijing-hoping that maybe Luhan’s voice will calm his frayed nerves, if nothing else.
He never meant to tell the entire story, never meant to give away that anything was desperately, horribly wrong.
He never meant to choke and stumble over his own voice until Luhan finally says quietly, “Hold on for a sec, Minseok-ah,” and hangs up with no further explanation. Minseok doesn’t think all that much about it-is still too scared out of his mind to waste any thought on it. He just assumes, at the moment, that Luhan means he’ll call Minseok back later.
He never thought the real explanation would come in the form of Luhan arriving at the hospital the next day as Minseok just finishes listening in on a conversation between the doctor and Minseok’s mother on how they might need to operate on his father. Luhan arrives, tired from the night flight and slightly harried after rushing around trying to find the right hospital, but he’s here.
you’re here
Luhan bows to Minseok’s confused mother, introducing himself as a friend, until Minseok pulls him to the side and whispers, “But-China-you-”
“I decided to come back a little early,” Luhan says dismissively. “Would’ve had to come back in a week anyway, right? Break ending and all-”
“But-your family-time-”
“I was just slumming it on the couch watching Saturday cartoons,” Luhan cuts Minseok off again, eyes twinkling and reassuring and familiar and here. “Parents practically kicked me out anyway.”
And Minseok doesn’t believe that for a second-doesn’t believe for even a moment that Luhan didn’t make up lies to his parents about getting coursework done and needing to be back in Korea for a head start because Luhan’s parents wouldn’t have let him skimp on even an extra day that he could rest at home.
“You never get to go home,” Minseok says, because this isn’t-it’s not-this isn’t. “My dad’s going to be fine-he’s just-”
But Luhan’s gaze kills the protests on Minseok’s lips. “You’re not fine, though, are you?”
“I didn’t break my back,” Minseok says. “We have phones for this. I can-”
thank you
Luhan squeezes Minseok’s hand, and Minseok feels like everything he’s been holding inside, stiff and suffocating and stifling and scared shitless, is starting to unwind-he still feels burnt out and exhausted and he can’t stop thinking about all the what ifs that might happen while his father is still hooked up to monitors and lying in bed crooked and broken and not healthy-not well-not the springy, young man who used to bounce Minseok on his broad shoulders.
But Minseok can breathe now.
“Can I meet your dad?” Luhan asks.
Minseok holds onto Luhan’s hand tighter and tighter, squeezing back hard enough to hurt Luhan but Luhan doesn’t say anything about it-doesn’t mention how Minseok is holding on for dear life, for steadiness and security. “Yeah,” Minseok says. “Yeah.”
Minseok doesn’t end up going to work at all that day.
Getting Luhan onto the plane ends up being all-day endeavor. Arranging things with Zitao and buying the plane ticket itself (luckily, managing to cast the last seat on the last flight that day to Beijing) takes until ten in the morning, mostly because they had to wait until Zitao was up and at work. They’d spent the earlier hours of the morning packing and reorganizing the article files onto a thumb drive for Zitao. After all that, they pack more, and then Minseok leaves Luhan to get some sleep.
He calls into the office while Luhan is literally knocked out cold on the sofa, one arm hanging off the edge and mouth open. Minseok tells his secretary that he’s taking a sick day, and to apologize as profusely as she can to the three clients he had major appointments with that day. None of them had any sort of court date or settlement date that was fast approaching, so Minseok should be safe from any of them pitching hard complaints about this to him when he returned.
He also texts Wufan and Junmyeon because they’d want to know, and Luhan won’t even remember to tell them in the state he’s in.
By the time Luhan wakes up, Minseok has already showered and eaten, and there’s just enough time at that point for Luhan to shower, change, and eat the hasty ramen Minseok had whipped up for him before they leave for the airport. It’s a night flight, but it’s still international and they have to check in a few hours early. Everything Luhan needs is just in one, small, carry-on suitcase, and they load it into Minseok’s car.
They don’t speak during the drive.
Minseok sees Luhan off with an embrace that’s too tight for both of them. It feels like Luhan’s arms are enough to slice Minseok in half, and Minseok knows that his own hold around Luhan’s shoulders is enough to bruise the journalist. But they hug like that anyway-hard enough that neither of them can breathe-close enough that Luhan won’t be able to ever doubt that Minseok is here, solid and steady.
“Call me when you get there,” Minseok says into Luhan’s hair.
Luhan pulls back, still holding Minseok’s hand. “Okay.” His hand slides slowly out of Minseok’s, and he turns, tipping the suitcase onto its wheels and pulling it along towards the first checkpoint.
Minseok doesn’t move from where he stands until Luhan disappears around the corner to security check.
They haven’t talked about that night.
When Minseok returns to work the next day, tired from the minimal sleep he barely managed to snag by last night, he’s glad for the bustle of having three appointments pushed back on top of five more. He’s glad the entire day is spent being handed over from client to client, document to document, case to case, settlement to settlement. He’s glad that his secretary has everything up to date-he’s glad that his associates only ask if he’s feeling better and don’t go any further to pry into his reported twenty-four-hour flu.
He’s glad that Chanyeol is at court today.
But the case goes by fast and quickly in Chanyeol’s favor, according to how there are congratulatory cheers from the associates section on the floor when Chanyeol returns, grinning from one of his first wins flying solo-a small case, but those add up one by one, and nevertheless, it’s always a big deal to a junior associate early on. Minseok wants to congratulate him. He wants to pull him into his office, lock the door, and kiss him breathless for all the hard hours he’s watched the younger man put into this case.
He wants to do anything and everything to stop Chanyeol from looking at him like that from across the floor, from walking towards Minseok with something undecipherable and, yet, the younger man understands something-has realized something-and Minseok doesn’t want to know what the epiphany was. He’s afraid.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol says, stopping in front of the older man. They’re standing close enough to the row of the partners’ offices that the associates can’t really see them, but far out enough that they aren’t in the safe four walls of Minseok’s office. “You’re back.”
“His mom’s sick,” Minseok says, as if that means something to Chanyeol. “She’s in the hospital.”
“I know,” Chanyeol’s voice is low and easy and light and his expression is just as easy and light, glancing down with an odd smile on his lips. “You texted me, remember?”
Minseok rubs fingers against his eyes. “I know-I remember-sorry-”
“Hey-” and Chanyeol’s large hands wound gently around Minseok’s wrists, bringing his hands away from his eyes. Minseok tips his head up and meets the younger man’s gaze, swallowing.
“Sorry,” Minseok whispers again.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol says. “Can I come over tonight? Just for a little while.”
Chanyeol’s expression doesn’t say anything, and Minseok wonders when the younger man had mastered too well how to conceal his emotions. It’s a necessary skill for every lawyer-the poker face-and Minseok is the first to admit that he’s used to outside of court more than he should, but Luhan has always managed to see through it. And Minseok wonders why Chanyeol’s suddenly seems so impenetrable-when did the younger man shift from open grins and easily read eyes to strange smiles and impossible gazes.
“Yeah,” Minseok says, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “’Course.”
His mother is okay.
By the time he arrives at the hospital, his father and her doctor only have hopeful updates to tell him. It came as a surprise, but it wasn’t anything unexpected with how her health has been for the past few years. Luhan knows that, but it hit him hard all the same because he wasn’t here for it. And it makes him rethink everything. It makes him rethink whether living his dream in Korea is worth this-worth not being here because while he’s growing up, his parents are growing old and he’s not here.
He could easily get a job that pays just as well here with the credentials he’s gathered. He’s had enough years in Korea having the time of his life, having the kind of career he’s always wanted for himself. He wonders if this is when he should make the decision to end all that and come back before he sets down roots in Korea and it becomes too late to return.
(he doesn’t want to think about what-who-he’d be leaving behind)
“I know that look,” his father says, when he and Luhan break for lunch in the hospital’s cafeteria the third day Luhan is in China. His father looks at him solemnly as they take seats, trays laden with food between them.
Luhan smiles. “I’m just thinking.”
His father points a finger at him. “Don’t.”
“You don’t miss your only son?” Luhan makes a face playfully.
The glare his father sets on him is enough to cut diamond. “Your mother would turn you out onto the streets if you came back,” he snorts.
Luhan looks down into his fried noodles, stirring them around idly with the tips of his chopsticks. He sets aside the sliced onions and begins picking away at the red peppers. “Don’t you want me to be here for you?” he asks quietly. “In case something happens again-”
His father sets his chopsticks and spoon down with a clang, the deep lines on his face moving into an expression that Luhan hasn’t seen too often and that makes him sit up straight in his seat whenever he does. “We didn’t raise you to be here for us until our dying day,” his father says, and there’s something contradictorily gentle and firm in his tone. “Your mother and I are here for each other, and we raised you so that you won’t need us.”
“But don’t you need me-” Luhan begins softly.
“You visit us as many times as you want,” his father says. “You come eat with us whenever you want. You move back if you want. You can do whatever you want, but don’t do anything because you think we need you to. That’s not how we raised our son. That’s not the kind of man a woman like your mother would give birth to.”
Luhan meets his father’s eyes. He feels his eyes sting as he tries to smile again. “She’d really kick me out, if I tried to come back, wouldn’t she?”
“Chase you out with the broom and hit you with the pan,” his father says, waving a half-eaten piece of fried tofu in the air.
She’s not strong enough to see him off when he has to leave at the end of the week, so he says goodbye to her in her hospital room. His father is going to drive him to the airport, and he’s already outside, bringing the car around from the parking garage.
The doctor says she’ll be able to head home in another nine days, and Luhan would stay all of those if he could, but Zitao has been calling him and texting him, and work can’t wait another nine days. Luhan tries to make it happen, but his father catches him and tells his mother, and she screams at him incredulously from her hospital bed until the nurse rushes in, frantic and confused. His mother looks terribly small with the monitors and IVs surrounding her, but there’s no weariness in her eyes. She’s alert and aware and even now, looks as impatient and brisk as when she’s bustling Luhan around from math tutoring to soccer practice to his friend’s house and all the other schedules in between.
“The next time you visit,” she says, as he bends down to kiss both of her wrinkled cheeks, “if you come alone-don’t bother coming at all.”
Luhan laughs, holding her hand tightly. “Your son doesn’t have anyone,” he says. “Sorry.”
She sighs. “This is what happens with a son pretty enough to be a daughter.”
“I’ll bring some of my friends,” Luhan says playfully, “I’m the manliest.”
His mother looks unimpressed. “Your friends are Korean men.”
“Mama!” he laughs.
She sniffs.
“Not Wufan and Yixing, remember?” he says. “They haven’t been back in a while either. And Zitao-you haven’t met him yet.”
She pats his cheek. “All right-next time-we’ll see if they’re good enough to stand in my house.” Luhan lets go of her hand reluctantly, letting her settle back into the pillows. “Now off with you-you’ll be late to check in.”
He hugs her, carefully lifting her into a sitting position and then wrapping his arms as tightly as he can without jostling her. Luhan walks backwards to the door, never wanting to look away from her as she gives him a tiny, rare smile, falling back against the bed slowly.
[ next]