[baekhyun/lu han] the stars would have waited for us; pg-13
Title: The stars would have waited for us
Pairing: Baekhyun/Lu Han
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5338
Summary: Lu Han isn't one to back down from a challenge.
Notes: I secretly ship this so ridiculously I'm not even sure why myself. Purely self-indulgent, with a lot of liberties taken, creative license etc. (read: everything is angsty in my head.)
--
Being in Korea is both everything, and nothing, like being at home.
If he closes his eyes and breathes in, he thinks he could almost smell the streets of Beijing, of duck and dust and brand-new air-conditioning tainted by cigarette ash and leftover mold in the cracks of kitchen floors. He could reach out a palm, and lift to touch heavy plastic, fingers enfolded by swinging flaps reflecting stank, humid sunshine. He could open his mouth, and be understood.
Instead, he opens his eyes to silence, and Seoul. It feels like a bad plot twist, a place that he understands but doesn't really, at all. Most of the time, his heart is in the right place. He'd rather be here than anywhere else, reaching for a dream that's brushing, tauntingly, at his fingertips. Like a whisper of a breeze, asking, pleading to be chased.
Lu Han isn't one to back down from a challenge. He gives as much as he takes, and then gives some more. He hates being judged by the sculpt of his face and the brown of his eyes. Victory isn't just winning. It's also earning - earning the right to grasp the stars, and clench his fingers so tight he'll absorb their fire.
The stars are brighter here, in Korea. The music is louder; the dance steps are faster. He's close he can taste it, the burn of stardom in his lungs, like a beautiful, deadly vise. It's what he wants. It's what he craves. It's what he breathes, and breathes, until when he closes his eyes and swallows his heart, he pretends he can no longer smell the remnants of Beijing curling in the night air in front of him.
--
During the day, his mother calls, voice lilting and airy when she speaks. "I miss you," she says, over what sounds vaguely like shampoo commercials in the background. "Have you been eating well?"
Lu Han pulls his knees up to his chest. One of his shoes is untied, and his hair is reaching the odd length where it begins to tickle his neck uncomfortably. "I'm eating fine, Ma," he says quietly, leaning back against the wall. He can hear, through the plaster, the pounding beat of the others practicing. A bead of sweat trickles down his back under his shirt, fabric wet as it plasters against his cooling skin. "The food is good here. Not as good as yours, but... hai xing," he says, casual. The words are an easy ploy - okay, not so bad, all right. (What he means to say is, don't worry about me.)
Over the line, his mother sighs. "When did you grow up," she says softly, and Lu Han bites his lip. It's moments like these that make him want to regret, selfish and fleeting, and toss his belongings back into his bag before booking the next flight to Beijing. "I can't believe," she continues, and her voice shakes slightly. She's so strong, yet so fragile, like delicate branches of the willow thrashed by wind and water. "That you're there." She's far past sounding accusatory, but Lu Han feels his chest tighten on instinct, and he tilts his head upwards, towards florescent lighting, so the tearing of his eyes is accidental.
"I'll come back," he says, after a while. The bass has stopped on the other side of the wall. It's time to go back, or he'll be in trouble. "I'll come back," he promises, because if he squeezes his eyes shut tight enough, he can pretend he's already in the stars.
--
"Luhan," is what they call him, even more slurred than his own Beijing speech. It sounds foreign, almost, round and reminiscent of curved lines he's spent sleepless nights dwelling over, hoping they'll brand themselves into his skull. "Luhan," he hears, and he turns, startled, to feel long delicate fingers press briefly against his cheek, hard before wiping away. Baekhyun, Lu Han thinks, because he's still fitting names to faces. Baekhyun with sharp, mischievous eyes and a surprising smile, pretty but not soft, honest enough to make Lu Han's breath catch.
"You had something on your face," Baekhyun explains. His voice has a quiet, tumbling cadence to it, and it feels so smooth and easy to Lu Han's still learning ears. "Make-up."
"Oh," Lu Han replies, reaching up to touch his face. "Thank you." He and Sehun had been experimenting earlier, on break, scrutinizing themselves in front of empty bathroom sinks. When they debut, they'll have stylists, but they're allowed to give opinions, and they can't know without trying. (It might have ended in the both of them collapsed in laughter and tears against the cold tile, their faces a smeared mess, but nobody has to know that part.)
"It's okay," Baekhyun laughs, warm and sweet. "I get it. I was like that, too." He gestures vaguely behind him, to where a group of the others are huddled, murmurs tired but determined as they re-lace their shoes and press the condensation of cool water bottles to heated cheeks. "Chanyeol still can't do his at all. He can't sit still; it's hopeless."
(Chanyeol, Lu Han thinks, is the tall, boisterous one with unruly hair and wild eyes. He rolls the syllables around silently on his tongue the way Baekhyun seems to do it. Chanyeol.)
"Are you any good?"
There's a glint in Baekhyun's eyes, now, that sparks a slow, excited warmth in Lu Han's veins. "Of course I am," Baekhyun says proudly, jutting his chin out, as if to prove his prowess. "I'm brilliant."
--
Baekhyun, Lu Han learns, is actually pretty awful at bravado. It only works the first few times, maybe, before Baekyhun breaks into embarrassed, flustered laughter and slumps into Lu Han's side, eyeliner done on only his upper eyelids. "This is worse," Baekhyun breathes, "than practicing CFs with Sehunnie after showering." His arms are graceful as he reaches, hooking around Lu Han's neck and pulling him to stare into the mirror. "We look hot, though. Maybe."
"If you could keep a straight face, maybe," Lu Han teases serenely, and Baekhyun punches him lightly, not enough to hurt. Everything about Baekhyun is light, swift and wondrous, like the fluff of fallen white down feathers in summer sunshine.
When Lu Han glances up, though, Baekhyun is staring at him contemplatively, eyes dark and curious. "What," Lu Han asks, suspiciously, feeling an odd flush creeping up the nape of his neck. He inhales, and blinks as Baekhyun shifts closer.
"Your hair," he says, and stops, hesitant. Lu Han tilts his head. "You should cut it," Baekhyun says, almost as if he's talking to himself. It isn't a question, nor a demand, but there's something strange and affectionate in his eyes, bright and dancing and dangerously warm.
Lu Han's never been one to play with fire, unless he breathes in ash and it smells like home.
--
They make a tacit routine out of it, without much thought, and it disintegrates from make-up lessons into long, drawn-out discussions over bibimbap and late-night variety shows, their whispers blurred into the blaring light of the screen reflected on glass. Your nightly rendezvous, Jongin calls it, eyebrows raising suggestively into his hairline before Lu Han shoves him and takes revenge by whipping him at Mario Kart. It's okay, I won't tell anyone about your infatuation.
(Lu Han thinks it must be pretty obvious, anyway.)
He tries to push it away, tracing his own steps back and forth until he's stepping dirty footprints over his own heart and Yixing is handing him an already cold mug of tea, gaze thoughtful and sympathetic. Lu Han is… an affectionate person, really. He likes to touch, to reach, because it helps ground him when he's aiming too high. He loves easily and quickly, and never lets anyone get too far out of his sight.
With Baekhyun, it's different.
A hand lands on his shoulder, and Lu Han doesn't look up, his eyes flickering towards the skyline as he feels Baekhyun's presence settle in, small and warm, beside him. Lu Han's hair has been cut for debut, short and fluffy and a light tan-tinged brown like his ex-girlfriend's dog, who'd escaped from the apartment building and come back hungry and whimpering the day Lu Han left for Korea. We'll both be waiting, his girlfriend had promised, tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips as she pecked at his cheek. Study hard.
(That was the last time he saw her face-to-face before their break-up, a rushed coffee date filled with shadowed eyes and awkward silences, her finger running anxiously along the rim of the sugar canister. I hope you find what you're looking for.)
"Cold, isn't it?" Baekhyun's voice breaks the quiet, and Lu Han jumps slightly, startled from his thoughts. "Yeol suggested I make a bonfire out here with you. In the middle of the city of Seoul. That idiot," he says, but he sounds fond, the way he always does when he's telling another anecdote about his roommate's crazy, unexpected antics. He'd probably die for Chanyeol, Lu Han knows. They're inseparable. When the silence draws on, Baekhyun clears his throat, softly. "Anyways. Thought you might want company."
Lu Han breathes in, hard, crisp rough air that scrapes at his throat and tastes heavy on his tongue. The company had announced, earlier, that they were meant for two groups instead of just one - China and Korea, respectively. Lu Han knows where he's going to go, because now that the stars are spinning nearer, they're whirling even faster out of his control. His right hand clenches into a fist on his thigh. He closes his eyes. "Sehun-ah," he says, and laughs, short and sad. "He keeps saying he's going to kick and scream if he has to. To get me to be in the same group."
There's a pause so quiet Lu Han can hear the whoosh of car tires on pavement, the distant blare of sirens and horns from the central district traffic. When he opens his eyes, Baekhyun is looking out in the distance, uncharacteristically pensive. "He likes you a lot," Baekhyun says, and there's unfamiliar steel in his voice that makes Lu Han's palms sweat.
He takes another breath.
"We're best friends. Just like you and Chanyeol."
Baekhyun laughs, a grating laugh. "Oh, hyung," he says, and it comes out barely a whisper. "Everyone is your best friend."
(Except me.)
--
In Seoul, the stars shine bright when the lights go out, and Lu Han reaches out for shining, warm eyes that make his knees tremble.
In Beijing, everything is just a shade duller than before, and even though he breathes in, it feels like he's lost something somewhere on the journey back. He plays soccer with Minseok on an old hidden field nobody knows about, lies himself down on a ratty peeling bench and stares up at the clouded black blanket of sky. The Chinese is like comforting white noise in his ears, full of thick r's and slurred numbers that seep under the second skin he's found in Korea.
At night, when Yixing's fallen asleep with headphones over his ears, Lu Han shuts off the lights and pads down the corridor to the washroom, hands braced on either edge of the sink as he stares himself down in the mirror. He hasn't worn eyeliner, not since debut, because the agency wants cute and playful, not cold and mysterious. Not from him, at least.
Sometimes, when they travel, Lu Han pulls out an old worn bag without thinking, dumping its contents onto his bed before realizing what they are - eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss. He turns a palette of eye shadow around in his fingers, sliding it open to stare at the faded imprints of fingers that have rubbed off the color, and from the other room, he can hear voices laughing from where Wu Fan's watching the stream of EXO-K on their most recent live appearance.
He texts Sehun in the early morning, full of smileys and happy sentiment that he knows will make Jongin gag and Joonmyeon smile a little, even if just with crinkles around the eyes. Hyung, Sehun replies, dry and curt, it's too early. Go back to sleep. You'll need it.
Lu Han sighs, his thumb hovering over his screen, and he bites his lip. It's moments like these where he wants to be selfish, and ask something he's going to regret.
Everyone is fine, says another message from Sehun, a second later. Don't worry.
Lu Han flips his phone closed to watch the sun rise scarlet on the horizon, streaks of firelight and warmth that makes his toes curl, a star on the brink of explosion.
--
When Lu Han was eleven, he learned what it meant to persist.
He remembers the slip of his feet on slick mud, the sudden gravity drop in his stomach as the ground was taken out from under him, air like a vacuum in his ears. He remembers sharp, searing pain in his knee, spreading heated, painful fingers up the back of his thigh, and he remembers feeling like his head was wrapped in thick, stiff cloth.
When he woke up, it was to a prescription of at least two years of rehabilitation, multiple torn tendons, and his father's solemn, disapproving face at the side of his bed. How could you fall, was the first thing he'd said, rough in the quiet of the room. Lu Han closed his eyes, and tried to breathe through the knot in his lungs. It wasn't even raining.
It had taken only a year for Lu Han to return to the soccer field.
But when he falls again, this time on the curb of the airport beside sleek black vans in front of hundreds of fans, an arm wraps steady around his waist, slender fingers gripping and tugging him to help him back up to safety just before his knee hits the ground. Even so, it twinges slightly, and he purses his lips, trying not to grimace as he apologizes and steps out of the folds of the crowd, Baekhyun's fingers still resting lightly on his shoulders.
How could you fall, he hears his father's voice echoing as he climbs into the van, collapsing into the back seat, eyelids fluttering. His hands are shaking. He was close, so close, to messing up again.
A hand lands, soft and warm, on his thigh. "It wasn't your fault," Baekhyun whispers when Lu Han open his eyes. "Don't worry about it." Baekhyun's smile is brief but sincere, flickering flames that creep into the frigid, dusty corners of Lu Han's heart he'd forgotten existed.
"Thanks," he says, instead of everything he means to say. He watches as Baekhyun turns and laughs, distracted, when Tao and Wu Fan appear, tall and gangly and smug smiles, and pretends his heart doesn't want to claw its way out of his chest and into Baekhyun's pretty, delicate hands.
Because, the thing is, Lu Han doesn't know anymore how to give up.
But, the thing is, if he doesn't, he's afraid the only thing left of his heart will be the ashes in the aftermath.
--
It's the third time Yixing pulls his back since debut when Lu Han finally, finally snaps.
"Lu Han," Yixing says, dimple creased and smile weak, face twisted in pain, "I'll be okay," and Lu Han wants. He wants to scream, to throw a fit, to tear out his hair and rip posters off the wall and stab every creature if it means absorbing Yixing's pain. He wants to be angry, and frustrated, and tired, but the nurses are watching and Kyungsoo is patting Yixing's hand soothingly, so Lu Han swallows his screams, mutters "I'll be right back" and turns on his heel towards the door.
Baekhyun finds him, hours later, in the playroom of the pediatric ward, huddled away from the windows and practicing Korean with ten-year-olds who can string better sentences than he can. "Luhan," Baekhyun says into his ear, running a gentle hand down his arm, and Lu Han spins around, deer plushie in hand. The children surrounding him stare up at Baekhyun with wide, curious eyes. "Luhan," Baekyhun repeats urgently, out of the corner of his mouth as he offers a bright, warm smile. "We have to go."
When Lu Han looks up through hooded eyelids, his eyes are rimmed red, and Baekyhun's eyes soften visibly. There's a hesitation, a split-second decision in his gaze, and Lu Han looks down quickly, his hold on the deer loosening the tiniest bit.
Above him, Baekyhun inhales sharply. Lu Han closes his eyes, and breathes.
When he opens them, Baekhyun is sitting down next to him. Lu Han opens his mouth to speak, but Baekhyun cuts him off with quirked lips.
"Guess you might need some company."
--
They don't talk much on the way back. The wind whips, freezing and harsh, against their skin, but Lu Han feels Baekhyun's arm clinging to his elbow and feels warmth trickle in his veins.
"I have fifty voicemails," Baekhyun states solemnly, when they've trekked to the bridge. The van had left with the others long ago, and Lu Han can't even begin to fathom what time it must be, because they'd stayed until the nurses had shooed them out of the ward and then lingered in front of the ice cream shop nearby for ages, lips sticky with sugar and laughter loud and free.
Slipping a hand into his pocket, Lu Han turns on his own phone. "Sixty," he shoots back, even though half of them are from Sehun and Yixing put together. He smirks when Baekhyun giggles and elbows him, never hard enough to hurt.
"Liar."
"Can't help that I'm loved," Lu Han retorts cheekily, grin wide on his cheeks until they come to a stop in front of the back entrance of the SM building. He hears Baekhyun scrape to a halt beside him, and breathes in deep, smelling the faint wisp of cigarette smoke, cologne and gasoline, the only imprints left from the day. Right now, everything is silent.
"I'm - "
Before he can finish the apology, Baekhyun's fingers are lacing with his. Lu Han starts, then relaxes before meeting Baekyhun's eyes.
There's something dark and uncertain in them, but still, Baekhyun smiles. "Let's go."
--
Sometimes, when Lu Han is alone, he takes out his make-up bag and applies some on himself, just because.
"I don't want to wear eyeliner anymore," Baekhyun tells him, after Lu Han's dabbed and washed away the evidence before his skin becomes brittle. "I want to them to just see me."
But this is you, Lu Han wants to say, before realizing he's being selfish. He can mold himself into someone he isn't, but he won't expect others to do the same.
(He could reach out, and touch, and grab, and hold onto. Just like he does with everyone else. He could be selfish, and unrelenting.)
He thinks of ice cream, and tacky plastic children's toys, and the way Baekhyun had laughed that night outside the hospital, warm and careless and free. It's how Baekhyun laughs when he's happy, and Lu Han wants that laugh all to himself, to bottle it up like a butterfly and watch it beat fragile, gorgeous wings until it flies.
But when it's something that matters most, Lu Han's never been good at being selfish.
He tosses his make-up bag into the top shelf of his closet, ignoring Yixing's raised eyebrows from the bathroom sink.
When they go back to China, it'll lie there in the dark, collecting sooty dust, just like his heart.
--
In Beijing, the stars don't shine.
--
"Are you still pining?"
Jongin is on the ground, a sheen of sweat on his arms and hair plastered to his forehead. His gaze is expectant when Lu Han peers down at him.
"After who?"
"After who," Jongin mimics, peeling himself off the ground and letting his arms stretch upwards. He rises onto the balls of his feet as his T-shirt lifts to expose a sliver of skin, and then winces, moving to pull the fabric down over the bandage on his back. "Me, of course. Who else?" His eyes are glinting in the yellowed basement lighting, teasing. Lu Han fakes a punch.
"I wouldn't know," he replies serenely, shaking out a towel to pat down his neck and ignoring Jongin's eye roll.
"Don't be an ass."
"What's it to you, anyway," Lu Han mutters, plopping down to work the twinge out of his knees - stretch and bend, stretch and bend. When did you grow up, his mother's voice rings in his head, and he wants to scoff at the thought, because the bristly walls around his heart will always be the same. "It's none of your business."
Instead, he hears Jongin scoff. "Of course it's my business," Jongin is saying, moving away towards the direction of the stereo. Stretch and bend. Lu Han leans forward to unclasp a weight from the rack beside the mirror, meticulously tying it onto his ankle. He can feel Jongin's gaze settling on the nape of his neck, but doesn't turn to meet it. "If you get distracted by your heartbreak and mess up on stage, it'll ruin my image."
Huffing, Lu Han grabs his used towel and chucks it in Jongin's direction. "Now who's being an ass," he retorts, turning to see Jongin laugh and flick on the stereo, drowning out the rest of Lu Han's arguments.
"Man up, Luhan hyung. Nobody waits around forever."
Stretch and bend. Lu Han doesn't reply. Stretch and bend and stretch again, until his leg is trembling, and maybe if the weight is heavy enough, it'll bring him careening down and the only dream he'll have left will be for someone to catch him.
--
They like to place bets against each other, the twelve of them. It keeps the uncertainties and tensions at bay, whittling down strategies and shooting insults and dirty jokes until it's just twelve boys and no masks. "Two and five-eighths," Chanyeol states, face twisted in what appears to be excitement. "That's my bet!"
(It's how many days he thinks Kyungsoo can last without folding anyone's socks.)
Jongdae makes a face. "Five-eighths? What does that even mean?"
"Well, because right now it's - "
"Okay, okay," Joonmyun cuts in. He jots it down on a notepad, pursing his lips. "What do you want if you win?"
Chanyeol's gaze slips, fleetingly, over to Baekhyun, and they share a weighted smile. Lu Han feels his heart do an ugly, uncomfortable lurch, but willfully ignores it. "I want Baek," Chanyeol says, beaming, "to wear eyeliner for a whole day at home."
Lu Han's hands jerk away from where they were resting on Sehun's thigh, as if he's been burned. Nobody notices but Sehun, who turns with a question in his eyes.
Thankfully, Wu Fan cuts in. "Dude," he scoffs, "how is that winning anything."
Chanyeol shrugs, and Lu Han gulps, watching the casual rise of his shoulders. He wonders if Chanyeol knows about Baekhyun's resolution. (He wonders what that means, and why he's getting himself so worked up over eyeliner when they're in an industry that sells attraction.)
"It was a pretty dumb idea, wasn't it?" Sehun asks later, when they're lying on the couch, watching a rerun of SMTown news clips. "Hyung wears eyeliner like, all the time, anyway." His eyes are heavy when they linger on Lu Han's.
Swallowing, Lu Han sighs, and burrows closer into the crook of Sehun's neck. "Yeah," he says, closing eyes against the light.
"Jongin said," Sehun starts, but stops. His hand stills where it's rested on Lu Han's head, as if he's searching for the right words. Finally, he exhales, and his hand falls to brush up against Lu Han's arm. "I just think that sometimes, things aren't always how they seem. To you."
Lu Han straightens, pushing himself up to stare Sehun in the eyes. "Are you confessing to me, Sehun-ah?"
A tinge of red sweeps Sehun's cheeks, and he ducks his head, shoving at Lu Han's chest. "Gross! No way, you jerk."
Laughing, Lu Han ruffles Sehun's hair, leaning back into the couch and propping his feet on the recliner. "When did you get so mature, maknae?"
Sehun sticks out his tongue. "When did you become such an idiot?"
--
When Lu Han was sixteen, he fell in love for the first time.
He remembers sitting on a field, so trampled and dusty the grass was barely visible against his cleats, and pulling on a pair of earphones he'd borrowed from a classmate. It helps relieve my stress, she'd told him, slightly flustered and fumbling, and Lu Han had merely slipped her an easy, suave smile.
He played soccer because he liked competition - the rapid, hot rush that made his muscles burst at the seams, his eyes following the ball and his feet swift in stained shoes. He studied because he liked feeling smart, liked the way people eyed him head-to-toe in the hallway, all jittery admiration and seething envy.
But Lu Han sat down and really, really listened to music for the first time when he was sixteen. It crawled under his skin, digging crevices of longing into his heart, and he wanted. To be a part of it, to let it seep into him and settle like new wiring in his system, like honey in place of his blood.
He flung himself back onto the ground, facing the sky. Dusk was fading into darkness, and he wondered if somewhere else in the world, there were stars he could trace into his palm. He breathed in, lung filling with particulates and smoky air, and shut his eyes on the exhale, arms falling to his sides against the cool, damp ground.
(Years later, Lu Han does music, because it makes him dream the impossible.
And Lu Han isn't one to back down from a challenge.)
--
The first time Lu Han returns home after debut, his mother buys him two bowls of dou jiang, three you tiao, and one whole jian bing duo zi. "Beijing special," she says, sitting down at the table across from him, two feet of plastic-covered plaid stretched between his bicep and her fingertips. "You're so skinny. How can this be?"
Lu Han works the words around the lump in his throat, staring down at his hands. "I can't," he says, barely above a whisper, and thinks of months of handfuls of rice and Yixing's sad, hungry eyes in the practice room mirror. "I shouldn't," he amends, biting the inside of his cheek, head still lowered.
There's a long, drawn-out silence, endless if not for the echoing voices from the outer corridor to signify his father's arrival. Lu Han stands abruptly, pocketing his hands, and looks up just in time to see the wetness in his mother's eyes before she drops her gaze.
A starving, talentless hun hunr, his father had accused, so many years ago, tossing the SM letter onto the very same table in front of them. His voice had landed furious and scathing on the syllables, like he was fighting not to implode into brutal rage. You could have been somebody, but you go off to Korea and do this, instead.
Hun hunr, Lu Han had repeated to himself that night, flipping a coin between his knuckles. Someone who was lost in the world, switching jobs left and right, wasting his life away behind counters and stovetops because he never put in any effort. It had this vulgar, curling bite to it that tasted bitter on Lu Han's tongue, and he vowed, fervently, that he would prove his father wrong.
Now, Lu Han stands, hands still in his pockets, not quite starving or talentless, maybe a little bit of both. But hun, he most definitely is not. He straightens his back, and lines up his feet together.
His father walks in, briefcase dropping to the carpet. "You're here," he says, and Lu Han nods, stock-still.
There's a tense, wavering silence.
"I watched your showcase," his father says, rubbing his face with the back of his hand. "Online."
Slowly, shakily, Lu Han breathes out.
(He'll take what he can get.)
His father never says, not even once, Welcome home.
--
The tea on the bed stand has long gone cold, but Lu Han's face still feels warm, arms pillowing his head as Yixing surfs TV channels.
"So that's a start," Yixing says, finger pausing as he turns to look at Lu Han, who is doing knee exercises again, back pressed into the mattress. Stretch and bend, stretch and bend. "You're going to fall asleep if you do them on the bed, by the way."
"I'm not doing them on the damn ground," Lu Han retorts, lifting his leg as far up as it will go. He watches it shake, a dry leaf in winter wind, and sighs, letting it drop to bounce onto his sheets. "I don't need him to acknowledge anything. I just…" he flexes his feet, toes pointing. "I wish I could go home and actually feel at home, for once."
Yixing hums, an almost noncommittal sound, and on screen, a large, slimy black crocodile-like creature crawls on wet grass. Grimacing, Lu Han props his head up on his elbows. "Gross," he says, and Yixing grunts in assent. "What even is that?"
"Some kind of delicacy, apparently," Yixing replies, worrying his lip between his teeth. "God knows."
They watch in silence as the picture switches, Yixing's statement affirmed by a woman waving a piece of cooked fish with chopsticks, her smile undaunted as she chews and swallows. Too good, she exclaims, and Lu Han makes a disgusted snort, scooting back to prop himself up on the headboard. Tastes like here, like home.
Her face disappears into blackness as the television switches off. Yixing turns then, placing the remote onto his own bed stand, and Lu Han meets his gaze reluctantly. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
Yawning, Yixing stretches his arms out, cupping small hands around his mug of tea and lifting the lid. "I think," he says lowly, like he always does when he's serious, "that home shouldn't be defined by where you are. It's the people you're with, that make it home."
--
That night, Lu Han dreams of being in free-fall. There's an arm around his waist, small fingers tightening into his skin, and he watches as the muddled skyline of his childhood is whisked away, but he keeps on clinging to the warmth.
(He wakes up short of breath, like there's a ball of gas exploding in his lungs.)
For their photo shoot that day, they're told to put on eyeliner.
Lu Han draws a perfect, beautiful curve, and smiles when the stylist calls him brilliant.
--
When Lu Han was twenty-one, he learned what it meant to back down from a challenge he couldn't face.
He'd stared at Baekhyun's squinty laughter over bowls of bimbimbap, and told himself this was one victory he would never achieve.
--
It takes all of Thailand and three days in Korea before Baekhyun finally, finally snaps.
He slams the door in Chanyeol's confused, displeased face, the sound ricocheting off the walls in eerie, discomfiting silence. Joonmyeon winces from where he's helping Jongdae with the dishes, arms buried in soapy water and long bangs pinned back with one of Wu Fan's odd neon hair clips.
"I'll go," Lu Han volunteers, rising from his Chinese chess game with Tao, kicking off the slippers he'd stolen from Jongdae earlier in retaliation for cheating at hand games.
Baekhyun is tucked into a ball when Lu Han walks in, knees up to his chest and hair falling, tangled, into his face. He looks up at Lu Han's footsteps, and there are dark circles ringing his eyes, which are bloodshot with sleep deprivation. "Luhan," he whispers, syllables round and rich on his tongue, and his eyes follow sharply as Lu Han moves to kneel in front of him without speaking. "I'm just. I. I didn't want to," Baekhyun says, struggling for breath. "To be like this. I love what I do." He stops on a shallow inhale. "I'm just so fucking tired."
He looks up, then, soft and quiet, into Lu Han's eyes. Baekhyun isn't supposed to be soft - only pretty but not soft, with mischievous, bright eyes, not dull, exhausted ones. (But he's wondrous, Lu Han thinks, even like this.)
"Lu Han," Baekhyun breathes, syllables careful, a slight stutter in his throat, and it's only then that Lu Han realizes how close in proximity they've become.
He closes his eyes and leans down, into warmth, smiling when Baekyhun rises to meet his lips in the middle.
--
Being in Korea is both everything, and nothing, like being in China.
Being anywhere, with Baekhyun, is like being home.
--
**dou jiang (soy milk), you tiao, jian bing guo zi.
Pairing: Baekhyun/Lu Han
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5338
Summary: Lu Han isn't one to back down from a challenge.
Notes: I secretly ship this so ridiculously I'm not even sure why myself. Purely self-indulgent, with a lot of liberties taken, creative license etc. (read: everything is angsty in my head.)
--
Being in Korea is both everything, and nothing, like being at home.
If he closes his eyes and breathes in, he thinks he could almost smell the streets of Beijing, of duck and dust and brand-new air-conditioning tainted by cigarette ash and leftover mold in the cracks of kitchen floors. He could reach out a palm, and lift to touch heavy plastic, fingers enfolded by swinging flaps reflecting stank, humid sunshine. He could open his mouth, and be understood.
Instead, he opens his eyes to silence, and Seoul. It feels like a bad plot twist, a place that he understands but doesn't really, at all. Most of the time, his heart is in the right place. He'd rather be here than anywhere else, reaching for a dream that's brushing, tauntingly, at his fingertips. Like a whisper of a breeze, asking, pleading to be chased.
Lu Han isn't one to back down from a challenge. He gives as much as he takes, and then gives some more. He hates being judged by the sculpt of his face and the brown of his eyes. Victory isn't just winning. It's also earning - earning the right to grasp the stars, and clench his fingers so tight he'll absorb their fire.
The stars are brighter here, in Korea. The music is louder; the dance steps are faster. He's close he can taste it, the burn of stardom in his lungs, like a beautiful, deadly vise. It's what he wants. It's what he craves. It's what he breathes, and breathes, until when he closes his eyes and swallows his heart, he pretends he can no longer smell the remnants of Beijing curling in the night air in front of him.
--
During the day, his mother calls, voice lilting and airy when she speaks. "I miss you," she says, over what sounds vaguely like shampoo commercials in the background. "Have you been eating well?"
Lu Han pulls his knees up to his chest. One of his shoes is untied, and his hair is reaching the odd length where it begins to tickle his neck uncomfortably. "I'm eating fine, Ma," he says quietly, leaning back against the wall. He can hear, through the plaster, the pounding beat of the others practicing. A bead of sweat trickles down his back under his shirt, fabric wet as it plasters against his cooling skin. "The food is good here. Not as good as yours, but... hai xing," he says, casual. The words are an easy ploy - okay, not so bad, all right. (What he means to say is, don't worry about me.)
Over the line, his mother sighs. "When did you grow up," she says softly, and Lu Han bites his lip. It's moments like these that make him want to regret, selfish and fleeting, and toss his belongings back into his bag before booking the next flight to Beijing. "I can't believe," she continues, and her voice shakes slightly. She's so strong, yet so fragile, like delicate branches of the willow thrashed by wind and water. "That you're there." She's far past sounding accusatory, but Lu Han feels his chest tighten on instinct, and he tilts his head upwards, towards florescent lighting, so the tearing of his eyes is accidental.
"I'll come back," he says, after a while. The bass has stopped on the other side of the wall. It's time to go back, or he'll be in trouble. "I'll come back," he promises, because if he squeezes his eyes shut tight enough, he can pretend he's already in the stars.
--
"Luhan," is what they call him, even more slurred than his own Beijing speech. It sounds foreign, almost, round and reminiscent of curved lines he's spent sleepless nights dwelling over, hoping they'll brand themselves into his skull. "Luhan," he hears, and he turns, startled, to feel long delicate fingers press briefly against his cheek, hard before wiping away. Baekhyun, Lu Han thinks, because he's still fitting names to faces. Baekhyun with sharp, mischievous eyes and a surprising smile, pretty but not soft, honest enough to make Lu Han's breath catch.
"You had something on your face," Baekhyun explains. His voice has a quiet, tumbling cadence to it, and it feels so smooth and easy to Lu Han's still learning ears. "Make-up."
"Oh," Lu Han replies, reaching up to touch his face. "Thank you." He and Sehun had been experimenting earlier, on break, scrutinizing themselves in front of empty bathroom sinks. When they debut, they'll have stylists, but they're allowed to give opinions, and they can't know without trying. (It might have ended in the both of them collapsed in laughter and tears against the cold tile, their faces a smeared mess, but nobody has to know that part.)
"It's okay," Baekhyun laughs, warm and sweet. "I get it. I was like that, too." He gestures vaguely behind him, to where a group of the others are huddled, murmurs tired but determined as they re-lace their shoes and press the condensation of cool water bottles to heated cheeks. "Chanyeol still can't do his at all. He can't sit still; it's hopeless."
(Chanyeol, Lu Han thinks, is the tall, boisterous one with unruly hair and wild eyes. He rolls the syllables around silently on his tongue the way Baekhyun seems to do it. Chanyeol.)
"Are you any good?"
There's a glint in Baekhyun's eyes, now, that sparks a slow, excited warmth in Lu Han's veins. "Of course I am," Baekhyun says proudly, jutting his chin out, as if to prove his prowess. "I'm brilliant."
--
Baekhyun, Lu Han learns, is actually pretty awful at bravado. It only works the first few times, maybe, before Baekyhun breaks into embarrassed, flustered laughter and slumps into Lu Han's side, eyeliner done on only his upper eyelids. "This is worse," Baekhyun breathes, "than practicing CFs with Sehunnie after showering." His arms are graceful as he reaches, hooking around Lu Han's neck and pulling him to stare into the mirror. "We look hot, though. Maybe."
"If you could keep a straight face, maybe," Lu Han teases serenely, and Baekhyun punches him lightly, not enough to hurt. Everything about Baekhyun is light, swift and wondrous, like the fluff of fallen white down feathers in summer sunshine.
When Lu Han glances up, though, Baekhyun is staring at him contemplatively, eyes dark and curious. "What," Lu Han asks, suspiciously, feeling an odd flush creeping up the nape of his neck. He inhales, and blinks as Baekhyun shifts closer.
"Your hair," he says, and stops, hesitant. Lu Han tilts his head. "You should cut it," Baekhyun says, almost as if he's talking to himself. It isn't a question, nor a demand, but there's something strange and affectionate in his eyes, bright and dancing and dangerously warm.
Lu Han's never been one to play with fire, unless he breathes in ash and it smells like home.
--
They make a tacit routine out of it, without much thought, and it disintegrates from make-up lessons into long, drawn-out discussions over bibimbap and late-night variety shows, their whispers blurred into the blaring light of the screen reflected on glass. Your nightly rendezvous, Jongin calls it, eyebrows raising suggestively into his hairline before Lu Han shoves him and takes revenge by whipping him at Mario Kart. It's okay, I won't tell anyone about your infatuation.
(Lu Han thinks it must be pretty obvious, anyway.)
He tries to push it away, tracing his own steps back and forth until he's stepping dirty footprints over his own heart and Yixing is handing him an already cold mug of tea, gaze thoughtful and sympathetic. Lu Han is… an affectionate person, really. He likes to touch, to reach, because it helps ground him when he's aiming too high. He loves easily and quickly, and never lets anyone get too far out of his sight.
With Baekhyun, it's different.
A hand lands on his shoulder, and Lu Han doesn't look up, his eyes flickering towards the skyline as he feels Baekhyun's presence settle in, small and warm, beside him. Lu Han's hair has been cut for debut, short and fluffy and a light tan-tinged brown like his ex-girlfriend's dog, who'd escaped from the apartment building and come back hungry and whimpering the day Lu Han left for Korea. We'll both be waiting, his girlfriend had promised, tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips as she pecked at his cheek. Study hard.
(That was the last time he saw her face-to-face before their break-up, a rushed coffee date filled with shadowed eyes and awkward silences, her finger running anxiously along the rim of the sugar canister. I hope you find what you're looking for.)
"Cold, isn't it?" Baekhyun's voice breaks the quiet, and Lu Han jumps slightly, startled from his thoughts. "Yeol suggested I make a bonfire out here with you. In the middle of the city of Seoul. That idiot," he says, but he sounds fond, the way he always does when he's telling another anecdote about his roommate's crazy, unexpected antics. He'd probably die for Chanyeol, Lu Han knows. They're inseparable. When the silence draws on, Baekhyun clears his throat, softly. "Anyways. Thought you might want company."
Lu Han breathes in, hard, crisp rough air that scrapes at his throat and tastes heavy on his tongue. The company had announced, earlier, that they were meant for two groups instead of just one - China and Korea, respectively. Lu Han knows where he's going to go, because now that the stars are spinning nearer, they're whirling even faster out of his control. His right hand clenches into a fist on his thigh. He closes his eyes. "Sehun-ah," he says, and laughs, short and sad. "He keeps saying he's going to kick and scream if he has to. To get me to be in the same group."
There's a pause so quiet Lu Han can hear the whoosh of car tires on pavement, the distant blare of sirens and horns from the central district traffic. When he opens his eyes, Baekhyun is looking out in the distance, uncharacteristically pensive. "He likes you a lot," Baekhyun says, and there's unfamiliar steel in his voice that makes Lu Han's palms sweat.
He takes another breath.
"We're best friends. Just like you and Chanyeol."
Baekhyun laughs, a grating laugh. "Oh, hyung," he says, and it comes out barely a whisper. "Everyone is your best friend."
(Except me.)
--
In Seoul, the stars shine bright when the lights go out, and Lu Han reaches out for shining, warm eyes that make his knees tremble.
In Beijing, everything is just a shade duller than before, and even though he breathes in, it feels like he's lost something somewhere on the journey back. He plays soccer with Minseok on an old hidden field nobody knows about, lies himself down on a ratty peeling bench and stares up at the clouded black blanket of sky. The Chinese is like comforting white noise in his ears, full of thick r's and slurred numbers that seep under the second skin he's found in Korea.
At night, when Yixing's fallen asleep with headphones over his ears, Lu Han shuts off the lights and pads down the corridor to the washroom, hands braced on either edge of the sink as he stares himself down in the mirror. He hasn't worn eyeliner, not since debut, because the agency wants cute and playful, not cold and mysterious. Not from him, at least.
Sometimes, when they travel, Lu Han pulls out an old worn bag without thinking, dumping its contents onto his bed before realizing what they are - eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss. He turns a palette of eye shadow around in his fingers, sliding it open to stare at the faded imprints of fingers that have rubbed off the color, and from the other room, he can hear voices laughing from where Wu Fan's watching the stream of EXO-K on their most recent live appearance.
He texts Sehun in the early morning, full of smileys and happy sentiment that he knows will make Jongin gag and Joonmyeon smile a little, even if just with crinkles around the eyes. Hyung, Sehun replies, dry and curt, it's too early. Go back to sleep. You'll need it.
Lu Han sighs, his thumb hovering over his screen, and he bites his lip. It's moments like these where he wants to be selfish, and ask something he's going to regret.
Everyone is fine, says another message from Sehun, a second later. Don't worry.
Lu Han flips his phone closed to watch the sun rise scarlet on the horizon, streaks of firelight and warmth that makes his toes curl, a star on the brink of explosion.
--
When Lu Han was eleven, he learned what it meant to persist.
He remembers the slip of his feet on slick mud, the sudden gravity drop in his stomach as the ground was taken out from under him, air like a vacuum in his ears. He remembers sharp, searing pain in his knee, spreading heated, painful fingers up the back of his thigh, and he remembers feeling like his head was wrapped in thick, stiff cloth.
When he woke up, it was to a prescription of at least two years of rehabilitation, multiple torn tendons, and his father's solemn, disapproving face at the side of his bed. How could you fall, was the first thing he'd said, rough in the quiet of the room. Lu Han closed his eyes, and tried to breathe through the knot in his lungs. It wasn't even raining.
It had taken only a year for Lu Han to return to the soccer field.
But when he falls again, this time on the curb of the airport beside sleek black vans in front of hundreds of fans, an arm wraps steady around his waist, slender fingers gripping and tugging him to help him back up to safety just before his knee hits the ground. Even so, it twinges slightly, and he purses his lips, trying not to grimace as he apologizes and steps out of the folds of the crowd, Baekhyun's fingers still resting lightly on his shoulders.
How could you fall, he hears his father's voice echoing as he climbs into the van, collapsing into the back seat, eyelids fluttering. His hands are shaking. He was close, so close, to messing up again.
A hand lands, soft and warm, on his thigh. "It wasn't your fault," Baekhyun whispers when Lu Han open his eyes. "Don't worry about it." Baekhyun's smile is brief but sincere, flickering flames that creep into the frigid, dusty corners of Lu Han's heart he'd forgotten existed.
"Thanks," he says, instead of everything he means to say. He watches as Baekhyun turns and laughs, distracted, when Tao and Wu Fan appear, tall and gangly and smug smiles, and pretends his heart doesn't want to claw its way out of his chest and into Baekhyun's pretty, delicate hands.
Because, the thing is, Lu Han doesn't know anymore how to give up.
But, the thing is, if he doesn't, he's afraid the only thing left of his heart will be the ashes in the aftermath.
--
It's the third time Yixing pulls his back since debut when Lu Han finally, finally snaps.
"Lu Han," Yixing says, dimple creased and smile weak, face twisted in pain, "I'll be okay," and Lu Han wants. He wants to scream, to throw a fit, to tear out his hair and rip posters off the wall and stab every creature if it means absorbing Yixing's pain. He wants to be angry, and frustrated, and tired, but the nurses are watching and Kyungsoo is patting Yixing's hand soothingly, so Lu Han swallows his screams, mutters "I'll be right back" and turns on his heel towards the door.
Baekhyun finds him, hours later, in the playroom of the pediatric ward, huddled away from the windows and practicing Korean with ten-year-olds who can string better sentences than he can. "Luhan," Baekhyun says into his ear, running a gentle hand down his arm, and Lu Han spins around, deer plushie in hand. The children surrounding him stare up at Baekhyun with wide, curious eyes. "Luhan," Baekyhun repeats urgently, out of the corner of his mouth as he offers a bright, warm smile. "We have to go."
When Lu Han looks up through hooded eyelids, his eyes are rimmed red, and Baekyhun's eyes soften visibly. There's a hesitation, a split-second decision in his gaze, and Lu Han looks down quickly, his hold on the deer loosening the tiniest bit.
Above him, Baekyhun inhales sharply. Lu Han closes his eyes, and breathes.
When he opens them, Baekhyun is sitting down next to him. Lu Han opens his mouth to speak, but Baekhyun cuts him off with quirked lips.
"Guess you might need some company."
--
They don't talk much on the way back. The wind whips, freezing and harsh, against their skin, but Lu Han feels Baekhyun's arm clinging to his elbow and feels warmth trickle in his veins.
"I have fifty voicemails," Baekhyun states solemnly, when they've trekked to the bridge. The van had left with the others long ago, and Lu Han can't even begin to fathom what time it must be, because they'd stayed until the nurses had shooed them out of the ward and then lingered in front of the ice cream shop nearby for ages, lips sticky with sugar and laughter loud and free.
Slipping a hand into his pocket, Lu Han turns on his own phone. "Sixty," he shoots back, even though half of them are from Sehun and Yixing put together. He smirks when Baekhyun giggles and elbows him, never hard enough to hurt.
"Liar."
"Can't help that I'm loved," Lu Han retorts cheekily, grin wide on his cheeks until they come to a stop in front of the back entrance of the SM building. He hears Baekhyun scrape to a halt beside him, and breathes in deep, smelling the faint wisp of cigarette smoke, cologne and gasoline, the only imprints left from the day. Right now, everything is silent.
"I'm - "
Before he can finish the apology, Baekhyun's fingers are lacing with his. Lu Han starts, then relaxes before meeting Baekyhun's eyes.
There's something dark and uncertain in them, but still, Baekhyun smiles. "Let's go."
--
Sometimes, when Lu Han is alone, he takes out his make-up bag and applies some on himself, just because.
"I don't want to wear eyeliner anymore," Baekhyun tells him, after Lu Han's dabbed and washed away the evidence before his skin becomes brittle. "I want to them to just see me."
But this is you, Lu Han wants to say, before realizing he's being selfish. He can mold himself into someone he isn't, but he won't expect others to do the same.
(He could reach out, and touch, and grab, and hold onto. Just like he does with everyone else. He could be selfish, and unrelenting.)
He thinks of ice cream, and tacky plastic children's toys, and the way Baekhyun had laughed that night outside the hospital, warm and careless and free. It's how Baekhyun laughs when he's happy, and Lu Han wants that laugh all to himself, to bottle it up like a butterfly and watch it beat fragile, gorgeous wings until it flies.
But when it's something that matters most, Lu Han's never been good at being selfish.
He tosses his make-up bag into the top shelf of his closet, ignoring Yixing's raised eyebrows from the bathroom sink.
When they go back to China, it'll lie there in the dark, collecting sooty dust, just like his heart.
--
In Beijing, the stars don't shine.
--
"Are you still pining?"
Jongin is on the ground, a sheen of sweat on his arms and hair plastered to his forehead. His gaze is expectant when Lu Han peers down at him.
"After who?"
"After who," Jongin mimics, peeling himself off the ground and letting his arms stretch upwards. He rises onto the balls of his feet as his T-shirt lifts to expose a sliver of skin, and then winces, moving to pull the fabric down over the bandage on his back. "Me, of course. Who else?" His eyes are glinting in the yellowed basement lighting, teasing. Lu Han fakes a punch.
"I wouldn't know," he replies serenely, shaking out a towel to pat down his neck and ignoring Jongin's eye roll.
"Don't be an ass."
"What's it to you, anyway," Lu Han mutters, plopping down to work the twinge out of his knees - stretch and bend, stretch and bend. When did you grow up, his mother's voice rings in his head, and he wants to scoff at the thought, because the bristly walls around his heart will always be the same. "It's none of your business."
Instead, he hears Jongin scoff. "Of course it's my business," Jongin is saying, moving away towards the direction of the stereo. Stretch and bend. Lu Han leans forward to unclasp a weight from the rack beside the mirror, meticulously tying it onto his ankle. He can feel Jongin's gaze settling on the nape of his neck, but doesn't turn to meet it. "If you get distracted by your heartbreak and mess up on stage, it'll ruin my image."
Huffing, Lu Han grabs his used towel and chucks it in Jongin's direction. "Now who's being an ass," he retorts, turning to see Jongin laugh and flick on the stereo, drowning out the rest of Lu Han's arguments.
"Man up, Luhan hyung. Nobody waits around forever."
Stretch and bend. Lu Han doesn't reply. Stretch and bend and stretch again, until his leg is trembling, and maybe if the weight is heavy enough, it'll bring him careening down and the only dream he'll have left will be for someone to catch him.
--
They like to place bets against each other, the twelve of them. It keeps the uncertainties and tensions at bay, whittling down strategies and shooting insults and dirty jokes until it's just twelve boys and no masks. "Two and five-eighths," Chanyeol states, face twisted in what appears to be excitement. "That's my bet!"
(It's how many days he thinks Kyungsoo can last without folding anyone's socks.)
Jongdae makes a face. "Five-eighths? What does that even mean?"
"Well, because right now it's - "
"Okay, okay," Joonmyun cuts in. He jots it down on a notepad, pursing his lips. "What do you want if you win?"
Chanyeol's gaze slips, fleetingly, over to Baekhyun, and they share a weighted smile. Lu Han feels his heart do an ugly, uncomfortable lurch, but willfully ignores it. "I want Baek," Chanyeol says, beaming, "to wear eyeliner for a whole day at home."
Lu Han's hands jerk away from where they were resting on Sehun's thigh, as if he's been burned. Nobody notices but Sehun, who turns with a question in his eyes.
Thankfully, Wu Fan cuts in. "Dude," he scoffs, "how is that winning anything."
Chanyeol shrugs, and Lu Han gulps, watching the casual rise of his shoulders. He wonders if Chanyeol knows about Baekhyun's resolution. (He wonders what that means, and why he's getting himself so worked up over eyeliner when they're in an industry that sells attraction.)
"It was a pretty dumb idea, wasn't it?" Sehun asks later, when they're lying on the couch, watching a rerun of SMTown news clips. "Hyung wears eyeliner like, all the time, anyway." His eyes are heavy when they linger on Lu Han's.
Swallowing, Lu Han sighs, and burrows closer into the crook of Sehun's neck. "Yeah," he says, closing eyes against the light.
"Jongin said," Sehun starts, but stops. His hand stills where it's rested on Lu Han's head, as if he's searching for the right words. Finally, he exhales, and his hand falls to brush up against Lu Han's arm. "I just think that sometimes, things aren't always how they seem. To you."
Lu Han straightens, pushing himself up to stare Sehun in the eyes. "Are you confessing to me, Sehun-ah?"
A tinge of red sweeps Sehun's cheeks, and he ducks his head, shoving at Lu Han's chest. "Gross! No way, you jerk."
Laughing, Lu Han ruffles Sehun's hair, leaning back into the couch and propping his feet on the recliner. "When did you get so mature, maknae?"
Sehun sticks out his tongue. "When did you become such an idiot?"
--
When Lu Han was sixteen, he fell in love for the first time.
He remembers sitting on a field, so trampled and dusty the grass was barely visible against his cleats, and pulling on a pair of earphones he'd borrowed from a classmate. It helps relieve my stress, she'd told him, slightly flustered and fumbling, and Lu Han had merely slipped her an easy, suave smile.
He played soccer because he liked competition - the rapid, hot rush that made his muscles burst at the seams, his eyes following the ball and his feet swift in stained shoes. He studied because he liked feeling smart, liked the way people eyed him head-to-toe in the hallway, all jittery admiration and seething envy.
But Lu Han sat down and really, really listened to music for the first time when he was sixteen. It crawled under his skin, digging crevices of longing into his heart, and he wanted. To be a part of it, to let it seep into him and settle like new wiring in his system, like honey in place of his blood.
He flung himself back onto the ground, facing the sky. Dusk was fading into darkness, and he wondered if somewhere else in the world, there were stars he could trace into his palm. He breathed in, lung filling with particulates and smoky air, and shut his eyes on the exhale, arms falling to his sides against the cool, damp ground.
(Years later, Lu Han does music, because it makes him dream the impossible.
And Lu Han isn't one to back down from a challenge.)
--
The first time Lu Han returns home after debut, his mother buys him two bowls of dou jiang, three you tiao, and one whole jian bing duo zi. "Beijing special," she says, sitting down at the table across from him, two feet of plastic-covered plaid stretched between his bicep and her fingertips. "You're so skinny. How can this be?"
Lu Han works the words around the lump in his throat, staring down at his hands. "I can't," he says, barely above a whisper, and thinks of months of handfuls of rice and Yixing's sad, hungry eyes in the practice room mirror. "I shouldn't," he amends, biting the inside of his cheek, head still lowered.
There's a long, drawn-out silence, endless if not for the echoing voices from the outer corridor to signify his father's arrival. Lu Han stands abruptly, pocketing his hands, and looks up just in time to see the wetness in his mother's eyes before she drops her gaze.
A starving, talentless hun hunr, his father had accused, so many years ago, tossing the SM letter onto the very same table in front of them. His voice had landed furious and scathing on the syllables, like he was fighting not to implode into brutal rage. You could have been somebody, but you go off to Korea and do this, instead.
Hun hunr, Lu Han had repeated to himself that night, flipping a coin between his knuckles. Someone who was lost in the world, switching jobs left and right, wasting his life away behind counters and stovetops because he never put in any effort. It had this vulgar, curling bite to it that tasted bitter on Lu Han's tongue, and he vowed, fervently, that he would prove his father wrong.
Now, Lu Han stands, hands still in his pockets, not quite starving or talentless, maybe a little bit of both. But hun, he most definitely is not. He straightens his back, and lines up his feet together.
His father walks in, briefcase dropping to the carpet. "You're here," he says, and Lu Han nods, stock-still.
There's a tense, wavering silence.
"I watched your showcase," his father says, rubbing his face with the back of his hand. "Online."
Slowly, shakily, Lu Han breathes out.
(He'll take what he can get.)
His father never says, not even once, Welcome home.
--
The tea on the bed stand has long gone cold, but Lu Han's face still feels warm, arms pillowing his head as Yixing surfs TV channels.
"So that's a start," Yixing says, finger pausing as he turns to look at Lu Han, who is doing knee exercises again, back pressed into the mattress. Stretch and bend, stretch and bend. "You're going to fall asleep if you do them on the bed, by the way."
"I'm not doing them on the damn ground," Lu Han retorts, lifting his leg as far up as it will go. He watches it shake, a dry leaf in winter wind, and sighs, letting it drop to bounce onto his sheets. "I don't need him to acknowledge anything. I just…" he flexes his feet, toes pointing. "I wish I could go home and actually feel at home, for once."
Yixing hums, an almost noncommittal sound, and on screen, a large, slimy black crocodile-like creature crawls on wet grass. Grimacing, Lu Han props his head up on his elbows. "Gross," he says, and Yixing grunts in assent. "What even is that?"
"Some kind of delicacy, apparently," Yixing replies, worrying his lip between his teeth. "God knows."
They watch in silence as the picture switches, Yixing's statement affirmed by a woman waving a piece of cooked fish with chopsticks, her smile undaunted as she chews and swallows. Too good, she exclaims, and Lu Han makes a disgusted snort, scooting back to prop himself up on the headboard. Tastes like here, like home.
Her face disappears into blackness as the television switches off. Yixing turns then, placing the remote onto his own bed stand, and Lu Han meets his gaze reluctantly. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
Yawning, Yixing stretches his arms out, cupping small hands around his mug of tea and lifting the lid. "I think," he says lowly, like he always does when he's serious, "that home shouldn't be defined by where you are. It's the people you're with, that make it home."
--
That night, Lu Han dreams of being in free-fall. There's an arm around his waist, small fingers tightening into his skin, and he watches as the muddled skyline of his childhood is whisked away, but he keeps on clinging to the warmth.
(He wakes up short of breath, like there's a ball of gas exploding in his lungs.)
For their photo shoot that day, they're told to put on eyeliner.
Lu Han draws a perfect, beautiful curve, and smiles when the stylist calls him brilliant.
--
When Lu Han was twenty-one, he learned what it meant to back down from a challenge he couldn't face.
He'd stared at Baekhyun's squinty laughter over bowls of bimbimbap, and told himself this was one victory he would never achieve.
--
It takes all of Thailand and three days in Korea before Baekhyun finally, finally snaps.
He slams the door in Chanyeol's confused, displeased face, the sound ricocheting off the walls in eerie, discomfiting silence. Joonmyeon winces from where he's helping Jongdae with the dishes, arms buried in soapy water and long bangs pinned back with one of Wu Fan's odd neon hair clips.
"I'll go," Lu Han volunteers, rising from his Chinese chess game with Tao, kicking off the slippers he'd stolen from Jongdae earlier in retaliation for cheating at hand games.
Baekhyun is tucked into a ball when Lu Han walks in, knees up to his chest and hair falling, tangled, into his face. He looks up at Lu Han's footsteps, and there are dark circles ringing his eyes, which are bloodshot with sleep deprivation. "Luhan," he whispers, syllables round and rich on his tongue, and his eyes follow sharply as Lu Han moves to kneel in front of him without speaking. "I'm just. I. I didn't want to," Baekhyun says, struggling for breath. "To be like this. I love what I do." He stops on a shallow inhale. "I'm just so fucking tired."
He looks up, then, soft and quiet, into Lu Han's eyes. Baekhyun isn't supposed to be soft - only pretty but not soft, with mischievous, bright eyes, not dull, exhausted ones. (But he's wondrous, Lu Han thinks, even like this.)
"Lu Han," Baekhyun breathes, syllables careful, a slight stutter in his throat, and it's only then that Lu Han realizes how close in proximity they've become.
He closes his eyes and leans down, into warmth, smiling when Baekyhun rises to meet his lips in the middle.
--
Being in Korea is both everything, and nothing, like being in China.
Being anywhere, with Baekhyun, is like being home.
--
**dou jiang (soy milk), you tiao, jian bing guo zi.
