it pains me to continue (but it hurts so much more to stop)
luhan/minseok | angst, romance | multiple deaths, suicides | 6.6k
They meet somewhere between the passing dawn of dreams crossing into the path of reality; between today’s hope and tomorrow’s regret; between realms of the Earth and everything beyond it.
Note: This was originally written for vectras in soccerncoffee.
It’s raining tonight. It’s raining and the water threads through Luhan’s jet black hair and into the fabric of his clothes: a dark trench coat covering black trousers and a button-down shirt. The sound of his footsteps against the concrete is loud even through the pouring rain, but he keeps his gaze focused on the small cottage sitting at the corner of the road. It’s hard to see through the darkness of the dusk coating this half of the world.
In the next second, Luhan is standing in the middle of a bedroom in the small house. It is quaint and lit by the flames of a fire crackling in the brick chimney, but Luhan cannot feel its warmth. In the center of the room sits a bed with a lone occupant lying in the middle, the covers slowly rising and falling with the heaves of brittle breath. The shadows cast by the fire draw out long over the wrinkles of the covers, and as Luhan steps closer he can see the symmetrical patterns sketched out over the occupant’s face.
Kim Minseok, seventy-one years old, Luhan recalls from the list. Severe stroke had been written out next to it.
Luhan keeps his face stoic as he takes a seat next to the bed, in one of the old dining room seaters one of his children had probably placed in here for convenience. It does not creak when he sits down and crosses his legs, nor does it when he leans forward as Minseok’s head lolls towards him.
Even with the darkness set over them and the fire dying out as the night buckles under the light of the stars and the Moon, Luhan can see the lines of a weary life etched into Minseok’s old face. He can see the maps from where he traveled, the tear stains from heart breaks, and the small smile lines from where he learned to laugh and love again.
There is something beautiful held in fragility.
The clock hits midnight and something in Minseok stirs. Luhan watches idly from the chair, eyes dull and lips thin, when Minseok’s heavy lids lift one last time.
His pupils seem barren encased in fragile irises, drowned in the whites of scleras with thick tears building up. Minseok takes one look at Luhan, skin like paper over blue veins, and breathes in a deep sigh.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies peacefully in his sleep.
//
The night is windy and it sends a chill to the core of Luhan’s bones. He does not shiver. The city is laid out before him, twinkling lights scattered out as far as the eye can see, outlining the silhouette of a man. This high up in the sky, it’s a feat that anyone would come here during the day, let alone in the middle of the night. But there he sits, legs dangling over the side of the building, body outlined against the Seoul skyline.
Luhan takes gentle steps to the edge of the rooftop, careful not to make a noise-- not that he would care if he did, anyway.
The man doesn’t turn to him when he takes a seat beside him, eyes dropping to the cars crawling like ants along the streets. Luhan watches him, the way his hair tosses in the winter wind and how he squints over the city lights, wishing their brightness was embedded in his skin so that maybe he wouldn’t be so sad.
“Did you come up here to tell me not to jump?” The man breaks the silence, but he keeps his eyes glued to the world below.
“No,” Luhan replies. He finally tears his gaze away from the gentle tilt of a pink nose and lets it fall on the lone soul walking across a long stretch of concrete, all bundled up in his winter coat. The man next to him is only wearing a thin cotton t-shirt.
The man seems stunned for just a second, wide eyes focusing on him before he turns away. “Good… it’s not like I would have listened.”
“Okay,” he nods.
They bask in the sounds of the city for a long time-- car engines running, horns honking, conversations floating up from the ground, and the way the air tumbles over the building and runs over the metal frame of the building they’re sitting upon.
“My name’s Minseok,” he eventually speaks again.
Luhan figures he can spare the kid some peace. “Luhan.”
The silence rains down on them again.
“It’s too hard, you know. I just can’t do it anymore.” Luhan keeps his mouth closed as Minseok speaks. “I try so fucking hard every single day. I smile and I laugh and I volunteer for the homeless. I do what the world wants me to, but I go home feeling empty; like I’m only filled with tears.”
Luhan looks at Minseok. He actually looks, because for as long as he’s been doing this, he can’t remember one time that he’s actually looked into one of the lives he’s collected. And here Minseok is, spilling out his most private thoughts on a silver platter like Luhan had asked for it.
“So don’t even try to stop me,” he says, and for the first time Luhan notices he’s crying. The tears roll down his face, reflecting the lights of the city, leaving their footprints behind on his cheek. “I’ve had enough of this goddamn world. I’m so sick of being alone.”
Luhan flips open his pocket watch before uttering, “none of us do much in this world alone except die.”
Minseok doesn’t say anything before he slips away; just the remnants of tears burned into apathetic retinas and the wisps of wind that once curved around his body. He falls fast and hard, and usually Luhan would watch them suffer-- life is what they let it be. But this time, for some reason, he doesn’t want to watch Minseok suffer.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies of a broken heart.
//
Luhan digs his toes into the sand, black leather shoes held in his hand and the heat of the day soaking through his clothes. He does not sweat under his trench coat. The sounds of other patrons at the beach fill his ears and people are running around him like he doesn’t exist, but Luhan does not care because he only has his eyes on one person.
Kim Minseok is pale and thin and smiling so widely with all the mirth in the world bundled into his cheeks that Luhan almost hates himself.
He and his friends had decided to take a weekend off work and head to the beach, a vacation that hadn’t seemed like much in the long-run. Minseok kicks at the soccer ball rolling down the slope of the beach before one of his friends can reach it. His name is Chanyeol-- he hadn’t been on the list, though; Luhan only knows this because Minseok knows this.
Minseok smiles when the ball reaches another man, Baekhyun, and the latter kicks a goal for their team. Minseok’s dark hair flows with the direction of the wind, and Luhan thinks the way he walks so gracefully is almost unnatural, like his entire being is defying gravity, slowly bending the rules of the Earth solely because he can.
Chanyeol, in a fit of rage and with a grin plastered to his face, tackles Minseok into the water, running until their feet no longer touch the sandy floor despite his loud protests. His face contorts into one of fear, and Luhan tilts his head to the side at the desperation soaking into his skin like salt water.
Minseok cannot swim.
Luhan gets up silently, brushing off the sand from his clothes and setting his shoes down at the edge of the wet sand, just high enough for them not to reach the water. He walks forward, and the water is cold against his skin but he does not shiver. The ocean slowly builds on him, up to his ankles, his knees, his hips, his shoulders, until he is completely submerged, body insubstantial among the fish and coral.
Chanyeol is back on shore now, and Luhan can hear over the splashes of the tide, Minseok’s friends yelling for him to stop playing around. Through the bundles of seaweed and pieces of seashells aimlessly floating through the water, Luhan swims to where Minseok is being tossed under the weight of the waves.
Almost immediately he stops thrashing, and the current pulls him under so that he’s nestled comfortably on the ocean floor. Luhan hovers over him, weightlessness a paradox to the steel ball of sudden guilt eating its way into the sublayers of his skin.
Minseok’s hair flows seamlessly, the same way it had above water, with the light refracting through the water creating a hazy halo around his head and his limbs lifelessly floating. It almost seems like one of his hands is reaching towards Luhan, eyes barely open in the saltiness of the ocean, an ethereal hue threading into the cracks of his lips and the curve of his eyelashes.
Luhan’s own hand reaches out. No matter how many times he tells himself he shouldn’t be doing this, he can’t stop himself. His fingertips barely brush Minseok’s, and it’s like a wave of tranquility rocks into Minseok’s body, and everything is still. There’s a smile on Minseok’s face. Luhan doesn’t pull back his hand.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok drowns at Eurwangni Beach.
//
The cafe during breakfast is extremely busy with the summer’s warm air finally rolling through the city. All of the tables have been set outside, metal chairs and tables soaking up heat from the sun that slips past the veranda and onto winter-bleached skin. Luhan sets his hands in his lap with a bored expression on his face, the metal chair digging into his thighs and back and the customers chatting away, their voices a hollow drone over the pavement.
Luhan watches the way Minseok weaves through the tables, a plate of food in both hands and his shirt even whiter than his skin. The black apron highlights the small circumference of his waist, with the cuffs of his shirt displaying bones peaking through tight skin and mocha eyes drawing attention to the rings of black forming under them.
He moves deftly, quietly, like a shadow at high noon that blends in with apathy and distraction but is only blocked out by phosphenes. Luhan keeps a keen eye glued to him, not a hair out of place or a crook in the curve of his legs. He would surely be bored by now if it weren’t for the entrancing way Minseok moves about the patio, the way his fingers curl around drink glasses and how his shoulders fill out his uniform in all the right spots.
He is so mesmerized that he almost doesn’t notice the way those sharp eyes flick towards him and how a second after he’s set down the last plate for his table, he heads straight towards Luhan. Luhan keeps still, though, even as the sunlight circles Minseok’s head like the familiar cast of a halo.
“Can I get you anything, sir?” He asks, voice wrapped in formality and unfamiliarity. If only he knew.
Luhan doesn’t move, not even a blink.
“Minseok!” He turns around at the sound of his boss’ call, loud and ringing throughout the cafe. “Get back to serving the customers, will you?” He waves angrily, and Minseok furrows his eyebrows.
When he turns back around, the seat in front of him is empty.
…
A couple of hours later brings the end of Minseok’s shift and a sigh of relief to carefully carved lips. His last job of the day is to take out the trash and then he can go home and take a nap or go out to the park for a jog.
He has to squint when he opens the back door to the dumpsters, the sun pouring out of the sky by the gallons and pricking the sweat from his skin. The bag is heavy when he lifts it into the dumpster, and he barely has time to fix the wrinkles from his shirt before he’s being shoved backwards and his head is hitting metal and there’s something hard gripping his shoulder.
“Give me all your money!” He hears yelled through the disorientation wrapping around his brain, and the hand on his shoulder tightens with the volume of his voice.
“I don’t have any!” Minseok rasps, his throat closing with fear and the sun bleeding red through his closed eyelids. He’s too afraid to open his eyes.
“Give me all your money, dammit!” The man yells again, pushing hard and sending Minseok’s back reeling into the metal of the trashcan.
“I don’t have any, I swear!”
There’s a moment of tense silence before the pressure on Minseok’s shoulder is gone and there’s the harsh slap of feet against broken asphalt. It takes seconds with the thud of his heart loud in his ear, but when Minseok finally opens his eyes, he sees the man that was sitting at the table earlier: all black clothes, alabaster skin, and pink lips set into a thin line.
The man takes one step and that’s when Minseok feels it: the quick jolt of pain that sears like fire into his stomach and the quick drip of something wet staining his shirt and skin. The fear soaks into sweaty flesh, bends black in his vision and spreads the pain like a thumb covered in salt gouging into his wound. And as the crippling realization sets into the epiphysis of his bones, so does a sense of repose in his marrow.
Minseok collapses, bloody hand held close to his stomach and the frame of his body collapsing with too many feelings at one time.
Luhan crouches next to him, countenance as stoic as always, and tilts his head just slightly to the right. There is a gossamer of dysphoria consuming his sternum and branching out to the bow of his ribs like thick needles swimming through capillaries and the fabric of his lungs.
He thinks it might be guilt-- contrition in the way the blood stains Minseok’s shirt and the way his lips look so pretty when they are that shade of white, and how Minseok’s eyes are focused on him, jaw slack, that he can’t believe he’s watching the life seep out of such a beautiful creature.
Luhan can see the way Minseok is slipping away, tongue loose and lips parted, the way his brain is slowly falling apart at the seams, thoughts gushing like the blood from his abdomen. He doesn’t expect, though, the words that come from his mouth; the words that sear themselves into the back of his brain, replaying themselves like a broken record each time he thinks of this moment.
“You’re beautiful.”
All Luhan can conjure to say is, “and you’re dying.”
//
The disease is eating away at his body. It is infiltrating the tissue of his organs, perforating the blood that courses through brittle veins and drilling holes into the back of his head so that all judicious thoughts drip out and soak into bleached sheets.
It is proliferating; inversely proportional to the years he will spend on this Earth.
His bones have already been made fragile, skin diaphanous so that the disease is spelled out through the bruises littered on his arms. Minseok knows this, so he sits in his bed and rots inside the cage of his flesh, waiting for the day it all ends in black cloaks and white skulls.
…
Luhan’s chin digs into the arches of his fingers, lips pouted and bangs falling over his eyes. The light in the bedroom would be almost completely opaque if not for the dim lamp on the bedside table casting a lethargic, woebegone light.
It’s almost nostalgic, sitting here and watching the dips and rise of Minseok’s frail chest, except this time Minseok’s face is smooth and white and the scythes of death are curling at the edges of his lips instead of lines that the filter of a cigarette etched into nicotine-worn skin.
He doesn’t know why he’s decided to watch Minseok for so long now. Usually he presents himself only seconds before his nails carve a soul out from the base of a spine, but today he finds his eyes burning from not blinking and the vertebrates of his neck slowly morphing into the shape of his slouch.
Something about the aura of Kim Minseok has become a snare, entrapping Luhan in the gravitational pull of his smile and pinning him down by the midnight black of his lashes curving over pink zygomatic planes.
And it happened just as quick as the snap of a finger; as fast as lightning touches the ground, as fast as a heart slams into the bone of a rib, as fast as someone can burn their name into a soul-- as fast as a person falls into the deepest caverns of love.
Minseok’s eyes slowly blink open, black pupils adjusting to the light of the room, but Luhan doesn’t move an inch. He follows Minseok’s gaze around the room until it finds the only other person there, shrouded in black and camouflaged by the shadows behind him. The bed frame creaks under the weight of Minseok’s body, the duvet pooling around his waist as he sits up with shaky arms-- what’s left of the muscles in his neck straining.
The clock slows down, stretched out like syrup between their gazes and a sense of ease flows from the tips of Luhan’s fingers and coats the room in a heavy, comfortable silence. They hold a silent conversation. Luhan’s eyes speak of lifetimes of pain; Minseok’s of one life spent too short and in too much pain.
The clock hits midnight and the church bells chime, loud knocks against the wall of a metal basin clawing their way into the bedroom and shattering the words of glass held between them.
Minseok speaks first. His voice is low and languid, cracking at every other vowel, and Luhan thinks it sounds euphonious. Even more beautiful than the first time he heard it. “Are you Death?”
“I am as you perceive me,” Luhan vaguely replies, not missing the way Minseok’s eyes pound into his skin until he can practically feel callous fingertips running over the rigid column of his neck.
“I thought you’d be more…. grim,” Minseok musters a smile, and the beats of his heart thump in his chest irregularly.
Smiles can be fatal, Luhan learns.
"You're beautiful..." It comes out as merely a whisper, a thought slipped through the crack of his mouth and hitting the air with a sharp clap.
He doesn’t notice Minseok’s hand until it’s too late to stop it. A warm palm presses onto his cheek, digits fingering the baby hairs at his hairline, before slowly dropping back down to the mattress.
Luhan still feels the drag of skin against skin long after this.
The gossamer grows again; tight and moving into the crevasses of his heart, to fill the voids with what he thinks is still guilt. There is a fleeting moment of hope, of a silver lining around ashen clouds that obscure the gaps between lifetimes.
If only Minseok could remember him. If only he could call out his name without having to be told, or remember the way their fingers brushed under the toss of water, or the way the breeze felt against his skin at midnight on a Saturday night. If he could remember, he could free himself from the eternal loop of being born and dying and instead walk with Luhan behind the scenes of the world. He could be one of them.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies of leukopenia.
//
The bar is cozy and covered in a sort of quiet buzz of noise that washes over the skin of all the occupants milling around. Luhan fingers the glass in front of him, the condensation dripping onto delicate fingertips and the bartender eyes him warily. It’s eleven p.m. on a Wednesday and he’s the only one sitting at the bar.
The music cuts on over the back of the room around 11:30, and that’s when Luhan hears the pop of the pub door opening and swinging shut again. He knows exactly who’s just entered-- he can tell by the way his shoes slide against the ground, the way his thighs slightly rub together when he walks, the way the air slides past his skin and how the air conditioning sings through his hair.
Luhan hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Minseok. He hasn’t been able to stop replaying the final moments of so many of his lives and the way his eyes have gone from encasing the sun to not even holding the reflection of the Moon in every single one of them. He can’t stop closing his eyes and running his fingers over the same spot that Minseok had laid his hand on, relishing in the phantom touch of warm hands on cold flesh. He hadn't been touched by a human in a long time.
There is so much about Minseok to remember.
The resonant, sonorous hue of his voice, the cryptically perfect way his bangs falls across his eyes and the labyrinth of wrinkles on his palms that stay exactly the same through every lifetime, without fail. He is the kind of enigma that Luhan has spent lifetimes trying to unravel.
Luhan has always been walking towards Minseok, whether he knew it or not, at a pace set by Fate and colored by Tragedy. It would make him believe in Destiny, in having a soul mate; if only he had a soul.
Minseok sits down right beside him, a sea of empty chairs surrounding them, and their thighs brush. “I’ll take a rum and coke,” Minseok calls to the bartender, politely nodding his head to the man when his drink is set down.
“Can I get you another beer, sir?” The barkeep direct towards Luhan, and he flicks his eyes up just in time to see Minseok looking at him also.
“No thank you,” he declines, straightening his back and crossing his legs under the counter. “I’ve had enough for the night.” He hasn’t drunk at all. His bottle is still full.
The bar returns to its previous silence-- a blank page only filled with the notes of an outdated record and the incoherent mumblings of people too far away to care about. The atmosphere is heavy, comfortably so, on their shoulders. Too comfortable for strangers (that's because they aren't, but Minseok doesn't know that, and a small part of Luhan shrivels up). Luhan has a hard time pretending he doesn’t know Minseok, pretending he hasn’t watched him die in a hundred different lifetimes. Like he hadn’t seen him when he bleached his hair or when he became the most famous singer in the world or when he killed himself with hunger because that’s what the world told him to do.
Luhan pretends not to know anything and keeps his face forward.
Minseok still stares at him long after the bartender has gone away, gaze heavy, and it takes a lot of courage for him to finally meet hollow eyes. This is the first time Luhan takes notice of the way his hair is short, black, and shaved into a buzz cut. There are dark lines around his eyes and the wrinkles in his face are deep with burdens, and there’s a hopeless sort of light that flickers around his body, like he’s given the last of his hope to someone who could actually use it.
“You seem familiar,” Minseok interrupts his thoughts, tugging him back to reality. “Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so,” he lies, and there’s a bad feeling brewing in his gut over the familiarity storming Minseok’s pupils. He isn’t supposed to be familiar-- he is supposed to morph into the only sense of ease a human can have when coming into contact with Death. He is different in every life, for every person, but Minseok’s longing features and wide eyes replay the scenes of the same two people for thousands of years.
“I could have sworn…” Minseok trails off, teeth pulling his bottom lip into his mouth.
“Maybe in another life,” Luhan mutters under his breath. It slips through his lips without his permission; a thought from the corners of his mind that he dare not venture to.
“What?” He quickly asks, and Luhan ducks his head with a blush.
Luhan coughs into his fist, grabbing his beer with the other and hoping Minseok doesn’t notice the embarrassed smile gracing his lips. “It’s nothing,” he waves off. “So what are you doing here on a Wednesday night? Fight with the girlfriend?”
Minseok frowns at that, and Luhan feels regret perching under his chin because all he wants in the world is for Minseok to smile. “Not exactly,” he mutters, pushing his glass between his hands. The water slides on the wood of the bar, droplets sticking to the finish, and Minseok draws a smiley face with his fingers. “I got drafted.”
Oh.
Oh.
“They’re sending me to the border in two days,” he further explains, “and I don’t really have anything to stick around for, so I’m going.”
Something in Luhan breaks. He can hear the vivid snap of whatever takes up the space of where his heart used to be; the weight of pain crushing him into oblivion because it is so goddamn hard to watch the man he loves die a thousand times over. And suddenly it feels like there's not enough time, and his hands are frisking his own pockets for the tiny black book he knows is there.
He can feel the sands of time slipping through his fingers as he flips through the pages; one day, two days, a week in the future and he hopes he won't see what he already knows is there--
Kim Minseok dies of a gunshot wound to the head in exactly one week, two days, five hours, three minutes, and fifty-seven seconds.
(A reaper can't cry, and it makes the pain just that much worse.)
Luhan shoves his book back in his pocket before Minseok can see into it, and suddenly it becomes hard to look into the eyes of a man doomed by the world. With his gaze lowered and Minseok's worried eyes pinned to him, Luhan succumbs to the temptation of white skin and grabs gently for Minseok's hand.
It's moist with the condensation from his rum glass, and Luhan turns his hand over so that his palm is facing up and tugs it into his lap. Poems are inscribed in the wrinkles of his skin, ones that nobody has read before because nobody ever cared enough, and Luhan thinks that once Minseok dies, he will be the only one to remember him. The poems are beautiful but cut too short. Some are blurred by tears and heartache, but some encompass the fluidity and beauty of a body of water.
Luhan covers Minseok’s hand with his own, and they are finally two rivers that flow endlessly into each other.
Minseok surprisingly doesn’t pull back, and his skin is warm and the beat of his heart is pulsing under calloused flesh. And they sit there like that, hand in hand, until time bleeds together with noise and it all becomes a bubble of molasses cocooning them in their own world.
Sometimes they talk about trivial things like the color blue and how it combines with red to make purple. Minseok says Luhan would look good with his hair dyed that color. Luhan laughs, and it’s the first time in a long time the cobwebs of misery are dusted from his lungs and giggles fill his throat.
Luhan traces I see you in colors that don’t exist with the press of his fingers into Minseok’s forearm, and he wonders if the boy will ever realize how much of that is true. He can feel it carved into the base of his skull, into the curve of his ribs; he sees it in every lifetime that Minseok stays alive a little longer because Death is too beautiful to die for.
He sees it in the lives that Minseok falls in love with him too. (Luhan doesn’t know it, or maybe he does, but there is never a life in which Kim Minseok does not love Luhan.)
Somewhere along the night they realize that these seconds are precious, and they cradle them in clasped palms because that is the best way to hold onto a moment that will surely slip away once they close their eyes.
With every word their bodies inch closer. Luhan doesn't notice until Minseok's breath is warm on his cheek and he looks up to see midnight lashes curled against porcelain skin. Minseok looks down at him, hunched over and small with Minseok's hand still held in his, and there's a moment of hesitation over-powered by raw, sheer want-- need. It is short and warm and Minseok’s cheeks are painted a permanent tint of pink. Luhan smiles with his eyes closed, leaning back in to press his mouth to Minseok’s again, fingers cascading over short hair too close to his scalp.
That’s when it all comes rushing back: who they are, why Luhan is here, what’s going to happen next week. Luhan thinks about it all.
(He continues kissing Minseok anyway.)
//
There is a coalescence of uneasiness and anxiety proliferating the clouds that hang like swelling bruises in the sky. Luhan’s feet drag like lead on the ground because he knows exactly where he is going and why.
The weight of this world is too heavy on his shoulders.
He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this. The seams of his skin are falling apart and he is slowly slipping into deterioration. Soon he will be nothing but dust in the wind.
This time, Luhan decides to walk through the corridors of Minseok’s house instead of simply appearing in his room. He doesn’t know why-- maybe he needs a change of pace, maybe it will be easier that way. Maybe that’s what he’s supposed to do. Whatever it is, it feels right, and the wood under the soles of his shoes creek with content.
The hallway is lit with lamps sitting on the small tables littered throughout the long stretch of corridor. The light that wraps around his limbs is ominous, filling in the cracks of wrinkles and stretching long shadows over blunt features. The air presses against him tightly, wringing his neck in all the right spots to make him remember the way he became breathless with Minseok’s lips over his.
This house draws out memory from freshly covered graves, and Luhan doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
There is a moment of concentrated fear that seizes his muscles right before he reaches the door. It stills him in his spot, fingertips grazing the brass knob, eyes concentrated on the swirls of white wood. But then the hesitation crumbles, and Luhan blinks before curling his hand around the doorknob and pushing.
The lethargic light of the room fans out over Luhan with each inch he pushes open, blue hues spilling over him like the waves of the ocean.The first thing that comes into view is the starch-white sheets of the bed sitting in the middle of the room. The second thing is the mop of orange hair that licks down taut cheekbones like thin flames. It takes him a second to pick out black lashes and red lips, Minseok’s ivory skin bleeding into the bed sheets.
Minseok’s eyes, slow and hazy and black with dilated pupils, pin to his chest at the first creak of the hinges. His gaze digs into Luhan like hooks, pulling along with his muscles breaking him down into all the atoms he was created from.
The space between them is pulled tight with tension as Luhan takes a seat in the chair next to the door, directly in front of Minseok’s bed-- almost like he was expecting him. Luhan’s thoughts become scarce; words even fewer and far between on the tip of his tongue because Minseok’s scrutiny is making him want to desiccate into ash.
The chair doesn’t make a sound when he sits, and the atmosphere settles around them like scattered grains of sand nestled into the pleats of their clothes. Minseok’s lips part and Luhan’s stomach lurches at the words that pour from them, the room becoming unsettled, the air roaring in his ears.
“I saw you in a dream.”
His sentence shatters to the ground, shards of broken glass slicing at his heart and ears and the tips of his fingers. Luhan’s throat closes up, lungs filled with stagnant breath and his vision is becoming blurry.
Luhan laughs-- he laughs until his stomach hurts and there are invisible tears streaming down his cheeks; until all the fear and uncertainty is pushed to the back of his mind. “You finally remember that you love me?” He gasps out, and Minseok is simply staring at him. “You finally remember that I love you too?”
Minseok stays silent for a long time, even after Luhan’s laughter has dissipated into the corners of the room. “I remember,” he finally mutters. His body seems to sink further into the mattress. “I remember and so I was waiting for you.”
The emotion slips from Luhan’s face. He is up in one second, taking long strides to the bed Minseok is molded into, then stands by his bedside. Tentative, knobby fingers grab the sides of his face, fingerprints staining sculpted bones. Their gazes lock into place, fitted against each other like two pieces of a puzzle. “What did you do?” Luhan whispers, and there’s dread seeping through the cracks in his voice.
“I needed to see you,” Minseok rushes. “It was the only way I could know I wasn’t going crazy thinking about all the times I’ve fallen in love with you.” His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows over the ball lodged in his throat. “I had no idea Death could be so beautiful,” Minseok croaks, breaking out into a sob halfway through his sentence.
Luhan collapses onto the bed beside Minseok, mouth agape in silent pleas that seep along with his breath for this to not be true. But he can feel the drugs mixing with his blood, coursing through his veins and rewiring the cords in his brain. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you,” Luhan admits, running his thumb just below the black rings of his eyes. “Killing yourself for me… I don’t know what will happen to your soul.”
“I just want to be with you,” Minseok replies, and his eyelids are starting to drop; plummeting like the rate of his heartbeats. “Luhan… tell me about all the times we fell in love.”
It takes a long minute of soaking in each other's presence, to carve themselves into each other like they have so many times before, until Luhan finally speaks. "Once we met in Italy," he murmurs, voice caressing the bend of shaky knees. He continues. "They don't have speed limits over there, you know." Minseok looks up at him with the whites of his eyes morphing into red. "I sat with you in the car on that long stretch of road, and I kissed you so that you wouldn't see the car coming our way..."
“Luhan…” He says again, and Luhan thinks his name sounds just right cradled on the tip of Minseok’s tongue.
“And when you worked for your dad at a mill,” Luhan says, but he can’t bring himself to look into Minseok’s watery eyes, “I watched you walk down the basement stairs and to your demise. I watched and I couldn’t stop it; I kept silent as you stepped in a puddle of water before the wires broke and fell into it.”
Luhan’s throat is closing at this point-- tears that he cannot shed building up in his lungs and making it hard to breathe.
“I had to watch as your dreams died in the light of your eyes because your heart couldn’t keep up with your body-- I watched you collapse on the floor in the middle of the night, I heard you call out for everyone, and all I could do was snap my fucking fingers,” Luhan breaks down. Minseok’s fingers slot in the spaces between his, trying to comfort him when he can’t even comfort himself.
“You know,” Luhan gasps through stilled lungs, and he looks up to tear tracks and blood-stained eyes. “I could search my whole life through and through and never find another you.”
Minseok’s hand is frail when it presses to his cheek, fingers wiping at dry eyes and drawing him in closer until their foreheads are pressed together. Minseok’s breath hits his lips, dancing across tender flesh in temptation and he can’t help but lean forward and crash their mouths together. He tastes like sweet pills and vodka, and Luhan licks into his mouth with all the vigor a thousand lifetimes has built up. Minseok pulls back just slightly, lips hovering over Luhan’s teasingly, and mutters into his mouth, “I could search every single one of mine, and life would never be as beautiful as you.”
Luhan kisses him again-- hard, not caring about the way Minseok’s hands on his face are slowly slipping back to the bed, until the realization comes full-fledged. “What time is it?” He pulls back harshly, and Minseok swallows harshly before turning to the blank clock on his bedside table.
“I-I’m not sure.”
Luhan digs the pocket watch from inside his coat, face flushed and hands trembling from the anxiety rocking his heart like a ship. But by the time he’s clutching the fast tick of a working clock, it’s too late. It’s too late for Minseok to hear the only words that have actually ever mattered:
Please know that my sorrow is as deep as my love for you.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan does not snap his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies of an overdose.
Time stands still.
//
The sun shines brightly across the city, reflecting off the windows of the tall buildings and lighting up the alleys of streets between them. It is a genial spring day, and the people milling around, with their skin exposed and hair let down, soak in the atmosphere all the way into their laugh-ridden lungs.
Luhan stands in the middle of it all, forever clad in his black trench coat and dark pants.
People pass him without a glance, a select few managing to sneak a peek at hair as black as the night covering pallid skin. He doesn’t care about any of them, though, and turns his head to the street beside him.
There is a man standing there, clad in clothes as modest and as dark as his, that looks back at him with the same mirth encased in the browns of his iris.
The air around him cracks like a whip against his ears, and in the next second he is sitting on a bench in the middle of a park somewhere. People are walking around him, but they are different from the ones on the street. Different bodies; the same rotten souls.
He is not alone. The man from before stands in front of him, a meek smile shrouding rosy lips. He lays a hand on Luhan’s cheek, and for once he can feel the warmth of skin on skin, and butterflies pound against his stomach. The hand slips away and then the bench creaks under the weight of something new.
Minseok takes a seat next to Death.
They make a good couple.
They meet somewhere between the passing dawn of dreams crossing into the path of reality; between today’s hope and tomorrow’s regret; between realms of the Earth and everything beyond it.
Note: This was originally written for vectras in soccerncoffee.
It’s raining tonight. It’s raining and the water threads through Luhan’s jet black hair and into the fabric of his clothes: a dark trench coat covering black trousers and a button-down shirt. The sound of his footsteps against the concrete is loud even through the pouring rain, but he keeps his gaze focused on the small cottage sitting at the corner of the road. It’s hard to see through the darkness of the dusk coating this half of the world.
In the next second, Luhan is standing in the middle of a bedroom in the small house. It is quaint and lit by the flames of a fire crackling in the brick chimney, but Luhan cannot feel its warmth. In the center of the room sits a bed with a lone occupant lying in the middle, the covers slowly rising and falling with the heaves of brittle breath. The shadows cast by the fire draw out long over the wrinkles of the covers, and as Luhan steps closer he can see the symmetrical patterns sketched out over the occupant’s face.
Kim Minseok, seventy-one years old, Luhan recalls from the list. Severe stroke had been written out next to it.
Luhan keeps his face stoic as he takes a seat next to the bed, in one of the old dining room seaters one of his children had probably placed in here for convenience. It does not creak when he sits down and crosses his legs, nor does it when he leans forward as Minseok’s head lolls towards him.
Even with the darkness set over them and the fire dying out as the night buckles under the light of the stars and the Moon, Luhan can see the lines of a weary life etched into Minseok’s old face. He can see the maps from where he traveled, the tear stains from heart breaks, and the small smile lines from where he learned to laugh and love again.
There is something beautiful held in fragility.
The clock hits midnight and something in Minseok stirs. Luhan watches idly from the chair, eyes dull and lips thin, when Minseok’s heavy lids lift one last time.
His pupils seem barren encased in fragile irises, drowned in the whites of scleras with thick tears building up. Minseok takes one look at Luhan, skin like paper over blue veins, and breathes in a deep sigh.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies peacefully in his sleep.
//
The night is windy and it sends a chill to the core of Luhan’s bones. He does not shiver. The city is laid out before him, twinkling lights scattered out as far as the eye can see, outlining the silhouette of a man. This high up in the sky, it’s a feat that anyone would come here during the day, let alone in the middle of the night. But there he sits, legs dangling over the side of the building, body outlined against the Seoul skyline.
Luhan takes gentle steps to the edge of the rooftop, careful not to make a noise-- not that he would care if he did, anyway.
The man doesn’t turn to him when he takes a seat beside him, eyes dropping to the cars crawling like ants along the streets. Luhan watches him, the way his hair tosses in the winter wind and how he squints over the city lights, wishing their brightness was embedded in his skin so that maybe he wouldn’t be so sad.
“Did you come up here to tell me not to jump?” The man breaks the silence, but he keeps his eyes glued to the world below.
“No,” Luhan replies. He finally tears his gaze away from the gentle tilt of a pink nose and lets it fall on the lone soul walking across a long stretch of concrete, all bundled up in his winter coat. The man next to him is only wearing a thin cotton t-shirt.
The man seems stunned for just a second, wide eyes focusing on him before he turns away. “Good… it’s not like I would have listened.”
“Okay,” he nods.
They bask in the sounds of the city for a long time-- car engines running, horns honking, conversations floating up from the ground, and the way the air tumbles over the building and runs over the metal frame of the building they’re sitting upon.
“My name’s Minseok,” he eventually speaks again.
Luhan figures he can spare the kid some peace. “Luhan.”
The silence rains down on them again.
“It’s too hard, you know. I just can’t do it anymore.” Luhan keeps his mouth closed as Minseok speaks. “I try so fucking hard every single day. I smile and I laugh and I volunteer for the homeless. I do what the world wants me to, but I go home feeling empty; like I’m only filled with tears.”
Luhan looks at Minseok. He actually looks, because for as long as he’s been doing this, he can’t remember one time that he’s actually looked into one of the lives he’s collected. And here Minseok is, spilling out his most private thoughts on a silver platter like Luhan had asked for it.
“So don’t even try to stop me,” he says, and for the first time Luhan notices he’s crying. The tears roll down his face, reflecting the lights of the city, leaving their footprints behind on his cheek. “I’ve had enough of this goddamn world. I’m so sick of being alone.”
Luhan flips open his pocket watch before uttering, “none of us do much in this world alone except die.”
Minseok doesn’t say anything before he slips away; just the remnants of tears burned into apathetic retinas and the wisps of wind that once curved around his body. He falls fast and hard, and usually Luhan would watch them suffer-- life is what they let it be. But this time, for some reason, he doesn’t want to watch Minseok suffer.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies of a broken heart.
//
Luhan digs his toes into the sand, black leather shoes held in his hand and the heat of the day soaking through his clothes. He does not sweat under his trench coat. The sounds of other patrons at the beach fill his ears and people are running around him like he doesn’t exist, but Luhan does not care because he only has his eyes on one person.
Kim Minseok is pale and thin and smiling so widely with all the mirth in the world bundled into his cheeks that Luhan almost hates himself.
He and his friends had decided to take a weekend off work and head to the beach, a vacation that hadn’t seemed like much in the long-run. Minseok kicks at the soccer ball rolling down the slope of the beach before one of his friends can reach it. His name is Chanyeol-- he hadn’t been on the list, though; Luhan only knows this because Minseok knows this.
Minseok smiles when the ball reaches another man, Baekhyun, and the latter kicks a goal for their team. Minseok’s dark hair flows with the direction of the wind, and Luhan thinks the way he walks so gracefully is almost unnatural, like his entire being is defying gravity, slowly bending the rules of the Earth solely because he can.
Chanyeol, in a fit of rage and with a grin plastered to his face, tackles Minseok into the water, running until their feet no longer touch the sandy floor despite his loud protests. His face contorts into one of fear, and Luhan tilts his head to the side at the desperation soaking into his skin like salt water.
Minseok cannot swim.
Luhan gets up silently, brushing off the sand from his clothes and setting his shoes down at the edge of the wet sand, just high enough for them not to reach the water. He walks forward, and the water is cold against his skin but he does not shiver. The ocean slowly builds on him, up to his ankles, his knees, his hips, his shoulders, until he is completely submerged, body insubstantial among the fish and coral.
Chanyeol is back on shore now, and Luhan can hear over the splashes of the tide, Minseok’s friends yelling for him to stop playing around. Through the bundles of seaweed and pieces of seashells aimlessly floating through the water, Luhan swims to where Minseok is being tossed under the weight of the waves.
Almost immediately he stops thrashing, and the current pulls him under so that he’s nestled comfortably on the ocean floor. Luhan hovers over him, weightlessness a paradox to the steel ball of sudden guilt eating its way into the sublayers of his skin.
Minseok’s hair flows seamlessly, the same way it had above water, with the light refracting through the water creating a hazy halo around his head and his limbs lifelessly floating. It almost seems like one of his hands is reaching towards Luhan, eyes barely open in the saltiness of the ocean, an ethereal hue threading into the cracks of his lips and the curve of his eyelashes.
Luhan’s own hand reaches out. No matter how many times he tells himself he shouldn’t be doing this, he can’t stop himself. His fingertips barely brush Minseok’s, and it’s like a wave of tranquility rocks into Minseok’s body, and everything is still. There’s a smile on Minseok’s face. Luhan doesn’t pull back his hand.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok drowns at Eurwangni Beach.
//
The cafe during breakfast is extremely busy with the summer’s warm air finally rolling through the city. All of the tables have been set outside, metal chairs and tables soaking up heat from the sun that slips past the veranda and onto winter-bleached skin. Luhan sets his hands in his lap with a bored expression on his face, the metal chair digging into his thighs and back and the customers chatting away, their voices a hollow drone over the pavement.
Luhan watches the way Minseok weaves through the tables, a plate of food in both hands and his shirt even whiter than his skin. The black apron highlights the small circumference of his waist, with the cuffs of his shirt displaying bones peaking through tight skin and mocha eyes drawing attention to the rings of black forming under them.
He moves deftly, quietly, like a shadow at high noon that blends in with apathy and distraction but is only blocked out by phosphenes. Luhan keeps a keen eye glued to him, not a hair out of place or a crook in the curve of his legs. He would surely be bored by now if it weren’t for the entrancing way Minseok moves about the patio, the way his fingers curl around drink glasses and how his shoulders fill out his uniform in all the right spots.
He is so mesmerized that he almost doesn’t notice the way those sharp eyes flick towards him and how a second after he’s set down the last plate for his table, he heads straight towards Luhan. Luhan keeps still, though, even as the sunlight circles Minseok’s head like the familiar cast of a halo.
“Can I get you anything, sir?” He asks, voice wrapped in formality and unfamiliarity. If only he knew.
Luhan doesn’t move, not even a blink.
“Minseok!” He turns around at the sound of his boss’ call, loud and ringing throughout the cafe. “Get back to serving the customers, will you?” He waves angrily, and Minseok furrows his eyebrows.
When he turns back around, the seat in front of him is empty.
…
A couple of hours later brings the end of Minseok’s shift and a sigh of relief to carefully carved lips. His last job of the day is to take out the trash and then he can go home and take a nap or go out to the park for a jog.
He has to squint when he opens the back door to the dumpsters, the sun pouring out of the sky by the gallons and pricking the sweat from his skin. The bag is heavy when he lifts it into the dumpster, and he barely has time to fix the wrinkles from his shirt before he’s being shoved backwards and his head is hitting metal and there’s something hard gripping his shoulder.
“Give me all your money!” He hears yelled through the disorientation wrapping around his brain, and the hand on his shoulder tightens with the volume of his voice.
“I don’t have any!” Minseok rasps, his throat closing with fear and the sun bleeding red through his closed eyelids. He’s too afraid to open his eyes.
“Give me all your money, dammit!” The man yells again, pushing hard and sending Minseok’s back reeling into the metal of the trashcan.
“I don’t have any, I swear!”
There’s a moment of tense silence before the pressure on Minseok’s shoulder is gone and there’s the harsh slap of feet against broken asphalt. It takes seconds with the thud of his heart loud in his ear, but when Minseok finally opens his eyes, he sees the man that was sitting at the table earlier: all black clothes, alabaster skin, and pink lips set into a thin line.
The man takes one step and that’s when Minseok feels it: the quick jolt of pain that sears like fire into his stomach and the quick drip of something wet staining his shirt and skin. The fear soaks into sweaty flesh, bends black in his vision and spreads the pain like a thumb covered in salt gouging into his wound. And as the crippling realization sets into the epiphysis of his bones, so does a sense of repose in his marrow.
Minseok collapses, bloody hand held close to his stomach and the frame of his body collapsing with too many feelings at one time.
Luhan crouches next to him, countenance as stoic as always, and tilts his head just slightly to the right. There is a gossamer of dysphoria consuming his sternum and branching out to the bow of his ribs like thick needles swimming through capillaries and the fabric of his lungs.
He thinks it might be guilt-- contrition in the way the blood stains Minseok’s shirt and the way his lips look so pretty when they are that shade of white, and how Minseok’s eyes are focused on him, jaw slack, that he can’t believe he’s watching the life seep out of such a beautiful creature.
Luhan can see the way Minseok is slipping away, tongue loose and lips parted, the way his brain is slowly falling apart at the seams, thoughts gushing like the blood from his abdomen. He doesn’t expect, though, the words that come from his mouth; the words that sear themselves into the back of his brain, replaying themselves like a broken record each time he thinks of this moment.
“You’re beautiful.”
All Luhan can conjure to say is, “and you’re dying.”
//
The disease is eating away at his body. It is infiltrating the tissue of his organs, perforating the blood that courses through brittle veins and drilling holes into the back of his head so that all judicious thoughts drip out and soak into bleached sheets.
It is proliferating; inversely proportional to the years he will spend on this Earth.
His bones have already been made fragile, skin diaphanous so that the disease is spelled out through the bruises littered on his arms. Minseok knows this, so he sits in his bed and rots inside the cage of his flesh, waiting for the day it all ends in black cloaks and white skulls.
…
Luhan’s chin digs into the arches of his fingers, lips pouted and bangs falling over his eyes. The light in the bedroom would be almost completely opaque if not for the dim lamp on the bedside table casting a lethargic, woebegone light.
It’s almost nostalgic, sitting here and watching the dips and rise of Minseok’s frail chest, except this time Minseok’s face is smooth and white and the scythes of death are curling at the edges of his lips instead of lines that the filter of a cigarette etched into nicotine-worn skin.
He doesn’t know why he’s decided to watch Minseok for so long now. Usually he presents himself only seconds before his nails carve a soul out from the base of a spine, but today he finds his eyes burning from not blinking and the vertebrates of his neck slowly morphing into the shape of his slouch.
Something about the aura of Kim Minseok has become a snare, entrapping Luhan in the gravitational pull of his smile and pinning him down by the midnight black of his lashes curving over pink zygomatic planes.
And it happened just as quick as the snap of a finger; as fast as lightning touches the ground, as fast as a heart slams into the bone of a rib, as fast as someone can burn their name into a soul-- as fast as a person falls into the deepest caverns of love.
Minseok’s eyes slowly blink open, black pupils adjusting to the light of the room, but Luhan doesn’t move an inch. He follows Minseok’s gaze around the room until it finds the only other person there, shrouded in black and camouflaged by the shadows behind him. The bed frame creaks under the weight of Minseok’s body, the duvet pooling around his waist as he sits up with shaky arms-- what’s left of the muscles in his neck straining.
The clock slows down, stretched out like syrup between their gazes and a sense of ease flows from the tips of Luhan’s fingers and coats the room in a heavy, comfortable silence. They hold a silent conversation. Luhan’s eyes speak of lifetimes of pain; Minseok’s of one life spent too short and in too much pain.
The clock hits midnight and the church bells chime, loud knocks against the wall of a metal basin clawing their way into the bedroom and shattering the words of glass held between them.
Minseok speaks first. His voice is low and languid, cracking at every other vowel, and Luhan thinks it sounds euphonious. Even more beautiful than the first time he heard it. “Are you Death?”
“I am as you perceive me,” Luhan vaguely replies, not missing the way Minseok’s eyes pound into his skin until he can practically feel callous fingertips running over the rigid column of his neck.
“I thought you’d be more…. grim,” Minseok musters a smile, and the beats of his heart thump in his chest irregularly.
Smiles can be fatal, Luhan learns.
"You're beautiful..." It comes out as merely a whisper, a thought slipped through the crack of his mouth and hitting the air with a sharp clap.
He doesn’t notice Minseok’s hand until it’s too late to stop it. A warm palm presses onto his cheek, digits fingering the baby hairs at his hairline, before slowly dropping back down to the mattress.
Luhan still feels the drag of skin against skin long after this.
The gossamer grows again; tight and moving into the crevasses of his heart, to fill the voids with what he thinks is still guilt. There is a fleeting moment of hope, of a silver lining around ashen clouds that obscure the gaps between lifetimes.
If only Minseok could remember him. If only he could call out his name without having to be told, or remember the way their fingers brushed under the toss of water, or the way the breeze felt against his skin at midnight on a Saturday night. If he could remember, he could free himself from the eternal loop of being born and dying and instead walk with Luhan behind the scenes of the world. He could be one of them.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan snaps his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies of leukopenia.
//
The bar is cozy and covered in a sort of quiet buzz of noise that washes over the skin of all the occupants milling around. Luhan fingers the glass in front of him, the condensation dripping onto delicate fingertips and the bartender eyes him warily. It’s eleven p.m. on a Wednesday and he’s the only one sitting at the bar.
The music cuts on over the back of the room around 11:30, and that’s when Luhan hears the pop of the pub door opening and swinging shut again. He knows exactly who’s just entered-- he can tell by the way his shoes slide against the ground, the way his thighs slightly rub together when he walks, the way the air slides past his skin and how the air conditioning sings through his hair.
Luhan hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Minseok. He hasn’t been able to stop replaying the final moments of so many of his lives and the way his eyes have gone from encasing the sun to not even holding the reflection of the Moon in every single one of them. He can’t stop closing his eyes and running his fingers over the same spot that Minseok had laid his hand on, relishing in the phantom touch of warm hands on cold flesh. He hadn't been touched by a human in a long time.
There is so much about Minseok to remember.
The resonant, sonorous hue of his voice, the cryptically perfect way his bangs falls across his eyes and the labyrinth of wrinkles on his palms that stay exactly the same through every lifetime, without fail. He is the kind of enigma that Luhan has spent lifetimes trying to unravel.
Luhan has always been walking towards Minseok, whether he knew it or not, at a pace set by Fate and colored by Tragedy. It would make him believe in Destiny, in having a soul mate; if only he had a soul.
Minseok sits down right beside him, a sea of empty chairs surrounding them, and their thighs brush. “I’ll take a rum and coke,” Minseok calls to the bartender, politely nodding his head to the man when his drink is set down.
“Can I get you another beer, sir?” The barkeep direct towards Luhan, and he flicks his eyes up just in time to see Minseok looking at him also.
“No thank you,” he declines, straightening his back and crossing his legs under the counter. “I’ve had enough for the night.” He hasn’t drunk at all. His bottle is still full.
The bar returns to its previous silence-- a blank page only filled with the notes of an outdated record and the incoherent mumblings of people too far away to care about. The atmosphere is heavy, comfortably so, on their shoulders. Too comfortable for strangers (that's because they aren't, but Minseok doesn't know that, and a small part of Luhan shrivels up). Luhan has a hard time pretending he doesn’t know Minseok, pretending he hasn’t watched him die in a hundred different lifetimes. Like he hadn’t seen him when he bleached his hair or when he became the most famous singer in the world or when he killed himself with hunger because that’s what the world told him to do.
Luhan pretends not to know anything and keeps his face forward.
Minseok still stares at him long after the bartender has gone away, gaze heavy, and it takes a lot of courage for him to finally meet hollow eyes. This is the first time Luhan takes notice of the way his hair is short, black, and shaved into a buzz cut. There are dark lines around his eyes and the wrinkles in his face are deep with burdens, and there’s a hopeless sort of light that flickers around his body, like he’s given the last of his hope to someone who could actually use it.
“You seem familiar,” Minseok interrupts his thoughts, tugging him back to reality. “Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so,” he lies, and there’s a bad feeling brewing in his gut over the familiarity storming Minseok’s pupils. He isn’t supposed to be familiar-- he is supposed to morph into the only sense of ease a human can have when coming into contact with Death. He is different in every life, for every person, but Minseok’s longing features and wide eyes replay the scenes of the same two people for thousands of years.
“I could have sworn…” Minseok trails off, teeth pulling his bottom lip into his mouth.
“Maybe in another life,” Luhan mutters under his breath. It slips through his lips without his permission; a thought from the corners of his mind that he dare not venture to.
“What?” He quickly asks, and Luhan ducks his head with a blush.
Luhan coughs into his fist, grabbing his beer with the other and hoping Minseok doesn’t notice the embarrassed smile gracing his lips. “It’s nothing,” he waves off. “So what are you doing here on a Wednesday night? Fight with the girlfriend?”
Minseok frowns at that, and Luhan feels regret perching under his chin because all he wants in the world is for Minseok to smile. “Not exactly,” he mutters, pushing his glass between his hands. The water slides on the wood of the bar, droplets sticking to the finish, and Minseok draws a smiley face with his fingers. “I got drafted.”
Oh.
Oh.
“They’re sending me to the border in two days,” he further explains, “and I don’t really have anything to stick around for, so I’m going.”
Something in Luhan breaks. He can hear the vivid snap of whatever takes up the space of where his heart used to be; the weight of pain crushing him into oblivion because it is so goddamn hard to watch the man he loves die a thousand times over. And suddenly it feels like there's not enough time, and his hands are frisking his own pockets for the tiny black book he knows is there.
He can feel the sands of time slipping through his fingers as he flips through the pages; one day, two days, a week in the future and he hopes he won't see what he already knows is there--
Kim Minseok dies of a gunshot wound to the head in exactly one week, two days, five hours, three minutes, and fifty-seven seconds.
(A reaper can't cry, and it makes the pain just that much worse.)
Luhan shoves his book back in his pocket before Minseok can see into it, and suddenly it becomes hard to look into the eyes of a man doomed by the world. With his gaze lowered and Minseok's worried eyes pinned to him, Luhan succumbs to the temptation of white skin and grabs gently for Minseok's hand.
It's moist with the condensation from his rum glass, and Luhan turns his hand over so that his palm is facing up and tugs it into his lap. Poems are inscribed in the wrinkles of his skin, ones that nobody has read before because nobody ever cared enough, and Luhan thinks that once Minseok dies, he will be the only one to remember him. The poems are beautiful but cut too short. Some are blurred by tears and heartache, but some encompass the fluidity and beauty of a body of water.
Luhan covers Minseok’s hand with his own, and they are finally two rivers that flow endlessly into each other.
Minseok surprisingly doesn’t pull back, and his skin is warm and the beat of his heart is pulsing under calloused flesh. And they sit there like that, hand in hand, until time bleeds together with noise and it all becomes a bubble of molasses cocooning them in their own world.
Sometimes they talk about trivial things like the color blue and how it combines with red to make purple. Minseok says Luhan would look good with his hair dyed that color. Luhan laughs, and it’s the first time in a long time the cobwebs of misery are dusted from his lungs and giggles fill his throat.
Luhan traces I see you in colors that don’t exist with the press of his fingers into Minseok’s forearm, and he wonders if the boy will ever realize how much of that is true. He can feel it carved into the base of his skull, into the curve of his ribs; he sees it in every lifetime that Minseok stays alive a little longer because Death is too beautiful to die for.
He sees it in the lives that Minseok falls in love with him too. (Luhan doesn’t know it, or maybe he does, but there is never a life in which Kim Minseok does not love Luhan.)
Somewhere along the night they realize that these seconds are precious, and they cradle them in clasped palms because that is the best way to hold onto a moment that will surely slip away once they close their eyes.
With every word their bodies inch closer. Luhan doesn't notice until Minseok's breath is warm on his cheek and he looks up to see midnight lashes curled against porcelain skin. Minseok looks down at him, hunched over and small with Minseok's hand still held in his, and there's a moment of hesitation over-powered by raw, sheer want-- need. It is short and warm and Minseok’s cheeks are painted a permanent tint of pink. Luhan smiles with his eyes closed, leaning back in to press his mouth to Minseok’s again, fingers cascading over short hair too close to his scalp.
That’s when it all comes rushing back: who they are, why Luhan is here, what’s going to happen next week. Luhan thinks about it all.
(He continues kissing Minseok anyway.)
//
There is a coalescence of uneasiness and anxiety proliferating the clouds that hang like swelling bruises in the sky. Luhan’s feet drag like lead on the ground because he knows exactly where he is going and why.
The weight of this world is too heavy on his shoulders.
He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this. The seams of his skin are falling apart and he is slowly slipping into deterioration. Soon he will be nothing but dust in the wind.
This time, Luhan decides to walk through the corridors of Minseok’s house instead of simply appearing in his room. He doesn’t know why-- maybe he needs a change of pace, maybe it will be easier that way. Maybe that’s what he’s supposed to do. Whatever it is, it feels right, and the wood under the soles of his shoes creek with content.
The hallway is lit with lamps sitting on the small tables littered throughout the long stretch of corridor. The light that wraps around his limbs is ominous, filling in the cracks of wrinkles and stretching long shadows over blunt features. The air presses against him tightly, wringing his neck in all the right spots to make him remember the way he became breathless with Minseok’s lips over his.
This house draws out memory from freshly covered graves, and Luhan doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
There is a moment of concentrated fear that seizes his muscles right before he reaches the door. It stills him in his spot, fingertips grazing the brass knob, eyes concentrated on the swirls of white wood. But then the hesitation crumbles, and Luhan blinks before curling his hand around the doorknob and pushing.
The lethargic light of the room fans out over Luhan with each inch he pushes open, blue hues spilling over him like the waves of the ocean.The first thing that comes into view is the starch-white sheets of the bed sitting in the middle of the room. The second thing is the mop of orange hair that licks down taut cheekbones like thin flames. It takes him a second to pick out black lashes and red lips, Minseok’s ivory skin bleeding into the bed sheets.
Minseok’s eyes, slow and hazy and black with dilated pupils, pin to his chest at the first creak of the hinges. His gaze digs into Luhan like hooks, pulling along with his muscles breaking him down into all the atoms he was created from.
The space between them is pulled tight with tension as Luhan takes a seat in the chair next to the door, directly in front of Minseok’s bed-- almost like he was expecting him. Luhan’s thoughts become scarce; words even fewer and far between on the tip of his tongue because Minseok’s scrutiny is making him want to desiccate into ash.
The chair doesn’t make a sound when he sits, and the atmosphere settles around them like scattered grains of sand nestled into the pleats of their clothes. Minseok’s lips part and Luhan’s stomach lurches at the words that pour from them, the room becoming unsettled, the air roaring in his ears.
“I saw you in a dream.”
His sentence shatters to the ground, shards of broken glass slicing at his heart and ears and the tips of his fingers. Luhan’s throat closes up, lungs filled with stagnant breath and his vision is becoming blurry.
Luhan laughs-- he laughs until his stomach hurts and there are invisible tears streaming down his cheeks; until all the fear and uncertainty is pushed to the back of his mind. “You finally remember that you love me?” He gasps out, and Minseok is simply staring at him. “You finally remember that I love you too?”
Minseok stays silent for a long time, even after Luhan’s laughter has dissipated into the corners of the room. “I remember,” he finally mutters. His body seems to sink further into the mattress. “I remember and so I was waiting for you.”
The emotion slips from Luhan’s face. He is up in one second, taking long strides to the bed Minseok is molded into, then stands by his bedside. Tentative, knobby fingers grab the sides of his face, fingerprints staining sculpted bones. Their gazes lock into place, fitted against each other like two pieces of a puzzle. “What did you do?” Luhan whispers, and there’s dread seeping through the cracks in his voice.
“I needed to see you,” Minseok rushes. “It was the only way I could know I wasn’t going crazy thinking about all the times I’ve fallen in love with you.” His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows over the ball lodged in his throat. “I had no idea Death could be so beautiful,” Minseok croaks, breaking out into a sob halfway through his sentence.
Luhan collapses onto the bed beside Minseok, mouth agape in silent pleas that seep along with his breath for this to not be true. But he can feel the drugs mixing with his blood, coursing through his veins and rewiring the cords in his brain. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you,” Luhan admits, running his thumb just below the black rings of his eyes. “Killing yourself for me… I don’t know what will happen to your soul.”
“I just want to be with you,” Minseok replies, and his eyelids are starting to drop; plummeting like the rate of his heartbeats. “Luhan… tell me about all the times we fell in love.”
It takes a long minute of soaking in each other's presence, to carve themselves into each other like they have so many times before, until Luhan finally speaks. "Once we met in Italy," he murmurs, voice caressing the bend of shaky knees. He continues. "They don't have speed limits over there, you know." Minseok looks up at him with the whites of his eyes morphing into red. "I sat with you in the car on that long stretch of road, and I kissed you so that you wouldn't see the car coming our way..."
“Luhan…” He says again, and Luhan thinks his name sounds just right cradled on the tip of Minseok’s tongue.
“And when you worked for your dad at a mill,” Luhan says, but he can’t bring himself to look into Minseok’s watery eyes, “I watched you walk down the basement stairs and to your demise. I watched and I couldn’t stop it; I kept silent as you stepped in a puddle of water before the wires broke and fell into it.”
Luhan’s throat is closing at this point-- tears that he cannot shed building up in his lungs and making it hard to breathe.
“I had to watch as your dreams died in the light of your eyes because your heart couldn’t keep up with your body-- I watched you collapse on the floor in the middle of the night, I heard you call out for everyone, and all I could do was snap my fucking fingers,” Luhan breaks down. Minseok’s fingers slot in the spaces between his, trying to comfort him when he can’t even comfort himself.
“You know,” Luhan gasps through stilled lungs, and he looks up to tear tracks and blood-stained eyes. “I could search my whole life through and through and never find another you.”
Minseok’s hand is frail when it presses to his cheek, fingers wiping at dry eyes and drawing him in closer until their foreheads are pressed together. Minseok’s breath hits his lips, dancing across tender flesh in temptation and he can’t help but lean forward and crash their mouths together. He tastes like sweet pills and vodka, and Luhan licks into his mouth with all the vigor a thousand lifetimes has built up. Minseok pulls back just slightly, lips hovering over Luhan’s teasingly, and mutters into his mouth, “I could search every single one of mine, and life would never be as beautiful as you.”
Luhan kisses him again-- hard, not caring about the way Minseok’s hands on his face are slowly slipping back to the bed, until the realization comes full-fledged. “What time is it?” He pulls back harshly, and Minseok swallows harshly before turning to the blank clock on his bedside table.
“I-I’m not sure.”
Luhan digs the pocket watch from inside his coat, face flushed and hands trembling from the anxiety rocking his heart like a ship. But by the time he’s clutching the fast tick of a working clock, it’s too late. It’s too late for Minseok to hear the only words that have actually ever mattered:
Please know that my sorrow is as deep as my love for you.
The clock hits 12:03.
Luhan does not snap his fingers.
Kim Minseok dies of an overdose.
Time stands still.
//
The sun shines brightly across the city, reflecting off the windows of the tall buildings and lighting up the alleys of streets between them. It is a genial spring day, and the people milling around, with their skin exposed and hair let down, soak in the atmosphere all the way into their laugh-ridden lungs.
Luhan stands in the middle of it all, forever clad in his black trench coat and dark pants.
People pass him without a glance, a select few managing to sneak a peek at hair as black as the night covering pallid skin. He doesn’t care about any of them, though, and turns his head to the street beside him.
There is a man standing there, clad in clothes as modest and as dark as his, that looks back at him with the same mirth encased in the browns of his iris.
The air around him cracks like a whip against his ears, and in the next second he is sitting on a bench in the middle of a park somewhere. People are walking around him, but they are different from the ones on the street. Different bodies; the same rotten souls.
He is not alone. The man from before stands in front of him, a meek smile shrouding rosy lips. He lays a hand on Luhan’s cheek, and for once he can feel the warmth of skin on skin, and butterflies pound against his stomach. The hand slips away and then the bench creaks under the weight of something new.
Minseok takes a seat next to Death.
They make a good couple.