[FOR HAILYNX] Chrysanthemums [2/2]
ACT I
part3: the silence
Sirens. Lights. Red red red rain on the ground and in his eyes and dripping down his back as he trembled. A corona around blond hair, white petals strewn over the cement and water, stained dark. Broken glass catching the flashing and sparkling like diamonds, as the dark puddle grew to touch the toes of his shoes. Yifan's face was wet and he couldn't figure out why.
in China, Japan and Korea, white chrysanthemums are symbolic of lamentation and grief
They were at the hospital, his mother in residence today and Yifan didn't know if it was better or worse. It was almost too much, the hospital being so close, his mother being there, Baekhyun texting him I'm on my way don't do anything crazy. It was almost too much because Lu Han was going to die.
"I'm so sorry Yifan," his mother said and this time he knew for sure what he had always suspected.
"What aren't you telling me," he asked, voice full of things he wasn't allowing himself to feel. If I don't feel it it won't hurt. The empty piece of his heart was throbbing and he wasn't even singing. His voice was flat. I can never sing again.
"I hoped," she began, twisting her hands in her white coat and she wasn't a doctor right now, she was a mother comforting a scared and crying boy who didn't want to sing anymore, "I hoped that I would never have to explain." She looked at Yifan, apology and regret written all over her face.
"Just tell me," Yifan said, his voice dull. Lu Han is dying. He didn't look at her, he looked at his reflection in the glass. He only asked you for one thing and you said no.
"When, when I saw you crying," her voice faltered over the words, "I knew...I suspected that it was the case." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Sometimes, if your tell causes you actual physical pain, it means something." Her hands fluttered toward the doors, the red light shining in the operating light, the memory of the words, we're just stabilizing him so that you can decide.
And Yifan understood. He understood everything, betrayal written across his face because his mother had known that he would break his heart.
I forgive you, he didn't say. "Decide what?" he asked instead. She took in a deep ragged breath, composing her expression into the doctor again. Yifan hated that she could collect herself so easily but then it wasn't her soulmate she was talking about. He wanted to scream that he'd never wanted a soulmate, that maybe, deep inside, he'd known that this would happen, but it was too late. I hate you Baekhyun. Where was he?
"You know what your father does, right?" his mother explained, voice careful, lips pinched as though holding back the emotions that would only get in the way. Yifan nodded, he didn't understand what robotics had to do with anything and -
"Oh," he said, the word falling like a stone to bounce on the white linoleum and skid away under the operating room door, where the light was still red and it didn't take that long to stabilize someone enough to say goodbye, did it? Yifan wanted Baekhyun to arrive already so he could yell at someone. He didn't want to think about what his father was doing.
"He's on his way here with the -," his mother swallowed, "with the scanner but," and she knelt down to put her hands on Yifan's shoulders where he sat on the hard bench. Staring deep into his eyes, she searched for answers to questions she hadn't even asked yet. "You have to decide first. You have to decide first because he's going to want to do it because it's his project but there's a big risk." Her voice was urgent, rousing Yifan out of his mental spirals of blame and despair. I never even kissed him.
"What?" he asked, lost in all the tides of emotion washing over him. "What?" He sounded like a broken record and that was how he felt, his memory still skipping over the delivery truck and Lu Han's smile. The pause before the end. His breathing. The silence before -
"It's never worked with someone who's dying," she said, and he could hear the no hidden between her words, the don't do this echoing from the glass walls, the you have to let him go tucked into the lines of her lips.
in some countries of Europe, incurve chrysanthemums are symbolic of death and are used only for funerals or on graves
Yifan thought about the fear he could feel singing through his veins. The dull throbbing in his chest that persisted, after the stabbing pain when his body arched in slow motion before he hit the ground, the smile on his face crumpling. The song he had been about to finally let escape from between his lips, where it had been lurking for so many years. He didn't even know the words. Now I never will.
"Yes," he said, and ignored the single tear that fell out of the doctor's eye as she became his mother again for a brief instant. Yes. "I don't care."
"Are you sure?" Baekhyun asked, when he finally appeared, just moments before Yifan's father's team rushed in the door at the end of the hall with too many assistants and green scrubs and a machine that looked like something out of a horror movie or a dystopian indie flick - he couldn't decide and he didn't care.
"I have to do this," Yifan replied, forgetting to yell at Baekhyun now that his friend was here and he could rest his head on his shoulder instead, even if it was too bony and Baekhyun was too short and his incessant humming was aggravating in a comforting way.
The door opened, the operating lights still lit, and Yifan realized that when it went off it would be the end. His father stepped out, the door swinging quietly shut behind him. Yifan could see clusters of green and pink-smocked people clustering around - he looked away.
"We're taking the recording but I need to explain," his father said, ignoring Yifan's mother's glare as she stood up and disappeared through the OR doors. Yifan had long ago given up on them ever sorting out their differences and right now he couldn't care less. Baekhyun nudged his knee and he remembered to breathe.
"It's a memory copy?" Yifan asked hesitantly. He didn't know too much about his father's work, just that his mother didn't like it.
"We're working on the concept of second lives," his father said, and even now Yifan could detect the faintest flickers of pride in his father's voice. It would have made his mother furious; it just made him tired. He nodded. Please continue, so we can get this over with and I can make the decision I've already made and deal with the inevitable fallout.
"Dracus is the pioneer and leader in intelligent android prototype design," his father continued, his voice already falling into the patterns of a rehearsed speech, "and we've been testing a breakthrough project where a person's entire catalogue of brain waves and electrical impulses and consequently memories, thought patterns and entire personality are recorded and transferred to an unactivated type 8 android." It meant nothing to Yifan. He let the rise and fall of his father's voice drift and flow around him to escape down the hall while he examined his face. He's lying about something.
"Has this ever worked?" he interrupted the explanation which had progressed to the differences between a type 8 android and a type 7 android and pseudo-collagen cells which were actually real and he didn't really care at all. Baekhyun, standing against the wall, was frowning, storm clouds hovering above his face, his fingers clenching and unclenching as though he wanted to place them gently around someone's neck and squeeze.
"Yes!" his father assured him, smiling, and it was true, but there was still something else. Yifan thought about what his mother had said. There was a trickling draft winding its way in from some forgotten nook or cranny with a leak to the outside, the cold air whispering over his neck like an icy reminder. Why couldn't you have swallowed your fear?
"Has it ever worked with someone who is dying?" he asked instead and watched his father sputter. The older man opened his mouth, lips already curling up into a recovered smile when Baekhyun cleared his throat, the sound echoing loudly, sharply. Red-tinged glass on cement.
"No," his father admitted, looking at the ground. "It hasn't." Yifan didn't care, but it felt better to say it. Everything was in the open. Don't lie to me, not now, not when it matters more than it ever has before.
"We're taking the recording but you can still decide to say no," his father said quietly, all semblance of false bravado gone. And that was always how you dealt with everything, Yifan thought to himself. You always hid behind the fake things.
Baekhyun nudged him but Yifan ignored the gesture. "I'm not going to ask what goes wrong because I don't want to know," he said. "I just want to talk to Lu Han and someone needs to let me or I'm going in anyway." He wasn't shouting but he could feel the pinching around his eyes, the hot dryness before tears; he knew he sounded scary. His father stood and led the way.
the chrysanthemum means rest
Lu Han was too small. A tiny pale bundle of bones and skin surrounded by tubes and electrodes and machines, and beeping and wailing, and so many attachments coming out of a contraption on his head that Yifan had to pretend it wasn't there. He focused on Lu Han's eyes. They were open.
"Lu Han?" he asked, his voice catching over the vowel.
"I'm sorry," Lu Han said, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm sorry." There was red in the corner of his mouth. Yifan felt the stabbing in his chest intensify, dug his fingernails into the soft skin of his palms.
"What are you sorry for?" he didn't scream, but it felt like it, the words scraping his throat as they clawed up out of his mouth. The beeping got louder. He ignored the tubes and lines and took Lu Han's hand into his, folding his fingers around the colder ones. The empty space in his heart spasmed.
"I know you don't want me, but I love you," Lu Han breathed. "I'm sorry." And Yifan hated himself so much in that instant, a crystallized moment of self-realization. I was scared and I let you go.
A single tear rolled down Lu Han's cheek, disappearing into the small shadows of his pillow. Yifan opened his mouth -
the beeping coalesced into a blaring flatline and everything went off at once.
THE RECORDING HAS COME TO AN END
For a moment, he thought he could hear - but when he listened harder it was gone. The empty space in his heart burst, a cold wet feeling running down the inside of his chest. Only an echoing emptiness remained. He felt numb.
Baekhyun came up behind Yifan and laid a hand on his shoulder, a single spot of warmth in an icy wasteland, as pink and green figures rushed around on fast forward while he sat, frozen, in a barren desert of silence, and they took Lu Han away. I will never see him again.
part 4: the voice
Yifan didn't get out of bed for a week. Let the flowers rot, he didn't tell Baekhyun, when he messaged and poked and practically threatened him to get out bed. You still have the second Lu Han he finally messaged, even though Yifan knew that Baekhyun had too many reservations about the project. I'll come over there and sing under your window until you get a migraine.
Yifan turned over under the cold sheets and didn't think about the email his father had sent him.
There was one small thing I forgot to tell you in the commotion of the hospital. It's not terribly important but it needs to be clarified. Provided it all goes well, there's still the inconsequential matter of soulmates, i.e. Lu Han will be an android and thus will be incapable of being anyone's soul mate.
The letter went on into details and minutiae and things Yifan's father thought he needed to know, or was merely bragging about, he wasn't sure and he didn't care and he was so - he didn't even know what he felt.
What do I feel? he messaged Baekhyun, instead of sitting up in bed and walking over to look out the window where it was still raining. It had been raining for seven days now, either the universe was mourning with him or mocking him, each raindrop against the window whispering, "you let him go, you let him die."
Get out of bed and tell me yourself, Baekhyun messaged back. There was a knock on the door and Yifan groaned, hiding his head under the covers but his friend was relentless. He fell out of bed in a tangle of sheets and limped over to the door, already sporting a purpling bruise on his knee.
"I hate you," was the first thing that came out of his mouth when the door swung open. Baekhyun just looked up at him with a sugary acerbic grin, sympathy hovering in the corners of his eyes. And Yifan found himself collapsing into his warm embrace instead of punching him for making him get out of bed. Baekhyun stroked his back comfortingly.
"It will be okay," he murmured, and Yifan knew he was lying but he appreciated it anyway.
It felt like he was waiting, poised, not sure which way he was going to fall. Lu Han was dead but he couldn't mourn him yet, because he was also maybe going to be alive. I hate this. The flowers in Baekhyun's hand, chrysanthemums, were crushed when he pulled away.
"My father wrote me that, even if it works, he won't be my soul mate," Yifan said quietly, staring into the mashed potatoes. They looked like clouds, before rain. He could hear the silence as Baekhyun stopped chewing, the eerie ringing in his ears that swelled to fill the space. Waiting.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Baekhyun asked, not looking at the date circled in red on the empty calendar that hung, askew, on the wall. Yifan nodded.
I have to, he didn't say, but Baekhyun understood anyway.
the chrysanthemum means compassion
Yifan couldn't sleep all night, tossing and turning and when he did slip into a restless doze, he dreamt of robots with rusted bodies and dripping eyes chasing him: why didn't you love us, why didn't you love us, why didn't you love us
"I'm sorry," were the words sitting on his lips when he thrashed himself awake, tangled and freezing, the sheets clinging to him like an alien skin. Lu Han's face stared at him from his memories.I'm sorry, Lu Han said, and Yifan sat, motionless, torn between screaming and hitting his head against the wall until it bled all his darkness out.
He got dressed instead, skipping breakfast to slip outside, a flimsy umbrella all that sheltered him from the heavy downpour.
His father met him at the front desk as soon as the receptionist had buzzed to say he'd arrived. Yifan looked at the only partially-hidden smile on his father's face and couldn't help but feel bitter. I'm glad my personal life is such a great research opportunity for you, he didn't say, only nodding as his father's long-winded explanations went in one ear and out the other.
I'll be there if you need me, had been the message from Baekhyun waiting for him on his phone when he woke up.
Lu Han, "the blank android" as his father explained, was lying on a raised surface almost like an operating table, a crown of electrodes haloing his golden hair. He looked exactly the same, eyes and hair and a smile as he stopped in the middle of the street to look back, yet entirely different. The empty space in Yifan's chest stayed empty. The android wasn't breathing.
"Can I...can I hold his hand?" Yifan asked tentatively. His father stopped mid-explanation and looked at him, puzzled, before shrugging and nodding assent. You will never understand.
There was only one other person in the room, a technician who was sitting at the panel of screens to one side of the small room, but through the windows he could see more and more people congregating; even through the glass he could hear their excited chatter. He looked away, at the cold hand he was holding, fingers folded around a hand with the exact same weight and texture as the one in his own when he had felt Lu Han die.
"You can still say no," Yifan's father said, turning to him. Say yes, say yes, say yes, his eyes shouted.
"Do it," Yifan said quietly, heavily, as he tried not fall apart. There was a prickling burning behind his eyes and a scratchy dryness at the back of his throat but he didn't want to cry. I'm so sorry. He wasn't even sure to whom he was apologizing anymore.
There was a soft whirring and he could feel a strange humming tenseness in the room as the recording transfer commenced. Lu Han's whole body buzzed slightly - it didn't feel human at all and yet somehow the android felt alive. Yifan watched as his eyes flicked back and forth beneath pale, inanimate eyelids.
"It's like dreaming," his father explained, answering the question that hadn't been asked.
I wonder what it's like to dream a life? Yifan thought, as he watched Lu Han's face, watched his eyelashes flutter, his lips part slightly. Is it a nightmare? Time hung, suspended, the dustless room too quiet except for the buzzing and the quiet inhalations and exhalations of only three of the four people in the room. What is it like to remember dying?
TRANSFER HAS BEEN COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
He was shocked to find himself being held in his father's excited embrace and then equally bereft when his father turned away to exchange excited words with the technician.
"This is the first time a death recording has been transferred without errors!" the technician in his ugly green scrubs exclaimed, fist pumping victory into the air, and Yifan realized with a sad lack of surprise that his father had still been lying to him after all. He didn't even acknowledge the sheepish expression cast his way.
"Now what?" he asked, voice hoarse. The technician looked at his father, who nodded, before typing in a final sequence and hitting return.
Lu Han opened his eyes. They were strangely blue.
"Lu Han?" Yifan called, tentatively, the hope rising his his throat and welling out into his mouth, bittersweet on his tongue.
Lu Han blinked. Yifan squeezed his only slightly warmer hand between his fingers but his heart still had a hole in it.
"Lu Han?" he asked again, but his voice sounded like tears. Lu Han finally looked at him, but the angle was awkward because he hadn't moved yet. Not a centimetre. Yifan tried to smile; it turned out all wobbly because he's not my soulmate anymore. Lu Han's eyes were empty.
The people behind the glass were silent until his father gestured them away with a discreet flick of his wrist.
"What's wrong?" Yifan whispered. He didn't want to know but he had to know, all the same. Lu Han's fingers lay still in his hand.
"He didn't deactivate himself so it's a very good thing!" his father said, voice artificially bright. "We've made great progress!" Progress, Yifan thought quietly. I'm just another part of your experiments. He looked away.
His father untangled his fingers from Lu Han's hand, which was slowly thawing, and led him out into the empty hall to a quiet room where he could sit "and wait for the results of some diagnostic tests" - Yifan messaged Baekhyun instead. Something went wrong. It was only a matter of seconds before he got a reply. Do you want me to come or do you want to be alone?
Yifan sat at the edge of the over-soft armchair and sank his head into his hands. Everything was whirling together. Crushed chrysanthemums and blond hair and a hand that was a little warmer than it used to be. Not yet he wrote back, and slipped his phone back into his pocket, standing as another research assistant came for him.
"Basically the android receptacle is currently in a state very much equivalent to a human being catatonic," his father concluded the explanation, nodding as if satisfied with his diagnosis.
"Lu Han," Yifan corrected him. His father smiled indulgently and Yifan threaded his fingers through Lu Han's to avoid punching the scientist in the face. "So what happens now?"
"Well," his father looked apprehensive, "the test wasn't a complete success and technically the robot belongs to the corporation - " his voice trailed off as he saw Yifan's expression.
"He's mine," Yifan said quietly. "If he wants. I'll ask my mother for help then." The fingers of his free hand curved involuntarily into a fist; his father flicked his eyes down and noticed. He didn't miss the shiver that ran all too visibly down his father's spine. Checkmate.
Lu Han's hand was warm in his as they walked out the building. Yifan ignored the unreadable expressions of the the other scientists and research assistants and focussed on the grey outside, wrapping an arm around Lu Han's smaller shoulders so that they both fit under the umbrella as he flagged down a taxi, icy droplets of water flying up to hit his face as the car slowed to a stop in front of them. Yifan glanced over at Lu Han but he hadn't even blinked, drops of water trickling down his face like tears. Please wake up.
Even though she hadn't been in agreement, now that it was done his mother was nothing but the rock he'd always leaned on. She suggested taking Lu Han home and trying to spark some of his feelings and memories by retracing the moments they'd spent together.
"I can't promise you anything," she said, Lu Han sitting on the examining bench in the room and staring blankly at the wall while Yifan and his mother conferred in the hallway. "Even human catatonic patients often don't recover and androids aren't my speciality." She looked both sad and angry, but not with him. Yifan nodded; he hadn't expected anything else.
he's catatonic, he texted Baekhyun. looked it up, his friend texted back. just say the word and I'm where you need me. Yifan squeezed Lu Han's hand gently. There was no response. thanks, he replied.
the chrysanthemum means optimism
Lu Han had never been to his apartment; he settled him into the spare room, the smaller man sitting quietly on the chair by the window, hair ablaze in the late afternoon sun that peeked through the rainclouds. There was an arrangement of chrysanthemums on the bureau. As Yifan turned away he somehow knocked it over and the delicate celadon shattered on the floor, dried and brittle yellow heads lying separated from their stems.
He retreated to his room and sat with his head in his hands for a long time.
can you go to the office and tell them that I'm dropping out this semester and I'll maybe be back next? I already withdrew from the classes online.
are you sure?
Yifan replied with a ❁. I have other priorities right now.
Lu Han didn't need to eat, but he slept for long periods of time, recharging via the electrodes that Yifan attached carefully over his heart. His own heart still ached with emptiness; fingers barely glancing over a pale expanse of skin as Lu Han stared up at him, blue eyes wide open with nothing in them. And sometimes he simply let his eyelids fall shut as though he faced a weariness so extreme there was no room for words.
Do you know you're alive? Yifan wanted to ask. Do you think you're dead? Instead, he said nothing, merely re-buttoning the flannel pajama shirt and tucking Lu Han gently under the covers before returning to his cold bed, curling up into a fetal position, the only way he could get any rest at all. Even the shadows on the wall mocked him as the moon rose and set. You deserve this, they said.
He took Lu Han to the flower shop, the only place they had in common. It wasn't his imagination, at least he desperately hoped it wasn't, but Lu Han seemed more alive surrounded by the flowers. Pale orchids, delicate daisies, lush peonies and golden chrysanthemums. Rain still fell outside, but it was a quiet afterthought to break the oppressive silence of the apartment. Baekhyun dropped by after school to chatter to Lu Han for hours, the rising and falling of his voice no longer aggravating but rather a blessing, albeit one that Yifan would never admit to.
"You're as annoying as ever," he poked Baekhyun with a straight-edge, pretending to scowl even though he knew his friend could see right through his facade.
"You love it, don't even lie," Baekhyun smirked in reply, setting his backpack down on the floor, pulling out a textbook and proceeding to regale Lu Han with the finer points of macrobiology for the next three-quarters of an hour. He interspersed the definitions with juicy pieces of gossip and idle chatter about the weather and what Baekhyun was planning on wearing to the next party and how some freshman Zitao had caught his attention but he wasn't going to be that easy. Lu Han's face was still blank and only Baekhyun laughed at his lame jokes but somehow Yifan found himself crying behind the counter anyway, while he pretended to sort paper sizes. Baekhyun didn't even give him a hard time about his puffy eyes, only nudging him gently with an elbow before heading out into the grey to catch his bus home.
Yifan's chest still ached whenever he looked at Lu Han, skin accidentally grazing over skin or fingers enfolding a warm hand as they walked to the flower shop, and it didn't numb or fade, but the pain was something he was used to. He didn't answer Baekhyun's unvoiced questions, how long are you going to rewalk these circles? Lu Han's hand in his was enough. That's all I deserve.
the chrysanthemum flower symbolizes fidelity
He wasn't ready for Baekhyun to burst into song late one afternoon, working on a particularly difficult solo section that was bothering him, or for Lu Han to shudder, the single golden chrysanthemum in his hands almost, but not quite, slipping to the ground.
"Yifan! He moved!" Baekhyun's loud cries of exclamation set Yifan's heart thudding in his chest and he felt like he couldn't catch his breath - they both waited for another response but there was nothing and Yifan could feel his shoulders sinking back down into despair before Baekhyun reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.
"You sing," he breathed, and his voice held hope. But Yifan could feel himself curling smaller into himself in terror. Why are you such a coward? he pounded at the doors of his subconscious.
I'm too scared to hope anymore, the prickling behind his eyes and the tightness of his shoulders and the twisting mess of his stomach cried out, and he could tell that Baekhyun could read him, a comforting grasp on his shoulder and warmness flooding in like a promise. You're not alone.
Yifan looked into Lu Han's eyes; the blank emptiness that had been so full of hope, of life, of faith, of yearning. Of love. You deserve more than this. Even if I don't deserve you, you deserve the rest of your life, not matter what kind of life it is.
His hands, slipping forward, found Lu Han's warm fingers and wound them gently into his, the golden petals of the chrysanthemum sweet between their skin. His heart was beating so fast he thought it was going to burst, the empty spot so gaping, so vulnerable, so close to the surface. If this doesn't work I think it'll kill me, he didn't think. Instead, he took a ragged breath and opened his mouth. It had been so long, he didn't think he knew how anymore. But half-remembered words, from a memory or a dream or a different life, he wasn't sure, welled up from the cracks between his teeth and hollow beneath his tongue and bloomed into flower as he opened his mouth.
I can see your eyes gazing at the horizon
An empty street corner, a silent embrace, love is quietly ablaze
I think back to my first sight of you, think back to those mottled times
With you by my side, I finally stopped wandering aimlessly
My heartbeat, your smile, it quietly gives me support
There is a place
Only you and I know.
With the first word that fell out of his mouth, before some quiet magic picked it up and opened its wings and spread them, soaring out into the sky, a terrible rending pain like a knife cut deep into his heart; he could feel it stutter as he skipped a note until it decided to keep beating, the knife cutting deeper and deeper to gouge out the emptiness until with a last terrible twist it gave way and suddenly the emptiness in his heart was gone - it was the strangest, most awful and yet most beautiful feeling, so bereft and yet complete as tears streamed down his face in a silent flood and his fingers flexed unconsciously around Lu Han's fingers and Lu Han's fingers squeezed back. Yifan let the last few notes trail away as he sat, frozen, watching Lu Han blink once - blue - twice - hazel - three times and then something warm flooded into his gaze - maybe it was the golden reflection of the chrysanthemums or the light in Yifan's eyes or simply the rose and pink sky of the sunset outside when it had finally stopped raining. It was hard to say and it didn't matter anyway because Lu Han was there again, eyes glowing amber, he opened his mouth and with the first hum - before any words had even been spoken, Yifan felt a strange warmth rush out of his chest and along his arms and through his fingers and he knew afterwards, no matter what anyone told him about how soul mates were and weren't supposed to work, that Lu Han shivered as the warmth slipped between his skin. Then some strange kind of gravity was pulling them together until Yifan's arms were wrapped around Lu Han and Lu Han's arms were wrapped around him . . . and it felt like breathing for the first time.
it is believed by the Japanese that the chrysanthemum is a symbol of the sun, and the way in which it opens its petals denotes perfection
"I love you," Yifan whispered into Lu Han's ear, because the words were burning a hole in his stomach and he needed to say them, had needed to say them the moment he'd locked eyes with the idol behind the fansign table, regardless of the sound and light and sunglasses standing between them - he just hadn't understood yet. I'm still scared. But Lu Han's arms around him were warm and he felt a gentle tickling in the ear as Lu Han whispered back:
"I love you more."
They didn't even hear Baekhyun whistling happily as he slipped out the door, bell tinkling merrily as the sun slowly slipped below the horizon and painted the world rose.
And for the first time in his life, Yifan wasn't scared anymore.
epilogue: the light
When Lu Han opened his eyes, really opened them after blinking twice, it was like waking from a long dark dream - resurfacing from the water, the echo of a song still ringing in his head. His body felt strange, heavy and yet light, as though his joints had been rusty but sanded and oiled. My joints? But before he could wander further along that line of thinking he realized that his hands were folded into warm, slightly trembling fingers, and a glowy, tingling feeling swelled up over him, leaving him feeling alive. He looked into Yifan's eyes, because it was Yifan, he was Lu Han, and he remembered everything, even dying, and the light where he had gone. He’d been weightless but there was a strange gravity pulling him now; his body moved differently from what he was used to and yet everything was the same. He reached out into Yifan's warm embrace as he whispered,
"I love you," into Lu Han's ear. Lu Han knew he didn't have a heart with the same strange certainty with which children knew for certain they had toes, eyes, lips and a nose, there was nothing pumping non-existent blood through his strange body and yet there was the most glorious warmth filling his chest. It was like the light at the end of a tunnel but condensed into a syrupy certainty,
"I love you more," Lu Han whispered in reply, reaching his arms around Yifan's back to hold him close. He didn't know exactly what he was, not yet. But who he was was engraved into every molecule of his being.
I'm yours.
the chrysanthemum flower symbolizes long life
I believe we do not stay dead long.
Find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed.
Yours eternally, R.F.
~ the Cloud Atlas
End notes: the flower meanings are drawn from Google, Wikipedia and a list of birthstones.
part3: the silence
Sirens. Lights. Red red red rain on the ground and in his eyes and dripping down his back as he trembled. A corona around blond hair, white petals strewn over the cement and water, stained dark. Broken glass catching the flashing and sparkling like diamonds, as the dark puddle grew to touch the toes of his shoes. Yifan's face was wet and he couldn't figure out why.
in China, Japan and Korea, white chrysanthemums are symbolic of lamentation and grief
They were at the hospital, his mother in residence today and Yifan didn't know if it was better or worse. It was almost too much, the hospital being so close, his mother being there, Baekhyun texting him I'm on my way don't do anything crazy. It was almost too much because Lu Han was going to die.
"I'm so sorry Yifan," his mother said and this time he knew for sure what he had always suspected.
"What aren't you telling me," he asked, voice full of things he wasn't allowing himself to feel. If I don't feel it it won't hurt. The empty piece of his heart was throbbing and he wasn't even singing. His voice was flat. I can never sing again.
"I hoped," she began, twisting her hands in her white coat and she wasn't a doctor right now, she was a mother comforting a scared and crying boy who didn't want to sing anymore, "I hoped that I would never have to explain." She looked at Yifan, apology and regret written all over her face.
"Just tell me," Yifan said, his voice dull. Lu Han is dying. He didn't look at her, he looked at his reflection in the glass. He only asked you for one thing and you said no.
"When, when I saw you crying," her voice faltered over the words, "I knew...I suspected that it was the case." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Sometimes, if your tell causes you actual physical pain, it means something." Her hands fluttered toward the doors, the red light shining in the operating light, the memory of the words, we're just stabilizing him so that you can decide.
And Yifan understood. He understood everything, betrayal written across his face because his mother had known that he would break his heart.
I forgive you, he didn't say. "Decide what?" he asked instead. She took in a deep ragged breath, composing her expression into the doctor again. Yifan hated that she could collect herself so easily but then it wasn't her soulmate she was talking about. He wanted to scream that he'd never wanted a soulmate, that maybe, deep inside, he'd known that this would happen, but it was too late. I hate you Baekhyun. Where was he?
"You know what your father does, right?" his mother explained, voice careful, lips pinched as though holding back the emotions that would only get in the way. Yifan nodded, he didn't understand what robotics had to do with anything and -
"Oh," he said, the word falling like a stone to bounce on the white linoleum and skid away under the operating room door, where the light was still red and it didn't take that long to stabilize someone enough to say goodbye, did it? Yifan wanted Baekhyun to arrive already so he could yell at someone. He didn't want to think about what his father was doing.
"He's on his way here with the -," his mother swallowed, "with the scanner but," and she knelt down to put her hands on Yifan's shoulders where he sat on the hard bench. Staring deep into his eyes, she searched for answers to questions she hadn't even asked yet. "You have to decide first. You have to decide first because he's going to want to do it because it's his project but there's a big risk." Her voice was urgent, rousing Yifan out of his mental spirals of blame and despair. I never even kissed him.
"What?" he asked, lost in all the tides of emotion washing over him. "What?" He sounded like a broken record and that was how he felt, his memory still skipping over the delivery truck and Lu Han's smile. The pause before the end. His breathing. The silence before -
"It's never worked with someone who's dying," she said, and he could hear the no hidden between her words, the don't do this echoing from the glass walls, the you have to let him go tucked into the lines of her lips.
in some countries of Europe, incurve chrysanthemums are symbolic of death and are used only for funerals or on graves
Yifan thought about the fear he could feel singing through his veins. The dull throbbing in his chest that persisted, after the stabbing pain when his body arched in slow motion before he hit the ground, the smile on his face crumpling. The song he had been about to finally let escape from between his lips, where it had been lurking for so many years. He didn't even know the words. Now I never will.
"Yes," he said, and ignored the single tear that fell out of the doctor's eye as she became his mother again for a brief instant. Yes. "I don't care."
"Are you sure?" Baekhyun asked, when he finally appeared, just moments before Yifan's father's team rushed in the door at the end of the hall with too many assistants and green scrubs and a machine that looked like something out of a horror movie or a dystopian indie flick - he couldn't decide and he didn't care.
"I have to do this," Yifan replied, forgetting to yell at Baekhyun now that his friend was here and he could rest his head on his shoulder instead, even if it was too bony and Baekhyun was too short and his incessant humming was aggravating in a comforting way.
The door opened, the operating lights still lit, and Yifan realized that when it went off it would be the end. His father stepped out, the door swinging quietly shut behind him. Yifan could see clusters of green and pink-smocked people clustering around - he looked away.
"We're taking the recording but I need to explain," his father said, ignoring Yifan's mother's glare as she stood up and disappeared through the OR doors. Yifan had long ago given up on them ever sorting out their differences and right now he couldn't care less. Baekhyun nudged his knee and he remembered to breathe.
"It's a memory copy?" Yifan asked hesitantly. He didn't know too much about his father's work, just that his mother didn't like it.
"We're working on the concept of second lives," his father said, and even now Yifan could detect the faintest flickers of pride in his father's voice. It would have made his mother furious; it just made him tired. He nodded. Please continue, so we can get this over with and I can make the decision I've already made and deal with the inevitable fallout.
"Dracus is the pioneer and leader in intelligent android prototype design," his father continued, his voice already falling into the patterns of a rehearsed speech, "and we've been testing a breakthrough project where a person's entire catalogue of brain waves and electrical impulses and consequently memories, thought patterns and entire personality are recorded and transferred to an unactivated type 8 android." It meant nothing to Yifan. He let the rise and fall of his father's voice drift and flow around him to escape down the hall while he examined his face. He's lying about something.
"Has this ever worked?" he interrupted the explanation which had progressed to the differences between a type 8 android and a type 7 android and pseudo-collagen cells which were actually real and he didn't really care at all. Baekhyun, standing against the wall, was frowning, storm clouds hovering above his face, his fingers clenching and unclenching as though he wanted to place them gently around someone's neck and squeeze.
"Yes!" his father assured him, smiling, and it was true, but there was still something else. Yifan thought about what his mother had said. There was a trickling draft winding its way in from some forgotten nook or cranny with a leak to the outside, the cold air whispering over his neck like an icy reminder. Why couldn't you have swallowed your fear?
"Has it ever worked with someone who is dying?" he asked instead and watched his father sputter. The older man opened his mouth, lips already curling up into a recovered smile when Baekhyun cleared his throat, the sound echoing loudly, sharply. Red-tinged glass on cement.
"No," his father admitted, looking at the ground. "It hasn't." Yifan didn't care, but it felt better to say it. Everything was in the open. Don't lie to me, not now, not when it matters more than it ever has before.
"We're taking the recording but you can still decide to say no," his father said quietly, all semblance of false bravado gone. And that was always how you dealt with everything, Yifan thought to himself. You always hid behind the fake things.
Baekhyun nudged him but Yifan ignored the gesture. "I'm not going to ask what goes wrong because I don't want to know," he said. "I just want to talk to Lu Han and someone needs to let me or I'm going in anyway." He wasn't shouting but he could feel the pinching around his eyes, the hot dryness before tears; he knew he sounded scary. His father stood and led the way.
the chrysanthemum means rest
Lu Han was too small. A tiny pale bundle of bones and skin surrounded by tubes and electrodes and machines, and beeping and wailing, and so many attachments coming out of a contraption on his head that Yifan had to pretend it wasn't there. He focused on Lu Han's eyes. They were open.
"Lu Han?" he asked, his voice catching over the vowel.
"I'm sorry," Lu Han said, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm sorry." There was red in the corner of his mouth. Yifan felt the stabbing in his chest intensify, dug his fingernails into the soft skin of his palms.
"What are you sorry for?" he didn't scream, but it felt like it, the words scraping his throat as they clawed up out of his mouth. The beeping got louder. He ignored the tubes and lines and took Lu Han's hand into his, folding his fingers around the colder ones. The empty space in his heart spasmed.
"I know you don't want me, but I love you," Lu Han breathed. "I'm sorry." And Yifan hated himself so much in that instant, a crystallized moment of self-realization. I was scared and I let you go.
A single tear rolled down Lu Han's cheek, disappearing into the small shadows of his pillow. Yifan opened his mouth -
the beeping coalesced into a blaring flatline and everything went off at once.
THE RECORDING HAS COME TO AN END
For a moment, he thought he could hear - but when he listened harder it was gone. The empty space in his heart burst, a cold wet feeling running down the inside of his chest. Only an echoing emptiness remained. He felt numb.
Baekhyun came up behind Yifan and laid a hand on his shoulder, a single spot of warmth in an icy wasteland, as pink and green figures rushed around on fast forward while he sat, frozen, in a barren desert of silence, and they took Lu Han away. I will never see him again.
part 4: the voice
Yifan didn't get out of bed for a week. Let the flowers rot, he didn't tell Baekhyun, when he messaged and poked and practically threatened him to get out bed. You still have the second Lu Han he finally messaged, even though Yifan knew that Baekhyun had too many reservations about the project. I'll come over there and sing under your window until you get a migraine.
Yifan turned over under the cold sheets and didn't think about the email his father had sent him.
There was one small thing I forgot to tell you in the commotion of the hospital. It's not terribly important but it needs to be clarified. Provided it all goes well, there's still the inconsequential matter of soulmates, i.e. Lu Han will be an android and thus will be incapable of being anyone's soul mate.
The letter went on into details and minutiae and things Yifan's father thought he needed to know, or was merely bragging about, he wasn't sure and he didn't care and he was so - he didn't even know what he felt.
What do I feel? he messaged Baekhyun, instead of sitting up in bed and walking over to look out the window where it was still raining. It had been raining for seven days now, either the universe was mourning with him or mocking him, each raindrop against the window whispering, "you let him go, you let him die."
Get out of bed and tell me yourself, Baekhyun messaged back. There was a knock on the door and Yifan groaned, hiding his head under the covers but his friend was relentless. He fell out of bed in a tangle of sheets and limped over to the door, already sporting a purpling bruise on his knee.
"I hate you," was the first thing that came out of his mouth when the door swung open. Baekhyun just looked up at him with a sugary acerbic grin, sympathy hovering in the corners of his eyes. And Yifan found himself collapsing into his warm embrace instead of punching him for making him get out of bed. Baekhyun stroked his back comfortingly.
"It will be okay," he murmured, and Yifan knew he was lying but he appreciated it anyway.
It felt like he was waiting, poised, not sure which way he was going to fall. Lu Han was dead but he couldn't mourn him yet, because he was also maybe going to be alive. I hate this. The flowers in Baekhyun's hand, chrysanthemums, were crushed when he pulled away.
"My father wrote me that, even if it works, he won't be my soul mate," Yifan said quietly, staring into the mashed potatoes. They looked like clouds, before rain. He could hear the silence as Baekhyun stopped chewing, the eerie ringing in his ears that swelled to fill the space. Waiting.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Baekhyun asked, not looking at the date circled in red on the empty calendar that hung, askew, on the wall. Yifan nodded.
I have to, he didn't say, but Baekhyun understood anyway.
the chrysanthemum means compassion
Yifan couldn't sleep all night, tossing and turning and when he did slip into a restless doze, he dreamt of robots with rusted bodies and dripping eyes chasing him: why didn't you love us, why didn't you love us, why didn't you love us
"I'm sorry," were the words sitting on his lips when he thrashed himself awake, tangled and freezing, the sheets clinging to him like an alien skin. Lu Han's face stared at him from his memories.I'm sorry, Lu Han said, and Yifan sat, motionless, torn between screaming and hitting his head against the wall until it bled all his darkness out.
He got dressed instead, skipping breakfast to slip outside, a flimsy umbrella all that sheltered him from the heavy downpour.
His father met him at the front desk as soon as the receptionist had buzzed to say he'd arrived. Yifan looked at the only partially-hidden smile on his father's face and couldn't help but feel bitter. I'm glad my personal life is such a great research opportunity for you, he didn't say, only nodding as his father's long-winded explanations went in one ear and out the other.
I'll be there if you need me, had been the message from Baekhyun waiting for him on his phone when he woke up.
Lu Han, "the blank android" as his father explained, was lying on a raised surface almost like an operating table, a crown of electrodes haloing his golden hair. He looked exactly the same, eyes and hair and a smile as he stopped in the middle of the street to look back, yet entirely different. The empty space in Yifan's chest stayed empty. The android wasn't breathing.
"Can I...can I hold his hand?" Yifan asked tentatively. His father stopped mid-explanation and looked at him, puzzled, before shrugging and nodding assent. You will never understand.
There was only one other person in the room, a technician who was sitting at the panel of screens to one side of the small room, but through the windows he could see more and more people congregating; even through the glass he could hear their excited chatter. He looked away, at the cold hand he was holding, fingers folded around a hand with the exact same weight and texture as the one in his own when he had felt Lu Han die.
"You can still say no," Yifan's father said, turning to him. Say yes, say yes, say yes, his eyes shouted.
"Do it," Yifan said quietly, heavily, as he tried not fall apart. There was a prickling burning behind his eyes and a scratchy dryness at the back of his throat but he didn't want to cry. I'm so sorry. He wasn't even sure to whom he was apologizing anymore.
There was a soft whirring and he could feel a strange humming tenseness in the room as the recording transfer commenced. Lu Han's whole body buzzed slightly - it didn't feel human at all and yet somehow the android felt alive. Yifan watched as his eyes flicked back and forth beneath pale, inanimate eyelids.
"It's like dreaming," his father explained, answering the question that hadn't been asked.
I wonder what it's like to dream a life? Yifan thought, as he watched Lu Han's face, watched his eyelashes flutter, his lips part slightly. Is it a nightmare? Time hung, suspended, the dustless room too quiet except for the buzzing and the quiet inhalations and exhalations of only three of the four people in the room. What is it like to remember dying?
TRANSFER HAS BEEN COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY
He was shocked to find himself being held in his father's excited embrace and then equally bereft when his father turned away to exchange excited words with the technician.
"This is the first time a death recording has been transferred without errors!" the technician in his ugly green scrubs exclaimed, fist pumping victory into the air, and Yifan realized with a sad lack of surprise that his father had still been lying to him after all. He didn't even acknowledge the sheepish expression cast his way.
"Now what?" he asked, voice hoarse. The technician looked at his father, who nodded, before typing in a final sequence and hitting return.
Lu Han opened his eyes. They were strangely blue.
"Lu Han?" Yifan called, tentatively, the hope rising his his throat and welling out into his mouth, bittersweet on his tongue.
Lu Han blinked. Yifan squeezed his only slightly warmer hand between his fingers but his heart still had a hole in it.
"Lu Han?" he asked again, but his voice sounded like tears. Lu Han finally looked at him, but the angle was awkward because he hadn't moved yet. Not a centimetre. Yifan tried to smile; it turned out all wobbly because he's not my soulmate anymore. Lu Han's eyes were empty.
The people behind the glass were silent until his father gestured them away with a discreet flick of his wrist.
"What's wrong?" Yifan whispered. He didn't want to know but he had to know, all the same. Lu Han's fingers lay still in his hand.
"He didn't deactivate himself so it's a very good thing!" his father said, voice artificially bright. "We've made great progress!" Progress, Yifan thought quietly. I'm just another part of your experiments. He looked away.
His father untangled his fingers from Lu Han's hand, which was slowly thawing, and led him out into the empty hall to a quiet room where he could sit "and wait for the results of some diagnostic tests" - Yifan messaged Baekhyun instead. Something went wrong. It was only a matter of seconds before he got a reply. Do you want me to come or do you want to be alone?
Yifan sat at the edge of the over-soft armchair and sank his head into his hands. Everything was whirling together. Crushed chrysanthemums and blond hair and a hand that was a little warmer than it used to be. Not yet he wrote back, and slipped his phone back into his pocket, standing as another research assistant came for him.
"Basically the android receptacle is currently in a state very much equivalent to a human being catatonic," his father concluded the explanation, nodding as if satisfied with his diagnosis.
"Lu Han," Yifan corrected him. His father smiled indulgently and Yifan threaded his fingers through Lu Han's to avoid punching the scientist in the face. "So what happens now?"
"Well," his father looked apprehensive, "the test wasn't a complete success and technically the robot belongs to the corporation - " his voice trailed off as he saw Yifan's expression.
"He's mine," Yifan said quietly. "If he wants. I'll ask my mother for help then." The fingers of his free hand curved involuntarily into a fist; his father flicked his eyes down and noticed. He didn't miss the shiver that ran all too visibly down his father's spine. Checkmate.
Lu Han's hand was warm in his as they walked out the building. Yifan ignored the unreadable expressions of the the other scientists and research assistants and focussed on the grey outside, wrapping an arm around Lu Han's smaller shoulders so that they both fit under the umbrella as he flagged down a taxi, icy droplets of water flying up to hit his face as the car slowed to a stop in front of them. Yifan glanced over at Lu Han but he hadn't even blinked, drops of water trickling down his face like tears. Please wake up.
Even though she hadn't been in agreement, now that it was done his mother was nothing but the rock he'd always leaned on. She suggested taking Lu Han home and trying to spark some of his feelings and memories by retracing the moments they'd spent together.
"I can't promise you anything," she said, Lu Han sitting on the examining bench in the room and staring blankly at the wall while Yifan and his mother conferred in the hallway. "Even human catatonic patients often don't recover and androids aren't my speciality." She looked both sad and angry, but not with him. Yifan nodded; he hadn't expected anything else.
he's catatonic, he texted Baekhyun. looked it up, his friend texted back. just say the word and I'm where you need me. Yifan squeezed Lu Han's hand gently. There was no response. thanks, he replied.
the chrysanthemum means optimism
Lu Han had never been to his apartment; he settled him into the spare room, the smaller man sitting quietly on the chair by the window, hair ablaze in the late afternoon sun that peeked through the rainclouds. There was an arrangement of chrysanthemums on the bureau. As Yifan turned away he somehow knocked it over and the delicate celadon shattered on the floor, dried and brittle yellow heads lying separated from their stems.
He retreated to his room and sat with his head in his hands for a long time.
can you go to the office and tell them that I'm dropping out this semester and I'll maybe be back next? I already withdrew from the classes online.
are you sure?
Yifan replied with a ❁. I have other priorities right now.
Lu Han didn't need to eat, but he slept for long periods of time, recharging via the electrodes that Yifan attached carefully over his heart. His own heart still ached with emptiness; fingers barely glancing over a pale expanse of skin as Lu Han stared up at him, blue eyes wide open with nothing in them. And sometimes he simply let his eyelids fall shut as though he faced a weariness so extreme there was no room for words.
Do you know you're alive? Yifan wanted to ask. Do you think you're dead? Instead, he said nothing, merely re-buttoning the flannel pajama shirt and tucking Lu Han gently under the covers before returning to his cold bed, curling up into a fetal position, the only way he could get any rest at all. Even the shadows on the wall mocked him as the moon rose and set. You deserve this, they said.
He took Lu Han to the flower shop, the only place they had in common. It wasn't his imagination, at least he desperately hoped it wasn't, but Lu Han seemed more alive surrounded by the flowers. Pale orchids, delicate daisies, lush peonies and golden chrysanthemums. Rain still fell outside, but it was a quiet afterthought to break the oppressive silence of the apartment. Baekhyun dropped by after school to chatter to Lu Han for hours, the rising and falling of his voice no longer aggravating but rather a blessing, albeit one that Yifan would never admit to.
"You're as annoying as ever," he poked Baekhyun with a straight-edge, pretending to scowl even though he knew his friend could see right through his facade.
"You love it, don't even lie," Baekhyun smirked in reply, setting his backpack down on the floor, pulling out a textbook and proceeding to regale Lu Han with the finer points of macrobiology for the next three-quarters of an hour. He interspersed the definitions with juicy pieces of gossip and idle chatter about the weather and what Baekhyun was planning on wearing to the next party and how some freshman Zitao had caught his attention but he wasn't going to be that easy. Lu Han's face was still blank and only Baekhyun laughed at his lame jokes but somehow Yifan found himself crying behind the counter anyway, while he pretended to sort paper sizes. Baekhyun didn't even give him a hard time about his puffy eyes, only nudging him gently with an elbow before heading out into the grey to catch his bus home.
Yifan's chest still ached whenever he looked at Lu Han, skin accidentally grazing over skin or fingers enfolding a warm hand as they walked to the flower shop, and it didn't numb or fade, but the pain was something he was used to. He didn't answer Baekhyun's unvoiced questions, how long are you going to rewalk these circles? Lu Han's hand in his was enough. That's all I deserve.
the chrysanthemum flower symbolizes fidelity
He wasn't ready for Baekhyun to burst into song late one afternoon, working on a particularly difficult solo section that was bothering him, or for Lu Han to shudder, the single golden chrysanthemum in his hands almost, but not quite, slipping to the ground.
"Yifan! He moved!" Baekhyun's loud cries of exclamation set Yifan's heart thudding in his chest and he felt like he couldn't catch his breath - they both waited for another response but there was nothing and Yifan could feel his shoulders sinking back down into despair before Baekhyun reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.
"You sing," he breathed, and his voice held hope. But Yifan could feel himself curling smaller into himself in terror. Why are you such a coward? he pounded at the doors of his subconscious.
I'm too scared to hope anymore, the prickling behind his eyes and the tightness of his shoulders and the twisting mess of his stomach cried out, and he could tell that Baekhyun could read him, a comforting grasp on his shoulder and warmness flooding in like a promise. You're not alone.
Yifan looked into Lu Han's eyes; the blank emptiness that had been so full of hope, of life, of faith, of yearning. Of love. You deserve more than this. Even if I don't deserve you, you deserve the rest of your life, not matter what kind of life it is.
His hands, slipping forward, found Lu Han's warm fingers and wound them gently into his, the golden petals of the chrysanthemum sweet between their skin. His heart was beating so fast he thought it was going to burst, the empty spot so gaping, so vulnerable, so close to the surface. If this doesn't work I think it'll kill me, he didn't think. Instead, he took a ragged breath and opened his mouth. It had been so long, he didn't think he knew how anymore. But half-remembered words, from a memory or a dream or a different life, he wasn't sure, welled up from the cracks between his teeth and hollow beneath his tongue and bloomed into flower as he opened his mouth.
I can see your eyes gazing at the horizon
An empty street corner, a silent embrace, love is quietly ablaze
I think back to my first sight of you, think back to those mottled times
With you by my side, I finally stopped wandering aimlessly
My heartbeat, your smile, it quietly gives me support
There is a place
Only you and I know.
With the first word that fell out of his mouth, before some quiet magic picked it up and opened its wings and spread them, soaring out into the sky, a terrible rending pain like a knife cut deep into his heart; he could feel it stutter as he skipped a note until it decided to keep beating, the knife cutting deeper and deeper to gouge out the emptiness until with a last terrible twist it gave way and suddenly the emptiness in his heart was gone - it was the strangest, most awful and yet most beautiful feeling, so bereft and yet complete as tears streamed down his face in a silent flood and his fingers flexed unconsciously around Lu Han's fingers and Lu Han's fingers squeezed back. Yifan let the last few notes trail away as he sat, frozen, watching Lu Han blink once - blue - twice - hazel - three times and then something warm flooded into his gaze - maybe it was the golden reflection of the chrysanthemums or the light in Yifan's eyes or simply the rose and pink sky of the sunset outside when it had finally stopped raining. It was hard to say and it didn't matter anyway because Lu Han was there again, eyes glowing amber, he opened his mouth and with the first hum - before any words had even been spoken, Yifan felt a strange warmth rush out of his chest and along his arms and through his fingers and he knew afterwards, no matter what anyone told him about how soul mates were and weren't supposed to work, that Lu Han shivered as the warmth slipped between his skin. Then some strange kind of gravity was pulling them together until Yifan's arms were wrapped around Lu Han and Lu Han's arms were wrapped around him . . . and it felt like breathing for the first time.
it is believed by the Japanese that the chrysanthemum is a symbol of the sun, and the way in which it opens its petals denotes perfection
"I love you," Yifan whispered into Lu Han's ear, because the words were burning a hole in his stomach and he needed to say them, had needed to say them the moment he'd locked eyes with the idol behind the fansign table, regardless of the sound and light and sunglasses standing between them - he just hadn't understood yet. I'm still scared. But Lu Han's arms around him were warm and he felt a gentle tickling in the ear as Lu Han whispered back:
"I love you more."
They didn't even hear Baekhyun whistling happily as he slipped out the door, bell tinkling merrily as the sun slowly slipped below the horizon and painted the world rose.
And for the first time in his life, Yifan wasn't scared anymore.
epilogue: the light
When Lu Han opened his eyes, really opened them after blinking twice, it was like waking from a long dark dream - resurfacing from the water, the echo of a song still ringing in his head. His body felt strange, heavy and yet light, as though his joints had been rusty but sanded and oiled. My joints? But before he could wander further along that line of thinking he realized that his hands were folded into warm, slightly trembling fingers, and a glowy, tingling feeling swelled up over him, leaving him feeling alive. He looked into Yifan's eyes, because it was Yifan, he was Lu Han, and he remembered everything, even dying, and the light where he had gone. He’d been weightless but there was a strange gravity pulling him now; his body moved differently from what he was used to and yet everything was the same. He reached out into Yifan's warm embrace as he whispered,
"I love you," into Lu Han's ear. Lu Han knew he didn't have a heart with the same strange certainty with which children knew for certain they had toes, eyes, lips and a nose, there was nothing pumping non-existent blood through his strange body and yet there was the most glorious warmth filling his chest. It was like the light at the end of a tunnel but condensed into a syrupy certainty,
"I love you more," Lu Han whispered in reply, reaching his arms around Yifan's back to hold him close. He didn't know exactly what he was, not yet. But who he was was engraved into every molecule of his being.
I'm yours.
the chrysanthemum flower symbolizes long life
I believe we do not stay dead long.
Find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed.
Yours eternally, R.F.
~ the Cloud Atlas
End notes: the flower meanings are drawn from Google, Wikipedia and a list of birthstones.