[fic] Conches Calling, Curtains Falling, Summer's Coming Home (2/2)

[ofolivesnginger]

Author ofolivesnginger
Fandom: EXO
Pairing: Kris/Luhan, mentions of Kris/Lay and Kris/Kyungsoo
Rating: R
Words: 11,556
Summary: The mailman’s almost here with the bad news: Kris Wu with the literal broken heart of 7839 East Sablefish Drive has a new boyfriend. He’ll be here with the news...any time now...



Part I

Two months after they started dating, Kris once took him to one of his MRI tests. Luhan never explicitly stated just how interested he was in the whole business, and the topic of past love affairs never really came up besides when they worried over the aftermaths, but Kris could tell he wanted to see for himself. If he were Luhan, he’d want to witness the proof too, see for his own two eyes how a human being can be so powerful as to scar another this indelibly.

Kris was friends with his cardiologist by this point, so after some sanitization, Luhan got to hang around the MRI machine while Kris got changed. Luhan was standing beside the table, and Kris was lying down, naked save for the starched white sheet draped over him. He watched Luhan as they waited, and Luhan was smiling, pretty amused by everything so far.

“What does it feel like in there?”

“The inferno,” Kris said. He lifted his head and looked down his body, past his feet and into the lit hole. “Actually, nothing really.”

Luhan stood outside the glass room once the scan started, watching Kris get slid in like he’s being delivered into a hot pocket. He waited until Kris came back out, and it was another while before the scan was developed. Meanwhile, Luhan took a pamphlet on the broken heart condition and read up on it. Apparently, something like this is not likely to ever heal, but nor will it worsen if properly taken care of, and barely 0.001% percent of people in the world experience any degree of this in their lives.

The doctor came back with the scan and held it up against a light panel. It wasn’t hard to see that a good portion of Kris’ heart broke in half, with hundreds of miniscule splits branching out the center crack. “This is all Yixing,” Kris said, tracing the crooked line with the pad of his finger. Luhan let out a long whistle. He was in awe, maybe finally getting hit with the fact that his boyfriend’s heart has a three and a half centimeter crack down the middle, that he’s severely broken and it’s all real, even if nobody can see anything from the outside.

“Seriously,” he said, with a laugh like a sharp exhale, “who was this guy? How attractive was he?”

Kris chuckled. “He had a cute dimple.”

Luhan shook his head, still a little dazed. “Your standards are so low.”

When the doctor left, Kris started to change out of his crinkly robe. Luhan watched Kris while he dressed, trying to spot anything on him that would give the deadly condition away, and it’s not like he hasn’t done it before the countless times he’d been with Kris naked, but it’s just become a habit, looking, then not finding, and fooling himself. When Kris started to toss on his tshirt, Luhan stepped forward and smoothed a hand over his bare chest, stopping him from his movement. Kris kept the tshirt bunched at his underarms while Luhan patted and prodded at the skin there. He traced the faint scar down the middle, where they’d once done the sealing surgery, then stopped just to the left, palm warm right on the spot over Kris’ heart. Luhan’s knuckles rapped against him softly. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

Not me, Luhan thought after a minute.

Yixing was allegedly Kris’ best friend for about 6 years. That’s all Kris told him about Yixing on his own, outside of what he told him about Yixing in regards to Kris: the fact that he was once infatuated with Yixing and when he left town to go to dance school, Kris’ heart just shattered. Luhan didn’t need to hear about the significance of this person, because it’ll always seem less than it was when put into words, so he doesn’t really ask. Besides, these pictures are the best proof of everything. Nobody around town seems to want to talk about Yixing, even any trivial things, so Luhan just rolls with it. Apparently Kris had patient privileges, and made the town swear to not tell Yixing what happened to Kris, even though its almost impossible to not know by now from how much media attention this got locally, unless he really ended up going far from this place.

Luhan found a few pictures of Yixing in Kris’ yearbooks. He was best described as sweet, and apparently that’s what everyone felt too. Kris added that he was a huge airhead, and Luhan couldn’t agree more that he totally looks like he could be the type to completely not notice his best friend was in love with him for four years. Suddenly the idea of letting him know now, after the damage is done, seemed too cruel a thing to do to the cute kid, and whatever sour thought Luhan had before of making sure this Yixing took responsibilities for what he caused slowly diluted.

From time to time he thought about this Yixing boy, how he must feel if he did find out, how Luhan would feel if he were the one to leave such a deep impression, and he decided after consideration that whatever overwhelming feeling he’d get would be drowned out by an awful guilt, and he was glad these few inches wasn't his doing, even if it meant that what Kris had before might always mean something more to him than anything he has with Luhan or anything he has with anyone after.

It’s a new condition that began in the past decade, people’s hearts breaking. Something about 21st century spiritual enlightenment, about living in an age when society as a whole is moving further up Maslow’s triangle. Apparently after physiological needs are met, safety and security needs are met, some people begin taking the need for love and belonging further, pushing it right up past the self-actualization and making love some sort of actualization itself. More people are beginning to delve deep into the realm of possibilities of what it means to love, with so much time to waste simply indulging in these intense emotions and looking to see how far they go. There’s gotta be a scientific explanation as well, but they’re still working on that one. The priority is of course figuring out how to cure it first. Usually these emotion based illnesses develop ironically in the brain, so what Kris has is quite miraculous, since it’s the first time anything intangible manifested into something tangible.

That’s what Luhan told him too, first time they met in philosophy 201. Kris sat next to him with a cane, and Luhan just had to ask.

“I went through a recent surgery,” Kris told him, smiling. Luhan could see he was fine all over, all six feet of him, there were no scars or anything.

“What kind?”

Kris sat down, scratching at his neck. “This part’s always a little awkward. Um, my heart broke into pieces so they glued it back together.”

Luhan had raised an eyebrow. “That’s impressive.”

“Thanks.”

“How do you even manage to do that?”

Kris chuckled, sounding kind of pained. “Go big or go home, right?”

“I’m Luhan.” Luhan had looked absolutely delighted.

“Kris.” And they shook hands.

Luhan was always stealthily interested, but he was pretty sure Kris knew. Finally, at the very end of second year, Kris asked Luhan out. Luhan knew that Kris was still getting over things, and he was ok with being there to help, as long as Kris realized Luhan is the present and he wasn’t there to fill in a hole from the past. It’s ridiculous, how fast Kris fell in love with him, as soon as he became actually ready to move on and let himself love again.

And yeah, Kris did fall in love with Luhan, maybe not the way he suddenly realized one day that he was in love all this time with everything Yixing was, but more that he learned to love Luhan piece by piece along the way. There was the extraverted side of him at first, and how quickly Kris came to realize he’s extremely clever. The sadistic side of him when they eventually became close enough for Luhan to let loose around him. There’s Luhan the introvert, Luhan who always tries to bear his problems by himself. Luhan the romantic, how he shifts from scatterbrained to focused during the moments that matter. There’s the childish Luhan and his annoying whining when Kris tries to prompt him out of bed early in the winter, and the mature Luhan bearing more clarity of mind than Kris ever had during midterms. Luhan the surfer, Luhan the caring son, Luhan the lover, Luhan the shower singer, Luhan the burnt coffee maker. Luhan who still hadn’t said the three words. Luhan who falls back onto the mattress and wholeheartedly trusts him. Kris was falling yet again, and this time it felt so, so good to know someone will be there at the end waiting to catch him.

Flash forward ten months. It’s late March when Kris caught a cold and didn’t get better for three whole weeks. Exam season was approaching fast, and Luhan was already running around losing his mind with Kris so sick in bed, when on top of it all his father was diagnosed with diabetes. It certainly wasn’t their first fight, but it was the one that ended it all. Luhan’s dark attitude was adding to Kris’ headache, and Kris didn’t need one more person in the house going crazy from his own problem. The breakup was such a heat of the moment thing with so little substantial basis that Luhan never really expected it to be final, so when he moved into Jongdae’s living room, he’d expected it to be temporary until the school year ended, until they’d each gotten their space, and once school year’s over they’d simply gravitate back together again. He hadn’t expected that Kris would come by while he was out at the library and drop off a small box of all the stuff Luhan didn’t bother to take with him, like his Yankee candles and deodorant. Just like that, it ended. It was huge blow to Luhan’s pride, and his original plans of staying on good terms with Kris was tossed out the window from the indignation. Everybody tended to Luhan’s like consoling a baby lion, scared he’ll snap any moment. Kris wanted to stay friends, and a bunch of their friends tried to reconcile them too, but the best they got out of trying was a bitter Luhan, past the state of acceptance and anger, but equally scary with how acrimonious he became.

Flash forward again to June, school’s over, whatever little hope Luhan had left was briefly rekindled, and promptly snuffed out again with the salt-on-the-wound piece of news: there’s a newcomer in town from the city, Do Kyungsoo. He’s not here to stay, he came for Kris. He was staying as a guest in Kris’ house. Allegedly, nobody around town has seen him smile or talk to anyone aside from Kris. Zitao was stupid enough to invite the three of them together to hangout night, and around the big round table everybody was drunk when Jongin spun the bottle but Kyungsoo grabbed Kris’ collar and kissed him smack dab on the cheek before it stopped and landed on Baekhyun.

That was right around the time Luhan took the summer job at the post office. Two weeks after Kyungsoo left, the first letter came, wrapped in a puffy bubble mailer, addressed to Kris. Luhan shook the package, but he couldn’t tell what was in it. Either way, a lot of things just fell into place that day.

He’s making his morning round in Kris’ direction now, three blocks away from the house. He’s got the latest four letters he’s stolen in the past month tucked into a special flap in his bag, which he even bothered to tie together this morning. It’s already August, and Luhan is watching time fly by, these laid back days when the inactivity would surely make anyone want to reignite an old spark or two, and he’s just watching it go, counting weeks by the letters from someone else. Luhan doesn’t find fun at all in stealing Kris’ letters, and he has no interest in reading any of them, he’s sure his guesses won’t be too far off from reality anyway. He is jealous, he’ll give him that much, but it’s the kind of ache that Luhan would categorize with the hundreds of other emotions he never told anyone, the ones closest to the heart, the ones that really mattered. Luhan isn’t nearly low enough to fuck with Kris’ relationships for real. He’s tired of fighting with Kris, tired of acting childish only because being anything else would be letting the pain get to him. Luhan’s tired of thinking there’s still some hope left every time he remembered how inconclusive their end was. He doesn’t have this much dignity to spare, acting like the villain all the time. He isn’t about to give away any more pieces of himself for Kris to slash to bits.

Luhan wants Kris back, and he’s already accepted this, but he’s also long ago accepted that it was over. The only thing he wants from Kris now, the only thing he’s hoping to get is for Kris to give him a more satisfying closure. If Kris can’t even give him this, then Luhan won’t ask for it anymore. He’s waited long enough. Luhan is ready to move on.

Dear Kris,

How are you? I hope you’ve been receiving my letters...I’m a little worried from the lack of response. Anyway, this time I’ve attached the usual medicine, you won’t need instructions by now. Your doctor has sent me the updated scans and reports, and there’s been no problems so far from what I can tell.

Something happened lately here at the office, and I feel like I should tell you… I just wanted you to know, all these years I’ve placed all my trust in science, and I’ve come to think that maybe only now I’m seeing the truth. There are impalpable things science can’t define, things science can’t reach and only something greater can. I’m starting to think that all this medicine we give you, they can only dull the pain, but the only thing that can heal it is maybe something else completely…

One of the worse patients we’ve gotten, Park Chanyeol, under the care of our usually stoic nurse Oh over a span of 5 months, has just yesterday fully recovered, at a speed with which his past two years of med records can’t compete. I took the scan myself, and his heart looked so smooth and seamless it’s like it was never damaged. Chanyeol has been an experiment kept quiet from reports by the department, ever since his irregular healing patterns began when he switched nurses, and has been dubbed an anomalous case until now. We think we finally understand why. There’s been talk about publishing this discovery in the national science journals next month. This could mean so many things and bring about so many changes. I am elated and dumbfounded by this possibility. For some reason unfathomable to myself, you were the first person I wanted to share my joy with. Until then...

I hope you receive my sentiments.. :-)

xoxo
Do Kyungsoo

Kris puts the letter down on his lap, and leans back slowly in his rocking chair. This is dated as the last of the four letters he got in the mail today, written five days ago. In the envelope there is the cannister of medicine, the latest medical report, and Kyungsoo’s usual letter printed on sepia tinted heavy duty paper. Kris has only gotten the letter, and now he’s already speechless, swinging back and forth on the chair.

He knows for a fact that Luhan had proposed the exact same idea to him before, and remembering it makes him warm all over. It was during one of those nights when they made love with the lights off, and Luhan has just climbed atop him, both of them catching their breaths from a kiss when Luhan does that thing he always did in the middle of sex, where he talks about the randomest things which all end up leaving deep impressions on Kris afterwards. Looking down at Kris he’d said, “do you ever think maybe this heartbreak thing works the same way the metaphorical version does?” And then he’d bent his whole body down to press wet kisses all across the circumference of Kris’ neck. “Like, maybe it’d just go away if you fell in love again.”

Kris doesn’t remember what he said in response, if he did speak at all with Luhan’s mouth on his throat, but he does remember the next part. Luhan’s thighs over his hips was driving him mad, and Kris in his dazed state grabbed blindly above his head for the condom and lube, and then Luhan said something. “Let me help,” he said. And Kris remembers distinctly thinking Luhan meant help him with the heart thing before he felt Luhan’s hands rolling the condom on for him.

What Kyungsoo has just told him validates everything about this theory. Science can’t touch the impalpable. Scars from impalpable things can only be healed by the impalpable. Luhan never had to run around all winter trying to find what avant garde medicine could heal Kris of his broken heart, because there is none. Love is what will save him, and given what Kris has done to the two of them, maybe love will be more costly than all of the meds Kyungsoo has given him combined.

Kris does get Kyungsoo’s sentiments, he really does. He has since the beginning when Kyungsoo stepped out of his convertible and pretty much checked him out head to toe as a greeting. Kyungsoo was just plain eccentric, living in his own little world of his own little feelings, that sometimes Kris didn’t even feel like he himself was involved, until Kyungsoo decided Kris’ involvement was required. What the two of them are had always been sorta murky, since Kris had never said yes or no to anything, and Kyungsoo hasn’t acknowledged anything either. Kris feels a little bad that he’s going to have to outright clarify his stance now, especially right after what’s probably the closest Kyungsoo has come to a confession, but this letter was what did him in. His biggest problem--heck, it’s been their biggest problem ever since he and Luhan got together--is finally looking like it can be solved, and it seems like the solution is much simpler than they ever prayed for.

When he comes back with his laptop, Kris is smiling wide the way he hasn’t in a long time.

Luhan’s wandering the uptown streets in the morning, grabbing this week’s grocery when he passes the newsstand Jongin’s currently sitting behind. He stops in the middle of the road, squinting in the light to read the headlines. When Jongin notices him, he looks up from his manga and waves. Luhan’s got both hands full, so he smiles back and nods, taking his bags with him up to the stand.

“Morning, kid.”

“Morning, hyung.”

He pays Jongin for a copy of the local paper, along with a pack of gum. He rolls the paper up and sticks it into one of the bags, then makes his way a block west for Joonmyun’s cafe. It’s his Sunday morning routine, grocery shop, get the paper (only day out of seven he actually buys it), then have breakfast at Joonmyun’s cozy little place to test out for free whatever new recipe he’s come up with this time.

He walks past the life sized cutout at the entrance, grimacing at it before he remembers that it’s still shorter than him and walks in.

Seated and ordered, Luhan pulls out the paper and flips through it, not really paying attention. To be honest, there’s only one reason Luhan ever buys the paper at all. Every Sunday for the past few years, Kris has been writing columns for the Readers’ Voice special section, under the pseudonym Ace. According to Kris, nobody else knows it’s him besides Luhan, which is a good thing, because Kris has sent in all types of shit to them.

He’s most famous (or infamous) for writing college gossip into short stories with the characters’ names changed. There was once a story about a kid named Toe who worked temporarily for a phone sex hotline just to buy a pair of $200 zebra print pants, and coincidentally enough the following week, Kris’ little sidekick stooge Huang Zitao went to class in apparently nothing but pajamas. Luhan had already made Kris swear never to write this type of shit about him, and Kris had promised, and indeed the week after, he wrote about the galactic romance of a little prince from the Moon called Lou, and an adventurer named Kevin who’s come all the way from Pluto. The Lou and Kevin stories became a series, though not continuous, just whenever he feels something inspiring has happened, or sometimes when he wants something to happen, but all of that of course stopped after they broke up.

His stories are always inspired by something around him, some sweet romance he spots, or some unrequited love a friend is harboring, some dirt on someone who’s recently pissed him off, or some fictional humiliation to a thinly disguised character, all sorts of things. (Jongdae found out at some point, since he used to work at the publisher’s and saw Kris’ address, but Kris wrote something ultra nasty that week and got Jongdae fired, which worked out best for everyone since now there’s good burgers for the whole town to eat.) Apparently before Luhan moved into town, all he ever wrote about was Yixing, but that was under another name.

Luhan scans around the two whole pages, looking for Kris’ name, and he finds it in the middle, but he’s thrown off by the title: Romanticismo Galattico 6. It’s the first time he’s written about them, or written about Luhan, in any sort of character or setting since the breakup. Luhan’s seized by the idea, wondering why he would revive Lou and Kevin when they don’t even have a romanticismo anymore. He sips his cooling tea and reads on.

In this episode, Lou comes back to his little moon palace, from where nobody knows, to find his knight (knighted in some episode past) on the open balcony with the billowing curtains, watching the blinking stars in the distance. Lou calls out to him when he sees him, happy to be united with his friend at last, but Kevin doesn’t respond and keeps watching the stars. Dejected, Lou goes off to find a friend and is told that the knight has lost his hearing.

Carrying the sad news, Lou goes back to Kevin, and asks him to speak to him in writing. Kevin draws for him a rabbit, the palace, some notes of music, and beneath he writes, “the hare of the moon has come to visit in your absence, my precious prince, and he sang so beautifully that the only thing my ears heard is his song, but he has left and now I can hear nothing.”

When he heard this, Lou held Kevin’s face gently in his hands and said, “My kind knight, I will sing something equally as beautiful, so you can hear the voices of the universe again.” And he began singing, with all his might, smile wide and sweet spinning beautiful melodies with his tender voice, but Kevin did not hear what he said, and he stands puzzled, wondering why his prince’s eyes are glimmering, beautifully so. Kevin the knight stands smiling, but he does not hear his song.

Luhan doesn’t understand the allegory, not completely, but it moves him. He doesn’t get what any of it means, but the only thing it reminds him of is Kris recording him singing in the shower, and he’s left wondering if there’s ever going to be a 7 where Kris tells him whether Kevin ever hears Lou’s voice again.

The sky’s especially beautiful today, with not a shred of cloud to be seen floating about for a good few miles above the beach, so Luhan decides to go down with his board. It’s not especially hot, either, with the weather starting to transition into fall already, paired with the sea breeze blowing up the hill, it’s heavenly just to stand by the water. He’s been teaching Minseok how to surf, and he’s not bad at it, but there haven’t been many chances with him working all the time, plus there haven’t been many good waves around this summer. Further down west on the beach, the waves get a little higher, but to catch something thrilling would take some driving. Not that Luhan minded a whole lot; he isn’t exactly in shape for the big challenges, having not been with his old crew from his high school for years, and they were usually the ones to drag him out of his comfort zone.

He goes to say hi to Jongdae and Minseok, asking if Minseok wants to come along. Jongdae tells him to get lost and stop stealing his employees, so Luhan walks the bank another fifteen minutes down, where the beach is literally empty of people. He drops his bag, strips down, already changed into his wetsuit, and takes his board out to the water.

He spends half an hour riding some little waves, and it’s fun, no challenge. He gets to stretch himself and forget about things while he goes through the movements. When he gets tired, Luhan’s quite a way out from the beach, so he lies belly down on his board and paddles around aimlessly, enjoying the cool water. Some time later, he manages to lie on his back with his hands on his stomach, nothing in his view but the pure blue of the sky above him. He always forgets to appreciate this place, always taking it for granted. Despite all the turmoil of the past year, Luhan hasn’t really realized that this kind of a gorgeous oasis is the perfect little getaway from pain, hasn’t really taken advantage of its healing properties. Then again, it’s hard to forget about it all when it happened in this place.

He’s drifting slowing on the surface, listening to the calming waves when suddenly a motorboat revs up not far in the distance. Luhan sits up on his board and squints ahead to see a boat come into view from the beach, and what is undoubtedly a parasailer being tugged along behind it, slowly gaining altitude as the stark red parachute catches wind and drifts. Luhan watches it head in his general direction, absentmindedly noting how fast the boat is going, before it gets close enough that Luhan hears a half scream half cheer coming from its direction, and in the same second that his mind identifies that voice, it’s also suddenly remembered where he’s seen that parachute before.

Luhan freaks out for three seconds, seized with panic, and Zitao screams with joy again, his voice actually dragging behind him with how fast the boat is going. It takes him another second to confirm the parasailer as Kris when he shouts “slow down, Zitao slow down!” choked up with laughter, loud and booming right in the open, and its a sound Luhan hasn’t heard in a long time. He’s watching the whole procession come closer to him, strung up with how dangerous it all looks. Zitao’s still going way too fast, and they’re about 100 meters away when he makes a sharp curve, and with a resounding snap, the rope attaching the parachute to the boat comes off. Kris is left drifting in the air, shouting out “oh shit oh shit oh fuck” through laughter while Zitao drives right off before realizing, and Luhan only takes three deep breaths before he’s done with the hysteria, and is clawing his way to the shore.

As soon as he gets on sand, he dumps his board and runs straight to where Kris is drifting, yelling his name. He stands there, ready to dart, watching Kris float closer to the surface of the water. When there’s about 10 meters of a drop left, Luhan watches Kris slide himself out of the leg holders, throw his torso back and releases the ropes, back diving right into the water.

Luhan’s heartbeat is thundering in his ears. He whips his head around and sees a little shack, and beside it an inflatable motor boat. He runs up and finds it still pumped enough with air to float, and hauls it right along with him to the water. Kris is treading water right in the spot where he landed, and Luhan’s charging right in his direction. “Get on,” he barks when he’s close enough, and Kris doesn’t argue, just climbs onto the back, even though he looks like he just had the time of his life. Luhan is so angry, he doesn’t even let himself feel Kris’ arms wound tightly around his waist when they ride back.

As soon as they’re on shore, Luhan pushes Kris right off his back and kicks his way off the seat. The boat flips, but he doesn’t care, shoving at Kris’ chest and making him stumble backwards and almost fall. He jostles Kris all the way back up the beach until he sits him down on a log and runs off to grab his own bag, board forgotten further down the beach. He quickly tugs out the folded towel, dropping his sandals, but he really doesn’t care, throwing the bag against the log. As soon as he gets the towel unfolded, he wraps it around Kris’ shoulders, and when Kris is too slow to respond and the towel slides off, Luhan inhales sharply, grabbing Kris’ hand to hold on the the towel. He then rifles through the bag for his water bottle and shoves it at Kris.

“Drink.”

Kris looks up at him, confused, but he uncaps it slowly, and Luhan’s so irritated he wants to pour the water down his throat for him. He’s never taken lifeguard so he doesn’t know what to do, and even though there are diving boards that tall Kris’ fall was pretty high still, and he might have jumped into one of the no diving zones, Luhan couldn’t tell. Whether it was safe or not doesn’t even matter right now because Kris is not the average young adult because he’s fucking broken and he could have died just now and Luhan can’t believe how fucking careless and irresponsible he was being.

He gets down on his knees, moving Kris’ leg around, looking for wounds. “Did you fracture anything? Are you hurt?” When he looks up, Kris is watching him, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. He looks so fascinated, in contrast to Luhan’s own knit brows, like he still hasn’t snapped back to reality and hasn’t realized how many things he’d done wrong and like Luhan’s some mermaid princess here to save him. Luhan shoves him so hard on the shoulders Kris loses his balance and falls back onto the sand, letting out a groan. He sits back up, dusting himself off, and Luhan’s hands are clenched at his sides.

“Are you fucking stupid? You have a heart fracture. It’s weak enough as it is! What if you get a fucking heart attack, Kris? You wanna fucking die? Take care of yourself, dammit!”

Luhan’s chest is heaving, and he could see his spit flying a second ago. One of the spittles landed on Kris’ arm, but he didn’t flinch. He’s still watching Luhan with that intense look, and Luhan doesn’t know what it is but it makes him so unsettled that for a split second he feels like he should be cowering, like he’s the one who’s done something wrong. Kris doesn’t speak, just breathing calmly while Luhan starts to slow his breath. He’s still holding Luhan’s bottle in one hand.

Luhan’s about to shout at him some more when suddenly behind him comes the sound of the boat again, and Luhan snaps around in shock. Zitao’s coming up from the direction he left in earlier, coming to their part of the beach. About fucking time, Luhan’s thinking, when Kris calls his name. “Luhan.”

Luhan snaps back around again, and right as he does, there’s a towel being looped around the back of his head, and Kris is pulling in to kiss him.

Luhan’s eyes are wide, whole body frozen as Kris slides his lips against his own, and it feels exactly the same as he remembers. Kris’ eyes are closed, hands tugging the towel beside him, making a screen around the two of them, blocking this kiss from the rest of the world. Luhan hasn’t realized it, but somewhere along the way of listening to the boat approach, he started kissing back. The next second his eyes are closed, and the next his hands are on Kris’ face, and the next the boat is gone again, except Luhan knows it couldn’t have happened this fast, that Zitao hovered on the water for a good half minute before leaving, after seeing whatever he saw just now, the two of them here. When the loud engine is no more than a hum in the distance, Kris lets go of the towel and it tumbles gently off Luhan’s shoulders, falling by his bare feet. Kris’ large hands cup Luhan’s face, and that’s when Luhan forgets everything, forgets how angry he should be, how scared he’d been, lost in the feeling of Kris’ lips. Kris pulls away, panting, and Luhan doesn’t trust himself to do anything other than breathe right now.

“You know, you haven’t changed at all,” Kris’ whispers, his warm breath fanning against the tip of his nose.

Luhan doesn’t speak, can’t, so Kris kisses him again. He kisses him until Luhan’s falling backwards, until Kris is getting off the log and draping himself over Luhan, careful to hold up his own weight on his elbows. Luhan’s fingers are locked in the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him to himself, claiming Kris’ mouth. Kris shifts a knee, then suddenly he’s tipped the wrong way, and he feels himself falling to the side with Luhan still attached to his face.

“Shit--”

“Oh Jesus, okay--”

Then they’re rolling, literally a burrito right down the sandy slope, foreheads knocking into each other’s painfully. They stop on the edge of the water, the wet strip of sand where where the water has receded just a few minutes ago with the low tide. Kris climbs off of Luhan, spitting the sand out of his mouth, rubbing at his temples to quell his headache. When he scoops some water to wash his face clean, he turns to see Luhan lying there, eyes squeezed shut, not even moving. He stays that way for a while, so Kris dips his fingers in the water again and dribbles a drop in the middle of Luhan’s forehead. It shocks his eyes open, and as soon as Luhan sees, he smacks Kris’ offending hand away, scoffing at him.

Kris lies down too, right beside Luhan, blocking him from the cold waves of the ocean occasionally creeping up the sand to touch his fingertips. Their towel lies in a heap near the log, forgotten.

“It’s been so quiet without you,” Kris says.

He lifts his hand, the hand in the space between their bodies, and reaches until he’s found Luhan’s hand. He laces their fingers together, holding on to Luhan’s warm palm tightly. The tips of his fingers are cold from where the water touched him. Luhan doesn’t speak, just lies there and breathes, but slowly he curls his fingers until they’re clasped around Kris’ hand too.

“Have you thought this through?” He says, softly but sternly. He pauses a moment. “Because if you’re just missing Do Kyungsoo.”

“We were never...he was my doctor, Luhan. He’s the son of the head doctor at the institution. He came to me asking if I wanted to sign up to be a test subject for their new med. He promised it would be 100% safe even if not 100% effective, so I said yes.”

Luhan doesn’t respond, and Kris wishes he had questions about Kyungsoo, so Kris at least knows Luhan’s satisfied with the reason. Luhan doesn’t though. Luhan’s relationship had always and only been about the two of them and nothing else. He’s never really cared about what anyone else was, as long as Kris is with him.

“Do you want the truth, Luhan?”

Kris turns his head slowly, and the sand’s cold on his cheek. He watches Luhan, traces his profile with his gaze. Luhan cracks open his eyes then, and peeks out the corner. “What, you’ve been lying up till now?”

Kris grins lazily, cheek mashed against the sand. “No, shush, listen.” Luhan nods, and then he looks away, blinking rapidly a few times. Kris is hoping Luhan would turn to him too, but judging from the hard flush on his face right now, he probably won’t. Luhan seems to sense this too, and he shifts his head a little closer, but he closes his eyes.

“I didn’t want to end it either at first, I was just mad, and you just kept blaming everything and everyone except me for my own problem. I was hoping you’d come back after things got better for everyone. That was the plan. But then after you moved out, I felt like ending everything was just...one little step away.”

As he speaks, Kris strokes Luhan’s hand softly with his thumb. He takes in a deep breath through his nose. “I didn’t--you, you said. And you’re right, you know, I’m so broken. You probably don’t even know how pale you got around that time. This isn’t your mess, Luhan, it’s mine. Right after you moved in with Jongdae, I got a call from Kyungsoo, and I just thought that before everything else, I could get this off my own shoulders so I won’t get to share the burden with anyone else again. Or--no, not anyone else. Just you. It just wasn’t fair. For you.”

Kris is sweating now, his palm is getting sticky, but Luhan doesn’t pull away. It’s taken so much so say this all with coherency. He hadn’t planned on it happening like this, apologizing here and now after scaring Luhan half to death being reckless, but he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. The words flowed out without any organization, and Kris felt like he was finally only beginning to understand as he said them. It was all such a simple problem. He was stupid to think that Luhan wouldn’t see right through his excuses, stupid to think he’d actually move on with such a dissatisfactory end so he wouldn’t have to deal with Kris at all anymore. But of course Luhan kept waiting for his word, he’s always been this stubborn. Kris...Kris is so sorry it’s taken him so long to give it.

Without warning, Luhan sits up, and Kris would panic and fear that he’ll leave if it isn’t for the fact that Luhan still held onto his hand. He sits up and he crawls onto Kris’ hips, knees on his sides and sitting down gently. Kris is speechless, chest so warm and tight that it hurt, and in a moment of dizziness Kris could’ve sworn he could feel the crack in his heart mending back together.

Luhan lifts his free hand, and he runs it through Kris’ hair. With his fingers tangled in the mess, Luhan closes his eyes and leans down to kiss him again. He still hasn’t said anything, but he doesn’t really need to. The two of them lie there, until the water has long receded, until the evening wind has swept in. When it gets too cold, Kris retrieves their forgotten towel and drapes it across the two of them. Luhan eventually falls asleep, with his arms wrapped around Kris’ waist, and his icy toes shoved between Kris’ shins.

Romanticismo Galattico 7
Sent by: ACE

If there were such things as Mondays or Tuesdays or Wed-nes-days on the Moon, then it would have been a Sunday on which Kevin the Kind Kight’s curse was finally broken. Lou the Little Prince had, since the total debacle of his plan to recover his knight’s hearing by singing, shut himself away in a quaint little tower behind a waterfall, tending to his new pet hare. No one knew for sure why suddenly one day Kevin snapped out of his deadly spell, like Snow White reawakening, but he seemed to have realized his delusion--that hares do not sing--and consequently freed himself from this handicap.

Kevin rose out of bed to bird song, and everything felt as if he’d just been through a bad nightmare.

He dressed himself. He combed his hair until it stood and shimmered. Kevin climbed atop his tiny horse and equipped himself with his toothpick sword and, heart full of hope, rode through forests, rode past rivers, until he arrived at his prince’s tower.

"My prince," he shouts, looking up at the open window, where his prince can surely hear him. "My prince, it is I, your kind knight Kevin."

A moment later, by some miracle, his prince peeks out the window, bewildered. "Kevin?" He says, incredulous.

"My prince," Kevin says, grinning warm and wide. "I hear you."

The little prince invites him in. Kevin waits at the little table with his little teacup as his prince makes breakfast, eggs sunny side up with toast and sausages. Kevin admires the interior of the tower, full of sunshine and smelling delicious. It is then that the hare walks down the spiraling stairs, having just awakened, wandering around the kitchen.

Kevin tenderly picks up the hare and sets him on the table. The hare regards him with wide eyes, and Kevin smiles down at it, plotting mischief. “Humor me, hare,” he says. “Please sing me a song.”

Kevin tilts his head and leans in, little prince Lou turns around from the egg to watch the scene, and the hare, clearly unamused at this demanding intruder, promptly bites down harshly on Kevin’s ear, that it would take many more Sundays if there are Sundays on the moon for Kevin to heal again.

Little Prince Lou, smiling his sweet smile, slid the eggs out of the pan and under Kevin’s nose, and as he watched him bleed onto his own shoulder trilled in his honey voice, “you totally deserve that, m***********.”

End.