[EXO] Migratory Patterns (1/1)
Title: Migratory Patterns
Fandom: EXO
Author: chiharu
Characters/pairing: Lu Han centric
Rating: G
wordcount: ~5,000
Summary: What Lu Han has his eyes on is a dream; a dream that leads him back to the beginning of beginnings. Lu Han + EXO fic
Going by real names in here, so Wu Fan = Kris, Zitao = Tao, Yixing = Lay, Minseok = Xiu Min, Jongdae = Chen, Jongin = Kai, and Joongmyun = Suho. Phew. Got it memorized? Refer to our good friend wikipedia if the names trick you up! Here are the image references for K and M. This fic was completely fueled by my own Beijing nostalgia (;A;), so happy reading! Note: This was totally written pre-debut, so hahaha I have no excuses for the ooc-ness and historical... in inaccuracies idk idk
It starts in second grade when Lu Han knocks through a cobweb with a stick. The girls in his class scramble away, screeching about bugs. Their skirts sway as their shoes leave mud imprints in the hallway. The boys behind him cheer, dancing around the row of rusty water fountains behind the school as they sing about Lu Han’s heroic deed. The next day, Lu Han is appointed as the class representative, and the rest is history.
Lu Han has always gone with the flow- the last to fight and the first to apologize. The women in his neighborhood praise his good nature, gathered in a circle while carrying groceries in red bags made of cloth. His own mother smiles pleasantly in response. She listens with Lu Han’s hand in hers, knowing perfectly well that Lu Han is simply too lazy to fight. Her hands have a tendency of slipping halfway out of his, causing Lu Han to tighten his grip on her slender fingers.
She didn’t smile when Lu Han hauled his luggage out of their home that summer, suitcase stuffed with years of memorabilia and badly folded clothes. His father refused to see him off, refused to call him his son until Lu Han got his act together. “He’ll come around once you become famous,” she said, running a hand through the tips of her hair, the same way she did when he first announced his plans for stardom.
By the time he joins SM, Lu Han already has a solid grasp on his persona. SM only reaffirms the things he had previously known: his pretty face, the way he slurs his pronunciations in Korean, and his mediocre singing skills. The only thing different is that SM offers him a debut.
There is something disjointed about the Chinese trainees here. They move with a weary sort of stillness, their expressions torn between alarm and discomfort when Lu Han is first introduced. Lu Han feigns a lack of Korean comprehension despite the hours he spends hunched over language books, but the halted whispers he catches in the hallways only affirms his assumptions. Everyone here drips with desperation. The only boy with any sense of self is quiet with piercing eyes, opening the door for Lu Han and nodding silently when Lu Han thanks him. Later, in the rehearsal room, Yixing whispers, “that was Kim Jongin. Remember his name.”
Lu Han thinks Yixing, too, would be an interesting person if he didn’t appear so, so tired.
Zitao comes to Lu Han’s dorm once to pick up an old Korean workbook suggested by their language teacher. Zitao is effortlessly smooth. And at the same time Lu Han thinks there’s something regrettable about Zitao being so young and guarded. Zitao’s fingers trail over the picture frames on Lu Han’s desk, pausing over the triangular red scarf tied to Lu Han’s bed post.
“Why do you still have this?” Zitao ask.
“Hey.” Lu Han laughs, busy ripping open his last pack of peppero. “I worked hard to get that thing, you know. During the ceremony, my heart pounded so fast. I was convinced that I wouldn’t get one.”
Zitao just smirks- a small tilt of his lips that would later make him even more untouchable. “I was too, until I realized that everyone in my class received one.” His comment sends both of them into a laughing fit. When Lu Han offers to make zhajiang mian with the sauce his mother sent from Beijing, Zitao doesn’t refuse.
Sometimes Minseok and Jongdae huddle together in the corner, speaking in rapid-fire Korean. Lu Han knows because their conversations always dissolve when Lu Han returns from water break, Minseok shuffling back to his spot. Jongdae simply readopts a far-away look on his face that Lu Han can’t bring himself to disturb.
Lu Han thinks it would be much easier to initiate conversation with Jongdae if he didn’t hop over to the next room immediately after practice, bag swung over one shoulder. Lu Han hears him chatting with the other boys in the hallway, and the window of opportunity is closed once again. He realizes that even simple phrases like “have you eaten” sound friendlier when rolled off of Jongdae’s tongue in Korean.
Lu Han puts his theory to the test, appearing in front of Zitao after vocal lessons and asking him to dinner in Korean. Zitao simply looks up from zipping his backpack and asks “what’s up with you” in Chinese. He protests when Lu Han drags him into the hall, Lu Han raving about the food carts a few blocks away. They stop when Minseok interjects, asking if they’re stopping by the dukboki stand.
Lu Han grabs Zitao’s sleeve before he can wander away, and the three of them end up perched over a bench on the sidewalk, ordering street food for dinner. Minseok asks them small things in Chinese while Lu Han responds in stilted Korean, snatching the food from Zitao until the youngest joins the conversation.
“If you want to practice Chinese,” Lu Han says when Minseok is about to leave. “You can borrow all of my Chinese manga.”
“How would that help him at all?” Zitao asks from Lu Han’s other side. He tries to tell Minseok that Lu Han only reads girly stuff, but accidentally tells Minseok that he likes shoujo manga instead. Minseok laughs before asking Lu Han for recommendations.
The following week, Lu Han is called to management’s office. They put a binder of music scores and demo tracks in his arms and sign him up for additional vocal classes. He doesn’t open the binder until later, with Wu Fan leaning over his shoulder, whistling when they see the parts divided between Lu Han and Jongdae.
A few days later, Lu Han finds Jongdae waiting for him outside of his Korean class. Jongdae asks, very slowly, if Lu Han can help him with his pronunciation. Jongdae opens his own folder, and Lu Han takes a moment to marvel at the markings on Jonghae’s scores, pin yin intonation marked across the pages in red next to handwritten notes Jonghae has taken from their vocal coach. Lu Han agrees to stay back after rehearsal, popping the demo CD into the stereo and listening to Jongdae sing. Somehow, the words sound tremendous coming out of Jongdae, even the simplest of lyrics resoundingly powerful.
They begin a ritual of singing together after that, bursting into song when their paths cross. They serenade each other next to the water coolers and in front of bathrooms, Jongdae matching Lu Han’s intonation as they repeat the same lines from the chorus. They ignore Zitao’s groans and bewildered looks from trainees until every note change in “What Is Love” is etched into Lu Han’s memory, until Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. join in on their duet in the elevator one day, and until Jongdae goes from following Lu Han to leading him in the chorus.
“You can still barely understand him,” Zitao grumbles as he digs through the stash of snacks in Lu Han’s dorm.
Lu Han thinks about the mini duets they have and the way Jongdae slurs his vowels, catching himself at the last minute as he switches from Roohan-hyung to Lu Han Ge. Jongdae is more than two intonations off when he pronounces Han, but Lu Han thinks there’s something very comforting about the sound.
Lu Han has a brief love affair with kites in middle school. He manages to assemble and paint one from scratch, spending every weekend flying his eagle shaped kite over Tiananmen Square. His neighbor, a gangly boy a year younger than him, joins Lu Han sometimes. They walk home during the summer and share melon popsicles on the playground, soaking up the sun.
One summer, Lu Han follows his classmates out at night. They flip over the gate of the local high school and pick the lock into the main building, vandalizing chalkboards in classrooms and moving items from desk to desk. It’s not until the night custodian points a flashlight at them that they scramble again, dispersing in multiple directions. Lu Han spends an hour hiding in an empty staircase before crawling out of the back gate, the chirping of swallows following him all the way home.
There are no swallows in Seoul at night, the sound of traffic outside of his window engulfing anything and everything.
When Lu Han walks into Wu Fan nested uncomfortably in the corner of coffee shop, Lu Han does a 180 and turns right back around. He almost makes it out of the place before the barista calls his name, and redemption is dealt to him in the form of a tall caramel latte.
Wu Fan simply shrugs as he waves Lu Han over, and Lu Han makes no mention of how Wu Fan towers freakishly over his female companion. She has a pretty smile, her eyes crescent as she asks Lu Han to join them and chat. Lu Han wonders what she thinks, wonders if she realizes that this thing is only temporary. One day Wu Fan will prioritize his ambitions over her.
“Do you know what I like the most about her?” Wu Fan asks a few days later as they take the stairs from the fourth floor. “She reminds me to not take everything so seriously.”
Lu Han hums. “Is that why you’ve given up on brushing your hair?”
Wu Fan punches his arm lightly in response, smirking when Lu Han winces. “Don’t take yourself so seriously either.”
Lu Han stares. “Have you met me?”
Wu Fan laughs. “Sometimes you get this serious look on your face.”
“Some people tell me I look vapid,” Lu Han replies quickly, almost defensively.
Wu Fan pauses, tucking his hands into the pocket of his jeans as they exit the building in unison. “Then, isn’t it a good thing that some people think otherwise?”
The girls begin inviting him to the bathroom in high school, their skirts rolled defiantly high despite the several violations they’ve already received from the hall monitor. At first, Lu Han laughs, rejecting their offer before return to his manga. They don’t take no for an answer, circling Lu Han’s desk during break and leaning uncomfortably close, wrapping an arm around his shoulder as they slap playfully at his cheeks. He lets them pin pigtails into his hair, ignoring his classmates’ confused glances.
Lu Han stops arguing because no one with any sense of self-preservation argues with them. At times, Lu Han questions the hierarchy of the school, watching the girls kick an underclassman out of the bathroom on the fourth floor. The girls gather contraband snacks from hiding spots and beckon for Lu Han to sit. Song Ming decides that she wants to tell Lu Han’s fortune, pulling at his hand as she peers over his palm forlornly. She tells him that he will fail twice in love but live a long and fruitful life, grinning as she extends her own hand out. “Now pay up.”
He responds by taking the gum out of his mouth and setting it in her hand. Song Ming just laughs with a hysterical sort of amusement, pulling Lu Han towards her. “Come back tomorrow.”
Lu Han obliges. Sometimes they leave the schoolyard for lunch, fighting over plates of scallion pancakes at the local lunch joints. The girls con Lu Han into paying most days, repaying his generosity with used shoujo manga. One day, Song Ming pulls him towards a small boutique on their way back to school, telling the other girls to run ahead before looking at Lu Han expectedly.
She buys them matching floss bracelets, eyes casted downwards as she ties his. “Now make a wish,” she says, looking up at just the right angle so Lu Han can see the glue under her fake eyelashes. “When this bracelet falls off, your wish will come true.”
Lu Han just smiles in response.
“What do you want to do?” She asks him one day as they walk home from school, the other girls having bid them goodbye at the school gates. Lu Han can’t tell if she has unilaterally decided their relationship status, but he doesn’t bother to correct her. “Well?” She asks, tugging at his shirt.
He grins. “I don’t know.”
“I want to be special. I want to be important,” she finally says when they’re about to part ways.
Lu Han supposes the right response would have been along the lines of you’re already important, but he thinks about her response and decides that he, too, wants to be special.
The thirty minutes that he spends stuck in an elevator with Joonmyun and Zitao is possibly the most awkward half hour of Lu Han’s life. Joonmyun says nothing in the beginning, eyes glued to his phone. Zitao is uncharacteristically stiff as well, his gaze boring a hole into the back of Joonmyun’s head.
Lu Han wonders if it’s rude to speak in Chinese, so he settles on memorizing the feel of the elevator buttons, listening to the tapping of Joonmyun’s fingers against the screen of his iphone. Finally, Lu Han asks in carefully phrased Korean what Joonmyun is doing.
Joonmyun looks surprised at first. Lu Han ignores this and presses on until Joonmyun shows him a puzzle game that has Lu Han stumped by level 5. “Are you kidding?” Joonmyun says, almost as if he finds Lu Han unreal. “My eight year old cousin can solve this faster than you.” There’s a residual hint of warmth under his sarcasm, something Lu Han almost misses.
Zitao says nothing when the elevator finally moves again. They are greeted by amused trainees on the first floor, Baekhyun and Chanyeol grinning as they tease Joonmyun about his detour. “You should download that game if you like it so much,” Joonmyun says while Baekhyun and Chanyeol bicker over where to go for dinner.
“I don’t have an iphone,” Lu Han replies.
“Then come play on my phone,” Joonmyun says, and Lu Han doesn’t miss the brief second his eyes glance towards Zitao. “It’s fun watching you.” He gives Lu Han a half wave when Baekhyun drags him away.
“Ge,” Yixing says later that night, clicking through baidu on his laptop as he sits on Lu Han’s bed. “Sometimes you really impress me.”
Lu Han makes a face at him. “What are you talking about?”
Yixing says nothing but throws Lu Han’s rubik’s cube at him. Lu Han just smiles. Sometimes there are advantages to looking oblivious.
“Sometimes when I dance, I think about the person I want to impress the most,” Jongin says during break, hands still wrapped around his water bottle as he looks at Lu Han. They’re only halfway through the choreography of “TIME CONTROL”, Lu Han fighting the distinct pain creeping up his calves, when Jongin finally breaks the silence.
Learning the choreography had been the easy part. Matching Jongin’s movements, however, is an entirely different challenge. There is something unreal about the way Jongin glides across the dance floor, his jumps always a few centimeters higher than Lu Han’s. When they lean towards each other in the middle of the routine, Lu Han is almost afraid of their heads bumping. Yet, there is something immense about Jongin’s presence, and Lu Han can’t help but gravitate towards him.
It takes a moment for Lu Han to digest Jongin’s words. He thinks about his parents and friends, missed birthdays and holidays. He thinks about his father sitting outside after dinner, the neighborhood families gathered in the courtyard during the summer, sharing beers while fanning themselves in the Beijing heat. He thinks about that particularly quiet girl in Song Ming’s posse- the way she called him to the back of the school one afternoon before handing him a love letter, her smile pretty but sad as she added, “but you’ve never noticed, have you?”
All she wanted was for him to look at her, even for one moment. Yet, Lu Han had always been looking away towards something that he, to this day, cannot identify. He loses track of time, caught between a realm of could have and should have. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he is in Korea of all places. He left China on his own, only to run into something so monumental that sends him back to the starting line.
Lu Han is not surprised when Yixing ends up in the hospital, hooked to an IV drip as he regards Lu Han, shame and defiance swimming simultaneously in his eyes. “You’re going to kill yourself before we ever debut,” Lu Han tells him, tracing the edge of the IV stand with his right hand. His eyes find a patch of skin on Yixing’s elbow, rubbed raw in a nervous anticipation.
The girls in Lu Han’s school used to play a game, comparing the circumference of their wrists when they ran out of tradition methods of gauging beauty. Nowadays, Lu Han feels uncomfortable even thinking about wrapping his fingers over Yixing wrist. “We’ll never get to debut and go back to China,” Lu Han adds. “Then I’ll never get to eat your mother’s cooking. Stop breaking promises, you jerk.”
Yixing doesn’t crack a smile. He looks at Lu Han, silently challenging him to go on.
Lu Han shrugs, his shoulders stiff. “You can’t be a competent artist if you can’t even be a competent person and take care of yourself.”
Yixing says something just as a nurse comes to check up on him, reading his chart and bowing before leaving. In the span of those minutes, Lu Han feels his heart pounding out of his chest as he catches the tail end of what do you know about being competent? He’s heard it before, whispered behind his back and tagged with countless variations of you’re just a pretty face. It haunts him from the corridors of his old school through the doors of multiple agencies. It’s something he can’t shake off, even across the yellow sea that divides Beijing and Seoul.
Lu Han has his own share of misgivings. Most days Lu Han does a perfectly good job of detaching himself from his insecurities, but they always return, swelling up in his chest until he has to accept it as a disgusting kind of truth. The kind that leaves him breathless at the most inconvenient of moments, haunting his dreams and tearing at his gut until he can’t help but admit them.
Lu Han just never thought Yixing would be the one to remind him.
“Yixing isn’t mean-spirited, you know,” Wu Fan says a week later as he hands Lu Han a drink from the vending machine. Lu Han is surprised that Wu Fan has caught on at all. “He’s just tired.”
Lu Han accepts the drink but doesn’t look at Wu Fan, legs stretched as he sits in the middle of the staircase. “We’re all tired.” Lu Han thinks if Yixing is not mean-spirited, then that simply means he was telling the truth.
Wu Fan runs a hand through his hair, making a noise of frustration. “You can’t just ignore each other like this.”
Lu Han had done a perfectly good job of ignoring Yixing when he walked out of the hospital without a word. He still remembers the first time he caught Yixing chatting with his mother over webcam, grinning sheepishly as Yixing called him over to the desk. Lu Han had grinned, setting down the dictionary he came to return and chatting with the woman as Yixing made a quick run to the bathroom. In the span of those three minutes, she had asked for Lu Han’s age and for him to look out after her son.
Lu Han had nodded of course, but now he wonders if he’s really capable of keeping promises.
The next day, Lu Han dumps a bag of mandarin oranges on Yixing’s lap before practice. Yixing looks up, face unreadable as he asks, “Are you talking to me again?”
“If you don’t want it,” Lu Han starts to say, but stops when Yixing grabs the bag. “You’re an idiot.”
“You’re weird,” Yixing replies evenly.
“You can’t speak English,” Lu Han decides.
“You’re too feminine.”
“You’re feminine too!”
“Are you listening to yourselves?” Zitao calls from the other end of the room. “Stop fighting, Noona.” Next to him, Wu Fan has his head between his knees as he bends over, laughing. There is something infectious about it, and Lu Han feels a bubble of laughter rising from his own throat.
When Lu Han turns around, Yixing is handing him a peeled orange, his smile relaxing into something more genuine.
Wu Fan speaks both Chinese and Korean with stiltedness, much like wearing a pair of pants that doesn’t quite fit. They use to joke about his limbs getting in the way of everything, Wu Fan barking at Yixing until he threatens to sing another verse of “My Girl.” That shuts Yixing up fast enough, and they run through the routine once again, ignoring the way Minseok limps on one ankle and the speed at which amusement drains from Zitao’s face.
It’s not until they watch K’s rehearsal that Lu Han realizes they are in deep shit. Jongdae simply sighs, pulling his cap further down as he slouches against the wall. Yixing walks to and fro along the length of the dance room, searching for answers to their own lackluster dancing in the clouds painted on the wall.
Baekhyun just looks at them, catching the towel Sehun throws him midair. “We’re done now,” he tells Lu Han, possibly because Lu Han is the only one making eye contact at this point. “We can clear the floor for you guys.”
“Who’s hungry?” Minseok decides suddenly, swinging an arm around Lu Han. “Hyung-deul will treat you guys!”
It doesn’t dawn on Lu Han until they’re all crammed into the nearest diner that Minseok has sacrificed their wallets for the sake of saving face. Lu Han cringes when Minseok pulls him aside, the two of them making wild hand gestures that convey very little sense until Jongdae joins their sidebar.
“We’re screwed,” Jongdae says, and then adds in Chinese, “we are going to die.”
“It’s nice to know your language lessons are coming in handy.” Minseok slaps the brim of Jongdae’s cap, effectively knocking it off. In the background, the owner is bringing out servings of bibimbap to the table.
Lu Han thinks someone will be suspicious of their activity by the time Zitao and Yixing joins them as well, huddled over a trashcan, hissing in a mixture of Chinese and Korean.
“What are you doing?” Jongin asks, causing them to jump and spin around. He gives Joonmyun a confused look and adds, “The food is here, hyung,” although no one knows for sure who he is talking to.
Minseok is the one who responds first, setting his hands on Jongin’s shoulders. “We’ve decided, as a team, that we are trading Wu Fan for you.”
“Nice try.” Joonmyun knocks Minseok’s hands away, tugging Jongin back towards the tables they’ve haphazardly pushed together. “By the way, hyung, can we order more kimbap?”
Intrinsically, Lu Han recognizes there are things in life that won’t happen no matter how hard he tries- cramming decades worth of dance background into mere months is one of them. There is an art to their formation. For every carefully matched movement, every sharp bend and twist of the knee seen in K, there exists something equally distinct about M as well- from the discernable pause in Yixing’s steps to the way Wu Fan bears his gums when he truly laughs.
Lu Han realizes later that by “hyung-deul,” Minseok meant himself and Lu Han. Minseok also conveniently forgets to bring his wallet, so Lu Han ends up paying the bill for 12 boys.
In December, Lu Han sneaks out during a water break to answer a call from his mother. The person who answers his greeting is his father instead.
“I saw a video of you dancing on tudou,” his father says, a hint of static in his voice.
“Oh,” Lu Han says, voice barely a whisper. His breath fogs up the screen of his phone, and Lu Han has to wipe it clean with the sleeve of his hoodie. “I’m actually going to- they said I will debut soon.”
“I know,” his father replies quietly. Lu Han imagines his father sitting in front of their old land line, fussing over the international calling card as he dials Lu Han’s number, reading glasses perched over his square face. “I know, son.”
Suddenly Lu Han realizes that his hands are shaking. He laughs a little, swallowing a mouthful of cold air. “Did mom tell you that?”
“People say that you got your looks from her, but I want you to know that she is also the one you inherited that unexpected stubbornness from,” the man answers at last. “Did I tell you that she rejected my marriage proposal three times?”
Lu Han thinks about his horribly beautiful mother, standing in the kitchen with her apron on as Lu Han watched her move from the sink to the stove. “No. No, you never told me that.”
“She is a woman who knows what she wants. Maybe,” his father pauses. “Maybe it is good that you, too, know what you want.”
Their conversation is cut short when Wu Fan comes to check on him. Lu Han quickly bids his father goodbye, promising to call again later that week. Lu Han knows that he inherited this inability to express himself from the man, Lu Han’s words caught on the roof of his mouth before dissolving completely. Yet, he supposes this is the closest he will get to an apology.
They’re playing basketball after practice one day when Jongin almost gets hit in the face with the ball. “Watch it,” Chanyeol grins as he passes the ball to Baekhyun, who puts it straight through the hoop. “That’s the money maker!”
Jongdae just groans as he retrieves the ball from the sidelines, passing it to Wu Fan.
Jongin laughs pleasantly as he returns to zoning defense, effectively stealing the ball out from Wu Fan and dribbling away. It’s stolen by Minseok down the line, who tries to perform an elaborate move, only to have the ball knocked out of his hand. He makes a helpless face at Yixing and Zitao, both of whom are waiting for him, unguarded.
“That was some flowery shit right there,” Chanyeol says, patting Minseok’s arm as they watch the ball roll off the court. “Now go get it.”
“I got it!” Lu Han shouts, already on his feet as he jogs after the ball. He can vaguely hear the other boys chatting in the background, Minseok complaining about perfecting his technique as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo laugh. Lu Han is about to cross the street when he spots a swallow nest on a nearby tree. He’s reminded of the nursery rhymes he used to sing, walking home from school with the other children in his neighborhood as they chased birds across the open field behind the school yard.
“Ge!” Someone says, and Lu Han is suddenly tugged back from his spot. He catches his balance just in time for a car to speed past him, horns uncharacteristically loud. Lu Han can feel the heat radiating from the concrete, where the car barely missed him.
Both Jongdae and Zitao have their hands on Lu Han’s arm, Zitao letting go whereas Jongdae’s grip on Lu Han’s wrist tightens. Lu Han waits for someone to speak, but no one does. They breathe in the spring air until Lu Han feels his heart beat returning to normal.
“Watch where you’re going,” Zitao says, turning around in time to find the other boys wandering towards them.
“Eh,” Lu Han replies lamely. “I lost the ball.”
Later, when they retrieve their belongings from the playground, Wu Fan asks what Lu Han was thinking so intensely about.
“I don’t know,” Lu Han admits, smile abashed. What he really remembers is the feel of Zitao's grip on his arm and the way Jonghdae stared, eyes flashing, as if trying to convey something important.
“Then just think less,” Yixing tells him, handing Lu Han his bag. He stops when the others turn to look at them, eyes wide.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Minseok says, appearing on one side of Lu Han.
“I can’t believe you even understood that in Chinese, hyung,” Jongdae adds in.
“Speak for yourself.” Minseok laughs. The two of them successfully sandwich Lu Han, wrapping their arms around Lu Han’s elbows as they pull Lu Han towards the Korean boys. He grins at Lu Han. “You know, we can’t have you wandering off. If you get lost, who will save our butts in China?”
“What about Wu Fan Ge?” Tao asks when he catches up to them. “He is the leader after all.”
“No, he’s so tall that everyone will just want to take photos with him. It’s like discovering a rare species.” Yixing comments, grinning when Wu Fan makes threatening faces at them.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo says when they’re all waiting near the intersection. “Next time I’ll bring the ball.”
“And we’ll try not to kick your butts so badly,” Chanyeol adds, turning around to flash them a cheeky grin. He laughs when Minseok complains that it was only one incidence and that payback was imminent.
In China, the fans scream at the airport, waving banners that carry countless variations of his name. Little dear, little deer. Lu Han laughs, catching the flicker of amusement in Wu Fan’s eyes as they’re shoved through the crowd, Lu Han pressed uncomfortably into Jongdae -Chen's- back as their managers make a path through the sea of girls.
The crowd chants through every version of their names. Xiu Min, Chen, Kris, Lay, Tao, Lu Han. Exo-M, Exo-M. Welcome back to China, Exo-M.
There’s something ethereal about those characters, Lu Han realized that afternoon in management’s office when they offered him a staged name. A deer seen before daybreak, a sight just fleeting enough. Something intangible even to Lu Han himself.
Lu Han thinks it’s oddly fitting. He’s been running around blindly, fueled by nothing but pure ambition. What Lu Han has his eyes on is a dream; a dream that leads him back to the beginning of beginnings.
fin.
a/n:
1. A lot of these plot points came from alleged Chinese rumors, some of which include: Yixing getting sent to the hospital for over dieting, Lu Han transferring from JYP to CUBE to SM, and Wu Fan being a ~LADIES MAN~. Just keep in mind that they are all rumors!
2. The Little Swallow song is a Chinese nursery rhyme about the migratory patterns of the swallow. Here are some explanations about the red scarf.
3. Tudou is the Chinese equivalent of youtube, much like how baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google.
4. Lu Han's name is written as 鹿晗 in Chinese. 鹿 means "deer" and 晗 means "before day break"
5. Thank you alaeaureae mousapelli, and sestinande for helping me brainstorm, edit, and pick this fic apart. You guys are awesome!
6. here is a lovely piano piece composed by geniebsmart for this fic :)
mmm idk what else to say, so just keep calm and love Lu Han!
♥ Want to talk EXO? Meta? EXO Meta?? Talk to me on twitter!
Love it? Hate it? Please leave some feedback, even if it may be a little late. You can also join the community, since I'll be locking up NC17 fics.
Fandom: EXO
Author: chiharu
Characters/pairing: Lu Han centric
Rating: G
wordcount: ~5,000
Summary: What Lu Han has his eyes on is a dream; a dream that leads him back to the beginning of beginnings. Lu Han + EXO fic
Going by real names in here, so Wu Fan = Kris, Zitao = Tao, Yixing = Lay, Minseok = Xiu Min, Jongdae = Chen, Jongin = Kai, and Joongmyun = Suho. Phew. Got it memorized? Refer to our good friend wikipedia if the names trick you up! Here are the image references for K and M. This fic was completely fueled by my own Beijing nostalgia (;A;), so happy reading! Note: This was totally written pre-debut, so hahaha I have no excuses for the ooc-ness and historical... in inaccuracies idk idk
It starts in second grade when Lu Han knocks through a cobweb with a stick. The girls in his class scramble away, screeching about bugs. Their skirts sway as their shoes leave mud imprints in the hallway. The boys behind him cheer, dancing around the row of rusty water fountains behind the school as they sing about Lu Han’s heroic deed. The next day, Lu Han is appointed as the class representative, and the rest is history.
Lu Han has always gone with the flow- the last to fight and the first to apologize. The women in his neighborhood praise his good nature, gathered in a circle while carrying groceries in red bags made of cloth. His own mother smiles pleasantly in response. She listens with Lu Han’s hand in hers, knowing perfectly well that Lu Han is simply too lazy to fight. Her hands have a tendency of slipping halfway out of his, causing Lu Han to tighten his grip on her slender fingers.
She didn’t smile when Lu Han hauled his luggage out of their home that summer, suitcase stuffed with years of memorabilia and badly folded clothes. His father refused to see him off, refused to call him his son until Lu Han got his act together. “He’ll come around once you become famous,” she said, running a hand through the tips of her hair, the same way she did when he first announced his plans for stardom.
By the time he joins SM, Lu Han already has a solid grasp on his persona. SM only reaffirms the things he had previously known: his pretty face, the way he slurs his pronunciations in Korean, and his mediocre singing skills. The only thing different is that SM offers him a debut.
There is something disjointed about the Chinese trainees here. They move with a weary sort of stillness, their expressions torn between alarm and discomfort when Lu Han is first introduced. Lu Han feigns a lack of Korean comprehension despite the hours he spends hunched over language books, but the halted whispers he catches in the hallways only affirms his assumptions. Everyone here drips with desperation. The only boy with any sense of self is quiet with piercing eyes, opening the door for Lu Han and nodding silently when Lu Han thanks him. Later, in the rehearsal room, Yixing whispers, “that was Kim Jongin. Remember his name.”
Lu Han thinks Yixing, too, would be an interesting person if he didn’t appear so, so tired.
Zitao comes to Lu Han’s dorm once to pick up an old Korean workbook suggested by their language teacher. Zitao is effortlessly smooth. And at the same time Lu Han thinks there’s something regrettable about Zitao being so young and guarded. Zitao’s fingers trail over the picture frames on Lu Han’s desk, pausing over the triangular red scarf tied to Lu Han’s bed post.
“Why do you still have this?” Zitao ask.
“Hey.” Lu Han laughs, busy ripping open his last pack of peppero. “I worked hard to get that thing, you know. During the ceremony, my heart pounded so fast. I was convinced that I wouldn’t get one.”
Zitao just smirks- a small tilt of his lips that would later make him even more untouchable. “I was too, until I realized that everyone in my class received one.” His comment sends both of them into a laughing fit. When Lu Han offers to make zhajiang mian with the sauce his mother sent from Beijing, Zitao doesn’t refuse.
Sometimes Minseok and Jongdae huddle together in the corner, speaking in rapid-fire Korean. Lu Han knows because their conversations always dissolve when Lu Han returns from water break, Minseok shuffling back to his spot. Jongdae simply readopts a far-away look on his face that Lu Han can’t bring himself to disturb.
Lu Han thinks it would be much easier to initiate conversation with Jongdae if he didn’t hop over to the next room immediately after practice, bag swung over one shoulder. Lu Han hears him chatting with the other boys in the hallway, and the window of opportunity is closed once again. He realizes that even simple phrases like “have you eaten” sound friendlier when rolled off of Jongdae’s tongue in Korean.
Lu Han puts his theory to the test, appearing in front of Zitao after vocal lessons and asking him to dinner in Korean. Zitao simply looks up from zipping his backpack and asks “what’s up with you” in Chinese. He protests when Lu Han drags him into the hall, Lu Han raving about the food carts a few blocks away. They stop when Minseok interjects, asking if they’re stopping by the dukboki stand.
Lu Han grabs Zitao’s sleeve before he can wander away, and the three of them end up perched over a bench on the sidewalk, ordering street food for dinner. Minseok asks them small things in Chinese while Lu Han responds in stilted Korean, snatching the food from Zitao until the youngest joins the conversation.
“If you want to practice Chinese,” Lu Han says when Minseok is about to leave. “You can borrow all of my Chinese manga.”
“How would that help him at all?” Zitao asks from Lu Han’s other side. He tries to tell Minseok that Lu Han only reads girly stuff, but accidentally tells Minseok that he likes shoujo manga instead. Minseok laughs before asking Lu Han for recommendations.
The following week, Lu Han is called to management’s office. They put a binder of music scores and demo tracks in his arms and sign him up for additional vocal classes. He doesn’t open the binder until later, with Wu Fan leaning over his shoulder, whistling when they see the parts divided between Lu Han and Jongdae.
A few days later, Lu Han finds Jongdae waiting for him outside of his Korean class. Jongdae asks, very slowly, if Lu Han can help him with his pronunciation. Jongdae opens his own folder, and Lu Han takes a moment to marvel at the markings on Jonghae’s scores, pin yin intonation marked across the pages in red next to handwritten notes Jonghae has taken from their vocal coach. Lu Han agrees to stay back after rehearsal, popping the demo CD into the stereo and listening to Jongdae sing. Somehow, the words sound tremendous coming out of Jongdae, even the simplest of lyrics resoundingly powerful.
They begin a ritual of singing together after that, bursting into song when their paths cross. They serenade each other next to the water coolers and in front of bathrooms, Jongdae matching Lu Han’s intonation as they repeat the same lines from the chorus. They ignore Zitao’s groans and bewildered looks from trainees until every note change in “What Is Love” is etched into Lu Han’s memory, until Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. join in on their duet in the elevator one day, and until Jongdae goes from following Lu Han to leading him in the chorus.
“You can still barely understand him,” Zitao grumbles as he digs through the stash of snacks in Lu Han’s dorm.
Lu Han thinks about the mini duets they have and the way Jongdae slurs his vowels, catching himself at the last minute as he switches from Roohan-hyung to Lu Han Ge. Jongdae is more than two intonations off when he pronounces Han, but Lu Han thinks there’s something very comforting about the sound.
Lu Han has a brief love affair with kites in middle school. He manages to assemble and paint one from scratch, spending every weekend flying his eagle shaped kite over Tiananmen Square. His neighbor, a gangly boy a year younger than him, joins Lu Han sometimes. They walk home during the summer and share melon popsicles on the playground, soaking up the sun.
One summer, Lu Han follows his classmates out at night. They flip over the gate of the local high school and pick the lock into the main building, vandalizing chalkboards in classrooms and moving items from desk to desk. It’s not until the night custodian points a flashlight at them that they scramble again, dispersing in multiple directions. Lu Han spends an hour hiding in an empty staircase before crawling out of the back gate, the chirping of swallows following him all the way home.
There are no swallows in Seoul at night, the sound of traffic outside of his window engulfing anything and everything.
When Lu Han walks into Wu Fan nested uncomfortably in the corner of coffee shop, Lu Han does a 180 and turns right back around. He almost makes it out of the place before the barista calls his name, and redemption is dealt to him in the form of a tall caramel latte.
Wu Fan simply shrugs as he waves Lu Han over, and Lu Han makes no mention of how Wu Fan towers freakishly over his female companion. She has a pretty smile, her eyes crescent as she asks Lu Han to join them and chat. Lu Han wonders what she thinks, wonders if she realizes that this thing is only temporary. One day Wu Fan will prioritize his ambitions over her.
“Do you know what I like the most about her?” Wu Fan asks a few days later as they take the stairs from the fourth floor. “She reminds me to not take everything so seriously.”
Lu Han hums. “Is that why you’ve given up on brushing your hair?”
Wu Fan punches his arm lightly in response, smirking when Lu Han winces. “Don’t take yourself so seriously either.”
Lu Han stares. “Have you met me?”
Wu Fan laughs. “Sometimes you get this serious look on your face.”
“Some people tell me I look vapid,” Lu Han replies quickly, almost defensively.
Wu Fan pauses, tucking his hands into the pocket of his jeans as they exit the building in unison. “Then, isn’t it a good thing that some people think otherwise?”
The girls begin inviting him to the bathroom in high school, their skirts rolled defiantly high despite the several violations they’ve already received from the hall monitor. At first, Lu Han laughs, rejecting their offer before return to his manga. They don’t take no for an answer, circling Lu Han’s desk during break and leaning uncomfortably close, wrapping an arm around his shoulder as they slap playfully at his cheeks. He lets them pin pigtails into his hair, ignoring his classmates’ confused glances.
Lu Han stops arguing because no one with any sense of self-preservation argues with them. At times, Lu Han questions the hierarchy of the school, watching the girls kick an underclassman out of the bathroom on the fourth floor. The girls gather contraband snacks from hiding spots and beckon for Lu Han to sit. Song Ming decides that she wants to tell Lu Han’s fortune, pulling at his hand as she peers over his palm forlornly. She tells him that he will fail twice in love but live a long and fruitful life, grinning as she extends her own hand out. “Now pay up.”
He responds by taking the gum out of his mouth and setting it in her hand. Song Ming just laughs with a hysterical sort of amusement, pulling Lu Han towards her. “Come back tomorrow.”
Lu Han obliges. Sometimes they leave the schoolyard for lunch, fighting over plates of scallion pancakes at the local lunch joints. The girls con Lu Han into paying most days, repaying his generosity with used shoujo manga. One day, Song Ming pulls him towards a small boutique on their way back to school, telling the other girls to run ahead before looking at Lu Han expectedly.
She buys them matching floss bracelets, eyes casted downwards as she ties his. “Now make a wish,” she says, looking up at just the right angle so Lu Han can see the glue under her fake eyelashes. “When this bracelet falls off, your wish will come true.”
Lu Han just smiles in response.
“What do you want to do?” She asks him one day as they walk home from school, the other girls having bid them goodbye at the school gates. Lu Han can’t tell if she has unilaterally decided their relationship status, but he doesn’t bother to correct her. “Well?” She asks, tugging at his shirt.
He grins. “I don’t know.”
“I want to be special. I want to be important,” she finally says when they’re about to part ways.
Lu Han supposes the right response would have been along the lines of you’re already important, but he thinks about her response and decides that he, too, wants to be special.
The thirty minutes that he spends stuck in an elevator with Joonmyun and Zitao is possibly the most awkward half hour of Lu Han’s life. Joonmyun says nothing in the beginning, eyes glued to his phone. Zitao is uncharacteristically stiff as well, his gaze boring a hole into the back of Joonmyun’s head.
Lu Han wonders if it’s rude to speak in Chinese, so he settles on memorizing the feel of the elevator buttons, listening to the tapping of Joonmyun’s fingers against the screen of his iphone. Finally, Lu Han asks in carefully phrased Korean what Joonmyun is doing.
Joonmyun looks surprised at first. Lu Han ignores this and presses on until Joonmyun shows him a puzzle game that has Lu Han stumped by level 5. “Are you kidding?” Joonmyun says, almost as if he finds Lu Han unreal. “My eight year old cousin can solve this faster than you.” There’s a residual hint of warmth under his sarcasm, something Lu Han almost misses.
Zitao says nothing when the elevator finally moves again. They are greeted by amused trainees on the first floor, Baekhyun and Chanyeol grinning as they tease Joonmyun about his detour. “You should download that game if you like it so much,” Joonmyun says while Baekhyun and Chanyeol bicker over where to go for dinner.
“I don’t have an iphone,” Lu Han replies.
“Then come play on my phone,” Joonmyun says, and Lu Han doesn’t miss the brief second his eyes glance towards Zitao. “It’s fun watching you.” He gives Lu Han a half wave when Baekhyun drags him away.
“Ge,” Yixing says later that night, clicking through baidu on his laptop as he sits on Lu Han’s bed. “Sometimes you really impress me.”
Lu Han makes a face at him. “What are you talking about?”
Yixing says nothing but throws Lu Han’s rubik’s cube at him. Lu Han just smiles. Sometimes there are advantages to looking oblivious.
“Sometimes when I dance, I think about the person I want to impress the most,” Jongin says during break, hands still wrapped around his water bottle as he looks at Lu Han. They’re only halfway through the choreography of “TIME CONTROL”, Lu Han fighting the distinct pain creeping up his calves, when Jongin finally breaks the silence.
Learning the choreography had been the easy part. Matching Jongin’s movements, however, is an entirely different challenge. There is something unreal about the way Jongin glides across the dance floor, his jumps always a few centimeters higher than Lu Han’s. When they lean towards each other in the middle of the routine, Lu Han is almost afraid of their heads bumping. Yet, there is something immense about Jongin’s presence, and Lu Han can’t help but gravitate towards him.
It takes a moment for Lu Han to digest Jongin’s words. He thinks about his parents and friends, missed birthdays and holidays. He thinks about his father sitting outside after dinner, the neighborhood families gathered in the courtyard during the summer, sharing beers while fanning themselves in the Beijing heat. He thinks about that particularly quiet girl in Song Ming’s posse- the way she called him to the back of the school one afternoon before handing him a love letter, her smile pretty but sad as she added, “but you’ve never noticed, have you?”
All she wanted was for him to look at her, even for one moment. Yet, Lu Han had always been looking away towards something that he, to this day, cannot identify. He loses track of time, caught between a realm of could have and should have. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he is in Korea of all places. He left China on his own, only to run into something so monumental that sends him back to the starting line.
Lu Han is not surprised when Yixing ends up in the hospital, hooked to an IV drip as he regards Lu Han, shame and defiance swimming simultaneously in his eyes. “You’re going to kill yourself before we ever debut,” Lu Han tells him, tracing the edge of the IV stand with his right hand. His eyes find a patch of skin on Yixing’s elbow, rubbed raw in a nervous anticipation.
The girls in Lu Han’s school used to play a game, comparing the circumference of their wrists when they ran out of tradition methods of gauging beauty. Nowadays, Lu Han feels uncomfortable even thinking about wrapping his fingers over Yixing wrist. “We’ll never get to debut and go back to China,” Lu Han adds. “Then I’ll never get to eat your mother’s cooking. Stop breaking promises, you jerk.”
Yixing doesn’t crack a smile. He looks at Lu Han, silently challenging him to go on.
Lu Han shrugs, his shoulders stiff. “You can’t be a competent artist if you can’t even be a competent person and take care of yourself.”
Yixing says something just as a nurse comes to check up on him, reading his chart and bowing before leaving. In the span of those minutes, Lu Han feels his heart pounding out of his chest as he catches the tail end of what do you know about being competent? He’s heard it before, whispered behind his back and tagged with countless variations of you’re just a pretty face. It haunts him from the corridors of his old school through the doors of multiple agencies. It’s something he can’t shake off, even across the yellow sea that divides Beijing and Seoul.
Lu Han has his own share of misgivings. Most days Lu Han does a perfectly good job of detaching himself from his insecurities, but they always return, swelling up in his chest until he has to accept it as a disgusting kind of truth. The kind that leaves him breathless at the most inconvenient of moments, haunting his dreams and tearing at his gut until he can’t help but admit them.
Lu Han just never thought Yixing would be the one to remind him.
“Yixing isn’t mean-spirited, you know,” Wu Fan says a week later as he hands Lu Han a drink from the vending machine. Lu Han is surprised that Wu Fan has caught on at all. “He’s just tired.”
Lu Han accepts the drink but doesn’t look at Wu Fan, legs stretched as he sits in the middle of the staircase. “We’re all tired.” Lu Han thinks if Yixing is not mean-spirited, then that simply means he was telling the truth.
Wu Fan runs a hand through his hair, making a noise of frustration. “You can’t just ignore each other like this.”
Lu Han had done a perfectly good job of ignoring Yixing when he walked out of the hospital without a word. He still remembers the first time he caught Yixing chatting with his mother over webcam, grinning sheepishly as Yixing called him over to the desk. Lu Han had grinned, setting down the dictionary he came to return and chatting with the woman as Yixing made a quick run to the bathroom. In the span of those three minutes, she had asked for Lu Han’s age and for him to look out after her son.
Lu Han had nodded of course, but now he wonders if he’s really capable of keeping promises.
The next day, Lu Han dumps a bag of mandarin oranges on Yixing’s lap before practice. Yixing looks up, face unreadable as he asks, “Are you talking to me again?”
“If you don’t want it,” Lu Han starts to say, but stops when Yixing grabs the bag. “You’re an idiot.”
“You’re weird,” Yixing replies evenly.
“You can’t speak English,” Lu Han decides.
“You’re too feminine.”
“You’re feminine too!”
“Are you listening to yourselves?” Zitao calls from the other end of the room. “Stop fighting, Noona.” Next to him, Wu Fan has his head between his knees as he bends over, laughing. There is something infectious about it, and Lu Han feels a bubble of laughter rising from his own throat.
When Lu Han turns around, Yixing is handing him a peeled orange, his smile relaxing into something more genuine.
Wu Fan speaks both Chinese and Korean with stiltedness, much like wearing a pair of pants that doesn’t quite fit. They use to joke about his limbs getting in the way of everything, Wu Fan barking at Yixing until he threatens to sing another verse of “My Girl.” That shuts Yixing up fast enough, and they run through the routine once again, ignoring the way Minseok limps on one ankle and the speed at which amusement drains from Zitao’s face.
It’s not until they watch K’s rehearsal that Lu Han realizes they are in deep shit. Jongdae simply sighs, pulling his cap further down as he slouches against the wall. Yixing walks to and fro along the length of the dance room, searching for answers to their own lackluster dancing in the clouds painted on the wall.
Baekhyun just looks at them, catching the towel Sehun throws him midair. “We’re done now,” he tells Lu Han, possibly because Lu Han is the only one making eye contact at this point. “We can clear the floor for you guys.”
“Who’s hungry?” Minseok decides suddenly, swinging an arm around Lu Han. “Hyung-deul will treat you guys!”
It doesn’t dawn on Lu Han until they’re all crammed into the nearest diner that Minseok has sacrificed their wallets for the sake of saving face. Lu Han cringes when Minseok pulls him aside, the two of them making wild hand gestures that convey very little sense until Jongdae joins their sidebar.
“We’re screwed,” Jongdae says, and then adds in Chinese, “we are going to die.”
“It’s nice to know your language lessons are coming in handy.” Minseok slaps the brim of Jongdae’s cap, effectively knocking it off. In the background, the owner is bringing out servings of bibimbap to the table.
Lu Han thinks someone will be suspicious of their activity by the time Zitao and Yixing joins them as well, huddled over a trashcan, hissing in a mixture of Chinese and Korean.
“What are you doing?” Jongin asks, causing them to jump and spin around. He gives Joonmyun a confused look and adds, “The food is here, hyung,” although no one knows for sure who he is talking to.
Minseok is the one who responds first, setting his hands on Jongin’s shoulders. “We’ve decided, as a team, that we are trading Wu Fan for you.”
“Nice try.” Joonmyun knocks Minseok’s hands away, tugging Jongin back towards the tables they’ve haphazardly pushed together. “By the way, hyung, can we order more kimbap?”
Intrinsically, Lu Han recognizes there are things in life that won’t happen no matter how hard he tries- cramming decades worth of dance background into mere months is one of them. There is an art to their formation. For every carefully matched movement, every sharp bend and twist of the knee seen in K, there exists something equally distinct about M as well- from the discernable pause in Yixing’s steps to the way Wu Fan bears his gums when he truly laughs.
Lu Han realizes later that by “hyung-deul,” Minseok meant himself and Lu Han. Minseok also conveniently forgets to bring his wallet, so Lu Han ends up paying the bill for 12 boys.
In December, Lu Han sneaks out during a water break to answer a call from his mother. The person who answers his greeting is his father instead.
“I saw a video of you dancing on tudou,” his father says, a hint of static in his voice.
“Oh,” Lu Han says, voice barely a whisper. His breath fogs up the screen of his phone, and Lu Han has to wipe it clean with the sleeve of his hoodie. “I’m actually going to- they said I will debut soon.”
“I know,” his father replies quietly. Lu Han imagines his father sitting in front of their old land line, fussing over the international calling card as he dials Lu Han’s number, reading glasses perched over his square face. “I know, son.”
Suddenly Lu Han realizes that his hands are shaking. He laughs a little, swallowing a mouthful of cold air. “Did mom tell you that?”
“People say that you got your looks from her, but I want you to know that she is also the one you inherited that unexpected stubbornness from,” the man answers at last. “Did I tell you that she rejected my marriage proposal three times?”
Lu Han thinks about his horribly beautiful mother, standing in the kitchen with her apron on as Lu Han watched her move from the sink to the stove. “No. No, you never told me that.”
“She is a woman who knows what she wants. Maybe,” his father pauses. “Maybe it is good that you, too, know what you want.”
Their conversation is cut short when Wu Fan comes to check on him. Lu Han quickly bids his father goodbye, promising to call again later that week. Lu Han knows that he inherited this inability to express himself from the man, Lu Han’s words caught on the roof of his mouth before dissolving completely. Yet, he supposes this is the closest he will get to an apology.
They’re playing basketball after practice one day when Jongin almost gets hit in the face with the ball. “Watch it,” Chanyeol grins as he passes the ball to Baekhyun, who puts it straight through the hoop. “That’s the money maker!”
Jongdae just groans as he retrieves the ball from the sidelines, passing it to Wu Fan.
Jongin laughs pleasantly as he returns to zoning defense, effectively stealing the ball out from Wu Fan and dribbling away. It’s stolen by Minseok down the line, who tries to perform an elaborate move, only to have the ball knocked out of his hand. He makes a helpless face at Yixing and Zitao, both of whom are waiting for him, unguarded.
“That was some flowery shit right there,” Chanyeol says, patting Minseok’s arm as they watch the ball roll off the court. “Now go get it.”
“I got it!” Lu Han shouts, already on his feet as he jogs after the ball. He can vaguely hear the other boys chatting in the background, Minseok complaining about perfecting his technique as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo laugh. Lu Han is about to cross the street when he spots a swallow nest on a nearby tree. He’s reminded of the nursery rhymes he used to sing, walking home from school with the other children in his neighborhood as they chased birds across the open field behind the school yard.
“Ge!” Someone says, and Lu Han is suddenly tugged back from his spot. He catches his balance just in time for a car to speed past him, horns uncharacteristically loud. Lu Han can feel the heat radiating from the concrete, where the car barely missed him.
Both Jongdae and Zitao have their hands on Lu Han’s arm, Zitao letting go whereas Jongdae’s grip on Lu Han’s wrist tightens. Lu Han waits for someone to speak, but no one does. They breathe in the spring air until Lu Han feels his heart beat returning to normal.
“Watch where you’re going,” Zitao says, turning around in time to find the other boys wandering towards them.
“Eh,” Lu Han replies lamely. “I lost the ball.”
Later, when they retrieve their belongings from the playground, Wu Fan asks what Lu Han was thinking so intensely about.
“I don’t know,” Lu Han admits, smile abashed. What he really remembers is the feel of Zitao's grip on his arm and the way Jonghdae stared, eyes flashing, as if trying to convey something important.
“Then just think less,” Yixing tells him, handing Lu Han his bag. He stops when the others turn to look at them, eyes wide.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Minseok says, appearing on one side of Lu Han.
“I can’t believe you even understood that in Chinese, hyung,” Jongdae adds in.
“Speak for yourself.” Minseok laughs. The two of them successfully sandwich Lu Han, wrapping their arms around Lu Han’s elbows as they pull Lu Han towards the Korean boys. He grins at Lu Han. “You know, we can’t have you wandering off. If you get lost, who will save our butts in China?”
“What about Wu Fan Ge?” Tao asks when he catches up to them. “He is the leader after all.”
“No, he’s so tall that everyone will just want to take photos with him. It’s like discovering a rare species.” Yixing comments, grinning when Wu Fan makes threatening faces at them.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo says when they’re all waiting near the intersection. “Next time I’ll bring the ball.”
“And we’ll try not to kick your butts so badly,” Chanyeol adds, turning around to flash them a cheeky grin. He laughs when Minseok complains that it was only one incidence and that payback was imminent.
In China, the fans scream at the airport, waving banners that carry countless variations of his name. Little dear, little deer. Lu Han laughs, catching the flicker of amusement in Wu Fan’s eyes as they’re shoved through the crowd, Lu Han pressed uncomfortably into Jongdae -Chen's- back as their managers make a path through the sea of girls.
The crowd chants through every version of their names. Xiu Min, Chen, Kris, Lay, Tao, Lu Han. Exo-M, Exo-M. Welcome back to China, Exo-M.
There’s something ethereal about those characters, Lu Han realized that afternoon in management’s office when they offered him a staged name. A deer seen before daybreak, a sight just fleeting enough. Something intangible even to Lu Han himself.
Lu Han thinks it’s oddly fitting. He’s been running around blindly, fueled by nothing but pure ambition. What Lu Han has his eyes on is a dream; a dream that leads him back to the beginning of beginnings.
fin.
a/n:
1. A lot of these plot points came from alleged Chinese rumors, some of which include: Yixing getting sent to the hospital for over dieting, Lu Han transferring from JYP to CUBE to SM, and Wu Fan being a ~LADIES MAN~. Just keep in mind that they are all rumors!
2. The Little Swallow song is a Chinese nursery rhyme about the migratory patterns of the swallow. Here are some explanations about the red scarf.
3. Tudou is the Chinese equivalent of youtube, much like how baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google.
4. Lu Han's name is written as 鹿晗 in Chinese. 鹿 means "deer" and 晗 means "before day break"
5. Thank you alaeaureae mousapelli, and sestinande for helping me brainstorm, edit, and pick this fic apart. You guys are awesome!
6. here is a lovely piano piece composed by geniebsmart for this fic :)
mmm idk what else to say, so just keep calm and love Lu Han!
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