take your dog for a walk (even if you don't have one); 1/2
11700w (never again) > hunhan
lu han dispenses touches like candy. and he’s so adorable. sehun hates him. definitely maybe.
there’s a side pairing. very very side. almost coleslaw.
and there's jongin. yay jongin.
many thanks to ~pepper~ baby, stop drinking cheese soups
★
Aries: A sensual, emotional, secure, and well-rooted New Taurus Moon is the time to start something new. Feelings deepen tonight, and they should be shared when the Saturn mounts Pluto. Go out and experience the beauty of this lovely March day. "Take your dog for a walk, even if you don't have one".
Sehun is about to stuff the newspaper and its trashy horoscope column (because, really. Moons with feelings? Mating planets?) into the, well, trash bin, when he comes across ‘Take your dog for a walk, even if you don’t have one’. He wastes 14.5 seconds of his life on the impossibility of this thought before jamming the papers into the trash bin’s mouth. Taking a deep breath and managing to choke on his own spit, Sehun glances up at the entrance of the tall glass building he’s standing in front of.
Office buildings are always terrifying to an eighteen year old. Excessively shiny over-polished floors? Stuff of nightmares. The sound of heels clicking on excessively shiny over-polished tiles? Sharp battle cries. Take your dog out for a walk, even if you don’t have one? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sehun has never known horoscopes to be so feeling-inducing (of the negative kind. Maybe the prediction is right after all. His emotions are definitely deepening by the second). He doesn’t know how nervous he is, but if he’s checking his luck for the first time in his entire life, he must be pretty stuffed with butterflies, dragonflies, horseflies, all the flies, lalala.
He almost kills himself with the revolving door. Lovely March Day, My Arse.
God, he hates interviews.
★
Sehun is officially ten minutes late for his interview. Office lifts are more confusing than multiple integrals, Sehun realizes. He traipses into one but can’t find the button of his floor. Unfortunately, the lift doors close before he can escape. Stuck in a lift full of executives, Sehun tries his bestest best not to look eighteen in his white shirt and jeans. When he finally reaches the ground floor again, he rushes to the security guard who guides him to the correct lift lobby. The lift arrives after a mere eternity. Sehun rushes in, and, oh-hey-hi-annyeong, meets the cutest guy he has ever seen in his whole life and then proceeds with his attempt to murder him with coffee.
“Argh!” Lu Han rubs his sore knee, which must be bruising already and lifts his shirt off himself to avoid minimum skin contact with the scalding coffee that’s currently seeping through the white of the material. The now empty cup of coffee lies innocently on the floor, black straw and all.
“I’m sorry,” says Sehun with utter mortification. He helps the guy off the floor of the elevator. Why is my life so difficult (man, this guy is cute), he thinks. Why (Jesus Christ. So cute). He tries to be less emotional (So. Damn. Cute). “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
The coffee has cooled off into a latte mess on the front of Lu Han’s shirt. He lifts troubled eyes to Sehun and lets out an exasperated sigh. “I have a meeting later to seal a million-dollar contract. I can’t meet the client like this,” he mutters heavily.
“(Why so cute ;o;) I’m really sorry, I’ll pay for your shirt,” Sehun apologizes profusely, half a mind on the savings that he doesn’t have at all.
“But I need a shirt right now,” Lu Han protests weakly, still bending over to massage his right knee. He looks like a damsel in distress (Gwiyeowo~).
“Can you lend me yours?”
“(So cute, so so so-) What?” Sehun blinks blankly. The lift chooses to close its door at this moment. Feeling only slightly trapped, Sehun stares into the depths of Lu Han’s glimmering eyes.
Oh.
///D/E/A/R////
“Let’s trade shirts.”
★
When Sehun introduces himself to the receptionist as the prospective intern, Zitao only takes a look at his brown stained shirt before showing him into a room. As if interviewees turn up in dirty shirts all the time.
Settling into the black armchair, Sehun swallows the bile accumulating in the back of his throat. He’s only twenty minutes late after all. Sure, his shirt is a little wrinkled and dirtied but he scored a string of As last semester, he is hardworking, meticulous and he once saved a kitten from drowning. They won’t be so hard on interviews for interns, will they? Sehun is smoothing the front of his shirt down and almost convincing himself that the stain can be mistaken for a fashion statement (but no, it’s obviously just a dirty shirt), when his interviewer walks in - all smiles, rainbows and sunshine; sugar and spice, and everything nice - in a bright white shirt. His shirt. Oh Sehun’s shirt. To be specific, it’s the shirt his mum bought him for his first interview and which he woke at six am to iron. He even starched it. Pretty sure he would be able to recognize its ashes.
The rainbow factor dips a little. Otherwise, Lu Han exhibits no sign (or shame) that he has ever met Sehun before. “Hi, my name is Lu Han. I’m your interviewer for today.”
“I want a pay rise,” Sehun deadpans.
Lu Han doesn’t pretend to have any decency. He chortles brightly. “I’m glad you’re so eager. Let’s discuss that after the interview. I read from your resume that you’re currently majoring in-“
“I want to talk to the director.” Sehun moves to get up from his chair. But gets interrupted on his way to the door.
“You’re hired!” Lu Han smiles warmly, not even a bit ruffled, hand already extending to Sehun. “Welcome aboard.”
Sehun nods stiffly. “I like your shirt,” he sniffs.
The grin on Lu Han’s face spreads like melted butter. He looks as good as Trouble.
★
He starts work the next day, still a little lost but manages to locate the office with the vampy (literally) receptionist. In a matter of minutes, he gets assigned to Lu Han and has abso-fucking-lutely no idea why Lu Han protests louder than him. He has the nerve, the cheek, the gall- damn, he has sparkly eyes, Sehun cuts his own whining off when Lu Han turns to him. There’s ‘You’re a Burden to Me’ carved onto Lu Han’s forehead at the moment. It’s a little difficult but Sehun pretends he doesn’t care. Lu Han introduces him to their department.
“That’s Yifan,” says Lu Han, gesturing to someone ridiculously tall who’s over at the photocopier raining karate chops on it. “This is Jongdae and that’s Yixing, he’s working part-time here. Minseok! Don’t go, let me introduce you to the new intern. This is…” Lu Han eyes waver. “What’s your name?” he asks when he realizes he has no idea at all.
“Sehun. Oh Sehun. Sehun. Se. Hun.” Sehun says with more bite than necessary.
“Ah, Sehun. I knew it.” Lu Han beams with satisfaction he really has no right to feel. “Don’t mind him,” Lu Han says to Yixing who replies with a “I won’t, no worries :D” face, “it’s his first day, he’s just a little nervous.”
‘Who? How? Why? What?’ Sehun’s mind buzzes with alarm. Someone rodent-like bounces over to them and disrupts Sehun’s silent screaming. “Hello! I’m Minseok,” he chirps.
“You look like a ham-“ Sehun starts.
“It’s rude to call someone a hamster when you’ve just met him for the first time,” Lu Han whispers from behind him.
“Mer,” Sehun finishes wittily.
“He looks like a hammer?” Jongdae asks, all bewildered.
“I look like a hammer?” Minseok asks, all fascinated.
Sehun can be as convincing as tempura when he wants to. “Erm. Yeah. Very, hmm,” he lies fluently, “manly.”
“Thank you!” Minseok squeaks, easy as pie.
“What a tool,” Yixing summarizes.
“I think you’re fitting in,” quips Lu Han, who appears to have the sensitivity of a faltering light bulb the night before finals. He pats Sehun’s cheeks. “You’re pretty. The younger ones are always cuter,” he says before dragging the dumbfound Sehun to his desk.
“Where’s my desk,” asks Sehun with a frown. He rubs his right cheek with the back of his hand, as if warm touches could be rubbed away.
“Oh, office space is tight right now. Too many new employees. We’ll have to share a desk,” sighs Lu Han like it’s the greatest Roman tragedy on Earth and Sehun wonders if he’s about to develop split personalities from alternating between wanting to axe-slam Lu Han and coo-ing over his babyface. “And I’m going to make you do all my work~”
“Huh?” Sehun’s eyebrows droop.
There’s a billion dollar smile on Lu Han’s face. “Nothing,” he says, sweet as a lollipop. Sehun kind of wants to lick his face. Sweet-Mary-Mother-of-Jesus, what is his problem. Why would he want to lick his life-destroyer’s face (or anyone’s face, really, it’s kind of rude).
Sehun wants to cry again. He wants to cry so much.
★
He really does end up doing all of the angelic-looking sadist’s work. Which is really less aggravating than the fact that Lu Han is constantly invading his personal space. Constantly. All the time. 24/7.
When Lu Han laughs, the skin beneath his eyes scrunches but that’s OK because wrinkles look good on Lu Han’s face and he is adorable when he laughs. All twinkling crescent eyes and shiny pink lips. Until he bends forward and transfers half his weight onto Sehun and really, why? Is it appropriate? What would Lu Han’s mum say? Is it really so hard to laugh upright? Does he have spinal cord degeneration? At first, Sehun backs off because two days ago, they were still strangers and he would like to act as if they were I-just-got-to-know-you-two-days-ago-and-I’m-unsure-how-wide-your-personal-space-is-so-here’s-a-meter, instead of hi-this-is-my-face-in-your-neck-lol. Now he’s all dead-face to it; ‘Go right ahead. Use me well.’ Because it’s hard to resist adorable. Lu Han is so adorable.
Then he hits him. Sehun personally prefers sucker punches over thigh-slapping. But no, Lu Han has to slap his thigh every time he does something wrong or. Or. Or. Actually, there isn’t a real reason for the thigh slapping at all. They will just be doing work side by side when all of a sudden, Lu Han will slap his thigh. It’s kind of like a punctuation; a comma in a sentence. Finished with a report, slaps Sehun’s thigh. Gotta get up and go to the loo, slaps Sehun’s thigh. Photocopier is a bitch, slaps Sehun’s thigh. Staples some papers, slaps Sehun’s thigh, staples some more. Sehun finds himself staring at his right thigh sometimes. It looks weird without a hand there now.
“You keyed in the wrong formula,” Lu Han says one glorious afternoon, leaning right into Sehun’s embrace to correct the Excel formula. ‘Why is he so touchy-feely? Why does it feel so nice when he puts his hand on my forearm? Why does he smell so good? What shampoo does he use?’ Sehun thinks, a million questions at a time and takes another sniff of Lu Han’s hair and, that’s it, he comes to the conclusion that he really must be a pervert after all. There’s no other reason why he’s sniffing another guy’s hair and thinking about passion fruit trees. Passion fruit trees. Sehun has no idea if passion fruits grow on trees.
Lu Han’s hair looks so soft and Sehun wants to sink his fingers into it to find out if it’s really as silky as- he slaps his own hand.
Lu Han lifts his head. “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at Sehun’s reddening right hand.
“There’s a mosquito, haha,” Sehun laughs dryly and slaps his own face for emphasis while he continues to ‘haha’ himself into oblivion. If Lu Han finds him as sane as a serial psychotic killer, he disguises it totally by flinging a whole stack of documents at Sehun.
“Time for over-time,” Lu Han choruses. The demon has the voice of a nymph, Sehun realizes.
And this is the saddest life he has ever lived.
He decides to be vocal about it. “This is the saddest life I’ve ever lived,” he announces over a financial statement.
Lu Han reaches over and cups the side of Sehun’s neck. The intern stiffens while something shiny glosses over Lu Han’s eyes. He is sure Lu Han can feel the drumming of his pulse. It is a frantic beat against Lu Han’s stroking thumb. Sehun wants to push his hand off but the intimacy feels nice and mind-blowing at the same time. And honestly, Lu Han has such nice eyes and Sehun is as deep as spilled vodka on a bar counter. It’s hard for him to decide on a reaction so he stays still.
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han utters softly, as if he means it and he’s way too close for comfort right now. Something like seven centimeters stands between them. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. Brace for impact. Brace for~ “Is that spinach between your teeth? How sanitary.”
That night, Sehun writes in the diary he has suddenly decided to keep so as to contain all his current feels, because, yeah.
dear diary
what is the meaning of life
★
To be as frank as a hotdog, there isn’t really much to say about Sehun’s life. He studies Business Administration in the town’s college, washes his jeans once a year and has a jerk for a best friend.
“I’m a pervert,” confides Sehun to the pepper shaker. “But it is not my fault.”
“The thing is,” he declares loudly to the listening fork, “he is just so attractive. You know what the other girls in the office call him behind his back? Bambi. Why is his face like that? Why?” he demands of his snickledoodle.
Jongin can feel his pal slipping away. This is so sad that he orders another slice of Opera cake. He sips his cup of tea gracefully and glances at the fat Pomeranian pissing by the roadside. It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
“Why!” snarls Sehun. The café’s waiter pauses to stare at their table. “I don’t know him,” Jongin mouths to Baekhyun and elaborates the situation by winding his finger in circles near his temple. Sehun dutifully plays the crazy dude part by choosing to stab his cookie with a fork right then. Baekhyun - who feels like he has totally grasped the situation - nods and continues on his happy way to serving a table seated with a guy who has fried noodles for hair.
“This is ridiculous,” Jongin finally speaks up when Sehun has taken to shredding his napkin into bits like a love-lost teenager (“I am a teenager,” Sehun corrects him, “but not love-lost. Just tortured. And sad. And I’m experiencing feelings I’ve never known to exist in my being. And it’s. It’s a little t-tough”). “It can’t be that bad, come on.”
Sehun mutters something under his breath that Jongin can’t quite comprehend but sounds vaguely like, ‘Skies need to rain sensitivity right now’, which, nay, couldn’t be, because Jongin has sensitivity the size of an African elephant. Uh-huh. Yup. Write that important fact down somewhere.
“Does he have a hobby? Maybe you guys can bond through that, I don’t know. Be friends, make your life a little easier.”
“I don’t ever want to crucify babies,” whispers Sehun horrifically.
“Be serious.”
“Touching me?”
“Be seri- are you serious?”
Sehun nods in the most serious way he knows.
Jongin strokes his chin. It makes him feel wise. So he strokes it again. “Does he only touch you or is he like this with everyone?”
It takes a minute for Sehun to answer. “I don’t really know? We spend all our time together at the office, there’s so much work. I don’t know how he’s like with the rest.”
“I don’t know, dude. Sounds like you’re being sexually harassed at the office and you have all this overtime to do. My internship was a breeze compared to yours. Why don’t you take this up with your assigned professor and change your internship or something.”
Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Sehun says, “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it sexual harassment. Besides, it’s a really good company, my pay is decent, the mentorship is great, it’s located near my house and there’re lots of things to learn. And yeah, well, Lu Han is pretty, you know, cute.” He takes a huge gulp of iced water and spills most of it over his chin.
Very slowly, Jongin sits back in his chair and laces his fingers together. He judges Sehun. “Speak the truth.”
“It’s a really good company, my pay is decent, the mentorship is great, it’s located near my house and there’re lots of things to learn. And yeah, well, Lu Han is pretty, you know, cute.” Pat, pat, goes the napkin over Sehun’s twitching chin.
“Speak the truth.”
“It’s located near my house and there’re lots of things to learn. And yeah, well, Lu Han is pretty, you know, cute.”
Jongin lifts an intelligent brow.
“Lu Han is cute.” Sehun wants to flip over belly-up and perhaps die on the spot.
“You are a masochist, you know that?”
Sehun’s face head dives onto the table. “I know,” he says, all tiny voice.
Deciding to sprinkle some pity fairy-dust on Sehun, Jongin asks, “Do you like him?”
This wakes Sehun’s face up. “What. Do I like prancing around naked in blizzards. Do I like putting my hand in an unflushed toilet. Do I like your weepy calls at 3 a.m. when you quarreled with your precious wee bit? (Hey!) Do I even look like I’d like-”
“Alright, alright, I get the gist,” Jongin holds up his hands. But Sehun continues, “Lu Han is really nice at times though. It’s like he can pick up all these vibes, as if he has feelers or something. It’s creepy…but in a good creepy way. He makes people feel at ease around him. No, I mean, he scares people off at first, his mannerism. But eventually, no one is capable of disliking him. He’s just so real. Everyone has this mask on but he doesn’t. It’s like he doesn’t know how to stop himself from opening himself up to people. He talks to everyone and his mouth is evil, but everyone likes him. What’s wrong with humanity. Worse, he doesn’t have a single clue how nice he is. He also breaks all these barriers and I, too, erm,” Sehun pauses for a while before adding something really anti-climatical of sorts, “he also really likes puppies.” He frowns after saying that. Taps his fingers on the table for three seconds before he picks up the ravished napkin and continues ravishing it. Sehun looks like a kicked puppy himself.
Jongin doesn’t know what to say. Except, “Sometimes in life, we experience bad things in order to become stronger. We need to cultivate spiritual strength, renew our connection to the physical earth and seek blessings from the roots of our souls. Do you believe in Heaven on Earth, Sehun?”
Sehun tries to stab him to death with a toothpick.
★
Lu Han is a nice person, Sehun discovers this a week after his internship when he goes to work at 7 a.m. in the morning and sees Lu Han already at his desk. They express surprise at each other’s presence.
“Why are you here so early? Interns are supposed to smoke in the loo and be late for work,” comments Lu Han while he flips through a report. Sehun’s report. The one he rushed out the night before because the deer says so.
“I just want to start early so I can look through some documents…is there something wrong with my report?” Sehun asks uneasily. Is his performance so poor that his mentor has to specially come earlier to work just so he could check his work?
“Hmmm,” says Lu Han distractedly, “no, no, I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
“Oh.” Sehun is a little touched by Lu Han’s consideration. “Thank yo-“
But Lu Han isn’t done talking. “Well, it appears you have no idea what’s going on. Re-do this.” And Sehun experiences all his dissociative identity disorder feels again.
There is a pattern to this, however. Sehun soon realizes that whenever Lu Han hands work to him, he actually ends up doing more work than when he has to do it himself. First, he has to teach Sehun how to do the work, then he has to check his work, waits for Sehun to correct his mistakes and checks it again before submitting it. It is a lot of effort but Sehun ends up learning a lot. More so than his peers, he realizes when he meets his professor for an evaluation and he is impressed by how much Sehun knows about nasty ROI.
Besides ROI, Lu Han also knows a lot about people. Well, not really, know them but he picks up all these unspoken vibes like he’s some sort of radar or something. He notices when people are upset. That day, he just put an arm around Minseok and dragged him over to the pantry for a cup of coffee. They reappeared half an hour later and Minseok was all smiles. Sehun didn’t even notice that Minseok hadn’t been talking all day. No one else did, actually. He sent Yifan home one day when he was sick and stayed back in the office until morning to cover all his work for him. Sure, he’s blunt as pudding and spews poison occasionally. He calls Minseok, baozi because of his pregnant cheeks. Zitao is panda because of his eye circles. But he’s still everyone’s favorite. Scrape the surface and you’ll see something golden in him.
Lu Han is a really nice person, Sehun discovers this a month after his internship when he suddenly springs on him with a cake. “Happy birthday, Maknae,” he says gleefully at the startled look on Sehun’s face and drags Jongdae over to sing a special R&B rendition of the regular birthday song for Sehun. Jongdae is later shoo-ed away with no cake.
“There’s no gift for you,” Lu Han says as he chomps on a piece of strawberry shortcake, “because I’m the meanest person on Earth.” He ends up eating most of the cake because Sehun really hates strawberries. “How did you know it’s my birthday?” asks Sehun, picking out the strawberries and dropping them onto Lu Han’s plate.
“I prey on your brains at night,” leers Lu Han, the eerie effect somehow spoilt by the cream smeared at the corner of his lips. Sehun stares at that stupid blot of cream.
dear diary, Sehun later writes, its wrong to want to lick anothers face, ok. i hope this is clear to both u & me by now. He tears out that page and sticks it on his wall. Everyone needs a gentle reminder sometimes.
Lu Han is an amazing person, Sehun discovers this two weeks after his birthday.
“It’s really OK, Maknae,” Sehun doesn’t know when he became the ‘Maknae’, “I don’t mind birthdays,” Lu Han smiles, twinkling eyes all bent into crescents and Sehun wants to cry for missing out on his special day because he found out that Lu Han had made a special trip down to HR to ask about his own.
“But you celebrated mine,” protests Sehun.
“Yeah, I don’t care about my birthday but you’re eighteen, birthdays are special,” says Lu Han while he chews on the end of a pen. The afternoon rays play with the brown highlights in his hair. Sehun watches him for a moment before he reaches over to remove the pen and says, “We’re going out tonight for dinner.”
The dancing lights in Lu Han’s eyes seem to imply a ‘yes’.
★
They don’t go anywhere special, just a café near the office, because Sehun insists on treating and Lu Han refuses to let him pay anymore than a burger for him. He discovers that Lu Han likes his fries soggy so they split up the fries. Soggy on the left, crispy on the right. Once in a while, they pause to debate on the sogginess of a particular fry before chucking it into the middle; the ‘lets-wait-for-it-to-become-soggy’ pile.
They talk a lot. About various things because Lu Han doesn’t seem to be able to stay on a single conversation thread for long. Lu Han’s neighbor who plays Aerosmith too loudly on Friday nights, their director who refuses to purchase a new copier for them, the Eiffel Tower, Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his book-burning obsession before going back to Lu Han’s neighbor again.
Sehun shares his grievances of being an undergraduate and Lu Han hangs on to his every word. Or at least he appears to. His eyes are stuck onto Sehun’s face while he eats soggy fry after soggy fry. Sehun is embarrassed, he wonders if Lu Han is genuinely interested in his words or if he has been talking too much. “Stop looking at me,” he says hotly.
“Why?” asks Lu Han, hitting his fry on the side of the plate to get rid of excess salt. “It’s rude not to look at a person when he’s talking.” He blinks at Sehun who grunts and places both his hands on the sides of Lu Han’s face. “Don’t look at me,” says Sehun, directing Lu Han’s face to the right. Lu Han giggles mischievously and his eyes roll to the left to try and continue ogling at Sehun. The sound makes Sehun drop his hands and stare at his palms. What the hell did he just do?
“Tell me about your friends,” Lu Han says, shoving a ketchup-drenched fry into his mouth. Handing him a napkin, Sehun says, “Well, I have one who looks like a skinny version of Cha Taehyun.” This makes Lu Han laughs. It’s a messy sight, there’s bloodied French fry pulp in Lu Han’s mouth and he’s so adorable even when he’s being disgusting, urgh. Sehun stuffs handfuls of crispy fries down his throat. He prefers to gag over that than at himself.
They walk together to the metro station after dinner and encounter a Corgi. Immediately, Lu Han squats down and starts petting the dog. “Hey, hello, what’s your name, what’s your name” he trills, rubbing the puppy’s head and scratching behind its ears. Sehun doesn’t understand why Lu Han is talking to a dog as if it’s human but, man. Lu Han and puppies.
Wobble, wubble, wibble, goes Sehun.
Then he sees the Corgi’s owner’s face. Oops. He is about to drag Lu Han away when the ferocious looking Corgi owner breaks into a grin and says, “Her name is Molly.” Sehun is convinced that Lu Han has people subduing abilities.
“Hey Molly, hey molly, hey molly, molly, molly,” Lu Han coos and Sehun really wants to kick a trash bin to vent his pent-up frustration.
“You can’t just pet any dog,” he says when they finally walk away. “What if it bites? What if the owner really hates his dog to be petted by strangers?”
“No,” Lu Han refutes, “every pet owner likes their pets to be touched.”
“You are really touchy with people you don’t know well too,” Sehun says, picking up his pace to catch up with Lu Han. But he suddenly stops and looks at Sehun all weird instead.
“Oh. Hmm. I’m…sorry?” says Lu Han.
“No, no, nonono,” Sehun shakes his head furiously, “I like it,” he says without thinking and um, he just admitted to liking Lu Han touches, didn’t he? This is the cue to die. Sehun wants to tie a brick around his neck and jump into a very deep sea. Sink forever. How pleasant.
“I mean! Hmm, well,” Sehun exhibits his eloquent prowess, “I don’t mean that in a bad way, you’re very nice…” he trails off because there’s no way he could finish that sentence without revealing too much. Lu Han’s reaction is fairly violent to his last words though.
“I’m not nice!” he gasps in disbelief. “I’m totally mean. I make you do my work. I refer to you as my personal slave when I’m talking to Yifan about you behind your back. I pick on people all the time. I stole your shirt off your back.” Lu Han counts off his list of sins.
“You always look over my work, you make sure I get lunch no matter how busy we get and yeah, that shirt thing was low,” retorts Sehun.
“I had bruised knees for two whole weeks after you knocked me over in the lift. Quite a deal for you, I’d say,” Lu Han reminds Sehun who promptly ignores him. “You say the stupidest things and pull the dumbest shit but you also have the softest heart. You look after people in little ways when you think no one is looking,” he says quietly and sincerely.
Lu Han glowers and rubs his nose with the back of his hand. Then he starts looking at everywhere but Sehun. “Umm,” Sehun says cautiously, unsure about Lu Han’s strange response. But Lu Han looks at him warily as if he weren’t sure if he’s going to start again. He’s shy, Sehun realizes.
“I think you observe too much,” Lu Han says after several awkward pauses. “Stop looking at me,” he borrows Sehun’s words from before. Sehun is about to shake his head, no, he doesn’t think he can but Lu Han lifts his hand and even though he is nice, Lu Han is still Lu Han and is hence, unpredictable as fuck, so Sehun ducks. The blow comes down soft, his fingers sifts through Sehun’s hair and when they fall back into his eyes, Sehun hears him says, “Maknae, Maknae.” There is more adoration than rebuke. A chuckle accompanies the word. Looking up, Sehun sees Lu Han walking off. He takes a deep breath. Somehow, Seoul’s polluted air smells kind of good.
There must be a lot of magic in the air tonight.
★
It seems like SM (read: not an entertainment company) days are pretty easy to pass and between torturous touches, precarious photocopiers and feely feelings, the Annual General Meeting suddenly rolls them over like a bulldozer. That’s right. Lots of over-time.
When Lu Han finally emerges from the director’s office this day, it’s already nine pm. “We have to re-do this balance sheet. Missed out air freight and all that jazz,” Lu Han sighs and flings himself onto his desk. An arm lands on Sehun’s mouse and hence, his fingers. The intern frowns and twitches his digits. Lu Han’s arm wriggles in response. Sehun can tell he is enjoying this, that lovely bastard.
“What you really mean is, I have to re-do the balance sheet, don’t you?” Sehun returns Lu Han his arm but the financial controller refuses to accept it. He throws his limb across Sehun’s keyboard and officially disrupts all typing business. “I want to go home, I don’t want to work anymore. I’ve always wanted to visit Egypt, don’t wanna die here,” Lu Han says remorsefully; lower lip stuck out, pointy chin trembling like a candle in the wind.
Already nursing a terrible headache, Sehun says tiredly, “Go book your ticket, I’ll stay and do it.”
“Do you still have the headache? Stop eating painkillers, let’s go to the doctor.” Lu Han prepares to manhandle Sehun up from his computer. But Sehun shakes his head. When he turns his gaze back to the monitor, however, all the figures on the income statement are swimming in a white sea and number 8 is most definitely humping poor number 3. He’s about to turn and ask Lu Han about all this exciting number mating thingy when his head crashes down onto the keyboard.
‘Ouch’ is his last thought before he loses consciousness.
★
The warmth against his body registers before the burn at the back of his throat does. It hurts too much for Sehun to open his eyes so he keeps them close and snuggles closer to the heat source. He breathes in and smells clean linen sheet and passion fruit trees. His lids would have flown opened but weak as he is, they flutter like wings of a butterfly instead. When he finally cracks his lids open, all he sees is darkness and he struggles a little in confusion. There’s a small whine and Sehun instinctively comprehends the feel of soft skin and bones against his fingertips.
Lu Han.
This doesn’t make sense at all. But when he looks up blearily, he can see the smooth curve of a neck. There’s a hand curled loosely against his nape and another fitted around the slope of his lower back. Lu Han’s chest is rising and falling rhythmically against the press of his cheek. Sehun will later realize that was how Lu Han had been comforting him during the peak of his fever when sleep had deluded him. But his forehead is still burning and he only wants to seek relief. He frees his hand, which is squished between their bodies, wraps it around Lu Han’s waist and clings onto him. His throat feels like it has been scrapped raw and he tries to dislodge the discomfort by clearing his throat but ends up making it worse. Disturbed by Sehun, Lu Han makes some sleep noises of his own. He burrows deeper into the blankets and subconsciously seeks out his favorite spot. His face ends up tucked into Sehun’s neck; lips pressing into the spot between his collarbones.
Lu Han feels too good against Sehun’s feverish skin and he begins to settle. There are gentle consoling strokes at the back of his head. Slowly, Lu Han lures Sehun back to sleep.
★
“You guys slept together,” Jongin repeats after Sehun.
“It felt really good,” mutters Sehun to the straw.
“Correction. You shared the bed with him when you were delirious with fever and he was unable to get an address out of your mouth so he had no choice but to bring you home. The end. Stop writing fanfiction in your head, Sehun.” Sehun has decided long ago that Jongin is a cruel sonovabitch. This only reaffirms that fact. He ignores him and starts blowing bubbles into his soda. Then he looks up worriedly, “What should I do, Jongin?”
Jongin looks around him in alarm. “Who? Who did you just call! Who is this Jongin you speak of?”
Sehun shows him exactly who ‘this Jongin’ is by pulling his straw out of his glass of soda and flinging it at him. Scrambling to get out of the straw’s way, Jongin knocks the salt shaker over and spills white crystals all over the floor. A rather sad-looking Baekhyun comes over with a broom and sweeps it up. “It’s no use crying over spilled salt,” Sehun hears Jongin whispers to the café waiter and watches Baekhyun’s expression changes from ㅠㅅㅠ to ◕____________◕
“I don’t know him,” Sehun mouths to Baekhyun who simply decides that the both of them are too crazy for his sleepy café and avoids their table for the rest of the afternoon.
“See, you’ve neglected to use my name so often that I’ve almost forgotten it’s not Jerkass, Moronass, Bitchass, et cetera ass.” Jongin picks up their conversation from where they’ve left off. But Sehun only purses his lips in response.
“Alright, so you’re in love with Bambi,” Jongin stops when the pursing intensifies, “OK, half in love,” he tries again. Sehun puckers his nose and Jongin musters patience from the depths of his soul. “To be specific, you’re not sure if you’re in love with him but you like him a lot and when he smiles at you, you feel like you’re heady with glee and about to combust with happiness and all you want to do is to just stay with him the whole day even if you don’t do anything more than sit there and steal glances at each other like silly underage schoolgirls, and really, that’s all you want, to have him beside you.”
A faint pink creeps across Sehun’s cheeks but he nods his head.
‘Girls in love are so difficult,’ Jongin thinks. “So what are you going to do?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Sehun frowns. “You haven’t told me what I have to do.” He throws several accusatory glares in Jongin’s direction.
Witty as he is, it is not often that Jongin finds himself at a complete loss for words. He doesn’t speak until Sehun starts to flounder in his swamp of love-misery again. “My apologies, I didn’t know I was moonlighting as your love strategist.”
“Apologies accepted.” Sehun is such a gracious being that Jongin is strapped for words again. “Just confess,” he advises when he finds his tongue.
“I can’t,” whines Sehun, “it’s so embarrassingggg.”
There’s only so much a man can take. “Walk up to him and plant one on his lips,” Jongin says, completely tired from this girly conversation.
Sehun pouts.
But that's exactly what happens, actually.
★
lu han dispenses touches like candy. and he’s so adorable. sehun hates him. definitely maybe.
there’s a side pairing. very very side. almost coleslaw.
and there's jongin. yay jongin.
many thanks to ~pepper~ baby, stop drinking cheese soups
★
Aries: A sensual, emotional, secure, and well-rooted New Taurus Moon is the time to start something new. Feelings deepen tonight, and they should be shared when the Saturn mounts Pluto. Go out and experience the beauty of this lovely March day. "Take your dog for a walk, even if you don't have one".
Sehun is about to stuff the newspaper and its trashy horoscope column (because, really. Moons with feelings? Mating planets?) into the, well, trash bin, when he comes across ‘Take your dog for a walk, even if you don’t have one’. He wastes 14.5 seconds of his life on the impossibility of this thought before jamming the papers into the trash bin’s mouth. Taking a deep breath and managing to choke on his own spit, Sehun glances up at the entrance of the tall glass building he’s standing in front of.
Office buildings are always terrifying to an eighteen year old. Excessively shiny over-polished floors? Stuff of nightmares. The sound of heels clicking on excessively shiny over-polished tiles? Sharp battle cries. Take your dog out for a walk, even if you don’t have one? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sehun has never known horoscopes to be so feeling-inducing (of the negative kind. Maybe the prediction is right after all. His emotions are definitely deepening by the second). He doesn’t know how nervous he is, but if he’s checking his luck for the first time in his entire life, he must be pretty stuffed with butterflies, dragonflies, horseflies, all the flies, lalala.
He almost kills himself with the revolving door. Lovely March Day, My Arse.
God, he hates interviews.
★
Sehun is officially ten minutes late for his interview. Office lifts are more confusing than multiple integrals, Sehun realizes. He traipses into one but can’t find the button of his floor. Unfortunately, the lift doors close before he can escape. Stuck in a lift full of executives, Sehun tries his bestest best not to look eighteen in his white shirt and jeans. When he finally reaches the ground floor again, he rushes to the security guard who guides him to the correct lift lobby. The lift arrives after a mere eternity. Sehun rushes in, and, oh-hey-hi-annyeong, meets the cutest guy he has ever seen in his whole life and then proceeds with his attempt to murder him with coffee.
“Argh!” Lu Han rubs his sore knee, which must be bruising already and lifts his shirt off himself to avoid minimum skin contact with the scalding coffee that’s currently seeping through the white of the material. The now empty cup of coffee lies innocently on the floor, black straw and all.
“I’m sorry,” says Sehun with utter mortification. He helps the guy off the floor of the elevator. Why is my life so difficult (man, this guy is cute), he thinks. Why (Jesus Christ. So cute). He tries to be less emotional (So. Damn. Cute). “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
The coffee has cooled off into a latte mess on the front of Lu Han’s shirt. He lifts troubled eyes to Sehun and lets out an exasperated sigh. “I have a meeting later to seal a million-dollar contract. I can’t meet the client like this,” he mutters heavily.
“(Why so cute ;o;) I’m really sorry, I’ll pay for your shirt,” Sehun apologizes profusely, half a mind on the savings that he doesn’t have at all.
“But I need a shirt right now,” Lu Han protests weakly, still bending over to massage his right knee. He looks like a damsel in distress (Gwiyeowo~).
“Can you lend me yours?”
“(So cute, so so so-) What?” Sehun blinks blankly. The lift chooses to close its door at this moment. Feeling only slightly trapped, Sehun stares into the depths of Lu Han’s glimmering eyes.
Oh.
///D/E/A/R////
“Let’s trade shirts.”
★
When Sehun introduces himself to the receptionist as the prospective intern, Zitao only takes a look at his brown stained shirt before showing him into a room. As if interviewees turn up in dirty shirts all the time.
Settling into the black armchair, Sehun swallows the bile accumulating in the back of his throat. He’s only twenty minutes late after all. Sure, his shirt is a little wrinkled and dirtied but he scored a string of As last semester, he is hardworking, meticulous and he once saved a kitten from drowning. They won’t be so hard on interviews for interns, will they? Sehun is smoothing the front of his shirt down and almost convincing himself that the stain can be mistaken for a fashion statement (but no, it’s obviously just a dirty shirt), when his interviewer walks in - all smiles, rainbows and sunshine; sugar and spice, and everything nice - in a bright white shirt. His shirt. Oh Sehun’s shirt. To be specific, it’s the shirt his mum bought him for his first interview and which he woke at six am to iron. He even starched it. Pretty sure he would be able to recognize its ashes.
The rainbow factor dips a little. Otherwise, Lu Han exhibits no sign (or shame) that he has ever met Sehun before. “Hi, my name is Lu Han. I’m your interviewer for today.”
“I want a pay rise,” Sehun deadpans.
Lu Han doesn’t pretend to have any decency. He chortles brightly. “I’m glad you’re so eager. Let’s discuss that after the interview. I read from your resume that you’re currently majoring in-“
“I want to talk to the director.” Sehun moves to get up from his chair. But gets interrupted on his way to the door.
“You’re hired!” Lu Han smiles warmly, not even a bit ruffled, hand already extending to Sehun. “Welcome aboard.”
Sehun nods stiffly. “I like your shirt,” he sniffs.
The grin on Lu Han’s face spreads like melted butter. He looks as good as Trouble.
★
He starts work the next day, still a little lost but manages to locate the office with the vampy (literally) receptionist. In a matter of minutes, he gets assigned to Lu Han and has abso-fucking-lutely no idea why Lu Han protests louder than him. He has the nerve, the cheek, the gall- damn, he has sparkly eyes, Sehun cuts his own whining off when Lu Han turns to him. There’s ‘You’re a Burden to Me’ carved onto Lu Han’s forehead at the moment. It’s a little difficult but Sehun pretends he doesn’t care. Lu Han introduces him to their department.
“That’s Yifan,” says Lu Han, gesturing to someone ridiculously tall who’s over at the photocopier raining karate chops on it. “This is Jongdae and that’s Yixing, he’s working part-time here. Minseok! Don’t go, let me introduce you to the new intern. This is…” Lu Han eyes waver. “What’s your name?” he asks when he realizes he has no idea at all.
“Sehun. Oh Sehun. Sehun. Se. Hun.” Sehun says with more bite than necessary.
“Ah, Sehun. I knew it.” Lu Han beams with satisfaction he really has no right to feel. “Don’t mind him,” Lu Han says to Yixing who replies with a “I won’t, no worries :D” face, “it’s his first day, he’s just a little nervous.”
‘Who? How? Why? What?’ Sehun’s mind buzzes with alarm. Someone rodent-like bounces over to them and disrupts Sehun’s silent screaming. “Hello! I’m Minseok,” he chirps.
“You look like a ham-“ Sehun starts.
“It’s rude to call someone a hamster when you’ve just met him for the first time,” Lu Han whispers from behind him.
“Mer,” Sehun finishes wittily.
“He looks like a hammer?” Jongdae asks, all bewildered.
“I look like a hammer?” Minseok asks, all fascinated.
Sehun can be as convincing as tempura when he wants to. “Erm. Yeah. Very, hmm,” he lies fluently, “manly.”
“Thank you!” Minseok squeaks, easy as pie.
“What a tool,” Yixing summarizes.
“I think you’re fitting in,” quips Lu Han, who appears to have the sensitivity of a faltering light bulb the night before finals. He pats Sehun’s cheeks. “You’re pretty. The younger ones are always cuter,” he says before dragging the dumbfound Sehun to his desk.
“Where’s my desk,” asks Sehun with a frown. He rubs his right cheek with the back of his hand, as if warm touches could be rubbed away.
“Oh, office space is tight right now. Too many new employees. We’ll have to share a desk,” sighs Lu Han like it’s the greatest Roman tragedy on Earth and Sehun wonders if he’s about to develop split personalities from alternating between wanting to axe-slam Lu Han and coo-ing over his babyface. “And I’m going to make you do all my work~”
“Huh?” Sehun’s eyebrows droop.
There’s a billion dollar smile on Lu Han’s face. “Nothing,” he says, sweet as a lollipop. Sehun kind of wants to lick his face. Sweet-Mary-Mother-of-Jesus, what is his problem. Why would he want to lick his life-destroyer’s face (or anyone’s face, really, it’s kind of rude).
Sehun wants to cry again. He wants to cry so much.
★
He really does end up doing all of the angelic-looking sadist’s work. Which is really less aggravating than the fact that Lu Han is constantly invading his personal space. Constantly. All the time. 24/7.
When Lu Han laughs, the skin beneath his eyes scrunches but that’s OK because wrinkles look good on Lu Han’s face and he is adorable when he laughs. All twinkling crescent eyes and shiny pink lips. Until he bends forward and transfers half his weight onto Sehun and really, why? Is it appropriate? What would Lu Han’s mum say? Is it really so hard to laugh upright? Does he have spinal cord degeneration? At first, Sehun backs off because two days ago, they were still strangers and he would like to act as if they were I-just-got-to-know-you-two-days-ago-and-I’m-unsure-how-wide-your-personal-space-is-so-here’s-a-meter, instead of hi-this-is-my-face-in-your-neck-lol. Now he’s all dead-face to it; ‘Go right ahead. Use me well.’ Because it’s hard to resist adorable. Lu Han is so adorable.
Then he hits him. Sehun personally prefers sucker punches over thigh-slapping. But no, Lu Han has to slap his thigh every time he does something wrong or. Or. Or. Actually, there isn’t a real reason for the thigh slapping at all. They will just be doing work side by side when all of a sudden, Lu Han will slap his thigh. It’s kind of like a punctuation; a comma in a sentence. Finished with a report, slaps Sehun’s thigh. Gotta get up and go to the loo, slaps Sehun’s thigh. Photocopier is a bitch, slaps Sehun’s thigh. Staples some papers, slaps Sehun’s thigh, staples some more. Sehun finds himself staring at his right thigh sometimes. It looks weird without a hand there now.
“You keyed in the wrong formula,” Lu Han says one glorious afternoon, leaning right into Sehun’s embrace to correct the Excel formula. ‘Why is he so touchy-feely? Why does it feel so nice when he puts his hand on my forearm? Why does he smell so good? What shampoo does he use?’ Sehun thinks, a million questions at a time and takes another sniff of Lu Han’s hair and, that’s it, he comes to the conclusion that he really must be a pervert after all. There’s no other reason why he’s sniffing another guy’s hair and thinking about passion fruit trees. Passion fruit trees. Sehun has no idea if passion fruits grow on trees.
Lu Han’s hair looks so soft and Sehun wants to sink his fingers into it to find out if it’s really as silky as- he slaps his own hand.
Lu Han lifts his head. “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at Sehun’s reddening right hand.
“There’s a mosquito, haha,” Sehun laughs dryly and slaps his own face for emphasis while he continues to ‘haha’ himself into oblivion. If Lu Han finds him as sane as a serial psychotic killer, he disguises it totally by flinging a whole stack of documents at Sehun.
“Time for over-time,” Lu Han choruses. The demon has the voice of a nymph, Sehun realizes.
And this is the saddest life he has ever lived.
He decides to be vocal about it. “This is the saddest life I’ve ever lived,” he announces over a financial statement.
Lu Han reaches over and cups the side of Sehun’s neck. The intern stiffens while something shiny glosses over Lu Han’s eyes. He is sure Lu Han can feel the drumming of his pulse. It is a frantic beat against Lu Han’s stroking thumb. Sehun wants to push his hand off but the intimacy feels nice and mind-blowing at the same time. And honestly, Lu Han has such nice eyes and Sehun is as deep as spilled vodka on a bar counter. It’s hard for him to decide on a reaction so he stays still.
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han utters softly, as if he means it and he’s way too close for comfort right now. Something like seven centimeters stands between them. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. Brace for impact. Brace for~ “Is that spinach between your teeth? How sanitary.”
That night, Sehun writes in the diary he has suddenly decided to keep so as to contain all his current feels, because, yeah.
dear diary
what is the meaning of life
★
To be as frank as a hotdog, there isn’t really much to say about Sehun’s life. He studies Business Administration in the town’s college, washes his jeans once a year and has a jerk for a best friend.
“I’m a pervert,” confides Sehun to the pepper shaker. “But it is not my fault.”
“The thing is,” he declares loudly to the listening fork, “he is just so attractive. You know what the other girls in the office call him behind his back? Bambi. Why is his face like that? Why?” he demands of his snickledoodle.
Jongin can feel his pal slipping away. This is so sad that he orders another slice of Opera cake. He sips his cup of tea gracefully and glances at the fat Pomeranian pissing by the roadside. It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
“Why!” snarls Sehun. The café’s waiter pauses to stare at their table. “I don’t know him,” Jongin mouths to Baekhyun and elaborates the situation by winding his finger in circles near his temple. Sehun dutifully plays the crazy dude part by choosing to stab his cookie with a fork right then. Baekhyun - who feels like he has totally grasped the situation - nods and continues on his happy way to serving a table seated with a guy who has fried noodles for hair.
“This is ridiculous,” Jongin finally speaks up when Sehun has taken to shredding his napkin into bits like a love-lost teenager (“I am a teenager,” Sehun corrects him, “but not love-lost. Just tortured. And sad. And I’m experiencing feelings I’ve never known to exist in my being. And it’s. It’s a little t-tough”). “It can’t be that bad, come on.”
Sehun mutters something under his breath that Jongin can’t quite comprehend but sounds vaguely like, ‘Skies need to rain sensitivity right now’, which, nay, couldn’t be, because Jongin has sensitivity the size of an African elephant. Uh-huh. Yup. Write that important fact down somewhere.
“Does he have a hobby? Maybe you guys can bond through that, I don’t know. Be friends, make your life a little easier.”
“I don’t ever want to crucify babies,” whispers Sehun horrifically.
“Be serious.”
“Touching me?”
“Be seri- are you serious?”
Sehun nods in the most serious way he knows.
Jongin strokes his chin. It makes him feel wise. So he strokes it again. “Does he only touch you or is he like this with everyone?”
It takes a minute for Sehun to answer. “I don’t really know? We spend all our time together at the office, there’s so much work. I don’t know how he’s like with the rest.”
“I don’t know, dude. Sounds like you’re being sexually harassed at the office and you have all this overtime to do. My internship was a breeze compared to yours. Why don’t you take this up with your assigned professor and change your internship or something.”
Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Sehun says, “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it sexual harassment. Besides, it’s a really good company, my pay is decent, the mentorship is great, it’s located near my house and there’re lots of things to learn. And yeah, well, Lu Han is pretty, you know, cute.” He takes a huge gulp of iced water and spills most of it over his chin.
Very slowly, Jongin sits back in his chair and laces his fingers together. He judges Sehun. “Speak the truth.”
“It’s a really good company, my pay is decent, the mentorship is great, it’s located near my house and there’re lots of things to learn. And yeah, well, Lu Han is pretty, you know, cute.” Pat, pat, goes the napkin over Sehun’s twitching chin.
“Speak the truth.”
“It’s located near my house and there’re lots of things to learn. And yeah, well, Lu Han is pretty, you know, cute.”
Jongin lifts an intelligent brow.
“Lu Han is cute.” Sehun wants to flip over belly-up and perhaps die on the spot.
“You are a masochist, you know that?”
Sehun’s face head dives onto the table. “I know,” he says, all tiny voice.
Deciding to sprinkle some pity fairy-dust on Sehun, Jongin asks, “Do you like him?”
This wakes Sehun’s face up. “What. Do I like prancing around naked in blizzards. Do I like putting my hand in an unflushed toilet. Do I like your weepy calls at 3 a.m. when you quarreled with your precious wee bit? (Hey!) Do I even look like I’d like-”
“Alright, alright, I get the gist,” Jongin holds up his hands. But Sehun continues, “Lu Han is really nice at times though. It’s like he can pick up all these vibes, as if he has feelers or something. It’s creepy…but in a good creepy way. He makes people feel at ease around him. No, I mean, he scares people off at first, his mannerism. But eventually, no one is capable of disliking him. He’s just so real. Everyone has this mask on but he doesn’t. It’s like he doesn’t know how to stop himself from opening himself up to people. He talks to everyone and his mouth is evil, but everyone likes him. What’s wrong with humanity. Worse, he doesn’t have a single clue how nice he is. He also breaks all these barriers and I, too, erm,” Sehun pauses for a while before adding something really anti-climatical of sorts, “he also really likes puppies.” He frowns after saying that. Taps his fingers on the table for three seconds before he picks up the ravished napkin and continues ravishing it. Sehun looks like a kicked puppy himself.
Jongin doesn’t know what to say. Except, “Sometimes in life, we experience bad things in order to become stronger. We need to cultivate spiritual strength, renew our connection to the physical earth and seek blessings from the roots of our souls. Do you believe in Heaven on Earth, Sehun?”
Sehun tries to stab him to death with a toothpick.
★
Lu Han is a nice person, Sehun discovers this a week after his internship when he goes to work at 7 a.m. in the morning and sees Lu Han already at his desk. They express surprise at each other’s presence.
“Why are you here so early? Interns are supposed to smoke in the loo and be late for work,” comments Lu Han while he flips through a report. Sehun’s report. The one he rushed out the night before because the deer says so.
“I just want to start early so I can look through some documents…is there something wrong with my report?” Sehun asks uneasily. Is his performance so poor that his mentor has to specially come earlier to work just so he could check his work?
“Hmmm,” says Lu Han distractedly, “no, no, I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
“Oh.” Sehun is a little touched by Lu Han’s consideration. “Thank yo-“
But Lu Han isn’t done talking. “Well, it appears you have no idea what’s going on. Re-do this.” And Sehun experiences all his dissociative identity disorder feels again.
There is a pattern to this, however. Sehun soon realizes that whenever Lu Han hands work to him, he actually ends up doing more work than when he has to do it himself. First, he has to teach Sehun how to do the work, then he has to check his work, waits for Sehun to correct his mistakes and checks it again before submitting it. It is a lot of effort but Sehun ends up learning a lot. More so than his peers, he realizes when he meets his professor for an evaluation and he is impressed by how much Sehun knows about nasty ROI.
Besides ROI, Lu Han also knows a lot about people. Well, not really, know them but he picks up all these unspoken vibes like he’s some sort of radar or something. He notices when people are upset. That day, he just put an arm around Minseok and dragged him over to the pantry for a cup of coffee. They reappeared half an hour later and Minseok was all smiles. Sehun didn’t even notice that Minseok hadn’t been talking all day. No one else did, actually. He sent Yifan home one day when he was sick and stayed back in the office until morning to cover all his work for him. Sure, he’s blunt as pudding and spews poison occasionally. He calls Minseok, baozi because of his pregnant cheeks. Zitao is panda because of his eye circles. But he’s still everyone’s favorite. Scrape the surface and you’ll see something golden in him.
Lu Han is a really nice person, Sehun discovers this a month after his internship when he suddenly springs on him with a cake. “Happy birthday, Maknae,” he says gleefully at the startled look on Sehun’s face and drags Jongdae over to sing a special R&B rendition of the regular birthday song for Sehun. Jongdae is later shoo-ed away with no cake.
“There’s no gift for you,” Lu Han says as he chomps on a piece of strawberry shortcake, “because I’m the meanest person on Earth.” He ends up eating most of the cake because Sehun really hates strawberries. “How did you know it’s my birthday?” asks Sehun, picking out the strawberries and dropping them onto Lu Han’s plate.
“I prey on your brains at night,” leers Lu Han, the eerie effect somehow spoilt by the cream smeared at the corner of his lips. Sehun stares at that stupid blot of cream.
dear diary, Sehun later writes, its wrong to want to lick anothers face, ok. i hope this is clear to both u & me by now. He tears out that page and sticks it on his wall. Everyone needs a gentle reminder sometimes.
Lu Han is an amazing person, Sehun discovers this two weeks after his birthday.
“It’s really OK, Maknae,” Sehun doesn’t know when he became the ‘Maknae’, “I don’t mind birthdays,” Lu Han smiles, twinkling eyes all bent into crescents and Sehun wants to cry for missing out on his special day because he found out that Lu Han had made a special trip down to HR to ask about his own.
“But you celebrated mine,” protests Sehun.
“Yeah, I don’t care about my birthday but you’re eighteen, birthdays are special,” says Lu Han while he chews on the end of a pen. The afternoon rays play with the brown highlights in his hair. Sehun watches him for a moment before he reaches over to remove the pen and says, “We’re going out tonight for dinner.”
The dancing lights in Lu Han’s eyes seem to imply a ‘yes’.
★
They don’t go anywhere special, just a café near the office, because Sehun insists on treating and Lu Han refuses to let him pay anymore than a burger for him. He discovers that Lu Han likes his fries soggy so they split up the fries. Soggy on the left, crispy on the right. Once in a while, they pause to debate on the sogginess of a particular fry before chucking it into the middle; the ‘lets-wait-for-it-to-become-soggy’ pile.
They talk a lot. About various things because Lu Han doesn’t seem to be able to stay on a single conversation thread for long. Lu Han’s neighbor who plays Aerosmith too loudly on Friday nights, their director who refuses to purchase a new copier for them, the Eiffel Tower, Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his book-burning obsession before going back to Lu Han’s neighbor again.
Sehun shares his grievances of being an undergraduate and Lu Han hangs on to his every word. Or at least he appears to. His eyes are stuck onto Sehun’s face while he eats soggy fry after soggy fry. Sehun is embarrassed, he wonders if Lu Han is genuinely interested in his words or if he has been talking too much. “Stop looking at me,” he says hotly.
“Why?” asks Lu Han, hitting his fry on the side of the plate to get rid of excess salt. “It’s rude not to look at a person when he’s talking.” He blinks at Sehun who grunts and places both his hands on the sides of Lu Han’s face. “Don’t look at me,” says Sehun, directing Lu Han’s face to the right. Lu Han giggles mischievously and his eyes roll to the left to try and continue ogling at Sehun. The sound makes Sehun drop his hands and stare at his palms. What the hell did he just do?
“Tell me about your friends,” Lu Han says, shoving a ketchup-drenched fry into his mouth. Handing him a napkin, Sehun says, “Well, I have one who looks like a skinny version of Cha Taehyun.” This makes Lu Han laughs. It’s a messy sight, there’s bloodied French fry pulp in Lu Han’s mouth and he’s so adorable even when he’s being disgusting, urgh. Sehun stuffs handfuls of crispy fries down his throat. He prefers to gag over that than at himself.
They walk together to the metro station after dinner and encounter a Corgi. Immediately, Lu Han squats down and starts petting the dog. “Hey, hello, what’s your name, what’s your name” he trills, rubbing the puppy’s head and scratching behind its ears. Sehun doesn’t understand why Lu Han is talking to a dog as if it’s human but, man. Lu Han and puppies.
Wobble, wubble, wibble, goes Sehun.
Then he sees the Corgi’s owner’s face. Oops. He is about to drag Lu Han away when the ferocious looking Corgi owner breaks into a grin and says, “Her name is Molly.” Sehun is convinced that Lu Han has people subduing abilities.
“Hey Molly, hey molly, hey molly, molly, molly,” Lu Han coos and Sehun really wants to kick a trash bin to vent his pent-up frustration.
“You can’t just pet any dog,” he says when they finally walk away. “What if it bites? What if the owner really hates his dog to be petted by strangers?”
“No,” Lu Han refutes, “every pet owner likes their pets to be touched.”
“You are really touchy with people you don’t know well too,” Sehun says, picking up his pace to catch up with Lu Han. But he suddenly stops and looks at Sehun all weird instead.
“Oh. Hmm. I’m…sorry?” says Lu Han.
“No, no, nonono,” Sehun shakes his head furiously, “I like it,” he says without thinking and um, he just admitted to liking Lu Han touches, didn’t he? This is the cue to die. Sehun wants to tie a brick around his neck and jump into a very deep sea. Sink forever. How pleasant.
“I mean! Hmm, well,” Sehun exhibits his eloquent prowess, “I don’t mean that in a bad way, you’re very nice…” he trails off because there’s no way he could finish that sentence without revealing too much. Lu Han’s reaction is fairly violent to his last words though.
“I’m not nice!” he gasps in disbelief. “I’m totally mean. I make you do my work. I refer to you as my personal slave when I’m talking to Yifan about you behind your back. I pick on people all the time. I stole your shirt off your back.” Lu Han counts off his list of sins.
“You always look over my work, you make sure I get lunch no matter how busy we get and yeah, that shirt thing was low,” retorts Sehun.
“I had bruised knees for two whole weeks after you knocked me over in the lift. Quite a deal for you, I’d say,” Lu Han reminds Sehun who promptly ignores him. “You say the stupidest things and pull the dumbest shit but you also have the softest heart. You look after people in little ways when you think no one is looking,” he says quietly and sincerely.
Lu Han glowers and rubs his nose with the back of his hand. Then he starts looking at everywhere but Sehun. “Umm,” Sehun says cautiously, unsure about Lu Han’s strange response. But Lu Han looks at him warily as if he weren’t sure if he’s going to start again. He’s shy, Sehun realizes.
“I think you observe too much,” Lu Han says after several awkward pauses. “Stop looking at me,” he borrows Sehun’s words from before. Sehun is about to shake his head, no, he doesn’t think he can but Lu Han lifts his hand and even though he is nice, Lu Han is still Lu Han and is hence, unpredictable as fuck, so Sehun ducks. The blow comes down soft, his fingers sifts through Sehun’s hair and when they fall back into his eyes, Sehun hears him says, “Maknae, Maknae.” There is more adoration than rebuke. A chuckle accompanies the word. Looking up, Sehun sees Lu Han walking off. He takes a deep breath. Somehow, Seoul’s polluted air smells kind of good.
There must be a lot of magic in the air tonight.
★
It seems like SM (read: not an entertainment company) days are pretty easy to pass and between torturous touches, precarious photocopiers and feely feelings, the Annual General Meeting suddenly rolls them over like a bulldozer. That’s right. Lots of over-time.
When Lu Han finally emerges from the director’s office this day, it’s already nine pm. “We have to re-do this balance sheet. Missed out air freight and all that jazz,” Lu Han sighs and flings himself onto his desk. An arm lands on Sehun’s mouse and hence, his fingers. The intern frowns and twitches his digits. Lu Han’s arm wriggles in response. Sehun can tell he is enjoying this, that lovely bastard.
“What you really mean is, I have to re-do the balance sheet, don’t you?” Sehun returns Lu Han his arm but the financial controller refuses to accept it. He throws his limb across Sehun’s keyboard and officially disrupts all typing business. “I want to go home, I don’t want to work anymore. I’ve always wanted to visit Egypt, don’t wanna die here,” Lu Han says remorsefully; lower lip stuck out, pointy chin trembling like a candle in the wind.
Already nursing a terrible headache, Sehun says tiredly, “Go book your ticket, I’ll stay and do it.”
“Do you still have the headache? Stop eating painkillers, let’s go to the doctor.” Lu Han prepares to manhandle Sehun up from his computer. But Sehun shakes his head. When he turns his gaze back to the monitor, however, all the figures on the income statement are swimming in a white sea and number 8 is most definitely humping poor number 3. He’s about to turn and ask Lu Han about all this exciting number mating thingy when his head crashes down onto the keyboard.
‘Ouch’ is his last thought before he loses consciousness.
★
The warmth against his body registers before the burn at the back of his throat does. It hurts too much for Sehun to open his eyes so he keeps them close and snuggles closer to the heat source. He breathes in and smells clean linen sheet and passion fruit trees. His lids would have flown opened but weak as he is, they flutter like wings of a butterfly instead. When he finally cracks his lids open, all he sees is darkness and he struggles a little in confusion. There’s a small whine and Sehun instinctively comprehends the feel of soft skin and bones against his fingertips.
Lu Han.
This doesn’t make sense at all. But when he looks up blearily, he can see the smooth curve of a neck. There’s a hand curled loosely against his nape and another fitted around the slope of his lower back. Lu Han’s chest is rising and falling rhythmically against the press of his cheek. Sehun will later realize that was how Lu Han had been comforting him during the peak of his fever when sleep had deluded him. But his forehead is still burning and he only wants to seek relief. He frees his hand, which is squished between their bodies, wraps it around Lu Han’s waist and clings onto him. His throat feels like it has been scrapped raw and he tries to dislodge the discomfort by clearing his throat but ends up making it worse. Disturbed by Sehun, Lu Han makes some sleep noises of his own. He burrows deeper into the blankets and subconsciously seeks out his favorite spot. His face ends up tucked into Sehun’s neck; lips pressing into the spot between his collarbones.
Lu Han feels too good against Sehun’s feverish skin and he begins to settle. There are gentle consoling strokes at the back of his head. Slowly, Lu Han lures Sehun back to sleep.
★
“You guys slept together,” Jongin repeats after Sehun.
“It felt really good,” mutters Sehun to the straw.
“Correction. You shared the bed with him when you were delirious with fever and he was unable to get an address out of your mouth so he had no choice but to bring you home. The end. Stop writing fanfiction in your head, Sehun.” Sehun has decided long ago that Jongin is a cruel sonovabitch. This only reaffirms that fact. He ignores him and starts blowing bubbles into his soda. Then he looks up worriedly, “What should I do, Jongin?”
Jongin looks around him in alarm. “Who? Who did you just call! Who is this Jongin you speak of?”
Sehun shows him exactly who ‘this Jongin’ is by pulling his straw out of his glass of soda and flinging it at him. Scrambling to get out of the straw’s way, Jongin knocks the salt shaker over and spills white crystals all over the floor. A rather sad-looking Baekhyun comes over with a broom and sweeps it up. “It’s no use crying over spilled salt,” Sehun hears Jongin whispers to the café waiter and watches Baekhyun’s expression changes from ㅠㅅㅠ to ◕____________◕
“I don’t know him,” Sehun mouths to Baekhyun who simply decides that the both of them are too crazy for his sleepy café and avoids their table for the rest of the afternoon.
“See, you’ve neglected to use my name so often that I’ve almost forgotten it’s not Jerkass, Moronass, Bitchass, et cetera ass.” Jongin picks up their conversation from where they’ve left off. But Sehun only purses his lips in response.
“Alright, so you’re in love with Bambi,” Jongin stops when the pursing intensifies, “OK, half in love,” he tries again. Sehun puckers his nose and Jongin musters patience from the depths of his soul. “To be specific, you’re not sure if you’re in love with him but you like him a lot and when he smiles at you, you feel like you’re heady with glee and about to combust with happiness and all you want to do is to just stay with him the whole day even if you don’t do anything more than sit there and steal glances at each other like silly underage schoolgirls, and really, that’s all you want, to have him beside you.”
A faint pink creeps across Sehun’s cheeks but he nods his head.
‘Girls in love are so difficult,’ Jongin thinks. “So what are you going to do?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Sehun frowns. “You haven’t told me what I have to do.” He throws several accusatory glares in Jongin’s direction.
Witty as he is, it is not often that Jongin finds himself at a complete loss for words. He doesn’t speak until Sehun starts to flounder in his swamp of love-misery again. “My apologies, I didn’t know I was moonlighting as your love strategist.”
“Apologies accepted.” Sehun is such a gracious being that Jongin is strapped for words again. “Just confess,” he advises when he finds his tongue.
“I can’t,” whines Sehun, “it’s so embarrassingggg.”
There’s only so much a man can take. “Walk up to him and plant one on his lips,” Jongin says, completely tired from this girly conversation.
Sehun pouts.
But that's exactly what happens, actually.
★