constants and outliers (1/1)

Aug 14, 2013 14:46

Title: Constants and Outliers
Pairing: Luhan-centric, Luhan/Xiumin
Rating: PG-13
W/C: 8,803
Summary: There are two constants in Luhan's life: soccer and singing.
A/N: This was supposed to be 2k words about how Luhan likes soccer and singing and also maybe Minseok. Apparently I don't stick to plans very well. u_u;;



There are two constants in Luhan’s life: soccer and singing.

He grows up in Beijing’s dusty back alleys, kicking around a football with the other kids from his neighborhood. Some days, when his friends are too busy, he still ends up in the alleyway, moving the ball between his own two feet and kicking it against the solid stone wall. He thinks he might want to be a professional soccer player one day, and he can’t take a day off to rest just because there’s no one around to practice with him.

Beijing, like most bustling cities, is never really quiet. On the days where Luhan plays alone, though, the air around him feels too still. It lacks the sound of laughter and his friends shouting at him to pass the ball. He sings snippets of his favorite pop songs to fill the silence and pass the time.

One of his friends sneaks up on him while he’s doing just that. He’s halfway through his favorite Eason Chan song, but he stops abruptly when his friend taps him on the shoulder. “You’re not half bad, you know.”

“Duh,” he says rolling his eyes, thinking his friend is talking about his soccer skills. “That’s why I kicked your butt yesterday!”

“You wish!” his friend says, sticking his tongue out. He kicks the ball out from under Luhan’s feet, and Luhan stumbles. “I meant your voice. You should sing more.” And then he takes off down the alleyway, dribbling the soccer ball, leaving Luhan dumbstruck behind him.

It’s then that Luhan realizes that singing, the silly little thing he does when he’s bored, is something he might be good at.

Luhan is thirteen when he realizes that he might be a little different from the rest of the guys at school. They’re in middle school now, and all his friends want to talk about is how cute all the girls in their class are. Luhan is usually quiet during these conversations, and his friends take note. “Don’t you like anyone, Luhan?”

The question catches him off guard. He stutters as he mumbles out the first name that comes to mind, a girl in their class who he thinks is pretty, in an objective sort of way. His friends misunderstand his nervousness as him being shy about his supposed crush and tease him relentlessly about it.

When he goes home that day, he turns on the television, some drama playing on the channel he’s currently watching. He tries desperately to see what his friends see in girls, tries, and fails, to look at the actresses with anything but indifference. In the end, it’s the male lead who catches his attention.

He lets himself cry about it once, in the shower that same night. In the morning, he starts the long journey of coming to terms with himself.

Luhan’s best friend, a kind girl named Jiarong, talks him into competing in their high school’s talent show. “I know how much you love singing,” she says, a pretty little smile spread across her face. “Why not show everyone how great you are at it?”

She pushes him towards the signup list, and there’s no going back after he signs his name in pen.

The first talent show Luhan competes in, he gets third place. They give him a trophy made of glass and topped with a star. To him, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. He chats animatedly about it at dinner to his parents, holding it up for them to see.

His father regards it with disdain. “Singing is a little girly, don’t you think?”

Luhan tries his hardest not to visibly deflate, but he can’t help it. His shoulders hunch in a little bit, and something inside him feels crushed.

“Oh, shush,” his mother says, rolling her eyes at his dad. “Don’t upset the kid. It’s just a hobby.” She looks over at Luhan for reassurance. “Right, Luhan?”

Luhan nods and chews his food in silence.

Somewhere along the way, Luhan’s focus shifts from soccer to singing. He still plays for his high school’s team, and he still stages impromptu soccer matches with his friends in the park, but it’s not his main concern anymore. Singing used to always be on the backburner, the thing he did for fun on the side. And while he genuinely loves soccer, part of him thinks he’s only this serious about it due to his father’s influence.

He participates in more and more talent shows and rakes in more trophies. He’s seventeen, going on eighteen, when he wins first place for the first time. The win makes him feel more confident than he’s felt in years. It might just be a stupid school trophy, but it’s a trophy he earned because people actually like his voice. They appreciate what he does, and that feeling is almost like he’s on top of the world.

It’s when he’s coming down from the excitement of winning that he realizes at the top of the world, where everyone sees you, you can’t hide yourself. He’s sitting on the floor of Jiarong’s room, his back leaning against her bedframe. “Hey, Jiarong,” he mumbles.

She hums in response, a tiny gesture to show that she’s listening.

“I’m...” He’s never tried to be this honest with anyone before, and it scares him. Terrifies him. He takes a deep breath to steady himself before continuing. “I like boys.”

Luhan’s not sure what reaction he’s expecting. Jiarong isn’t the type to get loud and angry, but that’s only a small reassurance when his biggest secret is out there in the open. A few moments pass by without her saying anything, and Luhan considers leaving and never looking it back. It might be easier, he thinks, to go now instead of stick around and listen to whatever disapproving thing she has to say.

She scoots across the bed, her legs dangling next to where Luhan is sitting. Leaning down slightly, she runs a gentle hand through his hair. “That doesn’t change who you are.”

Luhan has never felt this light before. It’s like a huge, crushing weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Without it he almost feels like he might be able to float away. He leans his head against Jiarong’s leg as her fingers continue to card through his hair.

Luhan has to bite his lip to stop himself from crying out of happiness.

Luhan auditions for a Korean entertainment company when he’s eighteen. While surfing the web, he sees the ad for a JYP casting call in Beijing and knows immediately that he can’t pass this opportunity up. A TVXQ song is playing on his stereo, and he entertains the silly thought that maybe, one day, he can be just like them.

He doesn’t get casted. His audition is a disaster - his voice shakes too much, his hands are clammy, and his dancing is way too messy. He feels awful as he drags himself back home, and he wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep off the sting of rejection.

His mom stands in between him and the door to his room. “Where have you been all day?”

He thinks about lying to her, but, ultimately, he can’t bring himself to do it. Ever since that day in Jiarong’s room, he’s vowed to himself that he should be honest with everyone around him. He explains the audition to his mother slowly, watching as her expressions change when she finally understands.

“Why would you go to a Korean company to sing?” she asks.

Scuffing his foot against the floor, he mumbles, “I think it’d be easier to make it there.”

His mother shakes her head, looking far too skeptical. “It isn’t easy to make it anywhere. You need to wake up from this far fetched dream of yours and start thinking about college.”

Luhan does think about college. He thinks, long and hard, about applying to Yonsei University’s Korean language program. He bounces the idea off Jiarong and the rest of his friends. A few of them aren’t too into the idea, but most of them are supportive. That’s more than enough for him.

He breaks the news to his parents at dinner. As expected, neither of them are too keen on the idea. They can’t stop him, though, and they both know that. Luhan is an adult now, and his decisions are his alone. Besides, the program is nowhere near as expensive as the tuition for a four year college. With the part time job he’s been working, he’s saved up enough to pay for it.

His dad asks what exactly he expects to get out of living in Korea, and Luhan doesn’t know how to explain it to him when he’s not even sure himself. He just feels, deep in his bones, that Korea will be good for him. At the very least, it’ll give him some much needed time to figure out what he wants to do with his life, something more realistic than singing or playing football.

He starts packing his suitcase as soon as dinner is finished.

Seoul is everything Luhan could have imagined and more. He has trouble getting around at first. The rail lines, even with their color coded system, are confusing, and he ends up heading in the wrong direction when he tries to transfer lines the first few times. He can’t read the street signs, not at first, and he peers into shop windows to find out what they sell instead of reading their name. Sometimes, when cab drivers pick up on his lack of Korean fluency, they take winding routes through the city just to hike up the meter. It’s frustrating to know what they’re doing but not be able to articulate it.

Seoul is unfamiliar and daunting, but also so, so worth it.

He attends class, his fluency building up with every lesson. He and his dorm mates become fast friends, exploring the city together. It’s a rich experience, and there is absolutely nothing that can stop Luhan from believing that this is the best decision he’s made in his life.

Myeongdong is always busy, no matter the time of day. It’s crowded at night when Luhan and his friends go out to noraebang, and it’s crowded now, during the middle of the day, as they browse through various shops. Someone in the mass of people bumps into him, and he pays it no mind. There are dozens of people bustling about, trying to get to their own destinations, and it’s sort of inevitable to get jostled around a bit.

He keeps walking, not even glancing back to see who walked into him. Someone follows after him though, and persistently taps at his shoulder. He turns around to face whoever it is and is greeted by an apologetic looking older woman.

“Sorry,” she says, and Luhan figures she was probably who bumped into him. “I’m a talent scout for SM Entertainment.” She pulls a card out of her purse and hands it to him. “You should think about auditioning sometime!”

He stays in the same spot long after she’s gone. The business card is feather light in his hand, and he rereads the letters printed on it over and over again. He thinks of this flimsy piece of cardstock as a first class ticket to the future he thought he’d given up on.

Luhan gets in. He can hardly process the words as they’re being said to him. Someone is explaining to him about what he can expect from trainee life and when to start coming to the company building, but he’s still stuck on one little word.

Congratulations.

The call home to his parents goes about as well as he expects, which is, to say, it goes terribly. His mother cries when he says he isn’t coming home at the end of the year like he was supposed to. Too incoherent to speak, she hands the phone over to his father.

“I’m going to send you money for a flight back to Beijing, and you are going to come home. Understand?” Luhan flinches at the volume of his voice.

“No,” Luhan says, shaking his head. He’s suddenly glad for the lack of intimacy that comes from talking over the phone. He doesn’t think he’d have the courage to stand up to his father in person. “I’m not coming home.”

His dad is full out yelling now. “You’re being childish, Luhan. And selfish. Your place is here, in Beijing. You’re supposed to be studying business so you can get a respectable job. You can’t be, what, a popstar? Is that what you’re trying to do? You can’t be a popstar and give your mother and I grandchildren. That’s not a stable life.”

Luhan hangs up shortly after. This is a gamble, sure. Whether he ends up debuting or not is mostly up to chance, and there’s a giant “what if?” looming over his head if he never ends up debuting. But none of that matters, not really. What matters is that Luhan is here, and his dream is a finger's reach away. He’s not going to give up on it.

Besides, he’ll never be the kind of man his parents need him to be.

Meeting the other trainees is daunting, to say the least. They’ve all been here for so much longer than he has. (Joonmyun, a trainee he met earlier in the day, has been here since 2006.) They’re all kind, though, and a hell of a lot more patient than Luhan would have expected.

He leans against the wall of the dance studio, his breath coming out in gasps. Someone tosses a water bottle into his lap, and he looks up to see Jongin grinning down at him. “Thanks,” Luhan says, holding the water bottle up. He smiles gratefully at the younger boy.

Jongin slides down the wall next to him and takes a swig of his own water bottle. “It gets easier,” he says between sips. “Well, maybe not easier...” He scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “But your body gets used to it after awhile. You’re not in as bad of shape as some of the other guys were when they first joined, though. You a dancer?”

Luhan shakes his head quickly. “Dancing to pop songs in my room doesn’t count, does it?”

Jongin laughs, and it’s a loud, hearty sound that would be annoying if it came from anyone else. For some reason, though, Jongin makes it endearing. “An athlete, then.”

Nodding, Luhan says, “I was on the soccer team back in high school.”

Their dance instructor enters the room then. He nods in their general direction and flicks the stereo back on. Jongin grimaces, but only for a minute. He stands up, offering Luhan his hand. “You ready for round two?”

Luhan likes vocal practice a lot more than dance lessons. It’s not that he’s a bad dancer - he’s not, Jongin has told him as much - but here, in this tiny little room on the basement level of the building, is where he shines. He’d take practicing scales over footwork any day.

His singing lessons today are with a trainee he’s not familiar with, so he gives a short introduction before they begin.

“I’m Minseok,” the other boy offers in return. He tilts his head to the side, and the way he’s looking at Luhan is a little strange. “Where are you from?”

“China,” Luhan answers without hesitation. “Beijing, if you want specifics.”

Minseok’s mouth falls into an ‘o’ shape. “That makes sense,” he nods. “I was just a little confused. Your Korean is really great, but your name is definitely... not Korean.” He trails off awkwardly, like he’s embarrassed to have admitted any of that.

Luhan just smiles, hoping that it’ll help put Minseok at ease. “I came here to study before I joined the company, so...”

“That’s so cool!” Minseok says, looking genuinely excited. His cheeks are round and they bunch up when he smiles. (And Luhan thinks it might be kind of cute, but he’ll never admit that.) “I’ve never been out of the country before, so.” He shrugs wordlessly. “Anyways, we have some singing to do, don’t we?”

Luhan and Minseok click. Their personalities mesh together well, and everything between them is made more comfortable by the fact that they’re both the same age. (Luhan doesn’t even try to hide his surprise at that. Minseok just nudges him with his shoulder and teases Luhan about his own incredibly youthful appearance.)

And then there’s the fact that Minseok likes soccer. They chat about player statistics and recent games they wish they had a chance to watch live, and when Minseok lets it slip that his favorite team is Manchester United, Luhan thinks he might just have to promote him to best friend status.

Getting casted into SM had, at the time, seemed like the greatest feeling in the world, but Luhan knows now that he was wrong. It doesn’t compare to this, to finding out that he’s actually going to debut. He’s going to be, for certain, a singer. It’s not a what if anymore. It’s reality.

There are eleven other boys in the room. Most of them Luhan is familiar with, though some of them are newer trainees that he doesn’t know too well. They’re going to be split up into two subgroups, one to promote in Korea and one to promote in China.

The best part of all this, though? Minseok is going to be promoting in China with him.

Somewhere during the course of training for their debut, Oh Sehun, the youngest of the group, worms his way into Luhan’s heart. He’s hot and cold, a confusing mess of bratty and overly sensitive, but Luhan likes that about him. He’s blunt and up front with his thoughts.

Luhan treats him to tea after practice one night. It’s late, well into the beginning hours of morning, and the only other people in the small twenty-four hour cafe with them are a group of college students in the corner booth. Sehun’s eyes linger on them for a little too long.

“Hey, hyung,” Sehun asks quietly, after he’s peeled his eyes away from the other patrons. “What was college like?”

There’s a certain heaviness to his question. By choosing this path, they’ve all given up on a certain aspects of conventional life. For Sehun, that means he’ll never get to walk the streets and attend class like normal college students do everyday. Maybe management will let him enroll in college one day, but it won’t be the same. He’ll miss lessons all the time and almost definitely fall behind, like he’s done with his high school classes.

“It was a lot of fun, Sehun,” Luhan answers honestly. He knows he’s lucky to have at least experienced that aspect of life before joining the company, and it makes him feel a little bit guilty.

Sehun stares back at him, a curious glint to his eyes, and so Luhan summons up some of his most ridiculous school memories. Sehun will never be able to experience any of this in the same carefree way that he did, but Luhan hopes that secondhand stories about drunken noraebang sessions are enough for him.

Filming their music video is an entirely new experience for Luhan. A few of the members - Jongin, Joonmyun, and Chanyeol - have experience with working on video shoots, but to Luhan and the others, this is all foreign. The sets for their debut music video are largely extravagant, as are their clothes, and part of Luhan wonders how much all of this costs, how much the company is spending on them.

They each have to film their own solo shots where they demonstrate their “superpowers” - a gimmick that the guys laugh about in their dorm. While the staff assures him that the orbs he apparently has control over will be added in post production, he still feels odd pretending to manipulate something that doesn’t really exist.

He’s not sure how great the shot ends up looking, but the director lets him go without any fuss, and he takes that as a positive sign. He walks off set, behind the cameras, and watches as Zitao is ushered in front of the green screen to start filming his own part.

“You did well,” someone says from behind him. Luhan turns around only to be greeted with a heavily made up Minseok. His face is coated with stage makeup for the scene they’re shooting next. His eyes are heavily rimmed with black, and stitches are drawn over his lips. It gives him a ghastly appearance.

“Whoa.” Luhan reaches out to poke at the paint on Minseok’s face. When he pulls his hand away, there’s a thin coating of black on his finger tip.

“You smudged it!” Minseok looks horrified, his mouth wide open and his eyebrows precariously high on his forehead. With the way his face is made up to resemble some sort of zombie, the expression is a little terrifying.

“No one will notice,” Luhan assures him. The lines painted on his face are artfully smudged anyways, and he’s pretty sure no one will be able to tell the difference between his handiwork and the makeup artist’s.

Later, when one of the stylists whisks Minseok away to touch up his face paint and scold him for messing it up, Luhan can barely hold in his laughter.

The last few minutes before they go on stage for their debut showcase are nerve wracking. Wufan gathers all of them backstage for a team handshake. He holds his hand out, and then Joonmyun places his on top. Soon enough there are twelve hands piled on top of each other.

“This is what we’ve been working towards, guys,” Wufan starts to say. “Let’s go out there and do our best, okay?”

His encouragement is punctuated with all of them shouting in unison. “We are one!”

Maybe it’s a little cheesy, but Luhan loves the phrase anyways. It makes him feel like he’s really apart of something great, like standing here with eleven other guys who never used to mean this much to him is where he belongs.

The amount of people who come to see their showcase is mindblowing. They haven’t even officially debuted, and yet there are hundreds of people, no fans, hundreds upon hundreds of fans that are all here to see them.

Surreal doesn’t even begin to cover how it feels to be performing in front of an audience that big.

Luhan doesn’t know what to feel on the flight to Beijing, where they’ll be holding their Chinese showcase. He stares out the window, the vast expanse of the Yellow Sea beneath them.

“Are you excited to be going home?” Zitao asks from where he’s sitting to Luhan’s left.

Part of him is. He hasn’t been back to China since he left for Seoul years ago, and there’s a very large part of Luhan that yearns for the familiar. He wants to walk through the city he used to call home, wants to see all of his old, childhood haunts again. A smaller, more rational part of himself dreads going back to the city, though. Beijing is home to nothing more than parents he can’t even hold a civil conversation with and old friends he’s long since fallen out of contact with.

“I’m nervous,” he says in response to Zitao’s question. It’s a lot easier than trying to explain that Beijing doesn’t hold anything for him, at least not anymore.

“Your parents didn’t come,” Minseok says after their showcase in Beijing. It’s an offhand remark, innocent enough, but Luhan hears the tinge of unanswered curiosity behind it.

“They don’t really... approve of my career choice,” he replies. Talking about this is uncomfortable territory, but thankfully Minseok seems satisfied with that answer. Or maybe he’s not - maybe he just has enough tact to know when certain things shouldn’t be pushed.

He places a hand on Luhan’s shoulder, a silent attempt at comfort. Luhan appreciates that, appreciates the fact that he doesn’t try to fill the silence with something as meaningless as “I’m sorry” or “I understand.” Both options are too stereotypical, too fake - especially the latter. Luhan hears the conversations Minseok has when he calls back home to talk to his parents and little sister. They’re nothing short of pleasant and comfortable.

As much as Luhan tries not to be, he’s a little envious of the relationship Minseok has with his family. It’s petty and he hates himself for even thinking it.

The hand Minseok has on his shoulder falls to his side, and then Sehun is practically bouncing towards him.

“We did it,” he says, and Luhan watches as the younger tries, and fails, to fight off the smile that forms on his lips. “We really did it.”

Luhan throws his arm around Sehun’s shoulder and pulls him in close. He looks around the rest of the backstage area. Joonmyun looks like he’s about to cry, and Jongdae and Baekhyun each have an arm thrown over him, wide smiles across their faces as they try to cheer him up. The rest of the members are in similar stages of excitement, and his heart swells. A laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob bubbles in his throat.

Minseok is wrong - his family did come. They’re all right here with him.

Luhan is determined to help Minseok get his Mandarin to a respectable level. They’re rooming together at the hotel they’re staying in, and Luhan takes this as an opportunity to stage an impromptu Chinese lesson. He throws a Chinese workbook on to Minseok’s bed.

Minseok takes one look at the book and groans. “That’s a children’s Chinese book, Luhan,” he says, poking at it with a grimace, as if the bright colors and cartoon characters are toxic. “I’m a grown man.”

“A grown man with the Chinese fluency of a three year old.” Luhan plops down on the bed next to Minseok. “Come on, we’ll just practice for a little while.”

“Okay,” Minseok concedes, flipping the book open. It falls open to a page that details common Chinese dishes and how to order food.

Luhan points to the photo of a baozi and looks back at Minseok. “Hey, Minseok,” he says, a slow grin making its way across his face. “It looks like you!” Luhan brings the finger that was resting on the book up to poke at his cheek. “You’re both cute and round and-”

Luhan doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Minseok lunges at him, and the force of his weight causes Luhan to tumble to the floor. “Grown men aren’t cute!” Minseok huffs, his cheeks puffing up in what might be the most adorable pout Luhan has ever seen.

From his spot on the floor, Luhan can see Minseok staring down at him, his lips still pursed. “Stop laughing!” Minseok prods him in the side with his foot a few times, and maybe that’d get him to shut up if he weren’t extremely ticklish.

They don’t get any studying done that night.

For every Mandarin session that goes awry, they have another that is nothing short of functional. Still, despite all of their best efforts, it’s not enough. Minseok is still lost in interviews most of the time. Luhan remembers the feeling well, from when he first arrived in Korea with zero knowledge of the language.

He gives quick translations of interviewers’ comments and questions to Minseok. Sometimes he stumbles over his words in his haste to finish translating something before the interviewer moves on or expands on the idea. The grateful smiles Minseok sends his way makes it all worth it, though.

Yixing looks so at ease here, sitting at the kitchen table of his childhood home. After recording for Happy Camp earlier in the day, Yixing had informed them that his mother wanted to have them all over for dinner. With nothing on their schedules until their flight back to Seoul tomorrow afternoon, management had graciously allowed them to visit.

It’s a little crowded with the six of them, but no one complains. The scent of home cooked food fills the air and the whole atmosphere of the place is so cozy. “Alright boys,” Yixing’s mom says as she places a platter of lobster on the table. “Dig in!”

Jongdae piles his plate high with food and Yixing makes a small noise of protest. “Are you going to save any for the rest of us?”

“Yixing!” His mother thwacks him on the head as she settles into the seat next to him. “If the boy is hungry, let him eat.” She smiles sweetly at Jongdae, who has the manners to look at least slightly abashed.

Yixing brings a hand up to rub the sore spot on the back of his head and the rest of the table laughs, amused at the scene. Luhan smiles, his eyes trained on his empty plate, but his mind is elsewhere. He thinks about Beijing and family dinners that never felt as comfortable as this.

Minseok stares at him, concern evident on his face. “Hey, Earth to Luhan,” he says, leaning in close and speaking lowly. “You’re doing that thing where you space out again.” He throws an arm over his shoulders and gives his arm a slight squeeze. With his free hand, he uses his chopsticks to drop a piece of meat on his plate. “Eat something, yeah?”

For once it’s Luhan who sends him a grateful smile.

Before they leave for the night, Yixing’s mother pulls him into a tight hug and presses her lips to his cheek in a quick peck goodbye. Yixing squirms out of her arms, a light blush dusting his cheeks.

Luhan wonders what it’s like to be loved so much that you have the liberty to act embarrassed at the smallest displays of affection.

Changsha International Airport is overflowing with fans when they try to leave for their flight the next day. There’s no order to it, just one giant mass of way too many screaming fans and not enough security guards. They try to squeeze through the crowd, their managers and the rest of the staff doing their best to try and keep the fans from pushing or getting too close to the members.

Despite their efforts, the fans continue pushing. Fans in the back of the crowd clammer to get to the front, and those in the front press forward, trying to get as close to their idols as possible. Cameras are raised in the air and multiple flashes go off every few seconds.

This is the only part Luhan really hates about his job. He doesn’t, and never will, understand the mentality of these fans. Why would they risk harm to themselves and those around them to snap a few pictures?

Someone in the mass of bodies shoves particularly hard, and a fan knocks into Luhan’s shoulder. He stumbles backwards, but he has no room to regain his balance. Instead, he ends up bumping into another fan, who, in turn, ends up pushing him back because of the force of the crowd behind her. He feels like a ragdoll being tossed about.

The manager closest to him scrambles to grab ahold of Luhan. He holds him by the elbow and doesn’t leave his side until they’re past the security checkpoint.

Minseok sits next to him on the plane. “Are you okay?” he asks cautiously.

Luhan nods. “Yeah,” he says tersely. His head kills from the volume of the fans’ screams, and his shoulder is, admittedly, a bit sore. He bounces his knee up and down, a habit he tends to do only when he has too much built up energy. He feels unhinged, like there isn’t enough room in his skin for himself anymore.

The way Minseok is looking at him is strange, and it doesn’t help him feel any less jittery. “No you’re not,” Minseok replies. He places his hand on Luhan’s lower thigh and it stills under his palm.

Luhan looks back at him, eyebrows raised. Minseok looks like he wants to say something, but instead he unravels the wire of his headphones and offers one earphone to Luhan.

He falls asleep with a JJ Lin song in one ear and Minseok singing along to it quietly in the other.

“Some days I’m not sure why I’m here,” Minseok admits, leaning against the mirrored wall of the dance practice room. They’re making their comeback soon, and Minseok managed to convince Luhan to put in a few extra hours of practice with him. Not that Luhan needed much convincing. He can’t say no to Minseok.

“What do you mean?” Luhan asks after taking a sip from his water bottle.

Minseok sighs, a hand rubbing up at his temple. “I’m not good at this like the others are.”

Luhan’s water bottle falls to the floor. It rolls across the room, but he doesn’t care enough to go pick it up. “Minseok, don’t say things like that.” He swallows a lump that forms in his throat. “I mean, you’ve heard Jaewon. You catch on to the choreography faster than Jongin does.”

Minseok just shrugs wordlessly, and Luhan almost wants to get up and shake him. “Seriously,” he says quietly. “I’ve heard you sing and it’s...” He doesn’t want to say beautiful, because that doesn’t seem to cover it. He loves the sound of Minseok’s voice, the slight gentleness of it. Finally, he decides on a simple “it’s amazing.”

When Minseok still doesn’t say anything, Luhan slides directly in front of him. He can see himself in the mirror behind Minseok, hair matted with sweat and dark circles under his eyes. Looking away from his reflection, he turns his gaze to Minseok’s face, eyes staring steadily at him. He wants to drill it into his head that he is talented, that he’s valued, that he deserves to be here just as much as everyone else.

“You’re so much more than you think you are,” he says softly. His voice shakes, but it has nothing to do with Korean being his second language.

Minseok stares back at him, biting his lip. “Thank you,” he says, voice low and quiet. A watery smile spreads across his lips. “Thank you, Luhan.”

He looks like he’s about to cry, a rare site, and Luhan doesn’t know what else to do except pull him in close. Usually Minseok shies away from skinship, only tolerating it for the cameras, but he doesn’t object this time, just rests his head in the crook of Luhan’s neck.

“You deserve to be here as much as the rest of us. Don’t ever think otherwise, okay?” he says, rubbing at the other’s back.

Luhan pulls away from the embrace to lift Minseok’s chin up. He’s not sure what makes him press his lips to Minseok’s, except maybe that he cares about him more than he’s cared about anyone else and wants him to know it. It doesn’t take long for Minseok to shove Luhan away, his eyes wide in confusion. Luhan stands up and takes a step backward, horrified with himself.

“Luhan,” Minseok starts to say, his mouth opening and closing multiple times. “I’m not...” He trails off, and to Luhan’s ears it sounds like he’s so disgusted with the idea that he can’t even bring himself to say the words. “I don’t like-”

Luhan doesn’t need to hear the rest of that sentence. Of course Minseok doesn’t like guys. He likes pretty girls like Taeyeon and Victoria and Seohyun and not men like Luhan. “You don’t have to say anything else,” Luhan says. “I’ll just...” He points toward the door, but when he turns around to leave, there’s a hand on his wrist, pulling him back.

“I don’t like guys,” Minseok says, with newfound determination. “But I think... I think I might like you?”

And oh, that’s definitely not what Luhan was expecting him to say. Minseok tugs him closer by the wrist, and then his hands reach up to cup Luhan’s cheeks. He pulls Luhan down gently, and he complies, craning his neck down as Minseok cranes his upwards.

Minseok brushes his lips against Luhan’s ever so softly. It’s not a kiss, not really. There’s no pressure behind it, but he doesn’t dare try to deepen it. This is new territory for Minseok, and more than anything, Luhan knows that he needs the control.

Tentatively, Minseok takes Luhan’s bottom lip between his and Luhan relaxes into the touch, his hand coming up to rest at the base of Minseok’s neck. Minseok is the one to end the kiss, a shudder of a breath falling from his lips as he pulls away.

One of his hands falls to his side, but the other stays on Luhan’s cheek, stroking the skin softly. “I think,” he starts to say. “I think I could try this. Us.”

Luhan kisses him once more, for good measure.

Minseok does try. He shies away from even the most harmless of touches at first, and Luhan would be lying if he said it doesn’t hurt. It’s not personal, though, and he knows that. It has a lot less to do with him and a lot more to do with Minseok fighting with himself. Luhan doesn’t push him, just waits. He’ll gladly give Minseok all the time he needs.

After the first week or so of hesitant caution, Minseok opens up. He initiates contact himself, just little touches in front of the rest of the guys to show that he cares, and when he grabs Luhan’s hand and sends him a little smile in the car on the way to M! Countdown, he knows they’ll be okay.

They’re promoting as twelve now, and it’s a little weird, really. They never performed all that much back in China, having done more interviews than anything else, and the weekly broadcast schedule is confusing and disorienting. Add to that the fact that he now has to sing in Korean daily, and it’s a little nerve wracking.

It’s nice though, being on stage as twelve. This is how they trained for their debut, and somehow it feels right, being together again. The lights dim and then there’s the sound of fan chants coming from the audience, an audience they haven’t been able to perform in front of for months, and Luhan knows there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than here.

Luhan really respects Chanyeol. He always knows the right things to say, the right reactions to have. His words and expressions in front of the camera carefully rehearsed, the result of many years of training in public speaking and his own outgoing personality.

He turns talking into an artform, unlike Luhan, who struggles to answer the question that Ryeowook’s just asked him. He’s supposed to say something to his parents, but truthfully, he has no idea what to say. He scrambles to grab ahold of something, anything to say, because there’s nothing worse than dead air on a radio show.

“It’s been five years since I came to Korea,” he says, and it’s not much, but at least it’s something.

It’s been five years and far too many strained phone calls to count. He misses them. It’s a deep ache, an inherent sort of longing that he can usually drown with the company of his band. Sometimes it resurfaces though, and the knowledge that his parents aren’t behind him on this makes him feel lonelier than he ever thought was possible.

“I love you guys,” he says, partly because he doesn’t know what else to say but mostly because he really, really does. Dysfunctional as they might be, they’re still family. The words sound final to his ears, a good closing statement, and Ryeowook agrees, moving on to speak about something else. Luhan is glad; he doesn’t want the camera to see him like this.

Baekhyun rubs circles into his back and Kyungsoo reaches down to give his hand a quick squeeze. When Luhan meets Minseok’s eyes across the table, he knows he’s not alone and never will be.

It’s late, around three in the morning, and Luhan is still wide awake. He counts bumps on the stucco ceiling, vainly hoping that it’ll distract him from his thoughts. He’s still stuck on the Sukira recording from earlier in the day, even though it’s dumb to be. Thoughts of Beijing and what his life would be like if he had gone the traditional route his parents wanted him to cloud his mind. If he doesn’t fall asleep soon, he’s going to be too tired to show his best at Music Bank tomorrow - or today, really.

The door to the room opens and Luhan sits up in confusion. There’s the light pitter patter of footsteps, and then someone familiar is sliding under Luhan’s covers. “Minseok?”

Minseok wraps his arms around him, and Luhan lies his head back against the pillow. “What about the others?” he asks, referring to Kyungsoo and Sehun, who are fast asleep in their respective beds.

“They won’t wake up,” Minseok assures him. “And I’ll leave before it’s time to get up in the morning.”

Luhan lets himself be pulled closer, his back flush against Minseok’s chest. He slides his hand over Minseok’s, where it rests on his abdomen, and closes his eyes. Sleep doesn’t come. His mind is still moving far too fast for him to catch up, but the steady rise and fall of Minseok’s chest makes it bearable somehow.

“I was supposed to go to business school,” he says after a beat or two of silence. His voice is quiet, because no matter how much they pretend, they’re not alone in the room. “I was supposed to go to business school and raise a perfect little family one day.” Minseok’s arms tighten around his waist. “Even if I weren’t here, if I didn’t become a singer, I still wouldn’t be who they want me to be.”

“Are you who you want to be?” Minseok whispers in his ear. His breath tickles Luhan’s skin.

Luhan nods without even hesitating.

Pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, Minseok says, “Then that’s all that matters.”

The only person in the room when Luhan wakes up later that morning is Sehun. He’s pulling a hoodie over his head, and when Luhan drags himself out of bed, he sends a significant look in his direction. “So. You and Minseok?”

Luhan stills. “You know?”

“I woke up as he was trying to sneak out. He’s not too light on his feet, is he?” Sehun scratches the back of his head, like he’s not sure how to progress from here, and Luhan, who has no idea what direction this conversation is heading in, feels about the same. “I’m happy for you, you know,” Sehun says finally. “Minseok is good for you.”

Luhan kind of wants to hug Sehun. No, really wants to hug Sehun. He reaches out to do just that, but Sehun wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“Oh no,” he says, kicking Luhan towards the door and out into the hallway. “You are not putting your grimy hands on me for a sappy cuddlefest until you’ve showered!”

Some very important people have let Luhan down in life, but he’s quickly realizing that the number of people who are there to support him far outnumbers them.

Press events, like everything else in life, have their high and low points. The flash that comes from dozens of reporters snapping their photo and burns into the back of his retinas is definitely a detractor, but still, he doesn’t hate these events completely.

Luhan likes red carpet photos for one reason, and one reason only: Minseok done up to the nines. His hair looks particularly soft today, and as much as Luhan wants to reach out to touch it, he knows he can’t. He settles for stealing glances at the other boy, hoping that the cameras don’t pick up the admiration in his eyes.

Their first win doesn’t feel real. It almost feels too soon, too sudden. They’re still rookies, still a bunch of kids who have to guest on silly variety shows to get their name out there, but they’ve worked hard. They’ve worked so damn hard, and this award is tangible proof that, somewhere out there, there are people who recognize that.

Luhan looks over at Joonmyun, who tries to get out his thank you speech between loud, hearty sobs. He is probably, no doubt about it, thinking about all the years he spent working towards this one moment. Luhan thinks about his own hardships, about people who told him his dream was too silly and out there to ever come true.

The feeling of proving them wrong is indescribable.

Minseok sneaking into Luhan’s room becomes a nightly habit. Together they soak up the few hours that everyone else spends sleeping, a much needed break from the stress of schedules and weekly music shows.

“I think I might love you,” Minseok says during one of these nights. “I think I might have for awhile now.”

Starting his sentences with “I think” might sound like uncertainty, but it’s not. It’s the only way Minseok knows how to be honest, and Luhan understands that. He may have come to terms with himself years ago, in the bedroom of an old friend from high school, but Minseok’s journey has only just begun.

Luhan pulls him in for a kiss and doesn’t let go for a very long time.

“Minseok, we should switch rooms,” Kyungsoo says on one of their rare days off. He doesn’t even look up from the book in his hands.

Luhan and Minseok are sat on Luhan’s bed, a laptop shared between them as they watch a movie on the small screen. Sehun and Zitao are set up similarly on Sehun’s bed, and while they they look like they’re still paying attention to whatever it is that’s playing on the screen, it’s evident that they’re completely tuned into the conversation.

“How come?” Minseok asks, looking up from the movie.

Kyungsoo doesn’t even dignify that with a response. Everyone in the room knows why. His and Minseok’s relationship is a well known secret in the EXO dorms. Luhan blames it on Sehun trusting Zitao with the knowledge, but really, it has a lot less to do with Zitao’s big mouth and a lot more to do with subtlety not being either of their specialty.

Licking his lips, Minseok says, “Are you sure you want to do that? You’ll have three of the worst roommates ever.”

“Hey!” Zitao shouts indignantly, further proving that he and Sehun are terrible at eavesdropping.

Kyungsoo just shrugs, his lips quirking upwards. “Being the world’s best bandmate is not without its sacrifices.”

They’re on a plane to Shanghai for the soccer match that he and Minseok will be playing in. It’s a little reminiscent of the year prior, when they promoted in their subunits much more than they ever promoted as a whole.

“It’s kind of weird without the others,” Minseok says, and Luhan agrees. He’s gotten used to travelling as twelve already.

“It’s nice, though,” Luhan says. Personally, he’s a little thankful to have a break from Jongdae and Baekhyun’s near constant bickering. Together they’re louder than any two people should ever be. “Nice and quiet.”

That is, it was quiet, until Jongdae and Zitao start yelling excitedly about some movie they’re watching a few rows down.

Minseok stares at Luhan, eyebrows raised. “I think you just jinxed us.”

Minseok isn’t jinxed, but Luhan might be. He’s running across the field, about to try and score a goal. The ball bounces off the tip of the goalie’s cleat and Luhan winces. Had he aimed his kick just the slightest bit more to the right, he could have made that shot. He’s not upset about it though, not really. He’s just happy to be here, out on the pitch.

Happy is a bit of an understatement. It feels great to be in uniform again after so long, the solid feel of astro turf beneath his feet. It’s pouring, the rain coming down in fat droplets that soak his jersey and cover his skin in a thin film of water. Some players shake the water out of their hair, but not Luhan. The rain is relaxing, not a hinderance.

He couldn’t have asked for better weather. The rainfall feels honest and pure, like Luhan’s in the middle of some grand catharsis. He’s here as a singer to play soccer with his band, his best friends, here to cheer him on.

When the game is over and he has Minseok pulled close, congratulating him for being on the winning team, Luhan knows this is a day he’ll never forget. It’s the day where everything he loves most, everything important to him, has come together for a peaceful meeting at a crossroads. He’s not sure in what direction they’re going in from here, but with Minseok close to his side, he know he’s not going there alone.

“Hey, Luhan,” Yixing says, trailing into the main room with a magazine in his hand. “You have to see this!” He throws the magazine down on to the table, already open to whatever article he wants Luhan to read. It’s a two page spread about him. About Luhan and soccer.

He picks it up tentatively, eyes scanning over the pages quickly, a small smile on his face. He’s dreamed about this since he was young. And sure, he’s not a soccer superstar, he doesn’t play for any famous teams, but here he is, on the pages of a football magazine that he used to read when he was a kid. He’s taken an unconventional route to get here, but things have a funny way of working out eventually.

He gets a call later that day, a number he hasn’t seen in ages flashing across his screen. Home. For the past few years it’s always been Luhan who calls home to his parents, cordial calls on birthdays and anniversaries and New Year’s and countless other days that he can use as an excuse to hear their voices.

“I saw you in the paper,” his mother’s voice rings out over the phone. “You look good, son.”

Luhan chokes back a sob. “How are you doing?” he asks, trying to keep his voice level. “How is dad?”

He bites his lip to stay calm as his mother rambles on about the new apartment they just bought and how annoying the neighbors are. It’s meaningless chatter, not the sort of serious talk he figures they’ll need to have one day, but Luhan doesn’t mind, not at all.

Their relationship isn’t fixed, isn’t anywhere near that, but it’s a start.

Sometimes, on slow days where they have no schedules and Joonmyun is kind enough to end practice early, they go to the Han River under the anonymity of dark. The people who are around here at this time of night are usually older, not the sort of crowd that their music attracts, and it’s nice to pretend, even for just an hour or two, that they’re normal young adults again.

They kick a football between them, a bench far to their right and a trash can to their left serving as goalposts. Luhan is taken back to the days of impromptu soccer matches in the park and thinks that things haven’t changed, not really. He’s just upgraded a bit.

He traded in his high school soccer team for something bigger, for EXO. Team isn’t really the right word for them. At the end of practice or game days, his soccer team would all go back to their respective homes, but the band is who he goes home to at the the end of his days. Family seems like the right word choice.

The scenery around him has changed drastically, but there are still certain constants in his life. Soccer isn’t one of them, not anymore. It has a smaller presence in his life now, and is more of an outlier than anything else, something he does on the sidelines.

He’s dribbling the ball down along the river, Sehun hot on his trails. The younger is fast but not fast enough, and Luhan brings the ball home, kicking it past the makeshift goal line. There’s a chorus of cheers from his teammates, and then Minseok is there by his side, pulling him in for a quick kiss. Someone who sounds suspiciously like Zitao yells at them to get a room. Luhan just smiles.

There are two constants in Luhan’s life: singing and Minseok.

fandom: exo, pairing: luhan/xiumin

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