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todokanu2012-11-27 03:10 am
alaeaureae.livejournal.com) wrote in todokanu2012-11-27 03:10 am
Entry tags:
lucky ones
lucky ones - lu han-centric, xinglu friendship
lu han is tired, and yixing watches. there are no easy answers in this game, and no easy endings. no tricky ones either.
title from jason zhang's "it was all worth it": 我们都是幸运的/we're all the lucky ones (pg13, ~4800 w)
warnings for possible triggers: bipolar, depression, childhood depression, suicidal ideation, mental health.
Yixing only ever sees it when they’re alone—fleeting glimpses, illusions that pass so quickly he wonders at first if he’s been imagining it all. Only at times when it’s three in the morning and they’re just leaving the practice room and haven’t said a word to each other all night, the street lamps flushing out the insecurities on their faces. There’ll be a flash of something in Lu Han’s eyes that is so at odds, so jarring with the handsome youth in his face that Yixing only blinks and looks away.
There’s no one out at this time of night. They raise their hands in goodnights as they part ways. The music still thrums through their bodies. Yixing wonders if it’s because Lu Han thinks it’s the only thing he has. That’s what his eyes had said, at least. Or that’s what he thinks it says.
The thing is, there are no easy answers in this game. There are no easy endings. There’s no fair trade, no I give and you take, only take take and gone. The next morning, Lu Han grins and teases smiles out of Sehun, while Yifan steers a half-awake Yixing down the hall to their Korean lessons, and life settles into the kind of business that allows no time for sleep and even less time for thinking, leaving them so exhausted that it’s a miracle the smiles they practice in front of the cameras haven’t peeled off their faces.
Things shift and people move and suddenly they are one and they’re two and they’re closer than ever, and when Lu Han sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night, sometimes Yixing is the one to find him in the morning. “I was thinking of home,” Lu Han says when Yixing shakes him awake. His words are bleary and when Yixing pulls him against his shoulder, he pulls away.
“I miss home too,” Yixing says, tucking his hands into his pockets.
“But I don’t,” Lu Han says. There’s an edge to his voice that cuts through the sleep, and Yixing rests his chin on his knees. There are things he’s learned are too private to touch – Lu Han is an open book and free with his secrets, but that just means that everything else is decidedly off limits. It’s not his place to pry.
“What time is it?” Lu Han asks.
“Still another twenty minutes.” Get some sleep.
“I’ll wash up before that bathroom hog wakes up,” Lu Han jokes, and Yixing understands what he means is that all is right with the world. Lu Han’s eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles and his entire face scrunches up when he laughs, and Yixing chuckles as well before he crawls back under the blankets and takes his own unsaid advice. Someone else will drag him awake in the morning, and by that time, Lu Han will be sitting at the breakfast table, impeccably groomed and with a grin too cheerful for everyone else to handle this early in the day . Some things never change.
It starts because he’s Chinese and he’s Chinese and that’s enough of a reason to sneak off one night to his tiny tiny apartment. They pick at smuggled snacks and imported tea and laugh about how they’ll have to practice extra hard tomorrow to make up for the extra calories tonight. Yixing is quiet and Lu Han is not, but when the only sounds in the room are the tonal dissonances of regional Chinese, they are both loud and they are both not, and they are both breathless and nearly late in the morning.
Lu Han arrives like a ray of sunshine in the bleak face of despondency, just like Yifan had been the prince descending down the staircase without a princess on his arm. They are both things he had never asked for and things he had never thought he would need, but like everything else that settles into his life of absolutes, they become the things he could never live without.
Which is why, when Lu Han meets him for lunch one day with red rimmed eyes and the sort of smile that said he definitely hadn’t been crying, Yixing doesn’t ask, only hands him a bottle of water with a growing pit in the space between his sternum and his stomach, and comments on how the weather’s been cooler than usual lately. It’s the staircase that everyone knows isn’t that secret but is always somehow secret enough. By the time they emerge, Lu Han is his hyung again and Yixing still feels lost.
But this isn’t about him. None of this is about him. If this were about him, he’d think about the friends he left behind and the family he calls as often as he can, and the time he hurt his back so badly he had to be carried to the doctor’s. There’d be mentions of his visits to his baidu bar, and the unspoken rivalry that ran deep between him and Jongin – but this isn’t about him.
Lu Han calls his parents on perfunctory dates, just enough to be a good son because all of them have been raised to be good sons, no matter what the fathers think of those sons or what the sons of those fathers. Yixing is an observer to this, because Lu Han calls him afterwards. “I’m meeting Minseok for coffee later,” Lu Han explains. It’s the day before Chuseok, and half the trainees have already gone home. It’s the day before zhongqiujie, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Yixing lets his eyes trail out the window where the full moon is just visible beside the rooftops, and he understands.
“Yifan and I got mooncake,” he says. “Come over tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Lu Han says. And then: “tell me about your day.”
Yixing doesn’t comment on how most of his day had been spent with Lu Han. Instead, he starts from how he rolled out of bed and onto Yifan’s belt and skims over dance practice and goes into extra detail over Korean class until he hears Lu Han’s breathing even out on the other end of the line.
“Weren’t you meeting Minseok?” he says.
Lu Han pauses. “You’re right, I should go,” he says. “See you tomorrow?”
“See you,” Yixing says, but Lu Han has already hung up.
Yixing likes to think that he and Lu Han are close, that even if Lu Han has a hundred and one friends and a smile and a kind word for every person he passes, Yixing shares something special with his hyung. It’s one of those secret prides he tucks close to his heart, in that place where things go when no one will acknowledge how important they are. But then Yixing realises that there’s a part of himself Lu Han has sealed off so tightly it’s a wonder he doesn’t explode. That he only ever hears the echoes and sees the shadows, miraged reflections shimmering off autumn pavements. It’s difficult to help when he’s not sure if he should interpret Lu Han’s moonlight water breaks as a cry for help or whether he really is just thirsty. “Let’s speak Chinese,” Yixing had said one day, and Lu Han had asked him with his eyes twinkling, “Why?” “Because then I don’t have to call you hyung,” Yixing said, and Lu Han had grinned and whacked him on the head and called him a disrespectful dongsaeng, but Yixing had laughed and wondered if Lu Han had known what he’d really meant. So many things are lost when they aren’t said.
Lu Han knows.
-
The thing is, Lu Han isn’t sad, and he isn’t desperate. He’s tired, but they’re all tired.
Maybe, that’s all he has to say.
He’s tired.
And that’s all there is to it.
-
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yixing says one day. It’s late and he’s tired and his tongue is unburdened by careful thought. It’s late and Lu Han is tired and his smile slipped off his face hours ago but Yixing hadn’t pointed it out and it seemed like Lu Han had forgotten and he hadn’t wanted to make him remember, not when they were all so tired in the first place.
Lu Han shrugs and stares at him. “Talk about what?”
Yixing doesn’t know what response he’d been expecting. He freezes, thinks. Watches Lu Han cross the room to the light switch. Changes to a safer topic. “Are you thinking of home?” he asks.
“I’m not thinking about anything,” Lu Han says. The room is flooded in darkness.
That’s just how it goes.
Lu Han drags him out shopping the next day.
“I want to buy something nice,” he says. Excitement bubbles in his voice and glints in his eyes and Yixing sighs and tags along dutifully.
“What sort of nice?” he asks.
Lu Han shrugs as he peers into the window of a Louis Vuitton display. “Really nice,” Lu Han says, and ducks inside. He charms the sales person into a conversation about the merits of each design, before ultimately deciding that nothing in the store has caught his eye and pulling Yixing back outside with him.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Yixing says, almost warily. He hasn’t forgotten about the night before. It seems like Lu Han has.
“Of course!” Lu Han grins, tugging on Yixing’s arm. “It’s a nice day today, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t I be in a good mood?”
“Um,” Yixing says. He blanks out for a moment—
“Oh look, I like that jacket!”
If Yixing were a girl he would say that he’d been swept off his feet and tugged into the whirlwind of Lu Han’s laughter, conned into an ice cream date with no regrets, and serenaded at a noraebang in the best date of his life. If Lu Han were a girl, he’d say that he’d been swept off his feet as he carried Lu Han’s bags, treated to ice cream and bought him lunch in return, and was serenaded at a noraebang in the best date of his life. They go home sated and happy, and when Yifan asks them where they’ve been, Lu Han grins and tells him that it’s a secret.
Yixing collapses into bed after practice that night and sleeps more soundly than he has in months. He wakes up to find a string of texts from Lu Han scattered throughout the night.
…did you sleep? he texts back.
ofc i did! i txted u good nite!
I haven’t read your texts yet…
“So I was thinking,” Lu Han begins speaking as soon as Yixing picks up.
“Good morning?”
“Right, good morning! Anyway, I was thinking it’s almost Sehun’s birthday right, I want to take him out for dinner, where do you think we should go? Do you want to come? Who else should I invite?”
“I, um, I don’t know?” Yixing sits up and yawns, rubbing at his eyes. He’s never had much trouble getting up in the mornings, but he’s never been much of a morning person either. “Food?”
“Of course, food, oh, he’s up, anyway, I’ll see you in a bit!”
Lu Han hangs up as abruptly as he’d called, and Yixing is left staring at his phone in confusion. “It’s just Lu Han,” Yifan says when Yixing brings it up to him later. That’s not very helpful, but Yixing isn’t sure who else he can ask.
Lu Han’s good mood lasts until the week of his birthday. He doesn’t show up for training one day, and it turns out he’s fast asleep and couldn’t be dragged out of bed. He shows up the day after that, his usual smile on his face as he teases Minseok about his face and Jongdae about his height, and what Yixing sees is an earthquake that’s been narrowly avoided.
These are the pieces that he puts together.
Sometimes he wonders if Lu Han notices.
-
It’s not that he doesn’t notice, it’s that he doesn’t want to notice, and that makes all the difference. He forgets the pieces he wants to forget, and maybe he forgets some of the things he doesn’t want to forget too, but that’s what blogs and phones and cameras are for. Some parts of life suck. Some parts don’t.
He likes the parts that don’t the most.
-
“When I was little,” Yixing begins hesitantly, sometime after his fifth or sixth beer. “I was sad.”
Lu Han kicks his foot aside, their bare toes coming to rest against each other. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Yixing says. He sinks a little deeper into the couch, pulls his knees tighter to his chest, his heels closer to himself. Lu Han’s feet follow. “I just was. Sometimes.”
“How…did you stop being sad?” Lu Han meets his eyes, and then looks away. The beer in his hand suddenly becomes more interesting as well.
“I don’t know,” Yixing repeats. “I just…did. Or maybe I just got less sad. Or maybe it just…went away.”
“Or maybe it didn’t.” Yixing looks up this time, but Lu Han doesn’t. He’s peering at his fingers, at the way they cross and uncross, cross, and then cross. “Maybe you just stopped noticing.”
“There’s a lot of maybes,” Yixing says, half a chuckle spilling out from the corner of his lips.
Lu Han stands up, the couch creaking under the loss of his weight, and Yixing’s eyes follow him to the kitchen as he grabs another beer from the fridge. He leans back, arches his neck upwards, and is still staring at the ceiling when Lu Han shuffles back onto the couch.
“Are you sad?” Yixing asks. His beer is empty.
“I don’t know,” Lu Han says. There’s the quiet fizz as he pops open the lid of his beer. “Maybe.”
-
Debut leaves a lot of time for short plane rides and long waits in the airports, where Yixing trails behind near their manager and Lu Han leans into Sehun’s side. Hotel rooms and temporary apartments shuffle living arrangements while new songs and comeback hangs over their every move. They are busy and answer questions about free time with laughter and rehearsed rote responses built around grains of truth from months and months ago, although Yixing is still writing songs and sometimes Lu Han has coffee dates with Minseok in their living room, and the newest FIFA game has been getting a lot of screen time on the TV. Arms around shoulders and fingers on elbows, thighs pressed against thighs with screams echoing in their ears.
It is everything they could have ever wanted.
They’re back in Korea and they have nowhere to be in the morning and nowhere they can go that night, and Kris is somewhere else and Minseok is too encouraging to dissuade them from breaking out cheap soju and beer. “To success!” they toast and fall over each other laughing, because they just spent all day recording tracks for the new album that may never see the light of day, but that’s not up to them.
Lu Han leans over the edge of the sofa, peering at Zitao’s phone over his shoulder, shot glass balanced precariously between his fingers. Zitao is sending Baekhyun texts he will probably regret in the morning, and Lu Han is too intrigued by the outcome to stop him. Minseok and Jongdae are chattering at each other in rapid fire Korean, and Yixing is leaning back on his arms, regarding his group members with sleepy fondness etched on his face.
“你还行吗?” Lu Han calls, you okay there?, and Yixing rolls his eyes as he clambers to his feet and joins him on the couch. Yixing’s warmth is comforting against him, and his weight is solid. Lu Han loops a finger under Yixing’s belt and doesn’t let go. Minseok glances up as he goes, but the conversation doesn’t stop and frankly, Lu Han doesn’t care enough to listen in.
The thing about success is that success is never successful enough.
“You think,” he says, “when you’re young, that if you somehow manage to grow up to be an adult, you’ll do something that matters, you know?”
Abort abort abort, his mind says. Yixing hums against him. No one else moves. Zitao’s phone has fallen from his limp grasp—he must’ve fallen asleep.
He’s heard what they’ve said—they’re not doing as well as they thought they would be. They haven’t swept any charts, any awards—they have, EXO-M have, but no one cares about that when it’s on the other side of the ocean, just another headline to tag with the Hallyu wave, a by-line even the least important groups from the smallest companies seem to manage.
“It’s like, no matter how jaded, how cynical, how bleak things look… as soon as you’re there, you’ll leave a mark on this world, something important. You’ll have learned something, taught something. But then you find yourself here and…there’s still nothing. It feels…” Lu Han pauses. He wonders if anyone is listening. Yixing’s arms tighten around him. Lu Han’s forgotten when they ended up there. Maybe he’s a little drunk. Maybe he’s a little too drunk. Maybe he should stop talking. Maybe he should get another beer. This one’s
“Empty. Really empty.”
“Empty,” Yixing repeats, and Lu Han wonders if that’s the word he’s been looking for all this time. Only, no, not looking, he hasn’t been looking for anything. He’s been living.
He chuckles.
“Yeah, empty,” he says.
Lu Han flips over onto his back, and Yixing buries his face into his stomach and leaves it there. Lu Han’s hands hover over Yixing’s shoulders before his fingers twine through Yixing’s hair, tangling in the warmth radiating off of his scalp.
Yixing’s next words are muffled against his shirt—“I can’t hear you,” Lu Han says. Yixing rolls over, shuffles up a little so he’s reclined against Lu Han’s chest, Lu Han’s hands now the ones looped around Yixing’s waist.
“I think,” he repeats, “you said that before.”
“Did I?” Lu Han says. He blinks. He doesn’t remember.
“You said,” Yixing says, his words humming through Lu Han’s ribs, “that you didn’t know if you were good enough for this, that you weren’t talented enough. That you…weren’t good enough, that you didn’t perform well enough. That you weren’t good looking enough.”
“I did?” Lu Han says. Maybe it rings a bell. Maybe it doesn’t. It’s hard to say. Laughs. “Maybe I was right.”
“If you’re not good looking enough then what am I…?”
“You’re you,” Lu Han says, prodding at Yixing’s stomach. Yixing squirms on top of him, and Lu Han tickles his sides until they’re both cackling in laughter, Yixing begging him to stop and Jongdae looking to join in on the fun.
Lu Han sleeps on Yixing’s bed that night, half on top of him with the blanket kicked to the floor. “I won’t give up,” he murmurs into Yixing’s ear. The alcohol still buzzes faintly through his system. They’ll both forget it all in the morning. “It’s a little pathetic, but this is all I have left.”
When Lu Han’s breathing evens out in the throes of sleep, Yixing’s quiet ‘me too’ is heard by no one but the dark ceiling and their charging phones.
-
Lu Han buys a new bag and convinces Yixing to get one too. A wallet sits unopened in its package in a desk drawer, along with the necklace he once bought a girlfriend who became an ex all too quickly. He has friends in Canada who are learning French and he sends them postcards from Seoul and photos of DBSK. He dates a fellow trainee for a month before they break up out of guilt, and a week later he shyly accepts a stylist noona’s invitation to go get coffee on his day off.
“You need to stop making bad decisions,” Yixing says after Lu Han accidentally gets shit-faced drunk with Zitao one day. “And stop being a bad influence!”
Lu Han slurs something unintelligible as Yixing helps him to bed. Something about how his life has been a series of bad decisions, or something about how at least he stopped smoking, or something about how Zitao didn’t need him as a bad influence because there was nothing left to influence but instead he groans and clings to Yixing and hopes like hell that they won’t get in too much trouble the next morning.
Miraculously, Lu Han wakes up without a hangover and with a smile on his face, although Zitao isn’t nearly so lucky.
“See, it all worked out!” he says, poking Yixing’s cheek where his dimple goes. Yixing is frowning at him, so Lu Han pokes his other cheek. “Smile. You look prettier when you smile!”
“I’m going to find duizhang,” Yixing says.
There’s a strange sense of numbness that settles just behind Lu Han’s stomach when Yixing walks away, but it disappears almost as soon as it fades into existence, and Lu Han knows that he’ll forget about it anyway.
He’s extra buoyant during their interview that evening, and the studio resounds with peals of laughter. Yixing seems tired when Lu Han rests his head against his shoulder in the van on the ride back, but there’s nothing Lu Han can do but loop their fingers together and hope for the best.
The high lasts for almost a month this time, although Lu Han is almost snappy and irritable towards the end of it, but then again, so is everyone else. He attributes it to the lack of sleep, and when Zitao mutters a snide remark to Yixing and then gets told by Minseok to speak up and Lu Han nearly snaps at Zitao in Yixing’s defence while Jongdae comments to Minseok he should study more and Yifan looks like he wants to yell at them all for being utter morons but only tells them to shut up and sit down—Lu Han’s nerves crackle and buckle and finally give way as he whirls on Zitao and the worst part is that he knows that Zitao didn’t mean it either, he’s tired but they’re all tired and
“Lu Han. 我没事.” There’s a hand on his shoulder and Yixing is there saying I’m fine and Lu Han suddenly remembers that he’d forgotten to breathe. He sags, and duizhang is there to catch him.
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han says. “That was uncalled for.”
“I’m sorry too,” Zitao murmurs, and it’s echoed by a chorus of I’m sorrys.
“We all need a break,” Kris says, dragging a hand across his face. “I’ll talk to the manager hyungs.”
I don’t think a break will help, Lu Han keeps to himself. Yixing’s arm tightens around his waist.
“You’re right,” Lu Han says. “Maybe we do.”
He sleeps through the day, and when he wakes up, only Yixing is sitting in the kitchen, headphones on and fiddling with something on his laptop. He feels oddly numb, as if the world is seen through desiccating glasses. He smiles when Yixing looks up and waves him over, shrugging his headphones onto his neck.
“Duizhang and Zitao are out shopping, Jongdae went out earlier to meet with friends and I think Minseok might have too,” Yixing says. He kicks out the chair across from him, and Lu Han slides into it, still dressed in the short sleeved shirt and shorts he’d worn to bed.
“What’re you working on?” Lu Han asks.
Yixing’s shoulders rise in a shrug and he hands the headphones over to Lu Han. “I missed…something,” he says, a lopsided smile emphasising his dimple.
Lu Han frowns in question and slips Yixing’s headphones on, an almost identical pair to his own as Yixing hits play. It’s different from the almost melancholy tunes that scream homesickness or the girlfriend he’d had to leave behind, and there’s a cheerfulness that seems almost out of place and forced, yet in an odd jigsaw mesh with the rest, seems to work. Lu Han rests his cheek against the cool smoothness of the table, the headphone pressing harshly against his ear.
“Play me something else,” he murmurs.
This time, Yixing plays him something from home.
-
When he was little, Lu Han would dream about a hole. It wasn’t a very deep hole, nor was it very dark or damp. There were no qualities about it that would make it a strange place to be, nor a terrifying place to be. It was merely a hole.
But, Lu Han would think later, that was exactly what was so strange and terrifying about it. It was a hole he’d never seen before, had never heard of before, but at the same time, he knew that sooner or later, it would become deeper and darker until it had become a place worthy to be scared of – and all that time, he would be in that hole. He’d be swallowed by that hole. And because he’d known all along that this would happen, he wouldn’t scream or cry or clamber up the sides and claw at the walls, nor would he wait for someone to find him and pull him out.
Instead, he’d sit there and let the hole swallow him because he’d known that it would happen all along. He’d sit there and disappear into that hole that he’d fallen into that was not very deep nor dark nor damp. He’d sit there and he wouldn’t wait for someone to find him, because, a very quiet part of him said, he didn’t want to be found.
He never told his parents.
It’s not that Lu Han hates his parents. It’s not that they hate him, either. They never disowned him for going to Korea, and they never scolded him for his dreams. “We support you,” they’d said. “Thank you,” he’d said. And that’d been that. He likes his parents. He goes to see them when he’s in Beijing, if he can. It’s just that they don’t get along.
Beijing is his home the way Seoul is his home. It bustles with people and teems with crowds, and it’s so easy to stroll among them or sit in the corner of a Starbucks and be lost in the swirling mass of humanity. Stand at the edge of a crosswalk, watching as cars swerve and pedestrians curse at narrow encounters, entertain the thought of stepping, tripping, falling over that miniature cliff. Bury himself in conversations that have nothing to do with him, drown in the noise until it fills his lungs, until he feels like yes, he’s home. Sometimes, that’s all he needs.
“I’m doing well,” he tells his mother. “I miss you.”
And he does, in a way.
It’s just that he’s never sure how to tell her how.
-
There’s nothing wrong with Lu Han, not that Yixing can see. Everyone has their own tired cracks. More than anyone, he knows the meaning of putting on a mask – he’s seen so many come and go. No one is ever what they seem, not on stage, not on camera, and there’s no reason to believe that the same doesn’t hold true for the waiting room, the kitchen, the bathroom.
But that doesn’t stop him from asking him what he wants for dinner that night. That doesn’t stop him from sitting on his bed, laughing playfully when Lu Han kicks him off. That doesn’t stop him from holding out a bag of strawberry filled koala cookies as a peace offering, and it certainly doesn’t stop Lu Han from throwing one at Yixing’s head.
He’s not sure if he’s just better at catching it now, or if Lu Han’s gotten worse at hiding it—maybe it’s a little bit of both. Maybe it’s that he sees it in the moments when Lu Han spaces out in the middle of a conversation, the way he lags behind a half step as they get into the van, the lingering fear of what if I’m just a waste of space at the tip of every tentative touch. Lu Han is open and makes friends at the turn of a word, but Yixing knows the moments when he longs to be alone.
There are no easy answers in this game, and no easy endings. No tricky ones either.
But, Yixing thinks, as Lu Han is sprawled on top of him on his bed again, Lu Han’s bed empty, maybe there didn’t need to be. Maybe, like Lu Han had said, they just stopped noticing. Or maybe, that was just how life was.
“You’re heavy,” Yixing murmurs.
“Are you calling me fat?”
“Only out of love,” Yixing says. He's prepared to flee at a moment’s notice, but Lu Han only curls his fingers tighter around his arms. His breath tickles the back of Yixing’s neck. That was just how life was.
-
fic notes here
lu han is tired, and yixing watches. there are no easy answers in this game, and no easy endings. no tricky ones either.
title from jason zhang's "it was all worth it": 我们都是幸运的/we're all the lucky ones (pg13, ~4800 w)
warnings for possible triggers: bipolar, depression, childhood depression, suicidal ideation, mental health.
Yixing only ever sees it when they’re alone—fleeting glimpses, illusions that pass so quickly he wonders at first if he’s been imagining it all. Only at times when it’s three in the morning and they’re just leaving the practice room and haven’t said a word to each other all night, the street lamps flushing out the insecurities on their faces. There’ll be a flash of something in Lu Han’s eyes that is so at odds, so jarring with the handsome youth in his face that Yixing only blinks and looks away.
There’s no one out at this time of night. They raise their hands in goodnights as they part ways. The music still thrums through their bodies. Yixing wonders if it’s because Lu Han thinks it’s the only thing he has. That’s what his eyes had said, at least. Or that’s what he thinks it says.
The thing is, there are no easy answers in this game. There are no easy endings. There’s no fair trade, no I give and you take, only take take and gone. The next morning, Lu Han grins and teases smiles out of Sehun, while Yifan steers a half-awake Yixing down the hall to their Korean lessons, and life settles into the kind of business that allows no time for sleep and even less time for thinking, leaving them so exhausted that it’s a miracle the smiles they practice in front of the cameras haven’t peeled off their faces.
Things shift and people move and suddenly they are one and they’re two and they’re closer than ever, and when Lu Han sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night, sometimes Yixing is the one to find him in the morning. “I was thinking of home,” Lu Han says when Yixing shakes him awake. His words are bleary and when Yixing pulls him against his shoulder, he pulls away.
“I miss home too,” Yixing says, tucking his hands into his pockets.
“But I don’t,” Lu Han says. There’s an edge to his voice that cuts through the sleep, and Yixing rests his chin on his knees. There are things he’s learned are too private to touch – Lu Han is an open book and free with his secrets, but that just means that everything else is decidedly off limits. It’s not his place to pry.
“What time is it?” Lu Han asks.
“Still another twenty minutes.” Get some sleep.
“I’ll wash up before that bathroom hog wakes up,” Lu Han jokes, and Yixing understands what he means is that all is right with the world. Lu Han’s eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles and his entire face scrunches up when he laughs, and Yixing chuckles as well before he crawls back under the blankets and takes his own unsaid advice. Someone else will drag him awake in the morning, and by that time, Lu Han will be sitting at the breakfast table, impeccably groomed and with a grin too cheerful for everyone else to handle this early in the day . Some things never change.
It starts because he’s Chinese and he’s Chinese and that’s enough of a reason to sneak off one night to his tiny tiny apartment. They pick at smuggled snacks and imported tea and laugh about how they’ll have to practice extra hard tomorrow to make up for the extra calories tonight. Yixing is quiet and Lu Han is not, but when the only sounds in the room are the tonal dissonances of regional Chinese, they are both loud and they are both not, and they are both breathless and nearly late in the morning.
Lu Han arrives like a ray of sunshine in the bleak face of despondency, just like Yifan had been the prince descending down the staircase without a princess on his arm. They are both things he had never asked for and things he had never thought he would need, but like everything else that settles into his life of absolutes, they become the things he could never live without.
Which is why, when Lu Han meets him for lunch one day with red rimmed eyes and the sort of smile that said he definitely hadn’t been crying, Yixing doesn’t ask, only hands him a bottle of water with a growing pit in the space between his sternum and his stomach, and comments on how the weather’s been cooler than usual lately. It’s the staircase that everyone knows isn’t that secret but is always somehow secret enough. By the time they emerge, Lu Han is his hyung again and Yixing still feels lost.
But this isn’t about him. None of this is about him. If this were about him, he’d think about the friends he left behind and the family he calls as often as he can, and the time he hurt his back so badly he had to be carried to the doctor’s. There’d be mentions of his visits to his baidu bar, and the unspoken rivalry that ran deep between him and Jongin – but this isn’t about him.
Lu Han calls his parents on perfunctory dates, just enough to be a good son because all of them have been raised to be good sons, no matter what the fathers think of those sons or what the sons of those fathers. Yixing is an observer to this, because Lu Han calls him afterwards. “I’m meeting Minseok for coffee later,” Lu Han explains. It’s the day before Chuseok, and half the trainees have already gone home. It’s the day before zhongqiujie, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Yixing lets his eyes trail out the window where the full moon is just visible beside the rooftops, and he understands.
“Yifan and I got mooncake,” he says. “Come over tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Lu Han says. And then: “tell me about your day.”
Yixing doesn’t comment on how most of his day had been spent with Lu Han. Instead, he starts from how he rolled out of bed and onto Yifan’s belt and skims over dance practice and goes into extra detail over Korean class until he hears Lu Han’s breathing even out on the other end of the line.
“Weren’t you meeting Minseok?” he says.
Lu Han pauses. “You’re right, I should go,” he says. “See you tomorrow?”
“See you,” Yixing says, but Lu Han has already hung up.
Yixing likes to think that he and Lu Han are close, that even if Lu Han has a hundred and one friends and a smile and a kind word for every person he passes, Yixing shares something special with his hyung. It’s one of those secret prides he tucks close to his heart, in that place where things go when no one will acknowledge how important they are. But then Yixing realises that there’s a part of himself Lu Han has sealed off so tightly it’s a wonder he doesn’t explode. That he only ever hears the echoes and sees the shadows, miraged reflections shimmering off autumn pavements. It’s difficult to help when he’s not sure if he should interpret Lu Han’s moonlight water breaks as a cry for help or whether he really is just thirsty. “Let’s speak Chinese,” Yixing had said one day, and Lu Han had asked him with his eyes twinkling, “Why?” “Because then I don’t have to call you hyung,” Yixing said, and Lu Han had grinned and whacked him on the head and called him a disrespectful dongsaeng, but Yixing had laughed and wondered if Lu Han had known what he’d really meant. So many things are lost when they aren’t said.
Lu Han knows.
-
The thing is, Lu Han isn’t sad, and he isn’t desperate. He’s tired, but they’re all tired.
Maybe, that’s all he has to say.
He’s tired.
And that’s all there is to it.
-
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yixing says one day. It’s late and he’s tired and his tongue is unburdened by careful thought. It’s late and Lu Han is tired and his smile slipped off his face hours ago but Yixing hadn’t pointed it out and it seemed like Lu Han had forgotten and he hadn’t wanted to make him remember, not when they were all so tired in the first place.
Lu Han shrugs and stares at him. “Talk about what?”
Yixing doesn’t know what response he’d been expecting. He freezes, thinks. Watches Lu Han cross the room to the light switch. Changes to a safer topic. “Are you thinking of home?” he asks.
“I’m not thinking about anything,” Lu Han says. The room is flooded in darkness.
That’s just how it goes.
Lu Han drags him out shopping the next day.
“I want to buy something nice,” he says. Excitement bubbles in his voice and glints in his eyes and Yixing sighs and tags along dutifully.
“What sort of nice?” he asks.
Lu Han shrugs as he peers into the window of a Louis Vuitton display. “Really nice,” Lu Han says, and ducks inside. He charms the sales person into a conversation about the merits of each design, before ultimately deciding that nothing in the store has caught his eye and pulling Yixing back outside with him.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Yixing says, almost warily. He hasn’t forgotten about the night before. It seems like Lu Han has.
“Of course!” Lu Han grins, tugging on Yixing’s arm. “It’s a nice day today, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t I be in a good mood?”
“Um,” Yixing says. He blanks out for a moment—
“Oh look, I like that jacket!”
If Yixing were a girl he would say that he’d been swept off his feet and tugged into the whirlwind of Lu Han’s laughter, conned into an ice cream date with no regrets, and serenaded at a noraebang in the best date of his life. If Lu Han were a girl, he’d say that he’d been swept off his feet as he carried Lu Han’s bags, treated to ice cream and bought him lunch in return, and was serenaded at a noraebang in the best date of his life. They go home sated and happy, and when Yifan asks them where they’ve been, Lu Han grins and tells him that it’s a secret.
Yixing collapses into bed after practice that night and sleeps more soundly than he has in months. He wakes up to find a string of texts from Lu Han scattered throughout the night.
…did you sleep? he texts back.
ofc i did! i txted u good nite!
I haven’t read your texts yet…
“So I was thinking,” Lu Han begins speaking as soon as Yixing picks up.
“Good morning?”
“Right, good morning! Anyway, I was thinking it’s almost Sehun’s birthday right, I want to take him out for dinner, where do you think we should go? Do you want to come? Who else should I invite?”
“I, um, I don’t know?” Yixing sits up and yawns, rubbing at his eyes. He’s never had much trouble getting up in the mornings, but he’s never been much of a morning person either. “Food?”
“Of course, food, oh, he’s up, anyway, I’ll see you in a bit!”
Lu Han hangs up as abruptly as he’d called, and Yixing is left staring at his phone in confusion. “It’s just Lu Han,” Yifan says when Yixing brings it up to him later. That’s not very helpful, but Yixing isn’t sure who else he can ask.
Lu Han’s good mood lasts until the week of his birthday. He doesn’t show up for training one day, and it turns out he’s fast asleep and couldn’t be dragged out of bed. He shows up the day after that, his usual smile on his face as he teases Minseok about his face and Jongdae about his height, and what Yixing sees is an earthquake that’s been narrowly avoided.
These are the pieces that he puts together.
Sometimes he wonders if Lu Han notices.
-
It’s not that he doesn’t notice, it’s that he doesn’t want to notice, and that makes all the difference. He forgets the pieces he wants to forget, and maybe he forgets some of the things he doesn’t want to forget too, but that’s what blogs and phones and cameras are for. Some parts of life suck. Some parts don’t.
He likes the parts that don’t the most.
-
“When I was little,” Yixing begins hesitantly, sometime after his fifth or sixth beer. “I was sad.”
Lu Han kicks his foot aside, their bare toes coming to rest against each other. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Yixing says. He sinks a little deeper into the couch, pulls his knees tighter to his chest, his heels closer to himself. Lu Han’s feet follow. “I just was. Sometimes.”
“How…did you stop being sad?” Lu Han meets his eyes, and then looks away. The beer in his hand suddenly becomes more interesting as well.
“I don’t know,” Yixing repeats. “I just…did. Or maybe I just got less sad. Or maybe it just…went away.”
“Or maybe it didn’t.” Yixing looks up this time, but Lu Han doesn’t. He’s peering at his fingers, at the way they cross and uncross, cross, and then cross. “Maybe you just stopped noticing.”
“There’s a lot of maybes,” Yixing says, half a chuckle spilling out from the corner of his lips.
Lu Han stands up, the couch creaking under the loss of his weight, and Yixing’s eyes follow him to the kitchen as he grabs another beer from the fridge. He leans back, arches his neck upwards, and is still staring at the ceiling when Lu Han shuffles back onto the couch.
“Are you sad?” Yixing asks. His beer is empty.
“I don’t know,” Lu Han says. There’s the quiet fizz as he pops open the lid of his beer. “Maybe.”
-
Debut leaves a lot of time for short plane rides and long waits in the airports, where Yixing trails behind near their manager and Lu Han leans into Sehun’s side. Hotel rooms and temporary apartments shuffle living arrangements while new songs and comeback hangs over their every move. They are busy and answer questions about free time with laughter and rehearsed rote responses built around grains of truth from months and months ago, although Yixing is still writing songs and sometimes Lu Han has coffee dates with Minseok in their living room, and the newest FIFA game has been getting a lot of screen time on the TV. Arms around shoulders and fingers on elbows, thighs pressed against thighs with screams echoing in their ears.
It is everything they could have ever wanted.
They’re back in Korea and they have nowhere to be in the morning and nowhere they can go that night, and Kris is somewhere else and Minseok is too encouraging to dissuade them from breaking out cheap soju and beer. “To success!” they toast and fall over each other laughing, because they just spent all day recording tracks for the new album that may never see the light of day, but that’s not up to them.
Lu Han leans over the edge of the sofa, peering at Zitao’s phone over his shoulder, shot glass balanced precariously between his fingers. Zitao is sending Baekhyun texts he will probably regret in the morning, and Lu Han is too intrigued by the outcome to stop him. Minseok and Jongdae are chattering at each other in rapid fire Korean, and Yixing is leaning back on his arms, regarding his group members with sleepy fondness etched on his face.
“你还行吗?” Lu Han calls, you okay there?, and Yixing rolls his eyes as he clambers to his feet and joins him on the couch. Yixing’s warmth is comforting against him, and his weight is solid. Lu Han loops a finger under Yixing’s belt and doesn’t let go. Minseok glances up as he goes, but the conversation doesn’t stop and frankly, Lu Han doesn’t care enough to listen in.
The thing about success is that success is never successful enough.
“You think,” he says, “when you’re young, that if you somehow manage to grow up to be an adult, you’ll do something that matters, you know?”
Abort abort abort, his mind says. Yixing hums against him. No one else moves. Zitao’s phone has fallen from his limp grasp—he must’ve fallen asleep.
He’s heard what they’ve said—they’re not doing as well as they thought they would be. They haven’t swept any charts, any awards—they have, EXO-M have, but no one cares about that when it’s on the other side of the ocean, just another headline to tag with the Hallyu wave, a by-line even the least important groups from the smallest companies seem to manage.
“It’s like, no matter how jaded, how cynical, how bleak things look… as soon as you’re there, you’ll leave a mark on this world, something important. You’ll have learned something, taught something. But then you find yourself here and…there’s still nothing. It feels…” Lu Han pauses. He wonders if anyone is listening. Yixing’s arms tighten around him. Lu Han’s forgotten when they ended up there. Maybe he’s a little drunk. Maybe he’s a little too drunk. Maybe he should stop talking. Maybe he should get another beer. This one’s
“Empty. Really empty.”
“Empty,” Yixing repeats, and Lu Han wonders if that’s the word he’s been looking for all this time. Only, no, not looking, he hasn’t been looking for anything. He’s been living.
He chuckles.
“Yeah, empty,” he says.
Lu Han flips over onto his back, and Yixing buries his face into his stomach and leaves it there. Lu Han’s hands hover over Yixing’s shoulders before his fingers twine through Yixing’s hair, tangling in the warmth radiating off of his scalp.
Yixing’s next words are muffled against his shirt—“I can’t hear you,” Lu Han says. Yixing rolls over, shuffles up a little so he’s reclined against Lu Han’s chest, Lu Han’s hands now the ones looped around Yixing’s waist.
“I think,” he repeats, “you said that before.”
“Did I?” Lu Han says. He blinks. He doesn’t remember.
“You said,” Yixing says, his words humming through Lu Han’s ribs, “that you didn’t know if you were good enough for this, that you weren’t talented enough. That you…weren’t good enough, that you didn’t perform well enough. That you weren’t good looking enough.”
“I did?” Lu Han says. Maybe it rings a bell. Maybe it doesn’t. It’s hard to say. Laughs. “Maybe I was right.”
“If you’re not good looking enough then what am I…?”
“You’re you,” Lu Han says, prodding at Yixing’s stomach. Yixing squirms on top of him, and Lu Han tickles his sides until they’re both cackling in laughter, Yixing begging him to stop and Jongdae looking to join in on the fun.
Lu Han sleeps on Yixing’s bed that night, half on top of him with the blanket kicked to the floor. “I won’t give up,” he murmurs into Yixing’s ear. The alcohol still buzzes faintly through his system. They’ll both forget it all in the morning. “It’s a little pathetic, but this is all I have left.”
When Lu Han’s breathing evens out in the throes of sleep, Yixing’s quiet ‘me too’ is heard by no one but the dark ceiling and their charging phones.
-
Lu Han buys a new bag and convinces Yixing to get one too. A wallet sits unopened in its package in a desk drawer, along with the necklace he once bought a girlfriend who became an ex all too quickly. He has friends in Canada who are learning French and he sends them postcards from Seoul and photos of DBSK. He dates a fellow trainee for a month before they break up out of guilt, and a week later he shyly accepts a stylist noona’s invitation to go get coffee on his day off.
“You need to stop making bad decisions,” Yixing says after Lu Han accidentally gets shit-faced drunk with Zitao one day. “And stop being a bad influence!”
Lu Han slurs something unintelligible as Yixing helps him to bed. Something about how his life has been a series of bad decisions, or something about how at least he stopped smoking, or something about how Zitao didn’t need him as a bad influence because there was nothing left to influence but instead he groans and clings to Yixing and hopes like hell that they won’t get in too much trouble the next morning.
Miraculously, Lu Han wakes up without a hangover and with a smile on his face, although Zitao isn’t nearly so lucky.
“See, it all worked out!” he says, poking Yixing’s cheek where his dimple goes. Yixing is frowning at him, so Lu Han pokes his other cheek. “Smile. You look prettier when you smile!”
“I’m going to find duizhang,” Yixing says.
There’s a strange sense of numbness that settles just behind Lu Han’s stomach when Yixing walks away, but it disappears almost as soon as it fades into existence, and Lu Han knows that he’ll forget about it anyway.
He’s extra buoyant during their interview that evening, and the studio resounds with peals of laughter. Yixing seems tired when Lu Han rests his head against his shoulder in the van on the ride back, but there’s nothing Lu Han can do but loop their fingers together and hope for the best.
The high lasts for almost a month this time, although Lu Han is almost snappy and irritable towards the end of it, but then again, so is everyone else. He attributes it to the lack of sleep, and when Zitao mutters a snide remark to Yixing and then gets told by Minseok to speak up and Lu Han nearly snaps at Zitao in Yixing’s defence while Jongdae comments to Minseok he should study more and Yifan looks like he wants to yell at them all for being utter morons but only tells them to shut up and sit down—Lu Han’s nerves crackle and buckle and finally give way as he whirls on Zitao and the worst part is that he knows that Zitao didn’t mean it either, he’s tired but they’re all tired and
“Lu Han. 我没事.” There’s a hand on his shoulder and Yixing is there saying I’m fine and Lu Han suddenly remembers that he’d forgotten to breathe. He sags, and duizhang is there to catch him.
“I’m sorry,” Lu Han says. “That was uncalled for.”
“I’m sorry too,” Zitao murmurs, and it’s echoed by a chorus of I’m sorrys.
“We all need a break,” Kris says, dragging a hand across his face. “I’ll talk to the manager hyungs.”
I don’t think a break will help, Lu Han keeps to himself. Yixing’s arm tightens around his waist.
“You’re right,” Lu Han says. “Maybe we do.”
He sleeps through the day, and when he wakes up, only Yixing is sitting in the kitchen, headphones on and fiddling with something on his laptop. He feels oddly numb, as if the world is seen through desiccating glasses. He smiles when Yixing looks up and waves him over, shrugging his headphones onto his neck.
“Duizhang and Zitao are out shopping, Jongdae went out earlier to meet with friends and I think Minseok might have too,” Yixing says. He kicks out the chair across from him, and Lu Han slides into it, still dressed in the short sleeved shirt and shorts he’d worn to bed.
“What’re you working on?” Lu Han asks.
Yixing’s shoulders rise in a shrug and he hands the headphones over to Lu Han. “I missed…something,” he says, a lopsided smile emphasising his dimple.
Lu Han frowns in question and slips Yixing’s headphones on, an almost identical pair to his own as Yixing hits play. It’s different from the almost melancholy tunes that scream homesickness or the girlfriend he’d had to leave behind, and there’s a cheerfulness that seems almost out of place and forced, yet in an odd jigsaw mesh with the rest, seems to work. Lu Han rests his cheek against the cool smoothness of the table, the headphone pressing harshly against his ear.
“Play me something else,” he murmurs.
This time, Yixing plays him something from home.
-
When he was little, Lu Han would dream about a hole. It wasn’t a very deep hole, nor was it very dark or damp. There were no qualities about it that would make it a strange place to be, nor a terrifying place to be. It was merely a hole.
But, Lu Han would think later, that was exactly what was so strange and terrifying about it. It was a hole he’d never seen before, had never heard of before, but at the same time, he knew that sooner or later, it would become deeper and darker until it had become a place worthy to be scared of – and all that time, he would be in that hole. He’d be swallowed by that hole. And because he’d known all along that this would happen, he wouldn’t scream or cry or clamber up the sides and claw at the walls, nor would he wait for someone to find him and pull him out.
Instead, he’d sit there and let the hole swallow him because he’d known that it would happen all along. He’d sit there and disappear into that hole that he’d fallen into that was not very deep nor dark nor damp. He’d sit there and he wouldn’t wait for someone to find him, because, a very quiet part of him said, he didn’t want to be found.
He never told his parents.
It’s not that Lu Han hates his parents. It’s not that they hate him, either. They never disowned him for going to Korea, and they never scolded him for his dreams. “We support you,” they’d said. “Thank you,” he’d said. And that’d been that. He likes his parents. He goes to see them when he’s in Beijing, if he can. It’s just that they don’t get along.
Beijing is his home the way Seoul is his home. It bustles with people and teems with crowds, and it’s so easy to stroll among them or sit in the corner of a Starbucks and be lost in the swirling mass of humanity. Stand at the edge of a crosswalk, watching as cars swerve and pedestrians curse at narrow encounters, entertain the thought of stepping, tripping, falling over that miniature cliff. Bury himself in conversations that have nothing to do with him, drown in the noise until it fills his lungs, until he feels like yes, he’s home. Sometimes, that’s all he needs.
“I’m doing well,” he tells his mother. “I miss you.”
And he does, in a way.
It’s just that he’s never sure how to tell her how.
-
There’s nothing wrong with Lu Han, not that Yixing can see. Everyone has their own tired cracks. More than anyone, he knows the meaning of putting on a mask – he’s seen so many come and go. No one is ever what they seem, not on stage, not on camera, and there’s no reason to believe that the same doesn’t hold true for the waiting room, the kitchen, the bathroom.
But that doesn’t stop him from asking him what he wants for dinner that night. That doesn’t stop him from sitting on his bed, laughing playfully when Lu Han kicks him off. That doesn’t stop him from holding out a bag of strawberry filled koala cookies as a peace offering, and it certainly doesn’t stop Lu Han from throwing one at Yixing’s head.
He’s not sure if he’s just better at catching it now, or if Lu Han’s gotten worse at hiding it—maybe it’s a little bit of both. Maybe it’s that he sees it in the moments when Lu Han spaces out in the middle of a conversation, the way he lags behind a half step as they get into the van, the lingering fear of what if I’m just a waste of space at the tip of every tentative touch. Lu Han is open and makes friends at the turn of a word, but Yixing knows the moments when he longs to be alone.
There are no easy answers in this game, and no easy endings. No tricky ones either.
But, Yixing thinks, as Lu Han is sprawled on top of him on his bed again, Lu Han’s bed empty, maybe there didn’t need to be. Maybe, like Lu Han had said, they just stopped noticing. Or maybe, that was just how life was.
“You’re heavy,” Yixing murmurs.
“Are you calling me fat?”
“Only out of love,” Yixing says. He's prepared to flee at a moment’s notice, but Lu Han only curls his fingers tighter around his arms. His breath tickles the back of Yixing’s neck. That was just how life was.
-
fic notes here
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“How…did you stop being sad?” Lu Han meets his eyes, and then looks away. The beer in his hand suddenly becomes more interesting as well.
“I don’t know,” Yixing repeats. “I just…did. Or maybe I just got less sad. Or maybe it just…went away.”
“Or maybe it didn’t.” Yixing looks up this time, but Lu Han doesn’t. He’s peering at his fingers, at the way they cross and uncross, cross, and then cross. “Maybe you just stopped noticing.”
AUUUUUUUUUGHHHGFLKHJlkfgjhl. becoming something just constant in the background, that underlying current of sadness that becomes normalcy? sigh yixing. sigh.
The thing about success is that success is never successful enough.
“You think,” he says, “when you’re young, that if you somehow manage to grow up to be an adult, you’ll do something that matters, you know?”
wow. ouch. ouch okay ow owghjsfhoinhlskfgnj. i think that goes for most people there are dreams and there are aspirations and falling short of them serves as disappointments. ;____;
“You said,” Yixing says, his words humming through Lu Han’s ribs, “that you didn’t know if you were good enough for this, that you weren’t talented enough. That you…weren’t good enough, that you didn’t perform well enough. That you weren’t good looking enough.”
“I did?” Lu Han says. Maybe it rings a bell. Maybe it doesn’t. It’s hard to say. Laughs. “Maybe I was right.” and the lingering fear of what if I’m just a waste of space at the tip of every tentative touch.
;________; this. crying this sounds like. i feel lu han i get him augh rolls around. augh that part with his parents. augh. no. AUGH. my heart. i'm going to go put on a sad playlist and cry a river /o/
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tbh idk what to say but thank you and i love you
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There are so many things that you captured so well that i don't think i can point out them all.
Most importantly I think is that elusive quality that hangs around Luhan, as I read I felt it just at my fingertips and then it would evade me once again. The underlying sadness that permeated so accurately.
Yixing's silent observance. The way he said so much with so few words.
I feel like I want to come back and comment again when I've had time to let this sink in.
To be continued....
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some day. SOME DAY I WILL FINISH THE PILE OF XINGLU I HAVE some of it is actual xinglu i promise :c
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because this spoke volumes to me and my experiences and reading things like this just provides a lot of catharsis
i love you, jiejie. you know that. you also know i loved this fic. ♥
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♥♥♥
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This is beautiful. I mean, so completely honest. I just--here. Let me quote the entire fic at you. On a shallow note, xinglu/layhan is awesome. :D Here their characters are well-developed and they've leapt off the page and completely into my mind, full and sad and glorious.
So many things are lost when they aren’t said.
THIS. I mean, I was reading it, and whoa. It's true in so many ways, too--not only in pure translation but also across cultures, across times, across people. It's why so many people interpret things differently, and why there can never be enough to say and so little to express.
The thing is, Lu Han isn’t sad, and he isn’t desperate. He’s tired, but they’re all tired.
Maybe, that’s all he has to say.
He’s tired.
And that’s all there is to it.
And here's one of the moments where I can really relate to the narration (which I love btw, so ;alksdjfsl;aj), where--it's not sadness sometimes, or like you've said, desperation, but just a sense of what am I doing? and Why? It's just, life gets to you sometimes man, and I just love the simple phrasing here.
“When I was little,” Yixing begins hesitantly, sometime after his fifth or sixth beer. “I was sad.”
Okay, same deal, haha. But I want to point out "hesistantly," because that's such a great image and changes the meaning of his words almost completely. And that you measure it in terms of beers indicates the extent to which their world (or at least conversation) is measured in material things, and less of /real/ time.
[I've read your fic notes, and to think that this was one of the original lines you wanted to add ;~;]
[to be continued.]
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also yes they are my otp. otp4lyfe
I think, I experience that a lot, even if it's just fic writing - where I don't say it all, and hope that it comes across, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Communication is a tricky thing :) Being tired is literally the only thing I can remember - and I think it's a feeling that's echoed by a lot of people.
cry i measure things in terms of beers because THIS IS HOW I MEASURE TIME i'm not an alcoholic I SWEAR</small
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yes omg right? although I find most layhan is angsty ;_____;
/SOBS BECAUSE AUTHOR JUST LET ME HUG YOU OR SOMETHING WE CAN BE SAD TOGETHER
omg okay I just misinterpreted it then? Haha well you tend to lose track of /real/ time when you're drinking alcohol.
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and rly? i don't read enough to really know ): sigh they are so qt together tho. so so so qt.
NO NOT AT ALL it was just an observation! i had no interpretation in mind, it was more of a fact :p
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Ah, yes. It /is/ mostly angsty, and they really /are/ so cute together. >< I especially love that they're a canon basis for layhan, and that they freaking interact with each other all the time.
/HUGS
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“You think,” he says, “when you’re young, that if you somehow manage to grow up to be an adult, you’ll do something that matters, you know?”
Yeah a;sldkfjasl;dfjasdl;fjk I think everybody thinks this, at some point in their life. Like, what's wrong with life I'm supposed to be an adult and do things and be fantabulous. Everybody thinks, oh, when I grow up, or oh next year or oh I'll so it later or oh tomorrow or someday, and I think that really gets to me, that we just let our time flow by us, while we keep looking down at our calendars and we don't do a single thing to go out and try to grab something, anything, out of the time that we have, out of the future that's happening right now.
He’d sit there and he wouldn’t wait for someone to find him, because, a very quiet part of him said, he didn’t want to be found.
Words cannot express.
“I’m doing well,” he tells his mother. “I miss you.”
And he does, in a way.
It’s just that he’s never sure how to tell her how.
OMG here it's the idea that you can say something, and not really mean it, but also that somewhere inside you do. Contradictions. And the struggle with words--I am by no means illiterate or unable to express myself (feels go out to those that struggle with this), but this just hit me like. bittersweet. I am often incoherent in my comments or straight-thoughts-to-page words, or in real life conversations, and even though that's not directly what this quote was talking about, that's the way I saw it, in a different light. It's hard to express feelings into words (some would say that it's impossible, others would say that feelings shouldn't be put into words) or even other media, and that we say things and mean and don't mean them on different levels is just such a complex thought, and the way you phrased it was so beautiful.
No one is ever what they seem, not on stage, not on camera, and there’s no reason to believe that the same doesn’t hold true for the waiting room, the kitchen, the bathroom.
Yes, I often wonder what people (not just EXO) would be like under their layers of personality makeup. I think they don't know, themselves. I was actually just thinking (after seeing so many pictures of EXO from different angles and moments at MAMA)--it's really hard. To be acting, putting on a face, everyday and all the time (lest you expose something to the public), you lose yourself, you know? Like, um, that manga Seiyuu Ka-!, or something--there's a character named Kudou Senri, and it's too long to explain it all here but essentially, he's a really great voice actor but he's sacrificed his own personality. I mean, to bring it back to EXO, the most I can hope for is that they don't lose themselves.
Maybe it’s that he sees it in the moments when Lu Han spaces out in the middle of a conversation, the way he lags behind a half step as they get into the van, the lingering fear of what if I’m just a waste of space at the tip of every tentative touch. ...Yixing knows the moments when he longs to be alone.
So, so, so, honest. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I can truthfully relate to this. Not necessarily in a depression kind of way, but just--what if I'm a waste of space? I just--feels, man. And yeah, wanting to be alone and that kind of immense oppression of just being.
I read your fic notes, and all I can say is----keep your hope alive, and write more if that helps you. Don't worry about only scratching the surface, because what you have here is truth.
Sorry I wrote you an essay. But ;~; it's so magnificent.
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to state that i resonate far too much with this piece would be an unquestionable fact because i do get it, i have bipolar ii (i was planning to pm you about this bit but since the interweb is but a mask of anonymity why not post it here) and idk i completely understand how it would be like to be swallowed up by that hole i used to curl up in the dark and start going into semi-crazed monologues about how i didn't want to have any feelings :c
i digress! but this was really well-written and beautiful in its entirety, thank you for writing this, i hope you weren't too triggered by anything during the process, ily ♥
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your comment really moved me, thank you for reading it! (tbqh, i would've backed ten pages back when i saw the warnings list haha) and thank you so much for leaving a comment! digress all you want, bc, as you say, this is the internet and what else is it for?
thank you for reading, it means a lot to me ♥
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I wish I had read this earlier, tbh :c