[ exo : your form in the shadow ]
Dec. 25th, 2014 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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kokoronashiyour form in the shadow
fandom exo
pairing kailu (luhan/kai)
style one shot
length 5211
jongin had a bad habit of disappearing whenever he damn well pleased. spin off to light it up. it turned out much longer than i'm used to writing. christmas present for silv who drew an adorable grazia sweater!kai for me ;_; and for anyone else who likes kailu i guess!!
Kim Jongin had a habit of disappearing.
Lu han had never asked why. He always told himself, with that voice too loud for his own head, that it was because he didn't want to know.
But if he was to be perfectly honest with himself, Lu Han knew it was because he understood that Jongin wouldn't tell him even if he did ask. Lu Han knew that Jongin would just smile at him in a smile that wasn't really real. The smile that simultaneously frustrated Lu Han because he knew it was fake yet it was still ridiculously charming.
Lu Han had just assumed that Jongin liked to disappear because he can, letting his dark coloured smokes wisp him away wherever he damn please, even if he might not exactly know where he wanted to really go to.
Lu Han also assumed that Jongin didn't tell him when he would go just because Jongin was an asshole.
Jongin appeared after a week of being gone, dark smokes materialising in Lu Han's room.
He was wearing the same clothes as he did the week before. Understandable, perhaps, considering that he disappeared with only them on and nothing else.
“Did you change your underwear at all this week?” Lu Han crinkled his nose in disgust.
Jongin smiled. That ridiculously charming fake smile.
Lu Han was frustrated, especially as he was left to wonder the answer to that question by himself.
Jongin was the first person to arrive in the Exo Dorm. Or rather, Jongin was probably the very reason why it existed to start with. Joonmyun took one look at him and decided that a dorm for boys like them was necessary. A dorm for those with powers too strange and amazing for them to handle. A dorm for boys who were filled with variations of feeling lost.
Lu Han, meanwhile, arrived a lot later when the dorm was starting to get loud and lively, but when Lu Han arrived, the room belonged to himself only.
“You do have a roommate,” Joonmyun said. “I thought it would be good if you've a Korean roommate since you just moved to Seoul but.”
Joonmyun didn't continue his sentence. He sighed.
“Is he busy?”
“I'm not sure,” Joonmyun smiled awkwardly. “He just has a habit of disappearing.”
Lu Han's first impression of Jongin then, was just that. A name, which Joonmyun told him later, a room to observe and a fun fact regarding this odd disappearing habit, although he wasn't quite sure what Joonmyun meant by that.
He scanned the room and found it to be well lived in. There were books on DVDs on the shelf, the books looked a little worn, well cared for but read repeatedly. The DVD boxes too looked rather worn although Lu Han did not check inside. He had found some football recordings, only to be disappointed when he found out it was all of Chelsea FC and only one had his own personal favourite Manchester United in it. Some of the other DVDs were of dance recitals, all neatly labelled. The books were all in Korean and they all seemed more difficult than what Lu Han was used to, at least, in Korean.
There was a large wall calendar and Lu Han could see it marked. He wasn't sure if he was more baffled or amazed that someone, especially someone who was supposed to e a teenage boy like him, still used one of those.
Lu Han's first impression of his Jongin was as such. Someone who like dance and had shit taste in football teams and read books Lu Han did not understand. Someone who had a bad habit of disappearing.
Lu Han repeated that part to himself, but he didn't get it after all.
Lu Han only understood what Joonmyun meant by this when Jongin appeared in his room, two weeks after he moved in. The black smokes filled the room, even just momentarily as Jongin materialised.
Lu Han's power responded to his own sinking feeling of panic as it happened. It wasn't that he meant to do it – not really – but the smoke alarmed him and when alarmed his power would telekentically lift every object in the room, readying them to be launched as makeshift projectiles.
Every object, lamps and tables and books and beds were pointed at the figure who materialised.
Unlike Lu Han, Jongin didn't seem to panic, not even as he stood in the centre of what might be a poltergeist scene in a badly done horror movie. He seemed tired, sleepy even, and at the time Lu Han had not learnt that Jongin often was genuinely tired and sleepy, so he read this reaction as nonchalance.
“Who are you?” Lu han asked.
“I should be asking you that, this is my room,” Jongin said. If he was confused, his tone and his face did not show it.
“...You're Kim Jongin?”
Lu Han lowered each item, one by one until they were back in their proper positions. Still, he kept them at bay.
“I am,” Jongin nodded slowly. “But who are you?”
“Your roommate.”
Jongin raised his eyebrow, the first of his expressions that Lu Han was to see.
“I wasn't told.”
“I've been here two weeks.”
“Two weeks,” jongin muttered. “I was gone for longer than I thought, then.”
He strutted over to the wall calendar and checked where it had been marked.
“What's the date today?”
“June 28,” Lu Han said with a quick glance of his phone.
“...Damn, that's almost a month,” Jongin sighed.
Lu Han wasn't sure what to say or what to do. So he stood there watching Jongin's back to the calendar. He stood there and watched Jongin's reaction, to find cues on how he himself was to react.
He was still watching when Jongin turned around and smiled, with a smile which was charming and fake, but that early in that relationship, Lu Han could see the charming more than the fake.
He was still watching as he listened to Jongin's next words, taking them in carefully.
“Nice to meet you then, roomie.”
The next thing Lu Han learnt about his roommate was that Jongin had a habit of waking up well into the afternoon, crawling out of bed to shower, get food and then disappear into the studio for an indefinite amount of time. This too, might have been what Joonmyun meant when he said Jongin had the habit of disappearing.
The early days of them rooming together was a little awkward. It wasn't that Jongin was an awful roommate, but Jongin was a quiet roommate who was not quite there when Lu Han was. Lu Han himself wasn't exactly the most outgoing person, not usually, true, but it was even more difficult to be outgoing to a boy who appeared and disappeared at will.
It was one evening when Lu Han had nothing else to do more, Korean homework completed and having lost against a boss or his video game one too many time and realising he needed to return to a previous save to grind, that he chose to to go to the studio Jongin had a habit of disappearing into.
And it was there that he learnt another thing about Kim Jongin.
That Kim Jongin, Lu Han had to acknowledge, was a damn good dancer.
Alright, so it wasn't that Lu Han knew an awful lot about dancing, but he understood that Jongin's body moved with the music well. He understood Jongin's movements stopped him there and made him watch.
Jongin didn't seem to notice he was there, and with that, Lu Han understood that Jongin did indeed disappear again, melding into the music.
When Jongin reached the end, Lu Han clapped awkwardly.
Jongin was genuinely surprised to see him there – it was sweet, really, Lu Han thought, the way the surprised face accompanied Jongin breathing heavily.
“You're good,” Lu Han said to fill the quiet the music left. “Are you studying this somewhere? Auditioning for SM Entertainment?”
Jongin seemed genuinely sad when Lu Han asked. He shook his head.
“This is just for me,” he said.
“An audience would like it.”
He looked at Lu Han and smiled and this was the first of Jongin's actual smile that Lu Han was to see. They were rarer and a lot less charming, a lot simpler in the way it formed on Jongin's lips.
“So you liked it?”
“I do,” Lu Han said with no hesitation. Despite the slight tease in Jongin's tone, Lu Han found this nothing to be embarrassed about and nothing one could tease him about. He added a shrug anyway, to emphasis that to Jongin.
Jongin was embarrassed instead, his smile widening but his eyes averted. A little red dusted his golden skin, even though that could be from the exercise.
“Please watch then,” Jongin mumbled quietly, but loud enough for Lu Han to hear.
Lu Han grinned back at him.
Lu Han liked how his grin extended the red throughout Jongin's skin.
It wasn't just the exercise after all.
Lu Han started watching Jongin practise. Sometimes, another member of Exo would do too. Mostly the quiet Kyungsoo, who would watch in a corner with that little bit of pride in his eyes and came with food, or the loud Chanyeol who would cheer when Jongin did something especially well, admiration in his eyes and came with snacks.
Feeling out of place, Lu Han would come with drinks, bubble tea from a place recommended to him by Chanyeol's roommate Sehun.
Sometimes Sehun would be there and Sehun would dance along. When Sehun was there, Chanyeol would always be there and he would cheer a lot louder because while he admired Jongin, Sehun was something else to him entirely.
When Sehun danced though, he would sometimes bring in the wind to carry his steps.
When Jongin danced, meanwhile, there was no imposing black smoke.
When Jongin danced his body was on this plane and didn't disappear, even if Jongin heart was gone with the music.
It was Sehun who explained to Lu Han that Jongin work as a dance instructor at a nearby dance studio. He taught beginner classes in the evenings, the kind of classes which most people dropped out of after a couple of weeks. The price of this information had been five cups of bubble tea, redeemable whenever Sehun wanted it.
Sehun redeemed all five the very same day.
“Please tell me at least one of those is for Chanyeol,” Lu Han looked on horrified at how he might have contributed to future complication with diabetes for Sehun.
“I'd share half a cup with him maybe,” Sehun shrugged.
“Zitao?” Lu Han sighed.
“He can buy his own,” Sehun answered just as Lu Han expected, which made Lu Han wonder why he even bothered asking,
“Why didn't you ask Jongin yourself?” Sehun changed the subject.
“Well that is,” Luhan paused. “I suppose it's awkward to.”
“He's your roommate, hyung,” Sehun took a sip from the fat straw he had struck into his Taro flavoured drink, passing the others in a bag to Lu Han to carry, a habit Chanyeol must have had let him pick up in their time of being friends and a little bit more than friends. Lu Han took the bag anyway, heavy with four cups of sugary drink with tapioca pearls.
“So? Do you get along with yours--?”
Sehun scoffed as he interrupted. “You're asking me if I get a long with Zitao?”
“I didn't finish my question you brat. Do you get along with Zitao right away?”
“Well, no,” Sehun admitted readily. Just as Lu Han opened his mouth to speak, Sehun continued. “But I don't bribe other people with five cups of bubble tea for information on him.”
“It's awkward,” Lu Han repeated.
“Mmm, whatever, I win out of this deal,” Sehun enjoyed his drink. “Still, if you have asked Chanyeol-hyung, he'd probably tell you for free.”
“...You're a brat, you know that? Why does that guy even like you?”
Sehun smirked, confident, self-assured, unflinching.
“Because I'm adorable,” he spoke with no shame.
Lu Han decided to go see Jongin at work when he finished class early.
He noted the address Sehun gave him on his smart phone and had it navigate for him through the still somewhat unfamiliar streets of Seoul.
It turned out the dance studio was not located in a quaint little building, but rather in a shopping centre. The studios were neatly tucked away behind walls and the reception area was staffed by a bored looking lady reading a copy of National Geographic. She glanced up at Lu Han when he walked in, but he brought himself to a display stand that featured leaflets and booklets about the courses available and she returned to her magazine, likely used to people browsing the available information without any need for her help.
Lu Han took whatever beginner dance course leaflet they had available and stuffed them into his bag, glancing at them just enough to register they were indeed beginner courses. He shuffled quickly out of the studio, thinking about how awkward it would be if Jongin had found him there.
It was only when he got back that he looked through the leaflets. They were informative enough if one wanted to learn to dance, complete with timetable and prices. But for Luhan they were useless.
He was honestly disappointed at the lack of photos of Jongin as a teacher, the leaflets having opted for photos of fake-smiling possible students and stock photos lifted off from the internet.
“So,” it was Minseok, a Korean boy who arrived in Exo not long before Lu Han who approached him with the leaflets fanned out in his hand. “You have a crush on Kim Jongin.”
Lu Han grabbed the fliers from Minseok defensively and glared. Minseok was unmoved. The two of them were quick friends, perhaps due to the fact they were the sane age. Perhaps because it was just meant to be.
“I do not!” Lu Han quickly spat out the words.
“So you're interested in learning five different kinds of beginner dance, coincidentally, at the place where Kim Jongin works as an instructor?”
“What if I am?” Lu Han challenged Minseok.
“You're not,” Minseok replied simply.
“Fine it's not that at all, but I still do not have a crush on Kim Jongin” Lu Han quickly countered, undeterred by Minseok's cool rebuffs. “I mean, he's my roommate and I don't know enough about him. Is it wrong to try to find out more?”
“You can ask him,” Minseok sighed, repeating the same advice as Sehun.
“It's awkward,” Lu Han repeated the same reason he gave Sehun.
And Kim Jongin disappeared again that night anyway, Lu Han entering their shared room to just about catch the last bits of smoke as they disappeared into the air.
What Lu Han did not expect was how empty his evenings have gotten without the presence of Kim Jongin's dance. He found himself sighing on the dining table, head resting on the hard wooden surface, as the other boys played monopoly.
“You're supposed to be the banker,” Minseok said as he gave Lu Han a nudge.
“Bankers are allowed to feel blue,” Lu Han replied.
“You're not even playing,” Sehun pointed out. “Why are you here?”
“He's lonely Jongin isn't around,” Minseok said.
“I'm not even friends with the guy,” Lu Han quickly said, but didn't bother to move.
“You have a crush,” Minseok repeated his previous point.
“I do not.”
Not on Jongin, at least, Lu Han thought.
On his dance, then maybe.
This time, Jongin wasn't gone for a number of weeks. This time, Jongin was gone for four days. Lu Han found him as he wisped himself back into their room, black smoke disappearing into thin air.
“Is this early?” Lu Han asked.
“Kind of,” Jongin replied. “I forgot my wallet.”
“You forgot your wallet and was still gone four days,” Lu Han pointed out carefully.
“Yeah,” Jongin replied, monosyllabic as if there was nothing to wonder about. He smiled then, his awfully charming and frustratingly fake smile.
Jongin returned to dancing every day. Lu Han made it a habit to go visit Jongin when Jongin practised in the studio of their dorm every day.
That night It was just him and Jongin, no Chanyeol, no Sehun and no Kyungsoo.
Just Jongin dancing and Lu Han watching while he did his Korean homework. He started to like Jongin's dance there. He liked being able to look up from Korean grammar and the whole formal-informal speech thing to see Jongin and to rest his eyes on the form of his dance for a while. There was no other sound between them except the music – always Jongin's choice, for it was Jongin's dance - and when the music stopped, Lu Han struggled to fill the seemingly deafening silence.
“Do you like video games?”
He found himself saying. Jongin turned to him at his words and seemed to struggle to find his own. Lu Han watched Jongin's eyes and watched Jongin's breathing, heavy due to the tiredness of his exercise.
“Sure,” Jongin replied after what seemed like too long of a silence.
What was he supposed to say next? Lu Han wondered and glanced down at his Korean homework. It wasn't as if he could invite Jongin to play now, could he?
“I just got this new game, a shooter.”
“Yeah?”
Again, a glance at his Korean homework.
“You want to play with?”
It was then that Jongin turned to face him. A slightly baffled face that Lu Han had to tell himself not to find cute.
“Now?”
It fitted all the monosyllabic answers all too well.
Lu Han glanced back at his homework. Glanced up at Jongin.
“Now,” Lu Han answered.
“And what about your homework?”
Lu Han shrugged. “It's due in three days anyway.”
“Alright then,” Jongin said. “Let's play. I just have to take a shower first, wait back in our room?”
Lu Han nodded.
He was lying. He knew he would have to rush it early morning and during lunch. But when Jongin said alright, when Jongin said our room, for the very first time, Lu Han had a feeling it would be worth it.
He would finally be getting along with his roommate.
After their video game session, during which Lu Han found out Jongin was very, very good. For a while, that sparked competition in Lu Han, but after getting sniped for a fifth time, he asked Jongin if he would like to be allies instead.
Jongin shrugged, but Lu Han noticed his lips curling into a frustrating little smirk, contained, as Jongin was trying hard not to show it, but a smirk was there anyway.
It made Lu Han wanted to take back his offer, but before he could say anything, Jongin spoke first.
“Let's team up.”
That night, Lu Han decided he was better with Kim Jongin than against Kim Jongin. He would like to believe it had more to it than not having Jongin snipe him from places he wasn't sure about despite the fact they were playing split screen.
It was easier to talk to Jongin now that they had something in common , and turned out one thing in common lead to more things in common.
Or at least, Lu Han tried.
Jongin liked movies and Lu Han would go watch them with him. He didn't always understand it, but Jongin would sit with him late at night for yet another re-run of Harry Potter, streamed off the internet illegally with Chinese subtitles, so Lu Han didn't complain.
“Do you get the movie?” Lu Han asked halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban.
“I've watched this before, I get it, I think,” Jongin said.
Lu Han nodded and leaned in on Jongin's arm as they watched.
Jongin didn't move away.
Lu Han missed Jongin more the next time he disappeared. He missed the late night movies with Jongin with the badly done popcorn because Kim Jongin was someone who could mess up microwavable popcorn.
He missed Jongin there reading his book.
He missed Jongin next to him as they watch movies Lu Han didn't understand or movies Jongin didn't.
Lu Han missed Kim Jongin as much as he missed Kim Jongin's dance.
Jongin came back after a week and two days this time.
Lu Han knew because he counted.
Not that he would admit that to Jongin, or to anyone. He punched Jongin on the arm.
“Welcome back,” he said as he saw Jongin materialised into the room.
“I'm back,” Jongin grinned. “And I brought you cake.”
Lu Han wanted to get annoyed at how Jongin said it as if he had just gone out to the convenience store for five minutes and not gone to god knows where for nine days.
“I noticed you like football,” Lu Han said for no particular reason on a day that didn't prompt such a conversation. He just remembered the first day he arrived and the football DVD he found.
Jongin was reading one of his books now, a Korean one Lu Han could make out the summary of now but was still too difficult for him to really read.
Jongin put his book down, page splayed open on his lap. “Premier League? Yes.”
“Me too.”
“What team?” Jongin asked.
“Manchester United,” Lu Han answered, proudly.
Jongin crinkled his nose. Lu Han scowled.
“What? What's wrong with that?”
Jongin shrugged. “Guess you like the all show no substance kind huh?”
“What?”
Lu Han was greatly offended. He stood up and walked over to Jongin, sitting on Jongin's bed. Again, Jongin crinkled his nose. Lu Han smirked. He liked the bothered look on Jongin – but then remembered he was supposed to be angry. One just do not take insults to one's football team sitting down.
“Take that back.”
Jongin chuckled.
“No.”
“Jerk.”
“Hey, there's a reason why Jose Mourinho is the genius one, Brendan Rogers is the tactical one and David Moyes is the Four-One,” Jongin said. He smirked back, but Lu Han knew how to get tto him, shifting himself to make himself more comfortable on Jongin's bed. Shifting closer to Jongin and watching Jongin corner himself into the wall to avoid contact with Lu Han.
“That four-one was a one time thing, a score,” Lu Han said, his fingers just milimeters away from Jongin's.
“An abysmal score,” Jongin asserted.
“That's not even your joke!” Lu Han frowned. “If you want to insult my team at least make your own!”
Jongin chuckled again, and Lu Han had to distract himself from thinking Jongin was rather cute when he chuckled.
“I'm not a sports commentator. It's always been their job to come up with jokes. Otherwise, why else would anyone pay people to watch football and say stuff about it?”
Lu Han inched himself closer to Jongin. By this point, his body almost overlaps with Jongin's own, his hand resting in the space between Jongin's legs. He drew his face closer to Jongin's till there were only a couple of centimetres in between them.
“By next year, I'm going to convince you otherwise.”
“You can try.”
And again, Jongin chuckled.
This time, with his position, with their position, Lu Han couldn't help but to steal a kiss.
It was stupid in hindsight, to steal a kiss, Lu Han realised when he was facing Jongin's confused eyes. Stupid to kiss a guy he just became friends with. Especially if he happened to share a room with said guy.
Lu Han himself wasn't even usually the compulsive kisser type, so he himself looked confused. Felt confused, at the very least, and extremely embarrassed that he had done that.
Jongin too seemed embarrassed, his lips cheeks dusted red like that time in the studio and his face twisted itself into a confused smile.
“Look about that --” Lu Han started.
“I kind of liked it,” Jongin interrupted. “You're not bad.”
“Not bad?”
Again Lu Han was offended. One should not take insult to his football team sitting down. One should also not take implication that their kissing skill was as simply mediocre.
He kissed Jongin again to prove him wrong.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Lu Han kissed Jongin in their bedroom first, on Jongin's bed. It was always during those nights when Jongin was still warm from the shower he took after he danced. It was always on Jongin's bed because Lu Han always dragged Jongin away from his own.
It was one time when they kissed that one of Jongin's book fell on top of Lu Han's head. Jongin laughed.
“That's your power,” he pointed out. Lu Han grumbled. He didn't need that pointed out because it wasn't as if there was any of Jongin's infamous smoke around.
“I came here to learn how to control it,” Lu Han sighed. He climbed up on Jongin's bed to place the book back on the wooden rack that was nailed on, attached to the top of Jongin's side of the wall.
“Why here?”
“Where else can I go to?”
Jongin thought about that for a while.
“It's just, no one here really knows that much about our powers,” he said.
“No one anywhere does,” Luhan placed himself close to Jongin again, his hands reaching out to Jongin's fingers to intertwine, resting easily as so. “Better here than anywhere else.”
“I guess,” Jongin said. “For what it's worth, I'm sort of glad you're here.”
“Just sort of?”
Jongin laughed.
“For now. You can show me otherwise.”
And Lu Han swore that he tried, with every kiss and every brush of skin.
Yet that still wasn't enough to make Jongin stay.
Lu Han tried and tried, but Jongin simply kept disappearing.
Each time, he never said where. Each time, he comes back with his charming fake smile and a gift for Lu Han that never gave him a clue to where he was.
Each time he would distract Lu Han with a kiss and Lu Han would be hungry for that kiss. Lu Han would be hungry for Jongin, pushing the other boy down. Jongin let Lu Han tasted every bit of him until Lu Han was spent and tired. By the next day, Lu Han forgot to be angry and Jongin forgot to be sorry, if he ever was sorry at all.
Half a year after their first kiss, Lu Han woke to Jongin's bed neatly made at an hour too early on a Wednesday, a day off for Jongin, Lu Han had learnt. On Wednesdays, Jongin tended to sleep in until four in the afternoon, not wake up early and make his bed.
Lu Han knew what this meant.
Jongin had disappeared again.
He sat there, feeling a little empty before anger rose inside of him.
In his anger, he telekenetically tossed a pillow at Jongin's wall in anger.
Then a book, two books and a chair.
Minseok, who heard the commotion, stopped him before he could toss a table too.
“Fuck that guy,” Lu Han complained to Minseok while playing the same shooting game with him.
But Minseok wasn't as good a partner as Jongin and that angered Lu Han a lot more than it should. He took it out on the generic NPCs, shooting them and slashing them in the face.
“Fuck Kim Jongin,” Lu Han cursed again.
“Alright, that's the twentieth time this hour,” Minseok sighed.
“Fuck. Him.”
Minseok said nothing more. He sighed and returned to the game, letting Lu Han vent on the system instead.
Lu Han said nothing when Jongin reappeared again five days and eight hours later because Lu Han had been counting. At that time, Lu Han was sitting down with a Korean book, an easier one he had borrowed from Yifan. He simply glared, even as Jongin gave him his signature charming fake smile.
“I got you something,” Jongin said, but Lu Han ignored him.
Jongin seemed confused. He leaned it to kiss Lu Han and although it took all of his willpower, Lu Han looked away.
“What's wrong?” Jongin asked. It was then that Lu Han could hear traces of concern in his voice. It was then that Lu Han heard, for the first time, hints of burden in Jongin's voice.
“Where we you?” he asked briskly, looking up at Jongin from his book, but keeping the book there as if it could keep him cool. Cool and angry, that is.
“You know, around,” Jongin answered awkwardly, as if unsure what to say.
“But I don't know,” he snapped at Jongin.
Jongin looked taken aback. He shifted uncomfortably away from Lu Han.
“It doesn't matter,” he said softly, looking down.
That's it. Lu Han thought, lunging forward to grab a fistful of Jongin's shirt collar.
“It does fucking matter you fucking asshole,” Lu Han wasn't exactly sure what he was saying. Words spilled, furniture shook with the force of Lu Han's power. “You disappear whenever you damn please to wherever I have no clue and I don't know when you'd ever come back. If you even would.”
Jongin looked at Lu Han, limp in Lu Han's grip. He closed his eyes.
“But I always do.”
With that, the furnitures were still, and Lu Han found himself eye to eye with Jongin before kissing him hard.
He was supposed to be angry at Jongin, a voice in his mind said.
He was angry at Jongin, he replied.
And he took Jongin's breath again and again to make it his.
He took each little bit of Jongin to make him stay.
“This is a place for those with nowhere else to go,” Jongin said, looking up to the dark ceiling. “I was looking for it, a place to go to.”
Lu Han hit him on the head.
“You're already there, stupid.”
And Lu Han kissed it better.
Jongin laughed.
Uncharming and silly.
Real and there.
“I'll be gone for a while,” Jongin told him the next time.
Old habit died hard, Lu Han learnt the hard way. He sighed. “How long for this time?”
“Three days, tops,” Jongin said, he paused, but Lu Han could tell he had more to say. He hesitated for a while. Shy, blushed, lost for words, he asked: “Would you like to come with?”
“I've been waiting for you to ask,” Lu Han grinned. He put his Korean book away and took Jongin's hand.
And even in that smoke, they belonged.
fandom exo
pairing kailu (luhan/kai)
style one shot
length 5211
jongin had a bad habit of disappearing whenever he damn well pleased. spin off to light it up. it turned out much longer than i'm used to writing. christmas present for silv who drew an adorable grazia sweater!kai for me ;_; and for anyone else who likes kailu i guess!!
Kim Jongin had a habit of disappearing.
Lu han had never asked why. He always told himself, with that voice too loud for his own head, that it was because he didn't want to know.
But if he was to be perfectly honest with himself, Lu Han knew it was because he understood that Jongin wouldn't tell him even if he did ask. Lu Han knew that Jongin would just smile at him in a smile that wasn't really real. The smile that simultaneously frustrated Lu Han because he knew it was fake yet it was still ridiculously charming.
Lu Han had just assumed that Jongin liked to disappear because he can, letting his dark coloured smokes wisp him away wherever he damn please, even if he might not exactly know where he wanted to really go to.
Lu Han also assumed that Jongin didn't tell him when he would go just because Jongin was an asshole.
Jongin appeared after a week of being gone, dark smokes materialising in Lu Han's room.
He was wearing the same clothes as he did the week before. Understandable, perhaps, considering that he disappeared with only them on and nothing else.
“Did you change your underwear at all this week?” Lu Han crinkled his nose in disgust.
Jongin smiled. That ridiculously charming fake smile.
Lu Han was frustrated, especially as he was left to wonder the answer to that question by himself.
Jongin was the first person to arrive in the Exo Dorm. Or rather, Jongin was probably the very reason why it existed to start with. Joonmyun took one look at him and decided that a dorm for boys like them was necessary. A dorm for those with powers too strange and amazing for them to handle. A dorm for boys who were filled with variations of feeling lost.
Lu Han, meanwhile, arrived a lot later when the dorm was starting to get loud and lively, but when Lu Han arrived, the room belonged to himself only.
“You do have a roommate,” Joonmyun said. “I thought it would be good if you've a Korean roommate since you just moved to Seoul but.”
Joonmyun didn't continue his sentence. He sighed.
“Is he busy?”
“I'm not sure,” Joonmyun smiled awkwardly. “He just has a habit of disappearing.”
Lu Han's first impression of Jongin then, was just that. A name, which Joonmyun told him later, a room to observe and a fun fact regarding this odd disappearing habit, although he wasn't quite sure what Joonmyun meant by that.
He scanned the room and found it to be well lived in. There were books on DVDs on the shelf, the books looked a little worn, well cared for but read repeatedly. The DVD boxes too looked rather worn although Lu Han did not check inside. He had found some football recordings, only to be disappointed when he found out it was all of Chelsea FC and only one had his own personal favourite Manchester United in it. Some of the other DVDs were of dance recitals, all neatly labelled. The books were all in Korean and they all seemed more difficult than what Lu Han was used to, at least, in Korean.
There was a large wall calendar and Lu Han could see it marked. He wasn't sure if he was more baffled or amazed that someone, especially someone who was supposed to e a teenage boy like him, still used one of those.
Lu Han's first impression of his Jongin was as such. Someone who like dance and had shit taste in football teams and read books Lu Han did not understand. Someone who had a bad habit of disappearing.
Lu Han repeated that part to himself, but he didn't get it after all.
Lu Han only understood what Joonmyun meant by this when Jongin appeared in his room, two weeks after he moved in. The black smokes filled the room, even just momentarily as Jongin materialised.
Lu Han's power responded to his own sinking feeling of panic as it happened. It wasn't that he meant to do it – not really – but the smoke alarmed him and when alarmed his power would telekentically lift every object in the room, readying them to be launched as makeshift projectiles.
Every object, lamps and tables and books and beds were pointed at the figure who materialised.
Unlike Lu Han, Jongin didn't seem to panic, not even as he stood in the centre of what might be a poltergeist scene in a badly done horror movie. He seemed tired, sleepy even, and at the time Lu Han had not learnt that Jongin often was genuinely tired and sleepy, so he read this reaction as nonchalance.
“Who are you?” Lu han asked.
“I should be asking you that, this is my room,” Jongin said. If he was confused, his tone and his face did not show it.
“...You're Kim Jongin?”
Lu Han lowered each item, one by one until they were back in their proper positions. Still, he kept them at bay.
“I am,” Jongin nodded slowly. “But who are you?”
“Your roommate.”
Jongin raised his eyebrow, the first of his expressions that Lu Han was to see.
“I wasn't told.”
“I've been here two weeks.”
“Two weeks,” jongin muttered. “I was gone for longer than I thought, then.”
He strutted over to the wall calendar and checked where it had been marked.
“What's the date today?”
“June 28,” Lu Han said with a quick glance of his phone.
“...Damn, that's almost a month,” Jongin sighed.
Lu Han wasn't sure what to say or what to do. So he stood there watching Jongin's back to the calendar. He stood there and watched Jongin's reaction, to find cues on how he himself was to react.
He was still watching when Jongin turned around and smiled, with a smile which was charming and fake, but that early in that relationship, Lu Han could see the charming more than the fake.
He was still watching as he listened to Jongin's next words, taking them in carefully.
“Nice to meet you then, roomie.”
The next thing Lu Han learnt about his roommate was that Jongin had a habit of waking up well into the afternoon, crawling out of bed to shower, get food and then disappear into the studio for an indefinite amount of time. This too, might have been what Joonmyun meant when he said Jongin had the habit of disappearing.
The early days of them rooming together was a little awkward. It wasn't that Jongin was an awful roommate, but Jongin was a quiet roommate who was not quite there when Lu Han was. Lu Han himself wasn't exactly the most outgoing person, not usually, true, but it was even more difficult to be outgoing to a boy who appeared and disappeared at will.
It was one evening when Lu Han had nothing else to do more, Korean homework completed and having lost against a boss or his video game one too many time and realising he needed to return to a previous save to grind, that he chose to to go to the studio Jongin had a habit of disappearing into.
And it was there that he learnt another thing about Kim Jongin.
That Kim Jongin, Lu Han had to acknowledge, was a damn good dancer.
Alright, so it wasn't that Lu Han knew an awful lot about dancing, but he understood that Jongin's body moved with the music well. He understood Jongin's movements stopped him there and made him watch.
Jongin didn't seem to notice he was there, and with that, Lu Han understood that Jongin did indeed disappear again, melding into the music.
When Jongin reached the end, Lu Han clapped awkwardly.
Jongin was genuinely surprised to see him there – it was sweet, really, Lu Han thought, the way the surprised face accompanied Jongin breathing heavily.
“You're good,” Lu Han said to fill the quiet the music left. “Are you studying this somewhere? Auditioning for SM Entertainment?”
Jongin seemed genuinely sad when Lu Han asked. He shook his head.
“This is just for me,” he said.
“An audience would like it.”
He looked at Lu Han and smiled and this was the first of Jongin's actual smile that Lu Han was to see. They were rarer and a lot less charming, a lot simpler in the way it formed on Jongin's lips.
“So you liked it?”
“I do,” Lu Han said with no hesitation. Despite the slight tease in Jongin's tone, Lu Han found this nothing to be embarrassed about and nothing one could tease him about. He added a shrug anyway, to emphasis that to Jongin.
Jongin was embarrassed instead, his smile widening but his eyes averted. A little red dusted his golden skin, even though that could be from the exercise.
“Please watch then,” Jongin mumbled quietly, but loud enough for Lu Han to hear.
Lu Han grinned back at him.
Lu Han liked how his grin extended the red throughout Jongin's skin.
It wasn't just the exercise after all.
Lu Han started watching Jongin practise. Sometimes, another member of Exo would do too. Mostly the quiet Kyungsoo, who would watch in a corner with that little bit of pride in his eyes and came with food, or the loud Chanyeol who would cheer when Jongin did something especially well, admiration in his eyes and came with snacks.
Feeling out of place, Lu Han would come with drinks, bubble tea from a place recommended to him by Chanyeol's roommate Sehun.
Sometimes Sehun would be there and Sehun would dance along. When Sehun was there, Chanyeol would always be there and he would cheer a lot louder because while he admired Jongin, Sehun was something else to him entirely.
When Sehun danced though, he would sometimes bring in the wind to carry his steps.
When Jongin danced, meanwhile, there was no imposing black smoke.
When Jongin danced his body was on this plane and didn't disappear, even if Jongin heart was gone with the music.
It was Sehun who explained to Lu Han that Jongin work as a dance instructor at a nearby dance studio. He taught beginner classes in the evenings, the kind of classes which most people dropped out of after a couple of weeks. The price of this information had been five cups of bubble tea, redeemable whenever Sehun wanted it.
Sehun redeemed all five the very same day.
“Please tell me at least one of those is for Chanyeol,” Lu Han looked on horrified at how he might have contributed to future complication with diabetes for Sehun.
“I'd share half a cup with him maybe,” Sehun shrugged.
“Zitao?” Lu Han sighed.
“He can buy his own,” Sehun answered just as Lu Han expected, which made Lu Han wonder why he even bothered asking,
“Why didn't you ask Jongin yourself?” Sehun changed the subject.
“Well that is,” Luhan paused. “I suppose it's awkward to.”
“He's your roommate, hyung,” Sehun took a sip from the fat straw he had struck into his Taro flavoured drink, passing the others in a bag to Lu Han to carry, a habit Chanyeol must have had let him pick up in their time of being friends and a little bit more than friends. Lu Han took the bag anyway, heavy with four cups of sugary drink with tapioca pearls.
“So? Do you get along with yours--?”
Sehun scoffed as he interrupted. “You're asking me if I get a long with Zitao?”
“I didn't finish my question you brat. Do you get along with Zitao right away?”
“Well, no,” Sehun admitted readily. Just as Lu Han opened his mouth to speak, Sehun continued. “But I don't bribe other people with five cups of bubble tea for information on him.”
“It's awkward,” Lu Han repeated.
“Mmm, whatever, I win out of this deal,” Sehun enjoyed his drink. “Still, if you have asked Chanyeol-hyung, he'd probably tell you for free.”
“...You're a brat, you know that? Why does that guy even like you?”
Sehun smirked, confident, self-assured, unflinching.
“Because I'm adorable,” he spoke with no shame.
Lu Han decided to go see Jongin at work when he finished class early.
He noted the address Sehun gave him on his smart phone and had it navigate for him through the still somewhat unfamiliar streets of Seoul.
It turned out the dance studio was not located in a quaint little building, but rather in a shopping centre. The studios were neatly tucked away behind walls and the reception area was staffed by a bored looking lady reading a copy of National Geographic. She glanced up at Lu Han when he walked in, but he brought himself to a display stand that featured leaflets and booklets about the courses available and she returned to her magazine, likely used to people browsing the available information without any need for her help.
Lu Han took whatever beginner dance course leaflet they had available and stuffed them into his bag, glancing at them just enough to register they were indeed beginner courses. He shuffled quickly out of the studio, thinking about how awkward it would be if Jongin had found him there.
It was only when he got back that he looked through the leaflets. They were informative enough if one wanted to learn to dance, complete with timetable and prices. But for Luhan they were useless.
He was honestly disappointed at the lack of photos of Jongin as a teacher, the leaflets having opted for photos of fake-smiling possible students and stock photos lifted off from the internet.
“So,” it was Minseok, a Korean boy who arrived in Exo not long before Lu Han who approached him with the leaflets fanned out in his hand. “You have a crush on Kim Jongin.”
Lu Han grabbed the fliers from Minseok defensively and glared. Minseok was unmoved. The two of them were quick friends, perhaps due to the fact they were the sane age. Perhaps because it was just meant to be.
“I do not!” Lu Han quickly spat out the words.
“So you're interested in learning five different kinds of beginner dance, coincidentally, at the place where Kim Jongin works as an instructor?”
“What if I am?” Lu Han challenged Minseok.
“You're not,” Minseok replied simply.
“Fine it's not that at all, but I still do not have a crush on Kim Jongin” Lu Han quickly countered, undeterred by Minseok's cool rebuffs. “I mean, he's my roommate and I don't know enough about him. Is it wrong to try to find out more?”
“You can ask him,” Minseok sighed, repeating the same advice as Sehun.
“It's awkward,” Lu Han repeated the same reason he gave Sehun.
And Kim Jongin disappeared again that night anyway, Lu Han entering their shared room to just about catch the last bits of smoke as they disappeared into the air.
What Lu Han did not expect was how empty his evenings have gotten without the presence of Kim Jongin's dance. He found himself sighing on the dining table, head resting on the hard wooden surface, as the other boys played monopoly.
“You're supposed to be the banker,” Minseok said as he gave Lu Han a nudge.
“Bankers are allowed to feel blue,” Lu Han replied.
“You're not even playing,” Sehun pointed out. “Why are you here?”
“He's lonely Jongin isn't around,” Minseok said.
“I'm not even friends with the guy,” Lu Han quickly said, but didn't bother to move.
“You have a crush,” Minseok repeated his previous point.
“I do not.”
Not on Jongin, at least, Lu Han thought.
On his dance, then maybe.
This time, Jongin wasn't gone for a number of weeks. This time, Jongin was gone for four days. Lu Han found him as he wisped himself back into their room, black smoke disappearing into thin air.
“Is this early?” Lu Han asked.
“Kind of,” Jongin replied. “I forgot my wallet.”
“You forgot your wallet and was still gone four days,” Lu Han pointed out carefully.
“Yeah,” Jongin replied, monosyllabic as if there was nothing to wonder about. He smiled then, his awfully charming and frustratingly fake smile.
Jongin returned to dancing every day. Lu Han made it a habit to go visit Jongin when Jongin practised in the studio of their dorm every day.
That night It was just him and Jongin, no Chanyeol, no Sehun and no Kyungsoo.
Just Jongin dancing and Lu Han watching while he did his Korean homework. He started to like Jongin's dance there. He liked being able to look up from Korean grammar and the whole formal-informal speech thing to see Jongin and to rest his eyes on the form of his dance for a while. There was no other sound between them except the music – always Jongin's choice, for it was Jongin's dance - and when the music stopped, Lu Han struggled to fill the seemingly deafening silence.
“Do you like video games?”
He found himself saying. Jongin turned to him at his words and seemed to struggle to find his own. Lu Han watched Jongin's eyes and watched Jongin's breathing, heavy due to the tiredness of his exercise.
“Sure,” Jongin replied after what seemed like too long of a silence.
What was he supposed to say next? Lu Han wondered and glanced down at his Korean homework. It wasn't as if he could invite Jongin to play now, could he?
“I just got this new game, a shooter.”
“Yeah?”
Again, a glance at his Korean homework.
“You want to play with?”
It was then that Jongin turned to face him. A slightly baffled face that Lu Han had to tell himself not to find cute.
“Now?”
It fitted all the monosyllabic answers all too well.
Lu Han glanced back at his homework. Glanced up at Jongin.
“Now,” Lu Han answered.
“And what about your homework?”
Lu Han shrugged. “It's due in three days anyway.”
“Alright then,” Jongin said. “Let's play. I just have to take a shower first, wait back in our room?”
Lu Han nodded.
He was lying. He knew he would have to rush it early morning and during lunch. But when Jongin said alright, when Jongin said our room, for the very first time, Lu Han had a feeling it would be worth it.
He would finally be getting along with his roommate.
After their video game session, during which Lu Han found out Jongin was very, very good. For a while, that sparked competition in Lu Han, but after getting sniped for a fifth time, he asked Jongin if he would like to be allies instead.
Jongin shrugged, but Lu Han noticed his lips curling into a frustrating little smirk, contained, as Jongin was trying hard not to show it, but a smirk was there anyway.
It made Lu Han wanted to take back his offer, but before he could say anything, Jongin spoke first.
“Let's team up.”
That night, Lu Han decided he was better with Kim Jongin than against Kim Jongin. He would like to believe it had more to it than not having Jongin snipe him from places he wasn't sure about despite the fact they were playing split screen.
It was easier to talk to Jongin now that they had something in common , and turned out one thing in common lead to more things in common.
Or at least, Lu Han tried.
Jongin liked movies and Lu Han would go watch them with him. He didn't always understand it, but Jongin would sit with him late at night for yet another re-run of Harry Potter, streamed off the internet illegally with Chinese subtitles, so Lu Han didn't complain.
“Do you get the movie?” Lu Han asked halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban.
“I've watched this before, I get it, I think,” Jongin said.
Lu Han nodded and leaned in on Jongin's arm as they watched.
Jongin didn't move away.
Lu Han missed Jongin more the next time he disappeared. He missed the late night movies with Jongin with the badly done popcorn because Kim Jongin was someone who could mess up microwavable popcorn.
He missed Jongin there reading his book.
He missed Jongin next to him as they watch movies Lu Han didn't understand or movies Jongin didn't.
Lu Han missed Kim Jongin as much as he missed Kim Jongin's dance.
Jongin came back after a week and two days this time.
Lu Han knew because he counted.
Not that he would admit that to Jongin, or to anyone. He punched Jongin on the arm.
“Welcome back,” he said as he saw Jongin materialised into the room.
“I'm back,” Jongin grinned. “And I brought you cake.”
Lu Han wanted to get annoyed at how Jongin said it as if he had just gone out to the convenience store for five minutes and not gone to god knows where for nine days.
“I noticed you like football,” Lu Han said for no particular reason on a day that didn't prompt such a conversation. He just remembered the first day he arrived and the football DVD he found.
Jongin was reading one of his books now, a Korean one Lu Han could make out the summary of now but was still too difficult for him to really read.
Jongin put his book down, page splayed open on his lap. “Premier League? Yes.”
“Me too.”
“What team?” Jongin asked.
“Manchester United,” Lu Han answered, proudly.
Jongin crinkled his nose. Lu Han scowled.
“What? What's wrong with that?”
Jongin shrugged. “Guess you like the all show no substance kind huh?”
“What?”
Lu Han was greatly offended. He stood up and walked over to Jongin, sitting on Jongin's bed. Again, Jongin crinkled his nose. Lu Han smirked. He liked the bothered look on Jongin – but then remembered he was supposed to be angry. One just do not take insults to one's football team sitting down.
“Take that back.”
Jongin chuckled.
“No.”
“Jerk.”
“Hey, there's a reason why Jose Mourinho is the genius one, Brendan Rogers is the tactical one and David Moyes is the Four-One,” Jongin said. He smirked back, but Lu Han knew how to get tto him, shifting himself to make himself more comfortable on Jongin's bed. Shifting closer to Jongin and watching Jongin corner himself into the wall to avoid contact with Lu Han.
“That four-one was a one time thing, a score,” Lu Han said, his fingers just milimeters away from Jongin's.
“An abysmal score,” Jongin asserted.
“That's not even your joke!” Lu Han frowned. “If you want to insult my team at least make your own!”
Jongin chuckled again, and Lu Han had to distract himself from thinking Jongin was rather cute when he chuckled.
“I'm not a sports commentator. It's always been their job to come up with jokes. Otherwise, why else would anyone pay people to watch football and say stuff about it?”
Lu Han inched himself closer to Jongin. By this point, his body almost overlaps with Jongin's own, his hand resting in the space between Jongin's legs. He drew his face closer to Jongin's till there were only a couple of centimetres in between them.
“By next year, I'm going to convince you otherwise.”
“You can try.”
And again, Jongin chuckled.
This time, with his position, with their position, Lu Han couldn't help but to steal a kiss.
It was stupid in hindsight, to steal a kiss, Lu Han realised when he was facing Jongin's confused eyes. Stupid to kiss a guy he just became friends with. Especially if he happened to share a room with said guy.
Lu Han himself wasn't even usually the compulsive kisser type, so he himself looked confused. Felt confused, at the very least, and extremely embarrassed that he had done that.
Jongin too seemed embarrassed, his lips cheeks dusted red like that time in the studio and his face twisted itself into a confused smile.
“Look about that --” Lu Han started.
“I kind of liked it,” Jongin interrupted. “You're not bad.”
“Not bad?”
Again Lu Han was offended. One should not take insult to his football team sitting down. One should also not take implication that their kissing skill was as simply mediocre.
He kissed Jongin again to prove him wrong.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Lu Han kissed Jongin in their bedroom first, on Jongin's bed. It was always during those nights when Jongin was still warm from the shower he took after he danced. It was always on Jongin's bed because Lu Han always dragged Jongin away from his own.
It was one time when they kissed that one of Jongin's book fell on top of Lu Han's head. Jongin laughed.
“That's your power,” he pointed out. Lu Han grumbled. He didn't need that pointed out because it wasn't as if there was any of Jongin's infamous smoke around.
“I came here to learn how to control it,” Lu Han sighed. He climbed up on Jongin's bed to place the book back on the wooden rack that was nailed on, attached to the top of Jongin's side of the wall.
“Why here?”
“Where else can I go to?”
Jongin thought about that for a while.
“It's just, no one here really knows that much about our powers,” he said.
“No one anywhere does,” Luhan placed himself close to Jongin again, his hands reaching out to Jongin's fingers to intertwine, resting easily as so. “Better here than anywhere else.”
“I guess,” Jongin said. “For what it's worth, I'm sort of glad you're here.”
“Just sort of?”
Jongin laughed.
“For now. You can show me otherwise.”
And Lu Han swore that he tried, with every kiss and every brush of skin.
Yet that still wasn't enough to make Jongin stay.
Lu Han tried and tried, but Jongin simply kept disappearing.
Each time, he never said where. Each time, he comes back with his charming fake smile and a gift for Lu Han that never gave him a clue to where he was.
Each time he would distract Lu Han with a kiss and Lu Han would be hungry for that kiss. Lu Han would be hungry for Jongin, pushing the other boy down. Jongin let Lu Han tasted every bit of him until Lu Han was spent and tired. By the next day, Lu Han forgot to be angry and Jongin forgot to be sorry, if he ever was sorry at all.
Half a year after their first kiss, Lu Han woke to Jongin's bed neatly made at an hour too early on a Wednesday, a day off for Jongin, Lu Han had learnt. On Wednesdays, Jongin tended to sleep in until four in the afternoon, not wake up early and make his bed.
Lu Han knew what this meant.
Jongin had disappeared again.
He sat there, feeling a little empty before anger rose inside of him.
In his anger, he telekenetically tossed a pillow at Jongin's wall in anger.
Then a book, two books and a chair.
Minseok, who heard the commotion, stopped him before he could toss a table too.
“Fuck that guy,” Lu Han complained to Minseok while playing the same shooting game with him.
But Minseok wasn't as good a partner as Jongin and that angered Lu Han a lot more than it should. He took it out on the generic NPCs, shooting them and slashing them in the face.
“Fuck Kim Jongin,” Lu Han cursed again.
“Alright, that's the twentieth time this hour,” Minseok sighed.
“Fuck. Him.”
Minseok said nothing more. He sighed and returned to the game, letting Lu Han vent on the system instead.
Lu Han said nothing when Jongin reappeared again five days and eight hours later because Lu Han had been counting. At that time, Lu Han was sitting down with a Korean book, an easier one he had borrowed from Yifan. He simply glared, even as Jongin gave him his signature charming fake smile.
“I got you something,” Jongin said, but Lu Han ignored him.
Jongin seemed confused. He leaned it to kiss Lu Han and although it took all of his willpower, Lu Han looked away.
“What's wrong?” Jongin asked. It was then that Lu Han could hear traces of concern in his voice. It was then that Lu Han heard, for the first time, hints of burden in Jongin's voice.
“Where we you?” he asked briskly, looking up at Jongin from his book, but keeping the book there as if it could keep him cool. Cool and angry, that is.
“You know, around,” Jongin answered awkwardly, as if unsure what to say.
“But I don't know,” he snapped at Jongin.
Jongin looked taken aback. He shifted uncomfortably away from Lu Han.
“It doesn't matter,” he said softly, looking down.
That's it. Lu Han thought, lunging forward to grab a fistful of Jongin's shirt collar.
“It does fucking matter you fucking asshole,” Lu Han wasn't exactly sure what he was saying. Words spilled, furniture shook with the force of Lu Han's power. “You disappear whenever you damn please to wherever I have no clue and I don't know when you'd ever come back. If you even would.”
Jongin looked at Lu Han, limp in Lu Han's grip. He closed his eyes.
“But I always do.”
With that, the furnitures were still, and Lu Han found himself eye to eye with Jongin before kissing him hard.
He was supposed to be angry at Jongin, a voice in his mind said.
He was angry at Jongin, he replied.
And he took Jongin's breath again and again to make it his.
He took each little bit of Jongin to make him stay.
“This is a place for those with nowhere else to go,” Jongin said, looking up to the dark ceiling. “I was looking for it, a place to go to.”
Lu Han hit him on the head.
“You're already there, stupid.”
And Lu Han kissed it better.
Jongin laughed.
Uncharming and silly.
Real and there.
“I'll be gone for a while,” Jongin told him the next time.
Old habit died hard, Lu Han learnt the hard way. He sighed. “How long for this time?”
“Three days, tops,” Jongin said, he paused, but Lu Han could tell he had more to say. He hesitated for a while. Shy, blushed, lost for words, he asked: “Would you like to come with?”
“I've been waiting for you to ask,” Lu Han grinned. He put his Korean book away and took Jongin's hand.
And even in that smoke, they belonged.
