eleven (1/1)

Hot vapor blurred the mirror in the bathroom as Luhan was taking a shower. The moment he heard his shower curtain being pulled open, he hadn’t have the time to wipe off the shampoo covering his eyes, a warm figure held him tight from behind. A figure he was extremely familiar with, that there was no need to open his eyes to make sure who that was. He quickly rinsed off the shampoo and turned around to face the taller male. His eyes fell on the shimmering damped cleavage the taller male had, Luhan adored it. If he had to name one favorite part of Oh Sehun, it would be his rather shallow groove on his chest. Or the pair of sleepy hazel eyes which always had their directions staring holes into Luhan. Or that fine scar lying proudly on his right cheek bone. Luhan couldn’t choose.   Sehun placed his fingers on Luhan’s chin as he lifted it up to have a better view at Luhan’s profile. The little crinkles at the end of his eyes and uneven double lids made up the flaws on his face, which to Sehun, are perfect. He didn’t need a porcelain faced lover, he didn’t need a spotless outlook for him to fall in love with, although Luhan was pretty much the epitome of beauty. His own face was mirrored in Luhan’s gleaming pupils, as Luhan whose character would be reflected directly in his eyes, as Luhan being the truest being who could never tell otherwise. It was himself in Luhan, the one and only to Luhan, the one who still reflected in those windows of a soul whom he fell in love with, even after ridiculous twists and turns. Bodies slapped gapless. Chin on shoulder. Indexes drawing circles on each other’s backs. Two separate figures became one under the shower and the heat exchanging from one vein to another. The two who couldn’t express their feelings well, appreciated every single bit of this moment. Blood rushed, yet calm, at the same time. Love doesn’t require one going all verbal and in the end losing its own essence.Love doesn’t require innumerous steamy midnights and dawns, waking up to the tiring faces in the noon.Love is silence. For a million times of those three overrated words will never be able to make up.Love is soulful, yet ophthalmic. How double standardized it may sound. Some say when two love they fall for the soul, but when the eyes are the mirror to your soul, how do you love without seeing? It shouldn’t be too late for them. It shouldn’t be too late for them to discover the little dancing fire in their souls. They knew all they need was a little patience and a little practice, they didn’t need to rush through love making and depreciate the ones making love weren’t their bodies but their souls, they didn’t need to scream those three overrated words for the world to know but little rushes of fibers when their knees bumped or elbows touched. Even if patience was sounding a little too luxurious for them, for a living time bomb who didn’t know his end of time, the little heavenly moments they’d spend together in silence seemed worthwhile.Ironic. To how they first met. But sometimes a change would do the better. ♦ Perhaps it was their choice to love each other. They could part ways after their first night, but they didn’t. They chose to now, love. Or in another word, suffer. Sehun was too afraid to love Luhan so much, so much that he himself might die if Luhan disappeared into thin air one day. Refraining himself was probably his on and off decision which was kept in mind, for the reasons he didn’t want to remind himself of. But when Luhan appeared within his sight, he wasn’t so sure anymore. That he would regret for not letting himself love Luhan as much, or that he regretted for loving Luhan to the fullest. He wasn’t sure anymore, which regret he would take. But he felt more towards the latter. To regret something he did, better than something he didn’t. He dumped the selfishness he would’ve possessed if it wasn’t for Luhan. Of nights they shared the little single bed, of dawns waking up knowing that if they weren’t facing this at this very moment, they could’ve just done fucking each other and sweating up the bedsheets. Nights would never be too dark for them to admire the eyes blinking before each other, conversing via the pin lights illuminating from their souls. Nights would never be so lonely and quiet, with a random new age piece Luhan stroked across his wooden friend. Nights would never be so different, from book flippings and pencil scribblings over the phone, to placing a medium porcelain cup of chamomile tea in front of Sehun and giggling over a TV show they were watching side by side hand in hand.   Seasons had flown by in a blink of two pairs of eyes. With Luhan pressed against Sehun’s chest whenever Luhan was in pain, it hurts to the core of Sehun’s every fiber knowing that his love wasn’t sufficient to kill Luhan’s pain. Reality is always cruel. The laughter between them lessened over the time they didn’t know how many seconds they had spent together. A hundred million seconds? Or was it a hundred and two? Their anniversary wasn’t to celebrate the day they first met, but the day they first parted. Because that was when the fire between both of them truly began to ignite. With the increasing number of candles on the cake each year, they were very, very grateful that they got to spend another anniversary together. Hand in hand, fingers intertwined, even the colors emitting from their little hazel windows would be dancing in joy ribboning in circles around the two skinny figures. They weren’t sure when was God going to stop them from celebrating, perhaps God wasn’t sure, too. But that day had to come. With every beginning comes with an end, says every sadist. Bed ridden for the worst reason Sehun didn’t dare to see it coming, Luhan’s sparkling doe eyes slowly became a rare sight for Sehun. The nights spent together were no longer in the little single bed alternating between Sehun and Luhan’s, but the awfully sterilized hospital bed Sehun hated the most. HIV had finally decided to turn itself into AIDS, from excruciating chest aches and headaches, to encephalopathy which would turn bright blue skies into hurricanes of tears. Even though Luhan couldn’t describe what kind of condition he was feeling, his eyes couldn’t lie. He would wake up not able to recall who Oh Sehun was, he would wake up wondering where he was. When it worsened on certain days, Sehun was the one clasping Luhan’s wrists and holding Luhan firmly on the bed as Luhan threw tantrums across the ward, frightened by the fact that he might wake up one day with no one able to see him, with Sehun tearing over his cold and rigid body. The pain penetrated deep into Sehun’s soul. He wept in the hospital washroom, sometimes in front of the mirror, sometimes in the stalls. He wept in his car before heaving heavy footsteps in the hallways which led him to Luhan’s ward. He wept in his sleep, little did he know that Luhan witnessed it when he woke up to a damped shoulder.   He wept when the doctor told him to take Luhan home, knowing that there was only one thing left to be expected. Except that weep turned into mad punchings on the hospital walls and he slumped onto the cold tiles stinking sterile, turning himself into a wreck. And there Luhan was, lying on the bed which didn’t feel homey at all, with beeping of the scary machines beside him that he was about to get used to, he witnessed Sehun sprawled on the floor outside his ward, 2004. With his half closed, or half opened eyes, and the subtle yet shallow movements of his chest, he knew he was living on borrowed time. At home, Luhan was emotionless most of the time, leading Sehun to crack his head trying to make him happy. Yet how stupid it sounds. Trying to cheer someone up who was going to die. From gleeful beams and crinkles by his eyes Luhan used to have, to little smiles he wasn’t sure he really meant it or he was just trying to assure Sehun that he was going to be okay. Who was he trying to fool anyway. Of nights he tried to stay up as late as possible, just to spend a little more time with Sehun. Of nights he struck weak and trembling strokes across his cello, just that Sehun had to sit behind him to hold the cello for Luhan, to hold Luhan’s lifeless hand which was trying to strike up some life out of the cello. Of nights they cuddled in the small single bed, they still giggled, they still tickled, and they sobbed into each other’s embrace. Of dawns Luhan used to pull out Sehun’s forearm from the arch of his neck, to waking up on Sehun’s numbed forearm in the morning. Sehun didn’t complain, he had no reasons to. Of mornings Sehun woke up with a sunken heart, not knowing if the boy lying next to him was still breathing. Of mornings Luhan caught the fragrance of coffee lingering on his skin. Ethiopia, dripped. Coffee wasn’t their thing, but by staying up till godly hours and waking up as early as possible to treasure their time, coffee was their only choice to stay awake. Of days both of them used to shower together with slippery skin gliding on each other, to showers that Sehun had to shampoo Luhan’s dull and lifeless hair, to brushing Luhan’s teeth while having him seated. It was a stormy night. 3 a.m. Luhan crawled out of the bed for his cello, it felt a lot heavier now. He hummed along to the notes he was playing, while thinking about the unsuccessful will of his. To make his late parents proud. How the hell was he going to do that, when he didn’t have much fire left in him? And what was he going to do anyway? But he guessed that living a happy life was the best gift for his late parents, which was the first and last thing parents hoped for their children. Sehun lay awake in the bed lingering with Luhan’s scent, he thought why. Why would Luhan play the cello at this hour, was it because he was feeling down? Or… was he thinking that he didn’t have much time left, which he had to do it as much as possible before it’s too late? Sehun wiped his tears away under the blankets, hoping that Luhan would stop playing at that very moment, but he didn’t want Luhan to stop as it would mean something far more terrible than listening to sorrowful and mellow singing of a cello. Confused, as any human being would be at some point in their lives. Sehun cried harder. Strokes of his bow onto the fine strings tensioned between two ends, it made up a melody called Memory. It wasn’t an impromptu of his, rather it was a popular cello piece by Joe Hisaishi, composed for his favorite movie. He was watching Departures, alone, when Sehun was busy filing up the documents in his home office, or work from home as he requested to. Watching the movie while lying on the couch, he couldn’t help but weep into the pillows resting under his head. Sehun didn’t know that Luhan was watching that kind of movie. If he knew he would unplug the TV and do whatever he could to stop Luhan seeing a movie, about death. But Sehun did catch Luhan a few times, leaving Sehun feeling frustrated thinking why would Luhan wanted to be reminded about death. If only Sehun would change his perspective about the movie, Luhan thought. It doesn’t have to mean death, but, a continuation. He remembered a line which took him into a sea of thoughts, deep thoughts. “Death doesn’t mean putting everything to an end, it is a passage, for the descendants to step into the other world. Whenever I light up the chamber, I would say ‘Till we meet again’ instead of ‘Goodbye’, because I believe that I will be meeting them someday in that other world.” Says the furnace guard. Luhan wasn’t so afraid about death anymore.  [a/n: wow i gained so many subscribers suddenly! thank you for reading guys srsly ;~; ilysm but don't hate me for this chapter aite]