#xinghan

After waiting for a little over an hour, Yixing is halfway to dreamland, eyes closed and breathing gone soft. He doesn’t hear the chime of the door when it opens, the sound of the rain much louder than before. Lu Han’s head is covered with a hood and he’s wearing sunglasses even though it’s so dark; he’s soaked from head to toe, the cheap convenience store umbrella in his hand proving to be as useless as he knew it would be when he bought it only twenty minutes ago.

When he realizes how empty the cafe is, his shoulders sag with relief and he takes off his sunglasses, stuffing it into his pocket and looking around. He notices Yixing from a distance and his breath catches, grip tightening around his dripping umbrella. As he gets closer, he notices the dark circles and imperfections on Yixing’s face; he’d come makeup-less and in his most nondescript outfit, a dark blue parka and black jeans. He also looks exhausted, the hushed sound of his soft snores making the corner of Lu Han’s lip quirk up. He hasn’t changed in the least.

He carefully pulls out the chair across from the younger man, pulse racing faster than it probably should be for something so small as this. It’s been so long since he last saw Yixing and his chest is aching from the relief of finally seeing his face again, the empty feeling that had taken over a portion of his heart filling up. Lu Han decides to get comfortable, picking up the warm coffee left out for him and sipping it quietly. He’ll let Yixing sleep for a little bit; who knows when was the last time he’d gotten any rest? Lu Han knows from experience of the long days that dragged out into the night; he’s been catching up on the loss of dreams from the past few years, and although he has yet to fulfill his quota, he’s getting there.

Yixing jolts awake fifteen minutes later, sitting up straight and looking a bit dazed when his eyes land on Lu Han. He almost doesn’t recognize him with his dark black hair, those endlessly kind brown eyes fixed on the rain falling onto the pavement outside. He already feels tears pricking his own and Yixing had promised that he wouldn’t cry when they meet again, but it’s hard.

“Lu,” he mumbles, voice a little breathless and choked up. He wishes he didn’t sound so fragile, but he truly felt like it, that deep-set weakness in his bones rendering him incapable of forming anymore words.

Lu Han’s gaze snaps away from outside to fix on Yixing, a little startled that the younger had woken up so soon. The breath he’d been holding in the entire time he was waiting to come here gets stuck again in his throat. “Xing,” he replies, swallowing thickly, “it’s been awhile.”

They don’t say anything for what feels like forever, just taking each other in. Lu Han’s face is fuller than Yixing remembers, more well-rested than he’s ever seen him. He looks happy to be here, the ghost of a smile present on his lips, and it makes Yixing smile, eyes watery. “You came,” he finally manages to say, running a hand through his short hair and then rubbing his face, like still he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I was the one who invited you, remember?” Lu Han reminds him, grinning back.

“You were also late, like usual,” Yixing retorts, and just this simple exchange has the both of them overwhelmed already, chests feeling ready to burst. “I was beginning to worry I’d dreamed it all, but no matter how many times I checked, your text was still there.” Yixing wants to say more but he can’t find the words, throat closing up again even though he had so much planned to tell him before he got here. He really, really doesn’t want to cry, it’s only been a few months after all and not any more than that; but the reality was that Yixing hadn’t been truly separated from Lu Han since they first met in a practice room all those years ago. This gap between them had been absolute torture.

Lu Han makes the first move, reaching over the table with his palm up, a small, familiar grin on his face. Yixing’s heart lurches at the sight of his hand, unable to process if the gesture really meant what he thought it did. But then Lu Han speaks before Yixing has any time to think about it. “I brought my car,” he’s saying softly, eyes sparkling. “I promised that you’d be the first to ride shotgun, remember?”

Yixing’s eyes widen, fists slamming down onto the table. “You didn’t tell me about getting a car!” he exclaims, probably a little louder than he should have because the old man behind the counter looks up from his book. Yixing ducks embarrassedly, ears burning before he looks at Lu Han again, who’s silently laughing at him.

“I just got it,” Lu Han informs him, amused. His palm is still extended and Yixing’s gaze drops down to it once more, heart skipping a beat again. Lu Han wants me to take it, right? he thinks worriedly, biting his lip and glancing up at the older man. Lu Han is still watching him curiously, expression different from before, like he was waiting for something, expectant and full of an emotion that Yixing has never seen. But Yixing doesn’t let him wait any longer, fitting his cold hand against Lu Han’s warm one, their fingers tangling naturally.

A crazy shock runs up his arm and down his spine, making the hairs on the back of Yixing’s neck raise. This was only supposed to be a simple meet up but already Yixing can feel that there is something really different, something huge. He gets the feeling that he probably shouldn’t have touched Lu Han because now he can sense the comprehensible shift in the air between them, but Lu Han doesn’t look worried in the least. In fact, his grin has only gotten wider as he tugs Yixing out of his chair, leading him towards the front. Yixing tries very hard to not think about it too much in case he’s reading into it more than he should, but the line between them has always been ambiguous.

Lu Han’s shitty umbrella lays forgotten at the table when they tip the old guy and get to the door. Just before they go outside, Lu Han uses his unoccupied hand to pull up Yixing’s hood, adjusting it so that his hair is nicely covered. They’re really close now, Yixing’s breath catching in his throat when he sees Lu Han’s dark lashes flutter open and closed just inches away from his face. Yixing licks his lips unknowingly, watching with heated cheeks when Lu Han’s gaze drops to his mouth. There is another intense moment, something so startlingly familiar yet blatantly different from to how they used to be, but Lu Han breaks it too quickly for him to process, turning around and leading Yixing out the door before he could even get a word in.

Their hands are still clasped tightly and Yixing focuses on the rain soaking his jacket to keep his mind off the intimacy of this entire situation, heart in his throat. When they get to the back of the parking lot, Lu Han gestures to his car and Yixing finally lets go of his hand to run towards the passenger side. The door is unlocked on time so he jumps in without preamble, closing the door quickly behind him. It’s a really nice car and Yixing feels terrible about sitting on the lovely leather seating with his sopping jeans and dripping jacket; he’s not as bad as Lu Han though, who is soaked to the bone when he falls into the driver’s seat.

“I was already wet from parking so far away,” Lu Han explains, pushing back his wet hair. The rainwater drips down his temple and Yixing really needs to look away but he just can’t. He’d forgotten how it used to feel being around Lu Han all the time, the amount of self-control it took for him to act like he didn’t feel anything more than friendship between them. The time gap since they last met has rendered Yixing helpless now, unable to stop his feelings from rushing to the forefront, his heart probably on his sleeve and written clearly in his eyes.

Yet, just like before, when Lu Han looks over at him and catches his gaze, the elder offers him a toothy grin, unfazed in the least. Those unreadable emotions are back, the ones that Yixing has never seen before on the elder’s face, something frighteningly intimate. The Lu Han before would have not have even thought twice about Yixing’s heartfelt gazes, looking away immediately without even noticing, but this time Lu Han is looking at him straight on. In that moment, only a single thought takes over Yixing’s head:

He knows.

His entire body freezes up, all of the previous giddiness and happiness gone in replacement of a mixture of fear and anger bubbling up from inside of him. “Did Wu Fan tell you?” Yixing accuses suddenly, face carefully blank as he analyzes the other’s reaction to the words.

“Tell me what?” Lu Han asks, but the way his eyes flash tell Yixing that he’s only putting up a front. Some things never change, and Lu Han’s inability to lie to him will always be one of them.

“He’s is the only other person who knows, Lu.”

Lu Han doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, staring resolutely back at Yixing almost challengingly, before he turns away with a sigh, eyes narrowed in anger. “What I want to know is why he knew before I did.”

Yixing falls back into his seat with disbelief all over his face, ready to yank out his own hair. “Oh my god. I should never have told him anything.”

Before he can say anything else, Lu Han’s hand snatches his wrist and holds it tight, catching Yixing’s attention immediately. Lu Han’s expression is intense, brows furrowed. “You're right. You should have told me directly instead.”

“Tell you what, exactly?” Yixing laughs, exasperated more than before, trying to pull away because he feels so frightened and betrayed right now. “That I’ve been in love you since we were trainees? What would you have done about it?”

“What I’ve been trying to do since the second I laid eyes on you again, Xing,” Lu Han retorts. “What I should have been doing for you for years!”

“You don’t need to do anything for me, Lu Han,” Yixing hisses back, finally yanking his arm away. “Is this why you wanted to meet up again? To make up for my years of unrequited feelings? This is exactly why I didn’t tell you, Lu. I don’t want you forcing anything on yourself for my sake.”

Lu Han’s jaw drops, looking scandalized. “What the hell are you saying, Xing? I’m not forcing myself to do anything! I’m in love with you, too! There is nothing to force!”

“Yeah? But I know you, Lu,” Yixing tells him straightforwardly, looking out the passenger window but not focusing on anything in particular, not in this rain. “Did you realize you were in love with me before or after you learned about my feelings?”

Lu Han doesn’t respond immediately, the silence in the car dragging before he finally replies. “After, but--”

Yixing turns on him, and he looks so exhausted and upset that Lu Han stops. “Exactly. You and I are alike in many ways, we always have been, but you don’t love me the way I love you, Lu. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself. I know we haven’t seen each other in a while and that’s why you’ve become all confused, especially since Fan told you. And it’s completely fine, just... stop making up feelings for me that never even existed. It’s not good for either of us.”

Lu Han is speechless, unable to do anything for almost a minute. “So you’re going to believe your own judgement over mine?” he questions, a lot calmer than Yixing expects him to be. “You’re just going to discredit my feelings? Is what I’m feeling for you, right this second, only out of pity? Temporary?”

“Am I not right, though?” Yixing insists, feeling attacked, but also so sure. “You’ve never even thought of being in love with me before Yifan told you, Lu Han. I’ve always known that I liked boys since before I even hit puberty, but you? You’ve been chasing after women and flaunting your ‘masculinity’ since forever. Are we not different? This isn’t something that happens overnight, Lu. You don’t just decide you’re in love with someone just because they love you. You don’t owe me shit for my feelings.”

“No, you are right,” Lu Han agrees as soon as Yixing calms down enough, taking a hold of Yixing’s hand again and this time holding so tight it could leave a bruise. Yixing can’t look away even though his better judgment is screaming at him to do so, but his eyes are wide and glued right back onto Lu Han’s. “But there are things you also don’t know about me, Xing, like how I’ve thought about this a million times, and not just in the past few months. I’ve replayed every moment we’ve had together over and over in my head every single night, trying to figure out just how in hell I never even realized that my own best friend has been in love with me for years.”

Lu Han looks close to tears now, the closest Yixing has seen him come to actually crying in so long. He doesn’t look away from Yixing’s eyes despite this, as if the only way to prove his sincerity is through his unwavering gaze. The intensity in his eyes send shivers down Yixing’s spine, goose bumps pushing up on his skin when the elder continues to speak. “I’ve always been right next to you, but I never even noticed. And the more I thought about about us, it made me realize that this has been something I’ve always been thinking about. I just never knew that it was love, Xing. I didn’t know until I saw the way that you loved me and realized that I loved you back the same exact way. Just because I was slow on the uptake doesn’t mean that I can’t fall just as hard for you.”

Yixing swallows thickly, throat tight as he looks back at Lu Han with wide eyes. This can’t be happening, he thinks. He’d never even thought to imagine a single day where they’d end up together. He didn’t believe it would even be possible, not with how much love Lu Han had always had for everyone. Yixing never saw himself as special to him; sure, they were best friends, but he couldn’t see them ever being anything deeper than that, and knowing that barrier existed has been hurting him so much for so long.

But now, Lu Han is quite literally in reach. The wall he’d been building is gone now and there is absolutely nothing left between them, just puffs of air and a few inches. Protests want to fall from Yixing’s lips because he’s still so scared that he’s dreaming, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, voice soft and so quiet you almost couldn’t hear him. “Wouldn’t you rather be with a woman? Someone you could go public with?” he wonders, and he look so vulnerable right then, lips bitten raw and eyes rimmed red as he looks unsurely back at the older man. “We’d be a secret forever. I can’t imagine that you’d--”

“Shut up,” Lu Han whispers back, lifting his unoccupied hand to cup Yixing’s cheek, thumb wiping away the rolling tears. “I’d pick my best friend over something easy any day.”

“We live in different countries.”

“An yet look at us now.”

“But--”

“Yixing.”

“I’m a guy, Lu!” Yixing finally breaks, arm trembling in Lu Han’s grip. “You can’t just half-ass this. I’m in love with you, but if you can’t even make yourself kiss me then we can’t--” This time Lu Han shuts him up with a kiss like he’d been dreaming of doing, practically yanking Yixing over the console so that they can meet halfway. Their mouths crash together, hard and bruising, not lacking in the intensity of his feelings.

“I want to do more than just kiss you,” Lu Han hisses between each press, already licking into Yixing’s mouth and feeling each of Yixing’s tremors with every touch of tongue. When he pulls away, Yixing is gasping, lips swollen and red, his fingers clenched tightly into Lu Han’s hoodie. “I don’t have to make myself do anything,” he promises, pecking more kisses along Yixing’s jaw, fingers searing hot where they press harshly into Yixing’s skin, tilting his head in the angles that he wants them. Lu Han sucks harshly on the skin just below Yixing’s earlobe and the younger whimpers, shuddering. “Secret or not, can you believe me when I say that I love you?”

Finally Yixing looks back at him without doubt clouding his judgment, eyes endless and full of all kinds of emotion that Lu Han could spend years pulling apart and deciphering. There is a whole different side to Yixing that Lu Han has been missing out on for years now, a part of Yixing that he’s kept a secret from Lu Han for so long now that he understands exactly why the younger is having so much trouble opening up to him. But he’s willing to wait, just like Yixing waited without any seeable end in sight.

“Could you say it again?” Yixing asks, still breathless from the kiss. He looks hopeful and a little shy now, cheeks flushed bright pink. Lu Han imagines that he looks the same, grin bright.

“I love you,” he mouths, leaning in close so that the words press against Yixing’s lips instead of saying them aloud. Lu Han hopes that the feeling of it imprints into his soul, that Yixing swallows the confession and keeps it inside of him forever, that he never forgets.

I love you.

“I’m just saying that it’s obvious that I wear the pants in this relationship,” Yixing shrugs, scooping another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. A bit of the strawberry pink color sticks to his upper lip, but he licksit away just as quick as it had appeared. “I make all of our outing plans, cook every meal we have at home, and serenade you with romantic songs in public using only my voice and my guitar.”

Lu Han scoffs. “Xing, please, that’s nothing compared to what I do. Without me, the bills would never get paid, the apartment would never be clean, and you’d forget to feed yourself, let alone cook. Not to mention that you’d never have anyone to get you that strawberry flavored lube because you’re too damn embarrassed to buy it yourself.”

“That was low,” Yixing pouts, nose crinkling. “I don’t buy that lube myself because it’s clearly labeled for women, and I don’t want the cashier to give me strange looks again.”

The elder balks for a second before asking, “Wait, he gave you strange looks?” He feels his hackles raising at the thought of someone checking out his boyfriend. Lu Han tries to remember if the cashier was hot, but for some reason no face comes to mind. “Like what kind of looks?” he demands instead, placing down his half-empty carton of chocolate ice cream in favor of clenching his fists on the table.

“Slow down, Mr Possessive,” Yixing chuckles around his spoon, eyes glinting; Lu Han feels personally attacked by the cute dimple that winks back at him. The urge to kiss it is almost unbearable, but over the years Lu Han has learned to ignore that urge. Well, only sometimes. “It was just some random old guy that gave me dirty looks all the time.”

Lu Han tries to remember if he’d gotten any dirty looks before, but he comes up with nothing. “How come he never glared at me for buying women’s lube, then?” he wonders aloud, genuinely confused.

Yixing’s lips immediately press thin, obviously trying not to laugh at something, and for a second Lu Han is lost. Why was that funny? There was nothing funny about buying women’s lube. But then he realizes, facial features contorting into one of displeasure as he lunges over the table at Yixing. “You cheeky bastard!”

The younger is nimble on his feet, standing up quickly and jumping away, just out of reach as he laughs unabashedly. Lu Han is about to let it slide, weak to the evil dimple and too tired to go after him, but then Yixing starts dancing a terrible parody of Minah’s “I Am A Woman Too” from the hallway and Lu Han just can’t allow this sort of disrespect to go on any longer under his own roof.

“I’m older than you, you little shit!” Lu Han growls out, finally giving chase, and they knock over the chairs and a few things off the tables and counters before he finally grabs a hold of Yixing’s arm. The younger drops his now-empty carton of strawberry ice cream, the box falling to the floor with a muted thud, joined by the clattering of the spoon. The two of them topple over onto the floor, a flailing mess of limbs and laughter.

Yixing does some sort of manipulative ninja shit he probably learned from Zitao and Lu Han lands on his back first. It wouldn’t be a big of deal if Yixing doesn’t land on top of him, chest-to-chest, knocking the wind right of his lungs and making him see stars. Yixing is still laughing like the satanic demon he truly is and Lu Han is trying to gather his wits about him.

“I’m too old for this shit,” Lu Han grumbles, rubbing his face. He looks down at his chest to see where Yixing’s chin is digging painfully into his sternum, half-moon eyes curved into slits as he grins insolently up at him. That dimple is still there and honestly Lu Han wants to just kiss it again and forget about whatever it is they’re supposed to be arguing about.

“So then can we both agree now that I’m manlier?” Yixing chirps, hand snaking up to curl into Lu Han’s frizzy hair. He’s fucking heavy, but Lu Han likes Yixing so he doesn’t tell him to shove off like he would have to anyone else. But as usual, Yixing seems to read his mind and without asking he shifts so he’s straddling Lu Han’s thighs, still lying on top of him but no longer crushing him alive.

“Absolutely not,” Lu Han replies after pretending to think about it for a few seconds, pinching Yixing’s nose with more malice than was probably normal. It’s red when he lets go and it looks adorable, so he laughs. “This is a good look for you,” he decides to point out, and when Yixing tries to exact his revenge, Lu Han grabs a hold of both of his wrists, still laughing.

Yixing tries to escape Lu Han’s death grip but it’s hard and now he’s tired from all the running earlier. “But you’ll still get my lube for me, won’t you?” he asks finally, giving in and allowing his arms to drop to the floor. “Even if the cashier thinks that you’re a woman?”

Lu Han sobers up immediately and looks him dead in the eye, expression as serious as it can be when discussing strawberry flavored lube.

“Have you considered ordering online?”