suholiday | SH 2015: some air'd be good for you (for nachtegael) (2/3)

Joonmyun moves up a few items in his daily schedule to accommodate new tasks. He gets up at five in the morning now instead of eight so he can water the vegetables at the back and make sure that the cabbages don't dry up. Waters the flowers in front, as well, and adds a couple of new varieties that he knows will add more color to the ensemble. At six in the morning, he starts warming up the stove so he can cook sunny side up and toss in a couple of slices of bed, or maybe even make seaweed soup for himself if he's in the mood for it. If not, then there's always some kim in one of the drawers, then there's kimchi in the fridge. Just a few days ago, he reprogrammed the rice cooker so that it could serve as a rice preservation machine. No more wasted food. Then he'd added a feature, as well, where he can just easily slot some yellow radish, sweet eggs, and some meat for hassle-free kimbap making. It's brilliant.

"Also a nice gadget to have for someone who's too lazy to make kimbap," Yixing told him one time, finishing with a frown. He arranged the strips of egg, kimchi, and yellow radish in a neat column, then rolled it up with the rice. Grinned in triumph, as well, as he held up the roll right in front of Joonmyun. "I mean, cooking anything requires a lot of love for the food to taste great. So why make the whole thing so... robotic?"

"Gadgets have feelings, too, you know," Joonmyun reasoned, then shifted his gaze to his perfect kimbap. It looked weird without the uneven strips peeking from the edges. He almost didn't want to eat it, just wanted to stare at it forever and maybe take pictures of it. But then he knew he wasn't the best of photographers; he didn't even know what made the 'rule of thirds' a standard in photography. "Don't let them hear you."

Yixing rolled his eyes in response and set the roll back down on the chopping board, then started cutting it up in neat, one-centimeter-thick slices. "I'm sorry for hurting your poor gadget's feelings," Yixing said, then, voice dropping to a whisper, and shut his eyes tight when he turned to face Joonmyun again. His bottom lip was jutted out in the cutest little pout and if Joonmyun hadn't been holding a knife in his hands, if his fingers hadn't been sullied with food, then Lord knew what he could've already done. "And I'm sorry if my kimbap will be better than yours."

"No need to be sorry because it won't–"

"Well, let's just say I've made people fall in love with me through my cooking," Yixing retorted, humming. He wiggled his eyebrow, chuckled before clearing his throat. Then he swayed his head from side to side, the corners of his mouth pulling up even more like he just knew he'd already won. Joonmyun curled in his toes – maybe Yixing had won even before the battle started. Maybe Joonmyun should’ve tried to put up a better fight. There wasn’t even supposed to be a battle at all. "So please, just– Don't take the loss too hard. I'm just really good at this."

Make me, a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind said. The tiny voice inside him was screaming, don't you even dare.

Joonmyun takes a deep breath now, inhaling the thick scent of coffee through his nostrils. It's almost eight in the morning. If things go according to plan then Yixing will arrive in a few minutes with fresh milk and these new cookies he's been trying to perfect the past three days. The first two batches weren't too bad – it's just that the cookies were a bit too sweet for Joonmyun's liking. "And if my cookies don't pass the litmus test then I shouldn't be releasing them to the public for everyone to eat."

"So I'm your guinea pig, is that it?" Joonmyun teased that time. Yixing just half smiled, half frowned at him, his mouth twisted in this peculiar little grin that made Joonmyun's insides turn. Joonmyun pressed his lips together in a thin, thin line in an attempt to keep everything inside, push back the words threatening to spill from his lips, to regain control over his senses even if he knew full well that Yixing would be able to find a way to pull his strings in the most pleasant way, anyway. "I actually we thought something going on, you know. Something... special."

Yixing cocked an eyebrow at him, lips parted as if he was hoping to say something. He didn't. Instead, he hummed and sunk his teeth in one of the cookies he made, nodding in approval as the flavor filled his senses.

Joonmyun shakes his head this time and blinks a few times. Stop going back there. Don't look back, he keeps telling himself, but Yixing just makes it so easy to look back without having to worry about the taking a blow to the chest, a cut to his palm. Yixing makes reminiscing sort of... nice, rid of the initial bitterness Joonmyun once had for everything that linked his past with the present.

Three rings of the bell, and Joonmyun snaps up straight. He locks his arms behind his back and pushes himself away from the table. The coffee's too hot to drink, anyway; he's done with scalding himself again and again.

Yixing arrives a little before eight in the morning this time, armed with a bottle of milk, a new batch of cookies, and a lone cupcake that he sets down between their plates, skewed a bit more to Joonmyun's side than his own. "You aren't planning to sell cupcakes, are you?" Joonmyun asks, making his way to the coffeemaker as soon as Yixing finishes emptying the pack of cookies into a shallow bowl. He catches the sound of Yixing's light laughter, the faintest lilt of the voice. It makes him shiver a little, but it's a good shiver. The type that jostles him awake and pumps up his senses for what's to come. "At this rate, people might actually forget that you sell mainly milk and just those sweet treats on the side."

Yixing hums. Joonmyun looks over his shoulder, then, setting the coffee pot down on the counter before turning to walk over to where Yixing is. "Not too bothered. Told you, I think I really need a change in career," Yixing answers after a while, pausing only to address Joonmyun with a smile. He takes a sip of the coffee, lips falling open into a tiny 'o' after the first taste of the drink. "And you might want to consider making coffee for a living. I don't think I've ever tasted brewed coffee this good."

Joonmyun snorts, kicks Yixing under the table only hard enough to earn a gasp from latter. If Sehun was here then he'd call Joonmyun out on his old-school flirting techniques, but then they aren't even supposed to be flirting. They're just coaxing each other to consider new career options, maybe break free from something they've long been doing. Change is almost always good, after all, especially when you're feeling a bit stuck.

Joonmyun's been stuck in the past for the past half decade. If there's someone who needs a breath of fresh air more than anyone else, it's him.

"I've got good beans to thank," Joonmyun singsongs, swaying from side to side and he saunters over to his seat. These are still the beans that he got two Christmases ago, from the package that Jongdae and Minseok sent over because they 'couldn't seem to get a hold of Joonmyun, for some weird reason.' Come up to visit us? We miss you, hyung :(

I miss freedom and being happy, Joonmyun wanted to say then. It sounded so selfish, though, so instead he sent two separate emails to Minseok and Jongdae, both containing different but equally short messages. To Minseok, he said, Thanks for the beans, hyung, To Jongdae, Someday. For now, thanks for understanding. Don't eat the snow!

Joonmyun curls his fingers into loose fists. The slightest mention of going back to his roots, of traveling for two long hours from Wonju-si to the country capital makes him feel weird, queasy. Almost like he's being forced to relive the past decade knowing that Baekhyun will be taken away from him, anyway. It's ridiculous. But then Jongdae just wants to a quick chat, maybe over coffee or one of Minseok's favorite expensive wine. They don't have to bring up those five years Joonmyun spent dancing around Baekhyun. All they have to do is to talk about work, the present, how they are now and not how they've moved on from the past because if there's one thing Joonmyun hates more than anything else but keeps doing, anyway, it's lying to others; ultimately, to himself.

Maybe he should try to reconnect sometime, drive up north if he can still remember the route from this hidden place to the capital so he can deliver the hardcopy of the papers he's working on instead of leaving their fate up to the courier and weather. Summer's not the best time to go sending out letters via airmail, after all. It's like stepping into a manhole, knowing that it's there. And he isn't that stupid. Not anymore.

"Lu Han used to fuck up the coffee even if we had good beans," Yixing mentions. He leans back in his seat, throwing his head back a little and closing his eyes for the briefest of moments before resurfacing with a smile. He looks like sunshine at seven in the morning after a rainy night. Like Joonmyun's next big mistake and his new downfall. Joonmyun laughs a little. "I'm not kidding! And to think we used to get grounds before... So you'd think he'd have very little chance to screw it up, right? But no. He poured too little water and insisted it was a 'ristretto brew'."

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows. "Ristretto doesn't work that way."

"Yeah. He soon discovered," Yixing groans. He lifts the cup again and draws it closer to his lips, taking a long whiff of the scent before taking a sip. "So you're good at this. If you put up a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, I'd drive out to visit everyday."

"Just to stop by?" Joonmyun teases. Under the table, Yixing reaches for him with his foot, then nudges his ankle with the tips of his toes. "Hey, no playing at the dining table!"

Yixing doesn't let on. Instead, he hikes his foot up, scoring a line of heat along Joonmyun's calf before pressing his big toe to the back of Joonmyun's knee. Joonmyun stills. He holds his breath, keeps it all inside his chest where he can feel the thumping the strongest. And sucks in his bottom lip. He tries not to shake, tries not to shiver, but every touch from Yixing stuns him, electrifies him. A vicious cold wraps around his neck, caresses his nape, and shit – it feels a bit like that night when Yixing reached out to cup his cheek, rubbing lazy circles on his skin with the heat of his thumb. It feels a lot like that time, those many times when Yixing danced his fingers over to where Joonmyun was, just close enough that Joonmyun could feel the heat of Yixing's skin with the two, three centimeters between them.

And then Yixing would inch closer, gaze fixed elsewhere, and the tips of their fingers would touch. The first brush of skin and skin would make Joonmyun's breath hitch; the second, make him too aware of the thinning distance between them, the weight of Yixing's stare, the message written in the way Yixing tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows like there were so many things that he could be saying at the moment but just couldn't string together. Like he hadn't been telling Joonmyun about the weirdest, most random of things whenever he came over to visit that he felt weird blurting out whatever he wanted to say.

Yixing yanks him back to reality and pins him in place – their ankles locked under the table and their gazes fixed on nothing, nobody else even with the steam from the coffee diffusing Yixing's bright smile a little.

Yixing leaves closer to eleven in the morning than ten. He's been pushing back the end of their breakfast more and more these days, but, "I think I'll need to stick with our schedule for the next week," Yixing mentions before going down the stairs. "Got a couple of studies to work on. Weird, science-y, paranormal stuff." Joonmyun parts his lips, poised to speak, to ask, but he never gets to push the words past the gates of his teeth and apprehension when Yixing peeks at him through the slits of his bangs, gaze soft, almost tender. Maybe this is Yixing hitting that 'low' he claims he runs into after drinking coffee. Or maybe Yixing was lying earlier; the coffee's actually bad and it's causing him some stomach problems. Joonmyun doesn't know. And he hates not knowing. Still, he presses his lips together and doesn't shut the door until he sees Yixing disappear around the corner, until the sound of bells thins into silence and the steady thumping in Joonmyun chest.

Joonmyun takes a deep, deep breath, and breathes out. The less he knows about Yixing, the easier it is to dissociate him with everything. And the less he knows about the turmoil inside him right now, the easier it is to just ignore it and will it to fade.

☀

June is the type of month Joonmyun loves to hate; mid-June, even more. He got into an accident before, sometime around those days, back when he was twelve, lost his father in the process and almost lost his mother to the bitter aftershock of the crash. His brother had to drop out from school then to help his mother with the expenses, catch a part-time job somewhere in the capital and try to get the family back on stable ground. A few years after that, Joonmyun caught a cold on one of his big examination days and almost lost a lot of marks that he'd need to get a nice head start for the college entrance exams. And then there are the heavy rains that make the atmosphere much more humid than they should be. It's one of those months when he just wants to lie supine on his bed and count down the minutes until the cold of the night seeps in.

And then Baekhyun would come climbing onto the same bed, scaling his misbehaving hands up Joonmyun's thighs, pinning Joonmyun in place as he straddles the latter and looks down at him with the fondest gaze. He'd pepper Joonmyun's chest with kisses, drawing patterns on Joonmyun's skin with them. Then he'd coax Joonmyun to turn around, lie flat on his stomach, and rub his thumbs up and down along the tense muscles in Joonmyun's back until Joonmyun moaned in appreciation, bucked his hips back, grinded against Baekhyun's tenting erection in his pants.

"I've already showered," Joonmyun would groan, more to tease than to complain

"We can always shower together," was Baekhyun's helpful suggestion.

Joonmyun would laugh and turn around, hook one leg around Baekhyun and pull him down until their bodies were caught in a tight, sticky fit – chest to chest, heart to heart. He'd look at Baekhyun in the eye, roll his hips a little until Baekhyun was groaning for real and clawing at his skin, whispering, "C'mon– Joonmyun, please, just–" And Joonmyun would try to put up a fight, try to tease Baekhyun some more, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on anything at all when Baekhyun was licking the shell of his ear and whispering all the tiny, choked whimpers, demanding all of his attention with his hot lips pressed to Joonmyun's skin but apologizing for being so damn impatient with the way his fingers trembled against Joonmyun's skin–

Joonmyun jolts up, his breathing heavy and laboured when he surfaces. He looks around him, looks at the wall clock nearby, then lets out a long exhale. It's only five in the afternoon. There's a dull ache in his cheek that he's pretty sure isn't from getting punched. And his stomach is lurching in several different directions. It almost feels like waking up hungover except he hasn't had anything mildly alcoholic in a decade. Almost feels like he's twenty-five again, flirting with nurses and fellow interns and one of the cute residents in the same pub that he and his friends frequent after draining shifts. He laughs. He lifts his hand to his cheek, then, rubbing along the surface until he feels a nasty depression there. He must have fallen asleep while working again, must have somehow submitted to the whims of his silly dreams and decided to stay there far longer than he should have.

He yawns, stretching his arms overhead, and shivers when he hears his bones crack. He should stay up tonight to get things done, finish these analyses so he can start working on the summarized findings for the journals he's working on. They aren't due for another week, but it's always good to finish things early. That way, he can check and double-check everything before sending off those journals and hoping that they can somehow help the doctors save lives, effect change, change the world. The sort of thing only Joonmyun would make his goal whenever he works on research materials for the institute.

He laughs to himself. Minseok used to roll his eyes at him for that all the time. Jongdae wouldn't say anything, but he'd shift his gaze elsewhere and press the back of his palm to his lips in an effort to not laugh. And Yura would be the only one who had enough guts to say, "On a scale of one to ten, Joonmyun, on a scale of one to ten, how absurd is that idea?"

"Eleven?" was Joonmyun's standard answer. And Yura would always respond with light laughter, a gentle squeeze of the arm, a light ruffle of Joonmyun's hair with the subtlest of touches, light as a feather.

He runs his fingers through his hair now and gives the tuft a light fluff. Maybe he should go for a shower before getting right back to working on the analyses. That will definitely help him stay awake until his next coffee stop at ten in the evening. Or he can power through the last few paragraphs of this particular analysis then start fresh with a new study after taking a bath. The water almost always helps him think, makes it easier for him to retreat to the very back of his mind and not worry about the other voices in his head screaming at him. Makes him feel like he can step outside the house again and walk farther than the five-meter radius of his house, try to get a feel of how things are on the other side. That night when he walked past the barrier of his door for the first time in a decade to help Yixing with the cart and the cats, he had rain on his side.

You can't go depending on things, people all the time, he tells himself. It's difficult, not having things within your control and leaving results up to fate and chance. So he picks up his pen, pushes back his bangs, takes a deep breath. He only needs five, ten minutes to power through the last few paragraphs of this analysis. He needs to stop asking himself so many questions and start noting down answers he's always had stored at the back of his mind.

He needs to stop thinking and start doing.

Ten in the evening finds him with his hair sticking to the sides of his face, eyebrows in a tight knot as he scores lines with a highlighter along his readings. Halfway done with the last analysis and his brain feels like it might explode anytime, remain empty for too long until he has to pick up his remaining brain cells and just... stuff 'em all inside. It becomes monotonous and draining after a while, picking up readings and studying them then finding things to shoot down, improve on, maybe even change completely. Sometimes Joonmyun wonders if he's actually studying new material or just looking for the first flaw he can find, blowing the thing up so he can submit something to the scholars in the institute.

Sometimes, he wonders if he's looking at things the way he shouldn't. If he should start looking outside the window instead of just through it.

Three knocks on the door and he stops short in his highlighting. He presses down the tip on the paper, soaking the area in a bright yellow, and quickly pulls away when he sees what he's just done. Ten in the evening is a pretty obscene time for anyone to drop by. Even Sehun knows better than to return from somewhere at such a late hour and expect Joonmyun to answer the door with a big smile. But then the last time Joonmyun did swing the door open at close to eleven in the evening was smack in the middle of a storm. The same night he stepped out of his safe zone and just let Yixing come sauntering into his house, raindrops trailing him as he stepped on the doormat, soaked to the bone.

He snaps the cap of the highlighter in place at the second burst of knocks. There's the distant sound of bells, as well, just loud enough to slip between the noise of knuckles rapping against wood. He takes a deep breath, then, gets back on his feet and clenches and unclenches his fists. Laughs a bit, as well, because who even recognizes people by the sound of knocking and bells ringing? Only people who don't have better things to do latch onto those things, cues as tiny and insignificant as those, and use them as an anchor so they can find their way home. Only people who haven't heard other sounds in the past five, six years such as Joonmyun.

It's not raining outside, though. There's no water around to help clear his mind a little, to help him make better decisions. He shakes his head and gulps hard – forty years of existence is supposed to have taught him well about life by now. He has no excuses for fucking things up again.

"Hey," comes Yixing's greeting, filtering through the narrow gap between the door and the wall. Joonmyun swings the door further open, revealing Yixing in clothes Joonmyun hasn't seen yet – a loose white shirt, denim shorts, something akin to a sweater resting on his arm while he carries a bunch of books and a notebook in his other arm. Or is that a laptop? Joonmyun can't tell yet. His eyesight gets progressively shittier as the day goes by and ten in the evening requires more than just his eyeglasses to help him see clearly. So he pulls the door open all the way and coaxes Yixing to come inside with a gentle cock of the head, a tight-lipped smile.

"Wasn't–" Yixing coughs and sniffles, then clears his throat. His eyes are sullen. It's almost as if he can't open them anymore but he's trying really, really hard to. He was looking much better this morning, when he dropped by really quickly and spent no more than thirty minutes chatting with Joonmyun at the front door, but even then he looked as if he'd be better off tucked in bed than pushing his cart from one place to another. It wasn't like one of their usual breakfast conversations where they'd eat at a glacial pace and just talk about anything and everything under the sun 90% of the time; his breathing was laboured and he was wearing one of those sad smiles of his, one that neither drew cute little dimples on his cheeks nor reached the corners of his eyes to make them crinkle. And he kept dropping his eyes to Joonmyun's lips instead of holding Joonmyun's focused gaze. He rarely did that. Yixing liked looking straight into people's eyes and watching them like he was so interested in the way they breathed. "I wasn't supposed to head here but it's just too noisy everywhere else and this is the only place where I can get some peace–"

Makes sense, Joonmyun muses – the mansion's meters away from the next house. It's kilometers away from the city center. He's miles away from the noise of the world. So when Yixing breathes out, shoulders slumping forward, Joonmyun reaches out to rest his hand on the small of Yixing's back. Sort of a reminder that hey, if you need someone to help you get to the living room, if you need any help at all, just let me know.

Joonmyun feels a weird, prickling heat bloom in his palm, the back of his knees, his cheeks. His knuckles. It feels a lot like a spark of electricity so powerful that he feels the hair at his nape stand, feels his heart stop beating for a moment, then come back thumping in full force the next. The burn stings. But Yixing makes it impossible to pull away when he looks to his side and finally meets Joonmyun's gaze, when he reaches out with one hand and tucks Joonmyun's hair, too long to not be tied back anymore, behind Joonmyun's ear. And Yixing keeps his hand there, knuckles pressed to Joonmyun's check for a few good seconds, before he drops his hand to his side. Joonmyun tries to chase after the more comforting heat but manages to hold back, biting down hard on his tongue before he can even say something he hasn't thought through at least twice, before he can even do anything he doesn't know if he won't regret.

"Work?" Joonmyun asks after a while, voice barely above a whisper. Yixing takes a deep, deep breath, shoulders lifting as he sucks in air into his system and tries to refuel his senses. Joonmyun sets his breathing to that, slow and spaced out, like he's trying to calm himself from– From what? There are no storms in the area, no chaos around him. The only turmoil brewing right now is the one bottled inside his chest. "I'll– I'll make some tea, then. Or do you want coffee?"

"Milk should be fine," Yixing says, offering a small smile in response. Then he lifts his hand another time, sneaking a light pinch on Joonmyun's cheek before pulling away. "And I finally perfected the new cookies, by the way. Pretty sure you'll love them."

Joonmyun's breath hitches. "And the cupcakes?"

"I let them go." Yixing sets his things down on the table beside the couch in the living room, arranging the books in a neat stack. "They weren't working out and I found a way to... reinvent the cookies but still retain the chewy consistency so!" He runs his hands along the sides until he's satisfied, books of varying sizes shuffling into a nice, straight line without toppling over the very next second. Then he looks over his shoulder, peering through the slits of his bangs again like looking straight at Joonmyun will blind him. Can't be possible; Joonmyun's just a flickering light in the dark. "Get ready to be blown away. I'll make you fall in love with the cookies."

"And take all my money, basically. I knew it, this friendship's just a sales pitch," Joonmyun grumbles, more to tease than anything else. He keeps his lips pressed together into a thin line, nonetheless, keeps a straight face as he turns on his heel to go on his merry way. He waves his hand over his shoulder, then, walking to the rhythm of Yixing's bright laughter, but soon Yixing's reaching out, pinching him in his side, making him warm all over. There it is again, the same jolt of electricity that Joonmyun felt earlier, only now it's more powerful, consuming, with the way Yixing's pulling him close and there's nothing, not even a sliver of breathing space keeping them apart. Back to chest, cheek to cheek, with Yixing's warm arms around his waist and keeping his knees from giving away.

His body gives a tiny jerk. He risks a glance over his shoulder, whispers, "Sorry, did I–" when he turns to look to his side, but all that greets him is Yixing's hovering heat, the sight of his wet lips so close and just within reach pushing back all the words already poised to roll off his tongue. "If I ever jerked back too much, I swear I didn't mean it–"

"Relax," Yixing says, breathing out in the narrow gap between their bodies. His body jerks, as well, shakes a little. Joonmyun can hear it, that peculiar crackling sound between them, almost as if it's trying to push them apart, but Yixing doesn't let on. Instead, he tilts his head, resting his head against Joonmyun's own. "Just... relax. Don't move. Stay."

Joonmyun takes a deep, deep breath. Part of him wants to say more, wants to ask, why are you doing this? What are you doing? Why do I care at all? It's just a hug, a gesture people seek out when they're tired and weary and just want to feel that they're not alone. Friends do this, envelop their friends in the warmth of their embrace, but something about the way Yixing presses his lips to underside of Joonmyun's jaw feels... different. Like he wants to say something but can't find the words for it yet, so instead he's letting his limbs and his lips do the talking but without sound. Just the brush of skin on skin to spill all the secrets Yixing is hiding beneath that practiced smile, the bright eyes, his soft touch.

Part of Joonmyun just wants to surrender, to turn the tide and cup Yixing's face in his hands until he can feel nothing else but the heat of Yixing's focused gaze on him, until he can feel nothing but the thrumming of his pulse against Yixing's skin. But it doesn't make sense. They're supposed to be just two people who've dedicated two hours of their morning everyday to just talking to each other, watching each other speak, listening to each other breathe. They're not supposed to be sharing one breath. And Joonmyun shouldn't be thinking of how it would feel if it was his mouth Yixing had his lips pressed to, if they were face to face and they were whispering with their bodies all the things they couldn't be telling each other – I like butterfly kisses on the nape, warm hands on my back. I think your pretty lips would fit perfectly in mine so why aren't we kissing? Why are we holding back at all?

"I'll listen, if you want to talk," Joonmyun whispers. He shuts his eyes when he feels Yixing pull away for the briefest of moments only to resurface by breathing out against Joonmyun's skin, by pressing his lips, wet and warm, where Joonmyun's pulse beats the strongest. "I know how it feels when there's no one to listen–"

"What if I just need a hug and some silence?" Yixing asks, chuckling. Joonmyun stiffens in fit of their bodies, but soon Yixing's pinching him again in his side and burying his face in the crook of Joonmyun's neck, instead. "And warm milk?"

Joonmyun leans back against Yixing's chest, submitting to the touch. This, at least, feels familiar – Yixing's laughter, unguarded, uninhibited, ringing in his ears, Yixing drumming staccato beats on his waist like he's still trying to get the timing down months into this strange friendship of theirs. Three good inches between them, keeping them at a safe distance from each other but not quite pushing them apart.

☀

Joonmyun finishes his journals just before midnight. His side of the dining table looks much messier than that of Yixing's side, but at least he can file his papers in a folder now and forget, for the briefest of moments, that they even exist. This is one of the best feelings ever, Joonmyun muses – crossing off a big task from your to-do list and feeling the weight of work being lifted from your shoulders. Walking away from work knowing that you've given it your all and that you have no regrets.

He laughs a little. It's been a while since he last felt this way. Four years ago, to be exact, when he was able to save Sehun from the brink of danger. The case he'd just solved earlier is similar to Sehun's, in a sense, only a bit trickier given the complication of the patient suffering from a severe case of haemophilia. But then complications are the spice of any case, the flavor to the otherwise bland and boring circumstance that Joonmyun can provide answers to in a blink of an eye. He stretches his arms in front of him, then, flexing his fingers as the tries to get rid of the tension in his hands.

He shifts his gaze to his left, then sucks on his bottom lip. Yixing still isn't done with what he's working on, but it looks as if he's inching closer to the end now. The beat he's drumming on the table with his pen has become faster, more powerful, with only small and quick gaps between beats when his wrist is already sore. He's typing faster, as well, fingers flitting from one side of the keyboard to the other with relative ease.

So Joonmyun slips beside Yixing and hovers, maintaining a safe distance between them. He can make out a few familiar words in the text, some things that he can recite from the top of his head without pausing to rehearse his lines. Something about using body language as an easy means of detecting the stages of terminal illness and how subtle physical therapy can help treat patients who are at the brink of dying. Saving lives. "You... work in the sciences, as well?" he tries, then, voice soft and tentative, and it takes Yixing no more than five seconds to drop the pen he was gripping tight earlier and steal a glance at Joonmyun.

"Geeky stuff, yeah. Stuff heroes do, except I do it using medicine and chemicals. Yay," Yixing replies. He draws his shoulders back, then cracks his neck. Breathes a sigh of relief when he feels a tense muscle relax. Then he shifts in his seat, looking up and fixing his gaze on Joonmyun this time, his eyes widening at the same time that he parts his lips. "Hang on. You said 'as well'. You mean you–" He points an accusing finger at Joonmyun but drops it all at once, replacing it instead with the cock of an eyebrow. "You're in the sciences, as well? Doing... doctor stuff?"

I could be saving lives, Joonmyun muses. He's saved far more people than his fingers can count, but then he's also failed to keep some promises, failed to help some people see the sun again and just... tossed them into a bottomless pit of darkness. It feels weird, unsettling just thinking about it, but then doctors aren't gods. There's no assurance that you'll come out brand new and shiny again after going through surgery, no telling if you'll even make it through the operation or somehow get stuck in the middle, toeing the line between life and death. Luck will always be that deciding factor playing favorites and watching from over a doctor's shoulder.

"Yeah. Sort of," Joonmyun replies. He scratches his nape, then presses down on the tense muscles with his ring and index fingers. "I haven't been... practicing in years."

Yixing leans in for a moment, hovering, but sinks back in his seat soon after. "Was it that bad, your last surgery?" he asks, voice just above a whisper, then he's shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him. "Forget I even asked. It's not something you should–" He breathes in deep, then lets out all the air in his lungs in a huff as he says, "I mean, after putting so much work into trying to get to where you are, there can only be one thing that can make you stop doing what you want so that was a really, really stupid question–"

And it's stupid to be trying to hide behind that veil of nonchalance, he muses as he studies the way Yixing worries his bottom lip. It's been years and really, he should have gotten over that tragic accident by now. Baekhyun wouldn't have wanted him to live such a miserable life and hole himself up in a mansion miles away from everything and everyone else. Baekhyun would hate him for that. He shrugs, then, waves off the tension with light laughter.

"Not the last surgery. I saved someone's life that time. It was fun," Joonmyun says. He snorts. "It was the one before that that made me... quit." He laughs at himself. "Sort of."

"Except you really can't just stay away," Yixing adds, cocking his head in the direction of the pile of papers on the other side of the table. "Research?"

"That's me trying to help people not screw up ever again."

Yixing furrows his eyebrows and chuckles. "Impossible. You're bound to screw up at some point. It's programmed in your DNA." He flexes his fingers, cracking his knuckles one by one, but he doesn't look away from Joonmyun yet. If anything, he's just studying Joonmyun's features all the more, taking in the smallest, most unnoticeable quirks of Joonmyun's face with the way his gaze maps patches of heat on Joonmyun's skin. He sucks in his bottom lip for a moment, like taking a quick breath, then licks his lips as he finishes, "It's how you get back up those fuck ups that makes you a good doctor."

"And yet here you are," Joonmyun counters, a corner of his lips curling up. He wants to laugh, wants to tell himself that, look, Joonmyun, look at yourself in the mirror and see if you tell yourself with a straight face that you're still not the shabbiest doctor after ending someone's life. But that's not the point. The silence wrapping around them thickens, unbearable and uncomfortable, until it wraps around Joonmyun's neck in a tight, tight grip.

It takes a while to sink in, what he'd just said, how he'd said it, how he'd just accused a friend of fucking things up and not ever finding a way to redeem himself in his profession, so he tries to make up for it and holds his hands up – in defense, to reach out, as a reminder to keep himself from saying something stupid that he'll eventually regret, he doesn't know. Fresh from doing academic work, it's always more difficult to think, a lot more challenging to make sound decisions. He's just going with gut feel now; at least that one rarely lets him down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to– I'm not saying that you did something wrong and that's why you're here and not in the hospital–"

"I did," Yixing interrupts, sputtering the syllables like he's shocked himself into saying it. His eyes aren't blown wide open, though, and his cheeks aren't shaking. His lips aren't even trembling. And he's shifting in his seat so that he can see Joonmyun better, his body facing Joonmyun now when he lets go of the pen he was holding earlier and clasps his hands on his lap, instead. "Around... three years ago, if I'm not mistaken? Handed over a shitty analysis of findings on my patients behavior and have him the wrong medication, in the process," he confesses. He worries his bottom lip, presses the pads of his fingers against each other and takes quick breaths with every stretch. Joonmyun watches, then, as the tips of Yixing's fingers turn white with every hard push, as Yixing's hands shake at the pressure. As Yixing lets out another low exhale, his lips tugging up just a little at the corners when he lifts his gaze again to look at Joonmyun. "Though to be fair, the patient wasn't transparent about his medical history. I mean, there's only so much that doctors can figure out, right? How were we supposed to know that he took drugs a decade ago but he was completely clean the time we performed the tests but then the damage had already been done? How–" Yixing scoffs. "How were we supposed to know that he had allergic reactions to certain medicine when the only way we'd find out without him telling us is by actually testing those substances on him?"

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows, drops his gaze to where he has one hand curled around the back of Yixing's chair. Classic bullshit that doctors have to go through at one point in their careers, maybe even twice. Thrice, if they're unlucky. But Yixing's mouth is twisted into this weird sort of frown that Joonmyun has never seen him wear before. A look reserved only for when he knows neither what to say nor how to feel.

"He was one of us, Joonmyun. He was a fellow doctor, a friend." Yixing huffs, blowing air at his bangs, then shakes his head. "He had a bright career ahead of him, that man. He was probably going to graduate at the top of the batch. He was that good. But then– You know how the system works. We all have different ways of coping with… the pressure, the stress. With life."

"And he... chose to go down the drugs route," Joonmyun continues, voice just above a whisper. Yixing catches it, though, nods, and slumps in his seat. It makes Joonmyun want to run his hands along Yixing's shoulders, press down on the tense muscles with his thumbs just feel Yixing relax in his touch. It makes him want to reach out, thread his fingers between Yixing's own, hoping to fill the gaps between Yixing's speech with whatever he can offer.

But that’s not what Yixing needs right now. What Yixing needs is someone who can and will listen, find music in his words, someone who won’t raise a fist at the first sign of an opposing opinion but will take note of the point to be raised for future discussion. And Joonmyun can be that person for Yixing right now. He can be exactly what Yixing needs.

"We could've done– I could’ve done something to make him stop. Or even dissuade him from picking up his first pack, even, but–" Yixing shakes his head. "I know it's bad to just keep thinking about what could have been but what if, just what if, I took the pack from him and threw it away? What if I–“ He laughs, like he can’t believe what he’s saying or just can’t believe that he’s still trying to make sense of all these things too many years after. “What if I locked him up somewhere so he couldn’t get people and himselfinto trouble anymore?"

"It's a temporary solution," Joonmyun says, curt and honest. Yixing blows a stream of air against his bangs, fluffing them up a bit. Diversionary tactics, Joonmyun thinks – Yixing can be quite the escape artist if he just puts his heart into it. He could distract someone with his blinding smile while his hands did something else. It's just a quick fix, though – the dark circles still pull down at Yixing's cheeks and paint him a sickly color. His eyes are still sullen. And his smile keeps weakening. "If he ever wanted to stop dealing and taking them, he'd have done something. So you have to get to the root of the problem–"

“Attack the very core,” Yixing adds, laughing a little. He lets out a long sigh. “Try to change him from the inside."

“Sort of a system boot, yeah,” Joonmyun finishes. He curls his fingers into fists, just tight enough that he can feel the tension at the back of his hands. “But he has to help himself. Otherwise he’ll just… keep pushing you all away, repelling any and all forms of treatment."

Yixing peeks from the gaps between his hair and chuckles. "Wish I had your wisdom when I was that young," he whispers, then rubs the tip of his nose. "Maybe then I wouldn’t have tried making him go through rehab when it was so clear he didn’t want to. And I wouldn’t have ended up screwing up almost all my cases after that that I’d have to stop practicing."

And we wouldn't have met, a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind says. The pulse in his temples throbs. His stomach twists, wraps his insides in a vicious grip, then turns. He tightens his hold on the wood, curls his fingers in even more until he can feel his nails digging into his skin in an effort to keep himself from saying something he might regret, but then he's just clipped his nails two days ago. He did it after Yixing told him that he could leaves scars of people with how he loved slapping Yixing on the arm when he was too tired to argue his case, the way his nails caught on Yixing's skin and left bright red marks there that lingered until the end of the night. And the last thing he wants right now is to go around hurting people, leaving pieces of himself on people even if they never wanted to be part of Joonmyun's evil scheme.

"Do you really regret it, though? Turning him in, distancing yourself from the practice?" Joonmyun asks. He pulls away from where he was pressed close to the back of Yixing's seat but doesn't stray too much. Just stays a few good inches away from Yixing knowing that touches say more than words ever can and that Yixing might not want to speak that language this time. "I know doctors who've dropped their tools in favor for a less... stressful life. They've never been happier."

Yixing laughs a little. "I miss it sometimes – talking to people all the time, figuring out what makes them tick and what clicks with them, trying to come up with a cure to some–" He pauses, laughing and rolling his eyes in accord, then continues, "–some disease even standard science can't 'decode' or whatever. It feels nice, being able to save people and give them hope. But at the same time, the pressure is just too much. It's like you're being trained to be a god, and you have nine units on how to handle depressing situations such as death."

Joonmyun snorts. "Having to break the news to people is ten times more difficult," he adds, voice dropping to a whisper. Yixing looks up at him, tilting his head and blinking a few times as if trying to recalibrate. Trying to read Joonmyun again when he's supposed to be doing nothing else but venting and just letting off some steam. This is it, Joonmyun muses, Yixing's training kicking in, the stimulus he'd developed to feeling people's need for care or comfort rushing to the surface. "I've had to do it... five times, I think?"

Yixing hums, then shifts even more in his position until he's leaning against the table, one arm rested on the edge of the table just behind him and his other hand limp on his thigh. "Have you tried breaking the news to relatives?"

"Never really had to," Joonmyun answers. He scratches his nape. "I work with survivors of crashes. 90% of the time, their relatives are already dead–"

"Ten times," Yixing says, holding up both hands, fingers splayed in the air. "Had to do it ten times. Thrice to my own family; the other seven times, to the family of my friends. It's–" He snorts. "It just leaves such a lasting impression on you." From where Joonmyun is, he can see the faint, familiar twinkle in Yixing's eyes, the subtle upward curl of his lips. He's recovering, and he's recovering really quickly. Much like how he switches from one expression to another in a blink of an eye, too fast that Joonmyun sometimes isn't able to catch those tiny, minute changes in the way he quirks his lips, lifts an eyebrow, in the way he stares. His lips tremble a little, though, just before laughs, low and dry. He sounds like someone who ran a marathon twice without getting hydrated, or like he'd been out the whole day selling milk while screaming at the top of his lungs or singing the whole time.

Yixing's a pretty good singer. He has the type of voice that can calm down the tempest, even the most vengeful of storms. He can silence even the loudest of voices at the back of Joonmyun's mind.

And he can stir up a storm inside Joonmyun, as well.

"Not as much as watching someone die in your... gloved hands," Joonmyun retorts, laughing a little. He shakes his head, then drops his gaze to his feet. "And even if you do end up saving them, things just... won't be the same anymore."

Yixing tilts his head to the other side and rests one hand on the jut of Joonmyun's waist. Three taps on his skin, then he motions for Joonmyun to come closer, pulls Joonmyun in his direction until Joonmyun's standing between Yixing's thighs. "What do you mean?"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath. Stupid move, he tells himself as he feels Yixing tap another series of beats on his bone, humming this time around. He shouldn't have dropped that bomb out of the blue, shouldn't have gotten lost in his own thoughts again. Shouldn't have even entertained the thought of getting too much into detail about the past because what good has that ever done for him? Revisiting the past is good for research, case studies. His life isn't a big case study; it's the perfect example of what goes wrong when you don't think things through.

But then Yixing isn't really prodding. He's just there, looking up at Joonmyun with a focused gaze and a small smile on his lips that makes Joonmyun's insides turn. Yixing isn't just waiting for an answer or even for Joonmyun to just say something; he's giving Joonmyun a choice. If he wanted to extract information from Joonmyun for a while now then he already would have. He'd have stood from his seat and fastened his palms on Joonmyun's shoulders, would have gripped Joonmyun tight by the arms. And he would have asked 'what happened' instead of what Joonmyun wanted to say. Just in case, y'know, Joonmyun ever wanted to take something back. It isn't the end of the road yet.

Joonmyun licks his lips, sucks in his bottom lip as he feels the pads of his fingers grow cold. Yixing's gaze flickers, drops south to the gentle swell of Joonmyun's mouth before meeting Joonmyun's unsteady gaze again. It's all in the past now, right? So it shouldn't bother him as much anymore, just thinking about what happened five years ago, when Baekhyun took a leap of faith and placed all his trust in Joonmyun's hands, trust him not to fuck things up and end his life. It shouldn't be too hard to tell Yixing about it, what with all the years that were supposed to haev softened the blow already. Besides, Yixing shared a piece of his past just a few minutes ago, and won't it be just fair to share a fraction of himself, as well? Because that's what friends do, right, try to pry each other open in the hope of pulling out the shards wedged between the happy memories of the past to ease the pain, maybe lift it completely?

"It was one of those special cases, the one I handled," Joonmyun begins, pausing only to shift in his position. Yixing pulls him closer, though, like he needs warmth more than personal space at the moment. Joonmyun isn't sure if he minds. "There was... there was this car crash survivor who lost his parents in, well, the crash. What else." Joonmyun laughs, more at himself than anything else. He takes another quick breath, easing the knot in his chest just a little, then continues, "And it's a special case because the manifestation of the trauma was in the guy slowly going translucent. Could've been harmless because he was still alive, for the most part, but his vital signs kept going down the more he hollowed out."

Yixing leans back, eyebrows furrowed a little. "So he's alive, but you... couldn't see him? I mean his entire body? Like, he'd have, what, an ear going translucent then a quarter of his torso gone, something like that?"

"Half," Joonmyun corrects. He lets out a long sigh. "At one point, during rehab, he almost lost one leg. He couldn't feel it anymore. So I tried to save him, did some tests and sort of tried to craft this technology that can help him stay alive despite all those missing patches of himself."

"Is that even possible?"

Joonmyun shrugs, gives the house a quick scan, then shifts his gaze back to Yixing. "This whole mansion was built to sustain him, stop him from losing more of himself and sort of try to help him regain all those lost... physical attributes. Regenerate cells and tissues, in a sense. And given that they're not part of his 'original' make up, the virus he'd contracted won't spread and eat him up from the inside anymore." he explains, then takes a quick breath. "Everything here is... one more chance after another at living again. That's how the house works. Keep fruits in the fridge for weeks and you won't have to worry about them going overripe. Cook something and it will never go stale unless you do something weird to it. But you'll have to keep something for the technology and the magic surrounding the premises to keep alive."

Yixing nods, slow and deliberate, then parts his lips to speak. "So if you lose that vessel of life, there's no chance of bringing it back, is that it?" he asks. Joonmyun lifts his eyebrows in approval, nodding in light bobs of the head. "What... happened with him, then? I mean, as long as he stayed within the... perimeter of the property, I guess, he'd be safe. Right? Or am I missing something?"

Then it was one mistake after another, Joonmyun's tempted to say because really, how else will he explain it? It turned out that the virus had already taken root in Baekhyun's very core. Baekhyun did a pretty good job at not looking as if he was in pain half the time. And Joonmyun did a shoddy job at being ten steps ahead, at trying to combat the virus instead of just tempering it. Even if the technology and magic that the mansion nursed helped slow down the virus from reaching other parts of Baekhyun's system, the point was that it was still there. They were never able to take it out complete. It was bound to stay there forever unless they could infuse Baekhyun's body with an antidote, a counter to the virus, something that could cancel it out. So Baekhyun didn't die; he disappeared, inch by inch.

Two months after the big breakout, he'd lose a portion of his finger a day. The following month, he'd begin to lose his knees, his legs, his ankles, his feet. He'd be immobile for the next few months, but he'd still be around, telling Joonmyun that there was still hope. His chest hadn't gone hollow yet. His heart was still beating and his brain was still working, processing his actions, making sound decisions. There was no reason for any of them to give up.

"Not yet. He... didn't disappear completely yet," Joonmyun says after a while. He could feel the gentle brush of Yixing's thumb on his skin, the way he's slowed down yet the pulse on his thumb has become quicker. More panicked. So Joonmyun tries to smile, tries to tell Yixing that it's okay, some stories just have a really tragic ending. Then, after a deep breath, he continues, "It took a while. He put up a good fight, said he could go through one more operation, at the very least, because he was still feeling strong enough."

"That's..." Yixing stills, thumb resting on Joonmyun's waist instead of tapping irregular beats on it. "That's risky. Anything can happen when you're on the table."

"He knew that," Joonmyun answers. He laughs a little. "But he didn't care. Told us he'd try to buy us time so we could take out the virus completely." He shakes his head at the memory, at the image of Baekhyun's weak yet triumphant smile when he woke up hours after the operation. His hair was sticky and he smelled like he hadn't showered in days but Joonmyun couldn't care less, simply took Baekhyun in his arms and kissed him like there was nothing else he could be breathing in but Baekhyun. Like it would be their last. "And well, we did it. He got his limbs back slowly but surely. The following week, he was walking around the institute again. But he never made it past the building's doors."

Joonmyun bites the inside of his cheek. He can feel his eyes getting heavy, wet at the corners where the tears are beading up. If Baekhyun were still here, he'd be laughing at Joonmyun silly one minute then crying with him the next. He never was the best at holding back his tears, after all. "And maybe it just took a while for his body to realize that the virus had been taken out. Extracted from his body, not killed from the inside," Joonmyun goes on to say, voice dropping to a whisper. "So the next thing we knew, Baekhyun was having seizures. His heart rate was so unstable, kept fluctuating for the next few minutes. He couldn't– I couldn't do anything for him even if I knew how to fix the mess. I just had to take some of the virus again, plant it back in his body and culture it there, then infuse his body with an antidote so that the recovery process wouldn't be too abrupt–"

He takes a deep, deep breath, shuts his eyes and tilts his head up even before he can feel the tears crawl down his cheeks. Men his age shouldn't be crying over mistakes and wrong calls. Men his age should find it easy to break free from ghosts of the past that have been haunting them for five long years. But the dull ache in his chest remains, the same pain he'd felt that day, that exact moment when he held Baekhyun's body, fast becoming translucent, in his arms, the racing in his chest dropping under the shrill sound of the heart monitor filling the room, wrapping around his throat like a vice and keeping him from breathing easily. It makes stomach turn. It makes him shiver.

"It's not your fault, Joonmyun," comes Yixing's voice, soft as a whisper. Then Joonmyun hears the shift of the seats, the legs of the chairs squeaking against the floor, hears Yixing's shallow breathing so close to him. He doesn't open his eyes yet. He can't let Yixing see him like this – a complete mess, a wreck, a disaster. It's enough that he knows about it. "There are only so many things you can do to save someone–"

"The seizures weren't my fault, yes," Joonmyun blurts out. His voice cracks somewhere in between, as he tries to feel his throat again and find his words in the pile of his muddled thoughts. "But what happened to him after that, after he flatlined and I tried to revive him, that was my fault."

Yixing hiccups. Joonmyun catches the sound of his shaky breathing, Yixing's hot breath prickling his skin. They're close, too close for comfort, and it's becoming more difficult to breathe, so Joonmyun takes a step back as he opens his eyes. It takes a while for his vision to refocus, the nasty beads of tears getting in the way, but he gets there. He can see it now, Yixing parting his lips, poised to say something, to ask, and before even a sliver of sound can escape Yixing's lips, he beats him to it, pulls down one side of his shirt by the collar to reveal an expanse of flesh.

"You–" Yixing lifts his gaze, looking at Joonmyun in the eye before shifting back to marvel at Joonmyun's skin, the curve of his neck, his collarbones – where all these are supposed to be. "Your shoulder's... gone."

Joonmyun... feels too cold all of a sudden. It's been a while since he's last shown this to anyone, even Sehun who claims he's seen Joonmyun crawl out of the showers half-naked. Can't be true, Joonmyun wanted to say then, because how could Sehun have seen him? Half of his body's hollow. The only thing that's giving him form is the shirt he slips on every single day, a while longsleeved top that covers everything that the translucent form of his torso has exposed. He can feel the loud thumping in his chest but can't see anything, can only feel Yixing's cold fingers dancing where Yixing thinks his skin is supposed to be. "How?" is the only thing Yixing asks. He doesn't need to say more; his wandering hands spill the rest of his thoughts all over Joonmyun's skin. "How?"

"I was the only person he was exposed to on a regular basis. And not just him – I handled similar cases in the past. A handful of them. It... It made sense that I'd contracted the same condition, somehow," Joonmyun whispers. He stares at his body now, laughing when he feels a sudden flush of heat against the pads of his fingers. It's always an experience, reminding himself that he's still whole, still in one piece, it's just that there are parts of him that are hidden from the world but he's still human. "The spreading has stopped, though. Or maybe it has slowed down a lot, I don't know. I’ve healed up a bit, definitely. I used to be more translucent than whole." He begins to map a line down his chest, then, stopping just above where his shirt bunches at the collars. "When I extracted some of the virus from myself to make a quick antidote, I lost half of my body and hadn't felt anything since–"

"It's... fascinating," Yixing whispers, eyes still fixed on the empty space where Joonmyun's skin is supposed to be. He's touching nothing in particular but he's almost there, just a breath away, that if Joonmyun's body gave a sudden involuntary jerk then Yixing would be touching him already. Close enough that if Yixing ever wanted to splay his fingers all over Joonmyun's skin, he would. But he isn't. He maintains those few safe centimeters between them, just lets his fingers hover, but leans closer until his face is just inches away from Joonmyun's collarbone. "You've been living half a decade of your life like this? Isn't it– Doesn't it feel a lot like–"

"Living a half-life?" Joonmyun asks, laughing a little. "I am living a half-life. I don't know what will happen to me if I stay outside for too long. I don't– I don't know if I can even stay out for more than ten minutes or something." He shakes his head. The last time he heard the question was when Jongdae found out about the sacrifice he made just to save Baekhyun, the day after Baekhyun slipped out of his coma and looked at the people around him like he knew none of them, knew not a single person in the world. Jongdae snuck a glance at him as soon as Baekhyun started asking who they were, why they were there, why am I here? Minseok wouldn't meet him in the eye, but he did grab Joonmyun by the wrist to whisper, I don't know what the hell you did but I do know that it's not the right thing. Fix this, Joonmyun. Fix this mess.

Joonmyun takes a deep breath now and closes his eyes. The way Minseok furrowed his eyebrows that time, the way he twisted his mouth like it was the only way he could keep himself from lashing out at Joonmyun makes him shiver now, years after it happened. The sting is still there, thick in his throat in the form of blood. And he can cough it out really, but what gives? The dull pain will always be there, ever present, ever aching. He's not even whole anymore; half of him is hollow, translucent. He shouldn't be feeling a thing.

"Ever tried to walk around the place? Just to… ease yourself into being out there again?" Yixing asks now, pressing his hand on Joonmyun's skin. Joonmyun seethes at the first contact, at the sudden surge of warmth, at the feeling of Yixing's pulse dancing on his skin. Yixing laughs a little but doesn't press harder, doesn't tease Joonmyun even more. Instead he just looks up, meeting Joonmyun's eyes through the slits of his bangs. "You've got a nice, big garden in front. I've always wondered how you maintain the plant life here when you seem to be the last person who'd be into gardening."

"Excuse me," Joonmyun retorts, but soon the words lodge themselves in his throat, coaxing a gasp from him, instead. "I'm good at gardening and planting vegetables–"

"Then maybe you should see more of the area," Yixing adds. He drums a soft beat on Joonmyun's chest, the pads of his fingers just grazing Joonmyun's skin. "There's a nice open field at the back that leads to a lake. I bet you haven't seen that, ever."

Joonmyun gulps down hard. He has seen it before, too many years ago to count. With Yura, most likely. She's the one who's a fan of bodies of water and long walks and summer breeze; the lot of it just rubbed off on Joonmyun. And that's just how Joonmyun is – quick to adapt, seemingly easy to bend, but ultimately solid as a rock. It's the very reason he's stayed here long after Baekhyun has already gone and left the institution to go find himself again – it's safe, convenient. Everything he needs is already right here, so why turn his back on a house he'd created just to keep Baekhyun alive when it's still serving him well?

"I have, a long time ago," Joonmyun confesses. He drops his gaze to where Yixing's been worrying his bottom lip, the soft pink skin now screaming an angry shade of red. "It's probably changed a bit."

"The smallest change can be huge when you haven't gone out to see the sun forever," Yixing counters. He hovers for a bit, breathes out through slightly parted lips, almost as if he means to say something, instead, but then he pulls away. He takes a step back, drops his hands to his sides, stuffs them in the pockets of his pants and offers Joonmyun a tight-lipped smile. "If you ever... feel like going around, taking a nice, long walk in the field, just let me know," he adds after a while, then chuckles. "I've been going there at least once a week for the past year. It helps... clear the mind."

Joonmyun laughs to himself. Silence works against him sometimes, makes him drown in the other voices in his head all the more. Makes it easy for him to get lost in his own thoughts. And his mind is never a nice place to be in. It's a strange, dark world that even he, himself, doesn't fancy getting trapped in. So he asks, "Do you think it would be good to write papers there? Conducive for work?"

Something in Yixing's expression flickers, like a switch has been turned off then on then back off in a blink of an eye. And then he's back – the corners of his mouth tugged up in a gentle, subtle curl, his cheeks relaxed even with gravity pushing it up. He lets his shoulders fall forward as he lets out a low exhale, parting his lips to speak. "Haven't tried yet, but I guess we can find that out together."

Joonmyun snorts. "I haven't gone out of this place in years, Yixing. What makes you think I'll step out of my house this time around?"

Yixing hums. Shrugs his shoulders, as well, and tilts his head to the side like he's trying to get a better view of Joonmyun. But there is no better angle; every side of Joonmyun looks the same. There's nothing to be read between the lines. There is no reason for Yixing to walk closer again until the tips of their toes bump. He can get used to this, Joonmyun thinks, the oddly comforting warmth and distance between them, the way their gazes always seem to lock onto each other. The way Yixing looks at him like he's the most interesting specimen ever and that he can spend years studying Joonmyun, peeling off his layers one by one.

But then there are things he can't understand, doesn't want to understand just yet: the way his stomach lurches at every touch, every contact, the way his heart races in his chest whenever Yixing looks his way to offer a smile too warm that it burns the back of his eyelids. The way Yixing so easily coaxes Joonmyun to slip out of whatever he's gotten so used to – swinging the door open to welcome a stranger, stepping outside to head into the storm to help out a friend. Sharing a fraction of himself, one he'd scribbled Baekhyun's name on, so that Yixing can ease the dull ache on Joonmyun's back that he's been carrying around for so long.

"Well, it's worth a shot," Yixing says. He cocks an eyebrow at Joonmyun, then, and lets out a loud exhale. "So, picnic tomorrow?" Yixing sucks in his bottom lip, worrying it for a bit, then continues, "It's a weekend, after all. We can try to do our papers there, if you want."

You're ridiculous, Joonmyun wants to say, but then it's not such a bad idea. What's wrong with going out on a Saturday to share some food and maybe a few jokes with a friend? What's wrong with finding a new place he can grow fond of and find peace in? What's wrong with trying to do something different? So he shrugs, laughs, hums. Cracks his neck and shivers when he feels a jolt of electricity shoot up his nape.

"I'll take care of the coffee. You're in charge with the food," Joonmyun mutters. Yixing widens his eyes in response, drawing his index finger close to his chest as if seeking confirmation. "No cookies. We can't have cookies for lunch–"

"I'll just come to your place early to cook."

Joonmyun leans back, furrowing his eyebrows in accord. "You live at least an hour away from my house. If you're coming over to cook then you have to be here, at the earliest, by–"

"Or I can stay the night, if you'll let me," Yixing singsongs, locking his arms behind his back. He sways from side to side, slow and gentle, much like a pendulum that's been set in motion for far too long already. "Just say the magic word."

Joonmyun takes a deep breath. Yixing leans back against the table again, but he hasn't looked away yet. His eyes are still focused on Joonmyun, his gaze heavy, discerning. Questioning. Like he, himself, isn't sure of what he's asking from Joonmyun just yet; it's just that he knows they're having a picnic tomorrow and they need to cook something for lunch that isn't warm milk or cookies. Joonmyun isn't sure either – why he's thinking this through so much, why he's even taking time assessing the situation at all. It's just a picnic. They've fallen asleep on the same couch before, woken up tangled in each others arms. And they're still here, standing just a few inches away from each other, pushing each other away just a little but not tearing each other apart.

They just have to cook good food and sit beside each other in companionable silence. Nothing has to change.

"Yeah, sure," Joonmyun says, then, dropping the syllables before he can even swallow them down. Then he pulls away, turns on his heel, walks over to where he was sitting earlier to file the research material in a file case big enough to hold bundles an inch thick. He can feel the weight of Yixing's stare, can still feel the way Yixing's hot breath prickled his skin earlier, but he doesn't look up. Instead, he keeps his eyes fixed on what he's doing and ignores the familiar loud thumping in his chest, the flush of his cheeks, the violent upward tug at the corners of his lips.

☀

It's summer in earnest when Sehun returns from his trip. There are strange patches of color on his skin, his cheeks burnt more than the rest of his body. His hair is much, much longer now, almost reaching past his chin. Not the longest it's been – that was three years ago, when Sehun still refused to leave the premises of the mansion to head out into the city to buy food and toiletries, see what it is to be with other people again, see if he still wants to live that kind of life.

He gets a haircut every quarter now, just so his fair won't grow to such unmanageable lengths anymore that he'd have to tie it up in a ponytail just so he can work without getting his hair in his face. "You're the one who wears long hair better," Sehun told Joonmyun one time, while he was sharpening the blades of the scissors he was about to cut Joonmyun's hair with. "I don't know why, but it makes you look more handsome than you already are."

"Don't be silly," Joonmyun recalls himself telling Sehun that time. He still pushed through with the haircut, though, cut a bit closer to the scalp that time until he could feel the wind pass through the strands of his hair again. It made him feel light, free, without anything to worry about. It was the happiest he'd felt in a long, long time.

"Stop making that face," Joonmyun says through gritted teeth this time, mouth pulled up at the corners in a tense smile when Sehun rolls his eyes at him. He kicks Sehun in the calf for good measure when he's sure Yixing's already well out of sight, having disappeared around the corner to help shuffle Sehun's luggages to somewhere more spacious. "You look weird. You're making that alpaca face of yours." Sehun sneers at him, and Joonmyun throws a jab in his direction in retaliation. "I don't think trips are supposed to do that to people, Sehunnie. You're supposed to come back a better man."

"And I never thought you had a thing for our milk man, hyung," Sehun singsongs, grinning even as he pulls a heavy luggage up the stairs. His arms look more toned, as well, Joonmyun notes – maybe Sehun really did climb mountains. Maybe miracles do exist. Maybe change is possible. Joonmyun files that thought to the very back of his mind, somewhere between the data he was supposed to be analyzing before Yixing showed up at his doorstep this morning and the insane urge to get a taste of the kimchi jjigae Yixing had cooked for him a few days back. "If you'd told me earlier then I could have had you two exchange numbers a long time ago! We're friends; I could've helped you–"

"Stop," Joonmyun mutters, narrowing his eyes at Sehun in the process. He can hear footsteps in the distance, blending well with soft humming of a song that Joonmyun's pretty sure he's supposed to remember. He was singing that song earlier; Yixing makes it easy to forget bitter memories and remember the good ones. "We're friends, too. We drink milk together. And eat cookies." Yixing has wrapped his arms around Joonmyun a couple of times, as well, buried his face in Joonmyun's hair and whispered, lips pressed to his scalp, you smell nice. And you look nice with long hair. Joonmyun has only ever returned the favor by standing still, not pulling away, leaning into the warmth of Yixing's touch and tilting his head back until Yixing could accidentally-on-purpose press his lips to the underside of Joonmyun's jaw.

Friends get a bit too cozy sometimes. He'd gotten drunk with Minseok before and maybe thought of how his lips would be perfect for kissing, but then Minseok was his superior. He was in some twisted relationship with Yura that time. He'd been in a pretty healthy relationship with work. He wasn't about to screw things up with a carnal urge so spontaneous that it could've just been alcohol-induced. "We're friends, like the two of you are," Joonmyun says again, syllables dropped in chunks of sounds, blunt and rough. "Milk... drinking buddies, nothing else."

Sehun squirms, the corners of his mouth pulling down to a frown. He's still dragging his luggage behind him, though, still walking to clearer space where the rest of his things are arranged in a straight line. He hasn't lost sight of what he should be doing yet. Trust Sehun to be able to juggle roles even when he's fashioning a frown so unrehearsed. "Look, hyung, I don't need to know what you do with each other's milk or how you eat your cookies–"

"The milk that he sells. I said–" Joonmyun says, interrupting, and pinches Sehun in his side when Sehun snickers. "Stop making that face! It's just milk!" He lets the syllables roll off his tongue this time, drawls each sound and lets it hang in the air a little longer like it can change things. Probably not, but there's nothing but truth scrawled all over Joonmyun's words – Yixing has never made any advances, has only ever hugged him and buried his face in Joonmyun's chest and smelled his hair. They've never held hands, ever, simply let the pads of their fingers touch. They've never kissed, either. If Joonmyun ever wonders how it would be to ball his hand into a tight fist in Yixing's shirt and pull him close, close, closer until all that separates them is light laughter, a hitch of the breath, he doesn't act on it. Instead, he just drops his gaze to the peculiar curl at the corners of Yixing's lips and takes a deep, deep breath.

Sehun's lips give a funny tremble, a light, upward quirk. Joonmyun cocks an eyebrow at him as a last warning, then drops the look at the first sound of Yixing's voice. "Do you need help getting all of these to your room or something?" Yixing asks, eyebrows lifted as he presses his lips together in a small smile. "Because I don't think you and Joonmyunnie can, you know–"

"Say it," Joonmyun counters, voice sharp and heavy. Yixing holds his hands up in defense and shakes his head. And he's biting his lower lip like it's the only thing keeping him from bursting into a lovely peal of laughter. The corners of his lips tug up even more with each passing second but he doesn't give in yet, not even when his shoulders are shaking and the rest of his body is already roaring in laughter.

Yixing has won this without even doing anything, it's hilarious. And it makes Joonmyun shiver, as well, makes his chest feel tight and his throat go dry.

Yixing helps them out with the other luggage, in the end. He asks for payment in the form of good food and company, nothing else, "It's not a big deal, really," but under the table he brushes the tips of his toes against Joonmyun's ankle, slides up his foot until he's scored a line of heat along Joonmyun's calf. There must be a hundred – no, a thousand questions – running in Joonmyun's mind right now – what are you doing, why are you doing this, why should it matter at all, how can you make me feel this way – but he zeroes in on just one and replays it in his head, again and again, until Yixing's laughter, soft and warm, crawls up his nape and wraps around his throat in a tight, vicious grip.

Why not?

☀

"I really have to get used to this whole 'you getting up early in the morning' thing, master," Sehun says when he looks over his shoulder to acknowledge Joonmyun's arrival. He flicks the switch for the coffeemaker off, then takes the pot from where its resting in its slot in the machine to set it down in front of Joonmyun. "It's just seven in the morning, hyung. Why are you even up?"

Joonmyun stretches his arms overhead and yawns. It's actually one of my 'later mornings,' he wants to argue, but then Sehun has been away for weeks, months. He hasn't seen Joonmyun's schedule transform from a strict eight-to-five task list with tiny packets of time in between for rest to a fluid one that accommodates both Yixing's need to have someone to talk to in the morning to jumpstart his day and Joonmyun's need for time to boot his mind even with Yixing startling his senses at such an early hour. And Yixing hasn't been visiting in the morning that much. "Slight change in schedule," Joonmyun recalls Yixing saying one time, but he has an inkling it has something to do waking up a bit too late. After all, Yixing has been spending the last few hours of the evening in Joonmyun's house more frequently these days. He’ll arrive at ten in the evening, sometimes armed with a change of clothes and his cart in tow, ready for his part-time work the following day. Other times, he'd show up with fruits and candies and more cookies that they finish half of by the time the clock strikes twelve. Then there are times when he'd just be there, standing at Joonmyun's doorstep, bringing nothing but a warm smile and an equally warm touch. He won't leave until four, five hours after, when this side of the city's already quiet and the only mode of transportation he can catch back to his place is a cab. When Yixing feels like he's already emptied out his bag of stories for the day and can already hum a song to the tune of Joonmyun's steady breathing right beside him.

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and curls in his fingers. He can still remember Yixing's touches, the ones that are barely there but whose heat prickle his skin without any remorse. He can still remember how the slide of their bodies makes him shiver, especially when Yixing leans in close to whisper something in his ear. He never really says anything half the time, just breathes into the shell of Joonmyun's ear then pulls away with an easy smile. And then they're back to reading research material, back to doing their papers. Back to sneaking glances at each other and not looking away when they do trap each other in their gazes.

And Joonmyun’s back to thinking too much and doing too little, the only thing keeping his muscles from tensing being Yixing’s warmth just beside him. If there is a person who can melt even the toughest of hearts with a single brush of the hand, then it has to be Yixing. Joonmyun can't be mistaken. It can't be anyone else.

Sehun tears open a pack of brown sugar and hovers. He doesn't empty it out, doesn't mix the sweetener with the coffee just yet, but he does keep his eyes on Joonmyun, studying him with a careful gaze. Like Joonmyun is hiding something beyond the look of lethargy written all over his features, scrawled on his cheeks where indentations of the bed sheets have stuck. “Okay, that’s it. Spill," Sehun says after a while, leaning back into his seat and propping his chin on his elbow. "I want to hear the whole story, hyung. And don't tell me nothing happened while I was gone. I’ve seen how you two act around each other, like you’re… dancing in weird circles because you don’t even know the song you’re dancing to.” He pauses, scratching his nape, then continues, “I mean, it’s not everyday you walk in on two people just... inches away from kissing each other but won't for some unknown reason. It doesn't work that way, hyung."

How does it work, then, Joonmyun wants to ask. How is it supposed to work when he and Yixing haven't even entered some agreement, set limits and boundaries for each other, defined the kind of relationship they have at all? They're two people who just happened to bond over milk and cookies and science. Yixing cooks really good kimchi jjigae, the best Joonmyun has tasted since the last time Sehun felt like cooking stew for the two of them. Yixing is patient for things that matter, doesn't prod with words but only with a gentle poke of the cheek, a tilt of the head, a focused gaze.

Yixing has the kindest, warmest smile that makes Joonmyun feel like he can talk about anything and everything under the sun. And Joonmyun has a lot of things to talk about. Sometimes, he gets these weird ideas for the journals he writes and Yixing just indulges him, nods his head to Joonmyun's good ideas and cocks an eyebrow at him for the bad ones. Other times, Yixing gets a bit too passionate and engages in heated debates with him over breakthroughs in science that are, in fact, not helpful at all. But in all of those cases, they end up sharing a mug of milk and a bowl of cookies, with Yixing laughing at the face Joonmyun makes when he really gets into it, the way Joonmyun twists his mouth and scrunches the rest of his features like he's about to go to war.

"I think that's the only time you can ever be un-cute," Joonmyun recalls Yixing commenting one time. Yixing watched him twirl the pasta in his fork through half-lidded eyes. The corners of his lips were pulled up in the softest, most vulnerable of smiles. Joonmyun almost wanted to reach out, cup Yixing's cheeks in his hands, and just hold Yixing from an arm's length, remembering the many reasons why he should just maintain this safe distance between them instead of leaning in for a kiss.

"There's nothing to talk about," Joonmyun mutters after a while. He offers Sehun a small smile before taking a sip of the coffee, then seethes when the liquid scalds his tongue. "Fuck, not again–"

There's the sound of bells ringing not too far away. If Joonmyun focuses, listens even more closely, he'll hear the sound of Yixing's light humming, but the stinging sensation in his tongue burns too much to ignore. So he reaches for the bottle of milk nearby, pours himself half a glass, and takes long, loud sip. It weans Sehun off of the case, makes Sehun roll his eyes and get up on his feet to answer the door, but it does little to still the racing in Joonmyun's chest. Does little to ease the burn of the lurching sensation in his stomach, even more when Sehun pauses in his tracks to look over his shoulder and say, "I don't know what's keeping you from talking about it, hyung, but I'll tell you this: whatever it was that happened, something good came out of it."

Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows, tilts his head to the opposite side. "What do you mean?"

"I mean–" Sehun's voice cracks towards the end, at the same time that the ringing gets louder. Joonmyun feels a corner of his lips tugs up on impulse, like a knee-jerk reaction he's developed in all the months that he's spent trying to study Yixing better. It's ridiculous – all he's ever developed in the years he's spent with Sehun is a fondness for the french toast Sehun cooks on weekends. That, and the knowledge that the best way to pacify Sehun is with a tight, tight hug and cookies and cream popsicles. "I haven't seen you this awake at an obscene hour, that's what I mean. I mean, I haven't seen you this alive in years. I mean–" He laughs a little, shaking his head at the third burst of ringing. Joonmyun's ears perk up, and he tries to fight the urge to twist his torso, to get up, to answer the door, himself, and start his day with one of Yixing's small, unguarded smiles. But– "I know nothing about what went on between you and Baekhyun-hyung and how you were back then because that happened before my time but hyung, you actually get up on your own now, without an alarm. You smile in the morning. You're looking at me in the eye pre-coffee. You're talking with me, not just listening."

Joonmyun gulps down hard, trying to will his retort back down his throat. Those little things shouldn't matter. Any person who's too sleepy will not want to talk to anyone within the first hour of getting up. It's understandable. It shouldn't be a big deal. But there's something about the way Sehun shakes his head, the way Sehun's lips tug up into a small smile that tells him that maybe he should start reading between the lines. Have his eyes checked so he can see more clearly, maybe even take a step back so he can see the bigger picture.

He leans back a little and hears the bells ringing another time. "I'll get that," Joonmyun whispers, then, getting up from his seat and walking straight to the corridor leading to the receiving area. "And nothing's going on," he adds when he looks over his shoulder, just before disappearing into a corner. His stomach turns. it's just hunger at work, nothing too serious. "Nothing happened. We're just friends."

"And are you okay with that?" Sehun asks. He breathes in deep, shoulders lifting, then exhales in a loud, breathy sigh. His lips are still lifted at the corners, a gentle upward tug that breathes more hope into his question than it should. Sehun probably shouldn't. It's enough that Joonmyun's setting himself for a potential heartache; the last thing he wants is to drag Sehun into the mess he's made. "Or do you want to be more than that?"

Joonmyun looks up from where he's sipping his milk, just stares at Sehun with eyes wide open and lips pressed together in a thin, thin line. For the longest time, he's programmed himself to want nothing more than get eight hours of sleep everyday, to wake up to the scent of coffee and the knowledge that he's alive and bound to work until the whee hours of the morning. So when he gets more than that – a friend in Sehun, sometimes even a warm hug, and now butterflies n his stomach whenever Yixing smiles his way – he... doesn't know what to do. Doesn't even know how to deal with the weird, twisting sensation in his stomach whenever Yixing reaches out to touch, to wrap his arms around Joonmyun's small figure. Doesn't know if he wants more of the sweet, sickening sensation or if he wants less of it, maybe none at all. He doesn't want to go back to five years ago when Baekhyun waking up and not recognizing him broke him into pieces. He's just gotten to piecing himself together; he can't fall apart again.

So Joonmyun breathes out, blows bubbles into his drink as he whispers, "I don't know." A light nip of the bottom lip, then he repeats, "I... really don't know."

"Alright," Sehun whispers, then shrugs his shoulders. He walks over to where Joonmyun is to give Joonmyun's arm a light squeeze, then says before leaving, "I'll get the door. You... drink your coffee."

"Coffee's not a cure-all," Joonmyun replies, chuckling.

"It used to be, for you," Sehun counters. He looks over his shoulder, then adds, "I guess you've found a different cure-all now."

What is that even supposed to mean, Joonmyun wants to ask, but soon Sehun's retreating figure disappears around the corners. Silence settles back in, crawls under Joonmyun's skin and wraps around him in a tight, tight grip. Makes the pads of his fingers grow cold and stiff. He can hear the loud thumping in his chest, can feel it in the base of his throat, his palms, at the back of his ears, but soon the mingled sound of Sehun and Yixing's voices cuts through the noise inside him. He curls his fingers into tight fists, then, willing the strange thoughts away, pushing down all the words – unpolished, uncertain – down his throat for a later confession. For now, he'll down his coffee in a few gulps so he can drink some of the warm milk Yixing will be making for him – for them – in a while. And he'll let all his thoughts get washed out by Yixing's bright smile, his tender touch, the weird but comforting fit of their bodies when Yixing links their ankles under the table.

It's just one of the many guilty pleasures he has. Yixing tops the list by a long, long mile.

☀

If Joonmyun was asked for a reason, just one reason, for not wanting to head to the capital even if work obliged him to, it's the amount of time he has to spend on the road not doing anything but studying the scenes he's leaving behind. It's the perfect opportunity to think, do some last-minute reading, maybe even rest. It's the perfect time to laze around and maybe listen to some good music to drown out the white noise. But two hours is still two hours, and in those one hundred and twenty minutes that he's spent out of the mansion and on this bus, he could have already watered the vegetables, checked if the fruits were already good for picking. Maybe even prepared some kimchi from the cabbage he and Yixing harvested last night, just before Joonmyun excused himself to freshen up and take a bath.

"I'll just be here, trying not to doze off," Yixing said, waving a hand over his shoulder without shifting his gaze from what he was sifting through. It was one of those pre-reads for the conference they were to attend today, in Seoul. He kept saying something about Joonmyun being the worst possible distraction when in fact it was the other way around – Yixing kept talking about the wonders of science and Joonmyun alternated between just marvelling at Yixing and actually listening to him while trying to sneak glances at his reading material. Still, they both stayed, hung around long enough to fall asleep on the couch, books forgotten on the floor and limbs tangled in the tiny space they shared.

Joonmyun laughs a little now and tries not to think about the face Sehun had given him when he woke up. "Just friends. Right," Sehun said, a corner of his lips curled up. He extended a hand in Joonmyun's direction, trying to help him get up, but Yixing tightened his hold on Joonmyun and wrapped his arms around Joonmyun's waist even move. "Breakfast in bed, then?"

"He'll wake up in a bit. We'll join you in the kitchen," Joonmyun whispered, careful not to wake Yixing up. Sehun nodded, took a deep, deep breath, then pulled away. "Heat some milk. He doesn't drink coffee in the morning."

Sehun chuckled, but didn't look over his shoulder. Instead, he held a thumbs-up in the air and waved, humming only when he was a good few feet away from where Joonmyun and Yixing were. Yixing drowned out that sound, as well, with his tiny noises, the hiccuped singing he muffled in Joonmyun's shirt as he buried his face in Joonmyun's chest. And then it kicked in – the wild thumping in Joonmyun's chest, the loud voices at the back of his head. That lone whimpering voice that was saying, what are you doing, Joonmyun? What do you want? What do you really want to get out of this?

"We're here," comes Yixing's soft voice, crawling up his nape and snapping Joonmyun out of his reverie. He blinks twice, then, turning to look at Yixing with wide eyes. "Slept well?"

Joonmyun nods, then drops his gaze to where Yixing's drumming a beat on his thigh. It's the music he's been listening to on loop for the past few days, weeks, months, ever since he let Yixing in his house. It's almost like Yixing's never left, has carved himself a home there, right beside Joonmyun, maybe even on his skin in the weird, funny squiggles he doodles on Joonmyun's arm on a whim. Almost like Yixing has flushed out all the noise in Joonmyun's system and filled Joonmyun's senses with nothing but his own voice, instead.

The Gangnam area hasn't changed much from when Joonmyun last visited the area. That was four years ago, when he'd gathered all the things in his locker and dumped them in a box just big enough to fit a cab. The blocks still stretch far too wide and the are still buildings and shops left and right. People still follow traffic rules, crossing only when the pedestrian sign is a green and hastening in their steps so that they don't clog pathways. Some signages are already showing signs of wear and tear, but for the most part it seems as if Gangnam hasn't quite moved as fast as people thought it would. It's surprising, startling, especially for someone like Joonmyun who has watched Gangnam pioneer movements and action. The people of Gangnam are the forerunners of change, after all. Stop for a second and you'll get left behind. Gangnam is a rat race, in itself; the entirety of Seoul, a coliseum of competition.

"The last time I actually went around Gangnam was... a year ago," Yixing mutters beside him, his voice muffled by the noise around them. "Always just saw the district from the windows of the bus. Never felt the need to hop off because of this–" The walk from the terminal to COEX isn't too long, shouldn't take more than five minutes, but the thickening crowd around them makes it impossible to hustle. This is one of the changes, Joonmyun supposes – there are more people here now at this hour, almost making it impossible to go the other way without getting into trouble. "It's gotten worse, actually. I can't believe that's even possible."

"You should see Hongdae on a Friday night," Joonmyun replies, choking on his own words when he feels someone push him from behind. He doesn't risk a glance over his shoulder – he'll just be thrown off-course if he does – but he does grumble. "Hongdae on a Friday night on Club Day, I mean. That's the only thing that can be worse than this."

"You don't seem like the type who'd fancy the Hongdae crowd, yeah."

"I used to like it when I was younger," Joonmyun answers. When he hears Yixing snort, he pinches Yixing in his side. "Much younger."

"Like two decades ago or something?"

Close enough. He was still partying in the streets until he was thirty, trying to get himself drunk enough until he had the courage to talk to – Minseok? Yura? It depended on his mood. Minseok would always be his de facto mission during drinking nights, trying to get closer to his mentor and taking a stab at coaxing Minseok into taking that leap of faith from co-workers to friends, but Yura was an interesting person in her own right. She was pretty, intelligent, delivered the best jokes even when Joonmyun was sober. And Joonmyun was rarely sober back then. So Yura sort of kept him in check, became his harbor in the midst of the tempest. Whenever Joonmyun felt like he was slipping back into his state of drunkenness, both on alcohol and fatigue, he’d look to his side and find Yura there – as unwavering as the shore, but as moving as the sea.

He laughs to himself. That one was quicksand – the attraction was strong, but the bonds were feeble. Looking back, he was stupid to even think that Yura wasn’t trying hard enough to make the relationship work. She wasn’t the problem, and neither was he – it was the situation. She was fresh from a break-up with her long-time boyfriend; Joonmyun had always been on the short end of the pining stick, eyes fixed on no one else but Minseok when Minseok wouldn’t even look his way. The food at the feast was good; the drinks, even more. So they stuck together the entire night, up until the morning, tangled up in sheets neither of them knew who owned. Thought it would be okay to jump on the first train to a relationship that neither of them knew how to definite.

They had no plan. They didn’t even have a map. And that’s what happens to trips where you have no clear idea of the destination, right? You get lost for days on end until you somehow end up in a place familiar enough to take you home.

“More or less,” Joonmyun answers now, quickening his pace as he feels the crowd press more from behind. “Maybe I’ve been drinking since I was twelve, I don’t know,” he mutters, earning a laugh from Yixing, and he follows suit. Doesn’t push back the tickling sensation crawling up his throat and submits to the urge to cackle smack in the middle of Gangnam. Yixing leans back against his chest for the briefest of moments, like he can’t catch his breath anymore and has to just stop for a moment, so Joonmyun takes it as an opportunity to rest one hand on the jut of Yixing’s hip bone. His free arm, he circles around Yixing’s waist. The fit of their bodies is a bit weird, too tight, but it keeps them both on their feet even with the crowd closing in on them.

Yixing risks a glance over his shoulder, just quick enough that Joonmyun sees nothing but a blur of colors, doesn't even get a glimpse of Yixing's expression. All he knows is that Yixing's muscles are tensing against his own where Yixing's back is pressed to his chest, that Yixing's steady breathing has picked up pace, turning into tiny hiccups that might as well be supressed gasps. The conference doesn't start until an hour after but Joonmyun doesn't stop walking, anyway, steers Yixing in the direction the crowd is headed to until they reach a sidewalk safe enough for them to take a break at.

"You alright?" Joonmyun asks, voice just barely above a whisper. It's almost the end of summer now, the gentle breeze of autumn blowing against their faces every so often, but the slide of their limbs against each other still feels sticky, still stings. Yixing offers only a small smile in response, a curt nod, but there's none of the familiar sparkle in his eyes. So Joonmyun waits for it, the shift in expression that Yixing does so well and in such a short period of time, as well. Waits for the punch line where Yixing pulls away without another word and just laughs at him silly because the best way to get out of a sticky situation is through bright, bright laughter. But it never comes. And Yixing just sort of stays there, skin burning against Joonmyun's own in the tight press of their bodies. He does look to his side, though, like he can only look at Joonmyun out of the corner of his eyes. Like the sun is up too high behind and Joonmyun and dammit, he can't blind himself like that. There are other ways to wound yourself. There are better things to do than to get oneself into trouble.

Five seconds, then Joonmyun drops his hands to his sides. Takes a step back, as well, to give Yixing room to breathe. He cracks his neck. "The entrance is this way," he says then turns on his heel to start walking in the right direction, but Yixing stops him. Wraps his fingers around Joonmyun wrist like a vice and pulls him just a bit closer, until they're arm to arm again, skin on skin, just a hitch of the breath away. "Yixing?"

Yixing parts his lips, poised to speak, but presses them to a thin line again when someone bumps him from behind. He twists his mouth to the side, the rest of his features pulling down to a frown. And then the magic kicks in, twists his expression into something more neutral, unfamiliar, a face Joonmyun hasn't seen before in all those hours that they've spent just studying each other's features, the gentle swell of Yixing's mouth, the shadows of his dimples. The way the corners of his lips curl up in the slowest, most languid manner ever, like his body is taking time to catch up with his faculties, teasing soft giggles out of Joonmyun in the process.

Yixing licks his lips, just a brief graze of the tongue along the skin, then takes a deep breath. "Do you... have anything planned tonight?" he asks after a while, worrying his bottom lip once the last syllable tumbles from his lips. "Catching up with friends you haven't seen in a while or something? Or will you be... visiting your parents?"

Joonmyun gulps hard. He'd mentioned to Minseok and Jongdae that he was going to attend the convention – Like I have a choice :|, he even said in the email, to which Jongdae only replied with laughter and emojis. Minseok's helpful response was, Are you sure you can stay out for too long? I mean, it's a three-day thing. – but they hadn't really made arrangements for dinner or at least a quick catch up in one of the coffee shops nearby. It shouldn't be difficult to get a hold of them, but something about the way Yixing keeps nibbling on his bottom lip, the way Yixing shifts his gaze from Joonmyun's steady gaze to Joonmyun's lips and then back up, tells Joonmyun that he should be clearing his schedule, freeing up some time for the two of them to take full advantage of.

"I... have no relatives here anymore," Joonmyun answers, then, and breathes out through the narrow gap between his lips. "And I'm not sure if my friends even remember me. I haven't talked to them in–" Years. In forever. It's almost tragic. It's not as if Minseok and Jongdae had fallen short on trying to reach out; Joonmyun just prefers to be unavailable half the time. Everything that links back to Baekhyun just scars him all the more, wounds him deeper. And even with a certificate in the five-year recovery program under his belt, he isn't sure if he's ready to dive head-first into pain just yet. "–in a while, I bet they remember my email address more than they can recall my face," he continues, finishing with a laugh.

Yixing snorts. "Impossible. You have a memorable face."

And so do you, Joonmyun wants to say, but instead he scoffs, rolls his eyes. Looks anywhere, everywhere else but straight into Yixing's discerning gaze. Joonmyun hasn't seen eyes quite like Yixing's, or hasn't felt the same warmth being on the receiving end of someone else's smile. Not since Baekhyun, and even then there are so many ways in which they're different from each other. Where Baekhyun riles him up and challenges him, pushes him off the edge, Yixing reels him in with a small smile, makes him turn around and see things in another light. Where Baekhyun inspires change in him and makes him try new things, Yixing makes him face the mirror and look at the image staring at him on the other side, takes the normal in his hands and spices it up with a little something that Joonmyun hasn't seen before. Similar in a lot of ways, but with startling differences, from the way Baekhyun coaxes a giggle out of Joonmyun with a wink whereas Yixing surprises a sigh out of Joonmyun with the subtlest of smiles, to the way Baekhyun leans in to kiss while Yixing inches closer to stare.

Joonmyun laughs a little. "If what you're trying to say is that I look funny half the time then fine, I have a memorable face," he groans, but the lilt in his voice gives him away. Makes Yixing loosen his grip on Joonmyun just a little but not quite enough to let go.

Joonmyun can shake Yixing off if he wants to. He should. People are beginning to stop in their tracks to stare, to furrow their eyebrows at them, to mutter words Joonmyun's glad he can't hear what with all the noise around them. And he's beginning to feel that weird, lurching sensation in his stomach again. He can't go to the conference with a troubled stomach. Still, he doesn't shake Yixing off just yet, just peeks at Yixing through his bangs and whispers, "We should get going."

Yixing nods, loosening his grip on Joonmyun even more. A few more seconds and maybe he'll let go completely. Just maybe. Joonmyun can't tell yet. If he can just look up and straight into Yixing's eyes then he might just be able to read Yixing better. "So tonight–"

"I... don't have anything planned," Joonmyun mutters, looking away. Three quick breaths, then he turns to meet Yixing's gaze. "You?"

Yixing lifts his eyebrows, just a gentle bob that tugs on the rest of his features and pulls up the corners of his mouth. "No, not really," he replies, pausing only to lick his lips. "Though there is this place in somewhere in Dangsan that I kinda want to check out. Should be less than an hour way by train?" Yixing lifts his hand, the one he's holding Joonmyun with, but drops it back to his side in favor of the other. Scores a line along the underside of his jaw with a nail, scratching marks on his skin. "Of course, that depends on the conference schedule–"

"The last session ends at eight. I thought your memory was immaculate?" Joonmyun teases. He tugs on the link of their hands and starts walking, lets Yixing hold onto him a little longer as they walk the last few meters to the convention center. "Unless your cafe closes early? That would be a problem."

"It opens late," Yixing answers. He quickens his steps, catching up, then slides his hand further south before pulling away with an easy jerk of the hand. "And closes pretty late, as well. It's... a pub of sorts with live performances. I've never been there; Lu Han just mentioned liking the place a lot." He laughs then licks his lips again, catching his tongue between them this time before pulling back all the way. Like he's caught himself red-handed and he just wants to get swallowed up by the ground, melt into a puddle, disappear. Joonmyun shouldn't even be catching these things. "And by 'a lot', I mean he couldn't stop talking about it for weeks."

I trust his taste, Joonmyun wants to say, because he stuck with you. But he doesn't. Instead, he shrugs, brushes his knuckles against Yixing's own, and relishes the warmth of the collision, of the slow-forming smile on Yixing's lips, of the way their bodies align when Yixing slides his fingers between Joonmyun's own in a snug, snug fit.

☀

The worst thing about reunions is that they're never really just reunions. There's always an element of excitement in seeing an old crush in the flesh for the first time in years, an hint of fear in meeting the eyes of an enemy across the room. And then there's the suspense of locking gazes with a friend you haven't seen in years, someone whose touch you once craved but now cannot imagine making contact with.

"Thought I saw a ghost," Yura says as a greeting, when they bump into each other during lunch. A quick furrow of her eyebrows, then she stretches her arms wide open in Joonmyun's direction. "C'mere, champ, let me see if you're actually real–"

There's a faint crack in her voice, a tremble in the way her arms shake as she holds them up there for Joonmyun to wrap himself around in. Flashbacks to seven years ago when Joonmyun was drunk half the time and he just laughs at himself, at the way Yura cocks an eyebrow at him like she's challenging him, asking, look, Joonmyun, we've rehearsed this a hundred times and this is the part where you give up. Can't you remember what we've talked about? Do you want to run through the skit again? Do you really know nothing else but to stand there like a bloke and stare?

Joonmyun looks around for an audience, to his right where Yixing is looking at him with a focused gaze, then back at Yura. "Are you sure your fiance won't mind if your ex hugs you after he broke your heart?" he asks, more to make the situation lighter than anything, but soon he feels something thick and dry lodge itself in his throat. Traitorous, much like the thumping in his chest right now when he hears the sound of Yixing soft humming just a few inches away. "I wouldn't want to spark controversy or any issues–"

“What? There hasn't been– There’s never been–" Yura shifts her gaze, looking to her side for the briefest of moments before looking up again. "Work's been keeping me up late and there's simply no time to mingle with people outside the institute and–"

Yixing hiccups. Joonmyun catches it even when he has his body turned to Yura, even with only a quarter of his attention spread across everything that's happening around him – doctors of different specializations talking about all sorts of things, the servers changing trays on the buffet table. Yixing's shallow breathing just a few inches away, louder than the wild thumping in Joonmyun's chest at the moment. So Joonmyun takes a deep breath, wets his lips with a light lick, then answers, "Minseok-hyung's still available, though." He pauses only to let laughter seep in, then he's nodding, slow and deliberate, like he's trying to communicate through morse code, or body language, or a form of communication that only Yura can understand. They used to have a secret language, or at least that was what Jongdae said. Can't understand what you two are talking about half the time, he'd confessed to Joonmyun way, way back, then let out a long sigh. But I guess it works for the two of you so why the hell not, right? "You should've tried to ask him out while you had a chance. You know he's not the type to make the first move."

"I did, but he said he was far more interested in dying people than getting into a relationship," Yura replies, laughing a little. She saunters forward, then, giving Joonmyun a light slap on the arm and pulling him into her arms in accord. "I can never get a straight answer from you, can't I? You haven't changed a bit."

I'd like to think that I have, Joonmyun wants to say, wants to argue. Those seven, eight years following their tragic break up? Those taught him more about life than he's ever learned about it in school. He hardly ever has alcohol these days anymore, downs two cups of coffee and some milk, instead. Throws in some cookies, as well, when he feels like it or when he knows that there's no use trying to deny Yixing the pleasure of reaching out to brush off crumbs from the corner of his lips. He doesn't lock himself up in a room anymore and think of the many things he's done wrong instead of the things he could have done right. He spends time outside now, strolling along some park he never knew was just within ten, fifteen meters of his mansion. He's alive. He's not that angsty teenager anymore; he's grown into someone more solid, grounded, mature. He is Kim Joonmyun, not that man who used to go by a name in the labs because it made him feel like a superhero.

He doesn't need to feel like it anymore – he is a hero. He doesn't need to save everyone's lives to make a difference; he's already made thousands of people well again after almost being eaten up alive by some weird condition. He's helped a family get through some tough losses and even tougher returns. So begone with the cape and the lab coat, really; he only needs his hands to work miracles. And maybe warm milk on the side, a reminder than even the best of superheroes take breaks from time to time.

"I have," Joonmyun answers after a while, murmuring the syllables into the press of his lips to Yura's hair. He doesn't need to lean back to get a good glimpse of Yura's face, the expression in her features that gives her away. He's spent years studying Yura's features that it's almost impossible for him to not exactly how know Yura will tackle certain situations she's faced with: surprise is always met with wide eyes; disbelief, with a faint gasp. Acceptance, with a quick nod of the head. Right now Yura is widening her eyes, lips falling open into a tiny 'o'. She doesn't say anything, though, doesn't even utter a word when Joonmyun laughs a little. "It's just taking a while to show. But trust me, I'm not the same guy you used to know."

"I sure hope so," she whispers in Joonmyun's ear, then pulls away with an easy smile. Joonmyun lets his eyes linger on Yura's features a little longer, takes in every hidden quirk in her features that he's seeing, figuring out for the first time. When he doesn't feel his stomach lurch, he takes another step back, away from Yura and closer to his side where Yixing is. “A… friend of yours?"

Joonmyun shifts his gaze to Yixing, catching his bottom lip between his teeth when their eyes meet. Yixing's smiling, but there's none of the classic glimmer in his eyes or the trademark peculiar curl at the corners of his lips. This one looks practiced, rehearsed. Distant, but not any less Yixing. Joonmyun has seen this before, those few times when Yixing would show up at his doorstep at ten in the evening, drained but still eager to talk. Half of Yixing's mind would be elsewhere, but he still kept his eyes on Joonmyun like the illusion that he was in that moment was enough to pull him out of that pit of fatigue. And most of the time it would take only a gentle squeeze of the arm and warm milk to coax Yixing to break down his own walls, put down the shield. To remove the mask that doesn't even fit his face.

So Joonmyun lets his eyes linger, blinks a few times and waits – for the tension in Yixing's muscle to lift, for the tight corners of his mouth ease into something more relaxed, more natural again. For a word, a sign, for anything from Yixing, at least a hint of how he should be answering that question. Because if Joonmyun was drunk with whiskey and not with the warm winds summer brought then he'd have answered Yura's question without thinking twice: he's a friend of mine, a very good friend. He got me out of that five-year-long rut I was in. He saved me. Except friends don't usually think of kissing each other so maybe, just maybe, I should reconsider, think of what I really want. And ask Yixing if he wants the exact same thing.

Yixing laughs a little. It flicks something on inside Joonmyun, like a switch or a button that's long been begging to be pushed. Joonmyun faces Yura, then, stuffing his hands in his pockets but inching closer to Yixing until their elbows brush. "A very good friend. Different field of practice, though, but he–" Works well with his hands, can heal people just by talking to them – Joonmyun can go on all day. He doesn't. Instead, he drops his voice to a hum, surfacing to continue, "–he writes good journals and analyses on behavioral sciences. Provides good insight on other things, as well."

"And I bake really yummy cookies. He always forgets to mention that," Yixing adds, chuckling. Yura widens her eyes in response, turns to look at Joonmyun and purses her lips into a small smile. Her lips tremble a little, but this one isn't fear or apprehension – this is Yura trying not to laugh, trying to fight even the chuckle knocking at the back of her teeth. And there are words there, as well, that she isn't sure if she should be dropping like ticking time bombs, each of them just as explosive as the previous. "I mean, he eats the cookies on a daily basis so you'd at least expect the taste and flavor to stick with him. But no–"

"He doesn't know how to talk sometimes," Yura comments, humming. "Strange, because he's the best speaker the institute has had in years."

Joonmyun juts out his bottom lip. Beside him, he hears Yixing laugh a little. "Just years?"

"Decades, then," Yura amends. "Or a century, whatever makes you happy."

Very few things make him happy, Joonmyun muses – long baths, harvesting fresh basil, Sehun's french toast, playing Monopoly with Sehun every Sunday, eight in the evening. Quiet nights spent sitting beside Yixing, sometimes reading research material for their journals or talking about anything under the sun, alternating between drinking coffee and sipping warm milk with Yixing opposite him. Seeing a smidgen of milk flaunted on a corner of Yixing's mouth and wanting to reach out to touch, but Yixing brushing it off before Joonmyun can even throw his hands in the air and say what the hell, who cares, I'm going for it. Being saved from the trouble of trying to brush off the feeling of Yixing smiling against his skin and not being haunted by that crippling sensation for days on end.

"I think he knows how to talk," Yixing says, the lilt in his voice softening the cracks when he gets to the last syllable. Yixing sounds like a teenager who's going through puberty at forty; it's hilarious. The way Joonmyun's heart jumps when Yixing slides even closer, resting a warm hand on the small of his back, even more. "Just that he's too afraid to word things wrongly for fear of getting misinterpreted."

Yura cocks an eyebrow at Yixing, then turns to Joonmyun with a wicked grin. "Who is he? He's a pretty interesting person," she says, giggles bubbling between her words. She purses her lips, mouth twisting to the side. "I really, really like him."

You can't like him, a voice at the back of his mind says, screams. Don't come too close, don't touch him. I found him first. Joonmyun's stomach lurches. He can feel his eyebrow twitching on impulse, can feel the pulse in his palms and the back of his ears quicken. And he can feel his lips wanting to move on their own starting with a mild tremble, sputter words he'll probably regret if he doesn't bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to bruise. So he takes a deep breath, doesn't flinch when Yixing snakes his hand around his waist, doesn't pull shiver when he feels the burst of heat pressed to his side in the tight fit of their bodies. "Zhang Yixing."

"In the flesh," comes a familiar voice from a few feet away. Joonmyun takes a sharp breath, then turns to his side, looking in the direction of the source. His stomach is still turning, but he can't feel that ripping sensation anymore. He can breathe a bit better now, even more with Yixing rubbing small circles in his side, enough that he can summon a smile when he sees Jongdae waving his arms about and Minseok welcoming him with wide eyes, lifted eyebrows, an amused smile.

"Well, if it isn't the prodigal son," Minseok whispers, reaching out to thread his fingers in Joonmyun's hair. Joonmyun shivers at the first contact but, soon, he's leaning in, melting into Minseok's familiar touch. "Did you drive out by yourself? Still know how to ask for directions?"

"My car's still manual. Sehun's the one who uses that," Joonmyun mumbles. Minseok slides his hand lower, grazing the pads of his fingers along the curve of Joonmyun's cheek before giving it a light pinch. It almost feels like ten, twelve years ago again when all Joonmyun wanted was for Minseok to stop in his tracks for just one second and hear him out, listen to his findings about a particular disease and how to cure it. For Minseok to look at him for longer than five seconds and give him more than just a passing glance. Joonmyun shivers now, but only a little – half of him's still caught up in that messy tangle of familiarity, in the warmth of Minseok's touch, the weight of Yixing's stare– "I... went here with a friend," he rushes, then, blinking a few times to refocus and cocking his head to his side. "Zhang Yixing. I'm sure you all know him for his contribution to our growing pool of research."

Minseok takes a step back, giving Joonmyun's chin a light pinch before holding his other hand out in Yixing's direction. "I don't think anyone has written as many journals as you have, doctor," Minseok says, addressing Yixing with a curt bow. "Kim Minseok, Dr. Zhang. It's always a pleasure to met one of the best in the field."

"Also, one of the best cookie-makers, apparently, since our Dr. Kim here loves Dr. Zhang's cookies," Yura adds. She bows in Yixing's direction, as well, holding out one hand in a handshake while clasping the other on Minseok's shoulder. "Park Yura. I'm... one of his people," she says, cocking her head in Minseok's direction. "And for the sake of this conversation, let's drop the honorifics. There are three Kim's here; we're bound to mix things up at one point."

"You haven't even gotten to the best Kim yet," Jongdae mumbles from beside Yura, then takes a step forward to introduce himself to Yixing. "Glad you could get hyung out of his cave. It's been years since we've seen each other. I can't even remember if we said goodbye the last time we met."

There were a lot of hugs and suppressed tears then, Joonmyun wants to answer. Gross crying faces. Minseok wouldn't let Joonmyun live that one down. Jongdae wasn't around for the last wave of farewells but Minseok was there to send him off, was even the one who helped Joonmyun bring down all of the boxes from the labs and shuffle them inside the cab. "Don't punish yourself," Joonmyun recalls Minseok telling him back then, halfway out of the cab and into the harsh summer weather outside. "You don't have to do this, Joonmyun. You– You don't have to stop practicing medicine forever–"

"I don't think I can have someone die by my own hands again, hyung," Joonmyun replied, breathing out in a huff. "And Baekhyun's probably just... wandering the streets of Seoul. I don't know what I'll do if we spot each other somewhere and he decides to run away from me."

"Win him back, I suppose?"

Joonmyun scoffed. "It's not that easy, hyung. His subconscious is telling him to keep me out of his life because technically, I invaded his body by infusing him with my–" He let out a long and loud sigh, lips trembling somewhere towards the end. "We've been through this a thousand times, hyung. We've checked every possible solution to help him get back his memories but it's not going to happen."

He took a deep, deep breath, shutting his eyes at the sound of Minseok's low grunt. "He's never coming back. And I have to live with that. I have to learn to live without him."

Joonmyun laughs to himself now and digs his hands in his pockets. "Well, we're stuck here for the next three days. There won't be goodbyes anytime soon," he says. He takes a deep breath and looks around, cataloguing the new expressions he sees on his friends' faces – the relaxed smile on Minseok's lips, the hint of surprise and amusement in the way Jongdae nods, curls up the corners of his lips until the smile reaches his eyes. The way Yura holds Joonmyun's gaze as she gives Minseok's shoulder a tight squeeze, and the way Yixing is looking at him with the neutral, almost vacant expression like he doesn't have a knee-jerk response to this situation yet.

"The food's getting cold," Minseok says, breaking the spell. He shifts his gaze to Yura's hand on his arm, then looks back at Joonmyun with a focused gaze. "Do you two have a table already? You can join us, if you want?"

Joonmyun parts his lips to speak, ready to say that yes, they do, it's the one just behind them and really, it would be great if Minseok and the others gave him time to breathe, but Yixing leans in to whisper, "Go, join them. It's been a while since you guys–" Yixing laughs, hot breath tickling the slope of Joonmyun's neck. He just wants to lean in and close his eyes. He wants to rest. But then Yixing's shaking his head, saying, "Fuck reunions, really."

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip and risks a glance at Yixing, looking up at the latter before dropping his gaze to the gentle swell of Yixing's lips. "I can't tell them that."

"You can," Yixing answers, laughter still bubbling on his lips. "But it'll be rude. So let's just... join them for lunch. But promise me you'll be mine tonight."

He probably means, promise me will still go to that live cafe tonight because no one else will go with me and Lu Han's still in China, but Joonmyun's breath still hitches at Yixing's words, at the way Yixing's lips brush against his skin in the softest, softest graze. He can see see Yura's shoulders lifting, can see Jongdae's eyes widening and maybe there are a couple more people looking at them silly and asking, what the hell? What are these two doing? What do they want? But Joonmyun doesn't care right now. All that matters is the way Yixing's warmth seeps into his skin, wraps around him like a quit and stills the twisting of his stomach, only to make it lurch again.

It's a different, good kind of lurch, though. The kind that makes him suck in his bottom lip in an attempt to hold back the grin surfacing to his lips.

"I think someone took our seats already," Joonmyun answers after a while. Yixing steps to his side, pulling away, but keeps a hand on the small of Joonmyun's back as he ushers Joonmyun forward, closer to his friends. "Are you sure we can sit with you three?"

Minseok cocks an eyebrow at Joonmyun but maintains the smile on his lips. "Shouldn't be a problem," he replies, then tilts his head to the left. "This way. Pretty sure nobody would want to steal our seats. I'd like to see them try."

"Wow, hyung," Joonmyun mutters, catching up with the rest of the group. Yixing follows closely behind, slipping right beside Joonmyun when Yura quickens her pace to talk with Jongdae. "Didn't know you had it in you to be... feisty."

"And I always knew you had it in you to be happy again," Minseok says. He nudges Joonmyun in his side, then pulls away with an easy smile. "Took a while, but at least you're there already."

Not yet, he wants to say, I still have a long way to go, but his stomach grumbles and he can taste the sickening mix of acid and metal crawl up his throat. So instead, he just shrugs, holds his hand out in Yixing's direction until he feels the slide of their arms, until he can hold onto the hem of Yixing's sleeve and tug Yixing closer.

Yixing's warmth is a force keeping him on his feet, keeping him from running away. So he stays close, lets Yixing reel him in, and stays there long enough to feel Yixing link their ankles under the table like a habit he just can't wean himself off of.

☀

"Pretty sure you've already grown out of your stalker mode so this is probably fate at work," comes a familiar voice from a few feet away. Joonmyun looks over his shoulder, shifting a little so he can see the newcomer better, then laughs. "I thought you already quit?"

Joonmyun shifts in his position, turning around so he can face Minseok now. He holds up both arms – in defense or in surrender, it can go either way. He can easily snatch a stick from Minseok or ask for just one puff, but he's long quit smoking. It's been four years since. He's never felt the need to take a long drag since the day he handed his last pack to a stranger in the streets. From time to time he'd wonder how things would have been if events unfolded differently, if he hadn't screwed up that operation on Baekhyun and didn't have to take Sehun in, but never has he felt the desire to head to the nearest convenience store for a quick smoke.

I'm not the same guy you used to know, he hears his own voice mutter at the very back of his head. He laughs a little. Change is slow to come, especially to someone as closed-off as him, but at least he's getting there. Maybe when he's already fifty, he'll be rid of all his apprehensions and fears. He only has to wait for seven more years; it shouldn't feel too long.

"Wanna share a stick? For old time's sake?" Minseok asks as he saunters closer, stopping only when he finds a comfortable position beside Joonmyun. Joonmyun shakes his head, digs his hands in his pockets, then leans against the railing, lifting his head to the evening sky and taking a deep breath. Takes a step away from Minseok, as well, because even with autumn slowly creeping in through the cool and dry winds, there's still the dregs of summer sticking to their skin. It's disgusting. "Wow. You really have changed. If I asked you the same question years ago then you probably would have–"

–considered taking Minseok up on the offer, most likely. It might be the only time that he and Minseok will ever be more than just co-workers, share a touch more intimate than that of two people moving around the same space. But in the sliver of time between losing himself to Yura and losing all hope of ever making Minseok look his way, he'd found something new to pour all of his attention to, a special project that involved lots of mysteries and just the right amount of magic. Baekhyun, lying on the operating table, sort of saved his life even before Joonmyun could save his. He doesn't even have training in that department.

"We've all changed. You look more toned now. And I think Jongdae's grown taller," Joonmyun replies. He risks a glance at Minseok, glossing his gaze on Minseok's figure before tucking in his chin. The wind blows in his direction, though, carries with it the smoke that Minseok had breathed out just a few minutes ago. Stuffs the thick scent up his nostrils until he's alternating between coughing and clearing his throat. "And Yura looks much, much better now. You... haven't been driving her crazy anymore?"

Minseok looks to his side, cocking an eyebrow at Joonmyun before looking away. He guides Joonmyun to the other side when the wind blows a second time, then, trying to fight the gusts and not have Joonmyun inhaling the smoke he's blowing out into open air. "If you're hoping for a different kind of answer then sorry, you're not getting it," Minseok mutters, a stick balanced between his lips, then fishes for something in his pocket with one hand. "How was the trip, by the way? No hiccups, I hope?"

Joonmyun laughs a little. "Don't change the subject, hyung."

"Show respect, kiddo," Minseok counters, sticking out his tongue before running his fingers through Joonmyun's hair. "But really, how are you? Feeling... alright? No weird aches or anything?"

Joonmyun feels a strange, funny shiver crawl up his nape at the same time that Minseok slides his hand down to rest it on the base of his nape. Familiarity – there it is again, striking while Joonmyun is weak in all the right places, hitting hard now that Joonmyun's defenses are down and Minseok has all of his cards up. It's the same thing that makes it difficult to just throw away certain junk from the past, no matter how useless they may be. He still knows Minseok's favorite artists by heart, still knows the brand of cigarette that Minseok smokes. Still knows exactly how Minseok likes his coffee – an iced triple tall Americano on the rocks or with very, very little water. Two pumps of hazelnut syrup on top to help temper the bitter taste without losing the rich flavor. Still knows submit to lean into Minseok's touch without scaring Minseok off – lean in with just a gentle tilt of the head in the direction of his hand, then pull away at the very next second.

Minseok drops his hand to his side, then blows out another stream of smoke. "You still look whole, for the most part, so I guess you're fine," he whispers. A heartbeat, then he taps on his own collarbone, then draws the lone finger down to the jut of his shoulder. "How's your... chest?"

"I've been taking pills just to be safe," Joonmyun answers now, back in the moment and on his feet. He can still feel the burn of Minseok's touch on his scalp, but for the most part nothing aches anymore. "I actually made more of the ones we had before. Milder composition this time, since the shock dealt to my body isn't as bad as that of Baek–" He laughs a little, blows air onto his bangs in an effort to ruffle them. Years after and the memory of Baekhyun waking up without any recognition of anyone, whatsoever, still haunts Joonmyun, follows him around like a fever he can't wean himself out of. It sounds stupid, feels even sillier. He's forty-three, a victim of choice and circumstance. He shouldn't be falling back into that bottomless pit Yixing has already pulled him out off.

Almost. Almost there, he tells himself, then shakes his head. "Right, as I was saying... I've been taking pills so should there be any... I don't know, side effects to being exposed to the normal human surroundings again, the meds should slow them down."

"You... look more alive, though," Minseok mentions. Nudges him in his side, as well, as he offers Joonmyun a small smile. "Who do I blame for this? The cute kid you were with earlier?"

"Cute kid, hyung? Cute kid?" Joonmyun echoes, drawling the syllables. "Since when did you start calling people 'cute'? You met him just this afternoon and now you're calling him–"

"Jealous?" Minseok asks, snorting. He wiggles his eyebrows for a bit, until the warm summer breeze blows against his face and makes smoke stick to his skin. He grimaces. "I mean, he is very attractive. He's an accomplished man. He's... quite the charmer, I'd say." One last drag of the cigarette, then he presses the butt of the stick to the concrete just beside him. "What's not to like?"

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip. Part of him wants to ask, since when have you found guys cute, hyung? You said before, back when I was still an intern, that you'd never swing that way so I though– But it's useless. Even with the temptation of Yura hanging around them like a looming feeling, if something was supposed to happen between them then it would have. All Minseok had to do was to pull Joonmyun close whenever he threaded his fingers through Joonmyun's hair, tilt Joonmyun's chin up, press a kiss to his lips. And if Joonmyun felt like he could ask for more then he'd try to pry Minseok's lips with the gentle coax of his tongue. All they had to do was do something; the rest would follow.

But Minseok maintained that no, he had no time for boys, and neither did he have time for girls. He'd been in a relationship with his work with the longest time and it was quite the healthy dynamic so why fix what wasn't broken? Why change things? Why screw things up? So Joonmyun let it go, looked the other way. Saw Yura drinking at the bar and joined her there for a nice, long conversation about elusive opportunities and 'how fucked up life was'.

And then there's a voice – there are voices at the back of his mind, the same group of voices that were harping on him earlier when he'd first seen Yura after a long, long time, screaming at him in a voice so deafening, all of them saying the same thing: don't fall in love with him. I saw him first. You've taken away hope from me before; don't deny me this one, please–

"Well, he is," Joonmyun whispers, exhaling noisily through his nose. Beside him, Minseok chuckles, slots his lighter in the box along with the sticks, then slips the pack in his back pocket. Joonmyun slaps his hand at that, mumbling, "Stop that. Unless you want your ass to get burnt–"

"I know, I know," Minseok groans, then slips the pack in the pocket of his jacket, instead. "Years later and you're still concerned about my ass–"

"Why wasn't it me, hyung?" Joonmyun breathes out. He presses his lips together and keeps his eyes on the ground, watching the wind lift the dust below. From a corner of his eye, he can see Minseok risking a glance at him, can see the way Minseok furrows his eyebrows and parts his lips like he wants to explain. "I used to think that I didn't stand a chance because, well, you liked girls. There was news about you and Boa-seonbaenim going out for a time and I thought, hey, that's actually perfect! Two of my best mentors going steady and maybe getting it on–" His voice trails off into light laughter, and then he's choking on his own spit, throat tightening around nothing in particular. Or maybe around the words that he keeps pushing down his throat because they only have ten minutes left. And ten minutes aren't enough to ask clarity on a lifetime of regrets. "You could've turned me down."

Minseok laughs a little. His voice cracks, though, somewhere between the first few slivers of laughter and the bright, shrill tone. Joonmyun looks to his side, then, meeting Minseok's eyes once and for all, tilting his head to the side. From where he is, with the little space between them, he can make out the way Minseok's cheeks tremble, the way Minseok keeps parting his lips then pressing them together and then parting them again. The way Minseok keeps breathing out words that he should be saying, instead. So Joonmyun nudges him with his foot, mumbles, "I can take it. I'm a big boy now. Hit me."

"This isn't supposed to be about me, Joonmyun. Stop changing the subject," Minseok says, chuckling between words. But the smile on his lips wanes when Joonmyun lifts an eyebrow, when Joonmyun kicks him in the ankle for another time. "One question, one answer. Deal?"

Joonmyun scoffs. Trust Minseok to lay down the rules before diving into something, head first. He nods, just a slight jerk of the head, then mumbles, "Yeah, sure, whatever floats your boat."

"Ask me again," Minseok says this time, shifting in his position so that he's facing Joonmyun. "Come on, Joonmyunnie – do it."

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. If he wishes hard enough then maybe that happy ending from a decade ago can happen now, the ending where Minseok cups his cheeks in his hands and kisses him hard enough that he won't be able to feel his lips anymore when they pull apart. But that's an age-old dream, and Joonmyun's all grown up now. He's not the same twenty, thirty-something who wanted nothing but his idol to look at him in a different light. So he curls in his fingers, licks his lips before asking, "Why only now, hyung? Why only now when you could told me before that–"

"Realization always takes longer to sink in as you get older," Minseok answers. He laughs a little, low and rough. Like the beginnings of a sore throat are making themselves felt in the hollow cavity of Minseok's throat. "Why are you asking now?"

"Because I couldn't get a straight answer from you before? I had to... get my answers elsewhere." Joonmyun looks away, to where the door is, to where Minseok could have gone back down if he wanted to avoid trouble in the first place. "Why didn't you do anything about it, then?"

Minseok cackles this time, shrill and bright. Thundering. It makes Joonmyun shiver, a familiar heat crawling up his nape and making his body shake all over. "It was never going to work out, Joonmyun. You were... badly beaten up then. I wasn't in the best of conditions, either. It was a disaster waiting to happen." He snorts, shakes his head. Heaves a sigh as he slumps against the railing again. His shoulders are hunched and the corners of his lips are pulled down. In this light, with the harsh summer sun shining down on them, Minseok looks much older, the dark circles under his eyes showing even more when shadows catches on his skin. Hardened by experience and trials, but so much older than he should be. He looks nothing like the old Minseok Joonmyun knew, the same doctor he'd looked up to his entire life. Whenever he felt like giving up, he'd just look at Minseok and think, if I work just a bit harder. I can be like him. I can be better. But right now, he wants nothing more than to tuck Minseok in bed and sing him lullabies until he finally falls asleep. "So I did both of us a favor, really."

"You really have to justify the slow realization, don't you?"

Minseok shrugs. "I fight for what I think is right. And I believe that I saved us from ourselves."

Joonmyun hovers. He leans in a bit, more to see Minseok better than anything else, and pulls away only when he feels the faint scent of smoke in Minseok's breath. Suddenly, he's twenty-five again, back in his scrubs and the lab coat that makes him feel more like a superhero than a doctor. And he's waiting for Minseok's next move again – does he ask for the patient's vital signs? An assessment of the condition, then a diagnosis? Does he ask Joonmyun to scrub in with him and save a life? Joonmyun can't tell. Minseok's wearing that vacant expression again that tells Joonmyun both nothing and everything he has to know.

"So, that guy – Yixing," Minseok begins, then looks up to meet Joonmyun's gaze. "How are you planning to tell him?"

Tell him what, Joonmyun wants to ask. Tell him about his bitter past with Baekhyun? His fascination with Minseok? That short run with Yura? And what could have been troublesome feelings for Sehun? Yixing already knows those. Yixing catches him off-guard from time to time and drops questions like he's just dropped a pen, sorry, mind if you got that for me and told me how you hooked up with that pretty co-worker of yours? How about the guy you had the biggest crush on? Did you like the cookies I baked? Yixing has a way of coaxing secrets out of Joonmyun, things he probably wouldn't tell any other person he met at a convenience store or bumped into on his way home. Yixing makes him feel like it's okay to share, to talk, to not listen for once and do the speaking, instead.

Joonmyun stares at his hands and studies the lines on his palm, laughs a little when he sees a bright red mark along the side of his left hand. That one is a product of one of their gardening mishaps. Joonmyun couldn't pull out the cabbage with a light tug so he had to shovel the ground even deeper just to pull it out. He ended up slashing his skin with the sharp side of the shovel; Yixing ended up dropping the basket of cabbages to the ground and rushing to where Joonmyun was, raising Joonmyun's hand to help stop the bleeding.

"Be more careful next time. I won't be around all the time to make sure you don't harm yourself," Yixing had said then. He applied ointment on Joonmyun's scarred hand, then looked up at Joonmyun through the slits of his bangs. "Though it's nice to take care of someone from time to time," he added, voice barely above a whisper, then sucked in his bottom lip. "It doesn't feel like a chore at all, especially when I'm taking care of you."

Joonmyun chest tightens, throat constricting around nothing in particular. He coughs, strikes his chest, tries to breathe easily again, but his throat is too dry and his chest feels so full. Like if Minseok asked one more time, are you okay?, he might just burst and utter words he never thought he'd be able to say.

"There's... nothing to say," Joonmyun replies when his throat clears. Minseok cocks an eyebrow at him, mouth twisted and poised to come up with a retort but lips still pressed together. "Shut up, hyung. We're just friends. I don't have to tell him anything."

"Come on, Joonmyun, it doesn't take a genius–"

"–to know that I'm way past that stage, romance and all that," Joonmyun finishes. "I lost Baekhyun because I was foolish and let my feelings get the better of me when I had to be his doctor and not his man. And I can't let that happen again. Besides, after what happened, I don't think a fuck up like me deserves to find... something as special as that."

"That's bullshit," Minseok mutters.

"And that's not a question," Joonmyun counters. He casts a glance at his wrist watch. Two more minutes to play around. Two more minutes until he can breathe again. "And we should probably be heading back. It's almost time."

Minseok pushes himself off the railing and dusts off his clothes. There are still flecks of ash on his coat, so Joonmyun leans in in stimulus, dusts off the ashes with a flick of the fingers. Pulls away, taking two, three steps back before looking up so that he won't get himself into trouble even more with a gesture as innocent as trying to catch a glimpse of Minseok's face with only three inches of breathing space between them. Minseok only chuckles in response, shakes his head, licks his lips like he's still gathering all of his thoughts stringing and restringing them so they'd sound better, more polished, professional. Soon, Minseok's reaching out to ruffle Joonmyun's hair, to drag his hand down while Joonmyun's still caught in the tangle of the strands and the sweet, comforting sensation of Minseok surrendering to him for the last time–

"Just... speak up. Tell him whatever you have to tell him." Minseok gulps hard, then pulls up the corners of his mouth in a small smile. "Maybe then you'll finally be able to sort out your emotions and come across a realization."

Joonmyun snorts. "Realization always takes longer to sink in when you're much, much older," he counters, then steps to his side when Minseok motions to pinch him. "What? I was just quoting a wise man–"

"You got the delivery wrong. It needs to... come from the heart more," Minseok reasons. "You have to feel it–"

"Whatever, hyung, I'm leaving you here."

Minseok chuckles. "Mhmm, because your boyfriend's probably waiting for you downstairs," he calls out. "Bumped into him on the way here–"

Joonmyun stops in his tracks, looking over his shoulder to address Minseok. He's still stuck somewhere between Minseok's bright laughter and the magic word for 'boyfriend' ringing in his ears, crawling up his nape, wrapping around him like a nice, warm quilt. "What?"

Minseok shakes his head, the corners of his lips pulling up in accord. "You're hopeless," he mutters, then snakes an arm around Joonmyun as they make their way down the stairs. "You are hopeless, Kim Joonmyun."

The session ends just a few minutes shy of nine in the evening. He and Yixing still take the first train to Dangsan, though, sitting beside each other in companionable silence. Halfway through the trip, Yixing drifts off, head bobbing in different directions, so Joonmyun slides his hand across Yixing's back, then up until he can rest his palm against the side of Yixing's head so he can guide Yixing to a more comfortable position. Yixing mumbles something against Joonmyun's hair, something that sounds a lot like hungry and tired and I just really want to curl up with– He never gets to finish, the rest of his words muffled in the press of his lips to Joonmyun's hair, the thinning distance between them, Joonmyun's skin. Joonmyun hums, then, singing a familiar song under his breath until he feels the weight of Yixing's head grow heavier on his shoulder. Until he feels a wave of exhaustion wash over him, coaxing him to close his eyes and just surrender to Yixing's warmth pressed to his side.

When he rouses from his slumber, they're already at Dangsan and Yixing's giving his hand a light squeeze. "This is our stop," Yixing whispers, voice so soft he could have just been breathing, so instead Joonmyun reads the message through the movement of Yixing's lips, the way they curl up at the corners, the heavy thumping of Yixing's pulse against his skin in the link of their fingers. The fit of their bodies that feels just right, and the way they align.

☀

Autumn finally settles in, bringing with it the cool, dry winds that lift summer off the ground. The nights feel much longer, but the four, five hours Yixing spends in Joonmyun's house at least thrice a week still feels too short for conversations that stretch into and past midnight. The days aren't getting any longer, either – there's still so much to do, so much to accomplish. Joonmyun has two journals due three days from now, both of them 'urgent projects' that he's just received an analysis request for two days ago. And then there’s more research to be done for projects that don’t even exist yet because science evolves everyday, every minute, every breathing moment. If Joonmyun stops reading in favor of just leaning back into Yixing’s arms, then he’ll have trouble catching up.

Then there’s the kimchi jjigae he started cooking earlier that’s supposed to have come to a boil by now, the rice that should have been ready five minutes ago. The fact that he was supposed to be all made up for today's appointment in fifteen minutes, tops, but is still deciding on what to wear now. With the change in seasons comes a change in his de facto outfit. He can’t just go around in his the threadbare longsleeves anymore – Yixing will kick him in the balls then usher him back to the room to help him look for a change of clothes if he does.

"Don't get me wrong: I love how you look in white shirts," Yixing mentioned one time, both of his hands warm and heavy on Joonmyun's shoulders. He drummed his fingers on Joonmyun's skin, his thumbs pressing down on Joonmyun's collarbones. If Joonmyun didn't know better then he'd say Yixing was just trying to pull down his collar even more, splay his fingers all over Joonmyun's skin. But Joonmyun did know better, and he knew better than to feed himself with foolish fantasies at such a late hour. "But we're going out and meeting Lu Han and it's just–"

We're going out– Joonmyun gulps hard now and takes a sharp breath. It feels like cutting his nose open from the inside and flushing oxygen in his system to choke down the words knocking at the back of his teeth instead of helping him breathe. It almost feels so weird, juvenile, the way his stomach lurches at the very thought. Like he's twenty-five again and he's crushing on this doctor in the behavioral sciences department, not his attending. He isn't. He's forty-three and he's too old to be feeling the rush that going out with someone in whatever context Yixing wants it to be.

He pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it to the bin of used clothes just a few feet away. He can see his reflection in the mirror, parts of him whole and the other parts hollowed out. He can still feel and see every part of him from the waist down, but more and more his torso’s beginning to look as if it's been dotted with patches of translucent film. A huge portion of the right side of his chest has hollowed out, with only the moles tracing the path where his shoulder is supposed to be. And his waist, the whole diameter of it, looks more like a silver band now than the expanse of flesh that it used to be.

"Are you alright?" he remembers Yixing asking him one time, grazing the pads of his fingers along the curve of his cheek. Yixing tilted Joonmyun's head from side to side, like he was looking for scratches, dents, imperfections that he couldn't see at first glance. Joonmyun wanted to laugh then – they were too easy to see. All Yixing had to do was to look Joonmyun in the eye and all the scars would come popping out, glaring at him in big, bold characters. “You’ve been… looking paler recently. Do you need to rework your schedule or something? Earlier sleeping time?"

Joonmyun remembers scoffing and shaking his head. “I’m good,” he’d said then, lying. “I guess it’s just old age at work.” And then, in a blind leap of faith, he slipped his fingers between Yixing’s own and gave Yixing’s hand a light squeeze. It wasn’t anything big, just a gentle brush of the thumb to the back of Yixing’s hand and the slide of his palm against Yixing’s skin, sticky and warm, but Yixing breathed out, low and shaky, like it was the exact thing he needed that moment, the very pillar of support he was hoping to hold onto or lean against for balance.

"I can't believe you're taking this long. Are you even awake–" comes a voice now from the other side of the door. Light rapping on the surface then the knob twists, and the next thing Joonmyun knows Sehun's popping his head in his room, furrowing his eyebrows as soon as he catches sight of Joonmyun a few feet away. "H...yung. Are you– Are you sure you can go out in this condition?"

Joonmyun takes a better look at himself, dropping his gaze to where his waist is supposed to be. I'm better now, he wants to tell Sehun, because it's true – three days ago, when he'd returned from a quick library trip to the city center with Yixing, he was beginning to go translucent from the hips down to the base of his pelvis. The pads of his fingers were growing paler, lighter. He wasn't losing hair, but he was fast losing color in his system. Yixing had commented about Joonmyun being paler than the usual then, "Maybe we should go home. You don't look too well–" But Joonmyun insisted that they stay, look around in the hope that they could find more useful books, hide behind shelves so Joonmyun could just rest against the books and fix his clothes even before Yixing could see that his wrists weren't just pale – they were already half-translucent.

He still has his eyes, nose, ears, his senses, though. None of it has gone haywire yet, unlike most cases where humans who had contracted the disease went from normal and visible to translucent turning invisible in a blink of an eye. So he's good. He's still breathing like any person would. He's alive. And he won't allow his condition to ruin Yixing's plans of heading out to see the Hanji Festival in the city center.

"Nothing serious. It's just... flu for the skin or something. Normal," he reasons in response, then, and reaches for his white shirt from his bed. Sehun beats him to it, though, yanking the shirt away and pulling it close to his chest before Joonmyun can even attempt to put it back on. Sehun scrunches his face, puts up a fight, but Joonmyun hasn't spent years living with Sehun to not know how to coax Sehun into submission. All he needs to do is to reach out, wrap a hand around Sehun's wrist. Pull him close until Sehun stops flailing around and starts listening. Hum in his ear until the music crawls up Sehun's spine and makes him relax, makes him lean back against Joonmyun's chest as a sign of complete surrender. "Look, Sehun, I need that top because forecast says it'll be cold in the evening so I need to put on at least two layers–"

"No," Sehun says, voice firm and resolute. He looks at Joonmyun with a focused gaze, then wraps his fingers around Joonmyun's wrist in a loose grip. Joonmyun can shake it off if he wants to, can tell Sehun to let go, but something about the worry written on the furrow of Sehun's eyebrows and the tight corners of his lips pins Joonmyun in place, stuns him, keeps him from doing anything else but taking a deep, deep breath. "Look at yourself," he adds after a while, voice dropping to a whisper. "I can't even see much of your waist anymore and the whole left part of your chest is gone and–" He takes a deep breath, his grip on Joonmyun tightening in accord. "When did this start?"

Joonmyun scoffs. "It's much better now, I'm telling you," Joonmyun murmurs. He can feel Sehun's grip on his wrist loosening, but he doesn't shake Sehun off yet. He won't make the same mistake of brushing people off just because they want to know what's wrong, just because they want to make him feel better. And Sehun's the last person who'll ever want more than just a simple answer and maybe a hug. So he looks up, meeting Sehun's gaze and sucking in his bottom lip before summoning the right words to crawl back up his throat. His breath hitches for a moment and shit, he tells himself, stop fucking things up, then his throat's loosening, the tension that was once making his throat go dry lifting in the wake of Sehun's warm smile. "A few weeks ago, I couldn't see my waist anymore–"

"Hyung, I said–" Sehun clears his throat then repeats, drawling his syllables this time, "when did this start?"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and cracks his neck. He reaches for his nape, scratching it lightly, then answers, "I don't know. A few weeks ago? Last month?" He twists his mouth, worrying his bottom lip again until Sehun furrows his eyebrows even more and gives his wrist a lazy tug. The friction makes him shiver, makes a familiar sizzle of heat crawl up his nape and wrap around his neck. There it is again, the loud thumping in the base of his throat, the thrumming pulse in his palms, all of them trying to tell him something while he closes his eyes and listens to nothing, no one else but himself. It makes him shiver. "Why does it even matter? I'm sort of whole again. I have more skin than translucent parts now. I'm alright. So why does it have to be such a big deal?"

"Because we could've tried to do something about it sooner–"

Joonmyun scoffs. "You– You think I haven't been trying to look for a solution? Do you seriously think that I'm enjoying this, Sehunnie?" He shakes his head, averting his gaze, but Sehun's grip on his wrist makes it night impossible to look the other way. He's trapped right here, like how he's been for the past five years before Yixing decided to bug him about the milk bottles he kept refusing to accept. "Because I'm not. Everyday, I wake up fearing that I've lost a finger or a hand or even a limb. Everytime I feel unbearably light, I think I'm about to disappear. And really, it's not the actual condition that scares me. It's the mere knowledge of having it and how it can ruin me that freaks me out."

Sehun drops his gaze to his feet and catches his bottom lip between his teeth. Joonmyun wants to reach out, wants to pull up the corners of Sehun's mouth with his thumbs because Sehun looks like Halloween on Christmas Day. "So tell me, Sehun, why should knowing when the virus stared spreading again matter? Shouldn't I just be glad that I'm alive?"

"Because you're not even supposed to be losing yourself anymore?" Sehun answers. He loosens his grip again, dropping his hand to his side completely, then takes a step back. "The virus is supposed to be dead, hyung, not eating you up alive. You shouldn't be–" Sehun's voice cracks, bright and loud in the silence in the room, and that's when Joonmyun furrows his eyebrows, scrunches his nose. Curls in his fists tight enough that he can feel his nails digging into his skin. But Sehun presses on after a few quick breaths, reaching only for the pads of Joonmyun's fingers. "You're finally alive; why does this have to happen now?"

Joonmyun leans back a little and laughs. It's the same question he's been asking himself for the past few weeks, months, from when Sehun had returned from his trip and Joonmyun saw him considerably paler than when he'd left for his trip. And it was strange because if Sehun were any other person bathing in sunlight then Joonmyun's certain that Sehun would've gotten a tan already. The toned muscles of his legs and his arms speak of the travels he's gone to, but the sickening paleness of his skin, slowly losing color, says otherwise.

It can't be, Joonmyun thought then, thinks now as he glances at his reflection in the mirror. He'd gotten his ankles back two days ago. His left thumb, just after he'd finished washing the dishes with Yixing last night. The skin on his left collarbone took longer than usual to regenerate, but at least he can see hints of his skin again. And the good type of progress is always welcome in his book. But then he hadn't gone out the past two weeks, and even if he did he'd always returned to the mansion in an hour with Yixing in tow. They didn't spend long hours out in the open field at the back anymore; the autumn breeze was too unkind, ruffling the neat stack of their papers all the time. The season makes it more of a chore to stay outdoors and run the risk of losing their research work to the wind than the time for rest and relaxation that it should.

The season is a blessing in disguise. It's one of those few times when Joonmyun feels that all the forces of nature are working with rather than against him, even if he's slowly losing bits and pieces of himself everytime he stays outside for too long. A handful of seconds of his life in exchange for happiness. A piece of himself for some time with Yixing.

"Shit happens to the best of us," Joonmyun answers after a while. He looks at his reflection in the mirror again and thinks, hey, his waist is healing up faster than it should. The stronger medicine should be working its magic on him now. If this keeps up, he might even be able to restore the left side of his chest completely. It’s only a matter of time until he becomes well again. "We just have to... find a way to turn things around and make things work somehow."

Sehun blows at his bangs, then bites down on his bottom lip. "Your... french toast is ready, by the way," he mutters, then saunters forward until the tips of their slippers meet, bumping into each other and jolting Joonmyun back to life. "As is the coffee. Unless lover boy-hyung's gonna tell you to drop the coffee again in exchange for milk and–"

Joonmyun chuckles. "It's a sales pitch," he whispers, then opens his arms wide for Sehun to slip into. "I'll never give up your coffee for anything in this world."

Breakfast becomes a quiet exchange of nudges in the side that Joonmyun doesn't even know how to interpret. It feels a bit weird, makes his insides turn because silence with Sehun has always been kind of therapeutic, but something about the lull and the white noise crackling in the background makes his insides turn. Sehun's smiling again, though, eating more, humming under his breath less, and by the time Joonmyun has to leave for his trip to the city center, Sehun's having his second cup of coffee for the morning. "Come back soon," Sehun whispers into Joonmyun's ear when he wraps his arms around Joonmyun in a tight, tight hug. "And don't strain yourself." But Joonmyun knows better than to make promises, should know better than to just say 'yes' to anyone and anything that comes his way. So instead he answers with a tight-lipped smile, reaches out to ruffle Sehun's hair. If Sehun ever calls him out on breaking his promise in the future, then he can always he never said 'yes', in the first place.

He can't bear to let anyone down anymore. Ever.

☀

"I can't believe you're still driving this car. The same car that we used when we did that... roadtrip after the oath-taking," Lu Han grumbles. He settles into the backseat, nonetheless, folding his legs under his weight before leaning back. "And wow, it still smells fucking brand new."

Yixing only laughs in response before turning down the volume. "You know me, I'm good at taking care of my things," he says, then looks over his shoulder to give Lu Han a light pinch in the cheek. Lu Han's first response is a gasp; his second, a sly grin. Soon, he's crooning and leaning into the touch like he's always wanted this – Yixing's warm palm pressed to his cheek, the blanket of cold from the old car's airconditioning doing very little to keep them from pulling apart. It's a joke, Joonmyun knows that, but part of him can't help but feel a bit weird as Yixing shifts in his position, sliding his hand even lower so he can scratch the underside of Lu Han's chin. Yixing told him before that if he and Lu Han were the last people in the world and they had to fuck to save each other, they'd rather die in each other's arms. "It's more romantic that way," Yixing had even said, nodding in thought. "More... dramatic. And Lu Han loves drama more than anything else."

"He sounds perfect," Joonmyun had said then, laughing.

Yixing cocked an eyebrow at him and whispered, "Hey, don't fall in love with him."

"Stop, I'm not one of your pets," Lu Han groans, then slaps Yixing's hand away. Or at least that's what he means to do, except Yixing has already pulled away and he ends up hitting himself just a little, instead. The patch of red on his cheek lifts quickly, though, melts into a toothy grin that Lu Han flashes at Yixing. And then Lu Han's reaching out, ruffling Yixing's hair and shaking his head. "Man, the last time we saw each other was lightyears ago! I can't even recognize you without the... long hair or something."

"Don't exaggerate," Yixing says, laughing. He sits up straight, facing the road in thoughtless response when he hears someone honking at them. He pushes the hazard button again, then, turning off the orange lights before stepping on the gas. "It's only been half a decade."

"Whatever. It felt like a lifetime," Lu Han counters, then leans closer to the two to reach for the volume knob of the stereo. "So, what did I miss?"

Joonmyun looks to his side and tries to wear the best smile that he can. Lu Han looks up at him and squints his eyes, then gives him a once over. His stomach twists and tumbles. It feels a bit weird to be occupying the passenger seat when Lu Han, Yixing's best friend since the beginning of time, is the one riding with them at the back, even more because it's only been seven, eight months he and Yixing have been friends. It's sort of... an unspoken rule when hitching a ride with anyone: the one closest with the driver takes the passenger seat. Everyone else gets relegated to the back, no questions asked. In Joonmyun's defense, they picked up Lu Han from the terminal, but if Yixing really wanted Lu Han to sit in front, he could've just asked.

The corners of Lu Han's lips curl up, lifting the rest of his features until the corners of his eyes are crinkling. Joonmyun gulps hard. It almost feels like sitting in for a nine-hour exam, knowing that all the bullshit you'd studied the night before didn't sink in. Or maybe even scrubbing in for the very first time and being asked to do the cut, this is your first, Joonmyun; make it memorable, and choking even before you can hold the knife properly in one hand. And Joonmyun can tap out now, swing his door open and get out of the car as fast he can, but then Yixing's reaching out with one hand, fastening him in place as he slides his hand up Joonmyun's thigh.

"It's rude to stare, Han," Yixing calls out, then jerks his elbow back. He misses Lu Han by a few good inches when Lu Han leans back, but he keeps his hand on Joonmyun's skin, anyway. He's rubbing random squiggles on Joonmyun's thigh now, sometimes even real figures – a spiral, some clouds. A star, a heart. Then three quick taps that make Joonmyun look up and into Yixing's eyes. "Don't scare the kid. He's cute. And you don't want to scare off the cute ones."

"I was just going ask for his name. Relax," Lu Han retorts. He hums the next song that comes on on the radio, then, one of those songs Yixing was singing the other day, when Yixing was reading a journal out loud while playing with Joonmyun's hair. Lu Han never pushes through with his plans, though. Joonmyun recalls falling asleep halfway through, but Yixing didn't wake him up. Instead, Joonmyun roused from his slumber to the sharp scent of vanilla and sweat in Yixing's shirt, thick in his nostrils. Or was the shirt his? He can't tell anymore. They've come to a point where the only thing that each other owned that they won't share are their tooth brushes and underwear.

"You're like one of those not-couples you see in TV shows," Sehun mentioned one time, when he chanced on the two of them rousing from sleep on the couch. On a normal day, Yixing loves touches, whether the ones that leave a nasty burn on Joonmyun's skin or the ones that are just barely there that Joonmyun wonders if they even happened. Fresh from sleep and still wrapped in lethargy, though, Yixing is a fierce cuddler, wrapping his arms around the nearest thing and refusing to let go until five, ten minutes after. And Joonmyun's just there, immovable, convenient. He's almost always the closest thing. "You do all sorts of couple-y stuff but you're not really together but how can you not be together?"

"And why aren't you doing your work?" Joonmyun would always counter, ending with a small smile. Then Sehun would frown, stick out his tongue, then grumble, I hope you two finally kiss so I can have my peace already. Geez.

Joonmyun laughs a little at the memory. That hardly solves anything. It might even make matters worse.

The lanterns aren't completely set up yet by the time they arrive at the city center, but there are a couple of areas lined with the paper lanterns already. They walk the entire stretch, with Yixing inching closer to the lanterns at every stop to take a few pictures. The light from the lanterns casts Yixing a soft, warm glow, and if Joonmyun just had a working phone that isn't one of Sehun's nearly-busted clamshell phones then he'd wield that in a second, snap a photo of Yixing or two. Stare at it during those few times that Yixing can't come over because he's been feeling his body weakening. Blaming old age for all the weird hiccups his body has been encountering lately.

Joonmyun inches closer to where Yixing is, worrying his bottom lip a little as he watches the latter frame his next shot. The last time he went out on a photography trip was around seven years ago. He was still in Seoul then, and Baekhyun still knew who he was. Clung to him like a person in the wild without a map and a compass. And Baekhyun was so bad at directions.

The sharp sound of the shutter going off, and Joonmyun takes a sharp breath. He digs his hands deep in his pockets when Yixing motions to turn around, torso twisted in an awkward position. He'd caught sight of the pads of his fingers growing lighter earlier. Maybe if he keeps it inside, doesn't expose it to other virus in the air, the fading might slow down.

Maybe if he keeps it a secret then it will go away eventually. Hopefully.

"'Myun," Yixing calls out, facing the lanterns again for a quick snap before looking over his shoulder. Sunlight catches on Yixing's hair, filters between his eyelashes and casts these narrow lines of light on his cheeks. And Joonmyun balls his hands into fists in his pockets because there it is again, that weird, sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, the thumping in his chest when the corners of Yixing's lips curl up all the more. Yixing seems to get it, lips quirking up in the most peculiar manner ever, like he's caught between holding back and just giving in and maybe teasing Joonmyun a bit more. And he's darting out his tongue, licking a stripe along his bottom lip as he parts his lips in invitation.

Unfair, says a voice at the back of Joonmyun's mind. He can't be losing fractions of himself every minute and losing to the sweet allure of Yixing's charms, as well. He can't lose his limbs and then be forced to surrender his heart. It shouldn't work that way.

"'Myun, can you..." Yixing licks his lips again, then guides his gaze to where Joonmyun's worrying his bottom lip. "Can you take a picture of me with the lanterns as the background?" he finishes. He cocks his head to the side, exposing the slope of his neck, then lifts an eyebrow at Joonmyun, almost as if he's reminding Joonmyun that there's a question to be answered, a challenge to be claimed. A choice to be made. Joonmyun saunters closer, then, pulling out his hands from his pockets and wrapping his fingers around the body of Yixing's fancy point-and-shoot. He motions to pull away, but Yixing is quick to reach out, to trap Joonmyun's fingers under the warm press of his own. Joonmyun takes a deep breath, then, inhaling sharply through his nose, as Yixing leans in to whisper, "Wide, landscape. I look pretty weird in close-ups."

Not true, Joonmyun wants to say, but his tongue still feels to numb to move and part of him just wants to pin Yixing to the closest flat surface, trace the wicked corners of Yixing's mouth with the gentle swipe of his tongue until Yixing parts his lips, granting permission. Something Baekhyun would dare him to do out in the open, probably, while Yixing only watched his lips through half-lidded eyes, a lazy smile tugging up at the corners of Yixing's mouth. "You... don't," he whispers, faint and breathless with the distance between them thinning even more. Then he tilts his head up, looking at Yixing this time as he says, "You don't look weird at all."

Yixing laughs. "You're just saying that because–"

–because I'm probably so into you and I just can't say it, a voice at the back of Joonmyun says. He doesn't spill it. Instead, he hums and nods, then whispers, "Because?"

"Because he hates seeing his dimples in pictures," Lu Han calls out from over Joonmyun's shoulder. Joonmyun presses his lips together and leans back, ready to pull away, but Yixing shakes his head, slow and gentle, as if pleading him to stay. "He thinks he looks weird in pictures when his dimples are going, like, boom, dimples!"

Yixing chuckles. The vibrations prickle Joonmyun's skin. "What does that even mean?"

And what does this mean, Joonmyun asks at the back of his mind when Yixing tilts his head and leans even closer, close enough that Joonmyun's vision blurs into the colors of Yixing's top, close enough that all he can feel right now is Yixing's thundering pulse on his skin, the thumping in his chest, their shallow breathing, and the heat of Yixing's breath on his skin. But Yixing doesn't say a thing, doesn't even move, just stays there in the weird fit of their bodies, the link of their hands, the sticky slide of their cheeks brushing against each other.

Yixing pulls away after a while but doesn't quite step back all the way. He looks around for an audience, then, just a quick scan of the place that takes no more than five seconds, and then he's pressing his lips to Joonmyun's knuckles before unwrapping his fingers from Joonmyun's own.

"So," Yixing says, voice lilting. He inches closer to lanterns in the background then gets down on one knee. "Ready whenever you are."

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip, then draws his hand close to his mouth. They've been through this at least a thousand times already – a graze of the lips against the nape, the underside of the jaw, warm arms wrapped around each other. Holding each other by the tips of each other's fingers so tight like one of them will be taken away. Linking their ankles under the table like teenagers running around each other, wondering if it's the same song they're dancing to. It's ridiculous. So Joonmyun takes a deep breath, lets the rush of the moment drape over him like a cloak, and presses his lips where his skin feels the warmest.

"I'm ready," he says, eyes fixed on nothing, no one else but Yixing. Yixing grins.

I'm ready if you are.

☀

They end up having dinner at a side street, just a block away from the expo venue and right beside a food cart. Yixing had insisted on going for samgyupsal earlier, around six in the evening, but even before they could decide on a restaurant to go to the lantern show already started. Then Lu Han looked at Yixing with pleading eyes, eyebrows almost meeting in the middle as he said, "Can we stay a little longer?"

Yixing took a deep breath, then patted the empty space beside him as he looked in Joonmyun's direction. Joonmyun settled right beside him, then, leaning against Yixing's side when the lights had already dimmed. The ground was a bit wet and it was getting even colder by the minute, but somehow the comfortable fit of their bodies was enough to keep them warm. Enough that Joonmyun pulled one hand out of his pocket to slide his fingers between Yixing's own, just warm enough that Yixing didn't even need to risk a glance at Joonmyun to ask what this meant. He just hooked his fingers on Joonmyun's own and stayed like that until the end of the show, until the lights flickered on again and they could both see things more clearly – their intertwined fingers, the way Yixing had his head resting against Joonmyun's own, the way Joonmyun melted into Yixing's touch like he'd thrown all caution to the wind once and for all.

"He's weak for me. Can't say 'no' to whatever I ask of him," Lu Han says now as he snatches the last piece of rice cake from the tteokbokki Yixing ordered, balancing the stick between his teeth. Yixing makes a weird, gurgling sound, face scrunched in disapproval, but for the most part he just looks as if he's going to burst out laughing anytime. It's almost impossible to imagine Yixing thrown or pissed off, even just mildly miffed. He was born with a smiling face, Joonmyun muses, and whenever he isn't out to capture hearts in exchange for a warm smile, he's wearing the most vacant expression ever. "I swear! If I ask him now to get me one of those yummy vanilla waffles, he'll buy one–"

"Sorry, Joonmyun asked first," Yixing counters, flashing a toothy grin at Lu Han. Lu Han narrows his eyes in response and makes a show of eating the last piece of tteok. Joonmyun laughs a little – Lu Han just looks like a kid trying to chew the rice cake properly, if anything. He doesn't look threatening at all. "So if I ever get up to buy waffles–"

"For all of us?" Joonmyun singsongs. A corner of his lips curls up, and Yixing rolls his eyes in thoughtless response. "Please?"

Yixing shakes his head and pushes himself off the ground, but he doesn't let go of Joonmyun's hand just yet. Not even when Lu Han traces the motion of their linked hands, or even when Joonmyun looks up at him with a focused, focused gaze. "Why did I even let you two meet?" he mumbles, voice dropping dangerously low, but the smile on his lips betrays him. At best, it makes him look like a masochist, wounding himself by looking in Joonmyun's direction everytime Joonmyun smiles. At worst, it makes him look like some silly teenager in love.

Joonmyun drops the last bit and sticks with the 'silly teenager'. Wraps his mind around that until he hears the words from Yixing, himself, and doesn't read the words scrawled in big, bold characters on the fit of their hands, their bodies.

"And I finally get you alone," Lu Han whispers as soon as Yixing's out of sight. He props himself against his arms, leaning back and looking at the sky as he continues, "I was beginning to think I'd have to resort to morse code already or something. Looks like he was serious when he told me to not freak you out."

Joonmyun snorts, chuckles, begins to cough when he feels the gochujang from the tteokbokki get caught on the walls of his throat. When you're a doctor, it's almost impossible to get freaked out by anything anymore. Seeing some die is almost normal; deciding on someone's death is far less common, but just as unsurprising when you work in the field. And half of his body is close to disappearing – what else can possibly freak him out? He's forty-three, saturated with experience and hardened by years of isolation. He's immune to these things already. But throw in Yixing's laughter in any conversation and his stomach will lurch without preamble. Then he'll feel a loud, wild thumping in his chest, blaring horns in the background, confetti falling right in front of him a Yixing turns to him with the brightest of smiles.

If Lu Han ever finds out what he's thinking of, then he's done for. The dream sequence isn't just ridiculous – it's embarrassing. The fact that someone of Joonmyun's caliber can only be daunted by something as simple as Zhang Yixing's smile, even more.

"Not that I ever meant to, really," Lu Han clarifies now, rubbing circles on Joonmyun back before reaching for a bottle of water. "I was just hoping to ask you a couple of things, that's all. Nothing too... out of the ordinary."

Joonmyun laughs a little. "I didn't think you were serious about the slam book questions," he mutters, then mumbles a small 'thanks' when he turns to look at Lu Han. "But I guess you are. And I've come unprepared."

"Nah, I wasn't talking about that. I think Yixing has already told me enough things about you we can pass off as really good friends already," Lu Han replies, chuckling. He shifts in his position, then, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk and clasping his hands. He leans in, just close enough that Joonmyun can feel Lu Han's breath prickling the tip of his nose, but not enough for Joonmyun to want to pull away. For a moment, he thinks of asking, is this getting too close a best friend thing?, but soon Lu Han's dropping the bomb, remorseless when he asks: "When are you going to tell Yixing that you like him?"

How can you be so sure that I do, he wants to ask, but then Lu Han's wearing that smile, just a small upward curl of the lip that makes the question he'd just posed more of a statement than an inquiry. Good for you, he almost says – it took Lu Han just a few hours of watching him and Yixing run around in circles, took Lu Han just an afternoon to know that whatever it was that they shared, it wasn't your usual friendship. They can't be the type of friends who'd hold hands just because they feel like it, or the type who'd brush their lips to the back of the other's ear as a show of moral support. Can't be the type of friends who'd curl up in the couch after a long day and fall asleep in each other's arms, expecting to wake up in the morning not feeling a weird, lurching sensation at the pit of their stomach. It's ridiculous. Who even spends hours upon hours sharing both pieces of themselves and a weird, comforting kind of silence with each other without at least hoping to feel a stronger, deeper connection? Who the hell even leans a bit too close for a kiss but holds back at the very last minute and expects to not fall in love?

Joonmyun blows at his bangs and lets out a long exhale. "When do you think I should tell him?" he asks, answers. He takes a deep breath, then, and closes his eyes as he lets the next string of words tumble from his lips. "Why should I even let him know? I mean, what if he just wants to be friends? What if he just needs companionship?"

"What if he already has a best friend who can provide both but can't love him differently?" Lu Han counters. Joonmyun looks to his side, eyes wide open and eyebrows furrowed a little. "I've seen how he acts around you, Joonmyun, and only someone so stupid or maybe deliberately naive will ever think that there's nothing going on between the two of you. I mean, yeah, sure, a guy loving a guy isn't exactly normal in the world we live in but–" He snorts, rubs the underside of his nose. He laughs. "Do you seriously think Yixing cares about that? Because I swear to God, Joonmyun, I swear to God, anyone who saw the two of you earlier, whether they're cool with two guys falling in love or not, can easily tell that Yixing gives not a single fuck about that."

Joonmyun gulps hard, tries to swallow around the thick lump of realization lodged in his throat, lets out a breathy sigh. He pulls his knees closer to himself, wraps his arms around them. Breathes in deep. He parts his lips to speak, but then Lu Han beats him to it, whispering when he says, "The position you're in now? That used to be mine. Except back then I didn't know what I wanted or why I wanted what I did. I was a mess then; Yixing was – is perfect. I was bound to fuck him up somehow." Lu Han laughs a little, his voice coming out in a breathy hiccup. "Now I'm glad I didn't."

"That's..." Pretty fucked up, Joonmyun almost says. He bites down on his tongue. Instead, he mutters, "That's pretty selfish," then looks up to meet Lu Han in the eye. "Did you ever have feelings–"

"Maybe. Who knows? I was too young to tell love and lust apart." Lu Han scratches his nape, massages it soon after after. "And maybe back then plastering the best friend sign between us was such a douchey move, but I look at him now and think I've made the right decision.

"You know how you feel about him, Joonmyun. It's written there, all over your–" Lu Han leans in, index finger hovering Joonmyun's face, then, continues, "–all over your weird, pretty face. Pretty sure you would've kissed him earlier if there were fireworks and a live band and sparkles everywhere–"

"Bubbles," Joonmyun whispers, laughing to himself. It's been months since Yixing told him about that, the bit about wanting to walk into a room filled with bubbles and popping them without a care in the world. Yixing looked so happy then, so at ease, at home, that Joonmyun didn't realize Yixing was already leaning his head on Joonmyun's shoulder and their fingers were touching at the tips. And he was so at ease then that he didn't realize that his breath was hitching, the pulse in his palms quickening with every bubble of laughter that played on Yixing's lips. He can't believe he actually remembers. "He'll probably want to be kissed under the moonlight with bubbles everywhere. The sparkles are a nice touch but–"

"As long as it's you he's kissing, he'll be alright with anything."

Joonmyun gulps hard. He sucks in his bottom lip, then says, "As long as it's him, I'm... alright with everything."

Lu Han slumps his shoulders. Parts his lips, then blows at his bangs. For a moment, Joonmyun thinks Lu Han's thinking of saying something, anything, as a last fuck-you, but soon he hears Yixing calling out from behind, "Are you two okay with strawberry? The guy ran out of vanilla!" Lu Han looks at him, then, the corners of his lips curled up – more relaxed now, more natural – and he's nodding his head like he can't find the right word for 'yes', so Joonmyun looks over his shoulder and flashes Yixing two thumbs up. "Say it," Lu Han says, voice so soft he could've just been breathing, but Joonmyun knows better than to trust the peculiar smile on Lu Han's lips, the nod of his head, the way Joonmyun's pulse beats long and hard at the back of his ears like a reminder screaming at him, c'mon, Joonmyun, say it. Whatever it is that you have to say, do it now–

Joonmyun stands from his seat, dusting himself off and straightening his clothes. He takes a few steps forward, ready to take flight, but he stutters in his steps a bit and turns around to give Lu Han's arm a light squeeze. Then he's walking in Yixing's direction, his steps picking up pace, turning into long strides. He stops only when the tips of his shoes bump against Yixing's own, when he feels Yixing's breath on the tip of his nose, when the sound of Yixing's giggles reaches his ears, wraps around him like a quilt and urges him to lean in until their foreheads bump, until a gasp slips from Yixing's lips.

"I was just asking for your flavor preference," Yixing says, chuckling. "I didn't ask you to–"

"Yes," Joonmyun whispers, then tilts his head up until his lips are brushing against Yixing's cheek. He feels the slow-forming smile on Yixing's lips against his skin, the force of Yixing's fingers curling in his shirt, the mirrored thumps in the press of their bodies, chest to chest, cheek to cheek.

"Yes to strawberry?" Yixing asks. The lilt in his voice makes Joonmyun's giggle.

"Yes to everything."

☀

Where Joonmyun says 'yes' to the changes in his life, life flat out gives him a 'no'. There's still the dregs of summer rainfall in the atmosphere, pouring down on the streets and foiling whatever plans Joonmyun has made, but for the most part it's the erratic weather that keeps him from going out so much and Yixing from coming over after he's done with his milk delivery rounds. That, and transitioning from the vicious heat to the cold also means more work for doctors. There are only so many ways that they can try to prevent the common cold. And there are only so many ways in which Joonmyun can keep himself from wanting to drive miles up north just to share warm milk and cookies with Yixing again.

"I'm banning you from making that face," Joonmyun whispers when he clasps his hand on the receiver of the phone, pinning Sehun with a gaze. Sehun is still smiling, though, still walking in his direction with a tray in hand, two cups placed beside each other. There's a small block of sugar there, as well, for when Joonmyun wants to add a bit more flavor to the milk. Sehun can't seem to get the heating process right. Or maybe Joonmyun has just grown accustomed to how the milk feels much warmer than it should when he's sipping it beside Yixing, how he has no fear getting scalded when Yixing's always armed with cold water, sometimes a cube of ice. And then more infrequently, a brush of his thumb along the swell of Joonmyun's bottom lip. "He said he'd contracted a flu and now he's down with fever so I just want to make sure–"

"Yeah, hyung, I get it," Sehun begins, then sets the tray on the table. "You just want to make sure that whatever drug you'd recommended him to take works. He's just a test subject for one of your... more recent projects. Mhmm." He nods, then, slow and deliberate, and that's when Joonmyun takes advantage of his position, swiping his foot along the space where Sehun stands and hoping he'll see some success in trying to trip Sehun. Sehun dodges, though, just by the width of a hair, but topples back into the seat just behind him. Then the table gives a tiny shake, just strong enough to stir the liquids and release some of the steam trapped beneath the surface of the coffee. "I'm pretty surprised you're not examining him on the table and making him bend over–"

Three rings, and Yixing finally picks up after a sniffle and a yawn. Joonmyun shuts his eyes at the familiar sound, the knot in his chest loosening. At least, he thinks to himself as Yixing tries to string his words together, sniffling between syllables, at least Yixing is still well enough to carry out a conversation for the next ten, twenty minutes. At least he's well enough to get up and pick up the phone at all.

"You alright?" Yixing asks when the conversation thins into silence thirty minutes in. His voice is scratchier than it should be, but the lilt in his tone sort of covers up the cracks, makes it sound as if he isn't sick and it's just the phone line making him sound ten times worse than he really is. Joonmyun nods, then, forgetting for a moment that Yixing can't see him, but soon he grunts in response to break the silence. "O...kay. You... sound pretty troubled or something. Is anything bothering you?"

Joonmyun laughs a little and drops his gaze to his left hand. His pinky is halfway translucent now, but he can still see the moles lined along the web of his fingers. He almost lost two fingers the week before, the morning after their trip to the city center for the Hanji festival, but after medication and more rest than he believes he'll ever need, he managed to restore one to full health; the other is fast catching up. But his ankle situation isn't getting any better – the translucent blanket is crawling up his legs faster than it should, wrapping nearly a fourth of his leg in a thick sheet of pale, pale skin.

He still feels pain whenever he jams his foot into a desk, the bathroom door, against Yixing's leg when it's still too early to be having breakfast and their limbs are terribly uncoordinated, but every action feels less real when you see something else through your body. It almost feels like you're toeing two dimensions, your soul separating from your body and having to sit back to watch everything unfold right before its eyes. And then there will be no way to save your other self, no way to piece yourself back together. No way to feel whole again.

"I'm good. Just... running a bit low on sleep," he mutters. He kicks Sehun under the table when he catches Sehun snorting from just a few inches away. "I'll be alright. Nothing good coffee can't fix."

Yixing hums. Joonmyun gulps hard at the sound, presses his ears closer to the receiver, if that's even possible. If he listens closely enough, maybe he'll know exactly Yixing means by 'feeling under the weather', or by Lu Han saying, 'I mean he looks pretty alive but he's been getting paler by the minute. Not really by the minute, but it almost seems as if he hasn't been eating for days. And I know you won't ever let that happen.' And maybe he'll know what the lurching sensation in his stomach is trying to tell him, the words coming to him more clearly than before – you're scared because you know the consequences, because you know what will happen in the very end. How can you possibly screw up again, Joonmyun? How can you let Yixing down?

"Just coffee?" Yixing says after a while, voice lilting. He laughs a little. "No milk and cookies? I'm pretty disappointed." Maybe a few more minutes and Yixing will be well again, with or without the medicine. Maybe all Yixing needs to do is stay a few good feet from where Joonmyun is and he'll be safe. "I thought I was part of your routine already?"

"It's not really routine when you change something everyday," Joonmyun mumbles. He looks around for an audience, then, taking a deep breath as he drops his voice to a whisper. "And it's... not really the same without you."

Yixing gasps, sharp and unhurried, and then his voice is thinning to these faint little giggles. "Smooth talker," Yixing whispers into the receiver, hiccupping. Joonmyun leans against the phone and grins. "I'm never asking you that again, ever."

The conversation dissolves into a discussion on one of the cases Yixing is solving at the moment, a peculiar case that has something to do with behavior being able to manipulate the body's natural recovery system to the point that a single yet powerful positive idea might spark change in the way the person's body reacts to outside forces. "And yes, I know it's pretty–" Joonmyun tells Minseok on the phone now, trapping his phone between his cheek and his neck now as he shifts in his position in his seat, folding his fading leg under his weight and sitting on it. He can still feel the pressing warmth of his skin against his calf but he feels oddly light, almost as if parts of him are slowly disintegrating and not just fading into a thin sheet of translucency. "–I know it's pretty ambitious to try to attempt to develop a drug as such but what if, hyung, what if we were able to do something like that? Like, an endorphin that can actually save people's lives after... x number of months, maybe years?"

Minseok laughs on the other end of the line. "I'd have to read the research made on that but it is possible," he answers, then, voice soon dropping to a whisper. "But as always, we need a source. Something to draw and cultivate the endorphins from. We're not gods. We can't–" He snorts. "We can't just go creating things out of thin air."

The same logic this mansion operates on, Joonmyun muses. The mansion is meant to cure, after all, not to create. Sure, there's a bit of magic involved, but even that required a sacrifice – a portion of Joonmyun's life, an ounce of his mortality. A promise that as long as there is one person in the world other than him who has the same condition as he does, he can't die.

"You can use me," Joonmyun suggests. If he isn't dying anytime soon then he might as well put himself into good use, right? "I mean, I used myself as the parent for the antidote. That rid Baekhyun of all the– I don't know to call it. The virus? Yeah, the virus – the antidote countered that perfectly. It was just a matter of countering the virus within the vessel in which it was contained. In that particular case, I had to inject that antidote direct to his medulla oblongata."

"To ease the fluid into the system and pump it through the veins like blood," Minseok continues. He scoffs. "Sly and sneaky, but insanely effective. I can't believe you actually thought about that on the fly."

"You did say I was a genius, hyung," Joonmyun singsongs. It happened during Joonmyun's second year in medical residency. He'd successfully made a diagnosis within the same day the case was handed to him. The solution wasn't what made Minseok look at him and study him carefully – it was the way he dissected the steps that made up the recovery process that earned Joonmyun the monicker "Miracle Maker". "Right now, I just feel kinda insulted that you didn't think I was capable of coming up with something like that."

"On the fly, Joonmyun. On the fly," Minseok reasons. "I wouldn't be able to turn things around if I had to save my dying sister in less that a minute–"

"Which proves your theory that I am a genius."

"–right. Whatever. Love yourself, have fun," Minseok mumbles. There's a lilt in his voice, though, one that belies the grit in his words. The MInseok Joonmyun has come to see during operations and medical discussions isn't this soft, pliant. This isn't his mentor talking to him; this is his friend trying to help him make things work. "But seriously, though, are you– Will you be alright?"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath and throws his head back against his seat, then holds his free hand up against the ceiling. He can hardly see the base of his left palm anymore. Maybe he should up the dosage, or try to develop a drug that can target specific areas of the body without affecting how the other parts of his system works. Or maybe he should stop taking the drugs for the time being and just see how the magic and the science cloaking his mansion can actually help him out. Just let things take their own course and let the magic actually happen instead of controlling it.

He snorts. The last time he let himself lose control, he opened the door for a stranger selling milk and cookies. And look where he is now.

"Recovery's slow, but I'm getting there," he says. He takes a deep breath, then drops his hand to his thigh. "It's not me I'm worried about, though. It's... the people around me, the ones I've been exposed to recently – you, Jongdae, Yura, Sehun–"

"–Yixing," Minseok finishes. Joonmyun laughs a little in response, doesn't even try to deny anything. "Just... monitor his condition and we'll see what we can do. No promises, but if it's something we can fix then–"

"–why the hell not, yeah," Joonmyun continues. He snorts, shoulders shaking as the rest of Minseok's laughter sticks to his skin. "Still haven't forgotten that, hyung. I got that from you."

Joonmyun doesn't hang up until ten minutes after, once he's done running a few questions on another case by Minseok. He plays with his phone in his hand, twirling it by the face of the screen, tempted to just pull up Yixing's contact card and give him a call. It's only ten in the evening, after all, and if experience is anything to go by then he's certain that Yixing's still working on his own journals right now, trying to combat two things at the dead of the night – fatigue and the sweet allure of his own bed. So he dials Yixing’s number, closes his eyes and focuses on nothing else but the shrill ringing sound in his ears. It sounds nothing like the bell Yixing sounds when he's near, or even the songs he sings while he heats milk on Joonmyun's stove, but it's at least a promise that he might get through the lines, might get to reach Yixing and maybe spend the next hour or so listening to the sound of his voice.

Yixing greets him with a faint 'hey', a soft chuckle. And Joonmyun breathes out.

☀

Joonmyun comes up with a simple celebration for Yixing's birthday, just an intimate lunch by the lake a few minutes away from his mansion. He'd planned on doing something bigger, a bit more extravagant, "We have Sehun around so might as well put him to good use, right?", but Yixing insisted that a picnic close by is more than enough. "We're old; socializing is... just too much," Yixing had reasoned that time, then played with Joonmyun's fingers before slotting his own between them. Joonmyun remembers his breath hitching, recalls his cheeks growing hot as Yixing marvelled at the fit of their hands. "And Lu Han's probably going to talk your head off again and I won't get to spend time with you, so–"

"So, how's the jjigae?" Joonmyun asks now, pressing his lips together in a tight smile. He gives the stew in his bowl a quick stir and grips the spoon tight in one hand. And he shifts his gaze elsewhere, to anywhere but Yixing's discerning gaze. "You said you wanted to try one with oysters so I did away with the pork, but I kept the tofu there since you said you love tofu, and–"

"And it would probably be better if you started eating because the jjigae's getting cold," Yixing answers. He leans in just a little, brushing his knuckles against Joonmyun's cheek. He lets his touch linger, and then he's tracing the curve of Joonmyun's face with the pads of his fingers. Joonmyun gulps hard, then, tightens his hold on the metal spoon all the more, and he seethes when he feels the cool surface prickle his skin. "So we can finish at once and... get to doing other things," he adds after a while, voice lilting. His gaze wanes for a bit, only to resurface more focused and heated as he traces the bridge of Joonmyun's nose with a stare, all the way down to the gentle swell of Joonmyun's lips. "Wonderful things."

Joonmyun chuckles. Parts his lips with a swipe of the tongue, then teases Yixing with a smile. "For science."

Yixing frowns for a moment, then he's pinching Joonmyun's cheek and pulling away. It's the same stunt he'd pulled off months ago, that one summer evening when the rain was pouring way too hard and Yixing appeared at his doorstep, drenched in the rain but still wearing a smile. There were cats mewling in the background. Yixing was shivering in the cold. And the only thing Joonmyun could think of was, would it be okay to just hug him without preamble? Would it be okay to just hold him close? Why am I asking these things at all? Joonmyun can still recall it, the way Yixing had pulled him close with the gentle coax of his fingers, cool against Joonmyun's warm skin, can still recall the way Yixing tilted his head to the side and squinted his eyes like he was studying Yixing, or a specimen, or some piece of writing like it was the most interesting thing ever.

Joonmyun shivers a little when he feels a prickling heat just near the junction of his neck and jaw. It isn't the type of sensation that makes his insides turn or makes his heart thump wildly in his chest. It isn't the same kind of feeling that Yixing's warm smile or the friction in the slide of their limbs gives him. It burns the same way flames do. It makes him wince, but he manages to bite the inside of his cheek even before Yixing can catch it. "I'm interested in human anatomy in particular," Yixing singsongs, then, pulling away with a smile. Then Yixing's snatching the spoon from him, and scooping some of the stew until it spills from the brim, drawing the utensil close to Joonmyun's lips. "Okay, open up–"

Yixing pries Joonmyun's lips open with a press of his pinky. The first contact makes Joonmyun flinch a little, when he feels Yixing's nail dig into his skin, makes his body jerk and his knees go a bit weak. Proximity, he tells himself – he's never been good at dealing with such short distances, especially when he can feel Yixing's breath hovering his skin but not quite sticking to it. And then there it is, the stinging sensation he'd felt just a minute or so ago, this time on his lips. It feels like his lips are being split open, like taking a punch to the face, kissing too much and too little.

He guides his gaze down to the food Yixing is offering him, then catches sight of Yixing's fingers. "Your fingers are... too pale..." he whispers, the wraps his fingers around Yixing's wrist. Another flash of pain, this time accompanied with a crackle, and Yixing drops the spoon to the ground. It's powerful enough that Joonmyun catches the sizzle of energy wrapping around Yixing's wrist, the faint glimmer of light binding Yixing's skin and keeping Joonmyun from touching him.

Powerful enough that a blink after, Joonmyun sees a thin, thin sheet of white crawl up the back of Yixing's hand. Powerful enough that the next thing Joonmyun knows, Yixing's losing more of his color, starting from the tips of his fingers up to where paling skin meets bright, bold flesh. Powerful enough that all the words knocking at the back of Joonmyun's teeth fall back into his throat, all the way down to the pit of his stomach as his insides turn. "Yixing, you're–"

"Sorry about that. I didn't– That spark was hella electric, hah!" He cackles, shaking his head as he folds the tissue into these neat little squares. He runs the cloth along the wet area in gentle dabs, the white of the material turning into a pale red once the liquid seeps in. "I don't think anyone can ever deny that our connection is strong. The spark is literally there; we just have to touch each other–"

"Yixing," Joonmyun repeats, voice more firm, resolute. He wants to reach out to touch, to hold Yixing's hand up right in front of him, where Yixing can see it more clearly. He wants to close his eyes and wake up to a different reality because this isn't the best of dreams; this is the worst possible nightmare he can ever be faced with. Fucking get up now, he tells himself, pinching the back of his hand, but to no avail – he's still here, stuck in this moment, and Yixing's fast losing the color in his hand. "Yixing, stop, look at your hand for a second and just–"

Yixing tilts his head, eyebrows lifting as he sets the used tissue aside to shift his gaze to his hand. The realization creeps to his features slowly but surely, parts his still red lips and makes his eyebrows furrow and makes his breath hitch. He raises both of his hands, then, holds them up against the sky and splays his fingers in the air.

"I... can't see my little finger," Yixing whispers. He brings his right hand close to his chest, examines each digit like he's studying data and facts and trying to find something wrong in them. Everything is wrong about this situation. "And the tips of my fingers, they're–" A hitch of the breath, then the color in his flesh crawls down by a centimeter, then another, then another. "This– I... can't be disappearing now, can I? I mean, it's not infectious. It's not the type of thing you'd pass on–"

When you don't expose yourselves to each other the way you'd want to, when you're not kissing or sliding up against each other, skin on skin, heart on heart. It shouldn't the type of disease you'd contract just by breathing the same air as person who has it. This particular virus doesn't work that way. Joonmyun's been living with Sehun for years; why didn't Sehun ever experience any of the stigmata of being around Joonmyun, a contaminant? Why was Sehun spared? Why now? Why Yixing?

It doesn't matter now, a voice at the back of his mind says as he rummages through his bag for his pillbox. If it's just starting then this is something he can fix. He can save Yixing. So he goes through his things one by one, looking for a familiar blue box where he keeps the pills for color restoration as he mutters, "Pills, pills– Come on!" He'd refilled the case last night when he saw his ankle losing color again. Maybe he'd left it on his bedside table, forgot to throw it inside his bag when he woke feeling much better but still with a translucent foot. "Goddamit, I should've checked– I should've made sure–"

"Joonmyun," Yixing begins, voice cracking between syllables. "This isn't your fault–"

"Is is," Joonmyun retorts through gritted teeth. "Because if I didn't open the door that day then you wouldn't be here now, right here, losing your fingers. If I didn't let you inside my house then maybe we'd still be talking at my doorstep and just drinking milk there and this won't have to happen–"

"Joonmyun, look at me," Yixing tries again, clasping his hands on Joonmyun's shoulders this time. He gives Joonmyun's shoulders a shake, lets out a loud exhale when Joonmyun keeps his gaze fixed on the grassy ground around them. Yixing's grip is tight, vicious, but the feel of the burn stings even more; the furrow of Yixing's eyebrows, Yixing's sharp gaze, the downward tug at the corners of his mouth, all these cut Joonmyun wide open, make the dull ache in his chest crawl to the rest of his body even faster. "I said, look at me, now-"

"And what, see the rest of you disappear in a flash? Remember all the things I've been doing wrong all my life? No, I won't. Just let me–" Joonmyun tries to shrug Yixing's grip off, but to no avail – the heat of Yixing's hold stuns him, pins him in place, paralyzes him and keeps him from continuing his search for that one thing that might make Yixing well again. "Let me go and save yourself, Yixing. Can't you see? The more you touch me, the faster you'll disap–"

Yixing drops his hands to his sides, then rolls up one of his pant leg. "I've... always been like this. Sort of," he confesses, pulling up at the cloth even more. Joonmyun holds his breath as the cloth slides up Yixing's skin, or at least where it's supposed to be. Joonmyun can't see anything but a mirror of the picnic mat they're sitting on on Yixing's skin, can't see anything but a faint trace of Yixing's calf, his ankle, then the hint of color peeking where Yixing's foot disappears beneath this sock.

His breath hitches. Joonmyun parts his lips, poised to speak, but there are at least a hundred voices screaming at the back of his mind right now. So instead, he whispers in his faintest voice possible, in the only sound he can muster, "What... is that?"

Yixing laughs a little and leans back, propping himself against his arms. "I got into an accident when I was eight," he explains. Scratches his nape as well with one of his fingers, slowly regaining color. He marvels at the finger for a moment, holding his hand up in the air again, the continues, "It was a sports injury – I used to play soccer. That was where Lu Han and I met. We were the best players in our team and probably the best in the country that time, for our level." He takes a deep breath, then lets out all the air in his lungs in a huff. "So of course some would get jealous, look for ways to ruin our game. Lu Han got tortured by some guys who mocked him for being too pretty, too attached to me. The others threatened to bully my little sister around, maybe even do things to her that I don't even want to think of–"

"Physical and emotional trauma," Joonmyun whispers. He can still feel the heat of Yixing's touch on his skin, can still see wisps of the yellow light that had enveloped Yixing's wrists earlier. Most of his pinky is back, but there's a chip in his nail somewhere towards the center. Joonmyun can't even see the flesh – all he can see is a tiny, empty hole, a pathway to nothingness. "Did you stop?"

"I didn't let them stop me," Yixing answers, laughing. He shakes his hands, like he's trying to restore the feeling in his fingers, but the skin near the translucent portion of his leg is beginning to lose color. Yixing tears his gaze from that, looks up at Joonmyun, instead, and offers a weak smile. "But that didn't keep them from taking me out of the game, from hitting my legs and my ankle and just leaving me on the field after they beat me up."

"And Lu Han?"

"They left him somewhere else. Outside the school. Took a while to find him," Yixing whispers, snorts. He presses his thumbs to his fingers one by one, a self-check, and assurance that he's still mostly whole. Joonmyun shivers. "We saw each other again at the hospital. It was a really nice reunion."

Joonmyun reaches out, jabbing Yixing in the arm, muscle memory getting the better of him, but soon he's jerking back when he feels a familiar heat crawl up his arm. It reaches his elbows, numbs the rest of his arm until he can't move the right side of his body anymore. And it makes his breath hitch. Yixing has it worse – he's shutting his eyes and grimacing in pain and he's seething, fingers curled around the area where Joonmyun had just touched him, but he tries to look up. Tries to look at Joonmyun in the eye through the slits of his bangs when he says, "I... think I better take up your offer on that pill–"

Joonmyun takes a deep breath, then pushes himself up on one knee. "Stay here. I'll be back," he mutters, dragging half of his body with him as he inches away from Yixing. "I'll come back for you, I promise. Just don't move–"

Yixing nods, slow and firm. The corners of his lips pull up into a smile.

It's the longest ten minutes of Joonmyun's life as he makes his way back to the mansion, the longest first five minutes of his run as he tries to coax the right side of his body out of the state of paralysis. It takes a while before he feels his limbs again completely – seven minutes, just a few minutes before he reaches home – and he quickens his pace when he feels his knees again. And it takes no more than three knocks on the door for Sehun to open the door for him, no more than a minute to rush to his room to snatch the box of pills from his bedside table. He rummages through his drawer for a tiny pack, two pills contained in a small plastic pouch, then stuffs it in his pocket. And then he's walking as quickly as he can back to the entrance for a full minute, trying to catch his breath before dashing out of his house. He looks over his shoulder only when Sehun calls out his name.

"Keep the door open!" Joonmyun screams, voice cracking somewhere in between. Sehun nods, three bobs of the head to the quickening pulse in Joonmyun's palms. From where Joonmyun is, it almost seems as if Sehun's eyebrows are furrowed and his head is tilted to the side, but then Joonmyun's vision has always be a bit shitty. So he takes a deep breath, places all of his trust in Sehun, hopes that Sehun will get it. "Don't close it until I tell you to–"

Yixing's lying flat on his back on the mat when Joonmyun returns, chest heaving and eyes shut as he sings to himself. Joonmyun kneels right beside Yixing, three different pills in one hand and an uncapped bottle in the other, and only then does Yixing open his eyes. Joonmyun's chest tightens. From where Joonmyun is, Yixing looks weaker, ten times older than he should be. His skin is getting paler, but the patches on his arm are slowly regaining color. Like the rest of his body is having difficulty catching up even if he's trying really, really hard to take control over his system. "Oh, you did keep your promise," he whispers after a while, laughter bubbling on his lips. He lifts his hand in Joonmyun's direction, trying to reach for his cheeks, groaning when Joonmyun leans back and shakes his head. "C'mon, come closer. I'll be well again after I take the pills and we can get back to eating and–"

And Yixing recovered faster when Joonmyun stayed away, the six long inches between them keeping them apart. And Yixing got his fingers, his hands, his arm back again when they weren't close, weren't touching each other, were simply looking at each other in the eye. And Joonmyun knows now that if he really wants Yixing to recover from this completely, he has to keep distance from Yixing for a long, long time. Weeks, months, maybe even years. If this kind of virus took months to manifest in Yixing's system, then it will take much longer for his body to get used to it and be prepared for an extraction.

"Okay, I'll just sit up so I can take those already and–" Yixing pushes himself up, the tips of his fingers grazing Joonmyun's own. He shivers for a moment, seething, but soon he's sitting upright, spine snapping straight even if his fingers are beginning to lose color again. "Man, that was quick–"

"The last time," Joonmyun whispers, pausing only to take a deep breath. He brings his free hand closer to Yixing's nape, holding out the one where the pills are in Yixing's direction. Yixing looks to his side, fixing him with a gaze, and then there it is again – the lurching sensation at the pit of Joonmyun's stomach, the dull ache in his chest, the nagging memory of the burns and scars Yixing had left on his skin with every collision of their limbs, every fleeting touch. It's the type of lurch that just makes Joonmyun want to lock himself up in his room, curl up in a corner, and just rock himself to sleep. The same kind of lurch that leaves him feeling oddly bereft, wanting, empty. "This is the last time this will ever happen–"

Yixing laughs a little, then takes the pills one by one. "Of course. I'll be in tip-top shape soon," he answers, then pops the pills between his lips, swallowing them down with water. A hitch of the breath then his eyes are widening, his chest heaving in quick and tiny breaths as he turns to Joonmyun to ask, "What's happening?"

"You'll feel normal again in fifteen minutes, I promise," Joonmyun replies, then snakes an arm around Yixing's waist. There's none of the burn that he'd felt earlier, but he can feel the warmth of Yixing's skin against his own, can feel the thrumming of Yixng's pulse. Part of him wants to give up the familiar warmth for the prickling heat, but– No. This is for his own good. So just enjoy this last time– His own words ring in his ears, and he tries not to shiver when he feels the weight of Yixing's body wearing down on him when they start to walk back to the mansion, the food he'd prepared for lunch left forgotten on the mat. "And you know I never break any of my promises."

"Promise me you'll make seafood jjigae for me again, then? Even if it's not my birthday?" Yixing whispers in Joonmyun's ear, lips brushing along the shell. He can feel the vibrations of Yixing's light laughter, can feel a sharp, traitorous cold wrap around his neck in a tight, vicious grip. It's deadly. Heavily drugged and you're still trying to fight it, Joonmyun wants to tell Yixing, but he feels much too drained and worn out to put up a fight. And his chest keeps tightening. So he lets Yixing lean on his shoulder, lets Yixing rest his weight on his side, their steps drawing out longer with each passing second.

Can't promise you that, Joonmyun says at the back of his mind much later, when the image of the mansion comes into focus. Sehun is still standing by the frame, unmoved, but his figure is slouched and he's slumping his shoulders. I don't want to make promises anymore.

The last few steps are the most difficult, Joonmyun muses as he helps Yixing get to the foot of the stairs. He helps Yixing sit up, guides Yixing to lean against the stone pillar guarding the front door, then he's taking a step back, into his house and away from Yixing. "Better?" he asks when he feels his elbow hit the frame of the door, and Yixing looks over his shoulder, the glimmer in his eyes back, but his lips still quivering.

Yixing pats the space beside him, three weak taps against the cool floor. "I'd feel better if you were here," he says, then takes a deep, deep breath. "Don't tell me you'll leave me out here to rot. I'm still recovering from that scare earlier."

Joonmyun sucks in his bottom lip. Shakes his head, as well, as he curls his fingers into loose fists. "I'm leaving you out there so you can recover completely," he whispers, then holds a hand up in Yixing's direction when Yixing parts his lips to speak. "No but's. This is what's best for you. The more you touch me, the more you'll lose parts of yourself–"

"But your mansion heals everything, right? I mean, didn't it keep Baekhyun alive for years? Look–" Yixing stands from his seat, then, but his knees shake even before he can take another step forward. He can't even kneel on the floor properly – all the can do is to look up at Joonmyun with furrowed eyebrows and a questioning gaze. And Joonmyun can't look away because isn't it already rude to leave Yixing out there suffering? Isn't it enough that he has to put this barrier between them? Isn't this enough? "All I have to do it to slip my hand inside like this–" Yixing continues, then, inching closer to the door while down on his knees. Then he holds out his hand, hovering the barrier, and reaches out in Joonmyun's direction. Joonmyun shakes his head, keeps muttering under his breath, stop, stop stop, but Yixing presses on. He manages to push past the frame, into the welcoming space of the mansion, but soon the color of his skin retracts, crawling back to his knuckles in a rush as the tips of his fingers begin to fade. "–and then I'll be–"

"Gone," Joonmyun whispers, hanging his head low. He takes a deep breath then sinks to his knees, and pushes back Yixing's hand before Yixing can even do more harm to himself. "I'm sorry, I'll try to figure out a way to cure this but for now–"

Yixing pushes past the barrier and reaches for Joonmyun's face, cupping Joonmyun's cheeks with his hands. The first touch is electric, sends a familiar sizzle of heat down Joonmyun's abdomen and makes his insides turn. It burns. "You just won't listen, will you?" Joonmyun groans, wrapping his fingers around Yixing's wrists so he can push Yixing away for good, but soon Yixing's pulling him closer, much, much closer, that their noses bump. Too close that he can feel the heat of Yixing's breath on his skin, too close that his vision blurs and he sees nothing, feels nothing else but the light brush of Yixing's lips on his. Joonmyun gasps, means to say, save yourself and stop thinking of me, but too late – Yixing's coaxing his mouth open with a swipe of his tongue, a gentle suck on Joonmyun's bottom lip, hurried whispers against Yixing's skin that sound a lot like, we'll figure this out, we'll make this work. We'll get through this together if we just try– And then he's giving in, tilting his head back until he tastes Yixing in his mouth, feels the scrape of Yixing's teeth against his bottom lip, feels the burn of the inelegant slide of their mouths take root in his body and jolt him back to life.

He takes a sharp breath, eyes widening, and pulls away in a rush. "I'm sorry," he whispers for the last time, then he's pushing Yixing away, swinging the door forward, hearing the loud 'thud' snap the door in place and flush out the noise from outside.

Silence settles back in, crawls up Joonmyun's spine and makes him shake all over. It rings in his ears, broken only by Sehun's soft and faint, "Sorry, hyung." Joonmyun closes his eyes, then, rests his head against the door, and listens for the three knocks on the other side. For Yixing's voice to seep through the glass of the window just beside him. For Yixing to call his name as he pounds on the glass, three beats to the four loud thumps in Joonmyun's chest when he gets up to look outside the window.

Yixing splays his fingers, slowly regaining color, on the glass, and meets Joonmyun's gaze like he's saying, come on, Joonmyun, you've already taken everything away from me. You can't deny me this. So Joonmyun inches closer and rests his forehead on the glass, meeting the tips of Yixing's fingers with his own. And he closes his eyes when he feels the prickling burn at the back of his eyelids, even before he can see Yixing mouth his name. As he listens to Yixing's heavy breathing on the other side, muffled by the distance between them, by the decision they've been forced to make.

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