찾고 변하고 다시 살자 (Let's Find, Change, and Live Again)

[bicheul]

 Kris

 

Having Sehun so close all of the time gave Kris the morale boost he didn’t even know he needed. When he was in a good mood, it showed in his work, and that caught the attention of potential contractors. As much as it killed him to be away from Sehun when, for once, he didn’t have to be, he couldn’t complain when he was asked to fly out to do a shoot on a beach in Macau with the promise of a sizable paycheck when he was through.

Between being distracted by Sehun’s presence and work picking up, he hadn’t noticed he’d been neglecting his friendship with Yixing until he was confronted by him over lunch. He wasn’t ignoring Yixing by any means, but he couldn’t blame him for thinking that when it really had been weeks since they had an actual conversation and, even then, Kris wasn’t acting like much of a friend.

As expected, Yixing was understanding of the circumstances, and the focus quickly changed to Sehun. “So she’s here, for good?”

Kris tried not to flinch at the pronoun Yixing used. He wanted so badly to correct him, but the consequences of that could be dire -- not that Yixing was one to gossip, but he couldn’t trust anyone with information so sensitive. “I wouldn’t say for good, at least not right now. Temporarily is more like it. She has a six-month contract but they can always extend it, or she could always land another job and end up staying for longer.”

Yixing nodded as he took a sip from his water bottle. “Am I ever going to meet her?” Kris froze mid-bite, staring at him. “I mean, I’ve been hearing about her for months and you’ve never even said, ‘Hey, my girlfriend’s in town, do you want to meet her?’”

“What, do you think I’m making her up or something?” Kris asked with a laugh.

“No, I’ve seen enough photos of her to know she’s real, I just want to meet your muse is all.”

Kris began to wrack his brain for excuses. “She’s busy nowadays,” he said.

“Look, I know I’ve said shitty things about her in the past, but it was mostly in jest and I don’t want to have offended you to the point where you’ve decided that maybe I shouldn’t meet her because I was a fuck once upon a time,” Yixing said.

“No! No, that’s not it at all. I’ve forgotten all about that... It’s really because she’s busy and she’s... not great with new people, honestly,” Kris said. “She’s so shy that even if you met her, it would feel like you hadn’t. She literally doesn’t speak when she’s in front of people she’s just met.”

“We can go out for drinks, loosen her up a bit,” Yixing suggested.

Kris shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to her and see if she’s up for it. I don’t have an issue with it, but, like I said...”

“Take your time. She’s here for, what, another five months, maybe longer? I’m not saying I want to wait another five months to meet her but you have time to let her know I’m a nice guy.” Yixing smiled broadly, his dimples ever prominent, and Kris couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’d love to meet him,” Sehun said later that night.

Kris stammered. “You do realize that if he sees you in person, he might realize you’re not a girl, right?”

“Are you telling me I don’t pass?” Sehun asked, a genuine look of panic in his eyes.

“No, of course not,” Kris said, and Sehun sighed in relief. “It’s just that he’s got a keen eye -- he’s a photo editor for a reason -- and I just don’t want you to be embarrassed.”

Sehun was quiet for a few moments, toying idly with the zipper on one of the sofa cushions. “I don’t know. He probably won’t be able to tell. I don’t want to shutter myself in and have no friends just because I’m trying to keep up appearances.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Kris started with a laugh, “that you’ll be comfortable with meeting one of my friends and introducing you to him like, ‘hey, this is my girlfriend, Sehun!’”

Sehun let the zipper fall away from his fingers and blinked a few times at Kris before smiling. “Yeah. I don’t mind that.” He was quiet for a few beats, and as Kris got ready to speak, he paused when Sehun too made a move to speak. “I -- am I?”

“Are you... okay with me calling you my ‘girlfriend’ in public?” Kris asked.

“No, the girlfriend part. Well, boyfriend. Am I?” Sehun asked.

Kris froze; the answer was simple but the words were lodged in his throat. It hadn’t occurred to him, until Sehun asked with that glint of joy tinged with quizzicality in his eyes, that they never put a name to what they were so deeply entangled in. He always just assumed that it was just that -- assumed, and that there was no rhyme or reason in putting a label on what had happened so organically.

He realized he had to answer quickly, before that look of elatedness disappeared from Sehun’s face. “Of course,” he said, in a mumble that Sehun knew was akin to bashfulness and not uncertainty. “Why is that even a question?”

Sehun answered with just a shrug and a satisfied grin. “So, I’m going to meet Yixing -- am I saying his name correctly? Yixing?”

Kris nodded, marveling at how quickly Sehun was able to change the subject.

“And... you’ll introduce me to him as your girlfriend... and, hopefully, he won’t find out the truth,” Sehun said.

“I guess that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Kris said, but an uneasy feeling about the whole thing settled in the back of his mind.

The plan came to life that weekend, after Sehun had done preliminary shoots with the cosmetics company; they used that as an excuse to go out and celebrate. Kris and Yixing agreed to meet at their usual bar after they were done with work and Kris had picked up Sehun from his house.

Sehun was visibly excited, asking Kris questions about Yixing’s personality on the bus ride in so that he knew what to say and ask once they had met. While Kris was happy that Sehun was happy, he couldn’t help but dread their face-to-face meeting; Yixing was known to wear his emotions on his sleeve so Kris would know right away if Yixing knew something was up.

They found Yixing at a table in a quieter area of the bar, and Kris breathed a sigh of relief as Yixing greeted Sehun with a smile and handshake, seemingly unsuspecting.

They quickly found, though, that the language barrier was worse than either of them had expected and, after Kris attempted to translate back and forth, they eventually gave up. As a result, Kris ended up speaking to Yixing for a majority of the time with Sehun nestled into his side, nursing a cocktail.

“She really is beautiful in person,” Yixing said to Kris, and Kris knew Sehun understood that by the happy sound he made deep down his throat. “When she learns Chinese, we’ll talk more. Or, if I learn Korean... but that seems like a lot of work for no reason.”

Kris reacted with a snort, then downed the rest of his drink. “I promise, she has a great personality -- but since she’s shy and can’t speak Chinese, you’re missing out on that, unfortunately.”

Yixing shrugged, glancing around the table at their empty glasses. “Do you want anything? It’s on me.”

Kris shook his head, reiterated the sentiment to Sehun, who also shook his head, and Yixing left to order a drink for himself. Sehun perked up and kissed Kris behind the ear, giving him goosebumps with his touch. “He’s cute,” Sehun said, words slightly slurred.

Kris nodded, interlacing his fingers with Sehun’s. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t really have an opinion on that.” He looked over at Sehun with a grin on his face. “He’s not my type.”

“That’s too bad,” Sehun said sleepily, kissing Kris on the neck now. He bristled; he’d come to know what Sehun was like after a few strong drinks and tonight was proving to be no different. When Sehun was even slightly inebriated, he yearned for intimacy -- apparently even in the middle of a crowded bar. “I wanna take him home.”

Kris laughed nervously. “What about me?” he asked jokingly.

“You can come, too.” Once more, Kris waited for some kind of sign that Sehun was joking, but came up short. “I’m disappointed that he didn’t figure it out.”

Kris glanced over to where Yixing stood at the bar. “Why?” he asked. “Isn’t it a good thing that he’s oblivious...?”

“I want him to find out,” Sehun whispered, and Kris gulped. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

I think so, but I don’t want to find out if I’m right, Kris thought, and he said nothing in response.

 

“I keep thinking of you letting him take advantage of me and undress me, thinking he’ll find a girl under these clothes but finding my cock instead,” Sehun continued in a hushed voice. “I want to see him freak out about it, get me all embarrassed... mortify you. It gets me really hot.” Kris kept an eye on Yixing, still waiting for his drink, as Sehun slipped a hand between his legs and clawed gently at his inner thigh. “Think about it.”

“I am, and I’m horrified,” Kris said, but it wasn’t completely true. It might have been the alcohol but he was enjoying the thought of Sehun getting red-faced as Yixing stared at his naked body in disbelief -- but if he were to make that a reality, he would never be able to face Yixing again.

“Please, Daddy,” Sehun crooned, thumbing the middle seam of Kris’s pants. Kris squirmed, watching Yixing turn away from the bar with his drink in hand, about to make his way back to the table.

“You should really see Shixun’s house,” Kris said as Yixing prepared to sit down.

Yixing furrowed his brow as he took a sip from his glass. “Why, and go home envious because she’s got a mansion?” he asked with a laugh.

“Maybe, but it’s worth seeing,”
Kris said, and he could feel Sehun smile, his lips pressed against his arm.

Yixing shrugged. “Fine by me. It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.”

They held off until Yixing finished his drink to leave, but not before Kris bought a bottle of beer for the taxi ride back to Sehun’s place.

Yixing

Maybe I should say something, Yixing thought as the taxi took them out of the city center and up to the area that Sehun lived in. He glanced down at the hand on his thigh, belonging to Sehun, who was leaned up against Kris much like she had been for the majority of the night. He looked from Sehun’s hand to where Sehun’s face should be, only to find her locked in a deep kiss with Kris. He’s eating her face, Yixing mused, but that only made him more confused about the hand on his leg.

 

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting; they were all thoroughly drunk -- especially Kris, who had gotten halfway through the beer he bought as they were leaving the bar before fixing his lips to Sehun’s -- and in his experience, drunk people didn’t have much regard for where and on who they laid their hands.

His eyes shifted back to his lap as Sehun’s fingers moved. He expected Sehun to be moving her hand away but, if his eyes and mind weren’t playing tricks on him, she’d only moved it closer, almost deliberately. Yixing swallowed hard and decided to stare out of the window until they got to Sehun’s house, where things might make a little more sense.

Sehun’s house really was worth seeing -- it kind of astounded Yixing when he realized he could probably fit his entire apartment into Sehun’s place three or four times, but it was really unlike anything he’d seen before. “I thought only people on television lived in places like this,” Yixing remarked, and Kris laughed. Sehun laughed because Kris laughed, not because she understood what he’d said.

Once he’d seen Sehun’s house, though, he realized there wasn’t much else to do, and if there was, Kris and Sehun weren’t making much of an attempt to entertain. Yixing resigned himself to flicking through his phone as Sehun and Kris kissed, partially in an effort to keep himself from watching them.

It was difficult, keeping his eyes off of them: they had almost perfect chemistry, the two of them equally tall and gorgeous and seemingly besotted with each other. Sehun kissed with unmatched passion, nearly sitting in Kris’s lap as she threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged on his lips with her teeth. Where Sehun dominated in kissing, Kris made up for with his never-ending quest to get her as close to him as possible, one hand clutching the small of her waist and the other arm wrapped around her back.

Stop looking, Yixing said, forcing his eyes back to his phone. He tried to seem interested in the level of Candy Crush he was half-heartedly attempting, but he found himself wishing he knew Korean when he heard Sehun whisper something to Kris.

Kris cleared his throat and Yixing looked up. He tried not to laugh; Sehun’s lipstick was smeared from the tip of his nose to his chin. “Shixun wanted me to tell you that it’s okay to watch,” Kris said. He sounded breathless, and Yixing couldn’t tell if it was due to the intense making-out he’d just taken a break from or something else.

Yixing stammered. “I-I wasn’t trying to watch,” he said as the failed-level Candy Crush tune played from his phone. Sehun giggled into Kris’s shoulder. “I really wasn’t.”

“She’s serious. She --” Kris paused as Sehun tapped him on the chest to get his attention. She whispered something into his ear. “She said you can even... join... if you want to...”

Yixing clandestinely pinched himself to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep and was in the midst of some strange dream. “Join?”

“She thinks you’re cute,” Kris continued, and Sehun nodded. Yixing watched her move a hand between Kris’s legs and felt his tongue go dry. “She’s, uh... very adventurous, to say the least.”

Yixing looked from Kris to Sehun, flinching when their eyes met. She smiled coyly at him and he felt his inhibitions go into a spiral.

Seeing Sehun in nothing but her underwear was strangely surreal, despite having seen her in less when he edited photos of her. She stood before him in her bedroom, with Kris standing behind her with his arms wrapped around her and kissing her neck, wearing sinfully tiny, lacy panties and a bra to match. Sehun stared at him with hungry eyes, and Yixing swallowed dryly. Part of him felt like he shouldn’t have agreed; it would more than likely make things weird between him and Kris, but at the same time, Kris seemed game and the opportunity had presented itself. Yixing would be lying if he said he hadn’t been attracted to Sehun the moment he saw her in person, but he never imagined that in the same night, he’d be sleeping with her -- with her boyfriend’s blessing, nonetheless.

He froze as Sehun wriggled from Kris’s grip and crossed the room to him, shoving him down onto the mattress and climbing on top of him. Yixing didn’t know what to do with his hands so he laid with them at his side as Sehun undid the buttons on his shirt.

No, no, no, he chanted in his head -- not because he didn’t want Sehun to do what she was doing but because he was getting hard from it and he felt like he wasn’t supposed to be. Not only that, but Sehun’s ass was seated firmly on his hips, and she’d be able to feel it in no time.

It wasn’t long  before Sehun gave Yixing a knowing smile and put his hands on her hips. Yixing took shallow breaths as Sehun ground her hips down against his crotch, and he made a fleeting glance over at Kris. There wasn’t much expression on Kris’s face, and that made Yixing even uneasier because he couldn’t tell if Kris was into this or not. Half of him hoped Kris wasn’t into it, because that would be weird, but the other half of him prayed that he was, considering the circumstances.

Sehun took one of Yixing’s hands and trailed it up her body until his fingers met her lips, and she gave the tips of his middle and ring fingers a tentative lick. Yixing breathed out hard when she wrapped her lips around those two fingers, taking them in down to the last knuckle.

“Take her panties off,” Yixing heard Kris say, and he looked over at him with wide eyes. “Go ahead.”

At this, Sehun swiftly took Yixing’s fingers out of her mouth and glanced back at Kris. They had an exchange in Korean -- Yixing guessed she had said something in protest and he snapped back, attempting to coax her -- and then Sehun looked down at Yixing, pouting.

“I don’t think she wants to,” Yixing said to Kris.

“She’s playing coy. She wants to, trust me,” Kris replied. “She’s the one who came up with this, remember?”

“But she might have changed her mind,” Yixing said.

Kris sighed and spoke in Korean again. Sehun shook her head in agreement. “I just asked her if she changed her mind. She said no. She wants me to do it, but I want you to do the honors.”

“Go ahead,” Sehun said in shaky Chinese, dismounting him and sitting off to the side on the bed. Yixing sat up, looked from Kris to his hands to Sehun, then tried to summon the will to do what Kris and Sehun had both given him permission to do.

Before he could give it a second thought, he slipped his fingers under the slender band of Sehun’s panties and gave them a quick pull. Sehun whimpered and locked her legs shut for a few seconds, then glanced over at Kris and relaxed. She lifted her hips and Yixing began to pull them up her thighs.

He got her panties as far as her knees before he froze in shock.

“What the hell...” Yixing looked over at Kris, who had a look of panic in his eyes that hadn’t quite reached his face.

Yixing moved away and Sehun came after him, trying to wrap her -- his -- arms around him. He wanted to push her -- no, him -- away but he couldn’t even think much less become aggressive at that point.

He didn’t know why he was shocked. He had his suspicions early on, but Kris had guilted him into thinking that he was being shallow and making fun of Sehun. Now, he knew, he was right -- and if this was Kris’s way of coming clean to him, it sure was humiliating and beyond unorthodox.

“Look, man,” Kris started, but Yixing shook his head.

“I’ve gotta go,” Yixing said, scrambling to his feet and buttoning up his shirt. His head was spinning and he felt like he was in some sort of vortex and he just needed to get out.

Before he could make it to the door, Kris managed to catch up to him.

“You’ve got to listen to me, alright? This was his idea, and I’m drunk and I agreed because I wanted to make him happy --”

“This is fucked up,” Yixing said, shaking his head. “I don’t care if this is something you’re into but fuck, you can’t do something like that and expect me to be okay with it.” He scoffed with realization. “So, this whole modeling thing is fake, then?”

“No, of course not,” Kris said.

“So she -- sorry, he -- is basically committing fraud,” Yixing said.

Kris froze. “You can’t say anything. Please.”

“I can’t make any promises.” Yixing left hastily, hoping Kris wouldn’t try to follow him because the last thing he wanted now was to look him in the eye for one more second. He needed time -- a lot of it -- to think.

Sehun

It was hard for Sehun to focus in the days following his failed attempt to act on a kink of his that he’d been wanting to fulfill. After Yixing left that night, Sehun only felt horrible -- for embarrassing himself, for embarrassing Yixing, and for putting Kris in an awkward position.

Sehun noticed that Kris looked distracted as well, often staring off into space with a look of thoughtfulness and regret on his face. He didn’t speak much, and he was hardly ever in the mood for anything besides cuddling at the end of the night.

Sehun never suspected that Kris had anything to ask him until he caught Kris staring him down as they ate dinner one night about four days after the incident.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Sehun said with an uneasy laugh. Kris shook his head. “What is it?”

“Why are you doing this?” Kris asked.

“Doing what?”

“Why are you pretending to be a woman for modeling jobs?” Kris asked.

Sehun blinked a few times, speechless. He never figured that Kris didn’t understand his motives; if anything, he thought it was pretty obvious. “I... It’s a long story,” Sehun said quietly.

“I’ve got all night.” Kris set down his chopsticks, as if to emphasize that he was going nowhere and Sehun had his undivided attention.

After a deep breath, Sehun told the story as thoroughly as he could, from failing his college entrance exams to failing as a male model and deciding to take a leap and do what he was doing now. He admitted that over time, it just became second nature and something he enjoyed doing, and now he had no other choice but to do it because it was his only source of money and the only thing he knew.

Sehun sniffed back tears. “I would have stopped a long time ago... since it’s basically taken away all of my friendships -- because I have to hide it -- and my parents are disappointed. But I’m in too deep now. Part of me wants someone to find out but the other part of me is terrified -- especially now, after what happened with Yixing -- because I don’t want the shame. It’s different now, because this is a pretty big company that I’m working for. They’ve got a presence in not just China but most of Asia and if they find out, the whole continent and maybe the world will find out too. My parents would find out. My friends would find out. I wouldn’t be able to face anyone, ever again.”

“Okay, that’s the part I want you to expand on -- how did you manage to get a work visa if, as far as I know, all of your documents have you down as a man?” Kris asked, and Sehun felt his body get heavy with dread.

“I... faked documents,” Sehun admitted, and he could see the disappointment in Kris’s expression. “I was desperate, and I knew someone who would do it and keep quiet about it -- because, well, if they didn’t, they’d get into a lot of trouble because it’s not legal, obviously. I need the money. I can’t see myself doing anything else. I tried doing it the right way and it didn’t work so now I’m stuck, lying to everyone I meet.”

“You realize that if you get caught, the company can sue you for fraud,” Kris said, and Sehun tried to hold back his tears. “You’d lose your visa, have to pay back every cent they paid you, get kicked out of the country, probably go to jail --”

Sehun took a deep, shuddering breath. “I know. I know.”

“Not to mention I would definitely get dragged into it, because I’m the person who helped jumpstart your career. They would think that I was in on it the whole time --”

“You were, weren’t you?” Sehun asked, and Kris fell silent. “You didn’t know until much later and you still photographed me, you still sent those photos out, you still got me work... You didn’t rat me out. You were in on it, and you still are.” Kris continued to say nothing. “You can’t say anything, because you would get into deep shit too. Your career would be over. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

Kris was silent for what felt like hours before he finally said, in an empty voice, “So we’re both fucked.”

Sehun nodded slowly. “We have been since day one.”

Paranoia followed Sehun around like a shadow. Every time he went to work or to Chinese lessons he felt like someone was going to figure it all out and his life would be ruined. Maybe one day someone would notice that his body wasn’t typical of the other girls and get suspicious. They would tell someone who would tell someone and it would come down to the company heads trying to sate everyone by running a background check on him to prove that Sehun was, in fact, the female they all believed him to be.

Of course, they’d find no such proof. They’d only find out the hard way that Sehun had been lying since the very beginning.

He worried about Yixing, too. He’d heard Yixing say he couldn’t promise that he would keep his mouth shut and those words were enough to keep Sehun up at night. He couldn’t help but blame himself; if he hadn’t tried to be so adventurous, Yixing would have never known and he would have never had to worry that there was someone out there that he couldn’t trust with his secret.

After a week of anxiety cloying at him from the inside out, Sehun eventually broke down. Once he’d managed to quell his sobs for a sufficient amount of time, he called Kris and begged him to come over.

Kris was there in no time, letting himself into Sehun’s villa and sitting down beside him on the ground where he’d been for over an hour, surrounded by broken makeup.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Sehun whispered, because speaking any louder would force the tears down his face again. “I just want to end it.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Kris said, his voice rife with panic.

Sehun shook his head. “It came out wrong. I want to end this part of my life. I want to just... break my contract, go back home, and act like none of this ever happened. It’s not like the Sehun that the modeling world knows even really exists, so I can just disappear and never worry about this again.”

Kris wrapped his arms around Sehun and he nestled his head onto Kris’s shoulder, feeling just a fraction at peace in his embrace. “That does sound easy, doesn’t it.”

Sehun nodded. “I could go to school abroad. Maybe going someplace new can open my eyes and make me realize that I am worth something, that I’m just as intelligent as I am model-worthy.” He chuckled, despite the tears brimming in his eyes. “Maybe I’ll be a makeup artist. I’ve had enough practice already.”

Kris laughed and held him tighter. “I’d miss you, though. I just got used to having you within arm’s length,” he said.

“Come with me,” Sehun said, peering up at Kris. He smiled as Kris looked down at him. “Let’s start over someplace where no one knows who we are.”

Sehun knew the next words to come out of Kris’s mouth before he even spoke them. “I can’t leave my job, though,” he said, and Sehun sat up straight and gave him a look. “I can’t... not because I don’t want to be by your side if you do leave, but because I’m stubborn and I don’t think I could live with parting with something that I invested so much time and effort into...”

To this, Sehun shrank away from Kris, pulling his knees to his chest. “Fine, then. I guess it makes sense, since you had your job before you had me so it’s only right that you still have your job even after I’m gone.”

Stunned silence hung between them for a few moments. “That’s... that’s not what I meant,” Kris said, and Sehun shrugged his shoulders. “Why don’t we... just wait until we’ve gotten to that point before we start making plans?”

“What if ‘that point’ comes sooner than I planned?” Sehun asked.

Kris didn’t have an answer for that, and Sehun didn’t want one. The thought of  this mess ending on anyone else’s terms but his own made him sick to his stomach.

Kris

Kris hadn’t seen much of Yixing since that ill-fated night. When he did see him, he didn’t go out of his way to say hello, and Yixing would look right past him if they happened to cross paths.

He tried not to let this affect his work, though. He’d been doing so well ever since Sehun moved to Shanghai and the last thing he wanted was for his superiors to think that he was a photographer whose quality of work fluctuated with his mood. Because of that, Kris tried to maintain the cheerful, inspired demeanor he’d been showing and hide the fact that he was sitting on pins and needles with each passing day.

Kris considered becoming a part of Sehun’s plan, as daunting as it may have sounded. He felt selfish for not wanting to follow him because he had just started to make progress at work, and with the way things were going with Yixing, it was beginning to look like Kris would better flourish elsewhere than there where he was constantly anxious and even a bit lonely. Yixing had been one of his better friends -- maybe even his only friend -- but Yixing knew too much and was probably angry and vindictive enough to make his life a living hell if he really wanted to.

So the best plan of action would be to start over in a place where no one knew his name or his history... but, for him, finding the willpower to leave would be the hardest part.

Before he knew it, it was time for his monthly evaluation. As he’d done many times before, he went to Kibum’s office first thing in the morning with his portfolio in hand so that Kibum could look over his work and decide which ones he should put up on the company’s website.

Kibum flipped through Kris’s photos, humming appreciatively at ones he liked and staying silent on those that he didn’t. Kris just watched him, wringing his hands and not wanting to be the one to break the silence.

Kibum peered at him over his glasses, glancing down at Kris’s hands. “What, are you nervous?” he asked. “This is maybe your fiftieth evaluation, what are you nervous about?”

“I’m thinking about leaving the company.” The words came out so quickly that Kris wasn’t sure he even spoke the right language. His head felt numb.

Kibum looked up from the portfolio completely, narrowing his eyes at Kris. “What?”

Kris shrugged and tried to avoid Kibum’s eyes. “I do really love working here, but... I don’t know, I guess you can say that I’m itching to go elsewhere. I keep thinking about opportunities in other places and everything I’m missing out on by staying in one place for so long.”

Kibum gazed off, as if he were trying to make sense of Kris’s words and was failing. “I”m not saying that you don’t have the talent to go to another company and do great things, but... you would have to start from the bottom again. You know by now that succeeding in this business is fifty-percent talent and will and fifty-percent good rapport with your superiors... You’ve already got that here. Why would you leave?”

Kris could only nod; he had already considered all of what Kibum had said but every time, thoughts of Sehun won over. “That makes complete sense,” Kris said finally, “but I can’t fight this overwhelming desire to go someplace else. Will I end up at the bottom of the ladder again? Probably, but as long as I’ve got the talent and people with years of experience to vouch for me, I might not struggle for as long as I did here.”

Kibum shrugged. “At the end of the day, the decision is all yours. I’d hate to see you leave, but, on the other hand, you don’t know what’s out there until you try it.” He laughed. “I guess I can’t really talk, either; I left Korea for Shanghai years ago because I wanted to ‘find myself,’ so I don’t see why you can’t do the same.”

“Thanks,” Kris said, half-smiling. “Like I said, I’m just thinking about it... but every day, my thoughts get a bit closer to ‘definitely’ than they do to ‘unsure’.”

“And that’s totally fine,” Kibum said, and then he turned his attention back to Kris’s portfolio.

When Kris got home, he found Sehun sitting cross-legged on the couch with his laptop. It wasn’t a shock; Sehun had recently stopped staying at the villa provided to him by the cosmetics company, saying that being there made him anxious and he would rather be closer to Kris, anyway.

Sehun still hadn’t cut ties with the cosmetics company, but he assured Kris he would do it as soon as he could. Kris wasn’t going to rush him; Sehun had been a worried state for over two weeks now and Kris knew it would be next to impossible for him to face those worries head-on. But Kris wanted to make sure that Sehun actually acted on it, before it was too late and Sehun would end up deep in trouble.

“What are you up to?” Kris asked, setting down his things on a table. Sehun glanced up at him and smiled.

“I was looking for flights back home, but then I started looking at flights to the States which led me to look up the requirements for getting a temporary visa over there,” Sehun said. “I keep getting excited and I just want to go, and then I think of the unfinished business I’m dealing with here...”

“I understand,” Kris said, sitting down beside Sehun and putting a hand on the curve of his thigh. “I’m positive everything will work out in a desirable fashion.” Sehun nodded solemnly. “I told Kibum I might be leaving.”

Kris felt Sehun’s muscles grow taut under his fingers. “Are you serious?”

Kris nodded. “You’ve got me thinking about it, and I realized that deep down, I’ve always wanted to see what else the world had to offer, career-wise,” he said. “So, the idea’s looking very attractive right now.”

“You’re looking very attractive right now,” Sehun mumbled, and Kris laughed. Sehun looked away from the screen and at Kris’s lips, and Kris made quick work of pressing them to Sehun’s. “Come back to Seoul with me,” Sehun said as he pulled away. “Then go to America with me. I heard that they let people like us get married there.”

“Get married,” Kris said with a laugh, and Sehun beamed.

“It’s just a thought,” Sehun said.

Kris stared at Sehun, taking in every aspect of his face -- his cherry-red lips, high cheekbones, prominent nose, the way his smile always found its way to his eyes. Maybe spending the rest of my life with him isn’t out of the question, Kris thought.

Sehun

The morning he woke up with his mind telling him to just do it, Sehun got dressed, made himself as presentable as possible with the makeup he had left after his tantrum, and made his way into Shanghai proper.

It felt like he hadn’t been there in weeks -- he had been, physically, to go to Chinese lessons and do photoshoots, but had emotionally and mentally checked out. He walked through the lobby of the cosmetic company, nodding quaintly in hello to the secretary who recognized him, and boarded the elevator, destined for the CEO’s top-floor office.

He very rarely saw her, and when he did, it was almost always in a boardroom on one of the lower floors. His palms sweated a bit at the thought of being in her personal domain, speaking as directly to her as he could with his limited Chinese, breaking a lucrative contract that he hadn’t even held for a month and a half.

The elevator came to a stop and opened up right into the foyer of Ms. Feng’s office. Sehun stepped out cautiously and glanced around, his eyes meeting those of a stern-looking receptionist.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” the receptionist asked.

“Um, yes, I’m here to speak to Ms. Feng,” Sehun said.

“Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked, and Sehun felt himself deflate.

“I wasn’t aware that I needed one,” he said, honestly, and the receptionist gave him a bemused look.

“Ms. Feng is a very busy woman. In order to speak to her, you need to have booked an appointment with her. You can’t do it in person, only over the phone as we have an automated system that does the booking for us,” the receptionist explained, her voice monotonous as if she’d been through this several times before. “Once you do that, you can speak to Ms. Feng. Have a good day.”

“It’s... really urgent,” Sehun said, pressing his luck. “I’m a new model for the fall/winter collection and I have to speak to her regarding my dealings in my contract.”

The receptionist sighed and looked at her computer. She typed for a few seconds, then looked back at Sehun. “Can I get a form of ID, please?”

Sehun hesitantly handed her the fake ID he’d had made for him and she handed it back after checking his credentials against what she had on the screen. Wordlessly, she picked up the phone.

“Ms. Feng, a Wu Shixun is here to see you,” she said. After a few moments of silence, she nodded and hung up the phone. “Her office is at the end of the hallway.”

Sehun breathed a sigh of relief and bowed in gratitude. “Thank you, jie,” he said before turning on his heel and making his way down the hall.

He took a deep breath as he came upon the door with a platinum plated reading “Feng Xiuying, CEO, Happy Valley Cosmetics” and put his hand on the knob. Before he could think twice, he turned the knob and opened the door.

Feng Xiuying looked up at him as he walked in and smiled brightly. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” Sehun replied, taking a seat at the chair in front of her desk. She smiled patiently at him as he summoned the courage to break the news. “I... I just wanted to start by saying that I am so grateful that you gave me the chance you did. It’s really been amazing.”

“You’re welcome,” Ms. Feng said.

Sehun nodded. “I’m afraid, though, that I won’t be able to continue on with Happy Valley.” A concerned look crossed her face. “It’s nothing that you or any of the other lovely people working here have done, but it’s more of a personal, internal conflict.”

“Counseling is always available,” Ms. Feng said in a quiet voice.

“I know, but... I truly feel like what I’m going through can’t be helped by talking to someone. I’ve been having second thoughts about making modeling my career for a while now, and it’s gotten to the point where I want to take time off and think. Right now, I’m thinking of going to university, finally, but I’m not sure. That’s why I want to leave and dedicate some time to myself.”

Ms. Feng sighed. “I understand. I’m afraid that it’s a big more complicated than just leaving, though, since you’re under contract.”

“If I need to, I’ll pay back every cent I’ve been paid so far. This isn’t
something that I can rethink. I’ve thought and thought and I know for a fact that, in the long run, leaving will be better for me mentally than staying will.” Sehun wiped away a tear that he didn’t even feel coming. “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Ms. Feng said. “Listen, you don’t have to pay back anything. You’ve worked hard and honestly for everything you earned. You take as much time as you need and I promise, you’ll always have a place here at Happy Valley if you decide to return to modeling. You’re a great talent and I have faith in you.”

Sehun smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

“I’ll take care of dissolving your contract. You don’t need to worry about that at all.” She stood up and rounded her desk to Sehun, surprising him with a warm hug. “Take care of yourself.”

Sehun hugged her back and stood up as she moved away. He did nothing more than nod before he turned and left her office.

The weight lifted off of his back was tremendous. For the first time in half a month, Sehun felt like he could breathe freely.

Kris

By the time Kris had bought a ticket to Seoul, word had gotten around at work that he was leaving for sure and his colleagues threw him a party. He knew nothing about it until the morning of, when he walked in and Kibum promptly dragged him to the breakroom where he saw balloons and a banner that said ‘Good Luck, Kris!’ and cake and drinks. Nearly everyone at the company was in attendance at some point, from Zitao the intern to those superiors that Kris had admired and idolized for all those years. The only person whose arrival gave him a shock was Yixing.

He stood off to the side, holding a paper plate with a slab of cake on it and eating it slowly. Kris glanced over, saw him, and felt his heart sink. Then confidence surged through him; he was going to set the record straight once and for all before he left Shanghai.

Yixing pretended not to see Kris even when he was standing right in front of him. “Are we going to play this game forever?” Kris asked.

Yixing shrugged absently. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“Yet, you’re here, at my going-away party, eating my cake,” Kris said.

“I never miss out on free cake,” Yixing muttered.

Kris sighed deeply. “Look, I’m sorry for what happened that night. Everything was fucked up and I wish I could take it all back, seriously. If I was allowed to go back and erase one big regret from my life, it would be that night.”

Yixing finally looked at him. “If you’re saying all of this because you’re scared I’m going to tell people -- don’t bother. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

“That’s not why I was genuinely apologizing to you, but thank you,” Kris said. “I’m glad to know that my secret really is safe with you.”

“So are you jumping ship so you don’t end up in shit-tons of trouble for assisting fraud?” Yixing asked plainly, and Kris looked around quickly to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“No. Sehun is going back home and... I’m following him. Maybe I’ll be back, maybe I won’t be, but it’s got nothing to do with evading the law. Maybe for him, but not for me.”

Yixing raised his eyebrows. “Well, whatever it is, give him my regards and let him know that there are no hard feelings,” Yixing said.

Kris managed a smile and noticed Yixing fighting to keep his own smile at bay. “Keep in touch. Let me know if you ever come out to Seoul.”

“Will do,” Yixing said.

The morning they were due to go to the airport, Sehun packed all of his wigs and makeup into a trash bag and tossed it into the dumpster behind Kris’s apartment. Kris stood by and watched him do it, watched as catharsis rained down on his body and he’d only gotten a step closer to closing the door on his old life.

They got to the airport, made their way through security, and got settled at the gate to wait for their flight. Kris had never seen Sehun look so at peace, a twinkle in his eye and a half-smile on his lips.

“You look so excited,” Kris remarked, and Sehun grinned. “Do you want to go home that badly?”

Sehun shook his head. “I’m not excited just because I’m going home... I’m excited because you’re coming with me.” Kris felt like the air had been knocked out of him and he couldn’t help but smile in response.

“I want to kiss you right now but we’re not exactly in a place where we can do that,” Kris whispered, and Sehun cocked his head to the side.

“Come with me to the bathroom,” Sehun said. He took Kris by the wrist as he asked a woman sitting nearby to keep an eye on their things until they got back. When she agreed, Sehun practically pulled him to the nearest bathroom.

Once they were completely, utterly alone, Kris pulled Sehun in and kissed him, hard and long, and he relished in the fact that this was only the first of many such kisses they’d share. The future ahead looked bright, and he was at a point where he couldn’t imagine not having Sehun by his side, much less not knowing he existed.

He got bold and slid a hand under the waistband of Sehun’s sweatpants to palm at his ass, then pulled away in surprise at what he felt. “Lace?” Kris asked.

“Just because I threw away my wigs doesn’t mean I’m going to stop wearing panties. I know how much you like them.” Sehun smirked as Kris groaned and buried his face into his neck.

“Giving me blue balls before a flight is so sinister,” Kris said.

“Our flight isn’t for another two hours. They don’t have to be blue balls.” With that, Kris swept Sehun up and brought him into a stall, locked it, and they had their way with each other.

“God, I love you,” Kris breathed between kisses.

Kris ended up kissing Sehun’s teeth. “I love you too.”