time. how irrelevant we thought the idea of it all was. 

“we have time. we possess time. we own every hour and every day and every month and every year of time. we are time.” that’s what it had come to. but i suppose that everything – no matter how infinite it seems – must come to an end at some point. perhaps we should’ve known that we couldn’t hold on to something so intangible and figurative as time for so long. that would be cheating the universe.

then again, i suppose that we were quite good at that as well.

would you believe me if i told you that hell was cold?

it’s funny. if our circumstances hadn’t come to this (if i were still sleeping by your side, kicking you awake whenever you started to snore; if i were still there holding your hand as we rushed through the busy streets; if i were still there embracing you when you looked like you were about to break in a desperate attempt to make sure that all the fragments of your being remained glued together), i can easily imagine the chuckle that would escape your lips as those words of mine echoed into the air.

light, airy, effortless.

like an angel.

how ironic, huh?

i’m not stupid, lu. ever since that chanced meeting (or would destined be the better word?) atop that grassy hill, i knew what you were: trouble. of course, i hadn’t anticipated just how much trouble you were destined to bring about.

but if i had known, would i still have accepted your hand? if i had known that you were an extension of the devil himself, would i still have listened to all your words with an open mind? if i had known that our meeting, that the unspoken bond we formed with one another on that night, would lead to my eventual entrapment in this dark abyss, would i have still invited you to sit with me under the stars?

would you believe me if i told you that the answer would be yes? that to any question you asked me, my initial reaction would always be to say yes?

yixing, do you think that i look okay? yes.

yixing, do you think that i’ll get better soon? yes.

yixing, do you think that i’m important? yes.

yes, yes, yes. for you, luhan, it was always yes.

can you believe that for me? despite everything, will you be able to hear these faded words of mine and know that I’m telling the truth?

what am i talking about? you’ll believe anything i say. you always did and you’ve always been so resistant to change. if even the foulest, most disgusting lie were to escape my lips, you would embrace the words as though they were the only truth that you had ever known. perhaps that’s why our fate has turned out this cursed.

maybe we were a mistake. maybe two people were never meant to trust each other as much as we did.

and maybe that’s why everything turned sour as soon as i decided to betray your trust. maybe that makes me the bad guy in our story: the story of luhan and yixing. kind of like the story of peter and wendy, right? it has the same ring to it.

maybe that just adds on to the irony.

i was scared. i was – no. i am a coward. i’m a repulsive, worthless figment of reality that’s been crossed out over and over again from the mark of existence with the blood of the devil himself.

luhan, from the moment my mother died, from the moment that i was left alone in that miniscule abode with nothing but the clothes on my back, my world became black and white. there was no more shining sun or rippling waves or blooming flowers: everything was stuck in a cursed monochrome spectrum. all the life had been out of my very reality and it was scary. and i didn’t know what to do. i felt so alone.

but as i wandered to and fro, i would see a splash of color: a ray of sunshine that would make its way through the endless darkness, a while lily floating in the lake, a single flower the color of a smile blooming amongst a field of endless gray.

i didn’t understand it. and i suppose that i never really tried to.

all i really understood was that these small displays of life had become the bane of my existence, keeping me from slitting my own throat or jumping into the jagged rocks of the ocean.

but suddenly, all the color disappeared.

and i found that that was all it took for me to forsake what little hope i had left.

when you waltzed into my life on that fateful night, i knew i had to trust you. i knew that i was meant to trust you.

because, luhan… luhan, you brought back the color. luhan, you were the color.

i know that it sounds stupid. we didn’t even know each other. i didn’t know who you were or what i was getting myself into.

but you were the color. you were my color. you are my color.

and perhaps that’s what led to our downfall.

when you asked me on that fateful night “do you trust me?” the answer was already yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

of course, saying that out loud wouldn’t give off a very good impression, would it? i couldn’t let you know how much i needed you, how desperate i was for you to whisk me away from the hellish grayscale world that i was living in and towards the rainbows and rainbows of color and joy and life.

i was like a moth of darkness and you were like my spark of light.

no, that’s not right.

i am like a moth of darkness and you are my spark of light.

when i signed away my soul to wufan, i knew what i was getting myself into. everything was painstakingly clear by then.

but see, the thing is that i didn’t care.

i mindlessly sold my very existence to the devil himself because i knew that i had to follow you. there was something about you that i knew i had to decipher.

i’d later realize what it was.

think about it this way: we are two sides to the same coin, lu. but while i’m lost in a sea of apprehension and fear and doubt and pessimism, you’re running through an endless pasture full of confidence and hope and courage and this dreamlike optimism that shouldn’t be real.

but it is real.

because you’re real.

lu, while i’ve become nonexistent and insubstantial, you’re real. you’re the shining sun and the roaring waves and the scent of a newly blossomed flower and you’re so real and in every piece of the world that it’s unbelievable. unbelievable, but so, so real.

that’s what scared me.

because i didn’t deserve you. i don’t deserve you.

you are an ethereal being, and i your shadow. you are the shooting stars, and i the endless night that you fly through. you are the sun, and i the splotch of darkness that ruins your glowing beauty.

it didn’t make sense for a light as bright as you to care so much for an empty void like me.

and it was even more ridiculous for something as worthless as me to long to envelope you in a warm embrace or to your cheek while you were sleeping or to kiss your forehead when you felt scared.

it didn’t make sense. i wasn’t making sense.

i had gotten too attached. and aren’t such attachments only nuisances to others?

but why did i care so much about what others thought? why did i have to care so much when everything that i wanted – everything that i needed – was by my side the whole time?

luhan, i’m stupid. i know that you know that and i know that you hate me for it.

i wanted to run away from you. i wanted to stay as far away as possible from you because when i began to recognize the emotions stirring within my heart, i knew how dangerous they were.

and it scared me. because, lu, everything scares me. yet despite all that, you always, always managed to take my hand and guide me through the storm.

how could i run from my protector? how could i escape the warm embrace of my guardian? what sense would it make for me to try and flee from the safety of the man who had taken a silent oath to keep me away from all harm?

then again, what sense did it make for my guardian angel to be the right-hand man of the devil himself?

luhan, i think that our relationship was meant to be incredibly unreasonable. because how can you explain a bond that was created by satan himself? it shouldn’t be possible for such an insubstantial bond to be created either.

but the two of us – our story – proves that all wrong.

many years ago, i heard the tale of a young man who sat between the gates of heaven and hell waiting for a lost lover. he’s a familiar face to many: small face, doe eyes glinting with mischief, not too tall, not too short. has the looks of a young child despite his age and an enchanting voice that is impossible to ignore. people say that at the beginning of time, he was always jubilant and friendly despite the hellish life which many assumed he lived. he used to always be up and about, jumping from place to place, immune to age’s curse, without a care in the world. but now, all he does is sit. his eyes no longer glisten: they look tired and lifeless. his skin is no longer youthful and radiant: there are dark bags underneath his eyes and a pale pallor which surely can’t be natural. there are cuts up and down his arms that he never allows to fade because he always keeps a knife in his hand, a gun in the other, and a lighter in his pocket. his hair, which was once soft to the touch, has become matted with dirt in an untidy heap above his head. and even though he used to sing a familiar tune everywhere he went, he is now – for the most part – mute.

but whenever someone asks him about what he’s doing, he suddenly springs back to life – like a jack in his box – and says, “i have a friend that’s meeting me here in neverland. as soon as he comes, we’re going to fly away together and never come back.”

then silence.

luhan, why are you doing this to yourself?

please, please, please don’t do this because of me.

on that day – that last day we spent together – you were trying to tell me something. there was something that i could tell you wanted to say, but you were too scared to. you thought that i didn’t understand. i could see the desperation and disappointment in your eyes.

lu, of course i understood. i always understood.

but the understanding. the understanding is what scared me.

i know that the words won’t matter anymore. it’s too late for us. it’s too late for me.

but it’s not too late for you, lu. you still have the rest of eternity in the palm of your hand. don’t let silly old me get in the way of that.

wufan told me that sometimes, if i talk and if you’re trying really hard to listen, you can hear me.

i know that it’s stupid to listen to wufan, but he’s really the only person that i have to talk to. i hope that you don’t take everything that he says seriously. you know how much of a liar he is.

i wonder, lu. can you hear me?

if you can, then stop being stupid. don’t throw away your existence because of me. where’s the fun in that? the luhan that i know doesn’t let things get him down. he doesn’t mope around and waste time doing nothing. no, he picks himself up and frolics around like an idiot while screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs because why should something that happened in the past have to take away his entire future? the luhan that i know gets up and punches people in the face when they piss him off and plots bizarre schemes to get people to do things that he doesn’t want to do because he’s incredibly lazy and enjoys living without any worries. the luhan that i know radiates life and sunshine and pure joy despite the fact that he’s an angel of death because the luhan that i know thinks that labels and restrictions are pointless and incredibly ridiculous.

luhan, i’m upset enough because of what my selfish fear has gotten us into, but if my mistake has ruined the one person that meant anything to me at all, then the deepest pit of hell is too glorious a place for someone as disgusting as me to belong.

so, luhan, please. i beg you to forgive me. to forgive me for being ignorant and self-centered and decidedly oblivious to everything that we could have had together, and to forgive me for what i’m about to say:

forget about me. don’t waste away lamenting mistakes or trying to kill yourself. don’t sit there like a lifeless doll and let eternity pass you by – because i think that we both now know that sometimes what we consider to be eternity isn’t actually an eternity after all. don’t spend every moment that you have thinking about me because i’ve already been forsaken and there’s no more hope for my salvation. don’t hear these words of mine and suddenly burst into tears either, because i feel like i can hear your sobs all the way from down here.

i want you to trust these words this time, because luhan, i love you too much to allow you to continue living like this.

and no matter what the universe throws at you, just remember that somewhere, deep, deep within the layers of hell, you have a friend praying for God’s miracle to be bestowed upon you – praying that the divine being will take pity on the happenings of your life and grant you freedom from the clutches of hell.

when you feel like nothing is going you way and that there’s no more point to your existence, just remember:

you still have me, you know.

---

author's note: just a sort extension of "neverland's will." from yixing's perspective. a few people were thinking that the main reason why yixing and luhan didn't end up together was primarily because of his religion, and i wanted to shed some light on that. it was a bit difficult to understand since "neverland's will." is told in third person limited (luhan) so you're not really able to get many of yixing's thoughts.

wanted to get this up today in honor of yixing's birthday, and it's actually only part of the celebration that i hope to post today. more layhan angst is on the way (and if i can, expect some layhan fluff as well LOL)~ c: i really can't thank all of you enough for your supoprt. hopefully this is enjoyable for you all? :3

despite the short length (well, i suppose it's actually quite long for what was originally supposed to be a drabble), i hope that you all found it enjoyable! c: thanks for reading.