Author: fuckris

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: Kris/Lu-Han

Word Count: 1,690

Warning: This is so spoilery I'm warning you not to take a peek if you hate getting prior clues. (warning: character death)

Summary: Lu Han doesn’t understand.

A/N: Two timelines. What happens right there and then is written in present tense, all outside that is in the past.

Lu Han doesn’t understand.

The air is warm—a pleasant mixed scent of food, faint colognes, and sweat lingers among the colorful, hanging lanterns. Speakers should be thumping, music should be blasting, drums should be banging with a chorus of joyous laughters and starstruck screams. People should be bustling here and there, hand-in-hand with their children, giggling at the soft sensation of cotton candy on their tongues.

It’s a summer festival, where people should be happy.

Lu Han doesn’t understand why they’re not.

He stands by the street light pole, listening to faint whispers of why, what’s happening, what is this as people start to crowd on one spot, tiptoeing, elbowing, and cocking their heads with a hint of curiosity.

Lu Han feels a cold, tingling feeling when people brush their shoulders with his, or shoving him accidentally. Lu Han doesn’t understand why they don’t look even a tad bit guilty.

Lu Han doesn’t understand.

He remembers what he said earlier that evening.

“I want to go the fest”, he whined.

Kris looked up from his controller, not exactly amused. “Why.”

It felt almost too rhetoric.

“I just want to”, Lu Han piped, “The foods are good, they say.”

He stifled a pout when Kris diverted his gaze back to his video game. “I want cotton candies.”

This successfully brought Kris’ attention back to him, and Lu Han swore he could see a spark of amusement in Kris’ eyes. “How old are you, five? Go back to preschool, kid.”

Lu Han faked a hurt expression. “I’m older than you, dimwit.”

“To hell with that.”

Lu Han mimed his words in mockery, and Kris failed to hold back a laugh at that. “Ugh, alright, alright”, he lifted his two hands in defeat, only moving away from the comfort of the couch after pinching Lu Han’s nose. “I don’t get how I ended up dating a toddler.”

Lu Han tiptoed to steal a quick peck on Kris’ lips, and grinned when a little smile emerged on the latter’s lips. “Well, I guess you were just blind.”

Lu Han doesn’t understand.

The crowd is getting more and more packed by the minute, the air a bit more stiff. Lu Han sees people pulling phones out of their pockets, flipping them and dialing numbers in a frantic motion. He sighs, and tries to shoulder his way into the crowd, his curiosity forcing him to shut his mind and all his senses from all the warnings of stay, stop there and stay, and goes past the furthest back line of the crowd.

Lu Han cannot bring himself to care.

“Do you need protection?” Kris said, his iron grip clenching Lu Han’s shoulders as he watched Lu Han stumbling backwards when people bumped onto him for the nth time. Lu Han coughed out an amused chuckle.

“Oh my god”, Lu Han laughed, “That sounds wrong in so many ways.”

It took Kris a bare one minute to realize another implied meaning behind the sentence he uttered—Lu Han hadn’t been counting the time, but let’s just pretend Kris is that stupid, Lu Han thought. He crouched down to the ground and clutched his stomach when Kris facepalmed, trying to hide his lobster-colored cheeks. “You are so perverted for a man-sized toddler—”

“You started it!” Lu Han said amidst his ragged breathing, his eyes twinkling in glee. It’s not often to see Kris blushing—he might as well treasure it as a monument later. He was trying to stand back straight on his feet when a person bumped on him on the back—and if it wasn’t for Kris’ arms, he would’ve fallen down face first to the goddamned soil.

Lu Han glared at the person’s back with such intensity that could’ve bored holes if the latter wasn’t made out of skin and skeleton.

“You are just so fragile”, Kris muttered above his head, and Lu Han blinked when he realized that he was still inside his boyfriend’s embrace.

He stood up straight and swatted away the imaginary dust on his shoulders, looking all smug. “What do you expect? I am as delicate as a fucking porcelain doll.”

Lu Han knocked Kris on the head with his takoyaki stick when the latter faked puking faces.

“Thanks for being such an asshole, boyfriend”, Lu Han muttered under his breath, and Kris broke out a chuckle.

“You’re welcome, fragile toddler.”

“I am not fra—”

Little kids around them were playing tag—one of them bumped into Lu Han’s knee and made the poor latter jerk backwards. Lu Han’s face was red of shame when he looked up to find a laughing Kris in front of him. “Riiiight”, Kris said. Lu Han sticked out his tongue at him.

He didn’t expect Kris to lace their fingers together, back facing him as he led the way. His hold was firm, not too soft yet not too tight, his hand framing Lu Han’s smaller one perfectly. Heat made its way to Lu Han’s face, tainting his pale cheeks in red once again, and wondered if he’s flying because his stomach is basically fluttering.

Lu Han smiled. “This is like a scene in animes.”

Kris snorted. “I thought you like clichés.”

Lu Han thought nothing would erase the sheepish smile on his face tonight as he followed Kris around, thankful for having Kris—an Wu Yi Fan, out of the billions of people on the face of the planet.

Lu Han doesn’t understand why a person in front of him suddenly turns her head away, her hand covering the lower half of her face as though trying to muffle something. A sob?

Then a sudden wave of pity resonated in his ears, a chorus of oh my god, how did this happen, and this is so unfortunate lingered in his eardrums. He doesn’t need to try too hard to catch an implied feeling of pity radiated along with the hushed murmurs.

Lu Han closes his eyes, and continues to try and pass the sea of people.

Lu Han doesn’t understand.

“Oh my god Lu Han are you done”, Kris said, voice coated with half anger but mostly awe, as he watched Lu Han nibbling down his baby blue-tinted cotton candy. It was his third one.

Lu Han was too busy chomping down a large chunk of the heavenly softness to give out a decent reply. “Hrsdkjfmnydfmnf.”

Kris glared. “I’ll take that as a no.”

A little satisfied moan slipped out of Lu Han’s lips as he managed to gulp down the melting sweetness in his mouth. “Nah, I’m done now.”

Lu Han almost choked on his cotton candy stick when Kris made the most stress-relieved-slash-constipated face he’d ever seen. He was feeling rather mischievous. “I suddenly had the urge to buy one more…”, Lu Han joked, stood up from his seat and was going to make his way to the cotton candy booth once again, but Kris had an arm around his waist before he could step his first foot on the ground.

“Oh come on, little kid”, Kris nagged, putting Lu Han back down and laced his fingers with his own. “We haven’t even got into the ferris wheel.”

Lu Han wondered who’s the kid here.

Lu Han elbows his way, parting the crowd, as he finally makes it into the front-most row. Lu Han doesn’t understand why he doesn’t break a sweat at all.

He scans everything in front of him—there is another little crowd of people, kneeling and crouching down around something—or someone, because he swears he can see dangling legs with feet clad in worn-out Converse—that Lu Han cannot see. There is a slick black Porsche on the other side, still inside the big crowd, and a man comes out staggering from the driver’s seat.

The crowd is too noisy for Lu Han’s liking, that he can only manage to make out a few words being uttered by the trembling man.

“I’m so sorry.”

The sound of an ambulance siren roars from a distant, getting even louder by seconds as it draws inches and inches closer, and finally to a halt.

Paramedics  sprawl out from the back door—their clean, white outfit being such a contrast with the dark evening sky. Lu Han hears make way, please, make way being chanted by each of them, and the small crowd in front of him slowly moves away.

Among them, is a pale and a tear-stricken Kris.

It’s not hard to spot the tracks of tears on his cheeks, all the way to his prominent jaws, as the street lamps and cars’ headlights reflect on a pellet of tear that just came running down his eyes.

It hurts to see Kris cry. Lu Han clenches a fist above his chest, wondering why he feels nothing at all.

Why are you crying, Lu Han wants to say. A Kris doesn’t cry. His Kris never cries.

He scoots forward to peek at the noisy paramedics, his curiosity bewilders him as he shuts down all his senses.

He sees a familiar face. Honey-colored hair, plain white t-shirt, overly-washed jeans. Blotches of red are all over his face, his clothes, his everything, and all Lu Han can think of is why am I laying on the ground when I am actually standing right here.

Lu Han smells a sharp copper scent in the air, and suddenly everything clicks to place.

Lu Han suddenly recalls a little conversation that he’s sure Kris wouldn’t remember saying.

“Will you protect me”, Kris mumbled to the crumpled bedsheet, eyes closed. Lu Han wasn’t sure whether he was still awake or he was sleep-talking.

It didn’t sound like a question, more like a rhetoric statement, but Lu Han felt the need to answer.

“Yes, I will”, he said. Forever.

He made a promise.

Lu Han doesn’t understand why Kris is crying.

He’d kept his promise—he protected him.

Lu Han doesn’t understand why Kris is crying.

He’d jumped in and pushed Kris away from that full-speed Porsche to save him.

Lu Han doesn’t understand why Kris is crying.

He wonders if he did something wrong.














A/N 1: ....I am just so mean to this couple i d e
A/N 2: This is in no way included in the Payphone series, I swear lmao this is a stand-alone!!!1!1 Or do you want them to end up tragically like this for their reunion which I'm trying to write rn
A/N 3: People should stop me from writing when I'm hungry or fics will turn out as crappy as this omf