EXO fanfic- No Way To Go Home
Chapter 12- Wish You The Best
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Yixing only realized it was nearing dusk when they came out of the building. Luhan still didnât speak a word, just pulling Yixing along, across the field, past the hill and the tree they used to sit by, avoiding the few people they met along the way until they reached the outskirt of the prison camp where a thick, overgrown hedge fenced its perimeter. Luhan bent down and swept away a pile of earth, dirt and dried leaves before pulling out a baggage from underneath. The baggage was a cloth wrapped parcel, neatly tied, with its ends twirled snugly into a sling for carrying. Except for its cream colour which was soiled with blotches of brown, the baggage looked meticulously packed and prepared. While dusting the baggage, Luhan kicked off a heap of debris and revealed a hole cut through the thick fence of wooden mesh, just wide enough for a person to crawl through.
âAfter you get across, there will be someone to take youâŠâ Luhan paused momentarily, before he found a word, âSomewhere.â Luhan then continued to keep himself occupied with dusting the baggage and checking that it was securely tied, as if doing that one thing repetitively, it would take his mind off from the real thing that was happening before him.
Yixing just stood there the whole time looking at Luhan. Yixing didnât ask whereâs that somewhere the someone would bring him to, he wanted more to ask the reason for Luhanâs drawn face, the deepening folds between his brows, and the stiffened grip on the baggage. Yixing could sense that Luhan was trying to avoid his eyes, and when Luhan finally looked up, he noticed the subtle red that had smudged in his eyes.
âIf it wasnât for the war, we would have be friends, right?â Luhan asked, with crackles in his voice, the folds between his eyes softened into fine crinkles as a smile strained over his quivering lips, âBut if it wasnât for the war, we wouldnât have met, right?â
Yixing thought he had heard something like that before, and he could almost feel that similar pain which those slits of words had left on his heart some time back. Yixing couldnât say anything, but stared at the scar he made on Luhanâs cheek two years ago. Though the scar had somewhat faded, the memory of the events that happened on the day they first met still remained vivid.
Luhan then slung the bag across Yixingâs shoulders, and with a grin that seemed too bitter to be called a smile, Luhan said, âNow I donât owe you anything. I⊠wish you the best.â
And that seemed like the last goodbye, with Luhan shoving Yixing towards the hole and hurrying him through, giving Yixing no chance to turn back. Yixing didnât recall how the twigs and spikes had pierced and cut him nor how they had caught and tattered his shirt and trousers as he squeezed through the tunnel. He just kept thinking of those familiar lines that Luhan had said, and he realized that he had never told Luhan about Sehun- of how they shared this strange resemblance of each other, of how their demeanors were so similar, of how they even said the same thing to him, with that similar tone bearing a resignation of how a friendship was never possible between them. Yixing realized he didnât want to leave, not just yet. He wanted to turn back and go back to tell Luhan about all these things. But the tunnel was a one-way passage, too narrow for Yixing to turn back and he could only keep going forward. This time Yixing thought about the six days when he didnât see Luhan and he wondered if Luhan had spent the six days digging through this thick mesh, burrowing through this shambles, just to find a way to let him go.
Yixing got across and exited at the other side of the hedge. He found the grass on this end the same barren green, the sky the same awful red, and he didnât know if he had imagined this repugnant stench in the air that was becoming so suffocating that he could hardly breathe. He didnât feel like a bird out of its cage; more like a fish out of water; a jilted leaf fallen from its stalk, wafting helplessly in the wind, in no specific direction, to no intended destination.
A tall young man wearing a low cap stood motionless next to a pickup and stared at Yixing. The man seemed to have waited a long time, impatiently, and appeared somewhat relieved to finally see Yixing. The two men studied each other for a while, before the taller man broke the silence, âArenât you coming? We donât have much time.â
The urgency in the manâs voice dragged Yixing forward a few steps before he stopped and turned back to look at the hedge that he had just crawled through. The hedge was only about a few yards thick, but it felt like a vast distance had separated him from Luhan. Yixing couldnât see anything through the dense reticulation and he could only picture Luhan standing right across, alone, with only his own shadow solidly imprinted on the desolate soil. The thought of it churned an acrid sickness in Yixingâs stomach and he didnât want to move for a long time.
âCome on. We have to leave now!â The man hopped onto the driver seat and the engine squealed to a start. While the man was gesturing impatiently for Yixing to get on the pickup, Yixing turned back one more time to that hole in the hedge. Yixing was sure he couldnât get back across at this point, but he had this wishful and desperate yearn for someone to come through it.
He waited. But it never happened. Yixing eventually ran to get on the pickup- its destination unnamed but Yixing decided to take a leap of faith. The pickup took off immediately with a lurch in a cloud of dust, and soon, the prison camp where Yixing had been held for the past two years shrank away like a place he had never heard of. Yixing knew he wasnât going to miss this place, but he couldnât help keep staring back, feeling somehow he had left words unsaid, things undone, and someone behind. Yixing sat facing the rear the whole time, his eyes just fixed on the hole in the hedge, watching that hole get smaller and smaller while the one in his heart grew bigger. His eyes gradually lost focus until he saw a figure emerged from the hole, so tiny now, he thought he might have imagined it. Yixing could vaguely make out the outline of the person, and it was definitely Luhan, waving frantically with both hands in the air, as if screaming something that wasnât meant to be heard. Yixing scrambled to his feet and lost his balance instantaneously, falling back onto the seat of the unsteady vehicle.
âWhat do you think youâre doing?â Shouted the irritated driver over the noisy clattering of the engine, stealing glance at Yixing through the mirror while driving.
That was when it struck Yixing that this was really the last goodbye. If Yixing knew that this would be the last time heâd get to see Luhan, he would read every of his expressions just so as to be able to remember him forever. If Yixing knew that this would be the last chance to tell Luhan something, he would have hugged Luhan tightly and told him how much he had appreciated his friendship, and he wouldnât just foolishly assume that Luhan already knew it. But the distance became too far for words to reach Luhan, and Yixing could no longer read any expressions off the face of that man who had gradually shriveled to a dot and disappeared into one of those indistinguishable smutches of the distant landscape.
Yixing sat facing the rear the whole time, just staring blankly at the things- muddy trails, solemn trees, reminiscences of foregone people and places- passing him and dwindling away to nothingness. The sun crouched lower and lower in the sky on his left and he knew they were heading towards South- on a journey bringing him back, closer to his home. Yixing thought his spirit would lift a little after such a long hellish dip, but he only found himself blinking away, having to glare up to the dusky sky to fight that bitter urge to cry. He then realized it wasnât the stench in the air that was suffocating him, but it was his tears that had soundlessly leaked and pooled, making it all so difficult to breathe. And Yixing finally understood that labored smile on Luhanâs face, of how that smile was so gawkily and painfully pinned up on his face just to prevent those tears from falling. Being through so many separations hadnât made anything easier. Every leaving inevitably came with a set of pain and regret. Yixing felt like a sheet of paper at the mercy of the wind. Wherever he landed, a part of him melded into that place, and when the wind decided for him to move on, that part of him would be ripped and left there, leaving him with a ragged corner to remind him of his loss that could only be found in his memories. The season was up for the place and its people. The thought of missing Luhan- of him becoming some voiceless impression in Yixingâs memory, unreal imagery in his dream, reduced to inadequate stanza of words and paragraphs in one of his unfinished stories- swept an overbearing sadness through Yixing, and tears just gushed out uncontrollably as he watched helplessly at the sun vanish on his left, this time, gone, for good.
