#yeah theres also a gothic au vibe to this??

[taeilm]

99¢ dreams // sehun (click thru the link first ty)

you walk into a diner on a late-june afternoon. the sweltering heat subsides as the door swings shut behind you. the silent desert air is replaced by the din of forks on plates, cups on saucers, mindless chatter.

the lone empty seat catches your eye when you survey the room, but a young man occupies the bench across from it, lazily twirling a half-empty salt shaker. you find it odd that a diner next to a recondite highway shortcut should be so crowded at this in-between hour. at any hour.

something uncharacteristically impulsive overtakes you. perhaps it’s prompted by the dim glow of hung lights, subdued yet charged with an uncanny energy. perhaps it’s the heat of the desert trapped beneath your skin from those long hours of driving, and you’re dying for a sip of something cold. whatever it is, you find yourself striding over to the boy slouched against his seat.

“may i sit here?” you ask when you reach him. assertively, though not impolitely.

aside from the ceaseless, hypnotic motion of his pale fingers around the salt shaker, his posture remains the same. it’s as if he neither saw nor heard you.

up close, his features appear sharper, more resolute. the silver-blond of his hair is tinted a wily pink beneath the flickering neon lights, and a few strands fall over his eyes, stirring lightly with each exhale. the shadows seem to gather around his eyes beneath the sharp dip of his brow ridge, so much that he almost resembles a ghoul upon first glance. his lips are drawn into an uncompromising line, and there’s a certain edge of cruelty to his unblinking gaze, trained on the seat across from him.

you convince yourself that you’re imagining things.

“excuse me.” this time, you knock on the table. “may i sit here? everywhere else is taken.”

his eyes are the only things that move upon your words. they’re neither friendly nor annoyed when they meet yours. there’s no edge to his gaze at all as you’d earlier thought. it’s just lukewarm, insipid, and utterly uncomfortable to stare into.

after what seems an eternity, he finally replies. his voice is dull and neutral, just like his eyes.

“are you sure you want to sit here?”

you nod.

“then i supposed you must.”

disconcerted by his words, you settle down nonetheless, sliding into the seat. you wave a waitress over and she takes your order. never once does she look at the boy; her eyes pass over the occupied seat like he doesn’t exist.

an agitated silence fills the air once she leaves. you play with your fingers beneath the table, pretending to focus on the restaurant scene instead of the boy two feet away from you.

without warning, the salt shaker hits the table with a loud clang, and you jump. the neighboring tables must have heard it, too, but none of them show the slightest reaction.

when you snap your attention back to the boy, you find that he has leaned closer, elbows now resting on the table edge, a hand lazily propping up his chin.

“you’re lost, darling,” he mumbles through his fingers.

you bend toward him slightly, thinking you must have misheard. “i’m sorry?” 

“you won’t find what you want here.” there’s the faintest glint of amusement in his eyes. yet instead of enlivening his features, it makes him look even more inhuman than before. “you’ve wandered into the wrong nightmare.”