Sweet as honey, your smile is as sweet as honey, just like the flowers blooming in the spring breeze

Luhan first laid his eyes on that letter in the spring of his 16th year, set neatly by the front door in its crisp, baby blue envelope. In the frenzy of getting ready, the bright blue had caught his eye and he felt mutely surprised that there was a letter addressed to him. Despite his curiosity, he was already running late so he swiped it off the floor and stuffed it into his bag without another thought and took off sprinting in hopes of beating the first bell.

It was only when he all but plopped into his seat, gasping for air and relieved that he had made it, that he remembered the envelope burning a hole at the bottom of his bag. As the teacher took attendance, Luhan discreetly drew the envelop out of his bag and placed it on his lap.

Examining it and confirming that he read correctly, he started to suspect this letter as a prank, because it was sent in his name. Nonetheless, Luhan opened the letter and began to read.

    April 6th

Luhan,

To the sixteen year old me, how have you been? It may seem unbelievable, but I am writing to you from ten years into the future. If you are wondering why I sent this letter, it is because there is something I must ask of you. I know you will dismiss this as a prank, but I will prove to you that it is not. Today, you overslept for the first time in your life.

Luhan squinted at these words, feeling mildly suspicious and perhaps stupid for being slightly convinced. He read on.

There will be a new student coming into your class from New York. His name is Oh Sehun. He will sit next to you.

At that moment, the classroom door opened silently, effectively muting the brightest, most popular boy in the grade, Park Chanyeol, who had been loudly telling a joke. And there stood a boy that contrasted Chanyeol so much it was almost funny, with a blank face and a downtrodden look. His shoulders slumped and Luhan could tell that his eyes, the color of cornflower blue, was once beautiful, but was presently glazed with misery. The teacher stood up and waved the boy standing at the doorway in, and as if his hands held strings to the boy, he reluctantly complied and stood in front of the class. His sorrowful eyes cast over the class, seeing nothing, and the teacher gestured to him,

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new student joining us today from Busan. His name is Oh Sehun.”

He paused and craned his neck to search for an empty seat, which was, of course, next to Luhan’s.

“Sehun, you will sit next to Luhan.”

A flight of panic rose within Luhan, and that was the moment that it dawned upon him that the letter was real and that he held the telling of his future in his hands. Trying to maintain a calm face as Sehun shuffled down the aisle towards his new seat, Luhan glanced down to see that there was a bit more to the letter.

Chanyeol will ask Sehun to walk home with him after school and Sehun will say no. Chanyeol will insist, but I hope with all my being that you stop him from going home with Chanyeol today. Just today.

Blood pounded in Luhan’s ears as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to abandon the crucial information given to him. With his hands trembling, he managed to shove the letter back into the envelope and back into his bag, out of sight. The contents of the letter would change Luhan and possibly other people’s future; He did not believe he could deal with that sort of burden. At sixteen, Luhan was unable to grasp the gravity of the situation.

Sure enough, at the moment school let out, Luhan saw the happy virus swagger up to Sehun being jostled around in the busy hallways. He overheard him invite Sehun to go home with him, and Sehun rejected his offer, just like the letter said he would. Knowing Chanyeol, however, he always got his way with everyone and Sehun was no different. They walk together past Luhan towards the exit and he watched while holding his breath, wondering if it would really be a bad thing if Sehun went home with Chanyeol like the letter said.

He watched them walk for a few steps, and then Chanyeol must have cracked a joke, because Sehun threw his head back and laughed with a clear and alluring voice; his eyes were vibrant and sparkled like the sea. Slightly taken aback by this burst of life from the somber boy he met this morning, Luhan decided with a pounding heart that Sehun looked happy, and if he was happy, then it couldn’t be too drastic to let him go home with Chanyeol.

Luhan walked into the classroom the next morning, savoring the feeling of punctuality and a chaotic mess of classmates that either looked stunted with shock or were sobbing bombarded him. A bouquet of white lilies laid on Chanyeol’s desk, and it didn’t take very long for him to piece together that Chanyeol never got home yesterday.

They found him lying dead in a ditch with a severing wound to his head. As Luhan kneeled by cold and empty desk to pray, he noticed with a chill of suspicion that Sehun did not appear in this mass of mourning people. Realization and dread overwhelmed him, and Luhan knew that this was what the letter was foretelling and was trying to have him prevent. On shaky knees, Luhan managed to get back to his own desk and pulled the letter out again. He thought that what already happened was the end of it, but the second page of the letter proved that the extent of his wrongdoing stretched far beyond it.

Finally, I would like to tell you the reason I am writing this letter. I do not want the sixteen year old me to carry a lifetime of regrets. Ten years from now, Sehun is no longer with me.

The day Chanyeol invited Sehun to walk home with him, Chanyeol was murdered.

Sehun was the last person he was seen with, and so the next day, Sehun was arrested under the suspicion of murder. You would expect the court to run a fair system and realize that they had no solid evidence against Sehun and would release him, but the truth is that the court was careless with too many cases to deal with and the jury were full of people who loved Chanyeol and scorned Sehun with prejudiced eyes.

The lawyer used legal terms to confuse Sehun and tricked him into confessing to the murder. Within ten minutes of discussion, the judge concluded that Sehun was guilty of the murder, therefore sentenced to death by electrocution. Ten years after his death however, detectives reopened the case that was widely known to be an event that was caused by one boy’s death and resulted in another. They discovered that Sehun was found in a surveillance tape of a convenient store at 3:30, and with proper questioning to witnesses, they concluded that Sehun hadn’t gone home with Chanyeol at all.

This sparked great controversy over the ability of our government to sentence those who were essentially children to death penalties, punishment meant for adults. Even if Sehun had still been found guilty, he wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for the court’s decision to execute him as the law allowed them to. Please, watch over Sehun closely, and find the evidence to prove his innocence.

To Luhan’s despair, he learned that the hearing for Sehun commenced that day. He stormed out of school the moment the last bell rang, and headed to the courthouse. One look at Sehun’s amateurish  and scrawny lawyer surrounded by the media, hopelessly shaking his head and he knew. April 16th, just four days after Sehun’s 17th birthday, would be his last day on earth.

Despite the fact that Luhan poured every ounce of might into finding the convenience store store he went to and begging them for the tape, it was too late. Sehun had supposedly confessed to the murder, and that was all the court needed to hear. Clinging to his last thread of hope, Luhan turned to the last page of the letter.

April 16th

Today is the day Sehun will executed. I went to visit him that day. Even though I never spoke to him before, I heard that his father was a negligent  drunk and his mother died long ago. I knew that I couldn’t let him die thinking that no one cared for him in his last moments. That was also the day I fell in love with him.

Feeling the heavy guilt drape over him, Luhan knew that he failed to save Sehun. He also knew that this was the guilt that carried on into his life ten years from now, and propelled him in the future to send this letter. He didn’t want to face Sehun, the boy he helped kill, but he decided with a pounding heart that he wouldn’t allow Sehun to die unhappy.

The prison guards almost didn’t allow for Sehun to talk to him. However, seeing a tearing sixteen year old with doe-like eyes pleading to see a boy equally young that was doomed to die in a few hours probably awoke the humanity within them and they granted for Luhan’s wish. He waited on the other side of the glass window anxiously, not quite sure what to say to a boy he met just ten days ago.

The jail door opened silently, and there a boy in chains, who contrasted Chanyeol so much that it was almost funny. But then again, Luhan mused that it was funny, in a sick and ironic way,  because they both met the fate of death so early despite their differences. Sehun shuffled over to the seat across from him, and picked up the phone as he did the same.

“Hello,” Luhan’s voice threatened to waver but he told myself he couldn’t be the weak one at this time, “My name is Luhan.”

“I know.” the alluring voice of honey replied. Luhan glanced up in confusion to meet his eyes, and he saw the spark. “You’re the boy that tried to prove my innocence. I heard from my lawyer.”

Luhan  blushed and looked away, afraid to meet eyes with the boy with the eyes with the depth and beauty of the sea. There was a long period of silence before he knew how to reply.

“I’m sorry.” Luhan whispered, because he knew his voice would crack under the guilt building in his chest.

Sehun’s lips quivered, as if he was trying to hold back his emotions, but Luhan couldn’t tell if it was a smile or tears that he was hiding.

“It’s not your fault.” He offered, with his voice of a gentle, summer breeze. A cold, glass wall stood between them, but Luhan felt his warmth embrace him, and he knew that he had to do everything in his power to make it up to Sehun in his last moments.

“But it’s not your fault either.”

Sehun’s eyes widened, as if he didn’t expect Luhan to say it. His face crumbled, and although his eyes of sea filled with even more water and flowed down his cheeks, his smile, the radiance Luhan saw in him when he was with Chanyeol, was there.

“Thank you. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for caring.”

Luhan shook my head fiercely, causing the tears that had been teetering to finally cascade. He should not be thanking him. Luhan could have saved him; He was already at the edge with the lifesaver in hand but Luhan chose to let him drown, foolishly thinking that he was doing Sehun good. And now, Sehun would die because of his mistake.

The guards sidled up to Luhan, gently telling him that our time was up. In a burst of desperation to gain forgiveness, Luhan pressed his hands against the glass, and Sehun lifted his hands to touch Luhan’s through the glass. Ten fingers, Luhan counted. The two of them together made ten. It’s always been ten with Sehun, Luhan realized as he watched Sehun’s retreating back. Oh Sehun looked back once more. His clear eyes glowed with what Luhan convinced himself to be contentment, and that was the last Luhan ever saw of him.

With the words forever unspoken dying at the tip of his tongue with each passing second, Luhan thought, I love you, but didn’t say it. Their conversation did not last for more than ten minutes, but Luhan felt it and knew that had he been able to save Sehun, he would have spent the rest of his life with him.

That was ten years ago, and not a single day went by without Luhan wanting to destroy himself with the both the regret of not being able to save Sehun, and not being able to tell him. The truth is, the government revealed the invention that could send things back in time just 4 years after Sehun's death, but Luhan decided to wait, because it had always been ten with Sehun and it only seemed right to wait ten years.

And so, this is my letter to the sixteen year old Luhan. The events that are about to occur will change the events of both your and Sehun’s future. Please watch over Sehun closely, and I hope that you can find it within yourself to save him this time.