“Where is he? Where is he?!” Sehun flung the door open and looked around, trying not to panic.

            “Sehun-ah–“

            Sehun whirled around.

            “Where is he?!”

            “In surgery.”

            A doctor was standing behind them, holding a clipboard and a folder full of papers.

            Sehun stared.

            “Surgery? But–“

            “It was an emergency surgery.”

            “What?!”

            The doctor put his hand up, stopping Sehun before he could say anything else.

            “Let me explain. The patient woke up today complaining of a headache. Normally, this is normal in brain tumor patients, but he complained continuously, for hours. The nurses finally informed a doctor, who then decided that the only way to really know what was happening was to operate on the patient.”

            Sehun couldn’t say anything.

            Joonmyun stepped forward.

            “How long ago did he go into surgery?”

            “He should be out in about an hour. If you want, you can stay in the waiting room until then.”    

            Joonmyun hesitated before nodding. He motioned to the other members to follow him out the door. Chanyeol tugged on Sehun’s arm, leading him. Sehun could faintly hear Joonmyun talking to Wu Fan on the phone, but he couldn’t make out the words.

            Jongin was sleeping on Sehun’s shoulder, his mouth slightly open. Sehun hoped that he wouldn’t drool. They had been waiting for nearly an hour now, sitting together in the waiting room. Yixing was resting his head on Sehun’s other shoulder, but he wasn’t sleeping. Rather, he was fiddling with his phone, listening to music.

            “Hyung?”

            “Hm?”

            “What are you listening to?” Sehun needed a distraction of some sort.

            Yixing hesitated. Then, “This,” and handed Sehun an earphone. Sehun fit the earphone in his ear and got an earful of Chinese.

            “What is this?”

            “Just listen.”

            Sehun listened, but he didn’t understand any of it.

            “Who sang this?”

            “Just listen.”

            Sehun was confused, but he kept listening. The voice was sweet, angelic.

            Wait…

            “Did Luhan hyung sing this?”

            Yixing nodded.

            “What’s it called?”

            “我让你走了*. It means something like ‘I let you go’.”

            “Sehun-ah?”

            Sehun looked up to see Baekhyun gesturing to him to come over.

            “Yes, hyung?”

            “Come here, I have something to show you.”

            Sehun reluctantly gave Yixing back his earphone and went over to Baekhyun.

            “This is what a fan gave to me today.”

            Baekhyun was holding a circular locket, with ‘S&L’ inscribed on one side. Sehun took it and turned it over in his hand.

            “She told me to give it to you. And she also said to stay strong.”

            Sehun smiled at the sweet words, despite his worry for Luhan.

            “Do you have a picture to put in it?”

            “Um…yeah. I do.”

            Sehun fished out his wallet from his back pocket and opened it, taking out a small picture. The picture that Sehun had found in his jacket pocket; the picture that Luhan had put in the pocket nearly two years ago.

            “Does it fit?”

            Sehun slipped the picture in the locket and positioned it.

            “Yeah. It does.”

            Baekhyun smiled and ruffled Sehun’s hair.

            Sehun eventually fell asleep waiting, his head resting on Chanyeol’s shoulder. So naturally, he woke up to poking. For the first couple minutes, Sehun ignored the poking and kept sleeping. Then Chanyeol whispered in his ear, “The doctor is here, Sehun-ah.”

            Sehun’s eyes flew open and he straightened up. The doctor was really there, holding a clipboard, and looking exhausted. Someone tapped Sehun’s shoulder, and Joonmyun handed him a couple of papers. Sehun scanned the papers frantically, trying to fine where it described Luhan’s condition. He squeezed the locket in his hand, hoping hoping hoping.

            “The patient is doing fine.”

            Sehun’s head snapped up at the doctor’s words.

            “What do you mean by fine?”

            “As in, the spreading of the tumor is slowing down. It has slowed down.”

            “By how much?! How much?!” Sehun was almost hyperventilating.

            The doctor smiled.

            “It’s considered benign now.”

            Silence.

            Then, Wu Fan got up and crushed the doctor in a bear hug. The doctor, who was significantly shorter than Wu Fan, was lifted off the floor, legs dangling.

            Sehun just sat there. Jongin smacked him on the arm.

            “Aren’t you excited? Happy?”

            Sehun felt his lips tug upwards, slowly. There was a weird feeling in his chest. Kind of like relief, but not really.

            He was…happy.

            Sehun thought that he had been happy before, but now, looking back, he realized that he didn’t know what real happiness was.

            This was happiness.

            Luhan was wide awake and waiting for him when he entered the room. There was a huge smile on his face; Sehun thought that it might fall off.

            “Sehun-ah!”

            Sehun didn’t answer, but threw himself on the bed and pulled Luhan close, wrapping his arms around the elder. Luhan laughed and hugged back, burying his face into Sehun’s neck. Sehun couldn’t stop smiling, kind of like Joonmyun and Chanyeol all the time.

            I must be smiling like an idiot then.

            Whatever. Who cared?

            Joonmyun eventually pulled Sehun off of Luhan so everyone else could hug him too. Tao cried and hung on to his hyung, and Luhan the younger boy’s hair, comforting him. Kyungsoo was the first to yell at Luhan for not eating properly, and promised him lots of food when he got back home, which Joonmyun and Xiumin were glad to hear. Jongin lightly punched Luhan and told him, “If you ever scare us like that again, I swear to God I will kill you”. Luhan laughed and promised never to scare them ever again.

            Sehun approved of the promise.

            After everyone had hugged Luhan and/or threatened him, the doctor was able to make his voice heard. 

            “The patient will be able to return home in a couple of weeks after one last surgery to remove the tumor for good and rehabilitation.”

            Luhan cheered and wrapped his arms around Sehun.

            But the doctor looked a little worried.

            Joonmyun caught the look on his face too.

            “Is there a catch?”

            The doctor hesitated, and said, “Rehabilitation will take about a year, maybe more, maybe less.”

            Luhan paused before smiling again.

            “It’s okay. We can get through this.” And then he kissed Sehun, smack on the lips.

            Sehun smiled at the memory, but then he remembered where he was.

            Chanyeol was staring at the wall, unable to look at the body that was Baekhyun. Sehun didn’t know what to say to him.

            The funeral happened not too long after that. It was an open casket ceremony, and Baekhyun looked almost as young as he had been during their EXO days. Sehun smiled as he remembered Baekhyun belting out those high notes, his neck veins about to pop. Baekhyun had used to use the most eyeliner out of all of them, and they would never ever stop making fun of him for that.

            After the viewing, Baekhyun was put in the hearse, and the rest of them followed in various cars. Sehun was in a car with Jongdae and some of his family that were able to attend. Jongdae’s youngest grandchild was a little girl of two named Eunah, and she insisted sitting on Sehun’s knee. When a tear fell from Sehun’s eye, she reached up and brushed it away, saying “it’s okay to cry sometimes, but not too much because then everyone else will be sad too”. And Sehun agreed with her.

            Sehun watched as Chanyeol stooped to press his lips to Baekhyun’s forehead one last time, and then the casket was closed and lowered to the ground.

            And Baekhyun was gone.

            Next to Sehun, there were tears silently pouring down Joonmyun’s face. On the other side of Sehun, Jongin was biting his lip, trying hard not to cry. He wasn’t very successful, and soon his lined cheeks were wet.

            But Sehun wasn’t crying like they were. The pain of memories was beyond tears.

            Afterwards, they were all back at Sehun’s house, talking about old times, even though it was painful.

            Chanyeol even managed a couple of smiles here and there.

            “Remember Luhan’s–“ Yixing cut off and avoided Sehun’s eyes.

            But Sehun said, “No, keep going.”

            Yixing looked up. “Remember the last time we saw him?”

            Sehun leaned back. “Yeah. I remember.”

*I Let You Go (Luhan cover)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-k_r1bngd8

A/N: GUYS IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO FINISH THIS CHAPTER

and I see I lost a subscriber

PSH YOU'RE MISSING OUT ;DDDDDD

THANKS FOR READING!!! I LOVE YOU ALL