For: OhMyKrisus

A/N: Your request was a little like a chaptered-fic prompt instead of a short one-shot but I hope the essence of it is still all right with you :) thanks for waiting so long! Things are horribly busy :(

-

Sometimes, Atiya finds that she really doesn't understand Oh Sehun. 

They've been best friends almost all their lives, attending the same schools and growing up together and sharing the same friends and talking about everything and anything at all. Atiya knows Sehun inside-out, knows that when his eyes crinkle into tiny crescents it means that he's happy, knows that when he rolls his eyes subtly that he's angry, knows that when he worries his bottom lip and shrinks in on himself that he's scared, and knows that when he fiddles with the hem of his shirt and laughs too loudly that he's lying. 

But Atiya just can't seem to understand why Sehun keeps berating himself all the time, why Sehun has these bouts of low self-esteem, why Sehun can't seem to realise that he's him, he's Oh Sehun, and he's everything that makes a person perfect. 

Of course, when they were young and ignorant and living in their world of magical fantasy, Sehun was everything a little boy should be- snarky and confident and full of bravado, showing off his latest toy collections to his friends and getting involved in fights with plastic swords around the playground. But then they were growing up, chubby cheeks turning into sharp cheekbones, toothy smiles turning into girlish and boyish grins. They both had their rough times, Atiya having to deal with the y clique of girls in middle school and Sehun having to push himself so hard to make the cut and join the basketball team and secure his place in high school. 

But those were events of the past. Now they're both seniors, both entering the final leg of their graduation year, and yet somehow, Sehun's little inferiority complex (it was always there, Atiya knows. It started when Sehun got teased in freshman year of high school for his lisp but got somewhat squashed after his entering into the school's basketball team, after he made a steady group of friends who accepted him and joked around with him, but somehow or another it's back and it's pissing Atiya off so bad) has started to amplify itself again. Atiya was completely stumped when she first started noticing it again, when she would bound up to Sehun's locker after classes and he would shrink in on himself and slam his locker shut and walk away with slumped and defeated shoulders, when he refused to let her in or made up one ridiculous excuse or another whenever she paid a visit to his house a couple of streets away. 

Atiya was stumped for a good few months, but then finals rolled around and everyone got busy but right after that, right after finals ended and it was time for graduation and prom preparation, Atiya finally figured it out. 

The reason for Sehun's lack of self-esteem lay in his hidden crush for the vice-president of the student council, Im Yoona. 

Once Atiya pieced the pieces together and started paying more attention she realised it was all undoubtedly true. From the way Sehun would approach Yoona, so tentative and unsure of himself (and it took all of Atiya's self-control to not hurl her fat- History textbook at her best friend and ask him why aren't you holding your head up high, you're wonderful and beautiful why can't you understand?), to the way Sehun would curl in on himself when Yoona responded to him with noncommittal shrugs and tight-lipped smiles. And all the time Sehun would let this affect him, would let this eat away at his self-confidence and self-esteem and Atiya simply just couldn't understand why her best friend won't walk away from the things that hurt him the most. 

-

The day Sehun comes knocking at Atiya's front door, it's the Friday night before prom. 

"Sehun!" Atiya doesn't know what's the tone lacing her voice. She's pretty sure it's a mix of happiness and confusion and worry and question. 

The corner of Sehun's lips twist upwards into that adorable little smile Atiya has come to love (the one that some of the jokey guys make fun of and say that it makes Sehun's face look contorted) and his eyes are laughing as he looks down at her. "Can I come in?"

Atiya actually laughs as she holds the door open wider. "You used to bang on my door so hard when you came over or else you'd scale up that tree and barrel in through my window, and now you're knocking politely and asking whether you can come in? Times have changed, Oh Sehun." Times have changed, and I want the old Sehun back. My Sehun. The one who had his chin up in the air and couldn't care less about what others thought of him, the one who did the things he loved and spent time playing around with me. That Sehun. Where did he go?

Sehun laughs and thumps her playfully on the head (but the action is hesitant and reserved and Atiya's heart twists in pain because some things really will never be the same again) before ducking past her to head up the stairs and to her room. Her parents are out at a wedding dinner, so the house is empty. Atiya shuts the door and follows Sehun up. 

They slip into Atiya's room, and she settles on her bed while Sehun leans against the door (another difference: Sehun used to flop down on her computer chair or tug her off the bed so he could claim the spot instead. Now he looks more like a stranger than a best friend), legs crossed at the ankle and face tilted down. Atiya really, really hates the look on his face nowadays- always beaten and defeated. 

"Sehun, tell me what's wrong." 

Sehun wrings his hands together and lets out a shaky breath. "I asked Yoona to prom. She rejected me instantly."

Oh no, oh no no no. "I'm sorry." That's the only thing she knows she can say right now. 

Sehun barks out a laugh, so raw and forced that Atiya's gut lurches. "You don't have to be sorry. What was I thinking, anyway, that getting a perfect GPA and being vice-captain of the basketball team was going to land me the most perfect girl in school? Yeah, real great thinking there, Sehun. And they call me smart, huh." Another laugh from Sehun, another wince from Atiya. 

Atiya's had just about enough of this, of Sehun beating himself up every chance he got instead of opening those beautiful brown eyes of his to realise that who he is was and currently is will always be perfect and flawless in Atiya's eyes (and the eyes of many other's, of his parents, of his family, of his great friends like Luhan and Jongin and Kyungsoo and Wufan and everybody else, dammit). So she shifts forward on the mattress a little, and she tries to ignore the stinging in her chest when Sehun presses himself further against the door, as if trying to disappear. 

"Look, Sehun," Atiya in a breath and mentally tries to phrase her words carefully. "I really don't understand why you keep beating yourself up. Sure, okay, Im Yoona doesn't want to be your date to prom but so what? So what, Sehun? There are tens of hundreds of other girls in our school who would beg at your feet for you to even so much as glance at them, do you know that? And yet you beat yourself up continuously over one girl? One girl? And come on, girls aside, you're as close to perfect as it's going to get. You're kind, you're funny, you're smart, you're talented, you're hardworking, and I'm not just saying this because I'm your best friend. Are we even best friends anymore? What more do you want, Sehun? What more do you need? You've got brilliant friends, an amazing family, and you've got- " Atiya's fingers knot into the bedspread, clenching and unclenching. "And you've got me. Am I not enough anymore? We used to be enough for each other. We were happy, and that was enough. But now you're so distant and you've got so little faith in yourself and I don't know what I'm supposed to do to let you see that you're pretty ing amazing, Sehun. You are, and I only used the expletive in hopes that you will see and that you'll get over this- get over this moping- "

Sehun suddenly slides down the door, face buried in his palms, and Atiya knows what this is- Sehun is scared, he's afraid, he's small and he's vulnerable and he's upset and it brings back snippets of the tear-stained, red-faced boy Atiya used to see when he fell and scraped his knee in the backyard. 

Sehun says nothing, and neither does Atiya. All there is is silence as Atiya slides off the bed and comfortingly wraps an arm around Sehun. Sehun doesn't cry, doesn't break, but he hesitantly leans his weight into Atiya's arm and Atiya lets herself relax for the first time since her best friend's inferiority complex reared its ugly head again. Sure, Sehun's random bouts of low self-worth and beratement aren't going to magically disappear (no matter how much Atiya wished they would, she knows everyone has those days and Sehun's just one of the many who experience them a lot more than most people do and that's fine with her, as long as he lets her be there for him to support him and love him), and he's probably going to be living with the rejection of the girl he's liked for so long for quite a while to come. But sitting here on her bedroom floor with Sehun wrapped in her arms (after so, so long), Atiya knows that he'll slowly come to understand, and that's enough. 

That's enough for now. 

(Atiya's feelings for her best friend can come later.)

-