He was walking on the street, feeling the rain streaming down from head to toes. His little curly hair was straightened as the water kept dripping from it. He didn’t know how long he has been outside or where he was heading to. He just walked, didn’t bother looking at people around who were staring and pointing at him.

Jongin had offered to give him a drive home but he just shook his head and walked away. He wanted to cry but a sticky lump lodged at his throat and his eyes were open blankly, gazed into nothing. All he had was the emptiness. He couldn’t sense the pain any more.

He stopped when he got to the Han River Bridge which meant he was quite far away from home now. He wiped his face to get a clearer view, but his eyes got more and more blurred before turned into a dark color. Everything now was in slow motion as his body collapsed on the side-walk. But before he went unconscious, he heard someone yell while gripping his shoulders.

Was that an angel?

Was I dead?

…….

Mom?

**********

Sehun woke up at the sound of metallic clatter. He slowly opened his eyes.

“Where am I…” he mumbled as rubbing forehead roughly, looking around tiredly. His head was dizzy in every movement he made. Sehun sat up at the side of the bed, trying to remember what happened earlier but no success. A soft voice came from downstairs surprised him.

“You’re awake?”

Sehun looked up and stared at the person who was holding a big bowl, stirring whatever-it-was for a few seconds before spoke up.

“Who are you? Where am I? What happened?”

The person giggled, pointing the couch far in the corner of the room.

“Why don’t you come down there and we could chat over breakfast. I’m making pancake.”

Sehun wrinkled his brow as the stranger his heels to the kitchen. He looked around again, forcing himself to recall the event last night but it only made him suffer more of headache. Giving up, Sehun slowly made his way down to the living room and sat quietly on the couch, waiting for the stranger. He didn’t have to wait long before a plate of pancake and few jars of jam were placed in front of him. The stranger, who was a boy with honey-brown hair, a little smaller than Sehun, pale skin and round face, bended forward to arrange the jars into a line.

“We got peanut butter, strawberry, blueberry and...”

“Who are you?” Sehun repeated his question.

“…pineapple”

The stranger paused for a blink and took a seat across the table, the cold gaze Sehun gave him obviously made him uncomfortable even though they were in his apartment.

“My name is Luhan. I found you unconscious last night on side-walk. You didn’t have any identity papers and I’m new in this neighborhood so I had no choice but bringing you here. Any question?”

Luhan spoke in one go, leaving Sehun dumbfounded for a moment. They stayed in silent until Sehun face-palmed then stood up abruptly, making his excuse to go.

“I’m sorry I got to go. Er… thank you for helping me, I’ll pay you back.” he foraged his pockets “Er...where’s my phone?”

Luhan just pointed the counter near the kitchen and watching the latter stormed out of his apartment at a light speed. He didn’t know how he was feeling right now. What was he expecting? That boy was just a stranger, who happened to come into his view on the way home in a heavy rain night. Luhan did what he was supposed to do. But somehow there something stuck in his throat and made his eyes teary.

Luhan cleaned up the table, clearly not having any appetite for breakfast any more. His eyes caught the sight of Sehun’s vest hanging on the wall beside the bathroom.

I don’t even know his name yet.

*********

“Where have you been?” Jongin yelled over the phone right when Sehun picked up. “We’re worried like hell. We thought you was dead somewhere.”

Sehun held the phone far away from his ear and winced at the fact that even so he could also hear the high pitch voice clearly.

“I’m sorry. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you at the studio.”

“You’d better hurry. Suho hyung are nagging about how unpro you are since you’re 30mins late for the shooting.”

Sehun checked the time on his hand-watch before pressing gas pedal, disconnected the phone call with his best friend without saying goodbye. Being a top-notch model of the agency, Sehun couldn’t be criticized on his working attitude. From the age of eighteen, he gave up on his dream to be a doctor to apply for assistant job at a model agency. After one year, he took a part time job as an amateur model and upgraded to a full time job six months later. The manager a.k.a Suho found out his enormous potentiality and decided to train him into a professional one. Within two years, all Sehun’s hard working was paid back when he finally created his own reputation and signed two-year contract with the DBS agency as an exclusive male model. If only his life was just so perfect like that.

Sehun rushed into the studio when he finished packing his car. 45mins late. !

As soon as seeing Sehun, Suho pushed him into a chair and urged every stylist standing near him to give the younger boy his make-up. The scolding could wait until the end of the shooting but his client couldn’t.

“Okay, go up there and have fun kid.”

Suho cheered up and patted his . That was the first lesson Sehun was taught when he agreed to take model career seriously.

“Always have fun on stage” said Suho as he walked twenty-year-old Sehun down the hall at one late night.

“Huh?” Sehun stopped in the middle of the walking, his voice echoed the empty space.

Suho turned aside to face Sehun, gripping the younger’s shoulder tightly.

“Remember Sehun, every emotion you put on your face while shooting, you have to find the fun in it. You don’t force it, you control it, play with it.”

Sehun gulped and nodded his head, even though he was not quite sure of what his manager just said.

“And when you play, you have fun.”

Suho concluded and his heels, leaving Sehun stand dazed for a moment before called out for the younger.

“Come on kid, I’ll drive you home.”

Later that day, Sehun found himself sitting in a café shop downtown with Jongin.

“Remind me why we are here please.”

Sehun grumbled across the table while Jongin ignored his annoyed facial expression and enjoyed the oreo grinding ice latte with extra cream on top. Jongin always had weird taste of beverage and Sehun couldn’t believe his best friend was able to swallow the whole disgusting mixture.

“Where were you last night?”

Jongin asked out of the blue, remembered that was the first intention to drag Sehun here. The few-month younger boy gazed his eyes outside the window, shaking his head slightly.

“Don’t know. Somewhere near the Parkcheon area.”

Jongin put down his cup, leaned in curiously

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

Sehun closed his eyes, the image of a honey-brown hair boy with angelic voice flashed through his mind. He didn’t want Jongin worry about his passing out last night so he just came up with a lie.

“I wandered around and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a hotel room.”

The tan-skin boy seemed like not buying this story but knowing his best friend too well, he chose to shut up and leaned back on the chair comfortably, took a huge sip of his drink. Sehun will cry it out when he’s ready.

Their peaceful moment was ruined when Sehun’s phone buzzed.

“We have new job Sehun. Be ready at the studio by noon tomorrow.” Suho sounded excited on the other side.

“Why so early hyung?” Sehun bit his lips.

“Well, the client requests a new photographer. They want us to meet him up first. The shooting will take place two days after that.”

“Oh, okay hyung. See ya tomorrow.”

Sehun put his phone back into the pocket, sensed a questioning look from Jongin, he quickly explained.

 “It’s Suho hyung. We’re gonna meet a new photographer for the next shooting.”

“It’s great.” the latter clapped his hands “I love working with new ones.”

“Yeah, more like you love working above them” Sehun mockingly emphasized the last two words but his friend just shrugged while grinning wide.

“I don’t see any difference Sehun ah.”