When he was young, his father who working for a Market Research Company, used to take him abroad a lot. Since he was a little child, Luhan’s curiousness and fun-loving were known as his lovely side but it had also got him into trouble many times. Like the time he wanted to know how the electric fan worked, instead of asking or looking on the internet, he thought it would be fun to figure out by himself and ended up getting an electric shock. Or when he disassembled all the parts of his first camera (a birthday present from his cousin), trying to fix it but eventually couldn’t put it back together.

The worst experience that ever happened to him was the time he got lost in Korea, after wandering around and not able to find his way back the hotel while either having no money or unable to speak Korean. To his dismay, his father had turned off his phone for an important conference so the Chinese boy had to curl up at a random bus stop in a rainy cold night of late October for two hours.

But yet, he never learnt his lesson.

The moment Luhan opened his eyes, waking up with a dizzy headache, he immediately shifted his eyes to the younger one’s bed but only to find it was empty. The incident last night was rushing back like a slow motion movie. He could feel his cheek warm up and suddenly caressed his lips where Sehun’s had touched.

The sweet memory was quickly replaced by the anxiety of how he would face the other after that. And seeing Sehun left the room in such an early morning when he had no class (they had a week to review for the semester’s exam), he was sure the maknae was ignoring him.

Luhan silently groaned and handpalmed himself. Why didn’t he have a hold on him, why he had to do that right now, when he needed to keep his friendship with the Korean boy as good as possible to find the right time for his proposal. It’s over, totally over.

The more he thought about how stupid he was, the more his head was hurt. Letting out a long sigh, Luhan decided to stop crying over his own mistake to find something to drink as his throat was parched and would figure out how to fix this situation later.

He slowly made his way downstairs. The room was empty. Suho must have gone to study in the library. There was a small bowl on the table with a yellow post-it written “Hangover soup for Lulu hyung :D.” The Chinese boy couldn’t help but smiling at the considerateness of D.O, took a mental note to thank the latter the next time they saw each other.

A knock on the door jolted him back. That’s weird, he wondered who would be because he was sure none of his friends being polite enough to knock and just stood there waiting for someone to open the door. Normally, he would hear their voices before they stepped into the room.

Luhan put down the bowl, reached out the knob and twisted it open. There stood a middle aged man, grey haired, his face was showing the tiredness due to the lack of sleeping. The man was a little surprised as he saw Luhan but quickly softened his gaze.

“Is Sehun living here?”

“Yes” the younger bowed slightly “But he went out. Can I take a message for you?”

The man looked at the watch on his wrist, shaking his head in denial and bidding a goodbye before Luhan could say anything.

He stood leaning on the door for a long minute, tapping his chin thinking.

Why his face is so familiar. I saw him somewhere before.

…….

………..

OH MY GOD!!!

He almost stumbled when he ran upstairs, digging deep into his suitcase to fish out a small book. Flipping some pages, he finally found a discolored photo. It was a picture of a man soaking wet, holding his coat to cover for a little puppy abandoned in a small box on the sidewalk. He was smiling tenderly, but somehow in his eyes flashed a hint of heart breaking pain.

 Luhan was there. In fact, he was the one who took this photo, the day he waiting at the bus stop for his father, the day a fifteen-year-old Chinese boy decided to spend all his life to capture all the beautiful moments of life.

Since then, Luhan had stopped blaming himself for what happened to his family. The fact that a lost puppy would finally be safe with a stranger snapped him out of his misery. He realized he had spent too much time on questions with no answer and didn’t see that he was hurting those people he loved with his sorrow.

Since then, he started to believe everything happened for a reason and if he was the reason kept his family from falling apart then just let it be.

 He also chose Korea to study partly because he wanted to see that man again, even a slight chance, to say a proper thank.

Luhan looked at the old photo once more time before put it back to where it belonged. He wondered what kind of relationship between that man and Sehun since he never heard the younger talking about him before. However, he could ask later after he had the courage to face the Korean boy.

************

“You’re still here?”

Jongin took off his shoes, put them into the closet and arched his brows as he saw his friend was boringly switching the channel on the sofa. Sehun had knocked on his door really early this morning, asking if he could stay here for a while because apparently he didn’t feel comfortable enough in his own room.

Even though exchanging each other questioning look, both D.O and Jongin just nodded their heads and left the maknae alone. However, when he came back after a long day practicing and saw his friend didn’t have any sign of leaving, the tan skin boy started to worry.

The younger one kept pressing on the remote, didn’t bother to shift his eyes to the entrance direction.

“Why? You’re not happy to see me here?”

“Not really.” Jongin shrugged “Where is D.O hyung?”

“In the bathroom.”

Plopping next to Sehun, the dancer examined the expression on the other’s face but all he got was the carelessness.  Slightly nudged on his side, he pretended to be casual.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I just want to hanging out here.”

Liar.

For almost six years knowing each other, one of many things he learnt was to recognize whether the latter was lying or not. To be honest, Sehun was really good at concealing his feeling and it took Jongin quite amount of time to figure it out. However, another thing he knew for sure was that the maknae would cry it out whenever he was ready so there no need to make any pressure on him.

“Okay, if you say so.”

He stood up and walked into the kitchen but stopped in the middle when suddenly remembered something.

“Ah, was there something happened last time you went home?”

The word ‘home’ snapped Sehun back. Sometimes, he felt a little bit envious as his mom found it easier to open her heart to his friend than her own son. Of course it was always about him or something concerned him but still, he’d prefer hearing it straight from her.

“No, why you ask?”

Jongin pursed his lips, anxiety was written all over his face.

“That’s odd. She called me yesterday, well talking about random stuffs and out of nowhere she asked if she and Aunt Sora were good parents. Also if you hate them for not able to give you a normal family.”

Sehun brows met in confusion. He thought this kind of worry was washed away long time ago, then why all of sudden it’s coming back. Although he had told them more than once that he was blessed to be their son, it seemed like not enough.

“I think you should spend much time by their sides Sehun ah.”

The tan skin boy spoke up, noticing that his friend was lost in his thoughts. The younger one stayed silent, but he took a mental note to come home more often.

 Taking it as an agreement, Jongin his heels to the kitchen, not forget to leave a warning.

“As much as I love your presence here, I don’t want more people coming to my room looking for you and interrupt D.O hyung doing his practicing. He has been under stress lately.”

 Crossing his arms, Sehun pouted as feeling being shooed away but still stood up and grabbed his backpack. Well, there only five days left until the exam and of course he knew how strict professors in Music Department were, that the reason why even staying in the same room for the whole day, he didn’t dare to make conversation with D.O once.

It was better not mess up with Umma.

The way to his room took less time than he thought. Standing at the front door, Sehun suddenly remembered why he had stomped out of it earlier. Right after his lips touched Luhan’s, he had jerked back immediately in shocking, staring at the boy lying under him. But after a long minute getting no reaction from Luhan, he realized the Chinese was sleeping. That made him even more confused than he already was, tons of questions one after another popped up in his head. Why did he do it? Would he remember when he woke up in the morning?  Was it the affection of alcohol or did he…? Why didn’t I felt unpleasant at all? Wait, did I just say I enjoyed it?

I’m going crazy.

Those things made him toss and turn in bed all night and ended up lying on his side near the edge of the bed, with hand under head, watching the sleeping beauty beneath until the drowsiness took him away.

When the sunray hit his face this morning, he immediately checked if the other was still sleeping or not then quickly grabbed his backpack and sneaked out. Frankly he didn’t mean to avoid Luhan but he didn’t want the other to see his flushing face either so the best way to regain his balance was to not facing him for a while.

Out of nowhere the door spun open to reveal Luhan, holding the trash bag in his hand. The moment their eyes met, both of them turned into frozen in the position, stared at each other. The image of the kiss last night reddened their cheeks and made the atmosphere more awkward.

Sehun scratched his nose, stepped aside and slid into the room. The Chinese boy was startled at the younger’s move, darted his eyes to the maknae’s direction and let out a sigh. How would he fix it when the other didn’t bother to look at him.

I need help.