1. Out of the Blue

I see the people below me. The crowds, they are running. Running away from this what was once a beautiful building. Everything is in chaos, people are screaming and crying, the sounds of ambulance and the sirens of fire trucks in the background loud in my ears.

But I am alone.

Trapped in this tall, tall building that is gushing out smoke. I turn my head back, only to be met with burnt desks and a room full of smoke. The air is suffocating. I can’t breathe. The feeling of fear settles in my whole being.

Something catches my eye. Something painfully heart wrenching; a body. A body of a man – black and burnt from fire, lying lifelessly under the almost collapsing table. Without a second thought, I run towards the man, turning his body to make him face me, but what I got is a shapeless, burnt face, I can’t even recognize him.

I fight the urge to puke right there and then, ing his button-up shirt. Once I got it off of him, I run back to the window, waving and turning the piece of cloth to the crowds, trying desperately to gain their attention. Trying desperately to make them notice me.

I am trying and trying. The heat behind me is bullying, driving me. Please look at me! I scream. Doesn’t anyone see a soul worth saving? Can’t they see this white flag? Can’t they see that I have given up? Please see me…

And they do. They see me, small and fragile against the smoky background. Jump! They say – no – shout. Sitting on the windowsill, leaning forwards, I hesitate, debating with myself to jump or not. The trampoline is stretched far below me, and all I need to do is to just fall, then everything will end.

All of this unwanted scene would end.

But then I see him.

Pushing through the crowds, his bright red shirt contrasting with the monochrome world. His face is dreadful; contorted with anger and fear. When desperate tears starts welling down his cheeks, that’s all it takes for me to jump down to the broken ground of black ashes and shattered glass from the building, falling down into the stretching arms of the people who awaits me below.

Jongin.

I thought as I fall through air, the wind battering viciously to my face.

Jongin.

His face is clear in the crowds and his eyes are wide. Wide with relief and anticipation.

Wait for me… I mouthed, smiling down at him, and he spreads out his arm, as if trying to catching me from the fall.

But accidents happen any time, to anyone, and Luhan isn’t an exception.

2. Of sweet fragrance and morning dew

Luhan wakes up to the smell of fresh lavenders and menthol, a smell so strong yet so sweet and he opens his eyes, meeting a boy’s brown ones. This boy he is staring at has his lips tugged into a small smile making his heart flutter and Luhan feels warm on the inside.

“Sehun.” Luhan smiles, reaching up to bury his face in Sehun’s chest. Luhan inhales deeply, taking in Sehun’s sweet fragrance that clings to his body, the smell akin to morning dew.

“Good morning Luhan. Did you sleep well?” Sehun whispers, his lisp slipping out and Luhan finds it endearing. Luhan had his small hands clutching Sehun’s shirt as the younger brushes his lips across his jaw line.

Luhan trembled under Sehun’s grasp and the younger cupped his small frame, their breaths mingled with one another.

“I’ve always liked your scent…” the elder whispers in Sehun’s ear, tangling his fingers in Sehun’s brown tresses.

Luhan doesn’t continue his words, he lets his sentence hang for he knows for sure that Sehun knows what he is going to say. They’re nice and sweet and it describes who you are.

3. A mere being

Luhan isn’t a human. No, he’s not an angle either, nor a ghost or a lost soul. No.

Luhan is just a mere presence.

He’s just there, without any memories of what once he used to be. Sometimes he wonders to himself. When Sehun is fast asleep, his lips slightly parted, Luhan wonders of what he is - His existence. What is it? A ghost? A soul? Luhan doesn’t know.

He figures out that he may have a past life before everything happened. Before Sehun found him curled up under the cardboard shelter that rainy day.

What if in his past life, there was actually someone who loved him just as equal as Sehun? What if that someone is also still alive? And worse, what if that someone actually still loves him and he’s searching for his presence?

But Luhan knows that all of this ‘what ifs’ are never going to bring him anywhere close enough to just know the answer to that question that had always been etched in his mind; Who am I? He cringed at the thought of having somebody else loving him as much as Sehun.

Nobody can love him as much as Sehun loves him. Nobody can love him like Sehun. Sehun is his everything. His life, his soul, his heartbeat.

Wait. Luhan doesn’t have a heartbeat. Luhan’s eyes darted towards the pulse in Sehun’s wrist and a sudden pain shots up his body. He feels like there’s a dead weight that rested on his chest.

He wants to be a human.

To be a human like Sehun. All Luhan wants is to be good enough for Sehun, to have a solid body of his own. To get to feel his own velvety skin. He feels pathetic and miserable and shifts closer to the sleeping boy beside him, pressing his ear to Sehun’s chest, listening to his steady heart beat. Sehun’s breathing is enough to lull Luhan to sleep.

4. That rainy day

Friday, 20 April 2012.

Sehun reaches out his umbrella to cover up his and the boy’s head.

The boy that had appeared one day, sitting in the edge of this quiet street since a week ago. It was raining today and the rough concrete grounds were full of small and big puddles. For the past one week, Sehun kept passing this lonesome beggar (what the boy had appeal to Sehun’s eyes) everyday on his way to school. He never spared this boy a single glanced. He knows that the boy was starving to death, but Sehun couldn’t care less. He threw the remaining of his leftovers near the ground where the boy sat and the boy ate it wholeheartedly.

But it was raining that day and Sehun happened to pass the boy on his way back to school. He was shivering from the cold, only roofed by a thin cardboard box, which made no use to shelter the boy from rain and wind.

Sehun had never found the boy so appealing until now, when he had looked up to meet Sehun’s expressionless face with his doe eye. Sehun had decided to approach him when curiosity seems to settle within him. So he gathered up his courage and neared him, reaching out his black umbrella to cover both their heads.

The boy was small and shaking and Sehun crouched until he is in eye level as him. Smiling gently, he took the boy’s petite body in his arms and took him back to his home.

Luhan was his name. Sehun repeated the word over and over again, making Luhan smile. He likes his name. He likes it when it slips out of his lips and how it rolled on his tongue. A blush crept up his cheeks when he sees that Luhan was holding back a giggle at how innocent Sehun looked – chanting out his name like prayer.