▲▼▲ AILEE - EVENING SKY

“Wake up.”

His eyes slightly open suddenly, finding himself in a white room. He heard a soft beeping beside him and the sound him breathing heavily. There were soft voices that mumbled in a distance, he couldn’t make out the voices but he could tell that it was two females in a conversation about someone in a coma. Sehun looked around, his vision was vague, but he realized he was in a hospital. A soft gasp came from one of the women in his hospital room, and she squealed a few words that Sehun couldn’t make out. The two women rushed out of his room, running and shouting. He suddenly heard a whisper of his name, “Sehun.” The boy in bed looked around, but was unable to move his head due to a strong numb feeling at his neck. His vision started to become clearer as he blinked, finding a familiar face at the foot of his bed. A face that he never liked to see. “Are you awake?” he asked as he stepped towards the young boy. Sehun continued his steady breathing and closed his eyes as he heard his cousin continue, “Stay awake, okay? The doctor’s coming.”

Sehun didn’t open his eyes, but suddenly a million questions came to him. *What happened?* Without knowing, he fell into another deep slumber.

▲▼▲▼▲

A hand gripped onto Sehun’s forearm as they all listened to the doctor speak. Sehun sat still and emotionless as he listened. “You feeling alright?” Jinsung asked. Sehun slightly nodded and continued to keep silent.
“He will be able to discharge from the hospital within two weeks,” the doctor said before leaving the room with Sehun’s uncle and aunt.
“How long?” Sehun asked his cousin that stayed in the room with him. “How long have I been in this bed?” he asked.
“Two years...” Jinsung simply answers.
Sehun raised a brow, “So I’m twenty-one now?” he questioned.
Jinsung blinked, confused about his cousin’s math, “No, you’re nineteen, about to graduate high school in two months.” His cousin let out a worried sigh, “Are you sure you’re fine?”
“What hospital are we in?” Sehun asked.
Jinsung eyed his cousin as he spoke, “Incheon Hospital...”
Sehun closed his eyes as a painful headache came to him. *Not Seoul? Why would I be in Incheon? What’s going on?* “What happened two years ago?” Sehun asked.
Jinsung pressed his lips into a straight line as he hesitated to answer. “In tenth grade, you tried to commit suicide...”
“Not recently?” he continued to ask.
“...No...?” Jinsung gave his cousin a worried look as he asked himself if his cousin had gone crazy after the coma.

Sehun sighed and glanced down at his cousin’s hand that gripped onto his forearm. “Why am I still in this world that does appreciate me?” he asked.
“Yah, shouldn’t you be thanking the world? Especially me ‘cause I caught you before you could actually fall! But then my grip on your arm got bad and you kinda fell into some trees on the way down so that saved you...” his cousin muttered. “But be thankful that you’re alive!”
“Why didn’t you just let me go?” Sehun asked in an emotionless tone. “The whole family would have been better off without me...”
“Do you really think I’m a cruel cousin? I can’t just stand there and watch my cousin jump off a building! Hate or love, you’re still part of this family. If I let you go down there, you would have died, I would have been the blame for not saving you, and my father would also be the blame, and your parents would be disappointed in all of us in return.”

Sehun chuckled weakly, “Who knew this monster was a person?” he mumbled. “Honestly, you could have been better off without me in your family...”
“I just didn’t want something bad to happen because of my family’s doings towards you,” Jinsung confessed. “Look, I know we’ve been through some rough times together, with us hating each other and all, and I’m sorry for that... Truth is, even if you told me to not save you when you jumped, I would anyway. I can’t bare to see someone get hurt because of me.”
“What is this? You’re not the Jinsung I know,” Sehun commented.
“Yah, people can change you know. Seeing you, it looks like you barely changed,” Jinsung replied.

Sehun stayed quiet for a while before speaking up again, “Do you... Happen to know any girl named Lee Minyoung?”
“Who the hell is that? Is she your dream girl or something?” his cousin joked. “Is that why you spent two years in your coma, to be with your dream girl?”
“Shut up,” Sehun whispers and Jinsung fulfills his wish. “She is... But don’t make fun of her...”
“But that is a familiar name... I think I saw that name when my family was cleaning our attic. We were looking through your box of old school stuff, and I looked through your elementary yearbook, and across that name. Grandma also sent us a few of your stuff and I found a notebook that was filled with that name... Oh, speaking of grandma she-”
“Passed away. I know,” Sehun said, interrupting Jinsung.

▲▼▲▼▲

A single tear drops from Sehun’s left eye as he sat down beside the window of his hospital room, twirling a green paper crane in his hand. He stares at the view with dark skies that lit up with stars, and the lit up city beneath. *In the end, you were just something that my mind created. You’re not someone that I can be with. You’re not someone that I can lean towards whenever I have a problem that I can never deal with. You’re just something that my mind created while I was in a coma that seemed like I was in some sort of trance. You’re just something that tried to make me solve my problems. I know you’re real, I just don’t know if you’re still here. But if you aren’t, I hope to find someone like you... If that is possible.*

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard his door creak open, and finds his uncle stepping inside, rubbing his temples. “How are you feeling, Sehun?” his uncle asked.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Sehun asked.
“Let’s not worry about me but worry about the person who got himself in such trouble,” his uncle said in a calm voice that slightly surprised Sehun. “Now, about your education, let’s just forget about it, okay? I’ll pay for your college even if it means that you can’t graduate. The school said that you can graduate with your classmates if you’re able to pass a test, but you’ve been away for two years, so I don’t think it’s a good idea-”
“I would like to try,” Sehun interrupted.
“But that means that you will have to read a lot, and the doctor says that you should rest for a bit-”
“Please try to listen, but don’t wait to talk. I want to try it. If I can’t do it then I can’t, but I want to see how much I can try,” Sehun said.
His uncle pressed his lips into a straight line before nodding, “Alright,” he agreed. “But rest a lot. Jinsung will stay with you overnight so if you need anything, just tell him to get it for you,” his uncle said.

“Am I really like my dad?” Sehun asked his uncle, making him suddenly startled by the question. “Am I?”
His uncle slightly frowned and answers, “Yes, very much. But he didn’t waste his life in a coma like you did. You were in a more dangerous situation.” His uncle exhale tiredly as he sits in the seat next to Sehun. “During your coma, I thought of the words that I wanted to scold you with: ‘Do you really think that I care about you? Just because you’re my brother’s son, doesn’t mean I care about you as much as I care about Jinsung. You’re just a worthless kid, like your father.’ Then I thought about it, your father went through the same thing you did, Jinsung went through the same thing I did. I saved your father, Jinsung saved you. Hopefully that’s the end. I thought of how you avoided a conversation that involved your parents, and came to a conclusion that maybe that’s the reason why you’re always such a rebel. You don’t have anyone to listen to you, no parents that could care about you.” His uncle looked at the boy in front of him and took a deep breath, “Don’t think that you’re disappointing your family above. I’m the one disappointing your family, for not keeping a promise to take care of you.”

*Then again, the truth is revealed. I’m like my father, I’m doing something that disappoints them, but I’m doing something right. The truth can hurt, but it doesn’t sometimes. This has got to be one of the least painful truths that I have ever gotten in my life...* Sehun exhaled slowly before speaking, “To be honest, every time you scold me and compare me to Jinsung, I really hate hearing that he’s better than me, more successful than me. I know that I am, but hearing it from you and from myself, it just hurts anyway... No matter how hard I try to let it go, and lie to myself and make myself feel better about me. I just realized that my opinions are more important than others. Yes, the truth will make you stronger, and it makes you learn the true feeling of a heart breaking. But lies make it more comfortable for me to bare, rather than hearing the truth over and over again. I know I’m not intelligent, I know I’m not talented, and I know I’m not like Jinsung. Please, stop telling me that. I don’t need to know something that I already know, and I don’t need it to be repeated.”

“Alright,” his uncle said with a smile that Sehun thought he would never see. “Just don’t do something that could hurt this family more, okay? You’re family, and I’m sorry that we haven’t made you feel as if you were. Get some rest, kid,” his uncle said before leaving him alone in his room.
Jinsung suddenly came in with large textbooks, pens and all sorts of school supplies. “Alright, let’s start studying. I have a final exam coming up, and you have like a bigger test coming too,” his cousin said as he set two textbooks on Sehun’s table.

Sehun got back in his bed and got under the covers, “You do it yourself... I’m tired,” he muttered before lying down in his bed. He heard his cousin sigh heavily as he flipped through the pages of his books. Sehun closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

Another update. o u o not feeling the emotion that I got from the first story. ugh. two more updates, okay? I want to finish it today. k.