Shattering.

Broken glass littering the floor.

Visions flashing across his eyelids like falling stars shooting through the sky.

It happens so fast that Sehun doesn’t even register half of what he’s seeing until a flash of gleaming white teeth, jet-black hair, and a slightly fuller top lip pass before his eyes.

It’s Jongin, clad in middle school uniform, pulling him down an empty hallway with a brilliant smile lighting up his face.

The scene fades into one of Jongin and Sehun on their first day of high school and then into them sorting through love letters shoved into Jongin’s locker and then into Jongin auditioning for the university of his dreams and then-

“Sehun?” Jongin called softly, pushing open the door and slipping inside when he received no answer. He padded across the room to press a gentle hand against Sehun’s forehead, feeling to see if he was still running a fever.

Thankfully the medicine was kicking in and his fever had gone down. He had almost managed to fall asleep even, but not quite.

He was still awake enough to notice as his bed dipped down where Jongin took a seat next to him, and he was still awake to hear Jongin sigh before speaking softly.

“It really I didn’t realize it sooner. I just thought I was being silly, that I had a little crush on my middle school best friend, and that it would go away as we grew up. But it didn’t, and now we’ve graduated and are going to different universities. We’ll have different schedules, different friends, it won’t just be me, you, and Luhan anymore. I won’t be able to spend every weekend with you here, and you won’t be able to visit me there all the time.” Sehun’s heart clenched. He wanted to stop this, to tell Jongin to stop being silly, to stop the tears steadily building in both of their eyes. “We’ll barely have time to be friends, let alone have a relationship,” Jongin sighed again, voice thick. “I’m sorry, Hunnie, I picked a really bad time to realize I love you.”

Sehun bit his lip as the elder leaned over to kiss his forehead. All he wanted was to lean up and have those lips move to his own, to tell Jongin that he loved him to and that they could make a relationship work, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to love Kim Jongin, it wasn’t his place to love at all. He wasn’t meant to be happy and live in a world of love and light, but god he didn’t want to give it up.

He wasn’t ready to give it up, but he couldn’t bring himself to take control of this life completely. Because Jongin and Sehun were meant to be, but he was the wrong Sehun.

Sehun screams, fingers gripping in his hair as the veil between what is and what should have been falls away, the fire of realization sweeping over him and scorching him from the inside out. His cheeks are wet, his sobs in time with Jongin’s as they cry over what they could have had, what they should have had. He wasn’t meant for this, he wasn’t meant for this bleak existence where no one loves or laughs or cries or feels. He was meant for a life of happiness and love and he missed it all by some mistake and now he’s stuck and it hurts so much.

Sehun cries, clutching his chest as wave after wave of pain crash over his heart like a tsunami of misery meant to drag him under and drown him with the weight of his own sadness.

It isn’t long before he’s on the ground, shards of glass slicing into his skin where flesh meets tile. Crimson stains his skin, vibrant with the life that he was supposed to live.

This isn’t his world, his world is on the other side of that mirror with Jongin, but he can’t get there and he can’t stay here anymore.

No one will miss him, he realizes as blood blossoms against his skin like rose petals painting the flesh with the color and feeling he’s spent his life craving. No one will miss him, no one will mourn his loss, no one will shed tears for him except a man that doesn’t even know that he exists.

It only takes moments for the color to disappear once more, his head spinning and the room tilting as he falls, farther and farther into the abyssal blackness waiting for him with open jaws.

He should be scared, but he isn't. The darkness is warm and feels like peace and if he listens hard enough he swears he can hear Jongin's voice calling him home.

'I wish I could come home to you.'

And then he's gone.

One minute he'd been alone, drowning in grief and regret and wishing that he'd come back somehow...

...and somehow he did. Somehow he came back, and there was warmth and life and love and they were never alone again.

Fin.