"Do you remember," Tao says, the back of Sehun's hand with his thumb, "when I was drunk?"

It's a light rain, the kind that falls with fat drops, far apart from each other. The kind that doesn't last long, just long enough to drench a person with a thin layer of rainwater. Somewhere above the horizon is a stripe of blue sky, but over them is the thick grey clouds gently crying without resolve.

Sehun squeezes his fingers, looking up at the small roof above them protecting them from the rain. "Of course," he says, his voice small.

Tao tries to pinpoint the spot Sehun is looking at. "After that, I thought you'd never forgive me, even though I didn't know what I did. I knew I did something. It came as a shock to me, with you being so direct like that."

Sehun chuckles, blushing at the memory. He tries to keep his face straight. "What can I say? I don't like slow progress."

They stare out at the rainy evening with little interest in their eyes. "I suppose we should find a place to stay soon," Tao proposes the idea.

As Tao is about to let go, Sehun holds into his hand tighter. "I'd rather we stay here. For a few more minutes." He knows he's being selfish, suggesting that they stay. He can't help it. Why can they never have peaceful moments?

Tao takes both of Sehun's hands and faces him. His expression is serious, and his gaze pierces Sehun's heart in short pinpricks, the way it used to give him that uneasy feeling back when they'd first met. Sehun feels a wave of shame rise in his stomach.

"Sehun," Tao says, trying not to sound too harsh. "You know we can't. We're being tracked. We're in danger. This...this is a high school fantasy." He touches their foreheads together. "I would love to give you that, if that's what you want. But I want to give you all that and more when this is over. We can't risk it now."

Sehun gulps, nodding. He knows. He bites at his lip to keep himself from tearing up. Why is he so sensitive lately? He hates it. Hates being vulnerable. Hates being weak.

They step out into the rain, Tao all the while shielding Sehun with his arm. The downpour thickens.

"Hello boys, how can I help you?" The woman's smile is a little too sweet for this ungodly hour of night. Sehun feels bad for her, having to handle the night shift at a grand place like this. There must be a lot of unwanted customers. He reddens. Do they look like those kinds of people?

Tao takes command. "Hello, ma'am, yes you can." He smiles just as sweetly as her, drawing her in with his charming features. "I'd like to request a room for one night, if there's one available." As she clicks away on the keyboard, he adds, "It doesn't have to be for two people, miss." 

She flashes him her faux smile again, her cheeks slightly pinker than before. Sehun furrows his brows. "Of course. Let me check for you." She continues her tapping.

As they chat away about the reservation, Sehun crosses his arms and lets his mind wander elsewhere. From the snippets of conversation he catches he hears "high security", "close to stairs or elevator", and "is it possible to erase this from the credit history?" 

(He wants to tell Tao "no, of course not", but he doesn't bother. The woman will inform him anyway.)

All his thoughts return him to the one question that's been flashing blinking red lights at him from all angles, that's been prodding at his mind for ages. Warning signs. 

How long do I have left? 

Even with Tao here as his bodyguard, he can feel the impending doom approaching. It's like his own shadow creeping up on him. He knows it's there, it's coming, but he cannot touch it. Cannot stop it.

He remembers those days when death was just something that was bound to happen. When crossing over was something he accepted as a part of life; he wasn't afraid of it, he wasn't trying to fulfill bucket lists before it happened. In fact, he was waiting for it. What had there been to live for? 

It was always day after day. He'd never realized he was sick of it until he met Tao.

Now? Well, now it's the last thing he wants. Now he has a reason for continuing. He needs to. Desperately. The future he'd envisioned with Tao, how he aches to have it come true. 

He'd never wished for something this painfully before.

Tao jingles an object in front of his face to snap him out of his trance. Sehun shakes his head, focuses his eyes, and sees it's a set of keys.

"I didn't think hotels these days still had keys," Sehun mumbles.

"Neither did I, but what's the difference?" Tao turns back to thank the woman and pulls Sehun towards the elevator. 

"It's louder. The keys, I mean."

Tao frowns. "I suppose you're right."

After little effort, they arrive at a mahogany wooden door labeled "Room 126". 

Tao opens it for Sehun, who steps through the doorframe and takes in the somewhat classy hotel room. "Welcome home."

Sehun stares at the large double bed, the dark nightstands, the two couches and glass coffee table, the bathroom door to the left, the closet door to the right, and lets out a huff. Tao closes the door behind them.

"Hardly," he whispers. It is luxurious, he can admit. But it's not home.

Where is home? He asks himself. He can't find the answer.

"I hope you don't mind the expenses," Tao hands him his wallet. 

They're speaking in hushed voices, as if their conversation could be overheard at any moment. It creates a private bubble for them where they become enclosed in the words they mutter. A dialogue to savor in their loneliness.

"Not at all," he pushes the wallet back at Tao gently. What has a few hundred, thousand, ever been to him anyway? "I think I'd prefer you keep it with you. I don't... Yeah."

"Trust yourself?" Tao finished for him.

Sehun nods. "What time is it?"

"To be honest, I'm afraid to check."

"Aren't we all." Sehun runs his hand over the hotel bed blankets. Tao walks over to him and hugs him from behind. A solemnity hangs over them. It shrouds their hearts with suspense. Sadness. "I'm tired, Tao, I'm tired," his sighs out. Even now, a yawn threatens to come out.

Tao presses down and leans forward, collapsing onto the bed and taking Sehun down with him. Sehun yelps with the fall, his cheeks blossoming pink. With a slight struggle, they rotate until their heads meet fluffy pillows and they can bring the blankets up over them. 

"Then let's sleep," Tao says, his mouth right next to Sehun's ear. Sehun shivers.

"I thought you were the one who didn't know socially protocol." Sehun grips at Tao's arms around his chest, breathing in his scent. "Especially when it came to relationships."

"I have an endless amount of objections to that right now."

"Like what?"

"Well," Tao kisses his neck. "I certainly don't feel that way around you."

Sehun laughs once. "Is that all?"

"Do you know how early in the morning it is right now? I'm delirious." He tightens his hug. "Positively insane. So ridiculously ridden with madness that I'm fearless."

"I can tell." He flips over to face Tao. Kisses him. Cups his face in his hands. "I think we both are."

"Should we take sleeping shifts?" Tao asks against his lips. There's the shock of anxiety again.

"Hmm. Let's just sleep."

"This is barely sleeping."

Sehun pulls back to look Tao in the eyes. "Do you want to sleep?"

Tao raises an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to be honest or the stereotypical gentleman?"

"Let's say honest."

Their lips meet again. "I would rather not, but I think you need it."

"The only thing I need is oxygen, water, food, and you."

Tao throws his head back and laughs. "I guess someone needs to provide the cheesy half of this relationship." He pats Sehun's head and places the younger's hands down on the bed. "Sleep." He grins at Sehun's pout. "Seriously. I'm worried for you."

Sehun buries his head in the blankets. "No need to be."

"No complaints. We have tomorrow. And the next day. And the next," Tao says as he cuddles close. He reaches an arm out to turn off the lights and gives Sehun one last press of his lips on his hair. "Good night, Sehun."

"Good night."

"Here you go, Tao." Sehun's hand puts itself out on its own accord. "I wrote this for you."

His head screams, no, I didn't. Don't read it! But he doesn't know what's on the paper either. He doesn't want to know. Don't take it. Don't take it. It becomes a mantra until Tao's fingers close around the slip of paper.

Sehun's hands pull back. His mind aches to take it back from him, but his body won't respond. No, he is forced to watch as Tao unravels the little ribbon binding the paper together and unfolds it slowly. As if for effect. As if he wanted to prolong the reveal.

"'To my dearest,'" he reads aloud, eyes roaming with the script. "'I despise you to the blackest pits of hell.'" Sentence after sentence he reads. Next line after the next.

"'Please leave me and never come back.'

"'I can't stand to see you ever again.'

"I don't love you.'

"'I hope you die alone.'" Tao glances up from the paper. "'Signed, Oh Sehun.'"

I didn't write that, Tao, please believe me. "It's the truth," his mouth says instead. His mind is cringing, but his lips are smiling. How cruel this body could be! The sounds that escape his own lips tear him apart. "It's true."

Tao smiles back at him, his eyebrows scrunching up in the middle the way Sehun's never seen it do before. "Is it really?" His voice cracks. Is he going to cry?

"It is." His head even nods in affirmation. He hates himself. He can't take it.

A tear fights its way out of Tao's eyes and he pulls out a gun. "Is it, Sehun? Is it really? You want me to die?"

Sehun's body nods again. "I want you to die," he repeats mindlessly.

The barrel of the gun is against Tao's head. "Say it again. I dare you."

"I want you to die."

"That's all I needed." There's a flash as Tao shoots himself and then--

Sehun wakes with a start. He sits upright, his back coated in sweat, his eyes rimmed with a wetness. He's panting hard and his heart is threatening to jump right out of his chest. The vibrant thrumming matches the pounding in his head. This one had been the worst one yet. No matter how many times he'd died in those dreams, how many times he'd been killed, this one tops them all. Had he been the reason for those tears in Tao's eyes? Had he been the fault for his suici--

No, he has to tell himself. No. It hadn't been real. He can't believe that. He can't even think it.

Despite his fists bumping against his head to knock away the memories, the tears won't stop. His knuckles whiten with how hard he's burying his nails into his own palm, nearly aiming to draw blood.

Tao had woken up the second Sehun had as well. Instinct. Well, mostly. No one could have slept through that startled jump. He sits up next to him, concern written all over his face, as he snakes his arms around Sehun's shivering body. 

"Don't, Tao, don't. Please don't, don't." Sehun mumbles incoherently into Tao's chest, his tears staining Tao's t-shirt with dark, wet marks.

"Are you okay?" It's pointless to ask. "Don't do what, Sehun? Don't do what? It was just a dream, okay?" He croons. "It was just a dream, I promise. I'm not going to do anything. It was just a dream. It's over now. Calm down." He rocks Sehun back and forth gently, rubbing the younger's arm with his hand to rid him of the goosebumps he could feel along the boy's cold skin.

Sehun sobs quietly, body trembling with the shaken cries that came across as strangled hiccups and moans muffled against fabric. "Don't," he chokes out.

"Don't what?" Tao asks, trying to coax the dream from him. He is, admittedly, a little frightened of what it could be. What nightmare has reduced Sehun to this? "What did I do?"

"Don't take the gun," he begs.

Tao stops dead in his tracks, arms frozen. "What did I do, Sehun?" He asks again. He presses Sehun's head into the crook of his neck, fingers threading through the coarse blond strands. Sehun leans against the touch. He's desperate for comfort, Tao knows. "Tell me. I can take it."

It seems so inappropriate for the morning light to come streaming through the windows, streaking the room with a brilliant, beautiful warmth. What time is it, Tao wonders. Mornings shouldn't be this painful. Not for Sehun. Not for anyone.

"Don't take the gun," Sehun repeats. "Don't. Don't kill yourself."

That sunlight feels so cold. 

There's a clenching in his chest where his heart should be. His eyes glance over to the jacket by the door, innocently draped across a chair. The back pocket, he knows. "I won't," Tao promises, throat closing with the words. "I won't."

He feels Sehun's fingers grasp at the clothes on his back, hugging him back. Asking for closer, closer, closer.

Tao holds him tight until the cries die down to sniffs, holds together the broken pieces of Oh Sehun.

Sehun keeps muttering nonsense under his breath, trying to calm himself down. "It was the worst. That was the worst, Tao. It was terrible, it was so terrible. I can't take them anymore. I'm going to go crazy if I have another one, Tao, I'm so scared of this. I'm tired, so tired, and it was so horrible. What do I do, Tao what do I do, I just...."

He lets him go on and on, let him get the words out of his system. Sehun quiets down even further to small whimpers, nuzzling his head into Tao's chest.

"Are you okay now?" Tao says, glancing at a spot on the ceiling. He vaguely ponders whether the wallpaper is all the same in every room. The same wallpaper that decks these countless rooms, sees all these stories unfold in such a private setting. 

Sehun nods. He looks up hesitantly, pulls back, and stares at Tao with swollen eyes and dark pupils. "I feel pathetic," he says. Another tear threatens to fall.

Tao kisses it away, tasting the salty water with a flick of his tongue on his lips. "Don't cry, Sehun. If you ever need me, I'm here. I won't leave you. So don't cry. You are not alone, I hope you know that. I'll always be beside you."

Sehun is silent for a second before pouncing on Tao again, arms around his back. "I thought I was the cheesy one."

Tao looks at him before motioning at themselves. "Is this not cheesy? I think we both fit that role pretty well."

"What time is it?"

Tao lets out a sigh. "Aren't we asking that question a little too much?" He checks the digital clock on the nightstand. "About nine AM."

"About?"

"A little after. But close enough."

Sehun gives him a look. "I hate that. What's the exact time?"

"Nine-twelve."

"That's hardly close to nine."

Tao curls a corner of his mouth. "Sorry, Hunnie."

A blush explodes across Sehun's face. He leaps out of Tao's arms, scrambling back on the bed until his fingers are over the edge. He blocks his face with one of his hands. "Did you-? Did you really just-? Oh my... Oh my god...." The other hand is now helping block his facial features with the other. "That's so... That's so embarrassing. Oh my god. Wow. That's... that's...."

"That's what...?"

He crawls back and kisses Tao with a half-cringe, his hands on Tao's chin and cheeks. "Oh my god, that's so adorably stupid," he says between crushing Tao's lips under his. "That's so, so, so stupid. Oh god, where have you been?"

"What--," kiss, "do--," kiss, "you--," kiss, "mean?"

"That's so... I can't even give you a nickname, your name is too, too, too un-nicknameable."

The look Sehun gives him is extremely endearing. He would be more attracted if it hadn't been for the warmth rapidly spreading across his lips from the multiple attacks on them. 

"Do you want to order breakfast from room service?" Tao asks.

"We can't go out to eat?"

Tao frowns. "Sorry, Sehun. You know we can't."

Sehun's face drops. "I know."

Tao hauls himself from the bed and walks over to the phone. He stretches on the way over, flexing arm muscles and calf muscles as he bends his arms forward and back, reaching down to the floor once.

And Sehun definitely doesn't stare. He definitely doesn't. It's not as if that body is perfect or anything. Not as if his cheeks are still rosy and flushed or anything. Oh, no.

"Should I be..." Sehun starts while Tao reaches for the phone. The latter turns his head, curious to hear what it is Sehun means to say. "Should I be happy?"

Is he asking for permission? It makes him think before answering. 

"I think," he says, "that you can be."

Sehun lightens up the tiniest bit.

"But," he continues, "you have to be cautious."

With that, the mood returns to the way it was before. Dark. Foreboding. Sehun wants to curl up and go back to sleep.

Which is worse? Dreams, or reality?

While Tao is talking to someone on the line, he replies, "Understood."

He flips open his phone. "Any news?" His deep voice is scarred with a sort of determined fatigue.

A smooth voice replies back, "Some. Nothing so far on his phone log except the one. But you've heard about that. Yi Xing hasn't been heard from since. Well, there was another call sometime around seven. But that was to, not from. Our posts haven't seen anyone like them, and they haven't been spotted around neighborhoods or the city. Most likely it's that they're there, just hidden in the crowds and such. You know how it is." The man on the line doesn't seem to care too much for the news, simply emotionlessly listing everything he had discovered.

Yi Fan sighs. "Any good news? That would benefit me?"

"Yes. There's one. A credit card purchase."

A dark laugh erupts from the ex-butler. "Go on."

"Heaven's Hotel, inner city. One night stay. Room service purchased around nine-thirty AM." A pause as the man presumably checks the silver Rolex he always wears. "About ten minutes ago."

Another chuckle. Yi Fan doesn't say anything.

After a while, the other man responds. "Should we go after them? Don't you intend on sending us?" He fake-coughs. "More specifically, me?"

"As much as I enjoy your courageous humor, no. No, let's give them a day." Yi Fan shakes his head despite no one being there with him.

"That's how the bad guy always loses, you know. Says ' that' and gives them more time."

"Who says we're the bad guy?"

"You. And me. And the agency. Evil is threaded in the very core of our system, Yi Fan, we are bad. Bad to the bone."

"We won't lose. It's one day. All men should have a last happy day on earth."

"Are you trying to be sympathetic? Stringing them with this kind of death threat stress, I doubt it'll be happy."

"You overestimate my cruelty, Minseok."

And this time, Kim Minseok is the one to let out a quick laugh before leaving Yi Fan with an empty call.

"Jongin? Honey?" His mother knocks on the door lightly. "It's time for school."

Thank god he'd locked it last night. "I'm sick," he answers simply.

"You can't stay there forever, Jongin." Yes he can. "Please come out. I'm begging you as your mother." What else could she be? "Do this for the sake of your education. Think of all your friends!"

He wants to reply what friends? He settles on groaning "I'm sick" again.

The sound of leaving footsteps allows him one sigh of relief.

Thank god for that lock.

He can't go back. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The first few minutes of awakening is a daze of confusion and cluttered thoughts, as it always is. Then, seconds later, just like that, it hits him.

Always the same now. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

The more the guilt and regret eats away at his self conscious, the more he starts thinking about how wonderful it must be to not exist. He wishes to disappear to dust, cease to be a part of this world.

But the thing is that Do Kyungsoo, he thinks, would have been there to tell him how lonely he would be if Jongin did disappear.

How he wishes to hear that voice again.

Who has he always gone to for problems like this? He can't seem to rack up any names. Friends? What friends?

Well, there's one. But who knows what's going on with Sehun anymore. Contacting him is an uncertainty laced with dangers. Calling Sehun could be putting his friend in potential danger, and Jongin cannot live with any more heart break piling on right now.

Still, he has no other choice. Is he to wallow in his own misery all by himself? A good friend would listen to his woes, right? He wonders if, then, is he himself also a good friend?

He picks up his phone and its dying battery. The phone number is dialed by memory, the green button is pressed with hesitation. With a fidgety hand, he raises the cell to his ear. He can't afford speaker phone now. Not with his mother ghosting over his room, waiting for him to come out. Waiting for a sign of life.

It rings once. Twice. Thrice. Four times.

He winces at the ensuing silence.

You have reached the Oh Sehun line. Sorry I'm not here right now, but thanks for dropping by. Leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Bye.   

A/N Hi everyone! I wanted to give you all a more romance-centric chapter rather than tension and mystery etc etc etc. I hope you like it nonetheless :) I kinda wrote this in spurts, so I'll probably be constantly editing for typos xD 

Thank you soooo much for all the votes and subscribers wow

My proposition still stands for anyone who wants to write for me or make a poster! Please message :)

And to those with finals just around the corner, best of luck to you!