. . .

There is a chaos in every man.

A burning fire. A raging river.

A dire will to accomplish something so important to him that he will persevere through whatever to get to it. To protect it.

For some, it was their country.

For me, it was you.

. . .

                The world was breaking.

                Or at least that’s what it felt like.

                His vision was blurry, red blotches clouding his vision. The constant moving, turning, watching his back for the possibility of anything and everything.

                It was dizzying. Spinning. Frightening. Like vertigo.

One. Two. Three. Push on.

                There was a high pitched whistle in his ears that never seemed to go away and he was half deaf from the explosions and shots fired and so many voices screaming in agony, rage, or grim finality.

                Bullets shot like comets; unforgiving, merciless, and blowing away anything it touched with speed and damage all too real.

                The ground trembled underneath his feet from showers of explosives and the rampage of twelve dozen men. Showers of fire and smoke and dust clogged up his sight and choked him through his thoat, burning in his nose.

                Bark burst across his cheek, adding to the cuts and bruises already littered on once smooth alabaster skin. The large boulder he had found as a temporary solace blasted into pieces of sharp shards and brittle chunks, throwing him back into the air from the force of the shockwaves.

                He could feel more than hear through the terrible ringing in his ears and vibrations shaking the ground the backdrop of two more grenades going off not too far a distance away.

“!”

                He cursed under his breath as a shot of pain quickly spread from his leg.

                Sehun bit his lip as he spared a glance at his wounded limb. A bullet had cut straight through the skin and muscle of his thigh, embedding itself in torn tendons and hard bone.

, , .

                The taste of blood was already familiar in his mouth, the copper liquid swelling until he spit it out on the dirt.

                All he could do was push himself up while the dry piles of pine leaves in his gloved hands from the effort, staggering and willing his mothering leg to work properly, and keep going.

“C’mon. Don’t do this. , goddamn-- Be solid. Be solid.”

                He ran as fast as he could (not nearly fast enough) and clenched his teeth hard at the lightning bolts of pain scorching through his leg and the rest of his aching body.

                It was scorching hot in the rough terrain and he wanted nothing more than to fall on the ground and play dead, giving his stressed muscles a time to rest and his frenzied head a brief break of sorts.

                But if there was anything he learned in his years of enlistment, it was to never give up. To realize that he could push himself harder than he could have ever imagined. That there really was no limit until he dropped dead and stayed dead.

                He suppressed the burning behind his eyes every time he hobbled past a corpse. Some disfigured, some mostly whole.

                Sehun cringed, biting the inside of his cheek.

                The mission had been compromised.

                He wanted to scream.

It was ing compromised and now we’re cornered like rats in a cage and mother of ing hell why don’t the communications work?!

                They needed support and they needed it bad. 

                Friend and foe had fallen.

                But there was already too many of them since the beginning, and it was like for every ten they took down, there would be twenty more to match.

                They were hopelessly outnumbered and the results were inevitable.

                Sehun didn’t want to see so many of his friends dead.

                Couldn’t believe they actually were dead.

I should’ve known. I should’ve been more prepared.

                Not every mission could go smoothly.

                He’d gotten too naïve.

“Oh, . God, no.”

                His eyes widened, sweat trickling and stinging at his corneas but he couldn’t give a damn anymore.

                Sehun ran towards a shadowed figure propped up against a large trunk several yards in front of him.

“Jongin. Jongin. Jongin! Get a grip on yourself man!”

                Sehun was desperate. He could taste it. Taste it in the form of copper blood, salt water sweat, and held back tears.

                He could force himself past the corpses of his fallen comrades; his friends, his brothers.

                But he couldn’t ignore a dying one.

                Jongin peeled open one eye, the other sealed shut from swelling. There was still a fire sparked in there.

“Se… Se…hun…”

                His voice came in raspy gurgles, crimson liquid coming as a trickling stream from the corner of his mouth. It was visibly painful for him to just wheeze out a single syllable.

“It all… It all happened so fast.”

                Sehun nodded. He bit his lip and nodded, clutching Jongin’s outstretched hand like it wasn’t missing two fingers.

“I know, man. But we can get through this. We have to get through this.”

                Jongin went on, shaking his head subtly and Sehun swallowed down a sob because, damn, the man’s left ear had been shot clean off and, oh, what he wouldn’t give to just see that dazzling awkward smile from (he couldn’t believe it) only four hours ago.

“Let me see you.”

                Sehun said with trembling fingers inspecting the rest of the damage dealt to Jongin’s body past blood and grime and tattered clothes.

                He choked as his hands carefully brushed over a shot on his right shoulder, pushing up his jacket to see a river flowing from a hole in his flat abdomen, drifting further down to a shot through his knee cap and another in his left calf and a final one through his foot.

Seven hits. Seven ing hits.

                He couldn’t believe it.

“You’re full of holes, man.”

                Jongin’s response was more of a gurgle than a laugh.

“Yeah… I know.”

                The world was still erupting around them but Sehun had grown deaf.

“C’mon, let’s get up. I’ll pack the shots with dirt—“

“How many of us… are left?”

                Jongin rasped, Sehun didn’t notice the man cocking his handgun as he was back by the rush of images flooding his head.

                When he had run through the foliage, he had passed too many familiar faces.

Suho… Jongdae…

                A flash of Chanyeol’s severed head had him gagging.

                Baekhyun had been nearby when it happened. Sehun clenched his eyes at the memory of his reckless fury. The shots that followed.

Yi- Yixing… Five gone.

“Including me and you; seven.”

                Jongin stiffened, an urgent question blaring in his single eye as he stared at Sehun’s expression. Sehun’s eyes softened, knowing what he wanted to ask.

“No. None of them were Kyungsoo.”

                Sighing, Jongin gave one nod, his own fingers ghosting over his left hand as he gave a bitter chortle.

“Lost… my ring… Blew it… right off…”

                A steely look came over the man as he suddenly raised his arm, gun poised, and pulled the trigger.

“Wha—“

                Sehun threw a glance behind him, catching the falling figure of an enemy in the trees. He was on full alert again.

“Se- Sehun… Please…”

                Jongin gripped Sehun’s forearm with as much strength as he could muster. Even that barely feeling like a pinch.

“If… If you see Kyungsoo… Can you tell him… Tell him…”

                Jongin hacked a cough, spewing blood on Sehun’s chest but Sehun only clutched him tighter.

“Tell him I love hi—“

BANG!

                A bullet went straight through Jongin’s neck.

                It cut him off abruptly, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, his sentence unfinished and nothing coming out but red, red blood.

“!”

                A second shot hit Sehun in the forearm where Jongin’s hold had just turned loose and fallen.

                Rage caused him to scream, fury to face his attacker, and grief to swiftly let loose a round of bullets into the skull of the man who had killed Jongin.

“That was my goddamn best friend for ’s sake!”

                Sehun roared, past the pain, past the tears.

“JONGIN!”

                A smaller figure emerged from his peripheral vision, rushing over to their side and Sehun felt his throat clog up at the disbelief written right across Kyungsoo’s features.

                Sehun fisted his hands, coughing in an attempt to make room around the wedge in his mouth to say what he needed to say.

“The last thing he… He wanted to tell you… He loves you, Kyungsoo. He really loves you.”

                Without another second wasted (he couldn’t bring himself to look at Kyungsoo or Jongin again), Sehun rose to his feet and started to run in another direction. He had been there too long.

                War was rushing in fast forward from all sides and the last two hours seemed like eternity. Pain, constant pain; fighting, aching, sweating; fire, burning, booming, thundering. It seemed like all he had ever known at this point.

                The adrenaline pounded in his ears, helped him ignore the hurt screaming in his body and gnawing through his heart.

How many of us are left now?

                Every second mattered. Every second meant another life. Spared or taken away.

                He felt slightly guilty, because he cared about everyone, they were his family. But only one face resided in his mind as he dodged bullet after bullet, shooting people down and flinging his body away from the trajectory of another grenade.

                Luhan.

                Sehun needed to find him.

                He tried to yell through his walkie-talkie, but the only thing he could make out was the relentless booms and bangs and piercing static echoed in real time, farther away.

“Luhan!”

                He darted his eyes around, scanning over faded branches, half-open clearings, dead faces.

                He ran and shot, ran and dodged, ran and shot again.

                Sehun’s breathing was erratic, he was no longer able to feel the aches in his body, the blood escaping. His mind only centered on one thing.

                His eyes zeroed in on a struggling figure in the distance, wrestling with another man just as unarmed and enraged.

                They were a tangled mass of limbs and blows and ferocity but Sehun could recognize that tuft of caramel hair from a mile away.

                He halted in his steps, arms shaking, raising his rifle, narrowing his eyes through the scope, off the safety, and finger on the trigger.

                He bit his lip until it bled.

                Sehun prayed he’d make this shot.

                He took a breath.

Bang!

BOOM!

                Sehun reeled back in shock, eyes blinded.

“LUHAN!”

                He turned and shot down the figure that had thrown the bomb before sprinting the rest of the way to where Luhan and the other man lay motionless. (Thank god his shot had been accurate.)

                Sehun turned Luhan over so that he was face up, hurriedly checking their surroundings for more people before rushing into a barricade of solid rock and debris.

“Luhan. Please—“

                He caressed blood smeared cheeks and closed eyelids, eyes searching for a sign that he would open them.

“Not you too. Please, please, please—“

                Slowly, slowly, his eyes fluttered open and Luhan gave him a small smile that made Sehun’s breath catch like it did every morning they woke up side by side, in each other’s arms and sprawled against scented bed sheets.

“Luhan!”

                Sehun buried his head in the crook of Luhan’s neck. He rubbed his nose against the skin, fingers playing with the small hairs at the base of it, not caring if the other smelled like gravel and smoke and burnt edges because at least he smelled alive.

“Sehun…”

                He pulled away to look at him in the eyes again. Luhan pushed away the bangs sticking to Sehun’s forehead from the sweat and dirt, as if they weren’t pressed for time and it was just another day way back in high school where they would ditch class and talk about random on the rooftop, sun beating down on them.

“I love you.”

                Sehun murmured.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I can’t ing say it enough.”

                He littered kisses all over Luhan’s face. He kissed his forehead, his closed eyelids, his button nose, his rosy cheeks, his small chin, and his soft, grinning lips.

                They kissed with all the urgency, the need, the want, the desire; the passion that was contained in their bodies and poured from their souls.

                They kissed with all the love they could give and more.

                They kissed like it was their last.

                And it probably was.

“There’s so much I want to tell you. So much I wanted to do—“

“Sehun.”

                Sehun stopped, Luhan looked at him with a gaze that filled the world.

“I know.”

                And he did. He really did.

                Luhan always knew what Sehun meant. He always understood.

                Because they felt the same way.

“Luhan, I—AGH!”

                Sehun fell back, a bullet lodged itself in his calf, more ricocheting off the rock’s surface and grazing his arms.

                He staggered to keep himself upright, biting hard on the inside of his cheek, only one thing on his mind.

                He needed to shield Luhan.

                Keep him safe.

                But before he could regain his balance, Luhan had already rolled himself on top of him, turning Sehun sharply so that Luhan was the one blocking him. Covering for him.

                No.

“No, no, no, Luhan. What are you doing?!”

                Sehun tried to push Luhan back, turn their positions around again, but Luhan just kept walking him backwards, taking the blows, walking him towards the edge of the sheer cliff hanging over a rushing river.

                Luhan’s body shook hard for every bullet he withstood.

One. Two. Three.

                Sehun glared through panicked tears and a crazy haze at the two men hidden in the leaves, pulling out his own hand gun and firing away at them with ty aim through blurry eyes.

                More came.

                Luhan held tight onto Sehun, keeping his ground no matter how loudly Sehun yelled at him over gunshots and searing pain for him to let go; Let me go, Luhan! , please! LUHAN!

Four. Five.

                Luhan smiled through it all.

“How many times… do I have to tell you?”

                Sehun’s heart clenched tightly. A pair of hands were fisted around the beating thing and tearing it, slowly, agonizingly, to shreds.

No, this can’t be happening. This can’t—anyone, anyone but… but… Luhan.

“I—“

               Luhan coughed. His mouth spilled blood.

               Sehun sobbed.

“—I’m the older one here. I’m supposed to—“

Six. Seven.

“—to protect you.”

Eight.

                Sehun ran out of bullets to return. He didn’t have any other magazines left.

                In futile vengeance, he tossed the piece of metal as hard as he could at the men still firing at them.

When were they going to ing stop?! Enough! This was enough!

Nine.

                Luhan held him closer. Brought his lips to Sehun’s ear.

“Keep fighting.”

                They were at the edge. Sehun could feel the curve of the rock, hear the rush of the waters, but all that mattered, all that ever mattered, was the person in his arms.

“Keep going.”

                Sehun shook his head, the hot tears streaming down his face burning trails down his cheeks, paving their way through blood and grime.

                He was the one supporting Luhan now.

“No. No, I can’t. Not without you, Luhan.”

“Y-You will.”

                Luhan brought his face back to look up at Sehun’s eyes.

“Keep living, Sehun.”

                Sehun watched with his teeth clenched and chest hurting as Luhan slipped his wedding band onto Sehun’s pinky finger.

                He looked up and smiled again, teeth red rimmed and blood stained, eyes twinkling despite it all.

                He fell in love again.

“For me.”

                Sehun searched Luhan’s doe eyes, suspended in the moment. He wanted to convey everything. Convey a whole lifetime of words. Of every moment they spent together and every moment they could have had.

                He wanted to pour out the entire galaxy and more for Luhan to see and experience in wonder and amazement. He wanted to adopt a kid and count each other’s wrinkles and laugh together on wooden rocking chairs with the two dogs they’ve always wanted.

                He wanted so much.

                He wanted to say so, so much.

                But there was no time.

                They didn’t have that luxury anymore.

                So, Sehun just nodded. He’d make this final promise to Luhan.

                It’d be like their wedding vows.

                Sehun desperately pressed his lips onto Luhan’s while clutching him close. Their last kiss tasting like cold blood and flowing tears and breaking hearts.

“I love you.”

                They whispered to each other against their lips.

                Luhan smiled one last time, the same way he did when they first met and he knew they were meant to be.

               Sehun struggled to return it with the brightest grin he could ever try to give.

                Luhan was dazzled.

                Sehun was dying.

                With a final squeeze, Luhan pushed him off the edge.

                Sehun tried to reach out and bring Luhan with him.

“LUHAN!”

Ten.

                Luhan was shot straight through the head.

                Sehun fell.

. . .

I survived that day.

Somehow, by some miracle, I made it out of that battle field.

I made it out. 

They called me a ‘hero.’

But no matter which way the media twists it, no matter which angle, which perspective, which point; we lost.

Our country lost.

Our team lost.

We lost.

I may have survived, but it was no victory.

I kept that final promise I made.

I pushed through day by day.

I woke up to a cold bedside, withstood the cameras and reporters shoved in my face whenever I stepped foot out the front door, came home feeling empty and utterly alone because all my friends were dead and gone, and tortured myself with nightmares of your haunted faces in the dark.

I’m living.

But I’m not sure what’s so good about it anymore.

Because, honestly, I died that day.

I died on that mountain with the rest of our friends, our brothers.

Luhan.

I died there with you.

. . .

A/N It's 3AM. 

I have school tomorrow. I should be sleeping.

But I tell myself that everyday and look how well that's been going. Lol.

Anyway. Yeah. My dad and my brother made me go watch this movie with them and I came out of that theater with a bucket too many of feels. So I went home and regurgitated those feels into this... thing.

I should really apologize for wasting all your time. I'm so sorry for wasting all your time.

Thank you for reading though! And I hope you can leave a comment (I really need constructive criticism because, as you can see, I am in dire need of literary advice.)

Good night/ morning everyone!