"Tell me more about your dad." Sehun looked up at the crescent moon in the sky.
He wasn't planning on sleeping, and he knew Luhan didn't either.
There was a brief silence, before Luhan's voice, slightly croaky from fatigue, rang from the window above Sehun.

"My dad aged well. He looked about forty when he was fifty-two. He had a really nice smile, and he had little crinkles beside his eyes when he smiled. He didn't like carrots. He had rough hands that were two and a half times the span of mine when I was five. He used to call me 'Han-er'. He kept baby photos of me in his wallet. He-... My dad, he..." Luhan fell silent, then let out a choked cry.

"My dad is dead."
No...
Sehun blinked back the hot tears that appeared immediately.
The man who loved him so much didn't exist anymore, and Luhan was all alone in the world feeling unwanted.
What has Luhan done to deserve all this?
Sehun clenched his fists, angry at the world for the fact that Luhan lost his father and Sehun himself couldn't hold him at the moment to offer comfort.
He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his arms and face on them, helplessly listening to Luhan's small sobs.
When the sobbing reduced to sniffling, Sehun looked up from his arms.
The sky wasn't pitch black anymore, with the horizon brightening up.
Feeling inspired, Sehun lifted his head up so his voice would reach the window easier.

"Hey, Lu..."

"From now on, you don't have to love the sunset anymore. Whatever happened in the past is in the past. You'll be able to start all over again, but this time I'll be here with you and we'll always be together. And we'll mark this with the sunrise."

Sehun watched the sun rise with Luhan, heart and chest clenching tighter and tighter as the frail boy's voice grew weaker and weaker and finally disappeared.

"Lu?"
No reply.

"Luhan!" Sehun clambered to his feet, only to find his shirt wedged between the bars in the window.
Oh Luhan...
Even in your weakest and most vulnerable times, all you ever think about is other people.
Sehun let a wry smile slip onto his face as he pulled his dusty shirt on, then ran to the main office as quickly as possible to alert the staff.
Minutes later, Luhan was carried out of the cell by two medical staff and moved into the nurse's office.
To his dismay, Sehun was denied entry while Luhan was being treated.

"Please! He needs me, he'll be scared if he's alone when he wakes up!" Sehun yelled at the closing doors before him, then let out a bottomless sigh as he dropped onto the floor in defeat.

"You're from Dorm E?" A soft voice spoke slowly, and Sehun turned his head around to find an elderly nurse standing beside him.
He nodded glumly at the short skinny woman who was gazing down at him softly.

"That's why you're such a softie. Tell you what, sonny. You stay right here and I'll ring up your homeroom teacher to say you're not feeling well today so Luhanie won't be alone when he is allowed to go. What's your name?"

"Oh Sehun. Thanks ahjumma, but... you knew Luhan?" Sehun stood up immediately and faced the nurse whose wrinkly lips formed into a bright smile.

"I do, he got sent here quite a lot in his first month." The elderly woman took a seat on the bench in the small front hall, then patted the seat next to him.

"Poor boy. Had the living daylights beaten out of him and never gave us names or breathed so much as a word of complain, bless him. But of course we all know it was those cavemen from his dorm."
Cavemen?
Sehun knew the silly and playful but nonetheless genuine and kind dormmates of his were anything but violent.
Questions he dared not think about started appearing in his head.
Did they hurt Luhan?
Were they too scared to tell me?
Are they still hurting him?
Fear creeped into Sehun's whole body while thoughts of what he had not expected of his dormmates might be reality hit him.

"He didn't last through the fourth week in Dorm B. I remember, the poor boy was out for two days and that's when I went straight to the principal and told him Luhan couldn't possibly spend more time in our office than anywhere else in the school. In the end he agreed to move him to Dorm E. It makes this old lady so happy to see you're being such an angel to the dear boy."
Dorm B.
Luhan was in Dorm B.
Sehun shivered from the terrifying images that entered his head, of Luhan living among all those brutes and putting up with all the abuse.
He inhaled shakily and smiled at the nurse, who excused herself with a pat to Sehun's shoulder and disappeared behind the closed doors, leaving Sehun with the question he wanted answers to more than any other.
What had Luhan done for him to be put in Dorm B?

It felt like hours before the same elderly nurse came through the painted wooden doors again, and Sehun sprang to his feet.
The old lady smiled sweetly and nodded at Sehun before re-entering the restricted area, leaving Sehun to catch up with her.

"Luhanie always looked less gloomy if we put him in the ward furthest away from the entrance." The chatty woman grinned and walked pretty quickly down the corridor, probably sensing Sehun's need to see Luhan.

"I always it was he noise or people bothering him. Then one day I was going to check if he was awake yet after being unconscious for a day, and there was the lovely little one, staring out of the window, eyes so bright it was like he had stars in them. He was looking at the rose garden outside the principal's house. You wouldn't know unless you walked all the way up there, but I told Luhanie there was a rose patch in those hedges behind the bench at the far end. He smiled at me, and it had me squealing like a teenage girl because oh boy, that smile put all the roses in the world to shame!"
I almost did too.
Sehun giggled along with the nurse as they approached the end of the corridor.

"Go on in then Sehunie, you can take him home. Make sure he's eating and feed him if you have to, alright?"
Sehun watched the nurse make her way back down the hallway while humming a happy tune.
He tried to collect his thoughts so he'd appear composed like he usually was in front of Luhan.
He knocked twice and pushed the door open.
Luhan was sitting up in a bed, IV tubes stuck into the back of his pale bony hand.
The bed was in the middle of the bare white room, and the only thing that seemed to stand out was Luhan's mocha brown hair and eyes.

"Hey." Sehun sat down on the edge of the bed and needily reached his arms out to hold Luhan's body against his.
Luhan wordlessly pulled his arms around Sehun's neck, letting Sehun nuzzle into his hair.
Sehun took a huge whiff of the comforting scent and smiled in relief.
He still smells like roses.
Sehun pulled back a little and cupped Luhan's face in his hands, taking a good look at the youthful face in front of him.
Luhan's eyes were bright with content, and Sehun took comfort in the fact that it was because he was there with him.
For a while he didn't speak and let himself get lost in those beautiful eyes until Luhan broke the silence.

"'On my planet I had a flower; she always was the first to speak...'"
Sehun chuckled and planted a small kiss on the corner of Luhan's forehead.

"Really? Mine doesn't. Mine doesn't even speak that much." Sehun smirked playfully and removed his hands from Luhan's face.
Luhan gave Sehun a rare smile, and Sehun felt that familiar warmth spreading through his chest and temperature rising in his cheeks.
The smile that puts all the roses in the world to shame.
No, they're not even comparable to this.
Sehun gave in to his urges and pressed his lips onto Luhan's quickly even though he knew the smaller boy wasn't feeling one hundred percent still.
He parted their lips and looked away in embarrassment.

"Come on. Let's get you back to the dorm."

Author's Note:

The angst is not over yet.

Brace yourselves for an emotional roller coaster ride people.

kkaebsong~