It was Sunday morning when Luhan finally sat at his desk with a notepad and pen in his hands.
Sehun was of course with him, one hand on his knee and the other supporting his head while he leaned on the desk.
It had been thirty minutes, and all Luhan managed to write down was "Dear Mother".
Not that Sehun could read Chinese, but they were the only words on the very top of the paper.
Sehun hadn't been pushy at all, silently watching his lover while he thought hard about what to write.
His eyebrows were scrunched together, and his doe-like eyes were focused on the blank sheet before him.
Sehun thought Luhan's comcentration face was absolutely adorable, but he wasn't going to disturb him by letting him know that.
There was a gentle knock on the door, and Sehun turned around to find D.O poking his head inside.

Lay hyung and I made some lunch. Come on out when you're ready.

"Alright." Sehun nodded at D.O, and the latter slipped back out and shut the door firmly.

"I don't know what to say..." Luhan bit his lip and laid his pen down.

"It's okay, just be truthful and tell her what you want to say." Sehun leaned forward and pecked Luhan's cheek.

"To be honest, if I were you I wouldn't know what to say either... But I'm sure there are things you want to tell her, things you want her to know." Sehun gave a warm smile and patted Luhan's knee, then stood up and stretched his arms upwards.

"You've got as much time as you want anyway. Let's get some energy into your brain so you can brainstorm better." Sehun held his hand out, and Luhan took it obediently.
They walked out to the living room, only to find Luhan wasn't the only person trying to rush through his letter.
D.O, Tao, Kris and Baekhyun were perched around the wooden table, each scribbling on the same kind of notepads Luhan had, except for Tao.

"Told you guys not to dilly dally during the week. Now you have to rush it before they stop collecting our post for the week tonight." Chen, who was laying across the largest sofa with his hands behind his head, singsonged and smirked.

"Yeolie distracted me." Baekhyun shrugged nonchalantly and ended his letter with little hearts all over the bottom of the page.
D.O kept silent as he tapped his notepad vigorously with his pen, rolling his wide eyes around in thought.

"... Tao, please." Kris suddenly threw his hands in the air and shoved his pen in Tao's hand, who giggled a little before reaching over and finishing Kris's sentence for him.

"Yeah, Kris hyung has been here for a little too long and his Chinese is a little rusty." Chanyeol explained to Sehun, then continued strumming on his ukulele.

"You should make your mom learn Korean." Kai remarked unhelpfully as he trailed behind Lay with two plates in his hands, setting them down in the middle of the wooden table.

"She doesn't like it when I tell her what to do." Kris deadpans, swiping a sandwich from one of the plates.

"Ge Ge! You're gonna get stains on the letter!" Tao shrieks, pulling the notepad from under Kris's hand.

"Kris, you better finish your letter before you eat. You haven't got much time anyway. Even ChenChen's finished with his letter." Xiumin took the sandwich from Kris and gobbled it up before walking into the kitchen.
Chen?
Sehun looked at the boy humming to himself on the sofa, confusion written all over his face.
Chen must have caught Sehun's curious gaze, turning towards him and Luhan with a big smile.

"What? My gramps blackmailed my mom and dad to lose contact with me, not the other way round."

"But don't you want to?"

"Lose contact with them? Hey, I already have, since it's one sided. But at least I know they know how I feel. And I like to think if I stopped sending them letters they'll be sad and they'll miss me, just a little." Chen gave Sehun and Luhan a wide grin before bursting out in song, swaying his head from side to side.
Deciding it'd help Luhan, Sehun sat down near Chen's feet and pressed further.

"What do you normally write in your letters then?"

"Oh, I tell my gramps, my mom and my dad stuff that happens here, what Suho hyung and Kris hyung are teaching me and how they help me deal with myself."

"You write to your grandfather too?"

"Sure I do. I keep telling him I don't hate him one bit and I still love the grumpy old git he is. I know him, I know he reads my letters even though he blackmails my parents. I know he still loves me deep down. He can send me away as far as the other side of the planet, but I know for sure somewhere in his heart I still hold a place." Chen grins, the corners of his mouth curling into a pretty curve.

"He was once the old man who took me to amusement parks and went on as many rides with me as possible. Somewhere deep down, he's still that old man, I know it."

Sehun knocked a couple of times on Lay and Suho's door before entering, a small smile on his face.

"Hi, hyung."

"Sehun-ah!" Suho greeted Sehun happily, sitting with Lay and Chen on the floor around the laundry basket.
Chen waved at Sehun for a few seconds before grabbing a shirt from the basket and laying it in front of him.

"Where Luhan?" Lay asked, smoothing out the creases on one of the shirts Chen had just folded.

"He asked me to give him a little time on his own to write to his mother. He knows what to say now, thanks to you, hyung." Sehun nudged Chen and gave him a kind smile.
He definitely saw Chen in a different light after their conversation.
He wasn't more than a fun-loving troublemaker with ADHD.
He too had an insufferable past and he dealt with it with a kind and forgiving heart.

"It's the truth. But it's a pain in the , having to write three almost identical letters every month."

"Oh ChenChen!" Suho laughed and gave Chen a pat on the back who tackled him to the ground with a bear hug.
Sehun didn't miss the slightly furrowed expression on Lay's face before he pretended not to see it and continued with the laundry.
He shuffled closer and closed the gap between them so their backs were facing the duo on the floor.

"I thought you said it doesn't hurt anymore?" Sehun whispered, folding the shirt that Chen abandoned.

"I said it doesn't hurt as much." Lay said softly, avoiding Sehun's gaze.

"You should tell him how you feel, you know..."

"What for? To leave him at the end of the year when I'm allowed to go back to China?" Lay stared Sehun in the eye.
He then softened his gaze and looked over his shoulder at the giggling duo behind him.

"It's not because I'm afraid of being rejected. It's because I'm sure he loves me too, and if I start something that has to end painfully I'll break his heart. It'll hurt either way when we leave, and if it hurts this much when we're friends how much more will it hurt if we had something more?"
Sehun was speechless.
He simply thought Lay's feelings were unreciprocated, but instead Lay was doing it to protect Suho's heart.

"As I've said... you wade in self-pity for long enough, and then you realize it doesn't hurt that much anymore." Lay's voice drops, and he continued on with the laundry like nothing happened.

Author's Note:

I almost cried myself when I wrote the part about Lay ;__;

Btw, I started my crack fic. Enjoy: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/713726/send-me-home-comedy-exo-crack

Kkaebsong~

And SM, where's that MV you promised huh?? I'm getting crankier than Tao when Duizhang doesn't buy him crap atm.

Please ignore above, I didn't know SM were doing it to pay tribute to the ferry accident. .__.

Someone said on tumblr it was because of the leaks so I thought "That's no reason to delay the release..."

Well, now I know. ;__;