It’s a cold froth of Sunday coffee jelly spelling trouble in paradise when Luhan called Sehun for a talk in a private corner somewhere in Hongdae.


Luhan never arranges ‘talks’, he was never the one to personally engage in confrontations or initiative for any matter. He was a passive bystander, an onlooker who doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb, but stand out nonetheless.


It was what caught Sehun’s attention at first. Luhan was a calm wave among thousands; sweeps the surface of an ocean, comes and goes, and captivates upon notice.


Luhan had the same thin smile spread upon his kind face.


"Have you eaten yet?" Luhan asks with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.


Sehun notices, he does so this time. The calm that emanates from Luhan makes him a bundle of nervous fingertips aching to reach for an apology.


An apology that Sehun asks for a number of times for the same mistakes, again and again, and Luhan would look pained from having to deal with him -again.


Luhan knows Sehun is playful, so much so that he doesn’t ask him where he goes and who he’s been with this time…again. And Sehun cracks from the passive aggressive cold treatment from Luhan, asks for an apology, and then he relents.


Just like that.


But this time, Luhan doesn’t wait for Sehun to crack, he doesn’t seem content on taking a passive hand as well. The determination written all over his thin lips as he utters his pick from the menu, waitress focused and oblivious from the tense account of Oh Sehun across the table.


They eat their lunch in amicable silence, Luhan asking a few conversational crumbs while Sehun answers with wary eyes stealing glances from the calm man in front of him. Luhan caught Sehun’s eyes in one instance mid-sentence, and he assures Sehun with a smile.


Sehun buys it.


They end their arrangement with Luhan ordering strawberry crepe and coffee jelly parfait for Sehun. Sehun doesn’t understand the sudden initiative from Luhan, three years of tumultous and heightened euphoria with Luhan and this is their first date on Luhan’s account. It brings an unsteady smile from Sehun, he thinks 'this is nice'.


Sehun takes a spoonful of coffee jelly in his mouth, and decides it's definitely sweet in his palate.


"I think," Luhan finishes his last bite from his dessert before pushing the plate aside, "I want to break up."


Sehun stops mid chew, eyes slowly meeting Luhan and finding his dread reflecting back from Luhan’s pupils -the dread was all his.


Luhan waits for a reaction from Sehun, and finding none breaks something inside him yet again. Luhan decides this must be the right thing, then.


"I-"


"Luhan"


Luhan thinks he should speak again, if Sehun wasn’t willing to provide him one, but Sehun does. Sehun gives a stern voice calling upon his name in repproach, as if to scold him.


"Luhan," Sehun repeats with a firm grasp on Luhan’s wrist across him, "this is crazy."


"It is," Luhan doesn’t want Sehun touching him so forcefully, "it’s crazy how I thought I can fix you…fix… this."


Luhan ends with a lost reference upon which he was trying to fix, Sehun wasn’t broken, but maybe he was.


Sehun grips Luhan a bit more when words fail to deliver his message ‘I can’t lose you’.


He hopes Luhan gets the message, the desperation written all over his eyes.


Luhan gives him a resigned smile, a tiredness etched in his features.


It was a relationship watered down by time and tempered with forgiveness.


Forgiveness on Luhan’s part that never settles because Sehun will loop back to his old self, Luhan tries to fix him by breaking himself instead. But then again maybe Sehun doesn’t need to be fixed, maybe it’s Luhan who needs to fix himself.


Sehun was everything the ordinary high school student Luhan wants, every ordinary high school student wanted. The popular sports jock slash prince familiar on everybody’s tongue, an expensive commodity that asked him out on his graduation day. Nobody expected the calculus nerd to be the one who gets Oh Sehun done in. Not even Luhan himself.


And it was three years of placing his trust that all is well to the end of every affair on Sehun’s skin or uniform collar. But nothing seems to deter from placing a crack on Luhan’s many heart wounds, everybody wanted the Oh Sehun after all.


And apparently he was not enough.


So finally he tells himself to step back from hurting, because maybe it was Sehun’s heartbreak that sets him free.


Luhan gets pulled from his reverie, Sehun’s useless pleas resounding in his ear, eyes refocusing on who he’s about to lose… no, he chides himself, who he had already lost.


Luhan yanks his arms back to himself, he couldn’t read Sehun’s emotions what with his tears blurring his visions by the minute. And he thought he wasn’t going to let this last date with Sehun end with his tears.


Luhan schools his tear-stricken face with the back of his hands, a sudden thought crossing his mind as he rummages his backpack for something.


Sehun is bewildered with Luhan’s unwavering conclusion. How had he taken Luhan for granted for so long that unshed tears are finally gracing Luhan’s eyes one after another? Had he lessened testing Luhan’s feelings for him -the unattainable Luhan, maybe things would have never gone this far.


Sunbae Luhan who said yes to him just before the seniors step out of high school, and through the course of their relationship, the much younger Oh Sehun would constantly be on his toes trying to decipher if Luhan really loved him…he was so passive with everything after all, so kind and forgiving that Sehun would repeatedly place himself in compromising situations where he could validate Luhan’s feelings.


And before he could actually win his horrible game, Sehun finds himself walking on egg shells apologizing to Luhan before he could dispel his doubts because he’s too afraid to lose him when Luhan distances himself from a confrontation. And Sehun is left with his doubts yet again, did he really have Luhan’s love?


Luhan sniffs and finally finds what he is looking for in his backpack, he slides a glossy gold and black button across the table and gives a practiced smile to his hoobae.


"I’m returning this after all," he looks down lovingly at the button presented to Sehun.


In the end, Sehun thinks he failed to claim Luhan’s heart.


Luhan came to Oh Sehun’s graduation with a bouquet of flowers a year after he graduated from the same school, everybody was greeting and congratulating everybody and the two barely had time for themselves, but a quiet escape from the ceremony with hushed steps towards the back exit of the graduation hall was all it took for Oh Sehun to finally have a private moment with Luhan, he had felt giddy though he didn’t quite show it to his sunbae -he had wanted Luhan to see him as the cool hoobae after all.


Luhan wanted to scold Sehun from escaping the ongoing ceremony dragging him along with his last gripe at rebellion. Before he could even start his tirade, Sehun was already keen on keeping up the bad reputation as he tugs his second button free from his starched uniform.


"What are you doing, Oh Sehun!?" Luhan chides him from doing any more damage.


Sehun hands the gold and black button to Luhan and clears his throat.


"Until the day Oh Sehun decides on someone more worthy, Luhan will keep this button where Oh Sehun’s heart is nearest…."


Luhan looks at Sehun with widened of eyes and an exasperated smile afterwards, “Sehunah…”


Sehun gulps, hand extended, button still present in his left hand as he waits for Luhan to take it from his open palm.


"…since when did you start reading shoujo manga?"


Sehun reddened quite a bit in his ear, defense in the tip of his tongue before Luhan picks the button from his hand and accepts his proposal… Luhan whispers 'I'll take good care of it' as he tucks it to his pocket.


Sehun is livid with the image of the tiny object in front of him and looks up at Luhan for any signs of explanation.


"I didn’t ask for you to return this to me."


'I haven't loved anyone more than you yet'


"But I should," Luhan finally calmed down his tearful fit, "I don’t plan on waiting for you to ask me."


'I don't want to find the day where you'll finally decide on someone more worthy'


"I’ve decided from the moment I asked you out here today that our time together will be a happy occasion despite it being the last," Luhan had spoken like it was days past.


"I don’t have a word in this, don’t I?" Sehun stares intensely at Luhan who wouldn’t meet his eyes.


"No, you don’t" Luhan humors despite himself.


Sehun stabs the unfinished parfait with his spoon, searches for something in the black and white melting jellies before he puts them in his mouth, tears spattering his jeans before disappearing into dark spots indistinguishable from its material.


"This coffee jelly has a bad aftertaste"


Luhan offers an apology.