Chapter Five

I asked Luhan one day, what he usually does when we’re not hanging out. I wanted to know if he had a job, but didn’t want it to come out sounding more like I was chiding him for having too much time on his hands and spending most of it with me. But I guessed I should have worded it differently.

“Me? Let’s see. I think of you a lot when I’m not seeing you.”

Really, I should have known he would have answered it like that. “No, I mean, don’t you have a job or something?”

Great. Now I sounded like his mum.

Fortunately, he replied in a serious tone following that. “I do, actually. I’m just not sure if it’s really a job, because I don’t get paid.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You do volunteer work?”

“Kind of.”

“Like, helping the needy and such?”

“Not really.”

I was half-tempted to do an online search of weirdly named job titles because the way he put it made it seemed like he didn’t know how to pronounce it properly. It wasn’t until the end of the month when he invited me over for dinner at his house that I found out, from his parents, what his job was.

“A florist, huh?” I sat on the sofa and grabbed the pillow next to me, hugging it to my chest. “Why didn’t you just say it the last time I asked you?”

“You didn’t actually ask what my job was. You asked if I had one and I said yes,” he reminded me. “I answered truthfully too. My parents don’t pay me.”

His parents run a flower shop and they made Luhan help out regularly on days when there would be a lot of customers. “I would say paying for your living necessities definitely counts as pay,” I pointed out. “But wow, you’re a florist and you have your own family business.”

“Yeah, now you know where the flowers I gave you came from.”

“Thanks. I’m heading there tomorrow to see how much they cost.”

He smirked and plopped down next to me. “Not a lot. Less than the effort I go through handpicking and arranging them into a bouquet.”

“Hey, did you even pay for them?”

“Nope. Like I said, I don’t get paid. Where would I find the money?”

“But don’t your parents ever notice flowers going missing?”

“They do. They just don’t mind.” I stared at him with wide eyes and he replied me with a self-satisfied grin. “Especially when they know I was the one who took them as gifts for my boyfriend.”

I found it weird that Luhan’s parents knew about us but didn’t mind at all. My parents would be against it, and this I knew because when I was younger, I overheard them talking about one of our neighbors’ son, who happened to be gay, and they weren’t saying very nice things. I could only imagine the outburst from them if I ever come clean about my relationship with Luhan. With my condition, which still didn’t seem to improve despite the treatments, I would probably die before they found out about it.

I felt bad. I promised Luhan to be positive about things but I couldn’t seem to do it, not as well as he did it anyway. Aside from pain, which rarely bothered me anymore, I had another worry on my mind. If I survived, it would mean I have to confess to my parents about being in love with a man, and the consequences would not be pretty. It was that, or breaking all ties with Luhan and trying to ‘steer back onto the path’ again, but obviously that wouldn’t be ideal either.

In other words, to live or not became sort of a dilemma for me. I wasn’t sure if Luhan knew. He certainly didn’t have to worry about such things.

“What’s so weird about it?” he had asked me back when I commented on his parents’ take on our relationship. “We’re in love. We’re happy. And when I’m happy, my parents are happy.”

Unfortunately, not everyone in the world sees it that way, and it might be silly, but as long as one person in the world is against something I do, I wouldn’t want to admit. Since I was a kid, I had this slight obsession with doing only what everyone else deems as the right thing to do. I was afraid of being judged.

Luhan didn’t know how I felt, of course. I didn’t want him to know I was having doubts about us now and then. It would make me seem like such an , and besides, I was genuinely happy with him. And for a dying person, finding happiness was the most important thing. It was all that mattered.

Was.

After pulling a disappearing act for around four months, Kai magically reappeared on my doorstep on a Sunday afternoon.

I wanted to grab a broom and shoo him away, but I really wanted to hear what he had to say, and I was too tired to walk to the other end of my house just to grab the broom. So I grudgingly invited him in and allowed him to sit on my bed.

“You must be mad at me for not calling you for… I don’t know,” he waved an arm around in the air, frustrated. “For a really long time.”

“You don’t say?”

“Listen, I’m sorry. Really! I am. I had been truly busy preparing for college, and although the first semester started last month, I had trouble adjusting to the new surroundings. It was a lot different from high school, you know?”

“No, I don’t. I would if only I’m not too sick to attend college, but whaddya know! I am too sick,” I snapped. Kai turned to face me, his eyes wide with horror at the realization that he said something wrong.

He hid his face behind his palm and sighed. “I totally did not mean it that way, Sehun. I’m not here to show off about my privilege above you or anything. Please, I’m here to ask how you’ve been.”

I almost snorted. He could have asked months ago, if he really cared enough. I would, if my sworn best friend of six years was terminally ill. “I’m fine,” I finally said, because no matter how mad I was at him for abandoning me, it was too easy to forgive him. He was my best friend of six years, after all. “Nothing much changed, actually.”

“I heard from your mum that your condition is, um,” he paused, scratching his head as if to think of a better word that didn’t sound like a premonition of death, “taking a bad turn.”

Okay, I had to give him credit for at least trying. “Yeah, that was a quarter of a year ago.” I still couldn’t resist the opportunity to rub in the fact that he ignored his dying friend for three months. “I’m getting better now, I think.”

“That’s great.” Awkward silence. This particular scene was like the one five years ago when we first talked after three days ignoring each other’s existence after I accused him of wrecking my Playstation, when actually it was my dad who accidentally stepped on it and was too afraid to own up. Anyone with a best friend would be able to describe how frustrating it was, trying to find words to break the silence, I meant. Not having a father who secretly broke your gaming machine.

“You know what, Sehun?” Kai groaned and slid down from the bed to the floor, where I was sitting. He looked at me. “What I’m going to say next may sound awkward and weird, but, man… I miss you.” He sighed again and held his right fist out in front of me. “Please tell me we’re still bros.”

I shrugged and bumped his fist with mine. “Yeah, bros.”

“Finally! God, that was suffocating,” he said, presumably referring to the awkwardness that filled the air earlier, but had since gone, leaving no trace behind. “I know I have been a jerk for vanishing into thin air all of a sudden, but why didn’t you just give me a call?”

It was my turn to sigh, and I made it very dramatic. “I didn’t want to interrupt you. I know you were busy with college entrance exams and meeting new friends at school and dating new girls…”

“Oh, please.” Kai rolled his eyes. “I would answer your calls, anytime. Well, except during classes and when I’m asleep. So, what’s new with you?”

“When you’re stuck at home all day, you don’t really get anything new.”

“Well, what about that friend you met at the hospital? What’s his name – Luhan?” He seemed to know a lot more than he claimed to. I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously, and he shrugged. “I heard about him from your mum, whom I bumped into the other day at the supermarket. She didn’t tell me the details. I was hoping to hear those from you.”

I pursed my lips and wondered if I should let Kai in on my secret, but he wasn’t a very good secret keeper. I’d learnt that the hard way. Still, being in love was a big deal, Sehun being in love was a bigger deal and Sehun being in love with a handsome man named Luhan was an even bigger deal. It would be great to have someone to talk to about it.

So, after I made sure my mum was not home, I poured everything out to him. It took around ten minutes, and during the entire time, I watched Kai’s eyes grow wider at the end of my every sentence.

“Wait, let me recap,” he said, stopping me with a hand. “You met him at the hospital. He brought you to the park where your hands touched. And now he’s your boyfriend.” I nodded. He got the main points. “Does that mean you’re… gay?”

Another nod. Kai pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head in disbelief. I thought he was going to tell me off or try and convince me that I was making a huge mistake, which , because your best friend was supposed to be your biggest supporter. And then he took a deep breath and stared at me straight in the eyes. “Oh, man, Sehun. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really, really sure?”

I glared at him. “What’s gotten into you? I am sure.”

“Then how come you’ve never fallen in love with me? I’m handsome and charismatic. It’s hard to believe.” He dodged the pillow I threw at him, laughing out loud. “I’m just kidding. Of course I believe you. In fact, I’ve been suspecting it for a while now.”

It was my turn to be in shock. “You what? Did you just tell me you’ve known I was gay before I even know of it myself?”

“It was just a ‘what if’. Li