••••••••

            “Can I help you?”

            Sehun’s voice is as bright as streetlights, and he’s completely sure that the customer outside in their car approves by their hearty “Yes, sir!” as they pleasantly list their order. He types it up in a flash on his little computer, buttons falling under his fingertips in ease, quickly recording what he’s pretty sure is more of a celebration than an order before reading off the price and instructing them to go to the window that he isn’t currently tending to. Kyungsoo grins at him from the other window, where he’s been stationed at.

            “You seem happy today,” he comments, ambling off to start the twenty drinks they’d ordered. Sehun shrugs, but his smile can’t lie. He follows behind Kyungsoo, grabbing ten cups to split the work in half. Kyungsoo gives him an appreciative look, but Sehun waves him off.

            “I’m never happy. Remember? I sit over here in a bubble of death.”

            “Your bubble has been a lot less graveyard lately. More sunshines and flowers. It’s almost scarier.” Kyungsoo goes to open his window, but Sehun beats him to it, handing out two of their drinks and promising that their food would be out soon with a lopsided grin and a wave. Kyungsoo shakes his head in disbelief when Sehun closes the window back and his smile doesn’t disappear. “Couldn’t you come to work one day without looking like you just woke up next to the prettiest girl on the planet?”

            “I would if it weren’t true,” Sehun teases back, grabbing a four-drink tray to pass to the car rumbling in wait outside. Kyungsoo follows behind with another, anxious to get back into the groove of working. “I think Luhan is prettier than the prettiest girl on the planet.”

            Kyungsoo sighs loudly in mock exasperation. “Then maybe you should just quit your job and stay at home forever. Before your happiness gets contagious or something.”

            “I think it already has been,” Sehun announces, poking Kyungsoo in the stomach. Kyungsoo flinches but, for once, he doesn’t attempt to strike back. Sehun is still getting used to that. “Baekhyun still calls me every once in a blue moon to thank me for not making your life so hard anymore. He calls you Kyung-sool now. He said you even initiate the pillow fights sometimes.”

            “Do not.” Kyungsoo sticks his tongue out and attempts to juggle the five bags of food the order requires. Sehun quickly dives in to help, and Kyungsoo almost smiles, but he resists. “Okay, fine, I do, but it’s only as a means of revenge for all the years of torment.”

            “I sense affection,” Sehun singsongs, and Kyungsoo – against protocol – whacks him with one of the bags. Sehun can feel a burger flatten against his arm, and he snickers as Kyungsoo hands it out anyways, smiling graciously at the driver. None the wiser. Sehun glances over at him fondly, but he’s hurrying back to the front to grab the rest of the drinks. Sehun shrugs again, more to himself this time, before padding back to the drive-thru button and breathing in slowly. He presses it, beaming, even though he knows the customer can’t see him. “Can I help you?”

            This is the tedium of Sehun’s daily life. If anyone asked (Luhan does every day), the first word that he’d use to describe his life is low-key. Everything is always exactly the same. Each morning, Sehun arrives precisely on time with three coffees (one for himself, one for Kyungsoo, and one for Junmyeon) and window cleaner, so he can help Kyungsoo with the cleaning duties. He doesn’t actually enjoy being unnecessarily clean, but he does enjoy squirting Kyungsoo with dishsoap and texting Baekhyun about how he got him “right between the eyes.” He sometimes retreats to the bathroom to clean the toilets, too, when Kyungsoo starts to return fire with his air freshener.

            When the place opens, Sehun takes his place at the first window because it’s where he’s always been, and where he always wants to be, and he always, always sends his customers to Kyungsoo’s window because the one and only time he tried to take over them himself, Kyungsoo moped around all day like a lost puppy. At the end of the day, Sehun is let off early because Kyungsoo and Junmyeon both know he’s got Luhan waiting for him at home, texting him stupid pictures with stupid captions that all mean I miss you, and Junmyeon always stops him to ask him when Luhan is going to come back to visit. Every time Junmyeon lets him go, Sehun sticks his tongue out at Kyungsoo, who responds by throwing raw burger patties at Sehun’s face. Junmyeon tries to get him in trouble the first time but eventually stops since he cleans up his mess, anyways.

            After Sehun splits from work, he drives the same way home, past the abandoned gas station, past the cow fields and the trailer park, and past what he knows now is Luhan’s former college campus, always slowing down to admire the unblemished walls of the dorm that Luhan no longer stays at and wonder what Minseok is doing. He passes Jongdae’s college, too, and he can’t see Jongdae and Jongin’s apartment from there, but he knows all the turns to get there. He and Luhan visit regularly, and as warm a host Jongdae is, he’s still the same kid who hides whoopee cushions under couch pillows and gives them salty milk.

            Jongin keeps two dogs and a chinchilla against the apartment’s rules, but all their neighbors like him so much that no one tells. Sehun brings him rolly pollies in little plastic cups closed with sandwich wrap to add to his collection. Jongdae sticks out his tongue in disgust, but it doesn’t stop Jongin from stacking them on top of his dresser and admiring them under lamplight with a brilliant, childish smile. (Sehun brought him a lizard once, too, which he promptly released in Jongdae’s bed one night while he’s sleeping. Luhan started calling Jongdae yeodongsaeng too, after that, because the shriek he let out sounded like a little girl.)

            Tao visits once every couple months and takes them out to expensive restaurants on his modest modeling paycheck. He shares about landing roles in movies and turning them down because he couldn’t come back if he didn’t. Sehun always slings his arm around him and tells him he’s the most selfless geologist he’s ever known. Tao calls him a dirty peasant, usually, but sometimes, he just snuggles down into Sehun’s side as if he’s missed the touch. (And Sehun won’t mention it, but he’s caught the kid pocketing pebbles off the streets more times than once. Some habits never die.)

            Minseok comes by to check on Luhan sometimes, but when it’s only Sehun home, he occasionally lingers anyways. Sehun thinks he might even be checking on him, too, and Minseok turns his nose up at the idea, but it doesn’t stop him from buzzing around their apartment and tidying the places Sehun has overlooked.

            And then there is his old neighborhood – or, rather, his new neighborhood, too. It’s both the silver lining and the sunshine after the storm, nowadays. After he’d saved enough money together with Luhan, Sehun made it a point to move into the smallest house available in the back pocket of the place. He always puts on his turn signal when he nears it, and now, he turns, too, without any fear. It is completely different, and for the most part, this part of his world has forgotten his presence had even existed.

            But there’s someone there that remembers him. Someone that will always remember him now, even if his hair is purple and his skin is the lightest shade of blue.

            Everything is full. Everything is vibrant. Best of all, everything is wonderfully extraordinary.

            And together with Luhan, Sehun wouldn’t have it any other way.

기억 – CLXXIV

세훈 2014-4-9

“Sehun told me he thought I’d forgotten him,
so I kissed him
and told him I loved him.

I think he remembers that now.”

세훈 (se-hun) – adjective – unforgettable.