Regret doesn't come before mistakes. It is not there to warn you about the consequences of what you are about to do. It doesn't tap you in the shoulder to make you realize that you're going the wrong way. It comes after everything is said and done. It comes when you've already settled with your decisions and actions. There is indeed a reason why regret is so painful. It is painful because it only makes you realize what you have the moment you've already lost it.
Sehun hurries over to his and Luhan's room to look for his sling bag and scrambles through it to look for his phone. His hands are shaking as he slides across the screen to unlock it, tapping as fast as he can to look for Luhan's name in his contacts. The phone line starts to ring in his ears.
"Luhan, pick up!" Sehun is shouting by now, his insides welling up from the frustration.
"Luhan please pick up," Sehun says as he sits himself down on the bed and runs his hands through his hair forcefully as if he wanted to rip his hair out from the frustration. A voice responds to his pleas but it isn't Luhan's but a recorded message saying that the number he is calling is unavailable.
The room feels downright empty now that the only thing he sees in the closet are his. It's very overwhelming how much clutter there used to be and how quickly Luhan had probably packed all those in one night. It's only now that he decides to check out his messages, scrolling to the bottom to look for any hints as to where his husband is but there are none but a few where-are-you's and what-time-will-you-be-home messages. Scrolling a little bit further up, he sees messages from Lee Ji Young and he wonders if Luhan had seen them, cursing himself more if he did. He feels ashamed of himself most of all for not being able to resist temptation and in the end losing whatever important thing he had left.
Sehun has long forgotten the taste of cigarettes but he reminds himself as he lights one. It's getting cold this time of year and smoking will both take away his anxiety and alleviate the chills in his spine, or so he thinks. He's halfway through his cigarette stick when he hears a familiar voice in his head, even more familiar than his own. That's not good for you, he can even see Luhan pouting in his head, you know that every time you smoke, it takes away eleven minutes of your life and you know what that means.
"That means eleven minutes that we won't be together," Sehun whispers the familiar line to himself. A line that had him quit smoking years back when they had just started dating. They were both so young then, they'd met in a mutual friend's party. Kim Jongin was both Sehun's bestfriend and the blockmate Luhan was closest to. That party was your usual college party and it was that kind of party where everything runs smoothly except Luhan didn't do parties and Sehun was just in favor with the odds when a drunk Luhan tripped into his arms. It was a fairytale, Sehun remembers, to have something so surreal run into his arms on a late Saturday night.
Just as he's about to break down at that sidewalk, his phone rings and vibrates in his pocket. "Please be Luhan," he whispers. It isn't. Coincidentally, it is someone not far from hid thoughts just now. "Sehun, it's Jongin, we need to talk."
---
"I can't believe it. I don't even have the words for it, Jongin. He's just--just gone."
"I know, man," Jongin plays with the bottle of vodka in his hand, "hey, uh, why'd you do it?"
"I don't know! God! I'm so ing stupid!" Sehun slams his hand on the bar counter, knocking off the glass of vodka mixed with red bull. The affair, as he recalls, started about five months ago when he was really helping out his boss, Mr. Lee, with the run-throughs of presentations. What had started as an innocent lunch meeting with Lee Ji Young, his boss's daughter, ended up becoming a daily thing. Sehun had initially thought it was harmless since they only meet up during lunch hours and Luhan wouldn't know about it anyway. At first, it would just be about twenty minutes of grabbing lunch together until it turned into an excuse not to call home during break times. Lunch meetings turned into dinners and dinners turned into overnight rendezvous. It had been years since Sehun had touched a woman and he knew in himself that it's the only thing he had wanted from Lee Ji Young the first time they'd started sleeping with each other. The morings after were the worst, waking up beside a woman you only use for and knowing you have a family waiting for you to come home. Sehun would check his phone in the morning and he would see Luhan's missed calls. Guilt consumed him every time, but temptation in a man's world was just too hard to fend off.
"Jeez, Sehun!" Jongin grabs Sehun's hand and motions a 'shh'. The night is young but Sehun's a drink away to collapsing hard on the bar floor.
"It's usually Luhan. He won't let me drink this much. But, there's nothing else that can take my mind off the fact that he left. I don't why I did it," Sehun cringes as feelings of emptiness dawn on him. He loved Luhan and he still does. He's the only person he's really loved, not just for , but for mornings, too. It is now inevitable, he thinks, that he loses something to teach himself a lesson.
"I think you should know this, Sehun," Jongin plays with the glass as he begins, "before Luhan left, he passed by my place and he told me he was leaving but he didn't say where. He and Ziyu stayed the night and he made me swear not to contact you or tell you he was there. But you're my best friend, man, so I'm telling you this. I think he was headed to the airport. I saw an airline website on my laptop's history."
--
Sehun drops Jongin off at his street corner. It was a warm night and Jongin insisted he'd rather walk to Kyungsoo's apartment than wake him up with Sehun's car engine roaring. After Jongin leaves, Sehun drives to the convenience store around the corner and grabs two bottles of instant coffee. Since Luhan's gone, there wouldn't be anyone making coffee for him when he gets home. He passes by the candy section and instinctively grabs a pack of gummy bears, Ziyu's favorite. Sehun sighs, Ziyu's gone.
All he can think about on the way home is where Luhan and Ziyu have gone. Yixing comes to mind, the only person who would take Luhan in immediately in China. When he gets home, there's no light in the living room because no one's home, it's just him now, turning on the lights and turning them off as he passes. He dials Yixing's number but the IDD says that thre number can't be reached followed by a Chinese advertisement. He makes his way to their bedroom, now only his, and falls flat on the bed. Luhan's scent still lingers. There's no stopping the tears now as he takes the scent in. Atleast, there's still some piece of Luhan left.
---
Weeks pass and turn into months. His inbox fills with messages from his boss's daughter, the one reason Luhan left, but there's still none from Luhan. The fourth month, Kyungsoo invites him over for game night and he obliges. No one's invited him out for quite a while and not because there isn't anything happening it's just that everytime Sehun goes, he gets a little bit drunk and a little bit drunk turns into tantrum-throwing drunk and someone always ends up driving him home.
"Kyungsoo! Open up!" Sehun shouts as if Kyungsoo can't hear the multiple rings of the doorbell.
"Coming! Jeez!" Kyungsoo opens the door with an apron strapped on top of his black shirt and a grim look on his face as Sehun holds up the cans of beer in his hand. He hugs Sehun tightly, "if only you weren't such a dear friend, I wouldn't have to take you in here, you drunken ." With those words, Sehun laughs. It's been two months since he last saw them and it feels reassuring to see a familiar face.
---
"How are you holding up?" Jongin asks as if he doesn't see how much Luhan's absence has taken a toll on Sehun.
"I'm good. Great. Work's been great! I got that promotion I've been wanting to have. Have I told you about that? Life's great. Easy. Simple," It's too obvious that Sehun's lying through his teeth as he puts down his fifth can of beer. He looks like he has lost 10 pounds since they last saw each other.
"Look, Sehun," Jongin shifts to a more comfortable position, "I'm your best friend. You don't need to lie about this kind of stuff."
"What can I say?" Sehun sighs, he's defeated. "I'm a mess. My life's a mess. The promotion, all this money. It doesn't make me feel happy at all."
"Have you, uh, checked with the airline?"
"I did, but, they said they can't disclose any information. Privacy matters? Though, I'm pretty sure he's in China. Where else?"
"Have you tried contacting, uhm, what's his name?"
"Yixing, you mean? Yeah, like a million times. He's not answering my calls or replying to my e-mails at all." The tears start to stream down Sehun's face, "I need Luhan and Ziyu back. I don't know what's left to do."
The two of them decide to buy another keg and Sehun, desperate to get away from the thought of Luhan, takes two shots per bottle of beer he drinks. It lasted another two hours until Kyungsoo decides it's too much for the both of them.
"Sehun, you should stay the night," Kyungsoo motions to the room along the hallway, "Jongin and I fixed it up, it's kind of a spare bedroom."
"Nah, that's really sweet," Sehun slurs, "But I gotta go home, y'know, maybe he's back! What if he comes back and I'm not there, huh?"
"Look, Sehun, you're really drunk." Kyungsoo takes the car keys from Sehun's hand and Sehun snatches it right back, runs to the car, and starts the engine.
"Sehun, please, man, you're really drunk." Jongin opens the car door and Sehun slams it shut.
"I don't give a if I get into a ing accident! You all will do well without me! Hell, Luhan's doing pretty damn well without me!" He drives off fast into the street. The steering wheel becomes drenched in Sehun's tears as he floors the gas pedal. He passes one intersection, two, three, but the fourth isn't a green light. Before Sehun knew, he's sliding past the pedestrian crosswalk and into the intersection where a mini van is running at some sixty kilometers per hour. Sehun instinctively swerves left and misses the truck but not the tree. He slams fast and hard.
That's the last thing he remembers upon waking up in a hospital bed, tubes connected to his hand, bandages around his body, and a massive headache. He opens his eyes to a slight pressure on his hand and a familiar voice. It feels just like mornings when all this hadn't happened yet and it makes him tear up. It must be a dream, he tells himself. It is just too good to be true for him to feel this feeling again. Really, he must be dreaming about the touch he feels in his hand and the warmth radiating beside his body.
"Sehun..." He hears and he feels all the cosmos in the universe collide inside his bruised and jaded body. Suddenly, dream turns into reality.
It's Luhan's voice.
this update is stupid and short and i wrote it while i was in my 12-hour plane ride; holy mother of heaven you guys must hate the out of me for not updating in MONTHS I'm so sorry, school's been keeping me so busy, I barely tweet anymore and you know that exo is my life. Anyway, congratulations to me, hard work paid off and I became a Dean's Lister yay. Once again, please @ me on twitter for your comments or in the comment section below
OH AND HUNHAN FOREVER ALL YOU ANTI'S IDGAF IF THEY'RE A BILLION MILES AWAY FROM EACH OTHER LOL
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