Please come back. I need someone like you in my life again. 

Sehun laid the bouquet of flowers down in front of the stone with the engraved name and kneeled down in front of it. He gulped and then ran his fingers through his hair. "You're at a better place now, but I can't seem let you go." There were no more tears for Sehun to shed, for he had lost the will to cry a long time ago. But the ache in his heart was still there. He never got over the fact that three of the people he loved the most left his life. His mother, his father, and his lover, all gone, leaving him alone to battle against the harsh realities of the world. 

His mother left the world after a battle with cancer, his father leaving with no memories due to Alzheimers, and Jongin dying from a car accident. Sehun brushed his cold fingers over his mother's tombstone one more time before standing and driving back home. There was an empty feeling in his chest when he pulled up in the driveway and even an emptier feeling when there was no one home. 

Sehun woke in the middle of the night again. Except this time, there was no coughing or the rumbling of thunder. He tossed and turned in his bed and finally settled on lying on his side. Luhan still wasn't home. Sehun had no idea where he went, but he hoped Luhan would come home soon. Thoughts plagued his mind. Why wasn't he home yet? There were endless possibilities about what could have happened. Sehun winced at the thought of losing Luhan to a car accident. During the past few weeks, he had begun to become attached to his housemate. Waking up to breakfast, being helped with homework, not having to grocery shop anymore, Luhan made his life so much better in so many different ways. 

Sehun pulled the blanket closer around his body, his tense muscles screaming in protest at the movements. He laid in silence, listening to the hum of the heater, until he heard the door open. He jerked upwards, the blanket pooling in his lap. Sehun heard heavy, tired footsteps climb the stairs and then the door across the hall open and close. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Luhan was alive. 

At least, for another day.

Sehun spent the weekend cleaning out his room, the attic, and the closet under the stairs where he stored all of his parents' old stuff. He started out in the attic, working his way down. There were boxes and boxes piled to the top with random knick-knacks, toys, books, picture frames with no pictures. He threw those all away. No use with these anymore. He threw the folded up beige-colored curtains in a box and fanned the dust that flew up away from his face. Sehun stacked the boxes on top of each other and carried them down the steps. He set them outside on the curb and wrote "Free" in large, bold letters. But Sehun was sure no one would want that stuff anyway. 

Sehun moved on to the closet under the stairs afterwards. Luhan left the kitchen and leaned on the doorframe, his arms crossed on his chest.

"What are you doing?" Luhan asked. Sehun looked up from the box of his father's clothes to find Luhan eating a carrot and watching him. 

"Cleaning out my old stuff," Sehun answered. He set the box aside and took another one out, jumping when his hand brushed a cobweb. He pulled another box out of the cramped closet and shifted through the contents. "Actually, these are my parents'." He glances at Luhan, who had disappeared into the kitchen. He reappeared seconds later with the small plate of carrots and ranch. 

"Hmm." Luhan held the plate out for Sehun and Sehun shook his head. 

"I'll eat later." 

Sehun sorted through the box of his father's clothes and the set it aside. "You can go through these if you want I guess. I'm probably going to donate or toss them all." He glanced at Luhan and found him poking at the box with his foot. He smiled to himself and continued his task. At one point, he found his old stuffed animal in one of the boxes. Sehun spent fifteen minutes sniffing it, hugging it, mumbling weird things into it's tiny fur ears, and tearing up at all the memories, before laying it, gently, on top of the box. "It was old anyway," he mumbled to no one in particular. 

All the boxes ended up in the garage.

Lastly, Sehun moved onto his room. It was clean, but not clean enough. His desk was cluttered and he hadn't had time to clear it off to stare outside anymore. He used to stare at Jongin, but that habit was lost a while ago. A long while ago. He folded the flat cardboard piece into a box and then put in all the books he didn't read anymore in there. He went through his closet and threw all the clothes that didn't fit in the box too. 

"You know, if you had a garage sale, you'd probably make a lot of money." 

Sehun found Luhan sitting on his bed with the box on his lap. Sehun watched as Luhan pulled out his high-school t-shirt. "You were tiny compared to now," he commented. 

"Isn't everyone?" Sehun's lips quirked upwards and he continued to clean out his overflowing closet. He found himself debating whether or not to give his snapbacks away, and nearly cried when Luhan put his favorite one in the box. 

"But you said choose one!" Luhan argued. He took the hat out of the box and ed it into Sehun's hand. He took the other one away and Sehun teared up. 

"I like that one too..." 

Luhan gave him an accusing look before throwing that hat at Sehun, it hitting him in the chest and falling to the floor. "This is the reason why your closet is the way it is."

Sehun made a face and grabbed his snapback off the floor, brushing invisible dust off of it. He put both hats back inside his closet and then pulled the door closed. 

"What do you have left?" Luhan asked. 

"My desk, I'm probably going to change my bed sheets and curtains, and then I'm done." Sehun pushed himself off the floor and began to clear his desk, dumping everything into an empty box. 

"Don't you have homework mixed up in there?" Luhan asked.

Sehun shook his head. "I leave that in the living room." 

"Then I can do this." Luhan bumped his shoulder playfully against Sehun and Sehun felt a tiny spark of electricity flow down his arm. "Go clean your bed sheets." 

"You're disgusting," Sehun muttered, when he saw the look on Luhan's face. "I don't do those things." 

"I never said you did," Luhan said, a smirk on his face. 

Sehun rolled his eyes and stripped his bed of the covers. He found new ones in the closet in the hall and replaced them. Sehun was tucking in the extra parts of the sheet under his mattress when he felt his bare knee touch something under the bed. He instantly jerked backwards, falling on the floor with a small thump, and then reached a hesitating hand under the bed to pull the object out. Sehun's eyes immediately widened at the dusty picture of him and Jongin when they were younger. 

Luhan, noticing the lack of movement behind him, turned and found Sehun sitting on the ground in an uncomfortable position and staring at a faded picture. He dropped the papers he was holding and kneeled down beside Sehun. "Who's that?" he asked. 

"Jongin..." Sehun replied, his voice a whisper. 

"Who's he?" 

"A friend. A really, really close friend." 

"What happened to him? Is he still here?" 

Sehun was silent before replying, "He's at a better place now."

"Oh..." Luhan stared at the picture and played with his fingers awkwardly. 

That night during dinner, Luhan suddenly asked, "The way you talk about Jongin doesn't sound like he's just a friend. Was he more than that?" 

"I loved him," Sehun replied after moments of chewing. 

Luhan felt something happen to his heart. Like it stopped.