final
Maybe"Sehun, it's four in the morning." Jongin settles beside the maknae as he rubs his eyes open. He can see in his eyes that the sleepless nights have taken a toll on Sehun's youth. He looks like he's twenty five, far from the baby he had been just months ago.
"Meh, can't sleep."
"Again?"
"Yeah, again, like always." Sehun shrugs. Despite the tiresome schedule, he's always the one staying up until morning. Jongin moves closer to take a peek of what the younger is browsing on his phone and, as if he still needed confirmation, sees that once again, he's been searching the name Xiao Lu. Xiao Lu, the name Luhan was practically given upon his debut in the Chinese film industry. A name Sehun had called him with before anyone else, the name still tastes like bitterness on his tongue.
"You really miss him, don't you?" Jongin asks and Sehun nods, there's no point denying it anyway. He misses him, so much that the mere mention of his name sent a pang to his heart. It did not help that Luhan has become the talk of the town lately, or more accurately, the country. Everywhere he looks there's Luhan. Not like it hadn't been the case before either, it's just that now, the Luhan he sees everywhere is a Luhan he can't touch.
"I miss him, too. A lot." Jongin confesses. Everyone misses Luhan and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Everybody loved him, and they still do. The way he talked and laughed. The jokes he made, the stories, it's completely inevitable to not miss him. Everyone, at some point, has mentioned Luhan in passing and would mention that he misses him. But not as much as Sehun does and not in the same way either. Sehun loved Luhan, as a brother, a bestfriend, and as the love of his life.
"You think he thinks about us?" Sehun manages to get the question through the lump in his throat. What he really wants to know, though, is if Luhan still thinks about him. Judging by the absence of calls or messages, Sehun draws his conclusion. Maybe China's been really interesting for Luhan lately, after all, it's been years since he really spent time with his real family. Real family, Sehun thinks, not the family here in Seoul. Certainly, it's not shocking that Luhan would choose his real family over them, but somehow, despite the fact that he understood, it still hurt that Luhan had to leave.
"Look, Sehun, I know you love him."
"Yeah, and you do, too."
"Not in the way you do, though. Come on, everyone knows you're head over heels in love with him. You've been attached to his hip since day one. I bet he knows that, too." Jongin teases but goes back to a serious tone, realizing the wound was still too fresh for him to joke about it, "Maybe you should call him yourself? You mean a lot to him, too, you know?"
"Yeah, maybe I did, but what's the point doing it now?" Sehun scoffs, "He's happy there anyway so why bother even trying to reach him?" Jongin wishes he had something to contradict but he knows what Sehun is saying is pretty much the truth. You can't stop anyone from leaving if he didn't want to stay, they all know that. So Jongin just falls silent, staring at the swaying trees being blown by the winter breeze.
"I knew he was gonna leave soon after Kris hyung did." Sehun comes to a whisper, "I just didn't think it would be this soon."
Sehun always saw how much Luhan admired Kris, not in the way he admired Luhan, but he just saw how highly he thought of him. In one of the nights he sat beside Luhan, cuddling up to him to minimize the cold, he had asked him how he felt about Kris leaving. "I don't know, I guess he has his reasons," Luhan had said. He'd expected him to be mad but when Luhan said those words, he knew it was because he had thought of the same thing, too. Sehun had maintained a small distance with Luhan since because he knew what could possibly happen. No matter how prepared he was for the situation, though, it didn't help with the pain at all.
"How do you do that, though?" Jongin asks.
"Do what?"
"Love someone despite their absence."
"I don't know," Sehun says, still scrolling through his phone. He sees a picture of Luhan with his female co-star, all smiles, "I just do."
"Don't worry," Jongin says, he knows he's in no position to comfort Sehun, after all, how could he emphatize with him, Kyungsoo loves him and they're still very much together. He decides to leave Sehun with the best encouragement he could muster, "Time will make it better, I guess, and you'll get over it soon. There would come a time, you'll just laugh about it."
"Yeah, maybe. Most probably." Sehun agrees and smiles. As Jongin walks away, he goes back to scrolling through his phone. A tear rolls down his cheek but he wipes it right away, careful not to wake the others from their slumber. Careful not to show anyone what he really felt, that he's still not and maybe, most probably will never get over Luhan.
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