“Sehun?”

“Hmm?” Sehun looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

“I never asked you this, but… how old are you?” Minseok looked curiously at Sehun. He had stayed with Sehun a few days now, and it had occurred to him how little he knew about the older man.

“I’m 26.” Minseok’s eyes widened slightly.

“You’re 26?” Sehun smiled amused.

“Yes?”

“I thought you were older!” Sehun cocked his head to the side with a confused look on his face.

“What?” Minseok felt his cheeks heat up.

“N-no! Not like that, I mean- You don’t look old, it’s not that! I just thought you were older because you were working with, uh, Kiwoon seven years ago, so I thought you were maybe 29..? Not that you look close to 30!” Sehun chuckled.

“It’s fine, I get it.” Minseok put his hands to his cheeks, trying to cool down. Sehun shook his head, but a smile was still visible.

“But,” Sehun looked up at the teenager again. “seven years ago, right? What happened?”

“I thought you’d figured that out already?”

“I mean what happened with you?”

“Sorry?”

“You don’t have to tell me, it’s just…” Minseok looked away embarrassed. “The day I got to go home… you seemed so upset..."

With a sigh, Sehun placed the newspaper on the coffee table. He rested his face in his hand, elbows on his knees. Turning towards Minseok, he saw the teenager looking at him worried, cheeks still slightly red.

“You remember Kiwoon.” It was more a statement than a question, but Minseok nodded nonetheless. “He died.”

“Oh…” Minseok looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry, didn’t know…”

“It’s okay.” Sehun sat up straight, but kept his eyes fixed on Minseok. The boy was playing with his fingers. He was pouting. It was obvious he felt bad for bringing up the topic. A topic both of them knew the sadness and pain of. It seemed, much to Sehun’s dismay, that Minseok tried to cut off those feelings and hide them away.

“Minseok.” Minseok looked up to meet Sehun’s eyes. “Come over here.”

The teenager looked nervous at first, but got up from the chair he was sitting in. He walked over and sat down beside Sehun on the couch. Sehun lifted his hand and placed it on top of Minseok’s head. He let his fingers run through Minseok’s hair, down to his neck, where he started rubbing circles into the boy’s skin.

“Minseok, I’m going to tell you something now, okay? I want you to listen and understand what I’m saying, it’s important.” Minseok nodded. “Good.”

Sehun took a deep breath. He looked into Minseok’s cat-like, brown eyes.

“It’s okay for you to cry.”

“What..?”

“You can cry. I know what you’re going through. You lost, not one, but two people who meant a lot to you, and that’s horrible, I know. And that’s why you’re allowed to cry. You don’t have to act strong and hide away your sorrow, that’s the worst you can do. If you don’t cry, if you don’t let it out, you’ll just feel worse.”

“Sehun…” The name was hardly more than a breath on Minseok’s lips. He felt the first salty tears, he hadn’t wanted to let go, roll down his cheeks. He felt stupid for crying so much.

“I want you to get through this in a healthy way, okay? You have to talk about, it doesn’t have to be to me, it can be to anyone. But most importantly, you need to accept it.”

Minseok leaned towards Sehun, who pulled him close. By now the teenager was sobbing and hiccupping. Sehun rubbed his back and continued.

“You need to accept that your friends are gone. I know it’s hard, but it’s necessary. You need to be able to get through and move on. I’m not saying you have to forget them, don’t think that. I can’t imagine you could forget them. And even in the future it’s okay to cry. If you think of them it’s okay to feel sad. You can cry now, you can cry in a month, in a year, hell, ten years from now it would be okay for you to cry.” Sehun pulled away to look at Minseok. His eyes and cheeks were wet and his nose was running. Sehun could feel the front of his shirt had gotten a bit wet from Minseok’s crying, but he didn’t mind. He pulled Minseok back into the hug and just held him. He whispered soothing things to him, and he felt Minseok’s body relax more and his breathing turned normal.

“Sehun..?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you…” Sehun hummed in response. He kept Minseok in his embrace until he fell asleep. Sehun carried the teenager to bed and dried off his face. He placed a kiss on Minseok’s forehead, before he went back to the living room. He picked up the newspaper and started looking through it again, but he barely picked up the things he read, his mind was somewhere else. He needed to protect Minseok, and catch whoever was after him. It had never seemed as important to him as it did in that very moment.

Sehun walked into his kitchen, mid-yawn, to see Minseok sitting at the kitchen table with a half empty bowl of cereal in front of him. Minseok had been staying with him for a week, and not once had he gotten up before Sehun.

“Minseok? You’re up early.” Minseok looked over at Sehun.

“I know, I just…” Sehun hummed, encouraging Minseok to continue, while he prepared his own breakfast. “Jongdae and Yixing…”

“Yes?” Sehun sat down beside Minseok.

“When will their funeral be?”

Oh.

Sehun looked away.

“I don’t know.” Minseok frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Their bodies are, you know, evidence. For now, at least.” Minseok looked down at the soggy cereal.

Sehun felt guilty, but he didn’t say a thing. Minseok wasn’t in a talkative mood, so Sehun let him be. The morning was quiet, the mood a little awkward, but if Minseok needed some peace to think then he would get that. He had opened up to Sehun, they had talked about Jongdae and Yixing. Like friends would. No victim-detective thing, Minseok had just told Sehun what they were like.

Jongdae was a mischievous kid, a real prankster with lots of sass. Yixing was an angel on earth. Kind to everyone, an animal lover and a romantic. He was a bit forgetful, though. And Sehun was happy that Minseok had started to talk about them, it was a big step, so if Minseok wanted alone time, he got it.

Meanwhile Sehun was texting Kibum about the case. Since he couldn’t be at the station to help personally very often, Kibum kept him updated, even if there wasn’t much to update on. There had been no killings since Jongdae and Yixing, but with the way they were performed Kibum was 99% sure that it was the same killer as seven years ago. Not just some psycho who looked up to him. They were too similar to Kiwoon’s murder; it had to be the same person.

And that was what scared Sehun the most.

Whoever this person was, they were not just interested in Minseok. Kiwoon had some theories about the killer, that he was killing for fun and couldn’t stop. Like an addiction. Sehun was scared Minseok might be the new addiction. He was convinced that the murderer had an unhealthy infatuation with Minseok. It scared him that Minseok’s death might not be what he was protecting him from. This guy was cold-blooded enough to kill for the thrill, who knew what else he might be able to do. 

So much sadness, wow

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all so much for your lovely comments and for subscribing! I'm very happy to see so many of you are enjoying this story~ :3