It’s almost funny. Almost ironic. The calm before the storm.

Sehun was supposed to make it. Sehun was supposed to be smiling beside her the next winter. Sehun isn’t supposed to die. (Even if she knows he would, at one point.)

But Oh Sehun can’t die. He shouldn’t. (But he will.)

Christmas goes on. New Years come. And it’s around the time when people are slowly removing their lights and décor, that the doctor tells them that it got to his heart.

Winter at it’s peak is brutal to Sehun who looks too feeble to stand. And she rarely goes home anymore. Because Sehun has the tendency to wake up at midnight, half-screaming her name. The fatigue is getting to him, they tell her. Cheer him up, they say.

She had gone to pick up her old box of diaries from Sehun’s attic the last week, but didn’t have the time to go through them, yet. Sometimes she’ll read it when Sehun is asleep.

“Are you cold? Would you like more blankets?”

Sehun shakes his head.

“Anything else?”

He shakes his head again, this time with a smile. “Soojung, just go. I’ll be okay.”

Reluctantly, she leaves after pecking his lips. “Stay warm, okay?”

Sehun had nodded.

It’s moments like these that she hates the most. Moments when she has to leave the uncertainty the way they are. Moments when she has to close the door to room 404 and struggle not to look back.

And worse things follow. Like when she goes through her chores with nothing but Sehun on her mind. (The other seasons were worse; sitting in her classes with only Sehun on her mind). The doctors say he doesn’t have much time left. And she prays and wishes silently to give him a few numbers of hers.

Because Oh Sehun deserves it. He’s a lost soul, a sad smile, a ball of fading existence, a prominent victim-to-be of the Grim Reaper. But he deserves more time.

When afternoon comes, she finally snaps. She has a few things left to complete but Sehun matters more. She runs to the bus stop and tries not to cry, because she has no idea why she feels like she’s about to break down any moment and Sehun’s going to leave her.

But these moments are nothing new. She’s been feeling this way for weeks. One moment she’ll turn away and in the next Sehun will disappear. And she struggles to remind herself that she’s just over-thinking again.

Over-thinking is dangerous. It’s a horrid self-punishment. But she can’t help it when all the doctors talk about is n