Sehun was in Edinburgh.

He had been in England a few days before, but someone had gotten too close, lighting up his mark in grey, and Sehun had fled into the next country. He'd face them someday, but someday wasn't anywhere soon in his book. (He could never look Minseok in the eye ever again, not after Luhan.)

Sehun waited with bated breath, but whoever it was had remained in England and Sehun had decided he'd save his strength in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh was nice. It was crowded, just the right type of crowded for getting lost and having no one talk to you when your head was down. Just the right type of busy that occupying a freshly abandoned motel had been easy and staying easier. Just the right type of city, with clusters of buildings, that would stop the brunt of the wind's call.

If Sehun couldn't hear it, it would be easier not to miss it.

-

Jongin moved towards England slowly, hoping he would take that as a sign of peace.

He didn't. 

When he ran, Jongin decided to wait. He could wait, as he had for three years, but once he'd gotten his energy back he'd catch him and finally bring him back. 

-

Sehun had entertained the idea of a job once. A job meant money and less stealing. But a job also meant, in most cases, stability. He was too much like his former element, the idea of being grounded uneasy and stifling. Sehun needed to run whenever he could, wherever he could.

Sehun ran around Edinburgh often, making it a point to get himself lost. He needed to concentrate more when he was lost. If he could think about something that wasn't home, far away in another continent, he would be fine. Because if he thought about Seoul he'd think about them (which wasn't a bad thing) which would lead to thinking about the labyrinth (which was a bad thing). 

Sehun loses himself in Edinburgh's aged soul almost every day, first opening his eyes to an azure washed sky (he can't help but feel it's wrong, that it should be a lighter shade like Seoul's) and falling asleep with stars swimming in the pitch sky outside his window.

And then, Sehun will dream.

-

Jongin knows he's being watched, that every camera that falls on him snaps a picture or takes a video without their owner's control and every picture and video deletes itself without notice.

One day, late into March, Jongin picks up a telephone in a booth and whispers harshly into the line, knowing he'll be heard.

“You can stop that Jongdae. Tell Junmyeon I don't appreciate the babysitter.” Jongin breathes in and adds his last words. “Either I come back with him or I don't come home.”

Jongin slams the phone back into it's cradle and the next day the lens stop.

-

Sehun dreams in colour when he's tired and sees monochromes when after the days the wind is too strong and he locks himself in his room.

His colour dreams don't make sense. It's too pastel to be real at times, and other times it's too bright. He starts of on a street, walking to a destination he knows and yet doesn't know, because the white house at the end is one he's never seen. In his dreams, Sehun will pass into an unfamiliar porch with a sense of Deja Vu, opening familiar glass doors he's never seen before and walking down a hallway that slips through his memory.

Sehun will see the toys first, idling in the air as if gravity dared not touch them, and then he will see the boys. Sehun doesn't even why he's seeing them as boys when he's known them as adolescents, then as adults (then as names on gravestones) but he'll recognise them somehow and his gut will sink and the dream will go askew. There will be wind in the house, breathing unrest into the furniture and shaking everything down while the sky outside darkens. 

Sehun will look, and he'll see it chasing him and he'll run knowing he'll never make it.

When Sehun wakes, he'll remember only Luhan and Kris, and the tears on his cheeks will let him know he's had that dream, because Sehun always wakes up screaming into the sheets when he's had the darker dreams.

In his other dreams, he's back in the labyrinth. 

He's lost, and every coner he turns there's a body at his feet. He counts one, two and three and he ends the dream when he counts nine, ten, eleven-

-

Jongin chooses April 12th, because it means something and not because he has enough strength for the trip. London has been colourless, and it's bled his emotions dry. Jongin needs a little something meaningful.

Jongin closes his eyes and remembers Sehun. He remembers seeing him through the mirrored walls of the dance studio at school first, then seeing lips curl in delight around a cup of bubble tea and Jongin will remember brown hair caressed so very gently by the sunset light. Then images of Sehun smiling as they wrapped christmas gifts, Sehun waking up in the school dorms with drool on his cheek and his hair fluffed and Sehun the first time he'd told Jongin to look, see what I can do, and paper windmills they'd had to make for class started flying around them in graceful spirals.

(He tries to forget the screaming he'd heard on the other side of the labyrinth walls, so close yet so far, and Jongin hadn't been able to teleport there and save him-)

Look, Jongin, look.

“I'm looking.” Jongin whispers to his memories. He feels the tug, finally, and he melts into the shadows.

-

When Sehun wakes to the feeling of fingers caressing his face, he doesn't panic because even after three years he'll never forget Jongin's touch.

“Hey.” Jongin's voice is soft and cracked from lack of use. Sehun spies the outline of disheveled hair and a soft smile in the dawn light. Jongin stops tracing the contours of Sehun's face and leans down for a kiss. “Happy birthday.”

Jongin sits back up, Sehun's lips still parted, and lifts one hand to trace his cheek. Sehun feels runs his thumb down a ridge of bone and smiles.

“Long time no see.”

The sun peaks out further over the buildings of Edinburgh, and it's light fights to get past the curtains. 

“I came to- to ask.” Jongin says, running his teeth over his lips.

Sehun slows his quickening breath and breathes out with difficulty. “Ask, then.”

“You feel like coming home yet?” Jongin asks quietly, with insecurity in his voice. Sehun's breath hitches and he thinks, he tries thinking, about how much he misses home and if that's enough. If it's enough seeing Junmyeon, Baekhyun, Tao and Chanyeol again, when every time he sees them all he'll remember are gaunt faces framed by high walls and endless corridors. Sehun thinks, and he asks carefully  

“With you?” 

Jongin breathes in relief and as he gathers Sehun up in his arms, Sehun hopes that this'll be enough.