STOP YOUR CRYING BABY, IT WILL BE ALRIGHT
THEY TOLD ME THAT THE END IS NEAR
WE GOTTA GET AWAY FROM HERE

*
Sign of the times

Sometimes, trauma of someone leaving us, either lead us to look for them desperately or just lose hope and give up without even trying.

For Sehun, it was the first one.

No matter if Luhan had wished for him to not look for him, Sehun could not just sit and let him go.

He read the note over and over again and then he suddenly got to his feet and started to run out of the room.

He could not let him go. He couldn't have gone far.

Baekhyun had lazily been walking up the stairs when he saw Sehun running down.

In his rush, Sehun accidentally bumped into him and the letter he had been holding flew from his hands.

"Sehun," Baekhyun exclaimed, shaking his head, and then he picked up the note that had fallen at his feet.

Baekhyn knew then that it had happened.

*

"Baekhyun," Luhan looked at the boy and then turned towards the taller boy sitting on the other side of the bed, "Chanyeol."

Both of them looked up with their puffed eyes, red from all the crying.

"I want to ask you one thing," Luhan smiled, "It's like a last wish kind of thing. The last thing I ask off you two."

Hearing that, Baekhyun started to cry but Chanyeol knew how important this was to Luhan. How important every second was.

"I...I will try my best..." Chanyeol whispered sadly.

"I will be leaving soon," Luhan said.

"Wh...What?" Baekhyun's hand flew to his mouth as he started to tremble, "What...What is happening...I...How is it happening so fast? How..."

"Luhan hyung..." Chanyeol said but didn't know what to say.

"It's my last wish for you two to keep Sehun from looking for me," Luhan asked, "For one week after I will be gone. I will...I will somehow get in touch with him after. But for that time. Please..."

"You can't ask us to do that," Baekhyun wiped his tears, "How...he...he loves you. And how...how will you take care of yourself?"

"You don't have to worry, but this is my last wish," Luhan smiled sadly, "I hope you will understand one day."

********** 

Before Sehun could snatch it away, Baekhyun had already read half of it.

What hurt him the most was that he knew. Baekhyun had known and he had done nothing.

"Sehun," Baekhyun said and took his hand in panic. 

"I have to go look for him," Sehun said shaking, "I..."

"Sehun," Baekhyun said but he himself was already in tears, "I..."

"Let go of me!" Sehun screamed and was about to run off when Baekhyun caught his arms once again and held him tight.

"You c...can't!" Baekhyun said wiping his tears with the other hand, "CHANYEOL!!!"

At the sound of his name the giant came running from the kitchen and, just like Baekhyun, he knew what was happening even before anyone told him anything.

"Sehun," Chanyeol said, "Luhan is... He will call you."

Sehun suddenly went very still.

"Y...you knew..."

And then anger over came him and he angrily pushed Chanyeol, "You ing knew!"

"Yes, he..."

"How can you do this to me?" Sehun screamed.

Chanyeol let Sehun push him without fighting back. He knew the boy was hurting.

Sehun was breaking.

Baekhyun tried to hold Sehun back but the boy angrily pushed him back, making him fall.

"Blood cancer," Baekhyun said looking at ground.

Sehun's punch stopped midway from Chanyeol's face.

He slowly turned to look at Baekhyun.

"Luhan hyung had leukemia," he started crying then remembering the time when he had found out, "He... It had been more than a year already. There was no... Nothing they could do now..."

"He said it was his choice to not take treatment since the beginning," Chanyoel added.

Sehun suddenly went very silent.

Then the world started spinning and the last thing he heard before he fell unconscious on the floor, was his friends calling his name.

**********

ONE WEEK LATER

"The number you're trying to dial is not available at the moment. Please leave a message." 

The same message over and over. 

Luhan stared at the phone for a minute thinking whether he should call one of his friends. 

He knew he couldn't do it. 

Perhaps even the fact that Sehun didn't pick up was good since he won't hurt the boy. 

Luhan sighed and looked at the door behind which they were waiting for him. 

It had been approved. 

His request had been approved. 

Luhan tried one last time. 

"The number you're trying to dial is not available at the moment. Please leave a message." 

Luhan waited until the beep sound then he neared his mouth to the speaker of the phone. 

For a few seconds he was lost and only air came out of his lips. 

Then he shut his eyes, " Be happy Sehun-ah, please forgive me. I love you. "

He ended the call as the voice message was sent then he put the receiver back. 

His own phone and belongings were gone. 

He had given away everything. 

His house in China. 

It had burnt down. 

He found out from neighbours that the father had sold everything inside it and still fell into dept and those people from whom he took money without returning it, they had destroyed their house. Set it on fire. 

The childhood burned down. 

Everything had been gone.

As he was still lost in thoughts, the door of the room opened and in came a doctor with a white coat. 

Despite the situation the man was smiling, "Please come in." 

Luhan had noticed how everything in the place was so white. It was bright and light. 

The doctorade him sit at a white bed with white sheets. 

"If you are here today it means that you do not want to go back, is that so?" 

Luhan nodded. He was not going back. 

"Anyone came with you?" 

Luhan shock his head no. 

The doctor scanned through the questionnaire they had made him complete. 

"You want your body to be cremated and the ashes to be swept in this river?"

"Yes," Luhan finally spoke to the doctor. 

"You have already been told how it's going to happen," the doctor finally got up, "My question today is, is this your final choice." 

"Yes," Luhan said. 

"It's like falling to sleep."

Luhan looked from the doctor's slim face to his own legs dangling from the bed. 

"I know," he said, "An eternal sleep."

The doctor nodded grimly and called for a nurse to come.

She came hodking a small white tray.

He took an envelope from it and opened it revealing a syringe.

Luhan knew how it worked. They had told him.

They had asked him a million times if this was his final choice.

Without a word, Luhan put his legs on the bed and laid down looking at the white ceiling. 

The doctor moved near him and looked at his face carefully. 

"I will inject you now, is this your final choice?" 

"This is my final chance," Luhan said and shut his eyes. 

It's strange, falling asleep. 

A small tingling feeling on his arm and Luhan was already drifting away in slumber.

In his dream, Luhan was meeting Sehun that time when they had both accidentally fell in the pool at the mansion. It was the time when Luhan had first told him his name. 

“Get the hell off me!”

Luhan was still hanging on to Sehun's waist.

His coat was soaked and the water was pulling him deep down in the middle of the pool. The fact that Sehun was still on top of him did not help and soon Luhan had the terrible thought that he was going to drown. Just like that. In a stupid swimming pool where he was not even supposed to be.

He desperately needed air.

Sehun managed to get his head out of the water and breathed in as much air as he could.

This idiot. I’m going to kill him.

Sehun felt Luhan’s grip getting lose on his wrist and soon he was free.

The first thought that came in Sehun’s mind was to just leave the idiot and go out but then he finally thought of the serious side of things and with a yank he pulled the smaller boy’s head out of the water.

Luhan coughed out the water from his lungs until finally his airways were water free and he could open his eyes.

Sighing deeply he looked at Sehun’s face who was staring down at him.

Luhan chuckled.

How the hell dare he laugh on my face after what he did?

Sehun was super annoyed at Luhan’s attitude towards him.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, taking away his eyes from Luhan’s beautiful sparkly ones.

“I am Luhan.”

The dream remained in the same location but time moved forward. It was about the time when Sehun had first mentioned love to Luhan. 

“You…” Sehun stopped as he saw Luhan slipping on the water that fell from his own clothes.

It was the second time that he saw Luhan falling like an idiot, and like the first time, Luhan started to make whining noises.

Sehun could not stop from laughing again.

“You...” he started.

"Sehun-ah, help me."

"Like hell I will. Just get up already."

"Why? Why are you so cold hearted? I don't like you! I don't l..."

"As if I were in love with you!" Sehun cut him off.

Suddenly Luhan stopped whining and he looked up at Sehun, eyes strangely sparkling. Then all Sehun heard was a lugh coming from the boy on the floor.

Luhan laughed so hard that he rolled on his back.

"You?" Luhan stopped for a second to point at him, "Fall in love with me?" he pointed the finger at his own chest, then he started laughing again.

Luhan also dreamed about those first times when Sehun used to be mean to him. It had always came with a glint of teasing him. 

"You have a bad habit to get on top of me, any time you have the chance, you bastard," Luhan said. His voice was low and angry.

Sehun, finally recovering from the initial shock, glared at the boy under him and clumsily got on his elbows.

"You are the one who needs to stop to get me to fall on top of you, you..."

"Get off me, now!"

Sehun got on his feet and casully patted his clothes with one hand as the other still held the glass which was now empty.

Luhan closed his eyes. Why had he seen this idiot's face, the first thing in the morning?

"What are you still doing here, peasant?" Sehun asked looking down.

Luhan smiled. He couldn't wait to tell Sehun. He would probably get a heart attack or something when he would find out that he had to share his mansion, with the same boy he had just now called peasant.

"You better mind your language Oh Sehun."

"Huh?"

"You heard me, you peasant."

Sehun pulled at the covers on the bed in an attempt to make Luhan fall from the bed, but to his horror, the blankets came off and Luhan lay there in nothing but his underwear.

Luhan shrieked and his cheeks went impossibly red as he desperately snatched the covers back and covered himself again

Sehun forced himself to look away embarrased.

"Get out of here, you ert!" Luhan literally screamed, his face still burning.

"ert??!!! You are a ert! Why the hell are you sleeping half ?"

Or those times when Sehun had really hurt him for real. 

"Sehun-ah, I..." Luhan started but was abruptly cut off when Sehun held his hand up.

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