I decided against heeding Chanyeol’s advice. Remorse didn’t pass me by as gently as I had expected it to. Instead it grabbed a hold of my arm, clinging onto me, whining, ‘but Chanyeol said this, but Chanyeol said that.’ I just pried it off and told myself that it didn’t really matter because there was this exasperating feeling in my gut that wouldn’t let me wait at all. I needed to talk to Luhan.

After Luhan had tossed his flowers, he had stepped back from the crowd and disappeared. I knew where I would find him though. He would be at his sister’s grave.

Part of me was debating whether or not the right thing to do was to leave him alone and give him time to himself. I ignored that indecisive part of me and pulled away from the group of mourners as well. My stubborn side had selfishly won over…as it almost always did.

Lia rested at another slope, where the green land inclined and formed hills of slightly higher elevation. From where I stood, I could see the elm tree that dominated the slope with its shade. I squinted and could make out the contour of Luhan’s figure underneath the tree.  

After taking off my heels, I proceeded up the grassy path to Lia’s grave. The grass felt cool and refreshing against the pain in my feet. Temporarily, the refreshing feeling would keep me at ease.

Luhan looked down at me from where he sat at the top of the slope. He was in front of his sister’s gravestone; an air of hopeless longing was occupying a handsome face. A calm zephyr was traveling across the entire cemetery. The gentle wind blew through the locks of his hair so that the wisps brushed softly against the lids of his eyes.

His gaze was next fixed upon the guests dispersing from Sehun’s graveside. He had his arms resting on his knees. Slowly, I sat down next to him and for what seemed like hours we just sat in silence observing the funeral guests in the distance. I could see Imo thanking people for coming and then seeing them off. Others stayed to make small talk. I couldn’t help but worry about potential interactions between my mother and Sehun’s mother. However, I knew Umma would not do anything rash. After all, she had warned me against such things.

“Why are you here?” Luhan’s words tore through the quietness. My eyes followed a line of headstones as I silently counted all of the flower bouquets, unlit candles, and spinning pinwheels.  

“I wanted to hear your voice.” I replied honestly. He refused to look my way. I was quickly growing weary of this. People either wouldn’t look me in the face or wouldn’t stop staring at all. There was no middle ground.

I just looked intently upon the person beside me. He was a young man of twenty-four Aprils. But that’s not what I saw. This was the boy from the elementary school playground. This was the boy I once had an innocent crush on. This was the boy for whom I had to let my childish infatuations fade because I knew he would never feel the same way towards me. This was the boy I had forgotten when Kai irrevocably pushed him away. This was the boy I had forgotten when Sehun became the only boy that mattered in my world.

“Kai’s with Kris and the rest of them…” He said as if reading my mind, “Is that what you wanted to know?”

I felt my stomach pitch. So he was with him. I didn’t know what to think about that. Maybe the right thing to do was to stay skeptical about it rather than immediately coming to conclusions. Frankly, I didn’t trust Kris. But then again, I didn’t trust Kai either. If he really had to find a place to turn to, I couldn’t blame him for finding Kris.

“I want to know…what you think about…” I lost my train of thought for a second as I tried piecing together the right words into the right sentence. I opted to play it safe, “Please don’t make me say it.”

            Do you think he really did it?

            “Why else would he have run away, Riyeon?” That was the thing about Luhan. He was always sensitive to the people around him. He always knew what was up. From the quiver in your voice to the most subtle hint in your body language, it was almost impossible to hide anything from him. “Look, I know what you’re doing. How many more justifications do you need? Do you really want to keep asking that same question, hoping for others to deny it as well? What makes you think I’m going to deny it for you?”   

            Ouch.

 “I was just wondering if you knew him any better than I did... because Kai was your friend too,” I said, “Or have you forgotten?”

He was taken aback by that. I knew it from the short pause that preceded his reply. During that pause, he had caught himself. He was thinking of a way to answer the question without some sort of biting impulsiveness. Maybe he was thinking back to old times. Maybe he was remembering something painful.

“It’s been a long time...” Luhan finally said. And when he spoke he seemed unfazed, “And it’s not about that anymore. That story’s from how many years back.”

“But you’re still caught up in it, huh?” I didn’t intend to make him feel uncomfortable and I didn’t want our conversation to go that route but I couldn't tell why I was pushing the subject.

“Well, you know what I’m wondering?” He snapped, “Is your denial of Kai’s crime your little way of avoiding the guilt in you?”

He didn’t have to ask me that. He already had me figured out. I didn’t even have my own self figured out, yet he always seemed to have the easiest time doing it.

There’s no reason for me to feel guilty. I tried lying to myself.

“Or maybe you really do have feelings for him,” Luhan continued, “You have always had feelings for Kai. I saw it long before.”

There’s no way that’s possible. I never had feelings for him. Was there a lie in this too?  

He was reading me like a book.

“I tried to warn Sehun about you, you know.”

My mind started to spin as I tried to sort out diverse thoughts. Each thought that swirled was pulling ferociously at a heart string and I couldn’t make sense of it all as a whole. What was he talking about?

“I tried to warn him about you and Kai. That you and Kai would be together no matter what. You had your lives all planned out. You two were perfect together. Sehun couldn’t expect to change that.”

I could feel all the wind leave me. My jaw dropped slightly and my gaping expression bore onto his face as if I were trying to force onto him all the astonishment and disbelief that was churning within me.

So that was why Sehun had left. For almost four years I didn’t see him. Four years. I didn’t even have a way of communicating with him. And it was because Luhan had told him something? This wasn’t fair. At that moment I felt my breathing grow heavy. More than anything, I was furious. My bandaged hands balled into fists, gripping blades of grass. “So you’re saying you wanted me to do everything they wanted?”

“Maybe if you did, this wouldn’t have happened.” He said bluntly, finally looking my way. The words that were coming out of his mouth were unreal. This wasn’t the Luhan I knew. “Maybe, he’d still be alive right now.” 

The way Luhan’s voice cracked when he spoke opened my eyes to the extent of affliction he was experiencing. Sehun was his best friend. Sehun was like a younger brother to him. Now Sehun was gone. The whole notion struck me overwhelmingly as I take a look at where the two of us were sitting. We were right in front of Lia’s grave. Lia, the little sister that Luhan had lived for and promised to protect until the end of time. There was so much that Luhan could be mourning. He was beleaguered by a perpetual burden and yet there I was, ready to throw all my bitterness at him.

I didn’t expect to be talking to the same sweet boy I had known ages ago. But I had still hoped for some sort of comfort at the familiarity of his voice. Now all I wanted was for my anger to fizzle out. In the end who was to blame? I wanted to blame anyone and everyone for how I was feeling. I could blame the birds that flew by for mocking me with all the freedom that they had. I could blame the tiny streak of a white cloud for trying to cover up my sunshine. I could blame the elderly couple that stood ten headstones away for making girls like me believe in happily-ever-afters.

Leaning forward and hugging my knees, I inhaled and exhaled deeply, intent on regaining complete composure.  

“So…what are you going to do now?” I really didn’t know what my question really meant. It was too vague.

The way that he shrugged actually made it seem like he was putting an effort into reaching a new sense of detachment from the recent tragedy. “I might leave for China. I don’t think I can bear it here anymore.”

Despite his hurtful words, I felt disappointed and bit crushed by such a decision. Luhan belonged here. Sure, nearly all of his friends had grown distant and over the years he had grown so tired of their reckless ways; but Lia was buried here. Could he really leave her behind? She needed her brother watching over her. Maybe now it was the other way around, but she loved this place and I knew she would want him to continue loving it too. I wanted to say something about it to him but I knew I would just end up sounding unforgivably selfish if I told him he had to stay. He wouldn’t stay anyway. At least, not for me.

“Are you going to turn him in?” I asked, “You know—if Kris doesn’t do it.”

“Kris won’t do it.” Luhan said firmly. “He won’t do it even if he thinks it’s the right thing to do. But I’m not going to do it either.”

I hugged my knees tighter. “So what’s going to happen?”

Luhan raised his line of vision to the tree towering over us, as if deep in thought. Then he noticed me hanging my head in heart wrenching anxiety, reached is hand out and lifted my chin. The soft touch of his fingertips sends a shock of warmth throughout my body. Keep your head up. I took it as a gesture of affection even if that wasn’t what he had intended it to be. In my imagination it could be anything. It was still the warmth that I had needed.

But the tenderness of the moment was dissolved by the grimness in his voice,

“You know what to do.”

As quickly as I had felt the warmth overcome me, I felt it dart away, leaving me cold yet again. Luhan looked at me one more time, our eyes locked in a stare, before he stood up. Regardless of any negative emotion, his eyes retained the beautiful, disarming quality that everyone coveted. He brushed off the stray blades of grass from his pants and turned away, descending the slope.

My heart jolted in realization as he made his way off the grass path and continued unto the black pavement. This would probably be the last time I see him. For awhile I just watched as he grew further and further away. I might have been as still as the cemetary's stone statues.

I bit down on my bottom lip as I suddenly remembered what I had wanted to say to him.

“Happy birthday, Luhan,” I said in a whisper.

When he was too far to be seen, I turned to the grave marker before me.

Awaiting the touch of a little hand
and the smile of a little face.
A beautiful memory lingers.
Rest in peace, our beloved Lia
March 17, 2005 – May 3, 2010

May 3, 2010. I knew that date too well.

The day Luhan stopped trusting Kai.  

+++

I truly apologize for the fact that I could have updated this sooner.
But I really should focus on school tests for the time being.
Also, I’ll explain the way I adjusted everyone’s ages for this story.
But just so you know, the “present year” should be 2016.

And if you're wondering why these beginning chapters have been vague and confusing, it's because I intend for the story to focus heavily on flashbacks, emotions, and what not. So, bear with it for the time being? (: