The smell of sizzling meat permeates the kitchen and Luhan gives the slivers of ground beef, swimming in a sheen of vegetable oil, a few pokes with his chopsticks before turning to the cutting board. There he scoops some vegetables up with his knife and dumps them into the frying pan as well. Another, louder sizzling noise results, and Luhan quickly adds tofu, mushrooms, and a generous sprinkling of salt. While those cook the leaves quickly wither and shrink at the heat, allowing Luhan to give the whole thing another toss with his chopsticks and put the lid back on the pan.

“Sehun, food’s almost ready!” he calls over his shoulder as he checks on the rice and the grease from his chopsticks.

In another few minutes the food is ready and sitting in a dish on the kitchen countertop. The rice is cooked as well, and Luhan is looking in the fridge for the previous day’s leftover chicken when Sehun emerges from their bedroom, hair still messy from sleep.

“Hey,” he mumbles, shuffling over to the silverware drawer to retrieve a pair of chopsticks.

He’s sitting at the table and rubbing his eyes when Luhan walks over with the food, balancing two bowls of rice in one hand and a dish of stir-fry with a dish of chicken in the other. He sets the food down and tosses Sehun a bottle of water from the pack sitting in the corner of the dining room.

“Are you feeling better?” he asks, heaping his bowl with stir-fry.

Sehun only mumbles and pours a stream of water on his rice so he’s left with a cooled rice porridge. He picks at the chicken and stirs his rice around, watching as Luhan eats. Luhan doesn’t notice his silence and continues talking until he’s about halfway done with his rice, at which point he sets his chopsticks down and looks at Sehun.

“Sehun-ah,” he says. “What’s wrong? I made your favorite--chives with mushrooms.”

Sehun shrugs. He shovels some rice into his mouth with his chopsticks and stands again, shuffling back to the bedroom. The set of his shoulders is like of one defeated, and even though it’s six in the evening he’s still wearing the old SMTOWN t-shirt and gray sweatpants that serve as his pajamas. His slippers make soft noises against the hardwood floor and at that moment Luhan feels so helpless. He doesn’t know what’s wrong; all he wants is to help but he can’t when Sehun is keeping everything bottled up inside. He wants to bring that eye-crinkling smile back to Sehun’s face but everything he tries doesn’t work. He doesn’t know what to hope for, maybe just that somehow his arms around Sehun at night, cooking all of his favorite dishes, fending off the questions from Kris and Suho and D.O, maybe they’ll help Sehun, with whatever it is he needs help with.