It had been a good trip, all things considered, but Zitao was glad to be back.  Jonghyun had insisted he needed to get out of the house more, but it was much more comfortable in the familiar setting.  He had been strong all weekend, knowing that Sehun would have wanted him to be.

“Hey,” Kai greeted him as he walked in the door.  “Glad you’re back.”  He was leaning on the island in the kitchen, half-eaten apple in his hand.

Zitao filled a glass with water from the sink.  “Why?  I mean, did you miss me?  You don't usually...”

“No, just - um, never mind.”

Zitao set his glass down and turned to face Kai.  “What is it?  Is something wrong?”

“Well,” said Kai slowly, “I’m not supposed to tell you, but Sehun didn’t do too well without you.”

“Why?  What happened?” Zitao’s heart thumped.  I shouldn’t have left him!

“He moped around all day Saturday and then yesterday he wouldn’t come out of his room.”  Kai had the grace to school his features into a slightly worried expression.

Zitao didn’t have to bother walking up the stairs or knocking on Sehun’s door.  He suddenly vanished and materialized in Sehun’s room.

Sehun was sitting on his bed, but the room had the look of having been tidied hurriedly.  The covers were rumpled and Zitao could see the bottom of a shirt sleeve protruding from under the bed.  

Sehun looked at him calmly, giving nothing away.  “Hello, Zitao.”

Zitao forced his breathing to slow.  “Um, hi.”  Sehun certainly looked like he was fine.  “Are… are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right.  How was your trip?”

“It was fine.”  Zitao felt bemused.  “It’s just that Kai told me you didn’t do well over the weekend.”

Sehun looked at him but didn’t say anything. On second glance, it did look like Sehun had deeper shadows under his eyes than usual.  Zitao sat down in the chair across from the bed. Being lower down, he noticed that not only was a shirt under Sehun’s bed, but several other items – a couple of bottles of toiletry items, a sweater… a sleeping bag?

He looked back up at Sehun, frowning.  “Sehun... why is there a bunch of stuff under your bed?”

Sehun looked down, sighing.  “It’s…  I...” Then he seemed to make up his mind about something.  “I will tell you the truth.  I probably should have earlier.  I followed you.  I was in the woods last night, near your campsite.”

“Why?” Zitao watched him intently. 

Sehun didn’t answer the question.  “What they did to me in that place.  The laboratory,” he began, then paused.

This was unexpected.  Sehun never mentioned his past in any way.  Zitao was afraid to ever broach the topic, even if he had wanted to, in case it sent Sehun back to his mind-place.

“They made me able to read others' minds," Sehun said.  "But I was unable to shut anyone’s mind out.  I could hear everyone’s thoughts, all the time.  It was deafening.  And the things they were thinking… terrible.  In the end, the only way I could cope was to go away.  I didn’t know how long I was away.  Time didn’t pass there in a normal way.  I didn’t hear anyone.  Until you drew me out.”

Zitao sat back, mind racing.

“There weren’t so many thoughts,” Sehun continued, “when I came back.  Only the seven of you in this house.  But I needed to learn to not hear thoughts.  I tried to block them, at first.  But then I found the easiest way to do this was to focus on a single person’s mind.”  He glanced at Zitao, then away again.  “So I focused on you.”

For a moment Zitao couldn’t speak.  Then he managed, “You’ve been reading my mind?”

Sehun nodded.

Horror started to creep in.  “The whole time you’ve been awake, you’ve been reading my mind?”

Sehun nodded again.

“Can you tell what I’m thinking right now?” Zitao’s voice rose. 

“Zitao, you should not be afraid.  I’m not embarrassed by anything I heard.  You are a good person.  And I would never use anything I knew against you.”

“No one should be able to invade my mind!” Zitao jumped up from the chair.  “Sehun... you’re a friend and you’re important to me, but - but my mind is mine.  You can’t just insert yourself where you’re not invited!”

Sehun’s lips twitched, the only sign of his agitation as he lowered his gaze.  “I know.  I know they must have invaded your soul many times back… there.  I know I should not have the right.  But it was the only thing I could do so I wouldn’t go away again.  You cared about me.  It was easy to focus on you because you were so attuned to me; you thought about me the most.”

Zitao’s body vibrated with shock and dismay.  He’d had years of people doing invasive things to him without permission.  He cared for Sehun, but Sehun had always been his ultimately safe place.  Zitao felt betrayed.  Cut loose again.

“Zitao-”

“Don’t you talk to me,” Zitao growled.  “I trusted you.”  He let the stress catch up with him, and disappeared.

~

Zitao materialized near the house just after sunrise, and walked the next few steps.  His bones were chilled from the nights outside with just a jacket against the autumn weather.  His stomach felt hollow and shrunken; all he had eaten the previous day was a few berries, having been too anxious to go back home to get food.

He had expected everyone to still be in bed, but that wasn’t the case.  As he slipped past the living room doorway, three heads turned his way.  Chanyeol and Baekhyun sat together on the couch, the latter looking uncharacteristically worn.  Jonghyun sprang up from where he had been sitting in the chair across from them.

“Zitao!  Where the hell have you been?”

Zitao froze.

“Go see Sehun.  Now.  I don’t know what happened with you two but it needs fixing.”

“I - but-”

“Do you hear that?” Jonghyun pointed at the ceiling.  For a moment Zitao wondered what he meant, but then he heard it – the occasional low scream.

Jonghyun looked at him pointedly.  “That’s Sehun.  He’s been doing that on and off all night and most of yesterday.  The rest of the time he sits there muttering to himself, and if any of us try to go in his room he goes berserk.  Sehun, you know, the one that’s usually creepily calm and quiet.”

Zitao twisted his fingers nervously and opened his mouth to speak.  Jonghyun cut him off.  “Just. Go. Upstairs. Now.”

Zitao forced his wobbly legs to comply and sprang up the stairs.  By the time he got to Sehun’s door, the muttering was louder and frantic.  He opened the door.

Sehun sat on the floor, curled into a ball with his head in his hands.  He didn’t look up.

“Go away, Zitao.”  Sehun’s voice wobbled, and Zitao’s heart clenched to see him so overwrought.

“Sehun,” Zitao started, walking nearer to him.

“No, no, can’t, not allowed, get yourself better, no, no,” Sehun muttered, voice increasing and decreasing in pitch.

“Sehun, I’m sorry I left-”

Sehun uttered a little scream that chilled Zitao’s blood.  He moved closer, and put out his hand to touch Sehun’s shoulder.

“Go away, Zitao!” Sehun shrieked.

For a moment Zitao stood frozen.  Then he said slowly, “You can read my mind again, if that will help.”

Sehun made no sign that he had heard.  Zitao touched his friend’s shoulder, bringing another soft scream. “Sehun!”  No response except increased muttering. 

Sehun, he thought as hard as he could.  You can read my mind again.  Sehun stilled.  I mean it, Zitao thought.  I want you to.

Slowly, Sehun removed his hands from his head, and looked at Zitao cautiously.  There were deep shadows under his eyes, and little red grooves in his cheeks where he must have dug his nails in.

“Are you certain?” 

“Well, if the other option is seeing you like this then, yes.  Of course.”

Sehun sat up.  “I don’t want to invade where I am not welcome.”

Zitao started.  “But - of course you’re welcome.  I…  I was scared when I found out what you could do. But I came back, didn’t I?  I didn’t really think…  I think I was going to tell you that you could read my mind, if that’s what you have to do.  Now I know you have to let you.  Don’t I?  Are you like this because I left?”

Sehun regarded him sadly.  After a moment he said in a quiet voice, “It was like this before.  In the laboratory.  The voices, so loud, always there, I couldn’t think, myself.  I couldn’t breathe.  That’s why I went away into my mind.”  He paused, looking away.  “Without you to focus on, I think I would go away again,” he continued in a small voice.  “I am sorry, Zitao.  I’ll try to get better.”

Zitao blinked rapidly, near to tears.  “No, Sehun.  You don’t have to get better.  You’re my responsibility.  You can do what you need to.”  Sehun’s eyes searched his face, and Zitao rushed to him, dropping to his knees and putting his arms around his friend. 

Sehun’s arms came up slowly as he felt Zitao’s sincerity.  His eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking out onto the shoulder of Zitao’s jacket.  He hugged Zitao tighter, listening to his mind.  His beautiful, familiar mind.  It was a whirlwind of emotions: fear, hope, tenderness, uncertainty, hesitant trust.  But behind all of these was one core belief.  That Sehun was worth everything he had to give.

~~~~~~

Sehun sat at the table in the dining room, stirring his cup of tea slowly, his mind on other things.  It was peaceful and quiet in the house today.  Jonghyun, Baekhyun, and Junmyeon had gone into town and the others were elsewhere.

He looked up slowly as Chanyeol sat down across from him.  “Good morning.”

Chanyeol nodded in reply.  He didn’t say anything, but Sehun could feel the other boy’s mind racing.  He focused on Zitao, still in bed upstairs, trying to avoid picking up Chanyeol’s thoughts.

After a few minutes of watching Chanyeol pretending to read the newspaper, Sehun gently asked, “What is on your mind?”

Chanyeol looked up, brushing his fingers through his hair in a slightly nervous gesture.

“I can feel your mind working,” Sehun told him.  “Don’t worry; I didn’t listen to the topic of your thoughts.  Did you want to speak with me?”

Chanyeol let out a breath.  “I did.  I, uh…  I wanted to ask you about you and Zitao.  If it’s too personal of a question, you don’t have to answer.  But I kind of wondered…  Well, what you see in each other.”  His eyes flickered around the room.

Sehun was taken aback.

“I mean,” Chanyeol continued.  “He woke you up from your coma, and it makes sense that you care about each other.  But… you two don’t seem as alive, somehow, when you’re not together.  When he walks into the room your face lights up as if he’s the sun.”

Sehun didn’t answer for some time, gazing contemplatively into the distance.

“I never knew anyone,” he said at last.  He spoke softly, carefully, as if each word were precious.  “I could hear others, and they were so loud.  But they didn’t know me.  Zitao knows me.”  He paused, and slowly looked at his hands.  “He’s in here,” he said after a moment, lightly touching his fingers to his temple.  “And here.”  He touched his .  “Every moment.” 

Sehun stopped, searching for words.  “I am a flower,” he said finally, “and Zitao is the rain.  I could not live without him.”  

~~~~~~

"I know that look."  Kai plunked himself down in the chair across from Sehun, who was tucked up with a book, although he wasn't reading it.

"You're pining," Kai continued.  Sehun looked up.

"Zitao's only been gone a few hours, do you really miss him already?"

"I always miss him when I can't hear him," Sehun replied.

"God," said Kai, flinging a leg over the arm of the chair, "you two are sickeningly in love.  I long for the day when you realize it and all the around here can finally be relieved."

Sehun raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, don't give me that look."  Kai shook his finger at Sehun.  "Don't you ever just want to kiss him?"

Now Sehun's eyebrows drew together.  "...Kiss Zitao?"

"Don't you dare tell me you haven't thought of it."

"I- I'm... not able to imagine it, somehow," Sehun said.  "The thought slips away from me."

Kai swung his leg back over the arm of the chair and rested his chin in his hand, looking at Sehun contemplatively.

"I don't understand you two.  How can you act like the other one's the only person you ever see, but not realize there's something more to it?"

Sehun seemed at a loss.  He gazed into the middle distance for a minute before replying slowly, "Zitao is in every part of me.  All the time I can hear what he is doing.  Sometimes I feel as if... as if we are one person in two bodies."

"Wow," said Kai dryly.  "Sounds positively stifling.  You're quite needy, you know, my friend."

Sehun shrugged, looking out the window.  "I don't think I want to kiss him," he said quietly.  "Sometimes I want to just hold him, put my face in his neck and just feel him and smell him."  Sehun swallowed, voice growing even quieter.  "He's... like a shaft of sunlight.  So bright and passionate and curious and loving.  I don't feel as alive, when he isn't near.  Sometimes I want to hold him so hard that neither of us can breathe.  But I know that would still never be close enough."  He twisted his fingers together, looking abashed by his words.

Kai stared at him.  "God damn, Sehun," he said in a low voice.  "You have got it bad.  Maybe someday you’ll admit it to yourself.”

---------------------------------------------------------

The first section is meant to have happened a good year or more before the last part.  I just right random moments from these guys lives for the most part.  Though I think the chapter after next we're going to start getting in to action plot stuff actually happens and also *spoilers* and yeah.  

Please let me know what you think!