Oh Sehun

           Spring showers bring blooming flowers of vibrant lavender and heavenly white to the garden in Sehun’s yard. He watches from where he’s sprawled in the grass, as each petal bends gently in the breeze, folding into the way of the wind. Sehun wishes he could be the same; however, he’s more likened to a stiff pine three than a fluid flower, he thinks.

            His doting mother appears just over his shoulder, hovering until her shadow completely shades her son: confusion and worry in her eyes, a cautious smile on her lips, a small snack slipping around on the plate in her hands. “Sehun,” she begins, dropping into the expanse of grass beside him, “How are you feeling?”

            As she clasps a comforting hand on the small of her son’s back, Sehun plants his face in the Earth, mumbling for his mother to leave him alone. There, all he sees are varying shades of terra-cotta and lawn green, trembling with each of his breaths, spiraling upwards into the fragile stem of lavender like a ladder into the sky.

            When she pushes him, almost cruelly, trying to wry out of him, an answer, Sehun manages to shrug and grumbles, again, about how he should be left to himself. As usual, his mother ignores the small tantrum the boy throws, “Are you planning to lie out here all day?”

            He whines in response

            “You ought to do something with your weekend—anything.” She shoves the snack—the one Sehun originally thought was meant for him--into ; and she speaks with full, both with food and sympathy, “Whatever happened to that nice young boy you befriended at band? You don’t talk about him, now, like you used to.”

            Sehun wants to say so many things to her—that Suho left without a word of goodbye, making it clear that he didn’t want anything to do with Sehun, the pathetic underclassman, ever again—but instead he just manages to croak this: “He graduated.”

           But his mother doesn’t take this as an answer, most likely because she can sense the sadness in Sehun’s voice: almost like desperation. “You should call him. You miss him, I can tell; it’s mother’s intuition.” She pushes herself to her feet and her dark hair swings at her shoulders, but her expression is uncharacteristically stern, “This isn’t optional; I seriously want you to contact that boy.” And, with that, she marches away and leaves her son into a fit of contemplation.

             He doesn’t think about it long, though, for his newly carpe diem philosophy has him aiming to change. Breaking away from the ground and brushing bits of grass out of his hair and off his clothes, Sehun glances in his mother’s direction to find that she’s rather suspiciously holding a cell phone—his cell phone. “So, you still have his phone number?” A smirk lights up mischievously on her face, “Someone has a crush.”

            “--had a crush.” The boy whispers before launching himself haphazardly in the direction of the woman looking through his phone. She squeals and sprints away into the house, locking her son out and peering evilly out the window. “Mom!” Sehun pouts, stamping his feet into the pavement like an angry child, “You’re not fair!”

            The cat and mouse play they have only escalates when she turns the phone around for her son to see that she has Suho’s contact information on the screen with her thumb hovering slightly over the Call button.

            Sehun panics.

            Nothing becomes of the panic, though, for words seem to escape him; he chokes on a shout of “No!” as his mother presses the fateful button. Pushing the window open just enough to reach her hand out, Mrs. Oh flings the device into a bush full of prickly roses and Sehun dives for it-- realizing, only later, the consequences of this decision.

            He brings the receiver to his ear and listens impatiently to the gross sound of ringer. The humming note, it’s not one that he likes—that anyone likes; it’s not flat or sharp or natural, but somewhere in between and, in general, incredibly unpleasant for listening.

            When he hears a voice on the other end, the weight of the moment seems to drop from his shoulders to his chest, and he can’t breathe. Only, the “Hello?” that he hears grumble annoyingly is distinctly un-Suho and Sehun, upon this realization, relaxes.

            “Who is this?” Sehun queries

            The boy scoffs loudly into the phone, “I should be asking you that question; after all, you called me. This is Kai. Now, who on Earth are you, since we’re so caught up in making introductions?” His voice is laced with irritation, intimidation and a great deal of mockery, and Sehun doesn’t like this boy from the start.

            “Sehun: My name is Sehun.” He reluctantly gives to the ‘Kai’ on the other side of the conversation, “And I’m trying to find Suho, not you.”

            “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”The boy chuckles quietly, darkly, his breath catching heavily into the receiver and Sehun rolls his eyes, “Anyways, this is his phone, but what business do you have with my Suho?” Sehun chokes.

            My Suho.

            It catches him by surprise how much those two words effect him. He wants to mutter words that claim Suho as his, not Kai’s, but he doesn’t because that would only draw out more hate or teasing from Kai.

            Pulling himself together, after moments wondering why he’s letting such a childish stranger derail him from his motives, Sehun gripes, “You ask too many questions. He’s my friend-- a good friend, at that—and I want to catch up with him since he sort of disappeared off the face of the planet without so much as a word; in simple, I miss him. “

            There is a pause, and, for a second, Sehun believes that Kai might give in to his wishes, that Kai might actually have a heart. Then, however, the said boy breaks the silence with a rather out of place, “Wait! I totally know who you are, now! You’re that kid that Kyungsoo always complains about! The one who’s madly in love with his instrument and does nothing else—that’s you!”

            “The one and only.” Sehun clenches his teeth, forbidding himself from barking at the annoying nitwit now so carelessly rambling in his ear. Instead, he folds into himself and exercises his previously nonexistent self-control and waits for the boy, who holds the future of his relationship with Suho in the palms of his hands, to shut up. Murmurs he, “He shouldn’t complain; no matter how much he practices, he just at the Oboe. He’s just not cut out for band.”

            Kai’s pattern of speech slows and he rattles off a slow, “You know, Kyungsoo should just quit. The only thing that’s come out of being in that band is irritation for him. Besides, I can find better uses for those lips and that tongue, if you know what I mean.”

            “I know nothing of the sort you erted lowlife.”

            The most interesting part of their conversation, Sehun finds, is that Kai laughs upon being insulted by the boy on the other line. He just chuckles lightheartedly, “Sehun, you aren’t all that bad. I like you. So—you know what?—I’m going to ask you to meet me on Monday after school in the courtyard. If you’re there, I’ll help you out with this little dilemma you seem to be having; perhaps you’ll even see Suho: if you’re lucky, that is.”

            Kai hangs up with Sehun’s cry of “What?” dancing on the tip of his tongue. That questioning mood that he has does not vanish, though, with the end of the call. Rather, it rattles Sehun’s brain until two days later: Monday. He finds himself ambling around lost in the rather large courtyard—the one that he’s apparently never traveled—searching for a boy whose appearance he does not know.

            The people sitting around the circumference of the water fountain give him strange looks, probably alluding to the fact that he’s staring far too intently in their direction. None of the students there appear to recognize him, so Sehun meanders on his way, glancing quickly from tree to tree until he sets his sets on a boy: not Kai, but Kyungsoo.

            The boy rests with his back to a maple tree, the trunk of which bends just over Kyungsoo’s head. Similarly, Kyungsoo’s head dips over the boy in his lap, presumably Kai. Without a thought, Sehun is carried away by his own two feet to the pair relaxing under the tree. As he approaches, he sees Kai for what he is: clingy. In likeness of a baby latched onto its mother, Kai has a hold of Kyungsoo’s shirt, pulling the boy down and whispering in his ear. His eyelashes are dark and leave his mischievous looking all the more sinister. And, his hair has been lazily pushed away from his face almost chaotically.

            Kyungsoo spots Sehun first, and dramatically slaps Kai on the head for the words he’s murmuring into the boy’s neck. When Kai does not relent, Kyungsoo fixes his palm along the base of Kai’s neck and harshly yanks the boy away from him, “You have company, idiot.”

            Sehun likes Kyungsoo more and more with each passing minute. But, then he notices the red marks speckling Kyungsoo’s skin; it appears Kyungsoo realizes this too because he scowls at Kai and grumbles, “Your appetite is insatiable.”

            He can’t help himself, “You two are dating?” To which Kai nods giddily, curling his fingers into the fabric of his boyfriend’s black shirt, almost as a warning, “We’re in love.” The words ooze out of his mouth; this Kai is incredibly cheesy. Once again, Kyungsoo barely makes a sound and just glares at the boy. Kai responds with expectedly childish mockery, sticking his tongue far past his lips—it looks like an entirely dysfunctional relationship, but at least half of the pair is presented as happy, and his boyfriend at least—finally--lets a smile sneak past his lips.

            “Anyways,” starts Kai, “Are you ready for an adventure? Kyungsoo, here, has to head to that Vocal Music club of his, so I’m all yours, boy. Aren’t you lucky?”

            The look Kyungsoo shoots in Sehun’s direction has him fearing for this afterschool ‘adventure’ that has Kai rambling again. He’s on his feet in the blink of an eye, arms around Sehun’s shoulders as if he is his longtime best friend. The feeling of the affection, however, is not in any sense a burden—a weight on his shoulder, literally. Rather, it sort of tugs on his heart, in a way that he’s hardly ever experienced.

            And, the more that he contemplates the feeling, lost in his own mind while Kai recites his sappy goodbyes to his boyfriend, Sehun decides that he likes the idea of having friends, and he tries to be nicer than normal, “Kyungsoo, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”  A smile slips past his lips and it catches Kyungsoo uncomfortably off-guard; his eyes bulge and his jaw drops before he, too, catches himself grinning and nodding. He walks back towards the school with the slightest spring in his step.

           “You.” He turns around and plucks the lanky teenager from his shoulders, “What do you have to say to me?”

            “Oh, you mean concerning Suho?” He ponders, skipping away with laughter in his words, “You’ll just have to follow me.” While Sehun believes Kai to be running away from him, almost like beginning a game of chase, the boy, instead, makes it only a bit before he finds an empty bench near the fountain to sit, beckoning Sehun forth with a curved finger.

            The beckoned approaches slowly, curious and worried because suddenly Kai has on an entirely serious face; his joking manner vanishes. When Sehun is just within earshot, Kai mutters with an expressionless face,“ Suho’s in the hospital.”

            Sehun’s heart drops in one second.