Oh Sehun

            The more Sehun thinks about options, the more he is determined to bring Suho out into the world, past the eggshell white corridors of the hospital, past the fences of the blooming gardens just outside, and into the city where, perhaps, the boy will feel alive yet again.

            And, with the onset of summer and, finally, a break from school, Sehun is determined to make these possibilities into reality—thus finding it in him to take multiple odd jobs, from walking a herd of rowdy canines around Seoul to babysitting bratty three bratty kids, he decides to put up with the torture for the sake of creating one spectacular date for Suho.

            The problem that he finds, however, is that his time with Suho is halved. Rushing around from one place to another, between early morning Oboe lessons and all of his odd jobs, he finds rare minutes in between to visit at the hospital. Sometimes, he comes at night, just before visiting hours end, and watched quietly as Suho sleeps. He thinks it’s cute how the boy curls into a cocoon of blankets before passing out for the day; he thinks that cuteness is the reason he comes so late at night, just for a peek.

            Sometimes, he wonders if Suho misses seeing that clingy Sehun day in and day out; the one whose puppy dog eyes would glisten at the slightest kind word from the sick boy. He wonders if, maybe, the boy has grown to like the incessant fawning that came with allowing Sehun to visit—that came with giving the boy a chance.

            Truth be told, he wonders if there’s truth in, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” because he can’t be any more head over heels, but perhaps Suho can use an extra dosage of fondness.

            He kneels and takes the fluff white Samoyed, Fluffy, in an embrace and the canine whimpers. “You, my friend, are excellent at hugging.” Sehun quietly mumbles before straightening and wistfully sighing, “Time to get your girlfriend, huh?” He addresses the dog, once again and paces up the brick path to the house where the two of them have arrived, awkwardly knocking on the door.

            Sehun hears the other dog, Bomi, and so does the dog at the end of his leash; he begins to leap about in a haphazard manner and Sehun wants more than anything to tie the canine to the nearest tree, but the door opens and Bomi’s owner peers out hesitantly. “Hello, miss.” Sehun bows in the fragile woman’s direction and her eyes smile, “I’m here to pick up Bomi.”

            She ushers the boy inside and even allows the irritatingly giddy male dog inside to play with Bomi.  The woman is too young to be this frail, Sehun notes; her cheeks are sharp and her eyes sunken and sullen. At once, an overwhelming emotion of pity and worry washes over Sehun, However, she clears that feeling from his system in the way that she lankily dances around the house with a smile on her face, despite the clumsy impression that her bony arms and legs reveal.

            And the smile never leaves her face, even when her shaking fingers spill the tea she’s trying to pour all over the beige carpet. “Silly me,” She sing-songs, “There’s the reason why I should’ve bought a darker colored carpet.”

            For a while, they talk about nonsensical things. She wants to know about the happenings of the world, and Sehun wants to make the woman feel included. Sometimes, though, her expression turns sad, yet Sehun only knows this because he stares are her so curiously that he picks up on the slightest frown and the lightest glint in her eyes.

            The smile returns before he can ever say anything, but he wouldn’t know what to say about it anyways.

            The woman grows tired, eventually, evident after a drawn-out yawn, and Sehun bids his farewell before grabbing Bomi’s leash and shepherding the two dogs out the door, not without stumbling over paws.

            He ponders the woman on the walk with the two dogs. It’s interesting to him to know two very sick people with such dissimilar reactions to their situations. While the woman seems optimistic and content, nonetheless, Suho, rather, expresses an angered and confused perspective.

            Sehun doesn’t really know what to make of his observations, but Suho’s cute-as-a-button appearance is now stuck in his head and it pains Sehun to think of him—because he can’t see the boy until after walking the dogs, separating the lovebirds and returning them to their owners, “You two are lucky that I walk you every day.” He muses, “Otherwise, you there, Fluffy, would be in the same situation as me. Would you be able to live without seeing your woman?”

            “Technically, he’s not your woman. He’s not even yours.” A voice echoes from his shoulder and he jolts, panicked. It’s a familiar voice, though, and Sehun turns to come face to face with a mocking Kai, whose arms dangle loosely—and yet, protectively?—around Kyungsoo’s petite frame. “Fancy seeing you, here, lover-boy.” His eyebrows dance suggestively

            Kyungsoo slaps playfully at Kai’s wrists that are running up and down his chest inappropriately. He articulates, “You really ought to seduce Suho soon because it seems to me that your only friends around are that dog and this .”

            “That’s no way to speak to the pretty lady dog, Soo-baby.” Kai pouts and Bomi rubs up against Kyungsoo’s legs. The shorter boy scoffs because obviously Kai didn’t get the joke.

            He pokes Kai’s forehead away, “I wasn’t talking about the dog, stupid.” This, pathetically, only puzzles the boyfriend more and he decides just to drop the subject altogether for fear of continuous bewilderment. “But, seriously, Sehun, how’s it going with that boy?”

            “He acts as though he doesn’t even like having me around. He’s something else; I’ve tried everything to open up his heart—well, mostly everything—and he barely smiles.”

            Stepping forward, Kai unwraps his arms from his boyfriend’s waist, “For me, seeing him lately, I can see a change in his mindset. He talks a lot about you, more than you would think, and he tells stories about all the dumb things you say and do: and he laughs. I think, with you, he’s afraid to let his guard down.”

            Kyungsoo intervenes, “We visited him today, and he said that he hasn’t seen you recently. Have you given up?”

            Never. Sehun wants to shout from atop a mountain that he will never give up on Suho, despite how difficult the boy can be, but he only manages a meek shaking of his head because he’s too wrapped up in the idea that Suho might miss him when he’s away.

            “I visit him every night, when he’s sleeping. I’d expected the nurses to tell him that I’d been there, but I guess they haven’t.” Sehun pulls on the dogs’ leashes and begins to amble onwards with the couple at his back following and muttering to themselves.

            Pipes Kai, “So, you watch him when he’s sleeping. That’s incredibly and romantically creepy.” From behind him, Sehun perceives the sound of a Kai being pushed over and Kyungsoo scolding him, “Kyungsoo thinks it’s really romantic and cute of you, though.”

            The youngest has one question yet to be answered, so he lets it be known, “Why on earth are you two here, anyways?”

            “It’s a lucky coincidence that we ran into you, actually.” Sehun has to question whether it really is luck that’s on his side, “Apparently, Seoul is a heck of a small place because we can go for a walk through the city and just happen upon people we know.” Kai seems suspicious, but it’s impossible that he knew about Sehun’s part time jobs beforehand, so the younger lets the suspicion pass.

            “Well, now that you’ve chatted my ears off, maybe you should find someone far less busy to interrogate. After all, I’m technically in the middle of something right now. These two have to get walked and returned so that I can go on to the Hospital.” The brightness in the sky is dimming distinguishably into a deep shade of blue, and Sehun doesn’t like the idea of that; not seeing Suho is not an option, and he tries to shoo the couple away.

While Kyungsoo aims to drag his boyfriend away, the other acts overdramatically and, before Sehun, an entire theatrical stage seems to take place with Kai dragging his feet and uttering melodramatic words of farewell.

            “I don’t really know when I’ll see you next, but I wanted to tell you this, Sehun,” The boy is interrupted when Kyungsoo slaps a hand over the boys mouth and mouths words of apology.

            At some point during this exchange, Sehun renders that it’s interesting how a few months ago, he knew Kai as just another student at his high school, and Kyungsoo as that grumpy upper classman who could never quite get good at his instrument. Yet, in two months—months that Sehun could argue were the most eventful in his life—Sehun had met two life-altering individuals.

            Life-altering. It’s an immense idea.

            Meeting Kai was life-altering for abundant reasons, though Sehun pretends, like Kyungsoo, that the boy’s being isn’t as important as it actually is. He trusts the boy he’s known for two months more than many people he’s known for more than half of his life. In the last two months of school, Kai quickly assumed the role of an —albeit only slightly—older brother to Sehun and included the younger in the things he would do with friends: that’s how Sehun became friends with Kyungsoo: through Kai.

            The moment when Sehun truly knew that there existed friendship between he and Kai was when he finished his solo in the end of the year recital—the one for which he had forgotten to practice—and in the youngers final concerto out of three—yes, three—a loud and obnoxious Kai had stood up and yelled out Sehun’s name before applauding boisterously.

            Considering that neither of his parents had been able to make the concert (his father had work, his mother had been sick) Sehun might or might not have been incredibly happy just for the reason that he had someone to cheer for him

            After that concert, Kyungsoo had come over to Sehun’s seat at 1^st chair and put one hand on the younger’s shoulder, beaming at the boy. “I did it, Sehun. Aren’t you proud of me? I can officially quit this bull instrument!”

            While Sehun was a little bit offended that his life’s work—the Oboe—was outright insulted, getting past the initial distaste Kyungsoo’s comment, he realized that the instrument was not something with which it was easy for the older boy to stay because the talent was not there; it wasn’t natural. After listening to the boy gripe about how practicing nonstop, as Sehun had often suggested to do, reaps absolutely no rewards for Kyungsoo, Sehun grew to respect Kyungsoo’s commitment to something that didn’t come easily to him. After hearing the boy out, Sehun had told Kyungsoo that, if he wanted to quit, he should; playing an instrument is supposed to bring one joy, not pain; Kai had given the younger two thumbs up, but because he wanted Kyungsoo’s lips to spend less time on a double reed and more, well, elsewhere.

            This devotion of Kyungsoo’s is not one dimensional; his dedication to his friends and his boyfriend is so obvious to Sehun. Nonetheless, Kai has no idea how much his boyfriend does in secret. One time at lunch, when Kai was off playing basketball with some other hooligans, Sehun caught Kyungsoo peering through pamphlets for universities, separating them into two piles. Being curious, Sehun sat down beside the boy and tried to figure out the main distinction between the two piles, and he eventually figured it out; one pile had universities based in Seoul, particularly near Kai and the high school, and the other pile was made up of universities from outside of Seoul, probably schools that had been suggested to him, or those that had outstanding programs for Neurology, his planned major. When the older had been done sorting, he took the pile of pamphlets for those universities outside of Seoul and, without a second glance at any of them, threw them in the trash. “I forbid myself to even think about living far from him; it’s an impossibility.”

            To this day, Sehun is still awestruck at that heartfelt decision of Kyungsoo’s: one that Kai knows absolutely nothing about because, as his boyfriend reiterates “he’ll feel guilty about the whole ordeal.”

            So, seeing one boy pull and push the other away from Sehun, the youngest cannot help but chuckle a bit because he has friend—best friends, at that—who, though cheeky and quirky, are the most amazing people he will ever know, after Suho, that is.

            “I’ll text you.” His daze is shattered by Kai’s faux desperate voice

            As the whining teenager is shoved away, Kyungsoo berates his boyfriend until they are distant and his words are inaudible, “No, you won’t. Sehun has more than enough trouble as it is and he doesn’t want a needy Kim Jongin trying to take his attention away from his lover-boy. Lay off the poor boy, please.”  Sehun makes a mental note to thank Kyungsoo and Kai for being exactly who they are because they are wonderful.