Sehun wakes with a start,
 
and a jerk,

and an incoherent profanity that spills from his lips,

as he rolls off his slender bed.

His eyelids have lost their energy to hold on. And he finds himself struggling to keep them open—let alone stay awake.

With what little energy he possesses, he forces himself up, gazing at the somber walls that encompass his state of mind.

Rows of tiny photographs and little notes that flutter under the chilling wind that creeps into his room—through the crack of his half-open dusty window.

Luhan had taken to filling his surroundings with cheery words of encouragement. And it sickened Sehun to his very bone.

The younger gazes as the fine imprint of Luhan's carefully constructed words and sentences fade away—into the lost echo of the air. Their steady heartbeats gradually slim into straight lines and meaningless curves of writing.

But before Sehun can even decipher what day it is, his ears prick up at the sound of the creaking floorboards from his living room.

“Sehun! I’m here!” Luhan’s radiant voice reverberates across the small house.

~~~

An eerie silence falls upon the dining table—not just because Sehun isn’t talking this time, but because Luhan’s words have also lost their usual liveliness.

And though Luhan is used to Sehun’s monosyllabic answers, today feels different—like a defective speaker or a broken gramophone. Sehun adjusts his shirt and sits up straight, in a terrible façade to hide his near-sleepless nights. His fatigue seems to wrap around him in strangling vines, which leave no space for breath.

The only real sound that leaves the room is the rattling of the radio as the switch fumbles on its own—an ambient roar of muffled sounds from an orchestra or Mozart or the distorted voice of a news broadcast.

“How are you feeling?” Luhan attempts to make conversation, but brings up the wrong topic.

The same flat words escape Sehun’s lips, “I’m fine.”

“And how about today? Are you going for the—”

“Yes.”

“Listen, I really am sorry. For everything,” Luhan pleads.

“I know.” And Sehun can’t find it in himself to look Luhan in the eyes.

“But you don’t forgive me, do you?”

The younger sighs before clearing the plates on the table and heading for the kitchen. Even without a reply, Luhan truly knows the other’s answer. And he honestly doesn’t blame him. Instead, he just wishes that Sehun could understand the guilt that tears at his flesh for every waking minute of his life; how Luhan would give anything to take back the bullet that had hit Jongin more than five years ago.

“Do you need help with the dishes?” Luhan calls out.

“No, it’s okay.” Sehun takes a look at Luhan’s tattered clothing and his stained overalls. “You should change.”

The elder lets himself go for a mere second, frowning and digging his fingernails into the skin of his palms. But he pulls himself together and engraves a ghost of a smile on his lips. “You know what I've just noticed, Sehun?”

“What?”

“You’ve never smiled.”

Sehun swears he almost loses his grip on the plate that he is scrubbing. “What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? You’ve never smiled,” Luhan grins and the skin near his crescent-shaped eyes crinkle into little folds. “It’s easy, really. Just curve your lips upward and—” Luhan pauses to walk to Sehun. He places his finger on the corners of the younger’s lips and tugs at them, forming what looks like a crooked, lopsided grin on Sehun’s face. “—There. That’s how you smile.”

Sehun quickly backs away, a scowl now replacing Luhan’s hard work. “Don’t do that again,” he snarls and gets back to the dishes.

Luhan signature pout graces his face as he turns to head out of the door. “I’ll get going then. See you at four?”

“Okay.”

~~~

Sehun adjusts his tie in front of the broken mirror that hangs behind his bedroom door. He tries his best to look past the cracks and permanent smudges and ta-da, he gets a proper mirror with a proper man standing in front.

But today, Luhan’s words seem to be distracting him more than the stupid mirror or his defective hair.

You’ve never smiled.

So Sehun has spent the past two hours trying to form a proper smile against the hollows that are his lips. But they seem to be against him, because his efforts of a hopeful smile can barely touch his eyes, let alone his lips. No, he will never be the Oh Sehun who smiled. He had learnt that long ago.

Yet, why is he still standing in front of his mirror, trying to perfect a smile that never even existed, for a man whom he could never even forgive?

But never is a strong word.

And Sehun isn’t quite sure he actually knows what never means.

~~~

There is a knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer—because Sehun isn’t going to walk to the door, anyway—Luhan swings it open and barges in.

Sehun is reading the newspaper on the stool by the kitchen cabinet, and Luhan can’t help but notice the way his tie hangs loosely around his neck, or how his cufflinks are wrinkled at their corners. And for a second, Luhan sees the resemblance between Sehun and Jongin. They both have that attractive gait by which they carry themselves.

Only, Luhan prefers the tight smile on Sehun’s lips to the blood-curdling scream of Jongin’s.

“You’re smiling,” Luhan points out.

“I’m trying,” Sehun corrects.

~~~

War creates monsters of people.

And Sehun cannot deny that this war had created a ghost of him as well.

The guns, the machines, the tanks—merely tools in a bigger game that he had failed to see.

But for tonight, Sehun will try to recover—smile.

And Luhan will no longer hide behind the beast that is his jaunty and careless writing.

For tonight, the two will walk hand in hand, alongside lines of other people dressed in black for the memorial of the dead.

Though Sehun will never come to terms with the rifle that once took its place in Luhan’s hands—or the plaque of honour that commemorates Jongin’s bravery—he will look past the flaws of this war.

And tonight, there will be no you, and I, and he or she—just us and we and the tears that will stay forever within their ducts.

Because—as much as it pains the people to say—war brings them all together.

Five years and Sehun wouldn’t have met the man who stood at his doorway and let him cry for the remains of that freezing night.

So, for tonight, Sehun and Luhan will dream that none of their scars will ever keep them apart.

Because all those people in the memorial have been broken and bound back together with glue and tape and staples and rubber bands.

Some are reborn from the darkness into something much more pure but unforgiving—a asylum of madness that erases their memories into a fading scream. Whilst others, like Sehun and Luhan, will have to crawl back to the remains of their ruined childhood—only to find that nothing will ever be the same.

Because all that will be left is a broken bone and an abandoned trench; a lost battle and a daunting mistake that people will try so desperately to cover.

But for tonight, they are all one—no matter the division, the army, the country. All they know for sure are the names of the dead that engrave themselves into the stone of their once-beating hearts.

And tonight, Luhan will look into Sehun’s eyes and apologise once again—for Jongin; for his brother’s death; for a young boy’s lost spark.

Only, this time, Sehun lips will curve up in a faint smile and he will nod his head.

Because, tonight, he will realise: he had forgiven Luhan a long time ago.