Do you know when you've lost something—like your favorite T-shirt or a set of keys—and while looking for it, you come across something else you once missed but have long since forgotten?

It was moving day for the Oh Family. Half a decade of the 365 day-cycle in that cramped up place gave them an ample amount of time to save up for a larger house—one that would finally feel like home. The youngest, Sehun, had always been the scatterbrain in the bunch. He was always losing things, ranging from the small candies he buys from the store to the homework he did in advance but eventually lost the morning after. Clearly, keeping things was not his forte.

Well whatever it was, there was a point where you decided to stop searching, maybe because it was no longer required or a new replacement was found.

The day was spent stuffing all their luggages in the truck they rented for the move. It’s 3 o’clock and it’s time to call it a day, thus putting an end to their moving period to move forward and stay in their newly built home near the suburbs. Sehun stayed a little behind, despite his mother’s indignant calls. He screams he forgot something. His mother gives up after a few minutes and just let him be, aware of her son’s hard headedness. Sehun scrambles his feet across the front yard, searching for a box he’d been given by Luhan, his best friend. It was the very first gift he received ever since he arrived there in that neighbourhood, and it certainly was the most memorable. It’s been months since they’ve spoken and today is his last day in their neighbourhood.

It is almost as if it never existed in the first place—until that moment of rediscovery, a flash of recognition.

After frantically running up and down the flimsy wooden floorboards of the stairs, he gives up. It was disheartening. He tried looking everywhere. He tried looking down the bed; he tried checking around his desk. He peeked through the dusty closet; he sneaked behind the hidden storage room under the stairs. The efforts he put were no use. But then, he looks over the window and sees the old tree by their neighbour’s backyard. That was it. That’s what he’s been looking for.

Everyone has one—an inventory of lost things waiting to be found. Yearning to be acknowledged for the worth they once held in your life.

It took him 3 minutes to run up that tree and climb the wooden trunk, its rough branches giving difficulty to climb the top. The trunk was always the challenging part of the climb for both of them, him and Luhan. Racing by that tree, although it was off-limits, since it was their neighbor’s property. Then again, anything private property was always public to their eyes. Picking up stray puppies along the park then realizing each had collars, which turns out they technically stole them. Buying bubble tea from the nearby shops and forgetting to pay the nice vendor. That day he passed by a shop and wanted this really cool cap, and Luhan just stole it from the stall. Rascals, that’s what they’ve always been together. But as much as he’d like to have more, Sehun knows those days were gone.

I think this is where I belong—among all your other lost things..

He reaches the top and finds the box they both tied down at the sturdy branch by the funny looking leaf near the trunk. It was their hidden secret. A pact they made before, vowing to never open that box unless someone had to leave for good. The box with its frail quality of a box Luhan could afford to pay off with the scrap he picked up from time to time, it dangles by a thick rope on the branch. He opens it and looks at all the contents, picking up one by one to examine. He finds the cap Luhan stole, then the little water guns they played with often. As disgusting as it may sound too many, they even kept a couple of bubble gums they stuck along some parts of the tree. He remembers telling Luhan about an experiment to see whose gum would last up the longest. Every item inside that box flooded him with memories from the past years they’ve been friends. Sehun feels lost. It’s only been three years since they started that box pact and now it’s going to be over. Today is the day he has to bid farewell to Luhan.

A crumpled note at the bottom of a drawer or an old photograph pressed between the pages of a book.

Digging up through the last few piles inside the box, an old note from his best friend comes up, with its ink smearing all over the pages from the harsh rains these past few months. It says there, “Be happy for me, always” with a huge smiley face drawn. The smiley face’s ink blots going down, so it looked like tiny tear drops. His thumb grazes over the writing, while his eyes trailed along the page, catching sight of the patient hospital bracelet he tore off and stuck to the paper that last day he was with him. He stares at the bracelet, both bringing a stinging feeling and relief, knowing that Luhan doesn’t have to wear it anymore. In these days, it makes him miss his best friend much more. If only he could turn back time, right? Sehun knows it’s time to leave. Leave behind the beautiful and painful memories, all in one. He keeps all the contents back in the box, shutting it tightly with the rope, then goes down to bury it under a the neighbor’s ditch in the garden. In the end, life’s about moving forward anyway, he repeats to himself. And Sehun knows it’s what he wants. It’s what Luhan wants. It’s what he needs for tomorrow and then on. He needs to move forward now and let go, to find his old self, the Sehun that died when Luhan went away.

I hope someday you will find me and remember what I once meant to you.