The notes of the guitar drifted through the room, leaving a melancholy mood hanging in the air. The man sat alone, holding the instrument in his lap. He gently caressed the body of it, fingers delicately brushing dust off the cold wooden surface.
    He strummed it again, reaching up to twist one of the six pegs at the end, plucking the string again until the pitch was just right. His expression, serious, solemn, as if he were attending the funeral of a dear friend, changed only momentarily into the semblance of a smile. Something that didn't reach his eyes.
    As he strummed, tweaking and tuning each string until the instrument let out a beautiful melody, his lip quivered. Memories, flowing out with every note, and he cleared his throat. 
    He sang as if no one was listening, and they weren't. In the empty room, in the empty house, he sat alone in some old pajamas that didn't even belong to him and he sang out in a broken voice.
    "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away."
    The ghost of a hand fell onto his shoulder and he stopped playing, eyes shut tight to keep in the tears that threatened to fall.
    "You're not real." He whispered into the emptiness. When he opened his eyes, he was again, alone in the room.
    His fingers shook as he held out his hand in front of him, cursing the tremor. Cursing his memory and of the times he could still recall of a delicate hand placed on top of his own. 
    Of a soft, gentle voice speaking low in his ear. "Don't worry, the pain goes away." He could still hear the voice as if its speaker were still in the room with him. "Once you get used to the strings, it won't even hurt anymore. Here, let me show you."
    He smiled, letting a single tear drip from his eyes. His jaw clenched shut, though the broken smile stayed firmly on his face. Be happy, he told himself. Over and over, repeated it like a mantra in his mind because that's what he'd been told. 
    His shaking hands started strumming the strings once more, the same broken tune. The same empty melody. Always.
    "The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping. I dreamt I held you in my arms. When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken. So I hung my head, and I cried." Another verse left his quivering lips.
    Glad to be alone, in this room, in this house, surrounded by only these memories where no one could see him cry, where no one could see him break. 
    This room alone, filled with pictures of the two of them. The only thing that hadn't changed in years. Left, locked, and empty. Dust gathered in every corner. Old pictures, covered with a layer of grey wiped away with tear-stained fingers. New pictures, placed carefully on every available surface, framed in shiny silver and crisp black. 
    Pictures on the beach, pictures on the stage, pictures in their rooms, pictures upon pictures and memories recalled by each one with hours spent just sitting, staring, remembering. And it hurt, oh how it hurt. The tears, the nightmares, the dreams. Always the dreams, of being back there, of holding each other once more. Of things that could never be the way they once were.
    "You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take, my sunshine away." He sang again, strumming along.
    The instrument felt foreign in his hands, but familiar all the same. So long it had been since he'd touched it. Months, years. He could not recall. He had never been interested in learning the guitar before they'd met. But the other had offered, and he just couldn't ever refuse that smile. 
    His fingers stopped moving. The music stopped, but its ghost lingered in the room for a while longer. His tears came in steady waves now, his chest heaved with silent sobs.
    A deep breath to calm himself, he knew he needed it but no matter how deeply he breathed, the air just wouldn't seem to fill his lungs. His hands trembled and he gripped the guitar tight, wrapping his body around it and holding on tightly.
    "I'll always love you and make you happy. If you will only say the same. But if you leave me, to love another...You'll regret it all one day." He sang, broken words between broken sobs. His voice no longer sounded like his own in his ears. He could no longer be the man he wished he could be, the man he wanted to be. 
    He sat, huddled in on himself, holding the guitar as if it were the only thing keeping him together. Eventually, the sobs stopped shaking his body. After a while, the tears stopped flowing and his eyes stopped burning.
    His breathing evened and he fell to the side, resting his body on the cold wood floor. His arms wrapped around the guitar like the body of a missing lover.     
    Long since, the guitar's sound had stopped, but again he continued to sing. His voice was hoarse and weak, a mere whimper of it's once strong and melodious volume. 
    "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away....Please..." The last words, he had ceased to sing. He spoke, begging to the skies. "Please don't take my sunshine away.."
    Reaching forward, he grabbed his phone, laying on the ground in front of him. He flicked it on, the jingle causing him to flinch before the bright little screen displayed the picture before him.
    Tao. His Huang ZiTao. Smiling, arm wrapped around SeHun. Some fan taken picture, because Wu YiFan watched every site, every media, found every picture he could of the family he'd had to leave behind. 
    His fault, of course. Always. His fault. He'd left. His decision. The consequences were his. Leaving Tao for this, for all the reasons he'd decided to walk away from his family, from his love. From his sunshine.
    "YiFan.." A soft voice called from the doorway, knocking gently.
    "Yes, Mom?" He didn't bother moving or looking up.
    The woman looked at her child with a sad expression, her heart hurt for him and she, like everyone else in his life, didn't know what to do for him.
    "You need to come eat something." She spoke after a while.
    "Alright." His voice came lifeless, dull. He still made no attempts to move.
    She left with a sigh, knowing that he would not be coming down for dinner again that day. Like many days, when decisions were difficult and regrets overwhelmed, he would allow himself to be swallowed up into the hole. Into the black abyss, but only for a while.
    Wu YiFan pushed himself up off the floor, deleted the picture from his screen, and opened his text messages.
    "Sunshine." He typed. "I miss you."

    Halfway around the world, a phone buzzed. A blonde haired boy pulled himself out of a group hug, sitting on the couch watching a lame movie with the rest of his family. He reached over and grabbed his phone, the smile fading from his face.
    "Sunshine. I miss you." displayed on the screen, from a number that had long since been deleted. A number the blonde could never forget, burned into the back of his mind and into the walls of his heart like the name it belonged to.
    He smiled.