[CONTENTID1] XXII [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2].[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

9 Months Later

Seoul, 

South Korea

As expected, many were surprised when Sehun walked into the gleaming OhTelecom building, dressed in his usual atire of a sharp suit and slacks, but this time he strolled inside the high rise building with a smile plastered on his face.

Many of the employees immediately stopped what they were doing and looked at him with the an expression varying from shock to horror; Sehun just smiled and wished them a good day before his feet carried him to the familiar door of Joonmyun's office. That day had been a Tuesday, which meant that Sehun's precious hyung was probably sorting out timesheets or something; which in all honesty was Joonmyun drinking coffee and having re-runs of some Japanese anime running in the background. 

When Sehun knocked on the door, he had expected an expression of shock which would be then followed by a serious of weak punches and hits on the head (if Joonmyun could bother standing on his toes, that is). But instead he was met by a tired glance and a small 'come inside, I already sent Park and Byun back to their own departments'. 

("Are you not happy to see my face?"

"Not really, no."

"How was hanging out with Yixing?"

"It was good and very R rated. How was Australia?"

"It was good and PG. But I thought you would have ripped my head off by now?"

"I did intend to, you ing brat. But I found out we're developing our project with partners in Australia so I decided to use your stupid decision as a good mark in their books."

"So no punches?"

"Buy some more coffee and look over the bull I piled up and we're good."

"My balls are safe for now, God bless," laughed Sehun with relief. 

Joonmyun proceeded to smack his arm with a rolled up paper, "Just for now." )

Everyone could tell that something significant had changed in the way the Sehun carried out things now. At first it took a while for the gears of routine to start rolling again, but soon everything was back in motion for the company.  Each and everyday, Sehun would greet every person he passed, sometimes grabbing a coffee for them or a glass of water. Other days he would bring in a box of biscuits or donuts for his office to share, to get the sense of inspiration and productivity flowing once more. They didn't want to question it at first, just nodding their head to the new Sehun 2.0 because they preferred a happy CFO compared to the previous, dull one. 

But Sehun never forgot about Australia, or Luhan. The last message he sent to the former flame was a cute goodbye and an airplane emoji, followed by a 'read' notification underneath. At first it was hard to get him out of Sehun's mind, but as the months dragged on the the endless amounts of meetings, emails, buisness gathers and late office nights, it was a little bit easy for Sehun to forget about communication. Soon, that negligence became an excuse on Sehun's behalf to get over his feelings for the other man. 

As the debut date of their finished product seemed to approach even closer and closer, both Sehun and Joonmyun were drowning in work, empty beverage cups, forgetten bowls of instant noodles and half-working dry pens. They needed this project to be running as smooth as possible for a successful launch into the market that the company needs, to maintain that self-earned image of glory and prestige. 

But in the spare moments where Sehun's mind finally had a free space to crawl back into, he would always wonder what Luhan would be up to. An infinite number of questions still plagued his mind,

Did he meet up with Minseok?

How are they doing?

Is he happy?

He could quench his curiosity with a simple message but something invisible grabbed his fingers when opened up the inbox, he would promptly close it and tuck it away back into his pocket. 

Nope, the stars aren't aligned for him to be making the first move. 

So it went for a bit like this until the taste of Luhan's name had almost dissolved on his tongue, leaving an empty aftertaste behind. At first it was unintentional, but whenever a mop of brown poodle-like hair and bright eyes popped up in Sehun's mind, he immediately tried to think of something else to push Luhan out his thoughts. 

But he can't let go of Luhan as easy as he thought he could. He would never tell anyone this, but sometimes he pretends that Luhan is right there with him, sitting on the couch and shooting paper balls into the bin while complaining about how Sehun barely pays any attention to him because he's working. Other times Sehun would be walking along the dry ground, stepping on the crunchy autumn leaves that had bid goodbye to their branches just recently when he would imagine the smaller male run past him