[CONTENTID1] XXIV [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2].[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

A lot of unspoken words clung onto the air between the two men, Luhan sitting across the table from Sehun with his head hung low. The man in front of Luhan looked so different through his eyes, his cheeks have more colour and his eyes are not as sunken in as he remembered them to be during those late nights they spent together. Sehun took the two of them into a cafe nearby, hand tightly interlocked with Luhan's own. Taking a seat at a small table near the cafe window, Sehun polietly declined the waiter's assitance to help them with their orders, asking him to give them a couple of minutes. Luhan refused to look up at Sehun, knowing well aware that the younger was still in shock about running into each other.

As he waited patiently for Luhan to say something, Sehun noticed how different Luhan looked now. His hair had gone back to a midnight black, his bangs just stopping below his eyebrows. He's lost a lot of weight, cheekbones and jawline more defined, his sharp collar bones peeked from underneath the fraying gray sweater that clung loosely on his torso. 

"How..are you?" Luhan starts in Korean, gulping a little in the process."It's been a while."

"It...has. But I have many things to tell you, and you have a lot of things to explain, but first of all, Yixing came here four days ago, looking for you," Sehun softly replies, staring at Luhan with a small, sad smile.

"Yixing is here? In Korea?"

"Yeah," says Sehun, dropping all the formalities. "But more importantly why are you here? Whatever happened to Minseok? Not to mention your job." Luhan hung his head lower, allowing a small tear to escape from his eyes, hoping that Sehun didn't catch it or take any notice of it. 

"I-I..." he stutters, looking sideways unsure how to answer. The corner of his eye caught the sight of Sehun furrowing his eyebrows, and leaning closer to the edge of the table in confusion.

"It's okay if you don't want to say anything. I won't pressure you."

"I'm sorry but I better start heading off-" but before Luhan could finish, Sehun reached out and grabbed his wrist, "Sehun?"

"Please, I don't want to let you go just this once."

Luhan looked at him, startled. "Sehun, what are you doing?" He could notice the other customers look at them with a quizzical expressions on their faces.

"I need to take you back to Yixing. Luhan, you don't belong in Korea!"

"What the would you know?!" Luhan yelled back, retracting his hand from Sehun's grasp with tears welling up in his eyes.

"We've all been worried sick looking for you! Especially your goddamn cousin, Yixing, who came from ing Australia. What do you think you are doing right now? Are you purposely being stupid or what?" Having enough, Sehun stood up and grabbed the other man's bicep, leading him out of the cafe and towards his car across the street. Letting go of Luhan's arm, Sehun opened the car door, signalling for him to get in. Luhan hesitantly stepped in, refusing to look ar Sehun's face in anger. Throwing Joonmyun's flower bouquet in the back seat, Sehun got behind the wheel and reversed the car, concentrating more on driving than Luhan's silent tantrum in the seat next to him. 

"I'll drive us to my house first. I'll take you back to Yixing after you explain your whole story to me." Luhan didn't reply back to him, and Sehun didn't need him to.

He already understood that the other had agreed.

Sehun's place was different from what Luhan had imagined, for starters, it was a lot bigger.

Neither of them did not say a word the entire drive, nor did they look in each other's direction. Closing the garage door behind them, Sehun gets out first and closed the car door behind them. Luhan meekly got out after and followed Sehun into his house, taking his shoes off in the process. Giving Luhan a pair of slippers, they climbed up the narrow stairs and into Sehun's living room, where the younger man had left the lights on. The clock above the coat stand showed that it was almost midnight, but neither Sehun nor Luhan felt any lethargy. 

The younger walked over to the middle of the living room and sat down on the couch, asking Luhan to sit down on the recliner across form him.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" Sehun offers, to break the silence.  Luhan shakes his head and looks out at the male sitting in front of him. 

"What do you want to know? Why I'm here? Why I left?" Luhan spits out, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. The younger looks taken back by the sudden change in attitude, but shows no indifference; he might as well use this as his chance to get some light shed onto the truth.

"Well, you could start from after I left Melbourne," Sehun suggests.

Luhan stops, after two minutes of not saying anything but then he sighs and takes a deep breath. "I went to find Minseok after you left