"...Outside a hospital, also..."
"…Thank goodness for that, he's a fortunate fellow...."
"...But that driver! No decency at all...."

Voices buzz distantly over Sehun's head as he slowly blinks his eyes open. The light from the outside world almost blinds the boy, leaving a heaven-like impression, but for the buzzing of voices. Sehun blinks again, trying to recall where exactly he was, when a more familiar voice screamed through the crowd:
"Sehun! Oh my Sehunnie! Are you alright? Is my baby alright?"

Mummy. She could be embarrassing.

"...Lucky boy, missed it by seconds..." the voices continued to buzz, "...if he had been at-"

Sehun stops listening.
Kai. Kai had been their too.
Where was Kai? 
        Where was...
"Kai!!!"
 

The words leave Sehun as Kyungsoo runs into the scene; "Kai!" Sehun calls again, looking around frantically.

Kyungsoo is confused. Who is Kai? Sehun's friend? Then how come he had never shared?
Oblivious to Kyungsoo's puzzled frowns, Sehun searches the street, never ceasing to call out for Kai, till he finally spots it: Red. The pool ball. And beside it, a darker streak of red....

"KAI!!!!"
Sehun runs forward, his screams getting more desperate, more strained and hoarder by the second, "Kai.... no, Kao. No! Don't go..."

Saying Kyungsoo is confused is putting it mildly. He is confounded. He's flabbergasted. Why on heaven and earth was Sehun crying -no, "Kai", hunched over an empty patch of ground?! Timid, curious steps bring Kyungsoo closer to Sehun.

"Don't leave me! Kai, don't," the boy sobs, "Weren't you gonna be with me forever...? Weren't you gonna... always be here? Weren't you gonna.... stay?"

Kyungsoo blinks.
He could’ve sworn, for a second, it looked like the asphalt Sehun was kneeling before was stained with.... blood. 
           No. It couldn't be.
He blinks, and the image is gone.

What's going on?
 

"...a true survivor..."
"...missed the vehicle by inches..."

Sehun wanted to tell the buzzing voices to SHUDDUP! to just mind their own businesses. Couldn't they see? His friend... bestfriendforlife, hadn't made it... hadn't survived... couldn't they feel it?

Trembling fingers reach out to touch the dead body -too small to deserve something as unjust as death. Tears brim in Sehun's eyes... His long hair is still soft... even though his body is colder and harder than ever before. Like stone.

'Please come back...' Sehun whispers, though he knew it is useless. It is too late.
'Please.... smile at me again...'

~

Mummy stands outside Sehun's room door, and she is so nervous. She can feel the misery, the depression, the absolute hate for the world radiating from her son through the walls and underneath the door. Guilt eats at her: This was the imaginary friend you tried to separate him from- and now he's gone, in a more permanent way than you could possibly have imagined -are you happy now..?!

She gulps, before knocking at the door. "Do you want me to bring you your dinner up?'
Silence is her only reply.

"You have to eat; you can't go starving yourself."

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

"You didn't even eat this mor- you have to eat something"
Silence again.

"Shall I bring up a hot chocolate?"
No answer.

"Bubble tea? -It’s your favourite!"
No answer.

She sighs, and backs away from the door. 
In the dark room, a single tear rolls down Sehun's cheek.

She knew what had happened.... How- she couldn't say; she just knew when she looked into her son's red eyes: Kai wasn't just gone. He hadn't just packed up and left. He had died. In front of Sehun.

....Sehun is too young....

~

Cold December wind tossed rough, hard stones of hail down on earth as if it were a child throwing discarded toys in a temper tantrum. It spared no one, not the under-dressed beggar always stationed outside the library doors, not the well wrapped pastor, hurrying to the brightly lit church, not even the mangy dog who lay curled in its new spot- Mummy's precious flower bed, hoping to salvage any warmth available.

Oh Sehun watched the wind, making everything in its path its puppet, its slave, and he imagined he was the one controlling it.
There is little the small, blonde-haired boy could do to entertain himself; to distract himself from the tears freezing in his face. Everyone leaves after all... he whispers to himself. Everyone leaves....

There is no point running away from the truth, if it keeps chasing you and trying to prove itself to you. Sehun sighs a sigh way beyond his years, you could say he aged ten times over just this December.
 

It is Christmas.
       Snow is falling now, fairy lights twinkle all the way down the street, decorated Christmas trees displayed near everyone's windows....
       It doesn't feel like Christmas.
 

"Sehun! We're gonna open the presents..."

      They were having a Christmas party downstairs. Sehun is not a part of it -coz he doesn't feel it.
"Give him time, he's going through a lot," Mummy explained to the guests, hoping they would understand. She could hardly tell the truth. 
      -He feels nothing anymore.

"Sehun," her voice floats up again, "It's your favourite part,"

Sehun covers his ears, trying to block out the sounds from downstairs. 
Music.... chatter..... Laughter..... 
How even...? Without any warning, teats begin to blur his vision yet again- ...I wanted to show Kai Christmas.... I wanted.... He can't stop the sob. ...it's too soon....

Sehun jumps when his private moment where he allowed the tears to fall, is interrupted by a knock on his door.
"Come on down," Mummy barges in without permission, "We've got something special... new neighbors - a boy your age..."
           Sehun isn't listening anymore.
"....could make friends..."
           He doesn't care. At all.

But then, why is he standing up, wiping away those tears and snotty nose? Why is he walking down to the crowded hall, doing everything his brain ordered his body not to do? He feels like a puppet, pulled along by strings, powerless before the goddess named destiny.
 

Downstairs, the crowded living room is lit brightly; red baubles and streamers hang from every corner, and the giant Christmas tree in the corner, sheltering several arms-full of gifts beneath it like it was a mother bird, catches Sehun's eye. The warm golden glow spreading in the delicious-Turkey-smelling-air, reaches Sehun's heart, and something melts inside him. He finally feels it - despite everything life threw at him, despite losing people close to him, despite all of that - Sehun smiles.

It is beautiful, after all. It is Christmas.

~

The chatter resumes: actually, it had been going on all along, yet Sehun hadn't noted it before. The laughter, the music that Sehun felt mocked him before, now is welcoming. Sehun looks around seeing everything in a new light, and lets the sadness and loss he had kept locked within him wash away on this special day.

And that's when he sees him.
     His hair isn't long; he isn't wearing the trademark primary coloured combo of skinny, shorts and overcoat; he isn't even barefoot. But there is no denying it.
Under the Christmas tree, busily unwrapping a Christmas present, is...
"Kai..." Sehun whispers.
       The boy looks up, as if he heard Sehun from across the whole hall. "Kai!" Sehun calls again, his voice edging on desperation.

"That's the boy," a voice came: it was mummy, "It's the new kid from across the street I was telling you about..." 
But Sehun has already scooted away, over to the spot in front of the Christmas tree.
"Kai," he whispers again, barely able to contain himself. 'You're not dead,' he almost says, 'I swear I thought you were...'

The boy, Kai, his bestfriendforlife, looks up at him, and gives him that bright smile he had always given - the smile Sehun so desperately wanted to see again.
"I'm not Kai," he grins, making Sehun stop for a second. "My name's Kim Jongin."

Sehun looks him head to toe again. He was the same - Kai. Kim Jongin. They are just names, anyway, and as he always said, 'That simply isn't important enough.' He is Sehun's bestfriendforlife, and that's all that ever mattered.

“You're my bestfriendforlife, okay?" Sehun whispers in his ear, suddenly scared that he has somehow forgotten. Kai just laughs at that. "I know that, silly! I knowed that all along."
And he grins that brilliant white smile that made Sehun feel warm all over.

"See," he says, holding up the brand new red sweater he had just pulled from the midst of the now-crushed blue wrapping paper, "It's my style!"
Sehun gasps and points, "That's mine! I have that to you," and crazily enough, when he turned the label, Sehun's name was written beneath 'Kim Jongin' Sehun grins brightly all the while his bestfriendforlife slips the sweater on, and his eyes sparkle. "Yehet~"

"Ohorat~" replies Kai, not skipping a beat.

Suddenly, without a single warning, Sehun reaches over and hugs the boy before him. "I missed you," he says. And as if that had been the most natural thing to do, his bestfriendforlife simply nods and holds onto him tight.

It is beautiful, after all -this Christmas, where his bestfriendforlife was here. To stay. For good.

~The End~