Sehun had met Kyungsoo on his way out of the dorm and, after knowing that his friend had the same destination as him, he had proposed to drive Kyungsoo to the hospital, the invitation earning an happy nod from the smaller.

They reached the white building quickly. The sun shining high in the sky an illusion of the actual cold weather. Walking to Jongin’s room, Sehun listened as Kyungsoo recounted him how Jongin had annoyed him the whole morning. Apart from the occasional laughs he let out at Kyungsoo’s huffs, Sehun stayed silent. Even though he would have gladly point out how Kyungsoo sounded far from being annoyed that Jongin had woken him at 8am with a love declaration meant to bring him quicker to his side. Kyungsoo certainly doesn’t know how he looks like when talking about Jongin; the tone of his voice being a great contradiction with the words it said, leading to Sehun never mentioning it and, instead, chuckling quietly at the endearing observation.

Kyungsoo knocked the door twice, his smile widened when Jongin’s faint ‘Come in’ could be heard. He pushed the door open and walked inside with Sehun following just behind, the latter not excepting to see his roommate there.

While Sehun knew that his face didn’t let anything other than indifference show, it seemed to be more difficult for Luhan to hide his surprise. If Sehun wasn’t trying to read that other emotion present in Luhan’s eyes, he would have noticed that Luhan was also having a hard time to look at anything that wasn’t Sehun’s face. The intense stare broke under Kyungsoo’s cheerful greeting, concurrently preventing Sehun from understanding Luhan’s unspoken words by taking the older’s attention.

Luhan answered Kyungsoo with a bright smile, a soft laugh escaping his lips thanks to Kyungsoo first question being about how long Jongin had been bothering him. Their jokes were throwing bright colors in the atmosphere, painting the ambience with a light mood, but Sehun only saw grey with his eyes focused on his roommate who wasn’t even hiding the fact that he was avoiding looking at him. Sehun didn’t care that his presence meant discomfort. Although didn’t want to was more exact as he could feel a gnawing sensation in his chest; something close to pain caused by Luhan’s ignorance was slowly climbing up and Sehun hated that he was struggling to keep it behind his usual blank mask.

Luhan’s smile was forced when he got up. Genuine, but strained as he thanked Jongin and wished him a fast recovery. Sehun hoped he wasn’t the only one to notice as it would mean that he could still decipher the emotion Luhan tried to conceal behind a deep breath and wanted to wipe off his face by making it seem like he was brushing his fringe away.

Sehun wished he could just forget how to do it. That ability to feel the nervosity radiating from Luhan’s body when his whole being is lying to the environment around him, fooling everyone with that happy gleamer in his eyes accompanied to a little wave; a simple gesture bounded for a goodbye he often uses in case his voice might break.

Sehun wished it didn’t bother him when Luhan passed by him without as much as a glance, as well as the closing door didn’t sound like a crack extanding the cleft separating them. Sehun wished he wasn’t at the edge, torned between falling in the hole by running after the person he had once loved and staying safe by not moving while watching the same person he had tried so much to hate walking further away from him.

“Aren’t you going to greet me?”

Sehun blinked up at the voice cutting off his thoughts. As his gaze found a pouting Jongin, Sehun realized that he apparently didn’t let his inner turmoil appear on his face, nor did the previous tension considering the sight of Kyungsoo rolling his eyes at Jongin’s attempt to look cute. Taking comfort in the familiar scene, Sehun only gave his best friend a smile. The latter, scowling at Sehun’s lack of words, opened his mouth to protest only to yelp after getting a slap in the head from Kyungsoo for looking stupid.

Sehun let out a small laugh at their banter, one that sounded forced because, albeit he would like to deny it, he was actually using his friends as a distraction to not answer his dilemma.

~

Jongin and Kyungsoo managed to entertain Sehun’s mind for a while by pushing the irritati