Prologue- Lavender.

Gazing through the foggy window and the outline of a nameless face in the car he was forced into, Kyungsoo wished he was back in his frumpy bed, cuddling with the warm sheets, completely lost to the world, in the land of dreams. He sighed, adjusting his atramentous, moth bitten tie to avoid the awkward stares that were coming his way. He had forgotten that the nameless face belonged to Mrs. Xi, Luhan’s, his best friend of five years, mother. He scooted over uncomfortably, the penetrating stare starting to scare him. He should have known better though; Mrs. Xi was not in the best of moods today.

                To be fair though, it wasn’t entirely her fault she was stuck in this situation, forced to ride in the same van as her only child’s not-so-virtuous best friend. Kyungsoo refrained of staring at the window as best he could, and focused on his shoe laces instead.

                Kyungsoo thanked every deity in existence when the SUV pulled into the parking lot of an extravagant country club. Kyungsoo inadvertently sighed at the sight in front of him as he stepped out of the too stuffy car. This was definitely a place Luhan would pick.

                The view was beautiful. Kyungsoo thought about taking a minor vacation to this club; grab his old, almost ruined canvas and his discarded acrylic paints, and sit on the edge of the lake next to the club and paint away. Of course that would never happen, though, he thought to himself cynically, his job didn’t exactly have vacation.

                “Are you coming Kyungsoo, or are you going to stare at the lake the whole day?” Mr. Xi asked sarcastically, making Kyungsoo cringe as internally as possible. He avoided looking at Mr. Xi whenever he would come over to Luhan’s house during college, and for good reason. Everything about Mr. Xi was off.

                “Um, yes sorry,” Kyungsoo fumbled over his words; he was confused as to why Mr. Xi even cared. He quickly parted with the beautiful scene overlooking the water and trudged up the gravel, and into the wooden building.

                Kyungsoo felt as if he stepped inside a castle. It was big, barely any furniture, apart from the chairs that were lined up for today’s special occasion.

A familiar smell assaulted Kyungsoo as soon as we walked into what could only be described as a foyer.

Lavender.

The vivacious aroma seeped through the standard crème walls and the un-recognized stock paintings that spotted the room. Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose in disgust; there was a certain limit to how much one could use lavender’s scent without going overboard, and it seemed they had missed that limit verbosely. Kyungsoo walked past the entrance filled with strangers, weaving in and out of groups small-talking, through grieving adults he could only assume were next of kin, to a sad attempt at a refreshment table. Vanilla wafers, sour grapes, lukewarm coffee, and dollar store creamer. Whoever had rented out this venue obviously had only planned for one thing.

“It’s a tragedy, isn’t it?” A stranger came up to Kyungsoo, grabbing a wafer and plopping it into his mouth. Kyungsoo cringed again; small talk wasn’t his thing.

“Yes, I would say so,” Kyungsoo mumbled through his half-bitten sour grape.

“You a friend of Sehun’s?” the stranger questioned, not getting the “leave me alone” signals Kyungsoo practically projected at the strangers mind. Kyungsoo kept his head down, looking at the ground and flaunting negative body signals.

“No, Luhan’s actually,” Kyungsoo murmured, suddenly scanning the crowd in hopes his friend would be there.

“Oh, I see. Hey, maybe we should-” he was cut off by Kyungsoo suddenly walking towards the center of the grand hall.

“Finally,” Kyungsoo muttered under his breath, as he once again weaved through people. Various conversations floated into his brain, none of them were even semi-important to him.

“Um, excuse me,” Kyungsoo ushered his way into Mrs. Xi’s conversation with what only could be assumed as her friend. Kyungsoo was slightly surprised; she didn’t seem like the type to get along with other people, “have you seen Luhan around?”

Mrs. Xi turned to him dramatically with an aura that reeked of arrogance. Kyungsoo now saw why she had a friend; the woman beside her was practically slack-jawed that someone dare interrupt their conversation.

“I have no idea, Mr. Do,” Mr. Do was what Mrs. Xi called Kyungsoo, as if to put a boundary between him and the family. More than bothering him because of the snarky tone, it almost made him double over in laughter. “Last time I checked in with him, he was still planning this ridiculous thing.”

Kyungsoo had to hide a chuckle. There was a reason Luhan and Kyungsoo were friends, and the fact that Luhan despised his mother as much as Kyungsoo did only brought them closer.

“Mother, don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Luhan came up from behind Kyungsoo, scaring the daylight out of him in the process. Kyungsoo turned around to find his best friend chuckling; he didn’t know if was from the startling, or the expression on both Mrs. Xi’s and her friends face.

“Do you honestly expect to waltz up to me without saying hello, and- come back here!” Mrs. Xi screamed as Luhan and I darted for an empty room. It was hard even for him not to laugh.

“It’s good to see you Luhan, how are you?” Kyungsoo asked, shutting the door and turning to his friend. He expected the scene in front of him; a broken boy who just lost everything.

“It’s only been a week, Kyungsoo. How do you think I feel? The love of my life was killed in some freak accident and I still don’t know what happened,” Luhan looked helpless. Kyungsoo’s stomach panged of guilt, but he kept his composure. He looked at Luhan with all sincerity.

“Look, we’ll find out what happened, okay? You’re a mess right now, and you need to calm down,” Kyungsoo sat next to his dejected best friend. Luhan had been through so much lately; his boyfriend died, he had to tell everyone without knowing himself what had happened, and he had to plan the funeral because Sehun was orphaned.

“It’s funny,” Luhan mumbles, tears falling to hit his fist, “You would think four years with someone wouldn’t mean as much in perspective of a lifetime. But it does. It kills you to be that much in love with someone, and then to have them die right under your nose. I don’t know what’s worse; the fact that I spent four years of my life with someone who died pre-maturely, or the fact that I would trade my soul to live an eternity in those four years,” Luhan sobs, his grip on his own hands tighten with the pain. Never in his life has Kyungsoo felt so helpless.

A knock at the door signals it’s time for the funeral procession of Oh Sehun to begin.

Luhan sobs louder. Anyone can tell he’s not ready for this, especially Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo knows everything about their relationship, including parts he’d rather not know. He hugs his friend, although it is too awkward to be considered genuine by anyone except Luhan.

“Let go of me,” Luhan weakly pushes Kyungsoo’s hand away, “I’m too manly to be held.”

“Oh okay,” Kyungsoo laughs as he opens the door and motions Luhan forward, “Uke.”

Kyungsoo quickly dodges a box of tissues Luhan miraculously found.                                                        

“I hate you sometimes,” Luhan whispered as menacingly as a Chihuahua a mere two inches from Kyungsoo’s face.

“Okay, if you say so.”

The scent of lavender and formaldehyde cased the room, leaving no crevice for Kyungsoo to breathe in. He was relatively early to the funeral procession; that was the perks of being the best friend of the host. He sighed as he went through the pamphlet doting on the wonderful life of Oh Sehun. Although bile was rising at the mention of the deceased’s name, Kyungsoo needed something to distract him from the people. They were everywhere. Kyungsoo could bet that half of these people Sehun had never even met. That made Kyungsoo angry. Shouldn’t a funeral be about celebrating the life of someone who was close to you, not because you were invited? Kyungsoo had to make a mental note to ask Luhan in the distant future for names of people he actually wanted at his funeral.

The pamphlet he continued to survey instead of interacting with the guests was interesting. Kyungsoo had no idea Sehun was a tennis player in middle school. He must have said that out loud, because Luhan snatched the white paper from him in an angry furry.

“He didn’t tell me he played that! Asswipe!” Luhan practically roared with anger.

“I honestly don’t think that’s you are supposed to honor the dead at their own funeral,” Kyungsoo said quietly with wide eyes, avoiding the disbelieving stares of all who heard Luhan’s outburst. 

Luhan looked around and turned beat red, and handed the paper back to Kyungsoo.

“I’m sorry, I’ll go sit down now,” Luhan murmured.

Kyungsoo stared at his friend like a hawk until Luhan was safely in his seat, quietly chatting with one of Sehun’s co-workers. His eyes immediately went from his friend, to the ground, once again observing the pamphlet in front of him.

How come Sehun never told Luhan he played tennis, Kyungsoo wondered. Apart from the incident, nothing happened that was-

“Good morning, and welcome each and every one of you, to this celebration of life today,” Kyungsoo’s train of thought was cut off by the priest of Luhan’s parent’s church. He was big, burly, and had a face of a gentle giant. Kyungsoo wanted to hurl.

Kyungsoo eyes were glazed over watching the paper as the priest droned on. Several people around him were sobbing as they remembered the life of a person they barely knew. Kyungsoo didn’t want to take light of the situation, but he almost started laughing. These people weren’t genuinely upset the way Luhan was. It was simply a façade that Kyungsoo could see right through. However, his inner laughter stopped when he heard the priest change the subject.

“Although we do not know how Sehun passed, we can take comfort now that he is in a better place. Far from troubled times and sadness,” the priest confided in the audience. Kyungsoo swallowed hard at the howls of grieving. He couldn’t bear to be in the room longer when he heard Luhan’s broken sobs; his only comfort was a stranger’s hands.

Kyungsoo was thankful for his seat in the very back, because as soon as the viewings started, he was getting up to leave. Unfortunately, Luhan noticed, but didn’t say anything though; he was too busy dealing with the line of eager people that formed. Kyungsoo’s irritation was piqued; you don’t form a line to view the body. He fought with himself for a moment, but relented eventually to his virtuous side. He stalked down the aisle of chairs, ignoring the incredulous looks he received and a few angry looks. He tried to stifle his laughter as he found out the stranger who bombarded him was now victim to Mrs. Xi’s intense ing.

“Thanks. I thought you were going to ditch me,” Luhan whispered to Kyungsoo as he approached, guiding a weeping elderly couple to the casket his boyfriend lay in. Kyungsoo motioned the line away with a flick of his hand.

“Of course, I would never leave you like this,” Kyungsoo motioned for Luhan to sit down, signaling that he would take care of the hordes of people.

 And he did just that.

Holding Luhan’s shaking hand while he cried, motioning people forward, and still maintaining a small polite smile on his face, Kyungsoo that maybe he was a good friend. That was, until he looked inside the casket.

Whoever did the make-up on Oh Sehun did a really good job. He looked just how he did two weeks ago; smiling, eyes bridge-shaped in happiness, they were only like that when Luhan was around. He was nothing more than a paradox now; looking so full of warmth yet cold and hard to the touch. It was unnatural seeing him like this; at first Kyungsoo could have sworn he was breathing. Kyungsoo swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes away from the corpse lying in the sating coffin. He wondered if that was an impolite word to use; corpse. It seemed harsh, and could never portray the emotion behind the decaying flesh that was on display for everyone to see. When he thought of a corpse, he thought of a nameless, faceless thing that the news would convey monotonously through his T.V screen, not the man he saw Luhan weep for the day they had to identify the body in the hospital morgue. He would never forget the sheer hopelessness on Luhan’s face as they opened the bag, the way his face fell seeing his lover bruised and broken. Kyungsoo would never forget having to drag an hysterical Luhan out of the hospital and trying to coax him a number of times to put the gun down, or get down from the bridge, or even to give Kyungsoo the rope.

For a week he had watched his best friend fall apart. But that’s all Luhan was allowed.

One week.

After that, Kyungsoo watched Luhan miraculously pull together. He was his old social, lively, considerate self. It was as if Sehun had never died; more than that, it was as if Sehun never existed. But Kyungsoo knew better. It was just a façade, Luhan was an empty shell, going through the motions he knew, and it was how he would act in high school when he had to follow the protocol his parents gave him. Luhan was good at masking himself, which was one of the reasons Sehun was so good to him. Sehun wore his heart on his sleeve; if he wasn’t interested, even the blind and oblivious could tell. They were opposites when it came to interaction, which was why their love was so real. In all of Kyungsoo’s days, he had never experienced two people who loved each other more.

His mind wondered throughout the viewings, and the closing remarks by the priest. It wasn’t until Luhan had mustered enough control to speak that his thoughts were veiled. Normally, he would be confused as to why Luhan was so breakable today. But it wasn’t Luhan, it was the funeral.

“Thank you very much for coming,” Luhan choked out nervously, he hated being weak, and after breaking down in front of all these people, Kyungsoo knew that all Luhan wanted to do was die in a hole. “We will have our real refreshments now, and then those who wish to, we will proceed to the burial site.”

“You’re coming to the burial site, right?” Luhan looked at Kyungsoo expectedly after awkwardly handing the mic to the befuddled priest.

“Of course I will,” Kyungsoo said, leading Luhan with his arm out of the way of the mass exiting from the hall. Kyungsoo always naturally took care of Luhan, despite Luhan being older.

“You know for a second there, I thought you were going to leave the room,” Luhan said nonchalantly as they waited in line for the food. Kyungsoo was downright disgusted at the animated chatter. He hoped Ghost Sehun would spit in their food and give them all saliva-transmitted Ghost AIDS. Kyungsoo looked up, confused at the tone coming from the man in front of him.

“Oh yeah, you know. I don’t do well with bodies,” Kyungsoo replied nervously, fixing his eyes anywhere but the curly blonde hair in front of him.

“Yeah, I could tell. When you weren’t mentally ing out the people who wanted to, you know, view him, you stared at him. It was almost like you saw something on him,” Luhan mused as they sat down with their food. It was unrecognizable, but Kyungsoo was so hungry he didn’t care what it was.

Kyungsoo stared up at Luhan, his eyes wide and trained on the man in front of him, gulping down noodles.

Kyungsoo had lost his appetite. He sat in silence staring, as his best friend of five years ate, with eyes that could no longer see what was, silently picking apart a thousand internal questions.

The burial procession was less eventful, and Kyungsoo once again sung silent praises. Maybe a dozen people showed up to it, apart from the easy one hundred that gathered in the great hall of the magnificent country club. The cemetery came with rain, which Kyungsoo was sure Luhan was grateful for. It seemed like tears would never stop falling from Luhan, and Kyungsoo was beyond worried at this point.

After Sehun was buried, Luhan requested Kyungsoo leave them alone for a while, since Luhan was his ride home and his best friend, he happily obliged, taking a walk through the gravestones.

It’s a funny thing death. Death is natural, so why does it cause so much pain, so much grief? It takes the strongest man and makes him vulnerable again, like a child. It breaks families, separates communities, and destroys hearts. Something so vile cannot be considered natural, can it? Kyungsoo looks at the gravestones of strangers, and for the first time, can relate to them. He knows this feeling of empathy is fleeting; it won’t last but maybe six months. But for Luhan, it will last a lifetime. Why?

“Because Luhan has that emotion to share,” Kyungsoo says to no one cynically.

He wished he could be like Luhan. He wished that instead of being a black and white painting of a waterfall, what could be so very continuous and beautiful in a minimalistic way made stagnant and boring, he could be a beautiful flower portrait like Luhan. Vivid, detailed, vibrant, warm. With the fragrance of Lavender. Strong, unrelenting, but calming in a way. A vibrant painting is marveled, while a black and white painting is overlooked by those who seek beauty, who seek refinement.

Vibrancy in art holds the key to the heart’s emotions, while stagnancy holds the truths of the mind and reality.

He looks at Luhan from the other side of the field of death.

The flower is wilting.

Kyungsoo sighed, sitting down on a ledge right next to a new tomb stone. It’s a little girl’s; she was no older than five when she died. Leaning against her stone is a teddy bear. He has a black suit on, with a little paper white rose on the collar.

“We match, don’t we, Mr. Bear?” Kyungsoo asks, taking a small lily out of his jacket pocket and placing it on the bear’s lap.

“You take good care of her, okay? If she gets lonely, you have to play with her,” he says, more to himself than the bear. His thoughts take him on another joy ride, until a certain object floats through his vision.

A butterfly.

Kyungsoo laughs. The butterfly is a beautiful shade of purple, almost equal to the beauty of lavender. It floats through the sky, mere inches from Kyungsoo’s face. Somehow, it reminds him of Sehun.

“Such an ironic moment, to have a butterfly at a cemetery,” he thought to himself.

“But then again, butterflies are the symbol of spiritual freedom.”

He hoped Sehun was free. He hoped that the beautiful purple butterfly was a foretelling of freedom to come. Freedom from life, suffering, loss, and hopelessness.

But, to think Kyungsoo would be given such a gift was foolhardy.

As he steps through the door of his messy apartment, he moves straight to the refrigerator and grabs the first alcoholic beverage he can find.

He drinks his sorrows, for sorrows are all he has.

Without his sorrows, he does not exist.

He laid in his bed, the outline of night sky shading his body amazingly.

As he drifts off in a liquor-induced coma, his vision appears again, opening the wounds he has drowned in booze effortlessly.

吳世勳勳

Oh Se Hun

2010年4月20日

April 20, 2010

車毀人亡。當場死亡。

Car Crash. Died Instantly.