#once or twice i can let it pass. when it becomes a pattern? blech | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ephemeral-writings · 7 years

Text

Too Little, Too Late - Sehun

Originally posted by veriloquentmind

Sehun (soulmate!au)

Word count: 4,035

You would have turned 40 today.

There’s not a day that goes by without me imagining your handsome face, aging with grace. I imagine the wrinkles by your eyes growing deeper, marking the ever childlike smile you had, and the stubbles on your cheeks long needing of a shave, but let’s face it, you looked dashing with them.

I would’ve woken you up today, with a big grin on my face, hoping to plant a garden upon your skin. But you would’ve also beaten me to it. I never could wake up to gaze at your face in serenity like you always do to me. It’s quite unfair, you know? I want you back.

Sleeping beside me again.

I would tell you to never leave me.

And you would promise me that there’s not a chance for you to ever think about leaving.

But I didn’t.

And you didn’t.

I was watching my parents have a heated discussion about which tie Father should wear for a his presentation while working on a bowl of porridge for breakfast.

“Honey, you can’t be wearing plaid when you are trying to pitch a new design for your company,” my mother said, barely able to hold back her rolling eyes as my father frowns, seemingly offended.

“But I like the pattern. It looks cool, don’t you think, Pea?”

My father liked to call me pea. It was his way of keeping me bundled in our little family, like saying that I will always be the pea in our pod even though I was only seven years old, and wasn’t going anywhere, any time soon.

I looked at my mother who gave me a meaningful look, one that said, “Say no and there will be cookies when you get back from school,” or that was what I thought.

“I like you with that blue one better, Daddy.”

My father sighed in defeat, and said, “All right, all right. If you say so, I guess I’ll wear it.”

I peeked at my mom, and she gave me a wink.

Hello, cookies.

I was coloring the last of my fish in my aquarium coloring book when Mother called me from downstairs. The final masterpiece was a school of rainbow fishies with purple-ish water because I had grabbed the violet crayon without looking twice, and before I knew it, my supposed-to-be blue sea became blue with a spot of purple.

Tonight’s dinner was special, Mother had told me. The Kims had moved out about a month ago, and just three days ago, a new family had moved in. My mother being a social butterfly went over and invited the family over for dinner. I wasn’t too thrilled about having strangers eating with us, but my mother always cooked the more delicious dishes when it was a special dinner.

“Good, you’re down. You can help set the table, dear.” My mother handed me the chopsticks and spoons, and I mentally tried to figure out just how many people were eating with us. I gave up eventually and decided to count every utensil I put down.

“There’s only four people coming?” I asked. Suddenly, I was happy there weren’t a lot of people. We once had my mother’s side of the family crowded in our small dining table. I remember having to sit on a smaller table, away from all the grown ups and most importantly, all the main dishes.

“That’s right. The Ohs have two sons,” Mother said.

I grimaced. Blech, boys were no fun. I haven’t found a boy who liked coloring with me, or thought my sticker collection was impressive. I had two shoe boxes full of stickers! I was forced to share something that was important to me in front of the class, and all but the girls laughed at me. The meanest of them boys was the Park kid. He laughed so hard that our teacher sent him to the hallway to calm down. What our teacher should have done was tell him off about what a jerk he was being, that it was rude to laugh about someone else’s precious treasure.

My father came in the room and said that my face was becoming a tornado, and before I could say something back, the doorbell rang.

“Welcome!” My mother’s voice was loud and high-pitched in comparison to my father’s baritone. He waved me over after exchanging a manly handshake with the taller man while my mother continued her conversation with the lady. She looked tall next to my mother, but next to the man standing beside her, she looked the perfect height. And very pretty, too.

I gave them a rather awkward greeting and proceeded to hide behind my father.

“...This is Sehyung and Sehun.” Mrs. Oh gestured to the two boys dressed in identical white buttoned-down shirts.

I hadn’t expected their sons to be my age— well one of them. The other one was three years older, and much more handsome in my eleven-year-old’s opinion.

42:09:94

The white, almost transparent numbers settled quietly on my forearm, without the blinking that my parents had told me it would eventually do. “Once the time was right,” they said. The numbers, I thought, would begin its countdown when I met Sehyung that night. I had fallen into like with the Ohs’ eldest son. My mother told me that when I found someone that gave me the feelings Sehyung gave me, that the timer would activate. I only find out later that it was simply because Sehyung Oh was not my soulmate.

“Miss Lee, is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?”

I shot up from my crouched position where I had been fervently doodling on my math workbook. I looked around and noticed the stares the other kids were giving me, waiting for the oncoming wrath of our teacher. Before I could hide under my desk(or more preferably under the depths of this school), Mr. Kim was already standing over me and swiping the workbook from my hands.

The smirk on his face was devilish and I wanted nothing more than to bolt out of that room before he could embarrass me. I saw his papery lids shift as if contemplating whether he should spare me or not. Of course he chose not to.

“I’m sure Junior Oh here wouldn’t mind passing the message of your infatuation for his older brother down to Sehyung himself.”

A snort from the same Park kid that made fun of my sticker collection ignited the whole class to giggle at my misery. All except for Sehun that is. We met eyes, his looking panicked while mine silently begged him to not say a word to his brother. The tips of his ears turned pink, but his embarrassment was otherwise masked in his stoic face that never seemed to change.

After class ended, I chased after Sehun since he had a habit of walking faster than normal people. It was our parents who decided that it was a good idea to have us walking to and from school together. I never mind the company of the two brothers. It was my chance to talk to Sehyung and with Sehun there, I felt less nervous.

I finally caught up to him at the entrance gate. He had his hands stuffed into the pocket of his uniform pants— a hideous tan color with an equally hideous blazer.

“Hey, Se-”

“I won’t say anything,” he said in his bored tone.

I suppressed my grin, feigned ignorance, and asked, “What won’t you say?” If the cat was indeed out of the bag, I needed to make sure that he wouldn’t be ratting out my secret to his one and only brother. But in all honesty, I knew that my secret was safe with him. If I had grown romantically fond of Sehyung, I had also grown fond of Sehun as my friend. He was quiet, but it was only because he thought that actions spoke better than words. All in all, Sehun was my best friend.

Just as Sehun was about to explain, I caught Sehyung walking towards us from the corner of my eyes. Frantically, I shushed Sehun before Sehyung could get close enough to hear anything he was not supposed to.

“Hey, guys,” Sehyung said.

It was then when Sehun and I realized the small girl standing next to Sehyung. Over the years, the brothers had grown significantly, easily towering over my own stature.

He placed his hand on the small of the girl’s back, prompting her towards us, and said, “This is Irene.” Was that pink I saw on his cheeks? “My girlfriend.”

----

Later that Friday night, I did what every teenage girl does when their unrequited love is torn at the seams. I baked. My favorite and one true love that has never let me down, chocolate chip cookies.

My mother’s motherly intuition hadn’t disappointed when she frowned the minute I walked through the door after parting with the Oh brothers. She knew about my crush on Sehyung, and strangely enough, she never made any comment about how I shouldn’t be liking him but neither had she encouraged me to confess. Nothing of those sorts ever left my mother’s lips.

“He confessed to someone today,” I said blandly. We sat side by side on the baby blue couch. She had her arms and legs wrapped around my torso, clinging to me a koala.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed. Her fingers soothingly raked through my hair as she continued. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out. But you know what?”

“What?”

“Remember what I told you about this?” she said, tapping on my left forearm, “When the time and person is right, you’ll know.”

“So you’re telling me that it’ll only ever work out with whomever my soulmate is?”

She grinned this grin that calmed my accelerating heart. “No, honey, that’s not what saying I’m at all. What I mean is that this isn’t the end of your love life, no matter how it may seem right now.”

Amazing. I didn’t even have to say anything for her to understand the hollow pit that was my chest, or the disappointment that three years of pining for Sehyung Oh reaped nothing but one dead confession while another bloomed.

Shortly after, my mother unwounded herself from me, announcing that she would be going to the store to buy ingredients for my onslaught of batches after batches of cookies.

By the time she got back, I had completed one homework assignment. I abandoned the rest to worry about on the weekend. Presently, I had a mangled heart to mend, and the operation room was the kitchen.

The next day, I handed both Sehun and Sehyung a bag of my homemade cookies. Sehyung said his thanks and made a comment about how excited he was to share them with Irene, walking off just slightly ahead of me and Sehun. Sehun had mumbled a thanks with his stoic face, but when our eyes met, I saw the question in them.

I frowned. My throat felt tight and head felt heavy. What was this feeling? I looked at Sehun again and noticed the worry in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Then I added, “I think.”

Sehun moved closer until our arms were grazing each other with every swing, and whispered, “You’re okay.”

The university library held an air of anxiety as hundreds of students attempted to cram in as much material as their brain could handle. Some were going strong, and I even thought I saw fire in one guy’s eyes, while a handful of others were burnt to the nub, sitting in front of their textbooks like soulless beings. I fell somewhere in between both group.

The chair beside me abruptly pulled back. I looked up, not at all surprised to see Sehun quickly settling in the seat. What did surprise me, however, was the parchment-wrapped danish with the logo of my favorite bakery that he had slid over. For a moment I just stared at him owlishly like he was a savior of some sort. He was actually; I was starving.

“What?”

I grinned a cheeky grin, and asked, “Is this for me?”

“Well, it’s not for me.”

Of course it wasn’t. Sehun wasn’t the quite the sweet tooth like I was. The only decadent thing I’ve ever seen him put in his mouth was my baking, and it was probably because I guilt it into him.

I squealed with excitement before diving into the warm, gooey custard and buttery, flaky crust. I asked if he had anything to do for his class, but being Sehun, I had expected his answer to be somewhere along the lines of, “I’m not a procrastinator like you, so I’ve already finished them.” But he simply hummed a reply with a distracted look on his face.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away, but when he finally did, he told me, “Sehyung and Irene are getting married.”

I breathed evenly, letting his words settle on my skin. It had been awhile since I’d thought about Sehyung. I’d longed discovered that thinking about him only left a dulling ache in my chest, so I stopped.

“Really? That’s great. I’m happy for them.” I genuinely was.

“I know, but there’s something else. They want you to be one of Irene’s bridesmaids.”

I chewed on my lips, contemplating my options: to decline and avoid direct involvement with the wedding or suck up any lingering feelings and participate in their fairy-tale moment.

I nodded. “I’ll do it.”

A garden wedding was the very kind that I had predicted the happy couple would want. With flourishes of flowers to be their witness as they exchanged their vows, their love would only continue to bloom.

I smoothed the blush satin dress, the friction creating goosebumps to rise on my covered thighs. I glanced around the bridal room filled with four other girls donning a replicate of my own, and the bride herself. Irene’s dress was a beautiful modified A-lined dress with its skirt a soft peach and bodice lined with white lace.

“Hey, can someone check on the guest list?” Wendy, the maid of honor and Irene’s best friend, asked. She was in the midst of fixing Irene’s hair into an up-do, and looking around the other bridesmaid, I figured I’d be the best candidate.

It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with Wendy, Seulgi, Joy, and Yeri, but since they were friends with Irene before she had met Sehyung, they had already established a bond within the group; I was merely a suggestion from the groom to the bride. I excused myself from the room, and began making my way down the path of stones that led to the open garden. The chairs painted stark white were lined perfectly in rows of six on each side and seven down each column. The couple agreed that it would be a small, intimate wedding, with only their close friends and family members attending, almost all of which were present.

“Oh! There she is,” my mother who was seated in the second row along with my father announced. My mother never could control the volume of her voice when she got excited, her sudden burst causing eyes to turn and expecting to see someone important. However, I hardly knew of Sehyung’s and Irene’s colleagues, never mind their extended family, so it was embarrassing to say the least when I saw their faces morphed into one of confusion and judgment.

I trudged over to my parents, muttering, “Thanks for putting me on the spotlight, mom.” She waved my side-glare off, complimenting how pretty I looked with my hair curled and perfectly framing my face.

I surveyed the grassy area to the gazebo and to the black where in a few moments the wedding ceremony would begin with all the bridesmaid and groomsmen walking through the white trellis arch. My eyes zeroed in on the slender male dressed in a black and white tux, our eyes meeting when he looks away briefly from the receptionists, Mr. and Mrs. Oh. His eyes lingered on me long enough for his parents to notice and turn their attention to me. I broke the eye contact with Sehun, and quickly made my way over to them.

“You look absolutely stunning, my dear,” Mrs. Oh complimented. I returned her smile, and proceeded to ask her about the guest list, trying my hardest to disregard Sehun’s intense gaze burning the side of my head. If his parents noticed the tension in the air, they didn’t show it. After receiving the information that everyone was present, I excused myself yet again, only sparing Sehun half a second of my attention before ducking out of sight.

Once I arrived at the cobble stone pathway, I let out a breath I hadn’t realize I was holding. I took a few minutes to compose myself, thinking about how long of a day it was going to be, I mentally prepared for it.

Everyone was lined up with their respective partners in their respective order. Out of everyone, Sehun and I probably looked the most awkward. If not for the weird place we were in, it was the fact that all the other groomsmen and bridesmaids weren’t too acquainted with us. A guy name Jaesoon who was Sehyung’s best man was already standing in front with Sehyung. First up was Wendy, then Seulgi with her partner. Next was Yeri with her partner, followed by Joy and her boyfriend, and last was me and Sehun.

We stood side by side, but it felt like there was an invisible wall between us. I tried out multiple conversation starters in my head, but they never made further than the second line because there was no predicting what Sehun would respond with.

“How’s it going?”

“You tell me. I told the girl that I love about how I feel, but she’s been ignoring me like the plague.”

Nope.

“Nervous about the ceremony?”

“I think I’m more annoyed by the fact that you’ve been avoiding me since last week.”

God, dang it.

“Disregard everything I said last week.”

Wait, what? That wasn’t from my head.

I whipped my head to look at Sehun but he had his eyes trained forward. I managed to muster an intelligent, “Uh, what?”

Suddenly an all-too-familiar tune of plays from behind the leafy trellis that essentially acted as a wall from the guest, and most importantly, from the groom and bride. It really built the suspense if the nervous smile on Irene revealed anything.

The line began moving, and I took the chance to look at Sehun again, only to find that he was already staring at me. My heart skipped a beat at the sheer intensity of his eyes.

“Erase everything I said. I can’t have you avoiding me forever.” He gave me a pointed look that was probably supposed be a condescending look for my childish behavior but instead he looked like a wounded stray. His name barely reached the lining of my lips before we were due to walk. He offered me his arm, and naturally like we’ve practiced, I weaved my arm through his, plaster on a smile despite how horrid my stomach ache, and walked.

----

I couldn’t tell if it was the lack of sleep from having stayed up to work on my twenty page essay, or the metaphorical weight of Sehun’s confession that caused my massive headache. As much as I wanted to be among the crowd of happy relatives and colleagues, I couldn’t hold a conversation without wincing every few seconds from the pressure building up in my head. While the festivity continued behind me, I hid in the bridal room, seeking solace on a pretentious sofa with cushions too stiff for my liking. The dang thing was so uncomfortable, I eventually gave up trying to sleep and decided it would at least suffice to rest my eyes. However, when I closed my eyes, all I could see was Sehun and my ears rang with his nine words.

“What if I told you that I love you?”

I groaned loudly in the silent room, rolling over the dumb sofa to lay ungracefully on my stomach, one arm hanging off the side. I was frustrated, but I couldn’t tell if it was at myself or at Sehun.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t find Sehun the least bit attractive because with a face like his, he was bound to break hearts. And now he’s told me he loves me. What does one do with that kind of information?

My fingers found their way to my left forearm, and traced the numbers that has never changed since the day I was born. Everyone had them, the numbers, and everyone had different ones to countdown their death. However, the power to activate the timer or not is in everyone’s control. For the numbers to begin moving, my parents had told me, a soul must find their true half and accept them, and only then does the time begins ticking. Because life works in twisted ways, everyone was limited to how long they have with their soulmate, granted that a person decide to accept their soulmate.

The door suddenly opened, revealing a rather frazzled looking Sehun.

“What are you doing in here? I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he grunted, taking long strides towards the sofa. I inform him about my migraine while moving to sit up, making room for him to sit as well. He pondered in low mumbles whether might of caught something and promptly brought his palm to my forehead. The coolness of it felt so satisfying, my eyes involuntarily closes to bask in the relief it provides for my throbbing head.

When I opened them again, Sehun was much closer than before, his eyes searching mine for discomfort. He asked if I was feeling all right. And I wasn’t.

After a deafening silence as I gave no answer to his question, I asked one of my own. “Why? Why did you do it?”

His hand fell back to his side and visibly tightened.

“I didn’t realize it was happening at the time. It was first just an interest in wanting to know you, then I couldn’t get you out of my mind.” He whispered the last part rather defeatedly.

“I- then, one day, the numbers on my arm changed.”

“And when was that?”

His lips pressed firmly closed.

“Sehun, when did your timer start?”

“On your fifteenth birthday.”

My heart stopped. I choked, and before I knew I was sobbing. If Sehun’s time had started counting since we were fifteen years old, that meant-

“Hey, hey. Look at me,” Sehun demanded, taking my face in his grasp. “Breathe, you hear me. I need you to calm down.”

It was a well known fact that those who found their soulmate at a young age meant that their time was significantly shorter than others. The concept of love was never simple, and for someone as young as Sehun was to have accepted me as his soulmate meant the love was too strong and too deep to prolong the attachment the soul needed.

The thought of him bearing this knowledge for almost a decade, a new wave of despair knocked what little air I had left.

“God damn it, please, please calm down,” Sehun begged but his voice seemed miles away. For 20 minutes, he had his hands fervently trying to rub the tension in my body away, his lips pressed against my temple, right above my ear as if he knew my hearing was deteriorating as my attack wore on, mumbling reminders for me to breathe. Slowly but surely, everything subsided, and I was left with a head splitting headache. Sehun kept me in his arms, occasionally running his hand down my spine, coaxing any lasting apprehension out with a shaky breath.

“What’s your number right now?” I asked, fully dreading the answer, but I needed to know.

“…Thirteen years.”

The trembling of my lips was a catalyst for another sob, and a whimper, and thousands of apologies.

#exo scenarios #sehun scenario #sehun #exo #kpop scenarios #sehun angst #soulmate!au

130 notes · View notes