Work Text:
Structure. Knowing where things go. Knowing when. A certainty that Sehun craved for most of his life. A restful stop from chaos. The safe taste of plain rice, mashed potatoes, and cold water. It was good. It was good until it wasn’t.
The alarm clock screams at him from his bedside table. Sehun opens his eyes for the first time that morning even when he has been awake for a while, some type of ridiculous unfulfillment making his nights shorter. He had been dreaming and he can still hear the happy laughter of his old friends, can hear their hopeful dreams, makes him wonder where his are. Just like every morning, he shakes the memories away.
He gets ready for work. Gets dressed, has tea with toast, grabs his prepped lunch container, and leaves. The train is punctual, he recognizes a few faces that have shared the morning commute with him for years, wonders if they don’t have dreams like he doesn’t. He gets to his stop thinking about it and by the time he’s crossing the door to his office, all those thoughts have been buried deep.
It’s Thursday after work. He makes a stop at the convenience store before getting home. He buys a bag of cheese chips and sparkling water, as a treat, and tries to remember if he needs to buy anything else. He doesn’t, because he’s a little obsessive with his shopping, so he goes to the register to pay up.
A body crashes into him on his way out. A man with a pretty face and worried eyebrows, that apologizes profusely to him. Sehun doesn’t fully register the words, his brain only catching the qualities of his voice, and before he even knows it the man is walking away, a sprint in his pace. Sehun tilts his head to the left, trying to remember the last time an interruption to his day had looked that lovely.
For a while, every time Sehun exits the store, he hopes to crash into that man again.
Somehow, the mashed potatoes seem to taste even more like mashed potatoes one day, and Sehun has to stop from finishing his lunch before he starts to feel nauseous.
He still has time from his break though, and his skin feels prickly and wrong and he remembers his mom’s encouraging words that insist he should soak in a bit of sunlight every day. ‘You’re so pale, honey. Go out a bit more, honey. Your cheeks need some color, honey.’
He’s lucky the building he works in is on a well-taken-cared-of boulevard, lucky too that the day is nice and there’s no high fine-dust levels and can go out without a mask. When he starts walking along the street, he thinks about giving his parents a visit, asking them if they need more vitamin supplements before going.
He suddenly feels like accomplishing a dream when he sees someone coming full speed towards him and recognizes that pretty face with worried eyebrows. This time though, Sehun has more time to react and moves out of the way last second. But the man doesn’t seem to have the same coordination and he trips over nothing badly enough to drop everything he is holding. Sehun is crouching down and helping him up instantly.
The man mutters his thanks and looks up, smiling so candidly that Sehun’s dismissal gets stuck in his throat.
“I’m really sorry,” the man says, dusting off his hands. “I’m usually not this much of a nuisance, I swear.” Sehun manages to shake his head this time, and hands him the papers he saved from the floor.
“It– it’s okay.”
“Let me make it up to you.”
“You don’t–” Sehun starts but the man is busy looking around, and his expression brightens when he spots a coffee shop on a corner nearby.
“Coffee!” he beams, a light and feathery melody hidden in his voice. And Sehun wants to say yes but his mental clock is reminding him he is currently at work, lunch break running out. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to say anything else, because it’s then when the man notices his clothing, looks around at the tall buildings, and puts two and two together. “Right,” he says, and scrambles to get a piece of paper and pen and hands them to Sehun. “Give me your number. I’ll get you that coffee.” And he smiles. It’s become apparent that Sehun is kind of weak to that.
“I can– put it in your phone,” he says when he doesn’t take the two items the man is still offering to him. “You could also tell me your name.” To that, the man chuckles, nodding along in good humor. He takes out his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket with a swift move.
“Kim Jongdae, real-estate assistant.” Sehun smiles at the new information while he types in his number because it makes sense to have run into him in wildly different parts of town with that job, and can see Jongdae’s demeanor light up with his reaction. He’s adding his name to the contact list when Jongdae leans in to see his phone’s screen and Sehun’s heart hastens. “Oh Sehun, it is a pleasure to meet you.” He can’t do more than to nod. Preen internally at the words.
Jongdae says something else that Sehun hopes is not too important and waves goodbye after that. Sehun stays in the middle of the boulevard looking into the void and trying to keep his exhilaration low.
It’s ridiculous, and dumb, and even a little bit embarrassing but he has to admit it, at least to himself, that it had felt good. That under Jongdae’s watchful eyes and soothing voice, he had felt good.
For the first time in a long time.
He was unbound.
That Thursday he gets home without his usual treat, but with the comfort of knowing he’ll bathe in the sun again soon enough.