Ending A.
Sehun knew it would turn out like this, knew that Minseok wouldn't stay, knew that it was probably a mistake, but he still followed him to the motel, still let himself be pressed down into sheets, let himself be taken over, by body and mind.
So when he wakes up alone, with an empty bed, an empty room, and an empty heart, he feels hollow. He doesn't cry, he doesn't even make the effort to feel anything. Nothing is surprising, nothing feels real, not even the hotel bill he's left with, or the dull ache where his thoughts once were, and Sehun collapses onto the bed, collapses into himself once again, watching the lines of the ceiling meld together with one another as his vision goes blurry, not with tears but with tiredness.
He can hear a lock turn, can feel himself being locked away inside a chamber, and he has a childish thought as he glances to the bedside clock, absently notes that he has fifteen minutes until he has to check out, until he has to go back to real life and forget that this night ever happened, forget that a whirlwind came through his life, a hurricane of love and pain and hurt and broken beads, the glass of a fragile mirror shattering on the ground.
Sehun can't tell if the world has a grey hue, or if he's just finally lost it, the colours of life swimming in and out, representing hope, future, happiness - the things he doesn't have.
Perhaps he can properly bounce back from this. Perhaps one day, he can be friends with Minseok, can fix whatever's wrong inside him that causes him to break himself down, break others down, dragging them into something they never wanted in the first place.
The wind nips at his neck as he walks through dark buildings, the sun blotted out by his own misery, imagining how his morning should have gone - imagining how good life would be if he wasn't Sehun, if he was something more than just a husk, than just a scared boy who encases his emotions in his heart, who writes life onto paper, into word documents, who spills flurries of words like they actually fucking matter.
Sehun realizes now the answer he's always been looking for, the reasoning for why his desk is piled up with notebooks, the reasoning behind the coffee-filled nights, the tear inducing lack of sleep, the struggle of happy endings and lace weaving through spaces in between words.
Sehun writes to erase reality, sits on the sidelines and observes those who are actually content, who are peacefully living through their lives with smiles on their faces, and light feathers of feeling fluttering out of their hearts. Sehun lives through others, lives through the laughter and the hand-holding and observation of what makes people tick.
One thing he's learned, is that you cannot create happiness, cannot pull the strings of fate to do your bidding.
Regret.
That's all Sehun feels now as he listens to the sound of his own footsteps, distant and empty, echoing through him as if they belong to someone else, as if the falling snow around him is ash, burying him, filling up his lungs, and his hands shake as he reaches his own apartment, struggling to turn unlock his door as the tears finally come, as he collapses in the front hallway, pale hand raking down his face in an attempt to stop the flow, in an attempt to rid himself of his own sounds.
His tears almost seem to taste like sugar, as they tease the tip of his tongue and he sees sadness in the walls, sees it seep from the counters and wrap around his legs like tendrils and Sehun heaves into the wood, dragging himself up and to his computer desk, smashing the keys together in a jumble of nothing, mismatched words and nonsensical lines, and the keys are slippery, wet with tears, and Sehun feels like his own thoughts, like his own self is floating away, breathing uneven, the ticking of that stupid clock Minseok bought him like gunshots in his ears.
But Sehun makes it through, downs glass after glass of water, heart steadily slowing down, still too loud, but manageable and the ropes of black unleash him, sinking back into the granite, into the wood, to leer at him, to wait for their next moment to pounce, and Sehun stares wearily at the medicine cabinet, can hear the little demons he locks inside screaming, needing to be coddled, fed, pushed down into his system, but he doesn't let them out.
Instead he does the only thing that he knows how, does the one thing that has kept him sane his entire fucked up life - he writes.
He writes about a boy much like himself, lost in the world, lost in the crunches of snow, and in the dew filled leaves, lost in a future that will never happen, and he writes about a man much like Minseok. Someone determined in their ways, quietly reserved, but not shy. Someone thoughtful, and tender, but harsh and rough on the edges, someone who swept into his life and out of it, leaving behind a disaster, but not one created solely by him.
Sehun knows that now, realizes where he's gone wrong, where he was so wrapped up in his spiral of storms that he forgot to pull Minseok up for air, forgot to give the other a coat to save him.
And so he writes. He writes about paper birds, with wings so fragile that the smallest mouse could bend them, he writes about darkness, and light, and the early morning sunshine that accompanies even the loneliest souls.
Sehun writes the book he set out to write - thinks that maybe in the end, his direct observation of life, his own turmoil, his own thrown away promises, and nights of suspense have paid off.
Writing the last few sentences, planning the title, he wonders if it will sell, wonders if his editor will even take it, if he'll toss it back in face, telling him to write something more commercial, more appealing to the masses.
Sehun doesn't want that. He wants to be raw, the opposite of everything a young reader would want. He wants to break hearts in the same way that he broke his own, that he broke Minseok's, only to have the man turn around and do the same.
The shadows on his walls still threaten to encase him, and Sehun never really does smile again the same he way he used to with Minseok, but at least he's alive, right?
The monsters in the cupboard, and the one's under his bed, and especially the little one sitting on his shoulder don't seem to think so, and they plague him at night, continue to paint the city with dust.
All Sehun has ever wanted is a happy ending.