Let It Go

a Krisber Fanfic

So come on, let it go

Just let it be

Why don’t you be you?

And I’ll be me?

Catchy beats and heavily synchronized harmonies streamed from the windows of the f(x) dorm that night.  Amber Liu had the house to herself (her fellow members were all abroad for work) and had thrown an impromptu party with a few of her “business” friends, just to kill the Monday blues.  They ate, drank, sang and dance the day’s worries away.  It was past midnight when her guests started to trickle out of the building.

            “Are you sure you don’t need any help cleaning up?” Eric Nam asked when he already had one foot out the door.

            “Nah, nah.”  said Amber, waving it off.  “I had one too many Rockstars tonight; I’ll be up for a while.  It’ll give me something to do so I don’t go crazy.”  She smiled at Scott and half-hugged him when he passed by.

            “You know as well as I do that Rockstars make you crash.” continued Eric in a mocking way, “Then you’ll wake up in the morning with a nasty hangover and a trashed house.  Isn’t Luna noona--Luna noona, ha ha ha!--isn’t she coming back tomorrow?”

            Amber made a face.  “ off, Nam.  What is with you and always reminding me about how much my life .”  It was obvious that she was entirely joking, and Eric laughed out loud. 

            “Language, language.”  Ailee scolded Amber, half-jokingly, as she passed by.  Amber said goodbye to her unnie, Eric, Wendy Son, and Henry Lau as they made their exit.  She stood on the porch outside and waved.  She leaned against the handrail and watched the vehicles until she couldn’t see them anymore.

            After a quick smoke (she only had one once in a while; it helped calm her nerves when she had too much caffeine in her system) she went back inside and shut the door behind her.  The house was a disaster, but she had definitely seen worse.  She let out a breath and started to clean.

            She spent a good hour and a half stuffing garbage into huge trash bags and scrubbing out the wine that Henry had spilled on the sofa cover.

            After vacuuming, she wiped down the kitchen counters and took out all of the garbage.  It was nearing two o’clock when she finally got the house to look somewhat close to a Victoria or Luna level of cleanliness.

            She went into the bathroom and washed her face.  She stripped, eager to get out of her undergarments, and changed into a tank and some basketball shorts.  For a few minutes she reasoned if she should take a shower tonight, but decided against it.  She could always get up early and take one in the morning before heading to work.

             Pushing open the bathroom door dramatically, she ran and leapt onto her bed with a loud crash.  She lay like a face-down starfish for a minute or two.  Her heart was beating wildly in her chest and she could physically feel the blood pumping through her veins.  She hated herself at that moment for consuming so many energy drinks.

            She turned over and grabbed her phone off of the nightstand.  She had several messages from her friends, thanking her for the party and such.  She responded to them and bid them all goodnight.  The only one who responded after that was Eric, who jokingly asked her if she had remembered to throw out the pizza boxes that had been stuffed under the sofa to make room for dancing.

            She hadn’t.  Annoyed, she got up and went to take care of those.

            She found something else under the sofa, with the greasy boxes and the dust bunnies and the bobby pins (how long had it been since someone had cleaned under there?).

            Her heart crumpled in her chest immediately when she saw it.  She could do nothing but stare for moment.

            She picked up the Polaroid photo and stared at it some more.  It was of Kris Wu, her former label mate and one of her--well, used to be one of her, anyway--best friends.  Still, he was her favorite drinking buddy, her best kiss to date, and the only man she had ever really slept with (a long story for another time).  She hadn’t heard from him in months; hadn’t seen him in over a year.

            She had almost let him go completely.

            Amber remembered the exact moment when she had taken that photo.  The two were sitting on the couch, watching Zoolander and laughing uncontrollably; more at their own commentary of the movie than the movie itself.  They had downed a dozen beers between the two of them.  She had told him to make the derpiest face he could possibly make, which he tried and failed because he still looked like a ridiculously handsome hunk of meat with only a small side of derp.

            He had kissed her afterwards.  It was a hard, hungry kiss that made Amber melt like a popsicle on the Fourth of July.  She only felt truly ‘girly’ in the traditional sense whenever she had been with him.  There was something about his large frame, his strong body, and his stark masculinity that made him the only one she knew who could make her smile shyly and look away, blush, or even giggle.  She hated giggling; it didn’t suit her at all, but Kris didn’t seem to care.  He never , at least not seriously.  For that, she had always felt comfortable around him.  Like she could be anything she wanted; do anything, say anything, and he would still be right there.

            She missed that feeling.

            She remembered the lingering taste of super-spicy tteokbokki on his tongue, under the hoppy beer and the flavor of the sweet mint gum he had been chewing to cover it up.

            The photo must have slipped from her fingers meanwhile, and been kicked or otherwise pushed under the sofa all those months ago.

            Amber slipped that photo into the pocket of her shorts and mindlessly took the pizza boxes out to the trash bin.

            She laid on her bed again, on top of the covers, arms and legs stretched out like a star.  She stared at the stucco texture of her ceiling and listened to the steady hum of the fan.  Sleep pulled at her, but her mind was much too awake.

            The last time she had seen Kris in person, they had fought.  They weren’t even technically boyfriend and girlfriend, but they fought as if they were.  Victoria and Luna had gone out, so Amber had invited him over (Sulli and Krystal weren’t telling anybody) for dinner and he had no choice but to tell her that he had opened a lawsuit against their company and would, most likely, leave the label and EXO.

            She was angry, but only because she was hurt that he hadn’t told her about this before.  As his best friend, she had the right to know, right?  She told him that he was being selfish and hasty, which made him angry and defensive.

            “Selfish?” he cried, “Amber, you have no idea what I’ve been through.”

            “Because you never told me.”

            He almost rolled his eyes but he stopped himself.  “The point is... I can’t live like this.”  he said, his voice quieter.  “I won’t be treated like this and be expected to perform to the best of my ability.  Just...no.  I can’t.  It isn’t fair.  Not just for me but for Han, Yixing, and Zitao, too.  SM needs to wake up and see that this won’t be tolerated.”

            Amber scoffed.  “You actually think that this will change anything? SM is a multi-million entertainment powerhouse.  Sure, they’ll lose a member of their most popular group, but in time they will cover it up.  The remaining members of EXO will continue to flaunt their looks, their skills, and their music and in time, people will forget about it.  It’ll be a thing of the past; nothing but old news that can’t be changed or altered.  Nothing you do could ever hurt a company like SM.”

            He didn’t answer right away.  “...I know.”  he said, finally, poking at the salad Amber had made for him with the tip of his fork.  “You’re absolutely right.  Which is why I have to go now, before things get worse.”

            Tears smarted in Amber’s eyes, but she blinked them away.  “So what will you do, if your contract is nullified?  Go off to China like Geng-oppa and promote there?”

            “Is that wrong for me to do?  You say that like it’s a bad thing.”  He looked at her; daring her to say that it was.  She swallowed, sat down her fork, and wiped with a napkin.  She fought hard not to cry.  “Amber...”

            “I’ll probably never see you ever again, then.”  she said, staring at her nervous fingers on her lap.

            “Who knows what could happen in the future--“

            “Why can’t you just wait this out?  Things can get better.  There has to be other ways to deal with this.  I understand that you’re trying to send a message to SM, but why not try and see if there’s a way that you can stay, and still get your point across somehow?  I still feel like you’re being careless about this--“

            “Amber, I was backstage vomiting blood and I was forced to wipe my mouth, swallow some meds, and go back out to perform.  If I stay, nothing will change.”

            “For you?”

            Something in his expression snapped.  “What the is that supposed to mean?”

            She didn’t answer.  She was trembling all over and she knew that if she said anything else she would lose it completely.  Besides, she didn’t know exactly what she had meant by it.

            “Do you not care about me?  Or am I just a business partner to you?”  he asked.

            Tears escaped her eyes then.  “Of course I do.  I can’t believe you’d even ask that.”  She swallowed sobs and tried to calm herself down.  “But... But I believe that you can handle this situation differently.”

            “I can’t bring myself to believe that.  I’ve tried.”

            “Bullsh*t!  You haven’t tried hard enough!”  she cried, “If you cared about your fellow members, all the friends you’ve made here, your fans... If you cared about me, you’d do everything in your power to stay so that we all could be together.”

            “I chose to believe that those people, the ones who really mattered, would continue to love and support me, no matter where I was or what I was doing.”  he replied.  He, too, had sat down his fork and sat back in his chair uneasily.

            Amber sobbed.  “This won’t work.”

            “What won’t work?”

            She glanced up at him, her expression a mixture of disbelief, aversion, and utter heartbreak.  “How could you.”  she said, her voice barely there.

            He sighed and shook his head.  “Amber, please try and understand how I feel... You think this is easy for me to do?”

            “I love you.”  she blurted out.

            Tears came to his eyes, but they would not and would never fall.  “...I know.  Which is why I’m here right now.  To tell you.”

            She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “You really intend to just leave all of this behind, don’t you?”

            He laughed humorlessly.  “What else is there for me to do?  Do you think that SM would give their blessing to us after this?  Their androgynously beautiful and talented superstar, Amber Liu, dating estranged ex-EXO member Wu Yifan?  Not.   Likely.”

            “You don’t know what could happen; stop acting like everything is one way, set in stone.”

            He was silent.

            “What if you weren’t an estranged ex-EXO member?” she continued.

            “Even if I stayed, SM still wouldn’t approve of our relationship.  They might announce it publicly, sure, but we would be manipulated according to their devices.  Just watch and see what happens to Baekhyun and Taeyeon.”

            “You don’t know that!”

            “You’re being pitifully naïve.”

            “And you’re just trying to make me hate you so that it’ll be easier for you to step out that door tonight.”

            He sighed.  The two were silent for a few minutes. 

            “...Is it working?”  he asked, finally.  He couldn’t look at her.

            “No.”

            “I was a fool to think that we could just let it go and walk away...”  he said quietly.  “...I’m sorry, Amber.  I’m sorry about all of this.  But nothing will change my mind.  It wouldn’t matter, anyway.  The lawsuit is already open.”

            “Kris... I will be here for you.  I’ll help you in any way I can, I promise.  Just--“

            “You want me to withdraw the lawsuit?  That will make me look wonderful, wouldn’t it?  My career suffers either way, and I’m choosing the path where I can at least be free to do as I wish.”

            Amber could do nothing but shake her head.  “...And you will leave me here, trapped, then, as you see it.”

            “Our situations are so very different...  It’s the simple truth.  We’re two different people, on two different paths that happened to intersect for a short time.  We should be grateful for this friendship.  I’m honored to have known you as I have.”

            “And I you.”  said Amber, swallowing her first response bitterly.  She turned in her chair so he couldn’t see the tears streaming down her cheeks, even know she knew that he knew they were there.  After a minute or two he reached out his hand and took hers.

            In that moment she remembered everything.

            She remembered when she had first met him, at the SMTOWN concert rehearsals in Seoul.  He was the tallest and arguably the most handsome of the company’s newest male group, EXO.  His voice was clear and deep; his demeanor mysterious and endlessly fascinating.  And he could speak English, bless!  They had a good conversation after being introduced to each other, entirely in English.  It was refreshing.  The two had a lot in common so there was a lot to talk about.

            They continued those conversations on stage and off.  They hung out a few times with their fellow members.  Then there was a moment when they were alone in a car, waiting for Tao and Chanyeol in the convenience store. On a whim, they decided to kiss and found out that they rather enjoyed it.

            After that he visited the dorm often, more often when Victoria and Luna weren’t there.  They played drinking games and narrated stupid movies and sang along to their own songs, off-key and obnoxious, because they could.

            They messed around backstage and in hotel hallways when the venues were more lax.  They only slept together once, after having a little too much to drink at a company party.  She had almost passed out and he carried her outside to get some air.  He ended up driving her home and in one way or another he collapsed into bed with her.  Amber remembered only bits and pieces of that experience; there was enough kissing to last either of them a lifetime, and they may have ripped her favorite comforter somehow along the way.  Luna was not too amused when she found them in the morning, but after they explained themselves she eventually let it go without much drama.

            Even though he would never say or do anything about it, Amber knew that Kris was jealous whenever she talked fondly of Henry, Eric, SHINee’s Minho, or even Super Junior’s Donghae.  Once, when she Eric was being jokingly lovey-dovey with her, Kris had come up with a vague look as if he wanted to punch him.  It took Amber every ounce of her will not to laugh.

            It may seem like she and Kris had a rather vigorous relationship, but they had their more demure moments.  Lunch “dates” at fancy patisseries where the coffee was too sweet and the desserts not sweet enough.  Trying on clothes at boutiques (Kris even got her to try on a frilly pink dress once) and lazily perusing the street shops.  Short walks along the river on days when the city and the lights became too overwhelming.  Quiet moments at home, just talking... in English.

            “Goodbye, Amber.  I hope that we will meet again someday.  Until then, I wish you all the success that you deserve."

            Amber could still hear those lines very clearly in her head, as if it was only yesterday.

            She swallowed and got under the covers.  She looked over her phone and saw the rip in her comforter, to the right of her feet.  She had never bothered to get a new one because she had convinced herself that she liked the color and the texture of it and not the part of him--of them--that it held.

            She sat down her phone on her stomach, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to do something that she hadn’t done in a long time.

            She imagined him with her.

            She felt his large hands on her body and in her hair, his lips on hers, his sturdy frame making her feel safe and secure.  The pressure.  The warmth.

            Soon, she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks and sobs catching in .  She curled up under the covers and cried.

            Her phone buzzed on top of the covers.

            She quickly retrieved it, half-expecting it to be Kris, but it was just an Instagram notification.  Irritated, Amber laid back into the pillows, raking her hands through her hair.  After a few minutes she picked her phone back up and scrolled through contacts.  She found Kris’ entry, which was still titled “The Dragonborn.”  The contact photo was the very same one she had found under the couch just a little while ago.  Her thumb hovered over the call icon.

            The last time they had spoken to each other, Kris had called to congratulate her on all of f(x)’s wins for ‘4 Walls.’ She had missed the call on account of an awards show rehearsal, so he had left a bland, to-the-point voice message.  She called him back that night and their ten-minute conversation was no more interesting.  He sounded as tired as ever, ironically enough.  She let him go with the excuse of demanding that he get some sleep.

            Maybe she could just text him.  That would be a little less affecting.  ...No, she couldn’t do that.  It was past three o’clock.  He would wonder what on earth she was doing up at such a time.  He was an hour ahead, even.

            Not that far away, comparatively, but far enough.

            Tears clouded her eyes again, blurring Kris’ derp photo in her vision.

            Amber put her phone back on the nightstand and rolled over onto her side, refusing to imagine Kris behind her, his muscular arms wrapped around her body and his tight chest moving with his breathing against her back.

            Tomorrow she would take that photo out of her pocket and put it away in one of the boxes in the back of her closet, with the others.  She would take a shower, put on some cover-up, and blast Royal Pirates as she dressed herself up in her usual fashion.  She had an emcee gig, a radio interview, and a dance practice session with her fellow members that day.  They were going out to dinner afterwards.  Who knows what would happen after that.  Only time would tell.

            She would forget all about this.

            Things would be back to normal soon.

            As she finally drifted off to sleep, she heard a familiar song playing in the back of her mind.

            Everything that’s broke, leave it to the breeze... Why don’t you be you, and I’ll be me? 

            I’ll be me.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please understand that I did NOT write this to bash SM Entertainment or anyone therein. What I have written here is a dramatization, written for entertainment purposes only.  ...That being said, I hope you all enjoyed this oneshot! ♡