Chapter 4

EXO-K roommates: Chanyeol/Baekhyun, Se Hun/Suho, Kai/D.O.

“I can’t talk now, Luhan-hyung, we’re going to dance practice now.”

“Alright, Sehun. Call me later!”

“Are you okay? You sound worried.”

“… I’m fine.”

Kris slips into the seat next to Yixing. Yixing is taking the opportunity during the break before their live performance to catch some much-needed sleep. The main dancer is surprised by his sudden onslaught of exhaustion these past few weeks. He thinks he has underestimated the toll of debut.

Plugged into his earphones, Kris does nothing to acknowledge Yixing’s presence beside him. He leans forward in his chair, holding his music player in his hands, his right leg bouncing rhythmically to the beat. He stares in the air, his default serious expression hiding his thoughts.

After a while, Yixing stirs. He feels sleep demons making camp on his eyelids, but he forces his eyes open anyway. He looks around, dazed.

Kris turns his head to Yixing, but says nothing. He looks at the way Yixing is still huddled under a thick jacket, even if the air-conditioning is not that cold.

“Hey,” Yixing says sleepily, “is it our turn for rehearsal soon?”

“Not yet,” Kris replies. “There are a few more groups before us. We arrived earlier than we expected today.”

Yixing blinks, absorbing the information slower than he normally does. “O-okay,” he says finally.

“What time did you sleep last night?”

“Uh… 1AM?”

Kris turns back to the front at the answer. Xiu Min and Chen are sitting back to back in the chairs. They look tired, and have reason to be. Their Mandarin teacher grinds them to the bones, giving flashcards to memorise and exercises to do. They do it without complaint, wanting to improve too. Luhan stayed up with them till nearing 3AM, slowly correcting their mispronunciations so that today’s live performance will go smoothly. While Chen is singing softly under his breath, Luhan and Xiu Min are talking animatedly. None of them look as tired as Yixing.

The door to the waiting room opens, and Tao comes in holding bottles of water and a Styrofoam cup. Xiu Min asks how he got those on the way to the bathroom, and Tao replies something about an assistant dumping the items off to him out of kindness.

Tao then makes a beeline to Yixing and Kris. He hands Yixing the Styrofoam cup.

“Green tea,” announces Tao, mystifying Xiu Min and Chen, who look up in interest.

Yixing stares at the cup, not comprehending.

“It’s for you,” Kris says, taking the cup and holding it closer to Yixing. “It’s healthy, and will keep you awake.”

“For me?” For a moment, Yixing’s face brightens and all of them can pretend he is fine again. “Xie xie.” He drinks slowly, but more life returns to his eyes at the warm drink.

When EXO-M is called, next for their rehearsal slot, Yixing gets up from his seat. “Whose jacket is this?” he asks to the room at large, just as they are ushered out of the door.

Luhan takes the jacket from him quietly.

“Thanks,” Yixing tells him, after an awkward pause. There is no time for a reply.

“Thanks for calling back at 3AM, Sehun.”

“Hey!” On the laptop, Sehun’s indignant face fills half the desktop.  There is a scrubbed look on his face, and his hair is ruffled, but Sehun looks well. “Those international calls are expensive. I figured you had something important to talk about.”

Luhan has his chin rested on a giant Stitch toy he is hugging. That deduction by EXO’s maknae already displays extra-ordinary maturity for his age. He wonders which of them is truly ‘older’.

They said nothing for a while as Sehun bends his head down to scribble something on his paper. He is doing homework, something he is thoroughly disgruntled by. “So?” Sehun prompts, looking up expectantly after a moment.

“I just like seeing your face,” Luhan smiles, and laughs when Sehun scrunches his face and says immediately, “Ew, hyung, that’s so cheesy.”

A paper with scrawled handwriting suddenly fills the screen. “Since you’re here, how do you do this question?” Sehun’s voice comes out from the computer’s loudspeakers. He sounds sad and exasperated, and Luhan leans back and enjoys the fact that these emotions come from something as trivial as homework for once.

“Go wake Jongin up.”

“He’s doing his languages homework now.”

Luhan hugs his toy tighter as he rehearses what to say in his mind.

Hey, you know what’s silly? I think I’m imagining it but –

Sehun, you can’t laugh at this but I have this- this bad feeling.

Yixing is dying and I think I’m the only one who knows it.

Sehun drops his metal pencil case onto the floor. It resounds with a metallic clang on the tiled floor that hurts Luhan’s ears even if he is seas apart. There is an incoherent mumble in the background that Luhan assumes is Suho’s sleep-deprived form and Sehun calls back an apology.

Yixing’s injury flares up in pain during a variety show recording. Luhan recognises the spasm of pain flitting across Yixing’s face while Kris talks to the TV show hosts. Xiu Min and Chen are trying their best to follow the conversation, and Tao is too far away at the end of the line to see anything. Luhan hesitates for a second, and then consoles himself; it’s not a live broadcast. If what he does next is stupid, it would not be on live TV.

When Kris finishes what he has to say, Luhan leans over to one of the hosts out of the camera shot and requests for a break. She agrees readily, exclaiming about the time to the PD and other hosts. Luckily, they have been on stage for a long while already, and lunch break was just around the corner. The camera stops rolling.

Yixing stumbles back and sits down heavily on the raised platform right after the PD gives his consent. Relief is written all over his face. Luhan diverts attention by asking about the current entertainment industry in the province and how it differs a bit from Beijing, and is suddenly faced by an onslaught of questions and responses. Tao hangs around to translate loosely to Chen beside him, but he gives a sidelong glance to Kris, who bends over Yixing and is whispering something. The managers are already getting some medication for him.

Tao looks back to Luhan and how he orchestrated the entire transition smoothly. He decides that the baby-faced idol is frighteningly clever.

To his credit, Sehun does not dismiss Luhan as a liar immediately. He does not interrupt as Luhan explains everything – his observations, his deductions, and his background. Sehun is now paying full attention.

“Should I tell anyone?” Sehun asks first, when Luhan is done. Then, he pauses. “Should you tell anyone?”

“They would think I’m crazy and jumping to conclusions,” Luhan answers. He on his lower lip and looks even younger than his true age. Sehun privately agrees that no one would take his hyung seriously. 

“Is that why you’re sitting in the laundry room with the laptop, hyung?” Sehun tries to look behind Luhan, but obviously his camera perspective remains unchanged. “So nobody would overhear you.”

Luhan looks sheepish. “Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re crazy,” Sehun says slowly. (“Thanks, Sehun.” Luhan rolls his eyes.) “But if Yixing-hyung is going to become sick… very sick… there’ll be tell-tale signs soon enough. Still, now, you should watch out for him.”

“I can’t even touch him without feeling sick.”

Sehun looks solemnly into the camera. “You don’t have to hang all over him, hyung,” he scoffs.  “There are other ways to look after someone.”

“… And when he falls sick?”

“If he falls sick,” Sehun corrected immediately, but the notion clearly horrifies him.

“If,” repeats Luhan. When when when.

Sehun deliberates for a moment, and then leans back into his chair, defeated. “It’s almost 4AM, hyung,” he says instead, not answering the question. “I can’t think properly.”

Luhan knows he cannot push an eighteen-year-old for such an impossible solution anyway. “Thanks,” Luhan says sincerely, using the Stitch toy to cuddle to the camera. “I really miss you.”

Sehun smiles back, something he does not do for the camera often enough. “Good night, hyung.”

Luhan comes out of the laundry room, hugging his Stitch toy to his chest while holding the laptop in one hand. He was never one for rational decisions anyway, when it came to kawaii things. He switches off the light in the corridor.

Then, he freezes.

It was dark when he sneaked into the laundry room in the wee hours of the morning.

Before he turns around, he hears the voice already. There are no words to describe the way it feels like his heart sinks down his chest to fall through the floor. Inside, he yells, no, no, nobody should have heard.

“Is it true?”

TBC

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