Now, 2013

It’s been almost two months since their comeback. After a year of intense practice, after the comeback, although the practice hours have decreased, but the level of stress and fatigue from tiring days and schedules have hit all time high.

With this round of promotions, both Luhan and Minseok have been feeling the increased craziness of the atmosphere since they’re now going around with all 12 of them rather than just the 6 as they did with MAMA. Now that Baekhyun and Chanyeol are constantly there to provide them with endless entertainment, their possible quiet and calming days because everyone’s tired are over. Those two guys just seriously are never tired. They may be quiet for a few minutes, but then they just start all over again like they just had an 8-hour nap. Everyone in K might have already had their share of realization last year, but for M, it’s still somewhat interesting to witness this sight, especially when they’re also experiencing the immense exhaustion.

The day starts off with waking up at least 3 hours before the reporting time for a particular schedule. As the oldest and most diligent person in the group, Minseok wakes up, on average, as his alarm hits 6 am, or in other words, the first one to get up. Although he can feel sleep still resting on his drowsy eyelids, he has no choice but to get up to meet the demands of the day. He continues to wake up everyone else in his room, before roaming off about the rest of the dorm until everyone else has at least realized that the most dreadful part of the entire day has arrived.

After waking up and hearing much groaning from all parts of the dorm, chaos spurts up in every corner of every room. With more than 15 people needing to get ready every morning and having only 2 bathrooms to do all that needs to be done, the quietest and drowsiest non-morning person is ought to have some comments regarding the lack of space and abundance of squeezing from every which way. On top of that of course, is the person that’s always loud and yelling out questions for no one in particular of where a certain belonging of his has disappeared to. Then lastly, there are those people that are just talkative and find entertainment in people who find no humor in anything that’s happening at the moment.

After Minseok wakes up first, he quickly finishes all his business without losing precision and accuracy and then by the time that everyone else needs the bathroom, he’s already on the sidelines watching everyone else running and yelling.

But what sets him apart from others that are just fast and have also already finished is that he merely finds comfort rather than entertainment in having everyone’s company.

He watches Tao and Sehun fighting over perfumes and smiles at their childlike actions.

He sees Yixing and Jongin brushing their teeth and changing clothes while looking nothing better than cute zombies that are still obviously only consciously sleepwalking and can’t help but hope that they don’t bump into the wall or other dangerous people that wouldn’t think and hit them as punishment on their heads.

He watches Kyungsoo and Joonmyun as they quietly finish their business and start preparing some breakfast in the kitchen and wishes that he has the ability to help them prepare food, but then choosing to step away cause he knows that he’ll just ruin it.

He watches the three beagle-line boys as they run around and laugh away and can’t help but have constant urges to want to tell them to be quieter but he always decides against it because he knows that he’ll be turned down (and sometimes even with a hard push).

Kris and Luhan are often the more normal ones preparing in the morning and sometimes even after Luhan’s finished with everything, he comes and joins Minseok on the couch and admire the sight and will possibly also plant a tight squeeze on Minseok’s shoulders or hands as a “good morning.”

After the disastrous morning in the dorm, they now leave for their schedules. They spend the day at various venues or on the plane and then eventually get back to the dorms or a hotel and live through another disastrous cleaning up session, once again in the bathroom, and then eventually it’ll finally be quiet and peaceful after everyone falls asleep. Although that usually doesn’t happen until only 2 or 3 hours before they have to wake up again.

This story is about 12 people, but it centers around two people. 

Minseok is a quiet 23 year old. He doesn’t ask for anyone’s attention and isn’t into the whole putting himself out there to attract other people’s attention. He’s the one that’s usually on the side smiling at things going on in front of his eyes. During practice, he perfects everything that he’s told to learn and when others ask him for help, he sacrifices his own sleep and eating time in order to help.

But Minseok has a strong heart, an abnormally strong one. A type of heart that he doesn’t even know if it’s there because he was born with it or because he feels like it should be there due to the fact that he’s the oldest.

He looks at all the other 11 people younger than him and sometimes thinks that he has to be strong for them. But what he doesn’t know is that that notion of thinking that he has to be strong has slowly put a layer of ice on his heart as well. His heart is kind and he is welcoming to everyone who approaches him and is willing to talk to him.

But his warmth doesn’t come from the fact that he has an endless string of words and laughter as does someone like Chanyeol or Baekhyun. His warmth comes from the fact that he’s willing to listen and that he’s willing to let people listen to him. But because his words aren’t endless or continuous, people tend to have trouble paying attention.

Therefore, without the right person there to listen all the time, that layer of ice initially created by the self-initiated conscience that he has to be strong for everyone continues to build and build as there is no one there to break that layer of ice, and thus the extra hardness of the ice makes his heart abnormally strong.

To melt ice by letting it sit at room temperature can take some time. If time is interrupted and the ice is put in the freezer every once in a while, the ice might never get to melt completely, and what’s inside of it can never be taken out. But if there’s a person who can use heaters and blankets and any other possible sources of warmth to let the ice melt faster or even by breaking the ice by sometimes hitting it and then taking the heart out and healing the heart from whatever harm the hitting might have done, then the heart can be rightfully protected and warmed.

Minseok is grateful to have 11 younger brothers around him but he can’t help but feeling lonely at times. He can feel that freezing layer of ice sometimes as he sits out on the sidelines and smiles at everyone else, but he doesn’t have the confidence to do more than that. He wishes that someone could be his friend rather than just his dongsaeng.

Of course to fans, someone with the birthday like Luhan shouldn’t feel to Minseok like a younger dongsaeng, but fans of course think that Minseok does actually consider everyone else, including Luhan, to be younger brothers in his heart. He doesn’t say so aloud but at the same time, he has the heart to protect him like he does Sehun. But of course, that’s what some of the fans think.

Luhan to Minseok started out no different from what fans might have thought. Strangers start out as strangers, no matter how close they get down the road. However, Luhan’s existence later stood out from the other younger brothers. Luhan is different to Minseok. Luhan is the warmth that Minseok needed and had wanted, unconsciously. Luhan is the one that helped to slowly but surely break that layer of ice on Minseok’s heart. 

And of course, Luhan is the one who will finally let Minseok to be weak and allow his heart to cry.