***ADVANCE WARNING***

Parts of this chapter are actually quite serious.  But don't worry: nobody dies.  I wouldn't do that to you, especially not with the current EXO situation.  But enjoy Chen's trolling, for the meantime.  The story will remain funny.  And in advance, here are some links to the songs mentioned:

Jump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkogNDpk0lg

Back to the Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEusiw3iouE

Dragon Rider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv_wua6kFE

All those songs are on the official Two Steps from Hell youtube channel, so if you enjoy them, just go browsing through the rest.  The Skyworld album is awesome.

Now I'll leave you to enjoy the chapter :)

Deer Luhan,

Kudos to you for being eternally patient with all the HunHan jokes.  I don’t know how you manage it, because I can’t, and I’d like some tips on how to keep my patience for scenarios where my mum wants me to go shopping with her, Abbie starts fangirling about K-pop, and when I have to sit through really, really dull lectures at university.  Thanks.

Leigh

There was absolutely no need to fake anything happening to my ‘singing’ voice this time: the combination of a throat infection and crying myself to sleep was well beyond pretence.  It was actually bad enough for the manager to pull Suho aside before we started our pre-showcase interview to tell him to make sure I didn’t have to answer any questions.

Chen and I were the first ones made up, so we sat in the corner with his iPod, one earphone each, listening to the music I’d convinced him he absolutely had to have in his life.  He’d been the only one willing to sacrifice his iPod as a guinea pig and he was a bit confused at first that most of it was what he dubbed “instrumental” – apparently film and trailer music wasn’t normally to Luhan’s tastes.  Or, at least, Luhan wasn’t obsessed with them to the point I was.

“And this helps you calm down how again?” he demanded fifty seconds into the guitar and drums at the beginning of Thomas Bergersen’s Jump!  “I’d use this to go on a run.”

I managed to refrain from snapping at him that Jump! soothed my nerves because I’d always practised gymnastics routines and tumble runs to it back when I was at school and had often listened to it on repeat to psyche myself up for competitions, remembering just in time that, as far as Chen was concerned, I was an easy-going twenty-three-year-old Chinese male, not a first-year female undergraduate from the UK.

“Shut up and listen,” I told him as the theme came on.  He raised an eyebrow, but a couple of seconds later he was grinning and tapping along to the beat.

“Actually, this song is pretty cool.”

“Thanks,” I said.  “It’s one of my favourites.”

“I’ve never heard of this guy before,” he went on, tapping the iPod screen.  “Where did you find the CDs?”

“A fan gave them to me when we were in the UK,” I mumbled.  Chen took out his ear bud and turned to stare at me.

“What, seriously?  A random fan bumped into you on the streets and just happened to have four CDs on her and she gave them to you?”

“Er… yes?” I hazarded.  According to Sehun’s account of the UK leg of the tour, which he’d told me in the plane, they’d had time to wander around London a little but had had very little official contact with fans except for the concert.  “And actually, it was five CDs.  Thomas Bergersen’s solo album absolutely rocks.”

“Sh*t,” said Chen, impressed.  “Someone clearly loves you.”  Then his grin turned mischievous.  “Wait, don’t tell me.  She’s the English girlfriend, isn’t she?”

I scowled at him, about to spit out a retort, but my throat was beginning to burn.

“You move fast!” he teased before popping the ear bud back into his ear and beginning to sing along to the theme, trying out a few dance moves with the upper half of his body.

He’d just got into the groove when the songs switched.

“Aw,” he pouted, and my heart skipped a beat.  His pout was nearly as adorable as Lay’s dimple.  “I was enjoying that one.  But this one is what I would call relaxing, not that jumping thing.  How can something with a beat like that calm you down?”  He went on muttering to himself, and I found myself having to hold back tears at the soothing tones of one of my favourites – Back to the Earth.

“Can we skip this one?” I asked.  It reminded me of home – it was the song I always put on when I was feeling down, and I’d often played it to help me get to sleep.  My mum loved it too, and often played it around the kitchen.  “I don’t like it.”

Chen looked dubious, but he still obliged.

Cue another upbeat tempo with a fast-paced drum beat and strings.

“Wait,” Chen said.  “I think I’ve heard this before.”

I tilted my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I murmured as the full drum set kicked in.  “This is one of their more famous ones.”

There was a pause as if Chen was wondering how I knew which songs were famous when I’d only had the CDs for (as far as he was concerned) a couple of weeks.  I inched one eye open to see him looking at the screen.

“Duh-ra-gon rah-ee-duh,” he read out.

“Dragon Rider,” I corrected.  “You know, somebody who flies on a dragon.”

He nodded, face lighting up, and shot to his feet, accidentally yanking the bud out of my ear.  “Kris!” he yelled across the room to where Kris was doodling on a spare sheet of paper.  “I’ve found the perfect soundtrack for your life!”  He scampered over to Kris and put the earphones into the guy’s ears before he could protest.  I trailed after him.

Kris burst out laughing the second he heard it.

“Nice one, Chen.  You never said you liked Two Steps from Hell.”

“Blame Luhan,” Chen told him.  “Wait, you already knew this song?”

“Oh, yeah, these guys are totally awesome.  They even did the theme song for the London Olympics last year.  Where did you get hold of the music?”

“Some fan gave Luhan the whole discography when we were in London.”

Kris twisted around to look at me.  “Ree Lee?”

I nodded.

Kris fist-pumped.  “Oh yeah!  Car music for China!  It’s gonna be epic!”

“Epic?” repeated Chen.  “Car journeys?  Ree Lee?”

Kris’ cold face descended in an instant.  “Everything is epic when Two Steps from Hell is involved.”

Chen backed away.  “I’ll take your word for it.  And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go over to the epic corner with epic Luhan to listen to epic music on my epic iPod because I’m epic.”

The interview questions came round a few minutes later along with suggested answers.

“Don’t answer any questions that aren’t on this list,” the manager told us.  “And Luhan, don’t answer any full stop.  Suho, Kris, try to make sure the attention’s directed away from him, please.”

I thought they were making a bit too much of a deal out of the fact that I could barely speak in a voice that sounded human, but before I could voice this complaint to Chen, he tugged my transcript out of my hands and started going through it with a red pen.

“Chen!” I complained, trying to grab it back, but he huddled face-forward into the corner so I couldn’t get at him.  In the end, I resorted to tickling him.  He yelped, but kept going.

“Done!” he pronounced a minute and a half later, ing the paper back into my hands.  I looked through it, wondering what he’d thought necessitated editing.

Cough loudly he had scrawled next to where the EXO self-introduction was written.  You're not happy to be here when you're ill.

Take mic from Suho was the next stage direction, just before Suho’s suggested reply to the first question.

Pretend you don’t understand Korean – which was actually pretty good advice – was scrawled over the question about ideal types.  The manager had put a line through wh