Sad mannequin- EAeon - Lyrical 

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night."
-Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“I am pregnant.” as she spoke her dark hair fluttered in the wind, her cheeks bore a deep color of rose. Her eyes, watery and red from the hours she had spent crying, were puffy and swollen. She looked beautifu. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed the tip of her nose. To him, she was a jewel. He thought of what their child would look like. He was only 17 and she was a year his junior. They would be okay, he decided. He hadn't debuted yet. He was about to soon, but he hadn't yet so he could pull out. He was happy despite the knowledge that this meant he would never have the career he dreamed of. He was happy at the thought of her.

Trotting to his managers office with a anxious smirk he thought of her. He had wiped her tears and told her of the world they would have. They would not be very rich, but they would be wealthy enough to raise the baby well. He would do a job and she could too, if she really wanted to, but only after the baby was bigger and healthy and she'd finished her education. She had smiled at the thought and her smile had filled him with a striking spur of naive enthusiasm. He spoke softly, explaining to the manager that he wish to leave, not quoting why. 

“Quit?” the man barked his spit staining Baekhyun's face as he pulled a contract out and in front of himself. “You have committed,” he said “No quitting now. Why would you want to quit anyways, son. A thousand young men want to be where you are soon going to be. You're talented, don't waste it kid. I'm telling you, EXO will sell big time. Our marketing plans for you lads is brilliant. One final step to stardom, can't quit now." 

“I have something better awaiting me. Get those young men, please... please leave me.” Byun Baekhyun said, nearly begging, his eyes choking with tears as he thought of her, her deep dark eyes and the person growing in her midst. 

“Now,” came the reply “this is not something I can do anything about. You read it and you signed it. Don't get so worked up now. What is the matter anyways?” 

And so he made the greatest mistake of his life, with tear stained eyes and a heart that carried all the burdens of the worlds, Byun Baekhyun told him of the greatest treasure he had, his only love, the girl with the dark hair and round eyes who carried in her an epitome of their love. Lee Mihyun. 

-----

“Cha Sikyung... or rather.. Young Han now.” Young Han. Sikyung liked hearing that name, he liked being called by it too. After his debut, this would be the name that people would know him by, this would be the name that would make him famous. “Young Han.” the name, hoarse in the voice of the manager, echoed deeply among the walls of the small office. The office itself radiated sublime weirdness. A table in the center of the room had splotches of coffee staining its otherwise spotless (and obviously expensive) white timber. Messy beige curtains stood out against gleaming white walls. The manager himself was an eccentric person with wine red hair and a rather ghostly presence.   

“Han-ah,” he said “you're the eldest in the group. Isn't that so?”

Sikyung nodded, his hands folded on his lap and his eyes fixated on the movements of the manager.

“Shame that other kid gets to be the leader of EXO-M, isn’t it?” he asked, his throaty voice disgusted Sikyung. He didn't want to have to listen what the manager had to say but yet he bore the brunt of his harsh voice, simply because he had to. “and again shame with the Byun Baekhyun kid. We need a solid leader to pull the group together. Specially before the debut, I say, you'd be particularly well suited. You are Korean too. Hanguk Saram.” he spoke quietly as  a seemingly evil grin crept up his face.

Sikyung knew that to obtain what his words seemed to promise, he too would have to give something, but he was desperate. He was desperate for his dreams to gain a base, for them to become tangible.

“What are you saying?” he said, politely though.

“I am saying. I wish you to be leader, i honestly do. But you must to prove yourself.”

Sikyung rested his hands on the table and the manager gripped at them, his skin rough against Sikyung’s own.

“Kevin Li. He is tall and handsome and charismatic. He looks like a perfect leader.” he took his hand up to his face and touched it, exaggerating the good looks possessed by Kevin Li and angering Sikyung. His eyes sparkled with joy as he saw Sikyung’s lip twitch slightly under strain. “But no. To be a leader,” he motioned to his chest, hitting it repeatedly with a cold fist “you need this. You have this. But you need to prove yourself.” he said, his tone dropping as he brought himself to par with Sikyung’s eyes.

“What do you want me to do?” Sikyung asked, his heart b with dreams of possibility.

“Convince Byun Baekhyun’s girl to drop the child.” the bomb had been dropped and the color faded from Sikyung’s face as the managers words echoed in a side of his heart. “what?” he gasped in surprise. “It's not a bad choice at all. Baekhyun will have his career safe. That girl, that poor girl she is only 16, she will be able to make a life for herself, and you my friend,” he looked up to Sikyung’s eyes, greedy with temptation.

“You can be all that you have ever wanted to be.” 

----

Byun Baekhyun did not cry when he got the news. He simply ran. He ran out of his building and to a taxi and then he ran through the corridors of a cold and damp, almost crumbling, apartment building into the a clean and almost startlingly white room. He walked hurriedly, and soon enough he collided with a woman dressed in a shabby nurses' uniform. She guided him to a room more tranquil in its whiteness, with white curtain and a clean white trolly, white-washed walls and crisp sheets beneath which she slept, slow and sombre. Her eyes two dark orbs from which he could no look away. Her stomach had lost its swell. 

"Mihyun-ah... I'm sorry." 

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