"Raindrops are blown into flowers by wind."

-Wu Yifan, Time Boils the Rain

The words were ringing in his ears, replaying over and over again. The way his manager nervously told the members after the eleven of them were done practicing. It felt even crueler, telling the news to the members who had just finished a dance practice; reminding the eleven of the hard work they’ve been putting into, only to realize that it was all a façade. A mask.

            How could he have missed it? It wasn’t possible. There were no signs, but maybe in the end, it was always there. He just didn’t pay attention to it enough. What made it worse was the timing. As if he was mocking them, but even Xiumin knew that he wouldn’t, no, couldn’t be that cruel. Considering this was the worst timing yet, there must’ve been a logical explanation of this specific timing he had chosen to betray them but yet… There was never a moment in his whole entire life where he hoped something was a lie. A huge misunderstanding. A nasty joke but a joke, nonetheless. He hoped with all his might, and he never felt this kind of intense hope in his heart, not even the time when SM’s final decision of him being debuted in EXO was looming over him. Kris. Kris, Kris, Kris, Kris, Kris, Kris, Kris, Kris, Kris. His heart replayed the name over and over like a mantra hoping that Kris, his leader and brother would appear as if he heard Xiumin desperately calling him back.

“Hyung! Are you here to treat us for dinner? I’m hungry as .” Sehun asked their manager as he appeared suddenly in EXO’s practice session. It was perfect timing really because the eleven members were just finishing off their practice.

Kai who was still dancing hard, his whole entire body covered in slick sweat shouted one breathless word “chicken” before perfectly continuing his dance routine that had whatsoever nothing to do with EXO’s dance at their upcoming first solo concert. That kid was amazing sometimes, but in Xiumin’s opinion he needed to chill his from dancing.

Leaning on Luhan’s shoulder who was mumbling about various foods to eat, Xiumin forced himself to lift his head and to stare at the sudden appearance of their manager hyung. Narrowing his eyes, Xiumin felt his heart sink when he saw the emotionless face of his manager because this poker face meant that something bad has happened indeed. Right now, his aching body couldn’t handle more stress. Wincing when he heard the shouts and scuffles of Chanyeol and Baekhyun over whose water bottle was whose, Xiumin felt something off. His manager hyung was still standing by the doorway, oblivious to the madness in the EXO dance practice room and Sehun’s constant questions about if he was there to buy them food or not, in which if he wasn’t, he could kindly leave.

“I have some… umm… rather unfortunate news to tell.” That got everybody’s attention as all eleven heads turned to their manager hyung. The older man visibly gulped before sighing, “I know you guys hadn’t heard the news from the media yet, and it’s better if you hear it from me, who actually knows what’s going on.” Only dead silence filled the room. “We still have yet… to have an explanation from him but-“

“What the hell is going on hyung?” Suho cut in icily, his voice deathly calm.

The manager hyung sighed before moving closer to Tao, who looked up in alarm. “Kris has decided to file a lawsuit against EXO. He’s… he’s leaving EXO guys. I just heard the news after he filed the lawsuit.” It was as if all hell was loose.

To Xiumin it was a blur but he heard shouts, outraged looks, and humorless laughs asking if this was some kind of sick joke, but in the end everybody demanded to see Kris. It didn’t help that during the madness of this revelation, everybody was falling into despair, shouting and arguing if this was a test or something, while Tao was already crying, begging the manager hyung to tell him it wasn’t true. In the end, only Tao’s hiccups and chokes were heard in the room before the rest of the members pestered the manager hyung to tell them more. With a hopeless gaze, he only shrugged his shoulders before taking Tao with him to goodness knows where. His face poked through the small crack of the door telling none of them were to leave the practice room before things settled outside the SM building. With the final bang, it was then Xiumin felt his heart breaking to a million pieces as he heard the hateful comments of his fellow members when they all checked their cellphones.

Some of the members wanted to be left alone, and Xiumin honestly couldn’t blame them. To his surprise, the members who liked to talk and communicate the most were the ones who wanted to leave the EXO dance practice room to be somewhere else in the SM building. This meant only Suho, Tao, Luhan, Baekhyun, Kai, Kyungsoo and Xiumin were left to discuss what might’ve happened to Kris in their dance practice room that now felt like a mocking reminder that one of them had left. Tao was the first to speak up, sniffling a little, “He wouldn’t leave us, I’m sure of it. Maybe… maybe he needs a break or something.”

“That doesn’t explain why he left without telling anybody.” Kai shot back flatly. Xiumin sighed, the other members really needed to hold back their scathing replies to Tao when he tried to make up some conclusion about Kris that anybody could see was just defending Kris.

“I just can’t believe he would do this to us, a week before the concert!” Suho muttered darkly.

“Enough about the concert! This is about Kris, maybe we’ve done something that led him to leave, or we didn’t notice something going on with him.” Luhan gently suggested.

“Okay. Fine. If that’s the case did Kris tell any of you about him ditching us in the worst possible manner at all?!” Baekhyun sneered, directing it at the EXO-M members. Tao had his hand in fists, and Xiumin replied in behalf of Tao who was about to explode.

“Of course not or else one of us would’ve warned the rest of us and eventually we would stop Kris from leaving.” Xiumin scoffed. When nobody spoke, he added almost with a ghost of a smirk, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Kyungsoo spoke up quietly for the first time, “I just want to go back into the dorms and sleep. Maybe this will be a nightmare.”

Xiumin sighed. This endless mind game of guessing Kris and what the hell was running through the mind of the Canadian bastard, but all Xiumin had was the heavy guilt. Certainly, he had the right to be angry but maybe being half of 50 years old made him better at controlling his emotions or making him see the fault in his part. Unlike Sehun who to most of member’s surprise acted the most bitterly and lashed out, saying some profanities to Kris. Any other time, Xiumin would’ve smacked the maknae because whether Kris left or not, he didn’t deserve to be cursed without his side of the story and explanation heard.

“I hate that bloody bastard.” Sehun growled. The tall maknae stood, paced around the room before slamming his fist on the wall. He gave a strangled scream. Maybe it was a sob but Xiumin didn’t care. His impatience for the maknae’s frustrating behavior was running thin. He was sick of Sehun yelling dirty things about Kris and how he knew Kris was going to betray them sooner or later. The last straw was when Sehun listed all the times Kris didn’t show and the only reasonable explanation was that Kris was a lazy who only knew himself while the rest of them sweated their minds off. That was it for a lot of the members, including Xiumin.

“Get out.” To Xiumin’s surprise, it was Luhan who commanded the maknae. Second to him, Luhan was closest to Sehun, and the shock registered in Sehun’s face made it clear that he had expected Luhan to side up with him. What Sehun didn’t know is that the EXOM members were all closer to Kris than any of the EXOK members. Also, it was EXOM’s leader, Sehun was insulting.

“Fine! But he betrayed us, and you can’t deny that fact. He left us without explanation and a week before the most important concert of our lives. Damn it.” Sehun slammed the door. Not long after, Kai followed Sehun wordlessly.

“I’m going to get some fresh air.” Came Happy Virus’s excuse when he too left the room after a suffocating silence. Even Chanyeol had only felt anger and betrayal at Kris. Sure, what Kris had done could be only described in one word, which was: Irresponsible. But in Xiumin’s mind, he was determined not to judge things before he could see Kris’s perspective. Truthfully, that was pretty damn hard right now with Tao’s silent tears as the EXOM’s maknae scrolled through the news, unable to tear his gaze away from his iPhone.

“Xiumin.” Xiumin turned and faced his best friend, Luhan.

“What is it, Luge?” Smiling halfheartedly at the nickname he’d given Luhan, Xiumin didn’t fail to notice the bitter smile on Luhan’s face.

“What if…What if Kris has betrayed us?” There. His best friend had said the question that was haunting him since this cursed news reached into the EXO’s dance practice room.

“I’m not going to say my views or judge anybody until I’ve spoken with Kris.”

“Maybe, there’s a reason why he’s not picking up anybody’s calls or responding our messages. Even Tao. I… Xiumin, I have a feeling.” Luhan stared into Xiumin’s eyes with such sorrow, Xiumin knew it was impossible to deny his own sinking feelings from the very start. It was no mistake that Kris was leaving EXO. He knew it in his heart when he first heard and so had Luhan. All of the EXO members knew that there wasn’t any other way to put it because they all felt the guilt of knowing Kris leaving EXO sounded just about right in their hearts.

“You’re not thinking of leaving EXO too, right?” Xiumin suddenly blurted. Now, this was a thought he had never imagined he would be thinking.

“Never. Can’t believe you just asked me that.” Luhan replied staring at Baekhyun who was whispering in the corner with Suho.

“Yeah. Same here.”

Together the two friends stayed in silence, sitting side by side each other.

Kris was definitely one complicated guy. With his weird galaxy antics and concepts he came up on broadcast, most fans had no idea that the Kris they were seeing onscreen wasn’t that much from the real Kris. The real Kris was a puzzle. Some days he acted like the coldest man on Earth. Other days he acted like a weird alien with his every actions causing laughter. And sometimes, he was the smartest guy in the room. He was unpredictable, but so predictable at the same time.

He racked his brain if Kris ever left clues or even given a glimpse of his real thoughts to anybody. He tried to remember if there was a time Kris had showed how unhappy he was in EXO. There were times but Xiumin had always thought that it was because Kris needed his time alone.

Xiumin stood up. The rest of the members glanced up at him. “I’m going to have some fresh air.” The other five members wordless nodded before each doing their own thing.

His feet moved him to the recording room where the rappers usually hung out. Kris, Tao, Chanyeol and Xiumin spent most of their days here with Xiumin mostly goofing off. It wasn’t a secret that he had the least lines. Maybe that was the reason why Sehun rarely came here too. The last time he’d been here with Kris felt like ages ago. How could he miss that Kris was so distant the last few weeks? He didn’t come to practice unless he absolutely had to… but it was Xiumin’s fault for so being busy at his own things and the upcoming concert that he didn’t care others except for himself.

In the rappers room, there was a rapper’s bulletin notice board, which was mostly used for reminders and pranks, but Xiumin’s eyes landed on a specific piece of paper. It was something that Kris and him had set up a while ago. It was an ad with their numbers below in tiny strips that people could take it off, if interested. The headlines were, “RAPPERS IN NEED? CALL xxx-xxx-xxxx IF WISH TO HAVE A RAPPER GIVE A SOLO RAP. WE DO FREESTYLE, HIP S, UNDERGROUND. WARNING* CAN BE LOUD, HARSH AND ROUGH. RAPPERS LIKE TO BE HARDCORE AND CANNOT BE CONTAINED.” A total crude joke, but he was surprised when it got two calls. From total oblivious trainees, but it was a good laugh anyway.

He was surprised at his own bitterness. He hadn’t fooled himself with his own mental prep talk about not judging Kris. He was angry with his friend. He was mad and hurt. He didn’t deserve this. None of the members did.

That was when the lightbulb came into Xiumin. He stared hard at the fake advertisement. That wasn’t his number. It was Kris’s. Not just Kris’s normal number. A second number that Kris had with him.

Snatching the paper, Xiumin had hope. 

Author's Note

First chapter is up! 

I know that what Kris did was in some ways, irresponsible, but in the end, he's a victim also, and more importantly, ALONE. Thus, my story was created to just shed some light in Kris. 

Tell me your thoughts in the comments... AHHHH I'M SO EXCITED TO WRITE AGAIN AND JUST KSHFKSFJOKSJIEWOHF

Anyway, Xiumin is like my ultimate bias but I can't imagine him with a romantic relationship with anybody (including OC's) so bromance it is. Haha.

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