"Those teenage dreams of yours, do you still hold them tightly in your palms?"

- Wu Yifan, Time Boils the Rain 

“This is how you guys are going to perform Mama. Luhan will take over Kris’s spot with Xiumin and Tao switching every now and then from the original position. Got it? Okay, let’s start boys!” Their dance instructor commanded. Xiumin grimaced. It felt a little humiliating to practice the dance with only five members. It felt like the EXOK members were the lead group. The two groups felt no longer equal. Unbalanced. Especially in dances like MAMA and History where EXOK and EXOM were divided in dancing, Xiumin hated practicing for these dances the most. To Xiumin, he felt the pain of Kris’s absence more when he only practiced dance routines with his EXOM members. It wasn’t fair.

One. Two . Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Exhale. Inhale. There was a dull pain in the back of Xiumin’s head, but he ignored the growing aches of pain. Grunting, he hauled himself up with his thighs and a small help of the hand pushing off the ground, the EXO members had practiced the most stunning move in Growl. The faces of his manager and the CEO of SM entertainment had cropped up into his mind, and Xiumin viciously shook all dangerous thoughts venturing and wondering what the two adults were discussing about. He didn’t have time to wonder about meaningless things. Grunting, Xiumin shut his mind off and soon only the voice of Kai singing his rap solo consumed his thoughts.

“What’s wrong Kyungsoo?”

“Nothing.” There was a small sniffle from the other end.

“You’re crying.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Whatever then.” Closing the door of the vocal room, Xiumin sighed. His own heart shook. It felt nice to know that he wasn’t the only one keeping his feelings bottled up. To an outsider, they would feel like EXO showed no emotions by the way they were acting the last two days. All of them only focused on perfecting “EXO” without Kris for the biggest concert of their lives. Xiumin included. He himself, fooled that they were not robots by the way they were acting.

Xiumin barfed. Gagging in the toilet, Xiumin coughed up the remains of his lunch. Wrinkling his nose, he was disgusted at how he failed to manage his meals. He had eaten his lunch way too fast and this was the consequence. Wiping his mouth with the back of his mouth, Xiumin hurriedly flushed the disgusting remains of his sandwich, wobbling out of the washroom. Damn, he wished for the strongest mouthwash right now. He’d hated to think singing with his breath stinking like Chanyeol’s shoes.

Xiumin tried not to show any emotion. It was official. The statement was clear. Kris would not be coming back to show up for the concert. They all knew that but it hurt nonetheless knowing that it was now an official statement. However, everybody knew what their CEO hyungnim was implying. Kris would not be coming back to EXO. Ever.

    Probably the most dangerous feeling in this world is just to feel nothing. No emotions. No pain or joy. This feeling that destroys the word “feelings” itself, could only be described as numb. Being numb to the world, and everything else. Xiumin craved this feeling over the past five days. The endless practices were so intense; Xiumin even felt relief of going to the washroom with a privacy of even a mere minute appealed to him. The past few days, the EXO members were connected mentally. They worked as one, and practiced with one mind: their first solo upcoming concert.

Beneath their emotionless faces, Xiumin caught some of s’ small moments of weakness when their practicing or the stress of the concert weren’t occupying their full mind. It was as if Kris’s name was taboo. Nobody spoke of him, but they all thought of them in their minds. But none of them wanted to admit. It was as if a silent agreement was passed onto the members without anybody saying it. The concert would be fine. All they needed to do was practice their dance and actions without Kris, whether they were fine with it or not. The lawsuit of Kris would be taken care of. It was scary how well they adjusted to his absence. Maybe, it was the fact that everybody around EXO was busy readjusting everything that none of the members complained. They all knew the stress it took on the producers, their manager, their choreography teachers, the CEO and just everybody who was involved with EXO was suffering.

Xiumin was actually grateful for the sessions where all of EXO would practice with no words. It took his mind off from the pain. Soon he immersed himself into the dance that was playing right now. He was like Kai; nothing could stop him from doing a hundred more reps of the same moves. From the corner of his eye, Xiumin could see Chen and Baekhyun doing vocal practices, and Xiumin didn’t fail to notice Lay sliding beside him.

Suho cleared his throat. “I’m proud of all of you. Tommorow is the big day. We should stop practicing, cause I know…no, I believe in you guys.” Gosh, Suho’s speeches were embarrassing. Beside him, Lay noticeably cringed.

“How about we do our cheer.” Chanyeol couldn’t be serious now, was he? Nobody answered Chanyeol, because let’s face it, it was flat our embarrassing, but Xiumin found himself grinning along with the others. Maybe, this was exactly what all of them needed.

The eleven members huddled together in their stuffy dance room. Eleven sweaty and tired bodies pressed together, their sweat mixed with emotions; their shout was clear as ever.

“EXO, we are one!”

The emotions all crashed onto Xiumin. Tossing and turning in his bed, all Xiumin could feel was the nervousness and the emptiness of tomorrow. Nervous because well, this was EXO’s first solo concert in Seoul and what if he screwed up? What if all their hard last minute practicing without Kris would be reduced to nothing when the lights, or the music didn’t work? What if one of the members forgot their moves? What if the fans didn’t react and just hate on EXO for breaking up? Choking on that though, Xiumin felt the emptiness again. The emptiness was the thought of Kris not being with them. Which would then start the chain reactions of nervousness in Xiumin’s head.

He wondered where Kris was. He wondered what Kris was doing. Getting a good lawyer for the lawsuit? Nah… Xiumin overhead from his Super Junior sunbaes that Kris was most likely going to get the lawyer who won in Hangeng’s case. Sighing, Xiumin his nightstand. He couldn’t sleep and he knew the members felt the same. He already heard Kyungsoo and Chen’s voices in the other room.

Feeling incredibly lonely, Xiumin hoped that the members would soon find their voices to talk about Kris again. It’s not like he wanted the members to discuss what would happen to Xiumin and the cursed room with half of Kris’s belongings still looming over him, but Xiumin couldn’t stand the ghost of Kris in their room. No. Correct that. It was his room. Feeling lonelier than ever, Xiumin went over to Kris’s desk. Opening the drawer, he took out the numerous fan mails Kris kept with him. Kris s kept a lot of fan mails. Most of the letters were in Chinese, but Xiumin found plenty of letters in Korean and English.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Xiumin’s mind swirled. Kris loved his fans with all his heart, even though it seems like he didn’t love EXO with the equal amount. There would be no way that Kris left because of the fans. His gaze landed on an intact fan letter. “Because of you, Wu Yifan, my sister is overcoming her lung cancer, especially with the help you gave us. You gave her hope, and even though you might realize what you have done, you helped her overcome her darkest moment in her fight with cancer. For that I want to say thank you. Her name is…”

It was as if the ceiling collapsed on Xiumin. Wiping his eyes to get rid of the earliest signs of his salty tears, Xiumin tucked the letters back inside Kris’s desk drawer. Again, Xiumin felt like the things Kris left behind were sacred and not to be touched. The more he felt and browsed through Kris’s remainders of his belongings, the more he was left confused and hurt.

Kris had visited some fan without knowing they were fans, ultimately doing a good deed because he was just like that. Nice. Wanting to help strangers. He was the good guy despite his cold like appearances on TV. This girl’s letter was proof of Kris’s kindness. If Kris could show this insane act of kindness to a stranger, why did he hurt his closest friends? How was he even capable of doing that?

Dashing out of the room, Xiumin failed to see his phone showing a notification from an unknown number.

The shouts and screams of the fan chants of his fans only fueled his energy. His arms were sweaty, and knees weak but Xiumin followed the dance routine of MAMA perfectly. His face broke into a grin when he saw the synchronized waves of fans and their posters in the sea of blackness, dotted with pink, green, blue and purple glow sticks. He didn’t feel his energy sapping. All he felt was the joy of happiness knowing that this was EXO’s first concert. Their first solo concert that got sold out in minutes, and they were performing with no incidents given to the hard work of everybody who was in help of making EXO’s concert a success. It felt good to finally see their work pay off. It felt even better to know that they were performing without him and they weren’t having any problems. They were EXO now. 11 members.

Xiumin hoped that Kris would see the many articles that were yet to come of EXO’s performance. Xiumin hoped that Kris would see that the concert stadium was still crammed with fans even though he left. Xiumin hoped that Kris would search up pieces of their concert on YouTube. Xiumin wanted Kris to be hurt. He wanted Kris to know that EXO was doing fine without him, and that their first concert was a success. Without him.

Maybe, Xiumin wouldn’t have had these horrible thoughts if he checked his phone right before the concert. There was one new message from an unknown number. It only contained two words. Perform safely.

Author's Note:

This chapter is more of a filler, ugh sorry. It's my shortest chapter yet *sobs* but because of an incident with my brother, I have gotten my laptop taken away... 

Oh dear, I want to start another new story, but I just started this story, so I'm in a bit of dilema... hmmm

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