'Heart Attack', EXO, 'XOXO', [2013]

Nari was 12 years old once more, running through the old hallways of the SM Training Centre, hand-in-hand with Woo Ji Ho as a mix of nerves and apprehension overcame the two kids. The sky, dauntingly pitch black outside the windows that lined the halls, twinkled with the bright lights of a city clustered with seemingly endless rows of buildings and skyscrapers that had continually propped up over the last few years. But past the blinding city light, you could see a sky gently speckled with bright stars and constellations - stars and constellations that reminded Nari of the infinite promises that life indiscriminately offered up.

Yet she was stuck here.

“Where are we going?” Woo Ji Ho complained as he slowed Nari to a halt, his whiny voice matching the pout that quickly appeared across his fox-like features.

Nari tugged his hand, urging him to continue, “We have to go! Before we miss it!”

“Miss what?”

“Wait and see!”

Woo Ji Ho grumbled, before reluctantly following after Nari through the maze-like hallways of the Training Centre. Nari had never shown anyone the strange sights she’d been witness to for the past few months, simply because none of the other Trainees managed to entertain her the way Woo Ji Ho had. Perhaps her love for irritating him was the very thing that made her feel such unwavering trust towards him.

Once they reached the hallowed dead-end, Nari him.

“You have to promise me,” Nari started, her voice and eyes deadly serious as Woo Ji Ho stared at her with a mix of blankness and confusion, “You can’t tell anyone about what you see here.”

“Can’t you just tell me what it is?!” Woo Ji Ho whined once more, but Nari immediately slapped her hand over his mouth. He stared at her, wide-eyed, yet understanding, before she eventually lowered her hand, “Call.” He announced his allegiance begrudgingly.

Nari glanced up and down the shadowed hallways, making sure that no one had tailed them on the way here. They were safe. For now.

Soon enough, Nari and Woo Ji Ho were crammed into the building’s ventilation system, shoulder to shoulder as they shimmied their way through the labrinth of air ducts, the only sounds their heavy breathing and the mumbled complaints from Nari’s companion.

Nari looked over at Woo Ji Ho, briefly admiring taking in his features, the look of determination in his eyes coupled with the unregistered mischief within them making her feel strangely on edge. He reminded her of Oppa.

He looked back at her, “What?”

“What?”

“Don’t answer my question with another one,” he chuckled, for once less irritated at Nari's pestering, “Why are you staring at me?”

Nari shrugged as best as she could in the crammed space, “I was wondering what you were thinking.”

Woo Ji Ho raised an eyebrow at her, “Aren’t you supposed to be the child prodigy around here? The government-agent-level people reader?”

“That’s a bit of an overstatement,” Nari groaned as she looked onwards. She suddenly felt saddened by her companion’s inference – If I’m as good as that, why can’t I debut? Why can’t they give me a real task?

“We’re here,” Nari announced shortly after. She couldn’t imagine how she would’ve answered any more of Woo Ji Ho’s questions, but she also figured that, soon enough, he’d trust her so she’d soon be able to decipher his thoughts. Just maybe.

Popping open the hatch beneath the two of them, Nari hung her head over the threshold, narrowing her eyes and searching the upside-down room for sign of anyone, “All clear,” Expertly manoeuvring and flipping herself over the edge, Nari touched down to the ground in a gentle crouch, lithe like a lion prepared to pounce on its prey. On the other hand, Woo Ji Ho hung from the vents, his lanky legs dangling as he kicked Nari’s head with his boot, before falling on top of her all together.

“Ouch!”

Woo Ji Ho's foot dug into Nari's ribs at an uncomfortable angle, “Keep it down!” Nari scolded her companion before shoving him off of her completely. They stood up soon enough, groaning out of pain and brushing themselves down, before Nari popped her torch on.

Woo Ji Ho eyed the room, cautiously, as Nari scanned the premises under the dim torchlight, “Where are we?”

“The boiler room,” Nari started tip-toeing her way towards the window that was boarded up with loose strips of wood, “We’d have had to sneak through the kitchens to get down here, but no-one’s ever in here after hours, not unless they want to help out with Mess Hall duties.”

“Yeah,” Woo Ji Ho scoffed, “Because only you would know about the inner-most functioning of SM’s underground levels…”

Because I’ve been stuck here for far too long.

Nari lifted the wood chunks boarding up the window, the weight heavy for her arms, but not enough to topple the child over as she leaned it up against the wall besides them. Her companion began to do the same on the other planks, making the job quicker than usual. She quietly thanked him before getting on with what she came here to do.

Climbing up onto a plastic box and using it as a pedestal, Nari and Woo Ji Ho popped their heads up towards the dusty window. Lined with grime and cobwebs, the window didn't seem like much, but it offered the perfect vantage point, revealing the back entrance to the Training Centre.

“This is the entrance we all know about,” she explained, “But no one knows about this vantage point,”

“How do you know about it?”

Nari gulped, her palms beginning to sweat ever so slightly, “Let’s say I had to get away from a few bullies when I was younger…”

Woo Ji Ho stared at her, dumbfounded, “You-“

“Shh!” Nari helped her hand up at him as footsteps sounded outside the window and car headlights shone through the fog. It looked eerily like one of those scenes from a classic, Hollywood mafia movie; Nari half-expected men in dark hats and suits to appear with AK-47s, “The boys always stop here for a smoke after completing a mission.”

“You eavesdrop on them?”

Nari shook her head, “I merely discover the details of their endeavours before our Sunbaes do in debriefing.”

And she remained expectant. Outside the window, two males came into view, surrounded by light puffs of smoke from their cigarettes, barely visible through the thick fog as they placed their guns back into their pockets and sheaths. Nari signed for Woo Ji Ho to listen – luckily he was smart enough not to question her this time.

“I’m telling you Jaebum,” Nari recognised Jiyong’s voice straight away, his charisma a tell-tale sign of his presence, “Boa wouldn’t have helped us out like this if it wasn’t serious.”

“I don’t get it,” Jaebum replied, grief and anger straining his voice, “Why would they do something like this? She’s just a kid!”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, what’s done is done…” Jiyong sighed, guilt showing in hsi body language as he brought his head into his hands, “They’re on their way soon, our ticket out of here. I can’t be a part of a Family that destroys that of children…”

Nari was beyond confused about what was happening before her. The Oppas usually gossiped about the ins and outs of their mission, not badmouth the Family – what was going on? What exactly had Unnie helped them with? What ‘kid’ were they talking about? What did they mean by ‘ticket out of here’?

And why do they look like they’re about to do something…desperate?

Jaebum looked up to the building, a sense of longing in his eyes, “I just wish we could’ve said goodbye to her…”

Jiyong sighed, bringing his hands to his head again, “Leaving her now is the best thing we can do.”

“Why? So she can carry on living a lie? So they all can?!”

“No,” Boa’s voice sounded from the misty shadows, her gentle footsteps echoing across the gravel as she approached her two Dongsaengs, confidence in her stride, “Telling her now…she’s too young, too naive to accept the truth. She can’t know about this until she’s known loss herself, and hopefully, we would’ve played our part in bringing things down. Then this will finally end.”

A tense silence gripped the three companions, none of them wanting to speak despite the desperate need for it. Nari almost felt like joining the conversation, just so it would continue and let her understand what an earth they were discussing. But she was just a powerless onlooker, capable of absolutely nothing.

“So,” Jaebum started, “You’ve really sorted this out for us? Where we’ll go?”

Nari just about saw BoA nod, “My friend Nickhun will set you up with his crew. You’ll be a while incognito, but soon enough, you’ll be fine. Jiyong, your girl…Park Eun Hye…I can’t promise her safety since they know of your connection to her…She has relatives in Jeju, and a younger cousin in Busan. If necessary, she can be relocated. But until then, I have a contact who can help you, an old friend who knows Seo Taji better than anyone else alive…No better way to destroy things here.”

Seo Taeji? The one who tried to kill Daebu all those eyars ago? And who does she mean, 'Jiyong's girl', Park Eun Hye? He doesn't have a girlfriend, does he? They'd kill her...

Woo Ji Ho stirred next to Nari, she was so wrapped up in and consumed by the conversation that she’d almost forgotten he was there, “Are they planning-“ he gulped, slight fear tingeing his voice, “Are they rebelling?”

Nari shook her head, “It- It can’t be. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t. Just you wait and see!”

And so they waited. BoA stormed back into the building, nodded farewell and promising to keep in touch with the two boys, leaving them in another tense silence. But she didn’t give anything else away. It was as if she knew someone was watching them, as if they were talking in some cryptic code only the three of them understood.

“Where’re they going?”

“I don’t know.” Nari’s voice broke – she didn’t even realise that she’d begun to cry at this point. Why were her brothers being so- so weird? What were they talking about? Were they really leaving? After all this time?

They’re…they’re the only family I have…

Nari told herself over and over that it was all some twisted dream, a big mistake, that the boys weren’t talking of treason, and that BoA herself wasn’t talking of it – that everything would go back to normal, and no one would get hurt. That she’d continue with her Family, and she’d become as great as all three of them one day and finally be able to fight alongside them.

It was when the black vans came in the distance, and gunfire sounded that Nari knew pinching herself would be no use; this was no dream, this was the bleak reality that she’d have to live with for the rest of her life. Her brothers really had chosen to betray her and the Family, instead siding with the strange people in the black vans as countless SM members spilled out of the building, firing back relentlessly before the traitors could escape.

Yet before Nari could even stifle a scream, hands clamped over both her’s and Woo Ji Ho’s mouths, but the tears continued to pour down her eyes at the sight and sound of the chaos. The hairs on Nari’s spine stood and stretched – perhaps it was the enemy, or a Sunbae coming to scold them for being down here at this hour.

But instead, BoA whispered in their ears, “You must not tell anyone of what you saw here. You must forget this evening and everything that has transgressed. Please, for the safety of your own lives, and for the safety of your futures, forget everything.”

~

And so Nari had forgotten that night until she took the back of that gun to the head. Awaking to a painful slap on the cheek, sharp enough to snap her out of her unconsciousness, but not so hard that she’d scream amidst the chaos that had quickly unfolded around her, Nari was thrown back into her 20-year-old self, an old soul in a young person’s body.

That time was long gone. She’d obeyed BoA and forgotten that day, not only to follow her Unnie’s warning, but to erase the pain that came with seeing her two brother’s betray her and her Family like that.

And now, Unnie’s done the same.

It was as she looked up and into the warm, brown eyes of BoA that she reeled back. Hyperventilating as panic overwhelmed her, she writhed under BoA’s grasp, slapping away her hands before desperately attempting to crawl backwards and out of her reach, but to no avail.

“Nari!”

The words sounded so foreign and alien coming from her lips; not because of how long it had been since BoA had uttered them, but because Nari didn’t quite recognise the woman kneeling over her any longer.

“Get away from me!”