It hurts. It hurts. He breathes out painfully, straining to rearrange his limbs under the burden of broken glass and metal. Something is trickling down his temples, warm and thick and stinging. Blood? Must be. It itches. He wants to wipe it away, but the wreckage pressing down on him where he lays nailed to the under-stage of the arena thwarts his movements. That and the pain. Slowly he opens his eyes and meets with a pair of wide greyish-green ones, the colour of the sea in winter, set into a small, unremarkable face, a face like so many others he’s seen before, just an indistinct drop in their silver ocean. A girl? Where did she come from? One of the fans? But how did she get here? She’s hurt…is it bad? He winces as something crumbles onto his calf, scraping it, and the girl winces with him.

Everything was going according to schedule: an early morning interview, a meet-and-greet with the Japanese affiliates of SM Entertainment, and then on to the venue and their concert preparations. They had just finished rehearsing Machine and had moved on to Drop That. Sehun was making his way down the stage, swaggering and jumping like mad, while the small circle of privileged fans, those who had bought early entrance into EXO’luXion, squealed and hurdled at his advance.  Just as he came upon one of nine hexagons scattered along the runway, a retractable platform that would later transport him from the surface to the under-stage tunnels that double as their changing areas in between numbers, he felt the ground give out from under his feet, a shower of shards rain down on his head, a barrage of shrieks pierce his ears and then everything went black.

“Are you –“

“Sehun-ah! Oh Sehun! Can you hear me?!” their leader’s panicked cries cut short Sehun’s inquiry. Others are calling the same – the members, the managers, the staff – but Kim Junmyeon’s habitually dainty voice somehow drowns out all the rest.

Yeokshi, uri saranghaneun Suho hyung. 

“Oh Sehun, say something! If you can hear me, shout! Please! Please!”

Sehun inhales deeply and is relieved to find the action fairly painless – his insides, at least, must be intact.  He clears his dried throat and calls as best he can, “Ne, Hyung!”

“Thank god!” Junmyeon exclaims, his voice unstable with emotion. “Sehun-ah, they’re on their way, do you hear me? It’s tricky, but they’ll get you out. Just hang in there for a bit, okay?”

“Tricky?” Sehun probes, fear clutching at his throat and stifling the sound.

Somehow, the elder hears the question, or perhaps he simply feels the younger’s dread. “The way the ceiling caved… you’re trapped beneath a block of it. They don’t have the proper equipment here to remove it without risking its crushing you. We can’t do anything until the specialists get here – it would be too dangerous even to try it.” A brief silence and then a tearful command, “Oh Sehun, hang in there, you hear me?! Just…”

What are you crying for, you snivelling idiot? I’m the one who’s about to be pancaked by a thousand-pound slab of steel and rock. Me and… He peers at the girl, his pancaking partner, and cries: “Hyung, there’s a girl here, she’s –“

“A girl? Is it a member of staff?”

“I don’t know, but she looks hurt.”

“How badly? Is she conscious? Can she move?” Junmyeon bombards, his natural leadership instincts kicking into gear.  

Sehun re-scans the scene: like him, the small-bodied girl is face-down on the floor, her slick black hair dishevelled and in parts damp, her forehead bruised and bleeding, as are the visible parts of her arms and legs, she looks impossibly pale, yet her face is serene, so serene, one would think she were laying on down rather than debris. “She’s conscious and doesn’t seem to be in too much pain, but she’s definitely injured.”

“It must be surface wounds, then, that’s a relief. The rescue team’s on its way. Try not to move if you can help it, it could be dangerous. It’ll all be over soon, I promise.”

“Oh, we won’t be going anywhere,” Sehun retorts, never one to miss a chance at sarcasm, no matter how dire the circumstances, “I promise.”

Junmyeon chuckles through his nerves, his tone when he replies, notably relieved. “I think you’ll be okay, Maknae…I think you’ll be okay.”

At this, the girl’s expression for the first times alters, her small mouth curving slightly at the edges. He can’t say why, but her smile makes his chest contract. “Are you alright –?” He realises he doesn’t know her name.

“Rin. Kurota Rin imnida,” she introduces in a weak voice, her diction surprisingly correct.

“Rin-san, are you alright?”

She nods, the modest gesture unburdening Sehun’s mind a fraction. “And you?”

“A little bruised and battered, but I don’t think it’s anything too serious.”

She sighs, wrings her eyes and smiles a litter wider. “That’s a relief,” she says and the keenness of her tone somehow confounds him.

Shouldn’t you be more worried about yourself?

“We’ve met before, quite a few times actually,” she says after a few moments’ silence, and Sehun can’t decide whether it’s the content of her speech or the quality of her pronunciation that is the greater point of interest.

She isn’t Korean, can’t be, but her accent is perfect. It suddenly occurs to him that pondering such matters in their current state is more than a little ridiculous, but his growing passion for languages sensitises him to the same. Somewhat sheepishly he admits, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I should,” he returns, sheepishness converting to contrition at her lenience.

Her expression turns indulgent. “There are three and a half million of us out there – we can’t expect you to remember us all any more than an ocean is expected to know each of the droplets of water that constitute it.”

Sehun is taken aback by the comparison. An ocean…our silver ocean… That’s what they call their audience, those faceless, nameless girls and young women whose only distinction from the darkness, only feature visible from the stage is the silver light-stick held by each, denoting their devotion, their camaraderie formed through a shared affection for nine strangers of whose true characters they know little and less. But she says that we’re the ocean, that they’re the ones who make us, and we the ones who contain them, that they’re a part of us, even though we don’t know them. Strange girl…

“Your Korean is very good,” he compliments, promptly changing the subject.

“I lived in Seoul for six years when I was younger.”

“But you’re Japanese. Or do you have roots in Korea as well? I’m sorry, it’s just that you look –“

“Undefinable, I know,” she interjects with a smile of good-natured amusement that draws a similar one from him. “Half Japanese, a quarter Korean and a quarter Belgian – odd combination, isn’t it?”

“But interesting,” Sehun appraises, his gradient eyebrows levelling at the information. “Your face, it’s interesting.” Quite ordinary at first sight, apart from those grey-green eyes, he elaborates internally, but oddly appealing when you look at it closely. Kind smile.   

She flashes it again, her cheeks a shade less pallid than before, though not quite pink. “Ditto.”

Not just her face, Sehun decides at her reply, she is interesting. “Rin-ssi – oh, sorry – Rin-san, how old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Oh, noona-fan – should I call you that? Noona?” She’ll blush now, really blush; they always do when I ask them that. He presses together his lips to keep from smirking, anticipation itching at their edges.

She doesn’t, for a second time exceeding his expectations. “If you’d like,” she replies, her expression changeless.

“I think I like Rin-san better, it’s unusual.”

She chuckles faintly – a weirdly wet sound, Sehun reflects. “Not at all, it’s a very common name. My grandfather gave it to me. He said there was nothing ordinary about me, so at least my name should be common – wasn’t he kind?”

Sehun considers her a moment, the curious fusion of east and west, prettiness and plainness, and wonders how he could have thought her common at any time. Pensively he returns, “He was in a way.”

She smiles her soft, sweet and sour smile. “I know; I’m grateful.”

“Do you have any siblings?” he probes further, for once the interviewer instead of the interviewee.

“No, I’m an only child. No parents either, at least not around. My grandparents raised me mostly.”

“Why?”

“Well, my parents are archaeologists, you see. Sounds interesting, right? But in reality it just means they’re never home. I only see them once a year, if that, but that’s OK.”

“Is it, though?” he pursues, then bites his lips for fear he may have dug too deep.

She shakes her head as if to reassure him, but her complexion grows a litter greyer, he thinks. “No, but whining about it won’t make a difference, will it now? Might as well act cool.”

“I don’t think it’s an act, though,” he blurts and the two exchange a self-conscious smile. “You said we’d met each other before, does that mean you attend our concerts frequently, or…?”

“Very. I’ve been to fifteen EXO’luXions thus far.”

His jaw drops. “Fifteen?! Why?! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful, but they’re all pretty much the same – why would you go to so much trouble?”

“For you.”

“What?” he asks, his confusion increasing by the clarification.

“I’m a chronicler and you’re my subject.”

His brows knit together. “I don’t understand.”

She smiles – a touch patronising, Sehun decides. “It’s true that the routines are fixed, but you’re tranable within them. Each time you dance your Baby Don’t Cry solo you do it differently – it’s like a chronicle of your evolution of which I keep a record.”

Sehun is amazed. Sasaengs, fanatics, delusional girls who dog their waking hours and what precious little are afforded them for sleep alike out of some demented sense of ownership over him and his group-mates he knows, can somehow even comprehend, but this? A chronicle of my evolution, she says? “And for this you spend all that time and money? To watch me dance for a minute and forty-five seconds each time?”

Her face turns a little wry. “One day you’ll be history, fodder for archaeologists – should I say I’m a student of future history?” She beams at him. 

He gapes at her a moment, unable to quell his astonishment, then, “I think…I don’t know what to think,” he confesses.

She laughs.

Sweet laughter. Strange girl. He joins her.

Abruptly her face contorts. She coughs jerkily and blood spews from , spraying his face. He petrifies in blank horror, while she presses together her bloodied lips, her face a mask of apologetic agony.

Wake up, Oh Sehun! Do something! He tries to stir, to inch his way to her through the wreckage, but finds he cannot move a muscle, and the ominous groan of the fortified concrete slab that looms over them like a hand poised to squash an insect, reminds him that he mustn’t, that the lives of them both depend upon their inaction. Junmyeon-hyung… “Hyung! Hyung!” he screams at the top of his lungs summoning members, staff and management alike in mere seconds.

“Sehun-ah!” Junmyeon cries, his tone frantic.

“She’s hurt!”

“What? Who? The girl? Is it bad?”

Sehun flinches as her blood trickles down his cheek, colouring the corner of his mouth and nearly penetrating it. “She’s got blood coming out of ,” he edits, steeling his voice as best he can, knowing that revealing the true depth of his alarm would only aggravate the situation.

“What?!” Junmyeon exclaims. “You said she was alright, didn’t you? That it was just a few cuts and scrapes… Miss –“

“Rin,” Sehun interposes, “Kurota Rin-san.” He may not know each and every one of the droplets, but he knows this one and he’ll have her acknowledged.

“Rin-san,” Junmyeon amends, “where does it hurt?”

She coughs and painfully swallows – her own blood, Sehun realises, and gulps back his revulsion. “I don’t know,” she mutters, “nowhere, everywhere. I think there’s something stuck in my side, near my chest, but I’m not sure.”

Sehun is horrified. How long have they been talking? How long have they been laying there? How long has she been bleeding? Slowly bleeding to…  He clenches his eyes, his mind, to keep the thought at bay. “Hyung, how long before they get here? It’s been forever!”

“I know,” the elder cries exasperatedly. “We’ve been calling them every few minutes – they’re doing their best, but traffic is jammed and they can’t get past it. They’ll be here shortly, just…hang in there a little longer. Rin-san, I know it’s hard, but a little longer, please.”

She smiles, not at Sehun, not at Junmyeon, at herself. “You heard our leader,” she says, her faint voice a gurgle that curdles the liquid in Sehun’s veins, “a little longer.”

“Sehun-ah, keep talking to her, alright?!” Junmyeon instructs. “Don’t let her drift, even if she looks like she’s in pain.”

Like? Sehun observes the girl, the colour steadily seeping from her along with the blood that continues to course from down the side of her face, pooling under her trembling chin. Like she’s in pain… “Why me?” he asks suddenly, unsure as to whether in lamentation of his fate, or in curiosity of her having singled him out from amongst his eight better-qualified brothers as the subject of her study and fascination.

The question seems to revive her somewhat. “Have you ever heard of James Joyce?” she asks, but doesn’t await his reply as she continues, “He was a famous Irish author. My favourite story by him is called Araby – it’s about this boy who likes a girl and wants to impress her. At one point, he tries to explain his feelings for her, the effect she has on him – this is my favourite passage: My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. That’s you, Sehun-ssi,” she concludes, for the first time calling his name, “my body is like a harp and all your words and gestures are like fingers running upon its wires.”

Sehun cannot think what to say. What does one say to such an accusation? How does one excuse oneself? A harp? I can barely play video games.

Noting his bemusement, she smilingly offers, “You’ll get it one day…I hope.”

“One day…” he mutters, wondering whether she’d be able to tell, whether it will have affected his words, his gestures, his evolution so that she would know to chronicle it.

“Sehun-ssi –“

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

She purses her pallid mouth and Sehun realises that she’s holding back tears. “For running upon the wires…even though it’s tiring. Can I ask you for something?” she quickly adds, mercifully sparing him having to respond to the former.

“Of course,” he says.

“Will you sing for me?”

He gawps at her, momentarily forgetting his distress. “Sing? Are you sure? I’m not really…”

“I know, but I’d like to hear,” she returns, her eyes growing tenderer by the word, pitifully tender.

There’s no refusing her in this state, Sehun resolves, and throwing his pride to the wind, enquires, “Anything in particular?”

Feebly she shakes her head. “Whatever you like.”

Nothing sad. They always sing sad songs in dramas when something like this happens – so cheap, I hate it! Why would you sing a sad song to a dy… Happiness, happiest song you can think of, Oh Sehun.

He clears his throat, opens his mouth and prays for the best. “Doro wie yeogin runway, nal baraboneun nun sok milky way, just love me right, aha. Baby, love me right, aha… On this highway, it’s a runway; your eyes that look into mine are the Milky Way. Just love me right, baby, love me right. Come to me, don’t hesitate, you’re alluring, you’re my universe. Just love me right. My entire universe is you. Aaaand, that’s it.”

She scrunches her small round nose and laughs with all the life left her. “Your voice is terrible! I love it! You’re perfect!” She wheezes and swallows and smiles at him so brightly it hurts his eyes. And then she sighs. And then she’s silent.

“Sehun-ah! Oh Sehun!” he hears his brothers’ happy cries in the distance. “They’re here! They’re starting! It’ll take an hour or so to get you out, but they’re finally starting! How’s Rin-san doing?!”

Sehun can’t bring himself to tell them that she isn’t, that she won’t be doing anything ever again – listening to their silly love songs, taking his pictures, studying future history. He stares at her colourless lips and wonders if by some miracle she might open her eyes if he kissed her – like the heroines of western fairytales when their prince charming finally gallops into the scene, after all hell’s befallen them. He doesn’t like touching strangers, but for his loved ones… He reaches his fingers, stretching them as far as they’ll go under the constraint of their circumstances. Almost. He can almost touch her; almost feel her; almost save her, but not quite. Helpless, he lays there and studies her lifeless face – not the type to turn one’s head, but perhaps the type to turn one’s heart.

Abruptly he recalls three small words, three words he had meant to say to her, but somehow forgot. In their song, Promise – an ode to their fans, their faceless and nameless fans, the indistinct droplets in their silver ocean – Sehun is the only one who sings, who says nothing. He’d never thought much of it; those types of sappy songs aren’t his cup of tea anyway. But three words, the only three he wishes were his to sing, the only three that mean anything at all, the only three she should have heard from him…

“Gomawo. Mianhae. Saranghae.”

 

 

 

 

 

Credit: Love Me Right Romanised lyrics and English Translation - kpoplyrics.com