http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDnHMeaUm-M

                   A week has past, Lay and his 11 fellow members are preparing hard for their anticipated comeback.

              “Guys, let’s take a small break then practice for another hour and leave.” Kris suggests and all the members nod their head in unison. Suho grabs 12 bottles of water and hands one to each member, patting their back and saying good job. Kai and Lay continue standing up and cleaning up their moves.

              “Lay, Kai, you two take some rest too.”

              Kai shakes his head, “It’s okay Hyung, I’m not tired.” He then continues practicing the dance routine.

              Lay could feel the beads of sweat clinging to his forehead, and the muscles in his arms and legs sore. However, he clenches his teeth to ignore the pain and continues dancing with Kai.

              “Yi Xing, even if you aren’t tired. Why don’t you give your girlfriend a call? I haven’t seen you two talk for so long.” Kris says after taking a sip of his water, twisting his bottle cap.

              Right…________. I almost forgot. Lay walks to Luhan and takes the seat beside him. He grabs his cellphone from his backpack and dialed a familiar number.

              “Sorry, this number is not available right now. Please try again later.”

              Lay puts his phone to the ground and stands up again, getting ready to dance.

              “Well?” Kris asks.

              “It won’t connect.” Lay casually replies. He follows where Kai left off and starts dancing again. He tries to focus on the cleaning up the moves, but his mind is only filled with you. He cuts himself off and picks up his cellphone beside Luhan again.

              Maybe I’ll give it another try. Lay presses the redial number and listens to the same response. A certain feeling tingles Lay’s heart. He knew that something was wrong. The feeling was unexplainable, just weighted inside him.

              I should practice. Practice is my first priority.

              Sehun pants deeply for airflow. His whole body was burning, making his clothes stick to his sweaty body. Sehun runs to the corner of the room where the members’ bags are placed. He grabs a black backpack and starts searching for his change of shirt. His hands scrimmage through the bag, touching cases, notebooks, and wallets, but his soft cotton t-shirt was nowhere to be found. Where is it? I swear I put it inside…Luhan hyung bought that shirt for me… Sehun impatiently picks up the backpack and turns it upside down to drop all the contents out. A loud clattering sound breaks and items fall out.

              “Ah…” Sehun gasps, “this is Yixing Hyung’s bag…”

              All the members turn their heads and stare at Sehun’s loud actions.

              “Sehun-ah, what are you doing?” Baekhyun shouts across the room and walks towards him.

              “N-nothing.” Sehun quickly crouches and start picking up Lay’s stuff from the floor.

              “Yah, why did you spill Yixing’s stuff out?” Baekhyun scolded Sehun mildly, who keeps his head down picking the objects up in quiet remorse.

              “Sorry Yi Xing hyung…” Sehun apologizes silently. Lay walks to Sehun and pats his back.

              “Don’t worry about it.” Lay laughs lightheartedly, “I’ll help you.”

              Sehun smiles at his hyung’s kind reaction to his mistake and quickens the process to clean everything up. His hands fall upon an ivory colored envelope with beautiful handwriting. With his limited knowledge of Chinese he learnt from Luhan, he reads out the Chinese charcters.

              “Zh..Zhang Yi…Xing? Zhang Yi Xing.” Sehun widens his eyes slightly in realization, “Oh, hyung, a fan wrote a letter to you.” Sehun passes the letter carefully to Lay, who stares at it.

              _________’s letter. She gave it to me at the airport…Lay takes the envelope in his hands and looks at it some more. What does a letter do when I can’t even reach her right now? Lay irritatingly runs his hand through his moist hair then walks to the mirror and sits against the wall. His finger slide under the paper and pulls the flap open. Lay takes a quick scan of the letter. This is definitely her handwriting.

              To my dear Yi Xing,

              How is Korea? You are probably working hard and dancing right?

             Are you eating well? You know you always lose track of your meals when you start dancing. Don’t make me worry about your health okay?

             “Always reminding me to eat…” Lay laughs and whispers to himself.

             I..don’t really know how to say this, but you can probably feel it too…

             We don’t communicate as much anymore. It feels like we are just with each other because of the title that holds us together. Truthfully, I sometimes feel like a burden, dragging you from your career. Maybe we are just in that stage where things just fade away.

             I’ve been thinking about it for the past year. I shouldn’t be so selfish.

             I need to let you go.

             I’m sorry that I cannot tell you face to face, because I know that once I see you, I won’t be strong enough to say it to you.

             I am not blaming you or accusing you that you didn’t treat me well enough. I’m thankful, thankful for the wonderful relationship you have given me. You taught me how it is to love, and how to be loved. But all things come to an end right? We have walked together along this path, but now we are at an intersection. I just can’t seem to catch up with you anymore. I have to turn back and walk a different direction.

             Thank you Yi Xing. Thank you for everything you’ve given me.

             I will never forget you.

             我愛你.

             Love,

             _________

             Lay stares at the letter in shock, his hands trembling and creating little crease marks on the paper. He looks at some of the words that were blurred by the tear marks and scrunches the letter into a ball.

             Lay walks swiftly across the room to start practice again. His face was like stone, his jaw clenched and eyes tense with anger.

             “What’s wrong?” Kris asks.

             “She broke up with me.” Lay speaks in an emotionless tone. All the members of EXO turn their attention to him, waiting for his reaction.

             “Wh-what do you mean?” Kris stutters in shock.

             “She broke up with me, what else is there to get.” Lay screams silently and bites his tongue until he can taste the metallic flavour of his blood.

             “Maybe she met someone new…” Kai mumbles. In less than a second, Lay slams Kai against the mirror.

             “Don’t talk about her in that way.” Lay whispers threateningly. Kai nods his head, surprised at his sudden intimidation.

             All the members watch as Lay slowly sit down and hides his head underneath his arms. He breaths heavily to himself, trying to stay sane.

             The members stare at Lay.

             He isn’t angry. He isn’t mad.

             He is broken.