Recording for another comeback rolls around at the end of summer, and all of EXO is returned to Korea and put on voice rest. I become an unwilling interpreter of strange hand signals and exaggerated expressions into plain Korean. When Luhan and I are found whispering about a recent shooting while waiting in the company lobby, we are told that whispering counts as talking; the managers threaten me with disembowelment if his billion-won voice is in any less than perfect shape for recording. Luhan makes up for getting me in trouble with another kiss stolen over sashimi and sticky rice, so I decide that Myungdae isn’t such a scary guy after all.

I don’t get to watch the actual recording, but when Luhan hums it for me afterwards I can imagine him singing it for real in the darkness of a recording studio, eyes closed and neck straining as he hits the high notes. (He also tells me that he was thinking about us while recording the album’s ballad, but I pretend to ignore that because he’s too sweet and it’s too embarrassing.)

Another comeback also means another music video, and I am put in charge of several extras in addition to my usual charges. The concept is something like tortured-artist-meets-supernatural-beastie-of-the-night, or so I’m told when they hand me too much charcoal to lead to anything good. I sigh when I apply it to fair skin and warn the owners to wash it out well tonight.

Filming takes three days in all, three days of redoing the same dance routine in different costumes and three days of singing emotions into cameras, interspersed with three hours of chugging energy drinks and crunching peanuts glancing over the footage. I fall asleep by the fourth hour each day, but on the last day someone wakes me up before filming ends.

It’s Luhan, and since they have a break before the last dance sequence he wants to poke around the set while the others are going to the bathroom. So I stand and we make our way to the final set, swinging hands as I stifle yawns.

The room we arrive in is the deepest bloodred, the far wall split into four irregular protruding blocks. The veins of tape on the ground remind me of a human heart, and when I say as much to Luhan he laughs.

“I’m sure it’ll look suitably depressing in the actual video,” he says.

I shrug. “I’m sure. Can we sit?”

“Okay.” Luhan takes a seat next to me where the floor of the set turns into the actual floor of the studio. “Are you excited for our comeback?”

“Always,” I say, leaning backwards and yawning again. “EXO is doing really great. I heard that you were nominated for song of the year and dance of the year.”

Luhan shrugs. “It’s not really a big deal.”

I raise an eyebrow and he quickly amends his statement.

“Well, I mean it is a big deal,” he says. “But it still kind of feels unreal. Like it’s so sudden--not so long ago I was just some Chinese kid in Seoul, and now I’m here.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening,” I point out. “Just because it feels unreal doesn’t mean it is unreal.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I guess I’m just so used to hard work that anything else is just weird.”

I nod, letting that sink in. Then I lean forward onto my knees, elbows resting on my thighs and chin resting in my hands.

“I just can’t help feeling a bit jealous of you,” I tease. “You dance in front of packed stadiums and I watch from the background.”

Luhan immediately disagrees. “You shouldn’t be jealous. I think you’re great the way you are, and I’m happy with things just the way they are right now. You should be too. You are happy with the way things are now, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” I say hesitantly. The questions I want to ask are on the tip of my tongue but I swallow them down because I’m afraid. Instead a silence falls, until Luhan breaks it.

“Well,” he says, rubbing his hands together in a business-like fashion. “You say this place is a heart, right?”

I nod and look over, curious to know what he’ll do next.

“Well whose heart is it?” he asks.

“The fans’?” I offer, unsure of where this is going.

“Wrong! The fans’ heart would be much cuter. And we would all be shirtless...”

I laugh. “The company’s heart, then?”

“Wrong! It doesn’t have one.” Luhan shakes his head when I laugh again. “I don’t know why you’re laughing, noona. You should’ve guessed this a long time ago.”

“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms. “Then whose heart is it?”

“EXO’s heart, of course,” Luhan replies. “That’s why you’re in it.”

My face reddens but I burst out laughing again in spite of myself.

“You’re too much!” I groan, holding my stomach.

Luhan shrugs and leans forward. “Forgive me?” he asks, pursing his lips.

…

That night EXO-K’s van is commandeered as emergency transport for SHINee to catch their flight to Japan and the members that would’ve traveled in it are distributed among cars laden with props. When Luhan slides into the passenger seat next to me I don’t even ask how he got out of EXO-M’s van and into my car, because by now I’ve gotten used to the way things just seem to fall into place whenever he’s around.

“Make sure I’m not hitting anything, okay?” I say as I start to back out of the parking spot. “I can’t see anything with those boxes in the back seat.”

Luhan nods and flattens his face against the window, peering into the glare of Minhee’s tail lights.

“Keep going,” he says, motioning with a hand.

I back up further.

“Keep going,” he says, dragging out the syllables. “Keep gooooooing, keeeeeeep--”

There’s a loud beep and I slam on the brakes to avoid hitting Minhee’s car.

“Hey!” I shout. “I thought you were watching the other car!”

He shrugs and sinks back into his seat. “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”

“...but Luhan, you weren’t looking into the mirror,” I say slowly.

He winces and rubs the back of his neck. “I was hoping you could overlook that little fact.”

I sigh indulgently and watch Minhee’s car speed off into the night before I follow close behind. Luhan drums his fingers on the door handle idly and stretches his legs out, humming to himself. The silence is comfortable, and now that we are alone, safe in each other’s presence, everything I’ve wanted to say comes out, and I break the quiet before he can.

“Have you ever felt like you weren’t doing enough with your life?” I ask.

Luhan is startled because I’ve never broached a subject like this so directly. It’s always been beating around the bush and insinuations, but that was before I realized that I can trust Luhan, that he cares about me.

“Of course,” he says. “The entire time I was a trainee was like that. Uncertain of the future, without any way to push myself harder except for what the company told me. I felt...helpless, I guess.”

I wait. “But then, we debuted, and everything just sort of happened. It was surprising, how fast it happened. But, noona...”

The car slides to a stop in front of a traffic light, and when I glance to my right Luhan is fiddling with his fingernails and biting his lip.

“It’s just that everybody thought I would be amazing,” I say. “Everybody thought I would conquer the world, but I didn’t and now I can’t.”

“Who cares what other people thought?” Luhan asks. “My parents sure didn’t appreciate it when I decided to become a singer.”

“But the problem is that I thought it too. I thought that I would be so successful it would hurt,” I say.

There is silence for a while after that. On the highway outside I notice sirens in the distance, surrounding some traffic accident, and they are the only sound inside the car for that moment in time. Finally Luhan speaks, though, and his voice is strangely thick.

“So what if your plans were a little bit different from what actually happened? You can still try, can’t you? Noona, I think you’re great, and I think you can go wherever you want to. And even if you don’t, I’d still love you.”

The car rolls to a stop. We’ve arrived home.

...

The music video premiers a week after filming finishes. I watch it with the rest of the world on YouTube, Korean playing in one tab and Chinese playing in another as I toggle between the videos. I can’t help the smile that comes to my face every time I see the ‘heart room’, or the sense of satisfaction I feel whenever I watch the video, like I helped create it.

I didn’t create it by any means, but I helped, and as I prepare for EXO’s comeback stage I realize that’s what’s important. I can’t let the hunger and ambition inside me take over, like it did years ago when I dropped out of high school for an uncertain future. I have to keep close what’s important--my family, my friends, a certain blonde with a fondness for Rubik’s cubes and cuddling sessions. It’s the important things that matter, because the important things are the ones that end up using all your time, that end up deciding what you do with the rest of it. With the important things come the other things, important too but less.

With my dreams had come obsession, true, but with obsession had come an all-consuming drive, a fire only now finally creeping its way from my fingertips into my heart and lungs, suffocating me with a desire to be up, about, away, doing something. It was this drive that had kept me plugging forward day after day, until I came to the reluctant happiness I have today, card games and long walks on the streets of Seoul. Now the ambition is holding me back, pushing me in the wrong direction. I have to step away from it, take a deep breath, and realize that this is my life, and I need to stop being so critical of it. Good things will come in their own time, I’m sure of it. After all, Luhan did, didn’t he?