It was one of those bad nights.

Tao had made the big mistake of going online and checking to see what was being said about his friends online, and that had somehow warped into reading over the incredibly harsh words of the anti-fans and sasaengs about him. While he knew that he shouldn’t take any of their words to heart, he couldn’t really help but let each negative comment be a little blow to the wall he built around the sensitive organ to protect it.

It was fortunate that one of his geges walked into the room when they did, or he probably would have been victim of having that wall completely demolished. It would have taken him a day or so to build it back up, and they would have definitely noticed something was up during that time. It came with spending so much time with each other.

He could just imagine the stern reprimand from Kris for even letting any of the words get to him, and it almost made him smile. Almost. Kris took on his leadership role pretty intensely, which was probably why Xiumin never fought him over authority even if he was really the oldest. Kris was about as protective of his friends as a mother bear of her cubs, and it never failed to make them laugh when he displayed it.

But Tao was just grateful that he hadn’t had to deal with being at the brunt of Kris’ protectiveness tonight. It wouldn’t have made him feel better, but worse. A lot of what the people online were saying had to do with him seeming to be spoiled, or acting like it. He hadn’t thought he did that, but maybe it was true? After all, he did have leftover medical conditions that kept him from working quite as hard as everyone else in the group, although he still pushed himself probably past the limit doctors would have wanted him to.

Once he was sure that everyone was asleep, especially Xiumin who was snoring softly from his bed, Tao shifted up onto his elbow. Without having to turn on a lamp, he reached into his bedside dresser drawer and carefully felt around so he wouldn’t make too much noise.

When his fingers skimmed the edge of the familiar object, he slowly pulled it out so that it would dislodge whatever might be resting on top of it with as little commotion as possible. It wasn’t particularly large, or heavy, so it was easy to lift out of the drawer.

Getting to his feet, he slipped from the room he shared with the Baozi and moved towards the kitchen where he knew that light wouldn’t interrupt the sleep of the others if the doors had been left open. The last thing he wanted to do was bother them.

Once he reached the kitchen, he put the object on the counter and slid onto one of the stools.

It was an ordinary looking notebook, worn a little with age and use. The edges of the pages were yellowed with age and from his fingers turning through the pages many times. There wasn’t anything written on the cover to mark it as special, and he hadn’t bothered to decorate it at all with pictures. Although, just now, he wondered if maybe he should do that. Decorate the front in a collage of the things he remembered talking about with the person who he had had written communications with on the pages; make it a memorial to that person who was no longer in his life.

Flipping open the notebook, it fell open somewhere just after the middle. The cause was a glossy photograph, one that Tao had never taken himself. In fact, he hadn’t even gotten the picture until after it was too late for him to try and capture his memories with photos of his own. But at that time, building new memories wasn’t on his mind, and he was focused on two things, the most important of which was surviving.

The second, almost as important, was you.

So as Tao sat alone in the kitchen of the dorm that EXO-M lived in while located in Beijing, he let his thumb delicately trace the outline of your smiling face as captured in the photo under his hand. His tired eyes took in all the little details, the same exact ones that they always did when he brought himself to look at this picture.

It was a little bittersweet. Sweet, because it was nice to see you so happy and full of life, laughing at something that must have happened off-camera, or perhaps at something the photographer said. Bitter, because the vision captured here was a stark contrast to the weak, pale, dying vision of you he had in his memories.

This photo was from your parents, delivered to him as he stood in shock outside your funeral. Not long before, he had been anticipating the same fate, only he overcame his seemingly fatal illness by some miracle. If he had known at the time that his newfound health was at the price of your death coming all that much sooner, he would never have thrown himself back into physical therapy and his old life in an attempt to fully recover. He would have stayed by you until the end, just as you had sworn to do back when your prognosis was to outlive him.

Did you know you were on the fast track to death when you encouraged him with soft smiles and gentle pushes to leave and go see friends, do things outside that he hadn’t in a long time? Probably.

Ruishen… The characters that made up your name meant “sharp” and “deep” respectively, and Tao was not unaware of just how well those applied to you. You had definitely had made a place for yourself deep in his heart, and even now thinking about you caused a sharp pain.

Still, he could only wonder, as he looked at your smiling face, if you would be proud of him.

No, that’s a dishonor to her memory and you know it, Zitao. He shook his head and carefully slipped the photo back into the crease made by the spine of the notebook. She was your first number one fan, and she still would be.

Lifting his head, he glanced out the window. For the most part, Beijing was too bright at night for stars to shine. However, on this night, he could make out the faint glow of a dozen or so as he concentrated. One in particular drew his gaze, as it shone a crisp white through the haze made by the city’s lights, in comparison to the hazy yellow of its sister stars.

Maybe she still is my first and foremost fan.

The thought filled him with warmth that spread even to that deep, dark corner of his heart where he kept his feelings from that time locked again.

With a smile to himself, the maknae closed his notebook and tucked it against him as he slid off the stool again. There was a sudden lightness to his steps, even as he kept them as silent as possible, as he slipped from the kitchen and shut the light off behind him.

If Tao had bothered to turn around and look back at the kitchen, he would have seen standing next to the counter the very faint outline of a familiar girl smiling happily in the mixture of light coming from the street and stars.

Remember that time where I posted at least one update a day, and sometimes more? Yeah, that hasn't happened for a while.

I'm really sorry, guys. I've hit a major writer's block with everything on here. But I miss you all, and I miss the boys, so I'm going to be chiseling at that damn thing like Michaelangelo from now on. Even if all I can crack out are little one-shots like this. 

So,  yeah, this is just a one-shot. I know, right? All my other attempts at writing one-shots ended up in full-blown stories. (I'm looking at you Give My Heart a Break and Addicted to a Beautiful Disaster. Hmph.) So... yeah, one-shot. I might end up doing a sequel, or prequel, to this. It depends on the type of response this gets. I totally expect pitchforks and torches, and probably deserve them, so that's cool. 

The illness mention in the story is something Tao has mentioned vaguely in passing as something he suffered from at one point. I didn't make that up. As I don't have a whole lot of details about that time, I left it pretty vague on purpose. 

I think that's about it. Yup. 

If anyone's wondering, the characters for "your" name are: 锐 (rui) and 深 (shen).