I jingled the keys in my hand as I walked down the long white corridor to a familiar place. The window shined a bright light down the hall reflecting off the glass tile making the hallways seem much brighter than it actually was. Slowly approaching the correct apartment door, reminiscent emotions of walking through it for the first time hit me like punch to the gut knocking the wind out of me. Making my knees weak.

*****

            “Here is your new apartment.” Our manager turned the key as twelve anxious boys surrounded him ready to pounce as soon as the door swung open. With bags slung across our backs, and anticipation running through our veins, we were excited to start our new life together as bandmates.

            Immediately, bodies piled in on top of one another throwing bags left and right onto the hardwood floors while jaws dropped open, “Wah!”

            I was one of the last to enter with Kyungsoo by my side. Both of us smiling as we walked in. We surveyed our new dorm with intrigue. The place was already furnished with top notch furniture from leather couches to a flat screen TV, a kitchen stocked with food, and some of the fan’s presents already lined the walls. I adjusted the bag on my shoulder when Kyungsoo nudged me, “Let’s get a room before everyone else charges for one.”

            As we walked down the hallways four doors greeted us, all closed. Not knowing what lay behind them I clucked my tongue, “Which room shall we choose?”

            Kyungsoo stepped forward and chose the door to our far left, looking back at me, “What’s behind door number one?”

            The room was decent size with a bunk bed on one wall  and a single twin bed on the other. A window right down the center and a small space for a desk or shelf. I flung my stuff on the bottom bunk while Kyungsoo threw his on the single twin bed before sitting on it and jumping up and down, “I could get used to this.”

            I chuckled and ran my hands over the sheets, feeling the soft fabric, feeling the sense of home. Soon enough a stampede of feet came in our direction accompanied by the sound of doors opening and closing.

            “Hyung! Room with me! I call the top bunk!”

            “Baek, you’re rooming with me! Kris you too!”

            The door to our room swung open with Suho standing there with a smile on his face as he leaned against the door frame, “If you don’t mind, being that you are the calmer two, I will just stay with you guys.”

            “I don’t know, hyung…” I raised a brow at him when he threw a pillow in my face and his bag over my head onto the bed. The three of us laughed, I stood up with Suho beckoning Kyungsoo over as Suho slung his arms around our shoulders, “Come on, let’s go check on the others.”

****

            Rooms were bare. Furniture covered up with clear plastic while most of the decorations gone. My footsteps echoed on the floor and there was not a sound but the soft hum of the refrigerator.  With each step deeper into the place I was once called home, memories of what went on in certain areas filled the spaces. Long nights in front of the TV playing video games or watching reality shows, parties around the dining table with nothing but good beer and a few boxes of fried chicken…all of it now just a fleeting thing of the past.

            I had reached the familiar door. The farthest on my left. Shaky hands met the doorknob as I twisted it until I could hear it open. With a gentle push, the door swung open revealing an empty room except for a few boxes with a scratched out word of trash and my name under it, Kai.

             It wasn’t even my name anymore.

             I crouched down to the stack of boxes, opening up the one on the very top. In it was nothing but the spare clothes I kept in the dorm for when I was required to stay there for the night, but buried beneath it all was a bag filled with my old medications. Sleeping pills, pain killers, and other useless prescriptions, but reading each label brought back the reason for each bottle. Stress, over worked, exhaustion, fatigue, eating problems, depression…

            I threw the bag down back into the box and buried it deep under my clothes not wanting to see it anymore.

~*~*~*~*~*~

            “What is this? A celebration of the end?” JoonMyeon stood over the table that I sat at already set with the food with his hands buried in his jacket pocket as he wore a mocking smile on his face.

            He pulled out the chair roughly and sat himself down. I sighed and looked down at my lap before meeting eyes with him, “Just think of it as another meal with a,”  I gulped down the lump in my throat turning my eyes away from him, “friend.”

            I quickly reached for the bottle of soju that rested in the middle of the table, pouring myself a shot. My hands shook slightly, some of the liquid spilling over my fingers when another glass was put next to mine, “Some manners you have.”

            JoonMyeon scoffed as he stared at his cup and mine. I slowly took the cup that was meant for myself and handed it to him before pouring myself another glass. He waited till I was finished and raised his glass with mine, meeting in the middle with a clink, “Cheers.”

            The familiar feeling of alcohol running through my body did not have the same effect on me like it once did. I stopped after the third shot and pushed the bottle towards JoonMyeon who was on his fourth. I could feel myself loosening up and from the smile on the guy’s face in front of me I could tell he felt the same way. His hand was unsteady as he went to pour himself another glass.

            “I think you’ve had enough, hyung.” I tugged his hand away from the bottle when he fought back, “I’ll say when I’ve had enough.”

             He went to pour a glass but the bottle was empty. His body froze in that position with bottle over glass and head bent down, but his body swayed from side to side. My arms were held out just in case he was to fall when he lifted his head up, showing off his bloodshot and tearful eyes, “This wasn’t what I wanted.”

            He sniffed and straightened up his back while wiping his eyes. Out of all of us, him and Kris were the stronghold we looked to when we felt down, but now it was him that needed someone. I hesitantly raised a hand and placed it on his shoulder, “I don’t think any of us wanted this.”

            JoonMyeon turned his head away from me and wiped his nose, “I’m enlisting in a month. The others won’t be going until August, but I can’t wait that long and I want to do this quietly.”

            The news came hard. I could tell he had been thinking about this since he was told to enlist and knew he had only told me about it. I nodded my head and patted his shoulder again but this time more comfortingly, “I’ll be there.”

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Okay so I lied maybe another chapter or two before it finishes ^.^