Strangers {tao/krystal;f(exo)}

Title; Strangers [OneShot]
Pairing; Taostal; [tao/krystal]
Rating; pg

Words; 1,456
Genre; romance, angst, hurt/comfort
Summary; Tao has to let go of her, for her safety and future.

One Year Ago…

Drops of rain trickle down the umbrella. She waits outside his apartment building since he won’t return her phone calls or text messages.

Patiently waiting there by his apartment, she takes a look at her watch to check the time every 10 minutes. But as the wait gets longer, she tries to minimize the checking time to every 25 minutes. Worst part is that it’s 49 degrees outside. Way too cold.

3 hours pass and the rain begins to pour harder. From the side, she sees an incoming car stopping in front of the building. She hears voices of young men speaking and laughing in mandarin. The passenger seat’s door opens and a tall man with black hair and multiple earrings on both ears walks out. She had a feeling that before the man stepped out of the car, that it would be him.

“Tao?” she calls out, and the Chinese boy turns around to face her. His reaction deepens into a more serious look. He rolls his eyes and takes a deep breath as if he’s trying to calm himself down. “What do you want?” He transitions himself to speak in Korean instead of mandarin.

“You wouldn’t answer any of my calls or texts, so I started to get worried.  So I checked your weibo. You seemed to be pretty active on it, so I knew you were well and alive.”

“Well, since you now know, you can leave.” He passes her shriving body and walks towards the building’s security gate, taking out a bunch of keys.

“Eh? B-but…” Her tears start to form and her voice begins to shake as she tries to speak up. She turns her body facing his back, “I’ve been waiting here for 3 hours...!” Slightly, he turns his head towards her showing no interest.

Seconds later he goes back to searching for the right key to use. “I didn’t ask you to, did I?” Those words pierce her right through her chest, and a tear slides down her porcelain cheek.

“Why, why? Why are you treating me like this? I’m your girlfri—”, “yeah, I know.” He cuts her off as she walks back in shock.

 Another tears slides down and a third follows.

“But I got tired of you recently. You annoy me, and you’re boring.” He turns around to tell her and sees that her umbrella has already fallen on the ground and that she is starting to get wet from the rain’s cries.

“Go home, and don’t ever call me or talk to me—ever…again. We’re through.” His last few words sound as if he’s in pain…

He turns around and twists the gate door’s knob as he begins to go inside the apartment complex.

“I’ve…” She speaks up in agony and pain catching his bare attention. “I’ve loved you—for 3 years. I responded to your feelings!” She shrieks at him and her last comment pisses him off because it’s true. He had a crush on her 2 years before she even knew who he was.

“Shut up.” He demands but she ignores him, “you better give me a way better explanation than that! Feelings that lasted longer than 3 years don’t just disappear like that!”, “I said “Shut up”!” He screams at her once more.

His yell negatively affects her since he never has yelled at her like that before. She looks down getting ready to cry harder. “fine, if that’s how you really feel, then I promise you, I will never ever…speak to you, ever again…” she sobs and he tries hard not to react.

“Goodbye Zitao.” She bends down for her umbrella and picks it up. She takes one last look at him and walks across the street, vanishing into the pouring rain and mist. Unknown to her that Tao didn’t take his eyes off of her till she vanished into the foggy mist.

                                2 weeks before…

Inside of EXO^M’s waiting room…

“Gege! Did you hear what happened?” Yixing, member of EXO^M. “No, what?” Kris asks without showing interest. Seconds after flipping a page in his magazine, he spots an article on the page that features SNSD’s Jessica, and then he begins imagining a horrid thought of his favorite SNSD member.  The horrid thought made him gasp, “Wait! Is Jessica being casted in a romantic drama?—and the male lead is really good-looking and manly like her ideal type of guy!?” He asks in the most dramatic way and Yixing, Luhan, and Zitao glance at each other in shock. “No…it’s not about Jessica, it’s about her little sister.”

“Krystal?” Tao is the first one to ask. “Yeah, your girlfriend got a bunch of threats telling her to stay away from you.”

                 “What? I didn’t hear anything about this. She didn’t tell me anythi—“

                 “Of course, she wouldn’t tell you. She wouldn’t want you to worry because of her.” Luhan explained. “What kind of threats did she get?” he asked Yixing, worriedly.

                 “well, some were sent by emails, me2day comments, or fan—er...I mean, anti-fan letters addressed to f(x).”

                 “Zitao,” his manager called out to him. “Yes?”

“Don’t worry about this sort of thing; it happens quite often when celebrity couples are formed.” He reassured, trying to ease Tao’s mind.

“How can I fix this?” Tao asked with the most serious and matured face they had ever witnessed him display. However, his manager kept hesitating whether to tell him how to fix the situation. He glanced at the other members and then faced Tao again, “Are you sure?”

The question had puzzled the young member’s mind. “Why are you asking me if I’m sure? I asked you because I made up my mind to fix the situation.” The young man responded with a sophisticated face and tone.

                 “Are you willing to do anything to help her?” The manager asked once more to make sure.

                 “Yes, gege.”

                 “The only way to solve this scandal is to break up with her.” The words stabbed through Tao’s heart.

                 “break up with her”?

“That way, Krystal will get the sympathy of your fans for breaking up with her. Of course, you will be trashed with insults.”

“That can’t be…the only way, right?” Kris asked his manager-gege while glancing back and forth at Tao’s shocked reaction.

“Or you can make her start hating you. Act like some jerk who doesn’t care anymore, let her think that you breaking up with her isn’t only just because of her cyber bullying scandal.”

“and then what?” Tao asked with a serious tone and look.

His manager looked up as he asked that, “then...what?”

“Yeah, after I break up with her…” Tao started and his manager answered his question, “then you both go your separate ways.”

“you want me to forget too?” Tao asked as his voice started to shake and tears began forming.

Kris began to feel irritated of the way his manager was handling the situation. He couldn’t seeing his young member’s heart shatter into a million pieces.

“Listen, Tao.”  Kris deliberately interrupted his manager and had Tao turn towards his way. “Breaking up with someone, it has never been easy to do. Both sides are hurt and it’s inevitable to pretend as if nothing ever happened.”

“I don’t want to forget.” Tao mumbled as two tears fled down his face.

Kris felt speechless that Tao was still stuck on his previous question, as if Kris didn’t say anything at all. It killed the leader to see their group’s maknae have tears shed down his face.

“As soon as you let go, Tao, that’s the moment you will become strangers.”

Present Day…

“Tao, Kai, Luhan, get over here!” Suho-gege yells off the other line of Kai’s cellphone. “Take it off speakerphone.” Luhan complained.

It’s only 4am, and there’s no sun out, at all. Completely dark and cold. “It’s not on speakerphone.” Kai says, and we all laugh.

“we’re coming, hyung.” Kai hung up on Suho as we our van parked out of the MBC building.

“Boys! Greet young sunbaes!” our manager says signaling with his eyes and mouth. We turn around, and here comes our f(x) sunbaes.

“Annyeonghaseyo,sunbae-nims!” Kai yells and Amber and Luna greet us back, friendly. Behind them, Victoria is walking towards the entrance of the building covering her face with her jacket. Following her, are the maknaes of the group, Sulli and—Soojung.

Sulli notices us and waves. Soojung doesn’t notice. She’s having too much fun laughing about whatever they’re talking about.

It still hurts to see that you’re doing completely ok, without me.