After Dawn

Kai watches as the main vocalist of their bar singers wrings his hands together in nervousness, eyes darting everywhere as if scared that anyone finding out that he is scared will get him  fired. What he does next may be out of pity or because the trembling voice of the petite male reminds him of that certain trembling voice of the man behind the counter in a certain convenience store.

He grabs a bottle of mineral water and walks towards the vocalist.

**

Baekhyun visibly flinches when he feels the presence of someone standing next to him. His eyes widen when he looks up and it turns out to be Kai—the Kai who never liked any living soul. Kai is standing next to him.

What does he want? Is he going to hurt me? Did I do anything wrong?

Baekhyun stares at the man in horror as he racks his head for any possible reason why the man will hurt him right now.

But what he expected turns out to be the complete opposite when the man offers him a bottle, although still having a serious look on his face.

“Here. Relax. You have a nice voice. The people like your voice. Don’t be nervous.”

Baekhyun openly stares with even wider eyes in shock.

Did he just talk to me?

Did he just offer me bottle of water?

Did he just complement my voice?

So Baekhyun accepts the bottle with both hands and bows ninety degrees as he thanks Kai who only hums and walks away.

He stood up, staring at the retreating man who is beginning to disappear into the crowd.

Did that just happen?

But he looks at the mineral bottle in his hand and yes, it did happen.              

Junmyeon and Jongdae look at each other with amused looks before looking back to where Kai went to.

*

Kai walks away, stretching his hands as he mulls over what he just did.

What did I just do?

But rather than being annoyed at what he does, the corner of his lips ever so slightly curves up, because the thought of a certain male is swimming in his head at the moment and despite the fact that he has been so drained off by his duty for this week, he is feeling energized... Or just excited.

He yawns as he puts on his coat. He feels tired, yes. But the thought of seeing Kyungsoo is enough to make him smile. He’ll just go see Kyungsoo for a bit… And then maybe he’ll go home right after that. Maybe.

 His brows furrow as he watches Sehun dash right past him in a hurry. Sehun has been pretty busy lately. Almost three months ago, he’s been going in and out of the bar, always having a drink of some sort—a tea— with him. But that suddenly stopped although he still keeps coming in and out of the building during his work hours. He’s quite lucky that their boss doesn’t notice his sudden disappearance—or maybe he’s letting it go because Eunhye pities the youngest entertainer, and anything his wife says is something Jungkook can never refuse.

“Good morning, Kai!”

Kai turns to see the giant fan of their main vocalist. The man is smiling brightly at him, as he always does. He doesn’t even know when the man found out what his name is, but Kai thinks it’s not really a bad thing for people to know his—entertainer name. It’s what his customers and all the people in the bar call him anyway.

Usually Kai would be walking past the tall man without as much as a look. But this time, this one time, when his heart is feeling excited at the thought of seeing that one person, he looks back at Chanyeol and nods his head once and mutters a ‘good morning to you too’ before turning around to go on his way.

Chanyeol was left with his mouth ajar.

“Kai greeted me back.”

****

Kai’s steps are light and fast. 

Just the next turn. 

Just that one last turn and he’ll arrive to his destination. He wants to run. His heart is swelling in excitement and he wants to arrive there faster but he doesn’t because... He doesn’t want to make it too obvious. It’s not really like someone is watching him at the moment—it’s just because these feelings are all so new to him and he doesn’t know how to react to it, doesn’t know if what he’s doing is appropriate in the first place. He knows he has seen Kyungsoo yesterday and the day before that and he should already be satisfied but instead it makes him want to see Kyungsoo even more.

Is he supposed to come see Kyungsoo every day?  

He ignores the pacing up of his heart beat as he makes the turn and sees the store. He slows down his footsteps as to not make it so obvious that he was in… maybe a bit of a hurry.

But he comes to a halt when he sees the man he wants to see running outside the store and downhill to the main street.

Kyungsoo?

****

He stands in the middle of the aisle not knowing what to do. The man he came for was running off before he could approach him and he even left the store open—with no one to look after it. It’s been two hours since he’d been waiting and sitting where he usually sits. He decided to wait for Kyungsoo since there is no one to look after the store and... well... if he waits then he’ll see Kyungsoo, right?

He was so tired that he dozed off and fell asleep for two hours.  He was expecting for Kyungsoo to arrive after dawn but its’ already seven in the morning , but the man he’s waiting for still hasn’t arrived.

He stood up to stretch his body. He wants to eat ramen but he doesn’t really want to touch anything in the store since the owner isn’t present. 

Ah. Ramen.

Ramen is the most convenient food he can grab when he feels so tired from his work. When a person is hungry, the quality or taste of food shouldn’t really matter to you so long as you get to stuff yourself with food. That’s why Kai prefers ramen noodles than waiting for his food to be served to him in those restaurants.  Lately though, there’s been a different reason to why he’s been coming back for more ramen. It has become an excuse.

To see someone.

***

He walks near the counter table. What could have been taking Kyungsoo this long? Kai cannot help but feel concerned at Kyungsoo. Although he wasn’t able to see how Kyungsoo looked when he ran out but just by the way he was running out, he knows that something big must have happened.

He looks around the store and notices how bright the inside of the store is. Maybe this is one of the reasons he likes staying here? How comfortable and bright the place looks like? How it feels so much like… Kyungsoo?

His eyes travel to the door behind the counter. That leads to Kyungsoo’s place upstairs. It’s a good thing that Kyungsoo’s place is just upstairs the store because he can just rest when he feels tired. Kai looks further more until his gaze fall onto the notebook on top of the counter table.

Out of curiosity, He walks nearer to the table to see clearly what it is.

Maybe his pulse raced or he feels his heart fell to his stomach or… Kai doesn’t really know how to explain what he feels when he looks at the drawings on the notebook.

“Kim Jongin,” he reads what is written below the drawing. It was a pencil drawing of him in a black suit. At first he didn’t want to believe or conclude it is really him that is drawn in that notebook but there it is… his name, written in cursive below the drawing.

He feels nervous. Why is he feeling nervous? He doesn’t know. But at the same time, he feels his heart beating faster. A smile etches its way on his face

The urge to flip the paper was strong and although Kai knows he shouldn’t look at it, he couldn’t stop himself to. Because right there, at the first page of the paper is a photo of Do Kyungsoo, smiling so softly and right there and then, his desire to know more about the man he’s been thinking of heightens.

A hand is raised, ready to flip the paper, when the door chimes.

“Kyungsoo oppah!”

Kai remembers that soft voice. Of course he does. He turns around and what he sees surprises him.

“Oh, Oppah? You’re here? ”

“Good morning,”  the lady standing behind Mira says. Kai remembers her as the woman sitting behind the counter before when Kyungsoo was treating the old lady.

“Ah yes. Good morning,” he says, looking at the lady.

He walks closer to Mira who’s smiling at her and then he kneels down on one knee.

“Oppah, where is Kyungsoo oppah?” She asks slowly in a strained voice.

“Ah... he... went out a bit...”

Mira slowly nods her head.

“Since we have to go now can you please tell Kyungsoo oppah that I came to visit? I wanted to personally tell him my farewell but it can’t be helped... since he isn’t here…” A small smile graces her face as she stares at him.

Kai was taken aback. She’s going somewhere? He looks up to her mother and the sad smile she sends him was enough for him to understand.

She’s dying.

He knows that last time he saw the little girl that she’s in a bad condition but now she even looks worse. She looks too thin and pale now, there’s a dextrose attached to her, and she’s sitting on a wheelchair.  He looks at her, speechless.

She knows she’s dying.

Mira must have been used to this—the way people look sad when they see her. So she slowly, even though it took her so much effort, stretches her short arms for a hug. Kai hesitated at first, afraid that he might end up hurting her for she looks so fragile and in pain but he moves forward and hugs her gently.

“Please tell Kyungsoo oppah that I’m thankful he made me live this long.”

Kai sadly couldn't find his voice. His heart twists in pain. Out of pity, out of sadness so instead he hums a yes.  

When they pulled away, she’s smiling at him again, her pale and dried lips stretching and quivering as if even smiling took her so much effort.

“Good bye oppah. Please take care of Kyungsoo oppah.”

He lifts his hand to caress her cheek.

“Yes, I will.”

And not long after that, Kai is waving at her as the old lady greets back a good bye. There was a car waiting the convenience store for Mira. And she looks back to the store before she was brought inside the car. It looked like she was bidding her farewell to the store--to no one in particular.

There are two things that Kai is feeling at that moment.

Sadness. He feels sad because a girl so young is already experiencing the cruelty and unfairness of the world. Yet she smiles so beautifully and accepts it.

And another feeling… something he can’t explain.

Something he can’t name.

Something so strong...

Something directed towards Do Kyungsoo.

A/N:

ohooooooh Hello :D

I updated again. Actually I don't know what I'm typing because my ehad is floating on cloud9 because I just watched KimSoohyun's drama's latest episode and I was sobbing at it and then because I had too much feels so I re-watched DreamHigh1 and ASDFGHJKL. I cried a Han River of tears.  TT_TT

p.s I hope you're fine with my short updates. huehue. like this is only 1.9k HEHEHEHE

oh and do upvote if you like it <3

oh oh oh and have you guys watched the trailer video on the foreword? :>

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