Kevin’s P.O.V

Hell, I can’t sleep… I turn once more and try to get comfortable to fall asleep. It's late, it's insanely late. If I don’t fall asleep now, I’ll end up fainting from exhaustion anyway. The problem is that we have to wake up extremely early. Now we'll have to kill ourselves to relearn the choreography and song parts again…

I sigh and turn around again, facing the window. It's raining, and I hadn’t even noticed. The rain washes the dirt of the earth. After the rain, the sun shines again and illuminates all that exists. After the rain, everything is clean, pure. After the rain, everything gets a new energy. Plants grow stronger, but only the strongest ones. The more fragile eventually die drowned in sorrow.
One drop after another, they all fall down outside and play a sad song.
After a disaster, everything grows back again and struggles to survive, but what's the point if it’s too much water? What’s the point if that water doesn’t refresh our minds and hearts? What's the point if it doesn’t clear the sorrow?

I still can’t believe in what is happening. Dongho, our maknae, our friend, is leaving...

Sigh and I turn once again, thinking about our story.
U- KISS debuted in 2008 with 6 members. Kibum and I were from another band, XING, and we already knew each other a bit , but it was very easy to befriend everyone.
Xander, besides funny, was the kindness in person. He was like a bubble of happiness; wherever it is blown, it spreads joy.
Dongho looked like a cocky kid, but it was because he was not very confident. He wanted to pass a strong image.
Eli was American, like me, and although he doesn’t admit it, he wasn’t sure if he was going to debut. It wasn’t hard to start a friendly conversation with him because he was very funny, and he always made people laugh.
Soohyun had been a trainee for some years in two other agencies, and he decided to try his luck in NH Media. He had a great potential, but his appearance didn’t fit the required one to become a K-Idol, so he was very nervous, but fortunately he succeeded.
We hardly knew one another and we never imagined that we were going to become so close, like a family, because it was only work in the beginning.
In 2009, Kiseop joined us. He was an ulzzang, but his self-confidence was very low (with time, I realized that we all suffer of the same flaw). He seriously considered suicide because no one believed that there was talent behind that pretty face (he was rejected on several auditions he has done)... He quickly got adapted to us, and we so we became 7… As we got to know one another and discover things about our pasts, our friendship grew, and U-KISS was not only synonym of band, work and income, but also of friendship…
In 2011, Xander and Kibum left. Xander more or less decided to leave on his own. He has always had high expectations, and perhaps that’s why, because deep down he knew that we would never become a huge success. (And we, well, maybe we might be too naive to realize it, but we still try to make leave mark in the K-Pop world (I can't say "the world", because we're no longer ambitious dreamers).) But Kibum was literally thrown out by NHM’s CEO, Kim NamHee. Apparently, NHM thought he didn’t have enough talent. He seems to be a very confident person, but if people watch him closely, they’ll notice that he rarely shows a smile of true happiness, so he, more than all of us, was too taken aback. After all he didn’t leave on his own. I heard that he almost killed himself. (Fortunately, he has a brother who supports him a lot. And now his career, such as Xander's, is going very well. Now he can rub money Kim NamHee’s face, who thought that he didn’t give profit anymore.) It broke my heart to watch them go away, especially Kibum. They were my best friends, but Kibum was like a brother… I think after that, I’ve never smiled the same way I used to. (Actually, I think we are starting to put on totally fake smiles more than genuine smiles. We have to pretend that everything’s alright, when in fact it couldn’t be worse…)
Then AJ and Hoon entered the band to replace them. AJ was a Paran member, and we already knew him a little. Hoon had tried to be a solo artist, but failed. He was excessively shy at first, but soon he got along well with us… With time, we got back to what we were before the first of the many misfortunes that happen to us had occurred...
Now the story is repeating itself, but in a different way. Dongho is leaving us… Maybe it's a marketing strategy by NHM. Maybe they want to replace him for someone "more talented", but as much as it hurts to believe, it is also Dongho’s decision. He says he wants to live a normal life and that he has no health to be in U -KISS. He has a very strong personality and has been through so much. He debuted very early (he was 14) , he had to keep an arrogant and rude bad boy image in front of the cameras, and has received a lot of hate from anti-fans/haters because of that, he has always had a fragile health, he once fled, he had pleurisy and could have died, he was operated and operations don’t always run smoothly, and after the operation he lost a lot of weight and got unhealthier. I remember that in the beginning, he smiled a lot, but now it’s rare (and when he does, it’s a sad smile), he had before the playfulness and joy reflected in his eyes, but now he has lost that sparkle. He stated several times that would like to have a normal life as a teenager. It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t expecting this moment, but I always thought it would always be “tomorrow", and not “today” . But It was his decision, and I’m glad to know that he picks his own health over his job. "Work to live, don’t live to work ", right? Now he can live what he has lost of his adolescence, he can sleep the hours he lost and many more, he can eat whatever he wants, he can play video games until late, he doesn’t have to keep an image, he can do what he was deprived of because of his K-Idol life, ... above all, he can live/recover his lost youth. I'm happy that he has the chance to live a real life, because most people can’t...

I sigh again and get up. Putting your feet on the ice-cold floor hurts, and within seconds my feet get cold too, but my heart is colder. Losing a friend is so horrible, but losing three is unbearable. And NHM thinks that they can be easily replaced, that we are robots, that we don’t miss them, that we don’t care about what happens to our band, but who truly doesn’t care is NHM because they don’t know what’s good or bad for us and our fans.

I make my way to Kiseop’s room, and lie down on his bed without asking for permission. I don’t know if he's awake, because he has his back to me and he doesn’t move.
This affected all of us. Dongho is the maknae. It’s his main position in the band, just like Soohyun is the leader since Xander and Kibum are gone. Without maknae, K-Pop band doesn’t exist. If NHM doesn’t put someone else on our band, I'll become the maknae for being the second youngest, but I can’t take the position of a friend who is leaving us... When we have our comeback performance, it’ll be a stab in the heart of everyone. In ours and the fans’, because he’s no longer in our band.

I wrap my arms around Kiseop’s body so that I won’t feel so cold. Not the physical cold, but a different cold, the same cold that freezes my heart and my soul, an emotional cold. The distance makes relationships colder. Dongho will keep in contact with us, just like Xander (who makes sure to send at least one message to Hoon per day) and Kibum, but it’s not the same thing anymore.
The grip tightens when I think I that we haven’t won any prize all these years. We are very beloved in Latin America, the Japanese fanbase is huge, have many fans across the world, but our Korean fans aren’t enough to perform a single concert in Korea. I recognize that most Korean people don’t like us, but why? Where do we fail? Is it because they’re still very conservative and don’t like foreigners? Is it because we don’t have talent? No, we do have talent. It must be because NHM doesn’t invest enough on us. And now we’ve lost our most popular member in Korea. It was thanks to him that we reached the place where we are now (the place in terms of ranking, which is not good, but it could be much worse; the place in terms of scandals couldn’t be worse (all misfortunes that have to happen, happen to us…)), thanks to his performances and appearances in several programs and shows. We spend endless hours contantly practicing, we stare to have model bodies, we don’t get enough rest, we live pressured by the stress, we have no social life,, we have no privacy, (if we continue like this, we’ll end up with health, like Dongho) and we’re still overshadowed by groups and comebacks, sometimes less talented than us, and we haven’t won at least one prize. This makes all of us frustrated and I don’t know for how much time will bear all of this together as a groups.

I feel Kiseop's shoulders shaking and hear quiet sobs. So he's awake... It’s like he has read my mind. He’s the one out of all of us that valorizes friendship and union the most.

“Kiseop, don’t worry.” I whisper to him. “We’ll get through this. Everything will be alright.”
When the rain is gone, everything gets better. But in our case the rain doesn’t clear the scars. They are deep and they hurt, one gives way to another, and they don’t disappear with the rain. In our case, after the rain, we don’t rise up with full force…

After a while he relaxes in my arms and leans against to me. I embrace him even more, and try to have optimistic thoughts, but then I remember Kibum’s distant eyes, Eli’s sad eyes, Kiseop’s wet eyes, Hoon’s empty eyes, AJ’s wistful eyes, Soohyun’s pain-filled eyes, Xander’s suffering eyes , and Dongho’s tired eyes, and a cold tear falls from my unhappy eyes. A drop of water, such as raindrops, but made ​​of feelings...

"Yo, listen up
This is my tragic story
Just the breakin' of my heart

I still can’t erase you
Again and again I think of you
I miss you too much
I can’t sleep at night
The raindrops are knocking at my heart’s window
The place that you’ve left
I miss it too much
I can’t sleep at night" ~ 0330, U-KISS