5 minutes before the call.

“Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

Tao shakes his head, trying to hide his impatience as the other band members are taking their time collecting their personal belongings. After being holed up in the studio for nearly 2 weeks, they’ve finally finished recording their 11th mini album. The recording process had been extremely tedious, as they had to ditch or rewrite half the songs they’d prepared because they simply didn’t work - and now everyone is itching to go back home. Only Jongdae and Jongin have decided it’s been way too long since they all got -faced together, and Tao only barely managed to convince them he had already had other plans that night.

Tao checks his watch again.  2 minutes before the call.

Tao sighs with relief as Luhan closes the door behind him. Alone at last.

He pulls his phone from the back pocket of his jeans before sitting down on the large, comfortable couch in the corner of the room.  The screen of his phone lights up and Tao smiles when he sees the caller’s ID.

Right on time, as usual.

“Hello?”

“Sup Tao.” Kris’s voice sounds slurred and gruff, but blissfully familiar.

“Hi Kris,” Tao says and he hopes Kris doesn’t hear how embarrassingly excited he is to hear his friend’s voice again. “How are you?” It’s a standard question, but he knows Kris will understand what it really means. Are you okay? Do you miss me? Do you miss the others? Are you happy?

“Alive and kicking. What about you, did they let you out of that studio yet?” Tao hears Kris’s attempt to make his question sound casual, but he knows it’s still difficult for the taller man to talk about EXO, even if he left the band almost three years ago.

“Just finished today. They had us all come in at once – the others went out to celebrate.”

“Why aren’t you with them?”

Tao’s free hand absentmindedly fiddles with his shoelaces as he pulls his legs up on the couch, curling them under him, and sinks back into the warm leather, letting his head fall back against the headrest. For a moment, Tao can imagine himself leaning back against Kris, and he remembers how often they had sat together like that, Tao pressing into his duizhang’s side, the only place where he felt safe enough to open up and talk about what was keeping him awake at night.

“Tao?” But he can’t snuggle up against Kris anymore. Kris is far away, he had moved back to Canada after leaving EXO.

“I knew you were going to call, so I wanted to be alone.”

One call a month. That’s the deal. It isn’t enough for Tao, but he never dares to ask Kris for more, afraid his friend will feel pressured and cut him off too, like he did with the other band members.

There’s a short pause before Kris talks again. “Why didn’t you just text me? I could’ve called you tomorrow.”

Because I miss you like crazy and I’ve been looking forward to your call all week, Tao thinks.

“You know Jongdae and Jongin. They’re not going to be satisfied until at least 2 people are pissing themselves or get arrested. I’m not really in the mood to party.” Not if you’re not around.

Kris had left a hole in Tao’s life that was too big for the other members to fill. Everything is different and yet it’s just more of the same. It had been a big surprise for Tao to find that Kris’s departure hadn’t caused EXO to implode. The press had dug for scandals, of course; some fan boards had been shut down out of protest, but all in all it had been a fairly clean break. The company had reached an agreement with Kris about the termination of his contract, and after just a few weeks, it was business as usual, and Tao seemed to be the only one affected by Kris’s absence.

The other members had been harsh. Unforgiving. The M-members felt abandoned.  The guys from EXO-K were disappointed at first, but it soon turned into a bitter indifference, and Joonmyeon especially couldn't understand how a leader could fail his band members like that.

But they were all swept up in the preparations for the concert, completely immersed in the promotion cycle, and it had hurt Tao to admit the choreography still looked really cool, the song still sounded great, and the fanchants were louder than ever. It was too normal. Everyone around him had moved on, while Tao was stuck between hating his best friend for giving up on what they’d worked so hard for, and being proud of him, for daring to reach out to happiness and escape from the warped reality that was the k-pop idol life.

“You’re not doing this just to avoid Jongin, are you?”

Tao stiffens in surprise. He sent a couple of texts to Kris two weeks before (to which Kris never replied) after he had a little spat with Jongin. At least that was what he had made it sound like when texting Kris – truthfully, it had been a very nasty fight, and Tao had found himself pulling out his phone to tell Kris immediately, as he was used to do whenever he got really upset.  He caught himself just in time before pressing the ‘call’ button, and had settled for texting instead. Kris had a different life now, and a family, and surely he didn’t have time for Tao’s silly idol problems.

“No, we’re good.” That’s a lie. Tao has been avoiding Jongin like the plague since they fought.

“Ah.” Tao’s face heats up. He knows Kris can tell he’s not speaking the truth. He changes the subject, hoping his friend won’t ask further questions.

“How’s Mei?”

“She’s doing great. A bit self-conscious cause she’s starting to show, but I think she never looked prettier.” There’s something soft and gentle abou