Chapter 1

            All over the world, EXO was reaching ultimate stardom.  They were loved by girls and boys all over the world.  To the public eye, they were amazingly talented and beautiful; the twelve boys were absolutely flawless.  But when the camera’s were turned off, they could finally be themselves…being themselves wasn’t always a good thing though…When Kai was six, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and as he was getting older, it was getting worse.

            From the time he could sit up on his own, his parents knew that there was something off about their son, but they couldn’t figure out what.  Baby Jongin would stare at something when there was nothing there, and when he could talk, he always mentioned an imaginary friend.  His parents laughed with enjoyment when Jongin would talk about his friend Lion. 

            Lion was always getting Jongin into trouble.  “I didn’t do it!” said Jongin when he got caught smashing eggs on the kitchen floor. “It was Lion!”

            Or when his older sisters came inside one day after playing with Jongin in the yard and the younger of the two was bleeding from the bite in her arm, Jongin said “Lion told me to do it!”

            His parents sighed, thinking that it was just normal brother-sister fighting and made him apologize for hurting his sister, and then they sent him to his room.

            The things Lion made Jongin do were slowly getting worse and worse.  His parents finally decided to take him to the hospital when he was six and he threatened his oldest sister with a knife.           

            “We ran some test on your son,” said the doctor, “if you take a look at his brain scans,” he handed his parents the folder with their son's test results, “the tests say that Jongin has schizophrenia.  The blue in this picture indicates a normal child’s brain activity, and this picture is the scan of Jongin’s brain, the pink indicates how much grey matter has been lost.  Do you know what grey matter is?”

            His parents shook their heads while Jongin’s mother adjusted her son’s position on her lap.

            The doctor began, “Grey matter is the regions of the brain that control’s muscle control, sensory perception such as seeing, hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making and self-control.  The loss of gray matter means that Jongin’s brain isn’t getting enough oxygen and causing these things to shut down.”

            “Is there a way to treat him?” asked his mother.

            “Yes,” replied the doctor, “we can put him on medication that will help with the symptoms.  But whatever medication we put him on could have side effects.”

            “Such as?” Jongin’s father wondered out loud.

              “Nothing too major, but he might get rashes on his skin every now and then or as his body adjusts to the fact that he's taking drugs everyday and when his doses are upped he might get sick…getting news like this can also be very stressful for patients and their families and you might want to consider counseling, but that’s all up to you.  I’ll give you the number of a good pshychiatrist if you’d like.”

            “Yes please,” said his mother, “that would be very helpful.”

            The doctor nodded and scribbled the number onto a piece of paper and handed it to Jongin’s mother, “if you ever have any questions or if something happens, please don’t hesitate to call the hospital.”

            “We will, thank you,” said his father as they got up to leave.

            They both shook the doctor’s hand and left for home.

            The moment they arrived back home, his mother sat Jongin down at the dining room table and told him, “Jongin, today we learned that your brain is different from other’s your age and that’s why you can see Lion and nobody else can.  The doctor’s gave us this medicine for you to take everyday and it will help you get better.  So please cooperate with us.”

            “Am I sick mommy?” he asked.

            She hugged her son, “no, of course not baby, something bad is just in your head and this will help your brain to get better, okay?”

            “Will it make Lion go away?  I don’t want Lion to go away.”

            “I don’t know honey, but it might help Lion behave himself so you won’t get into trouble anymore.  Does that sound good?”  He nodded and she handed her son his first dose of medication.  After his medication was swallowed she continued, “Jongin, the medicine you have to take might make you feel sick for a little while, but don’t worry because it will help.”

            “Okay mommy, can I go play now?”

            “Yes you can.”

            She watched her son run into the other room to play with his trucks.

            Her daughters came into the room with their father, “Is Jongin really schizophrenic?” asked the oldest daughter.

            “Yes, he is Hana, but he’ll get better, so you don’t need to worry about him.”

            “Mom, there are people at my school that are schizophrenic and they can get violent…what if Jongin hurts somebody?”

            “If he progresses to that point, we’ll deal with it when the time comes, but for now, just try to treat him like a normal kid.”

            And for fourteen years, Jongin acted just like any other boy.  He did well in school and had lots of friends, even a few girlfriends.  He reached his dream by becoming a professional dancer and singer for the band EXO for SM Entertainment and he made even more friends. 

            Kai’s members knew that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but they hardly thought about it.  Suho made sure that Kai took his medication everyday even with their busy schedule.  He always made sure that he had it with him while they traveled and on the days that his doses were upped they all took care of their sick member.

            One day while Kai was walking the streets of Seoul with Kyungsoo and Sehun he met somebody that made his heart skip a beat.

            He turned a corner and ran right into a beautiful girl, “I’m so sorry,” said Jongin getting on his knees to help the girl pick up her fallen text books.

            “No, it’s my fault,” she said taking the books from Kai.

            Their eyes met and both of them froze.

            She stuttered, “I-I’m Haelee.”

            “I’m Kai…I mean, Jongin.”

            They stood up.

            “Nice to meet you, Jongin,” she smiled.

            “Kai,” said Sehun, “we need to go if we don’t want to be late for rehearsal.”

            “R-right…I guess I’ll see you ‘round, Haelee,” he said.

            “Yeah, see you.”  She walked away from the boys slowly and Jongin’s eyes followed her.

            “Hey, Jongin,” said Kyungsoo, “stop drooling and let’s go!”

            “I’m not drooling…” he wiped the corner of his mouth just to make sure he wasn’t.

            Kai continued to stare at the beautiful girl walking away from him.

            “Since when do you like girls with glasses?” asked Sehun.

            “What are you talking about?” he said bringing his attention back to s.

            “You’re staring at her with your tongue sticking out…” said Kyungsoo.

            “No I’m not!  She’s just pretty…”

            “Well ‘just pretty’ doesn’t get the attention of EXO’s dancing machine!” added the lead vocalist.

            He didn’t reply to his friends comment.  He turned his head to look at the girl again, but she was gone.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter.  I'm not really sure where I'm going with this story yet, but if you like it so far, comment, subscribe, upvote, show me some love readers!!