“Hyung, when’s the next fansign?” Suho called out while taking off his jacket.  EXO’s leader had just returned from the last round of promotions for his animated movie Saving Santa and had joined Luhan, Jongin, Xiumin, Chanyeol and Baekhyun in a van heading to the company building. The SMTOWN Week concerts had been a success and had proved that a nationwide tour was possible the following year, despite the rookie group being only two years old.

Jongin was already feeling conflicted. Yes, this was the life he had wanted. A life of performances, a life of loudly reverbing audience cheers, a life of never resting. He loved dancing but his body loved rest too and Suho’s words only made him groan to himself. Next year was going to be more hectic and for the next ten years their schedules would defy the restrictions of 24 hours and overlap each other.

“Tomorrow,” the manager replied. He looked towards Jongin and said, “That fan of yours is a little weird. Want me to grab a hold of her towards the end?”

“Which fan?” Baekhyun asked, but the cogs in the main dancer’s mind were already turning. Haesal, he thought to himself, the next day’s fansign not a burden anymore. Would she return? Her friend would probably drag her along with her, right? Jongin shushed the logical voice in his head as he began praying for the friend’s stubbornness to win like it had the other day, when Haesal had waited five seconds longer.

“Um, guys.” Luhan’s eyebrows were furrowed and the tone of discontent in his voice caught everyone’s attention. “Check this out.” He extended his iPad towards them. As expected Chanyeol was the one to grab the device before anyone else. The rapper cleared his throat and widened his eyes.

“Wow,” he murmured then looked up at his teammates. “Want me to read—”

“Read!” Baekhyun shouted.

“Okay, okay,” Chanyeol said, a grin on his face that disappeared as soon as it had appeared. “What the--?”

“Give it to me,” Baekhyun said when the MC trained member continued to stare speechless at the words. “I’ll read this without a break okay?” he said, his eyes scanning the article with equal amount of shock and a tinge of amusement on his face.

“Fanaccount 130925 : Chanyeol prefers macchiato over americano but the manager always buys americano for all the members as it is the cheapest drink in a café. Chanyeol was complaining to the manager and the manager told him he could pay for the macchiato himself. Chanyeol then muttered something about pocket money and quietly sipped on the coffee.

Fanaccount 131005 : Lay spoke to his mother on the phone and told her that he wouldn’t be able to spend his birthday with her due to a special SMTOWN celebration. He wanted her to fly down to be with him but then sighed and told her to get well soon.

Fanaccount 131108 : Taemin told Jongin that Naeun looks like a female version of him. Jongin gave a look disbelief but laughed it off and said, “I told you you would land up with me anyway.”

Fanaccount 131220 : Jongin went blank during a particular moment of the fansign. Luhan made fun of him and said he had drunk too much coffee again.”

Baekhyun looked up at s, his face as white as a sheet. He quickly shook his head and muttered something about “sasaengs”.

“It’s not a sasaeng,” Suho said. Luhan nodded in agreement and the leader continued to voice his thoughts. “These are absolutely private moments, Lay was talking to his mother when he was standing in the security line at Beijing airport. The fans were nowhere around him.”

“And that Naeun thing too…” Luhan’s voice trailed off as he half-chuckled at Jongin who gave him a light punch on his arm. “Hey that was funny alright? But no, weren’t Taemin and you standing backstage during the Mnet Asian Music Awards the last time you guys were together?”

“And it’s the same person, for sure,” Chanyeol said. He grabbed the iPad and began scouring through the rest of the fanaccounts. He began reading out more, leading the manager to snatch it away from him and saying something about strenghthening security. Jongin was however being bugged by the little snippet information towards the end.

“What’s wrong Kai? Drank too much coffee again?”

The last fansign, the day Haesal had run away. His mind was clinging to the image of her friend pulling her back and not letting her go, the memory of Haesal folding her hands and responding to her friend with sign language, the friend pointing to Luhan and waiting to read something that Haesal had written…

“Hyung,” he said, bending forward. The way Chanyeol’s arms were up in the air and his mouth half-open, he knew he had interrupted an intense conversation. He ignored the possibility of a meaningless scolding later and asked his question. “Remember that kid during our volunteer work before debut? The one who couldn’t hear but always had headphones around his neck?”

Chanyeol stared at him for a while in confusion then sighed. “What about him?”

“Remember how Tao had said something weird about him wearing headphones despite his…and the staff told him to keep quiet?” Jongin took a deep breath, his heart beating faster for the repetition of the answer that was already known to him. “If he was already deaf, why did they even bother?”

Chanyeol blinked at him and looked out of the window. “Not sure,” he murmured.

“Wasn’t he very good at lip-reading?”

Jongin turned around and saw Xiumin wake up from his sleep. He watched as the eldest hyung stretched his arms and rolled his neck from side to side. “Park Hyunsik. He was really good at lip-reading, to the point where everyone was scared of him for knowing stuff he wasn’t supposed to. The staff told us to be careful around him on the very first day. But why are you suddenly asking about him?”

“Nothing,” Jongin said. He draped his jacket over his face and folded his arms, disguising himself in a state of stupor. Unknown to the members though he was grinning widely and thinking of the words he would say to the special girl the next day.

I know your secret Haesal, he thought and barked out a hysteric chuckle. Ignoring Baekhyun’s comment on him needing medicine, he closed his eyes and focused on the face in his head, a face he had recently learned to recall with effortless ease.

           *************************************************************

“Aren’t you worried about getting caught?”

Haesal blinked at her elder brother then signed back to him. Why should I?

“My girlfriend’s sister told me one of the members knows sign language,” Sungjoon signed. Haesal hit him on his arm and he repeated the signs, this time accompanied with speech. It was one of the primary ways in which Haesal could practice her lip-reading skills. Sometimes he forgot, having gotten used to ten years of accepting a hearing disabled sister. Speaking had not seemed necessary until six years ago when Haesal had approached him with a favour : next time you sign something, speak it as well.

For five years Sungjoon had been the quiet boy who used to explode into sudden manic tantrums. Then Haesal was born and while her parents had to momentarily mourn her disability, Sungjoon had wholeheartedly welcomed this new addition to the family. Where Haesal’s parents lacked in affection due to their guilt of passing down some genetic fault, Sungjoon would compensate with his enthusiastic need to be understood by someone who could not be understood herself. He learned sign language faster than anyone else and it took some kicking and screaming for him to realize that he couldn’t go to the same school as his sister. It was only when he went there for the first time and found a room full of silence, only the soft sound of cloth rubbing against itself as fifty kids were in the middle of a mute conversation, did he feel reassured. His sister was not alone.

Sungjoon wasn’t fond of the new pack of friends Haesal would roam around with. They weren’t even her friends, he was sure. Apart from Byul who was Haesal’s volunteer friend at the centre, he knew that the others were Byul’s elder sister’s friends. All they ever did was stalk those weird ‘Wolf’ idols, the ones who were all the rage now. After finding out that Haesal was using her lip-reading skills to help those ‘friends’ acquire private information, Sungjoon had grown worried. However Haesal had confirmed to him that the favour wasn’t cheap – she was being paid a good amount of money for a job as easy as a walk in the park for her. “I don’t even have to work in cafes,” she had signed to him, not matching his eyes as she forced a smile upon her face. After that, he didn’t complain. 

“Anyway, what’s so attractive about guys who dance like this?” Sungjoon then flapped his hands to form the ‘wolf’ sign on his head, making Haesal crack up in silent laughter. He grinned and laughed along. “Seriously! I’m just glad you don’t like any of them. I’ll kick you in the you if come back home with one of them.”

Haesal laughed and shook her head, but her heart skipped a beat when a particular face crossed her thoughts.

“…one of the members knows sign language…”

Probably just a rumour based on their volunteering  episode, she thought. Some fans would create stories about their oppas that put them on a pedestal. The idols never refuted the stories that did good for their PR, perhaps this was one of those. But no matter how hard Haesal tried, the rest of the day was spent trying to erase the memory of a smile from her mind. Even when she collapsed on her bed, closing her eyes to sleep, the smile haunted her dreams and she wished that the rumour were true.

For if the rumour is false, she thought to herself, then it means he understood me. Even though the language we both speak are different from each other, he somehow understood me.

That night she dreamed of two trains speeding down a cliff at the speed of light. She was sitting in one of them.