It usually took not less than a fortnight to get over someone but Jongin was having a hard time forgetting Haesal. He first tried forgetting her face but it only made him remember details he never knew he had noticed at all. The dimple he had overlooked would make him force Yixing to smile from time to time, the latter threatening to pull his lips all the way up like the Joker. The way her hair would curl down past her shoulders sometimes made him extend his hand, as if he could touch it in his imagination. He began pumping up the bass in every song, remembering how she would always stand next to the speakers to feel the beats because she couldn’t hear them. He wanted to listen to songs the way she did, wanted to feel the world the way she felt it at the tips of her fingertips, through the bass pounding against her own heartbeat. The manager had often told him to smile a little instead of smirking. Now all he did during performances was smile and the whole team, save for Kyungsoo, were flabbergasted at this change. “He’s supposed to be the y one!” Baekhyun had shouted, blaming the manager for this new Kai. “You’ve totally kkaebsonged his image!”

It was Sehun who pointed out that Jongin had been wearing red a lot. “I thought you didn’t like bright colours,” he said. The maknae watched in utter confusion as Jongin fell down to his knees upon hearing this, covering his face while a laughter echoing of suffocation more than something lighthearted broke out from him.

He began downloading online tutorials for sign language and when the members wondered why the download limit of their Wi-Fi was finishing so fast, Kyungsoo caught hold of Tao and forced M’s maknae to be a personal tutor. “You’re wasting money,” his favourite hyung had said. From then on, in between schedules and in the dorm, Jongin would religiously take notes and study harder than he had ever done as an academic student. Tao wanted to confirm if it had something to do with the Haesal girl but he kept quiet upon seeing Jongin practice at 2.30 in the morning.

It was Chanyeol who observed how the main dancer’s expression would change whenever ‘Heart Attack’ played during fansigns and fanmeetings. Jongin didn’t know how to explain to the rapper that the first time he had seen her was when the song had been playing at a fanmeeting after their fourth #1. The spotlight had gone haywire and landed on her face, her hands almost letting go of her phone in shock. It wasn’t until his memory was relaying her face to him hours after the fansign, like intermittent flashbacks, did he realize that something other than a spotlight had fallen for her. The lyrics of the song suddenly made him feel like his own heart was inverting, trying to stop itself from beating just so its pace could stop quickening at the thought of her. He had often heard couples talk about love songs becoming autobiographical when one is in a relationship. ‘Heart Attack’ was a song he once considered his favourite but it had become the kryptonite to his sanity now. Each word seemed to have been a foreshadowing of what was coming for him. The song was supposed to be about the thrill of falling in love. For Jongin, it challenged his attempts at falling out of it.

He then tried rationalizing with himself.

Haesal isn’t even that pretty.

But when she smiles.

She was putty at the hands of Hyejin.

She broke away from them in the end, risking herself for you and EXO.

She’ll never hear you speak.

But she listened.

Jongin held onto that thought. It was something incomprehensible. Was this what they called a connection? Even though he had hesitated, she had still turned around to look at him, to try and be in sync with him. They had worked together to help her out and in her own way she had helped him too. He had found a particular fan account from a deactivated ID circulating the internet. Hyejin and her gang had probably tried to make him look like the bad one when he had had a small argument with Chanyeol during Growl promotions. He had been a little snappy that day and had said a lot but for some reason the only thing the fan account relayed was :

“Chanyeol told Jongin not to take the joke too seriously. Jongin simply nodded and gave a smile. He had been tired from practice.”

And perhaps what stood out to him the most was that she called him Jongin. In every fan account, she never wrote him as Kai. He called this a petty observation, there were several other fans who did the same.

But this was Haesal.

God knows why Jongin felt the way he did for her but the very thought of Haesal sitting in a room, writing his real name instead of his stage name, made his heart skip a beat.  He was looking through pictures he had taken of the fans and had chanced upon one with Haesal standing in the corner, her head cocked to the side, her eyes lost in thought. From time to time he would look at the photo to remind himself that she was real.

After a while, Jongin gave up. He didn’t know how long it would take, but trying hard to resist it was futile. The very thought of her gave him a moment’s heart attack and all he had to do was learn to live with it.

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

Haesal had received a volley of curses just half an hour after uploading her transcriptions. They had lost a large number of subscribers, with several commenters stating that there was nothing special about these fan accounts. “They’re just repetitions of previous fan accounts!” the top post commented, even posting proof in the form of links. Hyejin was threatening to reveal her name and address and for a while Haesal had even considered relenting when she remembered the faces of the four members who had helped her out. She wasn’t going to let their effort go to waste. It was high time she stopped being scared.

“Just because I can’t hear, they think I can’t think for myself,” Haesal mouthed to herself. She counted the money she had earned this whole time, one by one placing the pieces of her hidden guilt infront of her conscience. She deleted Hyejin and Byul’s numbers from her contact list, deleted them from her social networks and shut her laptop. She hadn’t cried like this in a long time.

Sungjoon walked in to call her for dinner but she was fast asleep. He noticed the first mark on her new calendar, a blue square marking the 24^th of January.

Next morning, Haesal announced to her family that she wanted to leave Seoul.

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

“My friend isn’t in Seoul, so she sent this.”

A stocky girl with bright squirrel-like eyes handed a box to Jongin. He grinned and asked, “Why didn’t she give it when she was here?”

The girl squirmed under his question and shrugged. “She was busy…”

“Ah okay,” he nodded. “Tell her I’m grate---“

“She wanted me to watch you open it.”

“Oh?” Jongin cleared his throat. He grabbed Xiumin’s pen while the latter spoke to a fanboy and used it to tear open the tape on the package. He opened the box and his eyes widened when he took out a windchime consisting of musical notes and ballet shoes. A custom design, for him.

“She just wanted me to see your expression,” the girl said, looking more excited than the receiver of the gift himself. She then leaned forward. “You’d want to read that.”

Before Jongin could say anything, the girl scurried out of the stage, skipping the rest of the members and walking out of the hall.

“Do I even need to guess who she came here for?” Xiumin teased, exclaiming awe at the windchime. “Wow.”

The eldest hyung said something else but Jongin’s eyes pierced the note with multiple emotions burning behind his eyes.

When I was younger, I saw a windchime and asked my brother what it was for. He told me that there are many things that humans can’t hear. He told me that they can’t hear the wind but through the windchime they try to give it the illusion of sound. I found it fascinating how one could so easily transform absence into presence.

Without you, I would have been stuck with those girls, stuck in a place where I would have continued excusing my bad decisions on my weakness. I can’t hear your music but if I touch the speakers I can feel the bass and I can watch you dance and for that I’m grateful. The only thing I can share with you is this windchime, this illusion of sound, this white noise.

Wishing you all the best,

Haesal.

Three blocks away, a stocky girl sipping on her water bottle got the shock of her life when EXO’s main dancer caught hold of her, his chest heaving while he said, “Hae…sal…where?”

The girl waited for Jongin to catch a few more breaths, then said, “Busan.”

“What?”

“She didn’t write it on that note?” the girl said coolly, talking faster than the demo raps Jongin would hear from Chanyeol. “She spent all that money she had earned during those fan account days on your gift and after working part time under her father’s business, paid money for coaching for the eligibility test for teachers. She’s teaching a bunch of rich kids with hearing and speaking disabilities in a fancy school.” The girl paused. “She can speak a little too, you know? For the last two years she’s been going for speech therapy. She can’t hear, but she can talk. It’s just that she never bothered before.” The girl looked over his shoulder. “You’re in trouble.”

Jongin didn’t even hear his manager scolding him, didn’t react to Sehun laughing in disbelief while pulling him inside the van. Suho looked furious while Baekhyun and Chanyeol gave him worried glances. Kyungsoo was in the backseat and on his lap was the box. Jongin reached towards the package and while muttering an apology, took out the note and buried it deep in his pockets.

“Look at the kid, smiling like an idiot,” Baekhyun exclaimed, trying to calm down the manager by talking about running being good for health.

Jongin looked at Kyungsoo who quirked an eyebrow.

“Busan,” he breathed. Kyungsoo smiled.

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

“Please?”

“No.”

Haesal had been confident about the note being the ultimate goodbye but here she was, standing outside an EXO fanmeeting with one of her students. Two years had changed her a lot but that wasn’t even the point, she was embarrassed and the melodramatic tone of her gift would sometimes send shivers down her spine. The fanaccount days seemed like another lifetime, now that she had found a job and some independence, letting go of the crutches of self-pity and negativity. She had whimsically imagined meeting Jongin later, long after his idol days would have passed. She never imagined meeting him just a few years after her last sight of him, the memory of her fresh in his mind.

Her student frowned and signed. “Why?”

Haesal sighed and bent down to her eye level. “I’m not comfortable… I don’t like idols.”

“What rubbish, I checked your phone you have all EXO song---”

“Hey!” Haesal’s mouth fell open in shock. After more pleading gazes, she relented, hoping that her face was as forgetful as she had always thought it to be.

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

Jongin had again roped in Tao and Kyungsoo’s help. He was going to fake sickness and after the fansign, go to the school Haesal taught in. Simple. He didn’t want to overthink the consequences and with nervousness running wild in his veins, he sat down for the second half of the fansign.

Baekhyun had asked the fans if there was any song they wanted to listen to. A large number had shouted ‘Heart Attack’ and Jongin laughed in amusement. There was no such thing as coincidence.

The line of fans arranged themselves as the song started playing. Jongin tapped his fingers to the beat, trying hard to suppress his smile as random memories of her popped up in his head. He felt a sharp nudge to his right side and furrowed his eyebrows at Suho. The leader, with a huge smile on his face at someone in the crowd, said, “Isn’t that her?”

The moment took less than a second but the moment Suho said ‘her’ his head spun to follow his gaze. The song became distant and the sound of the fans singing along was muffled by his own thoughts. Soon even they were silenced when his eyes rested on a familiar face, her eyes widening when they met his. Time had slowed down and even though she was just a few feet away from him, stopping in front of Xiumin with a kid beside her, the waiting was killing him inside.

Baekhyun. Two more members away. She still had the same smile. She was translating the little girl’s signs and when she came a step closer he vaguely heard her voice.

“… she usually isn’t so shy, no…” She threw a discreet glance at him but returned her focus on Sehun.

Jongin smiled. Her voice was soft yet firm. He thought of her saying his name and his heart felt like it was going to collapse.

Him.

The little girl didn’t say anything. She watched as her tutor and Kai, the tutor’s favourite member (there was no other explanation as to the number of photos she had of him in her phone) gazed at each other above her. She smiled at Suho and moved onto him.

Jongin watched as she went on her knees and rested her elbows on the table. After a few seconds of hesitation, they managed to look each other in the eyes, smiling together.

Haesal gasped when he began signing to her.

I still have your windchimes. They’re beautiful.

Haesal smiled but before she could say something he signed again.

Can you… say… my name?

His hands went limp in the air as he made this request. Haesal blinked at him then took a deep breath. She nodded.

“I missed seeing you, Kim Jongin.”

They didn’t exchange anymore words. A song had been playing overhead, fans had been shouting and screaming, the EXO members had been talking and laughing but the only thing Jongin heard in that moment was the silence they shared.

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

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

Sorry for taking so long! Thank you for subscribing, reading and letting me know what you think in the comment box below! Anyway, this story was the first in a series of short EXO centric stories. I call it the XOXO project and I'm still not sure which story to move onto. My other fanfiction 'Flowers Bloom In The Dark' was part of the project but it moved beyond the short story spectrum and right now I'm still rickety about where it's going to end. Nevertheless, here are the titles of the stories and the songs which inspired them:

Flowers Bloom In The Dark/Baekhyun/Black Pearl (ongoing)

White Noise/Kai/Heart Attack (complete)

Spare Hearts/Lay/Overdose 

Once In A Blue Moon/Suho/Baby Don't Cry

If Broken, Considered Sold/Xiumin/Don't Go

Savages/Sehun/Wolf

Better Late Than Never/D.O/Thunder

Let me know which story you would like me to write next! Thank you readers! :D Hope all of you enjoyed 'White Noise'.