Leaving the group is not something he ever wanted to.

“From one to ten, which score is expressing your love towards soccer best?”

“Ten,”

He was standing on the soccer field of Yonsei University with his soccer uniform on. He smiled proudly while waving to the other members that watched and cheered for him from the bench. He just scored a goal again in the host game today. He was running back to the field before doing high five with the other players in his team and started to kick off again.

He was putting s first when it came to his goal celebration, the others came second, even when ‘the others’ were actually his own teammates.

“Sehun!” he hugged the maknae tightly, before ruffling his hair and smiling excitedly, “You ruin my hair, hyung,” the maknae pouted, but it only made the older ruffled it even more, “You’re not even an idol yet, but you’ve been so cocky, huh?” Luhan punished him with a soft smack on his head, the maknae giggled, even though it was a common joke, it was never getting old in the maknae’s ear.

“Yah! The world is not only you two,” Junmyeon folded his hands in front of his chest, he felt unamused. Luhan only threw a frowns to him before embracing him, and the rest of the members too. They laughed as they walked back to the dorm.

Luhan just finished washing up, he went to the kitchen to look what was there, but to be his unfortunate, nothing was there. He grumbled, while taking out pans and instant noodle in the cupboard. He started to cook, mouth hummed along to the 2NE1’s Lonely that was played by Tao in the common room. The song was a current hit not only in the country, but also in China as well. His family was singing a lot to the song recently whenever he called them through Skype call and the song was just being stuck unintentionally in Luhan and Tao's head. 

“Hyung,” Suho sat in one of chairs in their dining room, observing Luhan from his back. Luhan stopped humming and looked at him over his shoulder, one of his eye brows was raised, “Yes?” he continued boiling the water and started to open the wrappings of the noodle.

“They said that today was your last match,” Suho carefully said, as he saw Luhan was stopping a bit from his activity when Suho said that. It didn’t take some seconds before Luhan went back to cook the noodle, “Yes,” he said in a casual tone.

“Why? Doesn’t soccer score ten for you?” he said again, recalling the first time they met and did introduction. They introduced their personal lives as well as their hobbies and their past lovers. He still remembered when Luhan said that he really loved soccer and Jongin suddenly asked him to give score.

“Because I can’t do it anymore,” Luhan said, he whistled to one of CNBLUE songs now.

“Is it because we’re going to debut next year?” Suho asked him again. Luhan sighed and continued to cook, decided not to answer his question. He was stirring to the boiled noodle and checked it if it’d been well done. The silence started growing between them and Suho didn’t bother to force him answering. He was only silence while keeping him in company, still sitting on his seat.

Luhan took out a bowl and fork from the cupboard and pour the noodle into the bowl. He started to examine the taste and smiled, when it came out as he expected. He brought the bowl in front of Junmyeon and Luhan plopped himself to sit across to him. Junmyeon was confused because he put the bowl of noodle in front of him, not in front of Luhan.

“Eat it,” he said, a smile plastered on his face. Junmyeon was confused as hell, he frowns his forehead, asking for the older’s explanation, “Isn’t it for you?”

“You think a lot of everyone that you forgot to think of yourself,” Luhan said, before taking newspaper near himself and started to fan the bowl, “It’s quite hot, but don’t blow with your mouth because it’s unhealthy. The carbon dioxyde will get into your noodle and makes it poisoned, Jongsuk said,” he said, still fanning the bowl.

“Hyung, you haven’t eaten,” Suho said and started pushing the bowl to be in front of him, but Luhan hold it, “..I have, this morning. Did you even eat today?” Luhan asked, but Junmyeon only looked down at the bowl not answering.

“..or yesterday, did you eat?” he striked a question again, which Junmyeon still didn’t maintain to answer.

“See? I’m not the one that you should think of here. It’s you, Junmyeon-ah. Think of yourself,” Luhan patted Junmyeon’s shoulder, he felt the burden that Junmyeon actually felt since a week ago. Even though he didn’t tell him, he could sense that something was off with him, “You don’t want to be a leader, do you?”

It was a mere silence and Junmyeon started eating the instant noodle that Luhan made. He didn’t want to answer because he didn’t even want to talk about it. He absolutely agreed with Luhan, that it was what came into his mind recently. He was just appointed to be the leader of EXO about a week ago, and since that day, he can barely sleep. A lot of thoughts went into his mind, such; what if he couldn’t be a good leader? What if things went worse if he was leading the so called big project of SM? What if everything broke down because of him?

It really bothered him to the extend that he wanted to resign from the company.

He finally shook his head after finishing a fork of the noodle. He was choking up and about to cry when Luhan patted his shoulder. Luhan was the first one who recognized his feeling, Luhan was the first one that took care of him and understood that something was wrong with him. He was trying hard to look all strong but he failed, and that was thing that clinged and make him wanted to cry a river. He didn’t want to burden Luhan with the burden that he carried.

“Look here,” Luhan lifted Junmyeon’s head and inhaled some air before speaking, “…you’re going to be a great leader. Don’t worry about us, we’re going to be okay. We all are grown-ups, so what are you even worrying, Kim Junmyeon? Just worry about yourself for now. I’m okay taking off soccer from my life, because the truth is that even though soccer scored ten, you guys scored eleven. You all scored number that beyond everything that I had in life,” Luhan smiled at Junmyeon. His gaze was strong enough to convince the leader that he was okay.

"I cannot guarantee that everything is going to be easy in the future, but trust me, everything is going to be fine...as long as we have us," Luhan said.

The leader was smiling back at him and nodding, continuing to finish the instant noodle. There were no more words exchanged between them after that, because the each other’s presences have been more than enough for both at that time.

“H-h..hs..,” his hand trembled, head is shaking as he regains consciousness. His eyes are glassy and tear escapes from his left eye, he felt broken. Jongsuk was sitting on the chair next to him with his head laid on Luhan’s bed, hand was holding Luhan’s. He opened his eyes when he felt Luhan’s movement and started to realize that Luhan was about to open his eyes. He calmly lifted his head, looked at the heart-rate monitor, checked the infusion bottle and fixed the nasal cannula. He took some tissues and wiped the sweats on Luhan’s forehead and tears on his cheek. He seemed to have a nightmare, Jongsuk thought.

Luhan once told him that he always has nightmare everytime he sleeps after having his episode of asthma. Jongsuk was usually giving him sedative after his asthma, but not today because this case was different from the other ones, he didn’t ask the doctor to give him one.

Luhan felt sore all over his body once he opened his eyes. He felt dizzy when he saw the white ceiling, hoses all over his body, and a pair of tubes going into his nostrils. Everything looked so blurry for him, until he looked at the back of his hand and he finally knew where he is.

“Hospital..,” Luhan weakly said. Jongsuk stood next to him and nodded, “Yes, you’re here,” he affirmed Luhan’s assumption.

“W..where are the other members?” he stuttered, still can’t adjust to the current situation.

“They went back to the hotel to change and they’re gonna come back here after that. Keenan is with your manager to reschedule your flight tickets, because you all missed tonight’s flights. I asked Soojung to stay in hotel because it’s not good for her to stay outside at night, and I asked Baekhyun to accompany her. They’ll be here early in the morning before the flights. Sorry for taking Baekhyun, but he’s the most trusted one in your team when it comes to Soojung,” he said, recalling the incident of Baekhyun’s broken shoulder because of trying hard to brag their condo’s door to save Soojung from her episode of Claustrophobia.

Luhan nodded.

The situation fell into silence once again. Jongsuk stays still next to Luhan’s head, eyes are nailed to Luhan’s heart rate monitor. At this point, he was thinking hard if the members and his siblings have eaten, because they all seem to be losing appetite after seeing Luhan. He silently texted Woobin to bring everyone to eat first before going back to the hospital and texted Baekhyun to ensure that Soojung has eaten, because he knew that if he asked Soojung to eat, she wouldn’t want to do that without seeing Baekhyun eating with her. The art of hitting many birds with one stone, he smiled.

“Jongsuk-ah..,” Luhan called, Jongsuk quietly pocketed his phone and sit again on the chair next to him, “What?” he raised one of his eye brows, his eyes were concerning every detail in Luhan’s face. It’s pale, everything in his face looks pale, his forehead frowns a bit, implying that he holds pain, and his eyes aren’t widely opened. He has seen these kind of views in the college hospital, even some situations which were way worse than Luhan, but it is the first time for Jongsuk to feel difficulty to even look at the patient’s face. Luhan is his family and it’s hard, very hard to see him going through the hardship by himself.

“It may sound a bit gay, but can you hold my hand?” he said, slightly grin in pale. Jongsuk giggled a bit before interlacing his fingers with Luhan’s. He feels strange to hold a guy’s hand, but for now, he shouldn’t care about it. Luhan’s health comes first.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He was smiling to Jongsuk and Jongsuk only smiled back at him bitterly, “…you should. How can you hide your health record from me? You’re not only having an asthma, huh? Your condition is even worse than that, I just found it out now,”

“Your lungs…., your lungs… were basically broken,” he completed his sentence in unrelief, because he never expected this situation to ever come.

Luhan chuckled, because actually it’s not the thing that he felt sorry for, but he silently is thankful that Jongsuk really puts a lot of concerns for Luhan, “I’m sorry. I also just figured it out about some months ago,”

“No wonder that you always hide your regular check up reports when I asked about it,” Jongsuk said with a mocking tone, “You should tell me, so I can take preventive actions and everything will not go as far as today,” Jongsuk continued his scold.

Luhan didn’t answer, he just smiled.

“You should take a rest, don’t do activity for some months later,” he said, patting the back of Luhan’s hand, “..and I don’t think you’re even able to stand on stage anymore. I mean, in full-time. It’s okay to sing, but dancing is a huge no. You also should decrease the amount of your dance practice,”

“I know. That’s why I’m saying sorry,” Luhan huskily said.

“For taking a break?” Jongsuk asked, but Luhan only shook his head as an answer.

“Jongsuk-ah, do you have any big goals in your life?” Luhan suddenly asked, his eyes are now nailed into Jongsuk’s and Jongsuk felt that Luhan was actually in total pain physically, and mentally.

“It’s always changing, why?”

“Mine too. What’s your recent goal?”

“To be able to pay my father’s debt, be a doctor, and study abroad with my siblings,”

“Seems you’re going to reach it soon,”

“Not really. It’s still quite far because I’m going to work my off and wait for the other two to accomplish the last goal,”

Luhan only smiled, “…mine has been accomplished tonight,”

“What is it?” Jongsuk’s brows were knitted together, curious because tonight Luhan didn’t do anything aside from having concert and collapsed afterwards.

“Having my last stage in Beijing, and seeing everyone that I love coming to my last stage,” he still smiled, while Jongsuk was surprised, having his mouth agape and eyes widened. The response that’d been expected by Luhan, he only giggled.

“L-last stage?”

“I’m.. I’m leaving the team,” he whispered, sounded lifeless as ever. His eyes started to be glassy but lips were curved into smile. He was actually confused, either he should be happy or not. But for now, he decided to be happy, “..and I’m glad that I’m able to see you all in my last stage, even Kris,” he said, reminiscing that Kris was actually sitting on one of the audiences bench in VIP. He was wearing jacket, mask and hat to hide his identity, but Luhan could fastly recognize from the stage that it was him.

…and he was happy because Kris finally made his promise, after he