The Yellow Letters (7/9)
TITLE : THE YELLOW LETTERS (7/9)
PAIRING : KRISHAN
RATING : PG/ PG-13
WORD COUNT : 24K
When they are about 5 minutes away from his apartment Kris jerks up as if from a trance. Luhan’s hand on his is the only thing he can feel right now except for the bubbling hysteria in his chest.
“Stop! Stop the vehicle!”
The driver starts and glances back questioningly at them.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Kris looks out of the window. So close. They are so close to the place where Luhan will drop him off and go away, so close to the place the yellow letters lie strewn across a lonely table. He is known to be one of the most level headed artists of SM entertainment - no scandals, no pre-performance hysteria, no hissy fits during schedules - but right now Kris feel like everything about him is numb and on fire at the same time and being sensible feels near impossible.
“I-I can’t go back in there. I don’t want to go home. Let me off here.” He bangs on the door and Luhan grabs on to him in panic.
“Kris. I don’t know what’s wrong but you need to go home. Get some rest and-”
“No. Just no. Let-me-out!” he snaps at the driver.
“Kris! KRIS!” Luhan’s fragile looking hands are strong around his wrist. “wait, you can’t just- there are so many people around-everybody knows u-”
Kris struggles to free his wrist.
“Ok.Ok. wait-” Luhan takes a deep breath and turns over to the driver rattling off an address and Kris relaxes slightly as the car speeds past his apartment complex.
He leans his head on the tinted glass of the window and tries to breathe evenly. It’s hard. He wonders whether this is what is called a panic attack. He wonders whether the hand that seems to be squeezing his chest and pounding on his head will ever go away. He wonders for how long Luhan will sit next to him like this.
He is pulled out of his thoughts when the car comes to a stop in front of a small café in what he assumes is a forgotten corner of Myeongdong. Luhan runs in and then back out in a few minutes, grabbing Kris’ spare bag of clothes from the trunk of the car that the driver hastily opens for him and leads him in through the back door. There’s a strange rushing noise in his ears, loud and discordant, and Kris lets himself be pulled and pushed because he is too tired, inside out, to do anything else.
It takes Kris a few minutes to realize that he is in what looks to be the employee rest room of the café. It takes him a few more minutes to realize that Luhan is actually speaking to him. Luhan looks blurred to him, maybe he has tears in his eyes, he doesn’t know. He hears Luhan’s voice is small bursts of clarity in between flashes of the rushing noise in his ear.
“friend’s café…..we can’t stay long…change…clothes.”
Luhan is waving a pair of jeans and a dark hoodie in his face, which Kris takes, his movements slow and robotic. Ten minutes later when Luhan takes his hand and walks him back out he catches sight of himself in the sliding glass door of the café and he is wearing a dark pair of shades and a ball cap that conceals his blonde hair.
Kris doesn’t exactly realize for how long he just walks and walks and walks, but the streets are not so busy in the area and Luhan is quiet beside him.
It’s that muted time between sunset and moonrise, when things seem to slow down before picking up pace again when something is shoved into his mouth. Kris, surprised and startled, chokes on it. He looks down to see Luhan standing with a determined look on his face and a packet of Dukkbokki from a street vendor in his hands.
“Chew!” he orders.
Kris blinks and chews. The strong, spicy taste of the food attacks his senses and he feels like somebody waking up after being in a coma for 2 years.
“It’s good, right?” Luhan pops a piece in his own mouth.
Kris nods slowly; the look on Luhan’s face tells him that he would not accept any other answer.
“I’ve always wanted to eat my way through all the food stalls in Myeongdong. Never really had the time though. Always busy with work or my friends are all busy with work.” He pops another piece in his mouth and offers Kris one too. Luhan takes off walking down the street and Kris follows him feeling a little less numb, a little more lost.
Kris doesn’t know how it went from him having a small breakdown to this. But Luhan is flitting from shop to shop, stall to stall, and his voice sounds so excited and carefree - pointing at little trinkets and pet stores and buying more and more snacks - that Kris can’t get himself to do anything but just drown in it all. He listens and nods and eats more food than what he thinks he usually eats in a month on his strict diet. He doesn’t really know what is going to happen tomorrow, he doesn’t know what he is going to do if Luhan goes back to not speaking to him, what he is going to do about the yellow letters. He doesn’t know what he will do about the backlash he will get from the management for this little disappearing act and he doesn’t know what he will do about his almost shattered heart. But when Luhan giggles as he tries on a hat shaped like a koala Kris finds that for now, in this moment, everything is ok in his world.
Luhan always did know just how to save him.
It’s around 3am or maybe 4am in the morning when Kris braves going back to his apartment. Luhan is leaning himself against the wall as he pries his shoes off, and he stumbles a little. Luhan is drunk too but he is not as drunk as Kris is. He feels the curious affect of soju coursing through his veins. He doesn’t look at his bed room door, doesn’t think about the yellow letters on the table inside that room as he collapses on the couch. Luhan is hovering hesitantly near the door still so Kris pats the sofa next to him invitingly.
The alcohol seemed to be making Luhan braver because he comes over immediately and flops down next to him. They have half a bottle of Soju left over and they take turns sipping from it until Kris feels his whole body buzzing with it.
“Nice place.”
“Iss ok.” Kris feels his words slur.
Luhan giggles at him. Kris reaches out to swat him but he is off balance and instead ends up leaning his weight against Luhan.
“Ooooof- you are heavy! Get o-”
Kris looks up and realizes that his face is mere inches from Luhan’s face. He could count his individual eyelashes if he was sober enough and the pink of Luhan’s lips seem darker with Soju. Luhan’s breathe stutters and his eyes flutter as Kris skims a finger over his eyebrows, down the line of his cheeks and strokes along his jaw line coming to a stop just shy of his lips. The air turns heavy with something dark, something alluring. Luhan leans in towards him a little bit more and now Kris’ lips are brushing against the skin beside his mouth. Luhan’s breathe smells like Soju and something else, something sweet and soft- something that makes his mind flash back to falling in love with someone he has never seen before.
He thinks of feeling alive for the first time because of those letters, smiling every night in memory of them, feeling brave every day because of what they said in smudged ink. He thinks of that one line “I think I might be a little bit in love with you. I’m sorry.” He thinks anybody else would think that he is crazy, that he is stupid to feel this way but he can’t stand the thought of guilt that rakes his body when he thinks that he could almost hear the yellow letters say ‘you fell in love with me first. Me. Not him.’ Conflicted and thoughts unclear with too much alcohol, he moves his lips away, placing his head on Luhan's shoulder in apology. He takes a deep breath and gathers up his courage.
“I’m in love with somebody.” He whispers against the soft skin of Luhan's neck. He is almost hoping that Luhan doesn’t hear him but Luhan goes stiff beneath him immediately.
“I’m sorry. I love somebody already. I’m sorry.” Luhan's eyes are wide and confused. “I was never supposed to. I never wanted to. But I miss him, I miss him so much Luhan.” His mind is a fog of confusion and sadness and blinding darkness. “People like me- we are not supposed to get attached, we are not supposed to love, to feel. We are trained, we are broken apart then remolded to fit together in ways that look perfect on camera, we are supposed to make a girl want to spend thousands of won on repackaged albums with 2 extra songs, we are made to parrot back lines written by others and have no thoughts for ourselves. We are not supposed to love.”
Kris takes a shuddering breath. “Because people who love are human. They are human -and they feel and they hurt and they make mistakes. And people like that can never be perfect on camera.”
Kris usually likes it when Luhan's eyes shine but he doesn’t like it when they shine with tears that were there because of him.
“I’m sorry. I was never supposed to fall in love but-”
Suddenly Kris is sagging into the pliable cushion of the sofa because Luhan is standing up and pushing away from him. The last part of his words ‘I was never supposed to fall in love but- but I think I love you too, maybe more than him’ dies away into the night air because Luhan is already stumbling out of his apartment. The last thing Kris hears before he slides into an alcohol-induced unconsciousness is the door slamming behind Luhan's trembling back.
Kris wakes up to an angry pounding on his shoulder, and his head feels like somebody is playing an f(x) song at full volume inside it. His eyes are blurry and his tongue tastes like a cat died on it but he can’t remember anything about how this all happened.
Enuhyuk hyung is standing over him, sneezing and coughing, with an angry look on his face.
“Dammit, Kris! What the hell is the meaning of this!”
Kris winces as the noise grates on his eardrums and makes his head pound.
“Hyung… not so loud.”
“Loud? LOUD? You want loud, buddy? First I get a call from the Ivy Club staff saying you left in the middle of a shoot and then the chauffer calls saying he dropped off you and Luhan god-knows-where somewhere in Myeongdong. No warnings, no letting anybody know, no nothing. Then you don’t answer you phone, you don’t come back to the company and it’s 2.30 in the afternoon and Lee Sooman wants your head on a platter because you are supposed to be on a flight to Changsha right now to start your comeback stage rehearsals. And to add to it all I find you like this! Hung-over and looking like shit.”
EunHyuk pauses to cough violently and Kris feels heavy with guilt for doing all this. He is starting to remember a little, but he doesn’t know what happened after he opened that first bottle of soju or what happened to Luhan. Everything inside his head is covered is hazy patches of white and grey and he can tell without looking in a mirror that he looks like road-kill.
“I want answers, Kris. right now.”
Kris sits up, his back aches from curling up in a sofa too small for him and his head screams in protest at the movement. He cradles his head in his hands and wills the pain away. “Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…. Hyung, I’m- I’m so, so sorry. I will make it right. I’m so sorry.”
There is something about his tone; something about the way he says it that deflates EunHyuk's rage immediately. Kris is a good kid, whatever said and done. He has never given him any trouble, never whined and fussed like most self-entitled idols, never forgot to follow the rules, never forgot to bring him a coffee when he is tired. EunHyuk places a gentle hand on his shoulder and pats him.
“Alright. Alright. Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to take a shower and do whatever you can to make yourself look presentable. I’m going to bring you some painkillers and food. We have to pop in at SM and you have to apologize to the staff and to Sooman-ssi for all this- just say that you had a bad migraine and the medicine made you pass out. And then we can reschedule your flight and everything.”
Kris nods slowly. “Thanks, hyung. Really, thanks.”
EunHyuk snorts, and then coughs a little. “Whatever. Just because I’m saving your ass right now doesn’t mean I will let you go for this.”
“Arasso, hyung.” Kris smiles at him slightly. “Ready for any and all punishment.”
The minute he steps in to SM entertainment, he sees chaos. He rushes by Kyungsoo on the way who makes a ‘you are dead’ motion with his hand to him and a few coordi-noonas who glare at him. He feels even guiltier. An artist going abroad for a month of promotions is not an easy thing ever. The fan cameras only capture the artist and maybe the manager at the airport but they don’t see the team of stylists, backup dancers, wardrobe managers, PR representatives, translators, stage hands, writers, and many others who have to give up their lives and fly abroad with the artists at short notice. Any mishap on the side of the artist results in the disarray of the lives of so many others.
Lee Sooman screams at him for 15 minutes straight before he says “Well, then, good luck for your comeback promotions” in the calmest voice possible - which scares Kris the most. Next up is a round of bowing and apologizing to every single person he inconvenienced by his disappearance and phone calls to Ivy Club staff. Even when he just wants to lie down and rest his aching head he runs around doing everything he was supposed to do yesterday, and getting ready for everything he is supposed to next.
His flight is re-scheduled for the next afternoon and Kris literally collapses on his bed after taking what is probably a little too many of painkillers. Right before he falls asleep he remembers the sound of a slamming door and for a panicked second he thinks of Luhan. But the day has taken a lot out of him and he slips into darkness even as he is trying to reach for his phone.
The next morning he is put to autograph a few hundred albums in preparation of upcoming fan-signs until he starts hating his own name. Then it’s a run through of the title song and a last minute wardrobe fittings. It’s nearly time for his to go back home and get ready to leave when they give him a five minute break. Kris makes an immediate beeline to find EunHyuk hyung, nope he is not there. Yixing is teaching some new trainees basic popping and locking, and nope he is not there either. Kyungsoo is his last option. But Kyungsoo is alone in the recording room, his feet up on the table, munching on a box of fried chicken.
“Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be leaving now? Don’t tell me no- because I already threw a celebration party when I heard you will be away for a month.” Kyungsoo grins at him.
“Hahaa very funny.” Kris grins back. “No I was just- umm…. Soo…?”
“Just spit it out, Kriscasso.”
“umm, well, Soo do you have Luhan's address on you right now?”
Kyungsoo raises his eyebrow so high that it nearly disappears into his hair. He stares at Kris munching slowly on a chicken wing for so long that Kris huffs at him defensively. “what? I just asked!”
“Fine, fine. I didn’t even say anything!” Kyungsoo sets aside his chicken and scrolls through his phone. “Aha! Here we go. I’m sending it to you now.”
Kris’ phone vibrates. “Ok, got it. Thanks, Soo.”
“Whatever. Why do you want it anyway?”
“Just- just thought I would check up on him. Since he is sick or something I think. Didn’t come in today or yesterday so I think-” Kris stops his rambling when he realizes Kyungsoo is looking at him with a strange look on his face. “What?”
“Kris.” Kyungsoo’s voice is careful. “Kris, didn’t you know? I mean, I thought he would have told you himself or at least EunHyuk would have told you.” Kris is not sure whether he wants to hear the rest.
“Yesterday morning, while you were all MIA, Luhan quit.”
Kris stares at Kyungsoo with dawning horror because he suddenly remembers. I already love somebody. I’m sorry. The hand wrapped around his phone trembles as he remembers tears in Luhan's eyes and a slamming door.
“Kris, are you ok? Shit, why do you look so pale…” Kyungsoo is reaching out for him but Kris backs away. Sharp knuckles rap on the studio door and there’s EunHyuk's voice calling out to him “Hey, time to go!” and Kris stumbles in his hurry to get out of the room where Kris can picture Luhan in every corner.
If EunHyuk sees something different in his face, he doesn’t comment on it. He lets Kris run into his apartment alone, signaling five minutes with his hand.
Kris has felt sad, he has felt alone, desperate, upset and many other things but he can’t remember the last time he felt such rage in him. The past 48 hours have been too much of an emotional rollercoaster for him and right now he can’t feel anything but anger. He kicks at the coffee table and it crashes to the floor, strewing fan-given plush toys and letters and cards across the floor - he could care less.
He changes and is almost out of the door when a glint of yellow catches the corner of his eye. He stops abruptly and turns back slowly. No, no way. It’s been nearly four weeks, there can be no more letters, no- but there it is lying on the ground, nearly hidden by the head of a duck-shaped toy and a pink letter, soundless and still as ever. Kris snatches is up and he doesn’t know quite what to feel when he sees the oh-so-familiar Chinese characters spelling out his name and the alpaca sketched in a corner.
Something like a sob rises up in his chest and he tells himself firmly not now, no, not now. Not when he has so much to do, not when he owes so much to the people around him right now. So he just pushes the envelope into his backpack and runs out to meet EunHyuk hyung.
Two weeks later, Kris performs his comeback song for the first time in front 1000 girls chanting his name as if in a trance in a massive, dimly-lit studio stage in Beijing. An unopened yellow letter sits heavy inside his bag backstage while the girls are already sobbing into their hands even as the intro music plays. Kris closes his eyes and lays a hand over his chest, feeling little jagged pieces of his shattered heart cutting into his palm painfully. He takes a deep breath and he sings, he sings softly and deeply. He thinks that Luhan had been right - you have to feel heartbreak before you can sing it.
PAIRING : KRISHAN
RATING : PG/ PG-13
WORD COUNT : 24K
When they are about 5 minutes away from his apartment Kris jerks up as if from a trance. Luhan’s hand on his is the only thing he can feel right now except for the bubbling hysteria in his chest.
“Stop! Stop the vehicle!”
The driver starts and glances back questioningly at them.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Kris looks out of the window. So close. They are so close to the place where Luhan will drop him off and go away, so close to the place the yellow letters lie strewn across a lonely table. He is known to be one of the most level headed artists of SM entertainment - no scandals, no pre-performance hysteria, no hissy fits during schedules - but right now Kris feel like everything about him is numb and on fire at the same time and being sensible feels near impossible.
“I-I can’t go back in there. I don’t want to go home. Let me off here.” He bangs on the door and Luhan grabs on to him in panic.
“Kris. I don’t know what’s wrong but you need to go home. Get some rest and-”
“No. Just no. Let-me-out!” he snaps at the driver.
“Kris! KRIS!” Luhan’s fragile looking hands are strong around his wrist. “wait, you can’t just- there are so many people around-everybody knows u-”
Kris struggles to free his wrist.
“Ok.Ok. wait-” Luhan takes a deep breath and turns over to the driver rattling off an address and Kris relaxes slightly as the car speeds past his apartment complex.
He leans his head on the tinted glass of the window and tries to breathe evenly. It’s hard. He wonders whether this is what is called a panic attack. He wonders whether the hand that seems to be squeezing his chest and pounding on his head will ever go away. He wonders for how long Luhan will sit next to him like this.
He is pulled out of his thoughts when the car comes to a stop in front of a small café in what he assumes is a forgotten corner of Myeongdong. Luhan runs in and then back out in a few minutes, grabbing Kris’ spare bag of clothes from the trunk of the car that the driver hastily opens for him and leads him in through the back door. There’s a strange rushing noise in his ears, loud and discordant, and Kris lets himself be pulled and pushed because he is too tired, inside out, to do anything else.
It takes Kris a few minutes to realize that he is in what looks to be the employee rest room of the café. It takes him a few more minutes to realize that Luhan is actually speaking to him. Luhan looks blurred to him, maybe he has tears in his eyes, he doesn’t know. He hears Luhan’s voice is small bursts of clarity in between flashes of the rushing noise in his ear.
“friend’s café…..we can’t stay long…change…clothes.”
Luhan is waving a pair of jeans and a dark hoodie in his face, which Kris takes, his movements slow and robotic. Ten minutes later when Luhan takes his hand and walks him back out he catches sight of himself in the sliding glass door of the café and he is wearing a dark pair of shades and a ball cap that conceals his blonde hair.
Kris doesn’t exactly realize for how long he just walks and walks and walks, but the streets are not so busy in the area and Luhan is quiet beside him.
It’s that muted time between sunset and moonrise, when things seem to slow down before picking up pace again when something is shoved into his mouth. Kris, surprised and startled, chokes on it. He looks down to see Luhan standing with a determined look on his face and a packet of Dukkbokki from a street vendor in his hands.
“Chew!” he orders.
Kris blinks and chews. The strong, spicy taste of the food attacks his senses and he feels like somebody waking up after being in a coma for 2 years.
“It’s good, right?” Luhan pops a piece in his own mouth.
Kris nods slowly; the look on Luhan’s face tells him that he would not accept any other answer.
“I’ve always wanted to eat my way through all the food stalls in Myeongdong. Never really had the time though. Always busy with work or my friends are all busy with work.” He pops another piece in his mouth and offers Kris one too. Luhan takes off walking down the street and Kris follows him feeling a little less numb, a little more lost.
Kris doesn’t know how it went from him having a small breakdown to this. But Luhan is flitting from shop to shop, stall to stall, and his voice sounds so excited and carefree - pointing at little trinkets and pet stores and buying more and more snacks - that Kris can’t get himself to do anything but just drown in it all. He listens and nods and eats more food than what he thinks he usually eats in a month on his strict diet. He doesn’t really know what is going to happen tomorrow, he doesn’t know what he is going to do if Luhan goes back to not speaking to him, what he is going to do about the yellow letters. He doesn’t know what he will do about the backlash he will get from the management for this little disappearing act and he doesn’t know what he will do about his almost shattered heart. But when Luhan giggles as he tries on a hat shaped like a koala Kris finds that for now, in this moment, everything is ok in his world.
Luhan always did know just how to save him.
It’s around 3am or maybe 4am in the morning when Kris braves going back to his apartment. Luhan is leaning himself against the wall as he pries his shoes off, and he stumbles a little. Luhan is drunk too but he is not as drunk as Kris is. He feels the curious affect of soju coursing through his veins. He doesn’t look at his bed room door, doesn’t think about the yellow letters on the table inside that room as he collapses on the couch. Luhan is hovering hesitantly near the door still so Kris pats the sofa next to him invitingly.
The alcohol seemed to be making Luhan braver because he comes over immediately and flops down next to him. They have half a bottle of Soju left over and they take turns sipping from it until Kris feels his whole body buzzing with it.
“Nice place.”
“Iss ok.” Kris feels his words slur.
Luhan giggles at him. Kris reaches out to swat him but he is off balance and instead ends up leaning his weight against Luhan.
“Ooooof- you are heavy! Get o-”
Kris looks up and realizes that his face is mere inches from Luhan’s face. He could count his individual eyelashes if he was sober enough and the pink of Luhan’s lips seem darker with Soju. Luhan’s breathe stutters and his eyes flutter as Kris skims a finger over his eyebrows, down the line of his cheeks and strokes along his jaw line coming to a stop just shy of his lips. The air turns heavy with something dark, something alluring. Luhan leans in towards him a little bit more and now Kris’ lips are brushing against the skin beside his mouth. Luhan’s breathe smells like Soju and something else, something sweet and soft- something that makes his mind flash back to falling in love with someone he has never seen before.
He thinks of feeling alive for the first time because of those letters, smiling every night in memory of them, feeling brave every day because of what they said in smudged ink. He thinks of that one line “I think I might be a little bit in love with you. I’m sorry.” He thinks anybody else would think that he is crazy, that he is stupid to feel this way but he can’t stand the thought of guilt that rakes his body when he thinks that he could almost hear the yellow letters say ‘you fell in love with me first. Me. Not him.’ Conflicted and thoughts unclear with too much alcohol, he moves his lips away, placing his head on Luhan's shoulder in apology. He takes a deep breath and gathers up his courage.
“I’m in love with somebody.” He whispers against the soft skin of Luhan's neck. He is almost hoping that Luhan doesn’t hear him but Luhan goes stiff beneath him immediately.
“I’m sorry. I love somebody already. I’m sorry.” Luhan's eyes are wide and confused. “I was never supposed to. I never wanted to. But I miss him, I miss him so much Luhan.” His mind is a fog of confusion and sadness and blinding darkness. “People like me- we are not supposed to get attached, we are not supposed to love, to feel. We are trained, we are broken apart then remolded to fit together in ways that look perfect on camera, we are supposed to make a girl want to spend thousands of won on repackaged albums with 2 extra songs, we are made to parrot back lines written by others and have no thoughts for ourselves. We are not supposed to love.”
Kris takes a shuddering breath. “Because people who love are human. They are human -and they feel and they hurt and they make mistakes. And people like that can never be perfect on camera.”
Kris usually likes it when Luhan's eyes shine but he doesn’t like it when they shine with tears that were there because of him.
“I’m sorry. I was never supposed to fall in love but-”
Suddenly Kris is sagging into the pliable cushion of the sofa because Luhan is standing up and pushing away from him. The last part of his words ‘I was never supposed to fall in love but- but I think I love you too, maybe more than him’ dies away into the night air because Luhan is already stumbling out of his apartment. The last thing Kris hears before he slides into an alcohol-induced unconsciousness is the door slamming behind Luhan's trembling back.
Kris wakes up to an angry pounding on his shoulder, and his head feels like somebody is playing an f(x) song at full volume inside it. His eyes are blurry and his tongue tastes like a cat died on it but he can’t remember anything about how this all happened.
Enuhyuk hyung is standing over him, sneezing and coughing, with an angry look on his face.
“Dammit, Kris! What the hell is the meaning of this!”
Kris winces as the noise grates on his eardrums and makes his head pound.
“Hyung… not so loud.”
“Loud? LOUD? You want loud, buddy? First I get a call from the Ivy Club staff saying you left in the middle of a shoot and then the chauffer calls saying he dropped off you and Luhan god-knows-where somewhere in Myeongdong. No warnings, no letting anybody know, no nothing. Then you don’t answer you phone, you don’t come back to the company and it’s 2.30 in the afternoon and Lee Sooman wants your head on a platter because you are supposed to be on a flight to Changsha right now to start your comeback stage rehearsals. And to add to it all I find you like this! Hung-over and looking like shit.”
EunHyuk pauses to cough violently and Kris feels heavy with guilt for doing all this. He is starting to remember a little, but he doesn’t know what happened after he opened that first bottle of soju or what happened to Luhan. Everything inside his head is covered is hazy patches of white and grey and he can tell without looking in a mirror that he looks like road-kill.
“I want answers, Kris. right now.”
Kris sits up, his back aches from curling up in a sofa too small for him and his head screams in protest at the movement. He cradles his head in his hands and wills the pain away. “Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…. Hyung, I’m- I’m so, so sorry. I will make it right. I’m so sorry.”
There is something about his tone; something about the way he says it that deflates EunHyuk's rage immediately. Kris is a good kid, whatever said and done. He has never given him any trouble, never whined and fussed like most self-entitled idols, never forgot to follow the rules, never forgot to bring him a coffee when he is tired. EunHyuk places a gentle hand on his shoulder and pats him.
“Alright. Alright. Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to take a shower and do whatever you can to make yourself look presentable. I’m going to bring you some painkillers and food. We have to pop in at SM and you have to apologize to the staff and to Sooman-ssi for all this- just say that you had a bad migraine and the medicine made you pass out. And then we can reschedule your flight and everything.”
Kris nods slowly. “Thanks, hyung. Really, thanks.”
EunHyuk snorts, and then coughs a little. “Whatever. Just because I’m saving your ass right now doesn’t mean I will let you go for this.”
“Arasso, hyung.” Kris smiles at him slightly. “Ready for any and all punishment.”
The minute he steps in to SM entertainment, he sees chaos. He rushes by Kyungsoo on the way who makes a ‘you are dead’ motion with his hand to him and a few coordi-noonas who glare at him. He feels even guiltier. An artist going abroad for a month of promotions is not an easy thing ever. The fan cameras only capture the artist and maybe the manager at the airport but they don’t see the team of stylists, backup dancers, wardrobe managers, PR representatives, translators, stage hands, writers, and many others who have to give up their lives and fly abroad with the artists at short notice. Any mishap on the side of the artist results in the disarray of the lives of so many others.
Lee Sooman screams at him for 15 minutes straight before he says “Well, then, good luck for your comeback promotions” in the calmest voice possible - which scares Kris the most. Next up is a round of bowing and apologizing to every single person he inconvenienced by his disappearance and phone calls to Ivy Club staff. Even when he just wants to lie down and rest his aching head he runs around doing everything he was supposed to do yesterday, and getting ready for everything he is supposed to next.
His flight is re-scheduled for the next afternoon and Kris literally collapses on his bed after taking what is probably a little too many of painkillers. Right before he falls asleep he remembers the sound of a slamming door and for a panicked second he thinks of Luhan. But the day has taken a lot out of him and he slips into darkness even as he is trying to reach for his phone.
The next morning he is put to autograph a few hundred albums in preparation of upcoming fan-signs until he starts hating his own name. Then it’s a run through of the title song and a last minute wardrobe fittings. It’s nearly time for his to go back home and get ready to leave when they give him a five minute break. Kris makes an immediate beeline to find EunHyuk hyung, nope he is not there. Yixing is teaching some new trainees basic popping and locking, and nope he is not there either. Kyungsoo is his last option. But Kyungsoo is alone in the recording room, his feet up on the table, munching on a box of fried chicken.
“Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be leaving now? Don’t tell me no- because I already threw a celebration party when I heard you will be away for a month.” Kyungsoo grins at him.
“Hahaa very funny.” Kris grins back. “No I was just- umm…. Soo…?”
“Just spit it out, Kriscasso.”
“umm, well, Soo do you have Luhan's address on you right now?”
Kyungsoo raises his eyebrow so high that it nearly disappears into his hair. He stares at Kris munching slowly on a chicken wing for so long that Kris huffs at him defensively. “what? I just asked!”
“Fine, fine. I didn’t even say anything!” Kyungsoo sets aside his chicken and scrolls through his phone. “Aha! Here we go. I’m sending it to you now.”
Kris’ phone vibrates. “Ok, got it. Thanks, Soo.”
“Whatever. Why do you want it anyway?”
“Just- just thought I would check up on him. Since he is sick or something I think. Didn’t come in today or yesterday so I think-” Kris stops his rambling when he realizes Kyungsoo is looking at him with a strange look on his face. “What?”
“Kris.” Kyungsoo’s voice is careful. “Kris, didn’t you know? I mean, I thought he would have told you himself or at least EunHyuk would have told you.” Kris is not sure whether he wants to hear the rest.
“Yesterday morning, while you were all MIA, Luhan quit.”
Kris stares at Kyungsoo with dawning horror because he suddenly remembers. I already love somebody. I’m sorry. The hand wrapped around his phone trembles as he remembers tears in Luhan's eyes and a slamming door.
“Kris, are you ok? Shit, why do you look so pale…” Kyungsoo is reaching out for him but Kris backs away. Sharp knuckles rap on the studio door and there’s EunHyuk's voice calling out to him “Hey, time to go!” and Kris stumbles in his hurry to get out of the room where Kris can picture Luhan in every corner.
If EunHyuk sees something different in his face, he doesn’t comment on it. He lets Kris run into his apartment alone, signaling five minutes with his hand.
Kris has felt sad, he has felt alone, desperate, upset and many other things but he can’t remember the last time he felt such rage in him. The past 48 hours have been too much of an emotional rollercoaster for him and right now he can’t feel anything but anger. He kicks at the coffee table and it crashes to the floor, strewing fan-given plush toys and letters and cards across the floor - he could care less.
He changes and is almost out of the door when a glint of yellow catches the corner of his eye. He stops abruptly and turns back slowly. No, no way. It’s been nearly four weeks, there can be no more letters, no- but there it is lying on the ground, nearly hidden by the head of a duck-shaped toy and a pink letter, soundless and still as ever. Kris snatches is up and he doesn’t know quite what to feel when he sees the oh-so-familiar Chinese characters spelling out his name and the alpaca sketched in a corner.
Something like a sob rises up in his chest and he tells himself firmly not now, no, not now. Not when he has so much to do, not when he owes so much to the people around him right now. So he just pushes the envelope into his backpack and runs out to meet EunHyuk hyung.
Two weeks later, Kris performs his comeback song for the first time in front 1000 girls chanting his name as if in a trance in a massive, dimly-lit studio stage in Beijing. An unopened yellow letter sits heavy inside his bag backstage while the girls are already sobbing into their hands even as the intro music plays. Kris closes his eyes and lays a hand over his chest, feeling little jagged pieces of his shattered heart cutting into his palm painfully. He takes a deep breath and he sings, he sings softly and deeply. He thinks that Luhan had been right - you have to feel heartbreak before you can sing it.