The Yellow Letters (8/9)
TITLE : THE YELLOW LETTERS (8/9)
PAIRING : KRISHAN
RATING : PG
WORD COUNT : 24K
A/N : This is for exoz, whose comment on the seventh chapter quite literally made my day. No, seriously, it did. Thank you ^_^ Hope this chapter doesn't make people want to hate me. Too much.
“SM Entertainments star solo artist Kris Wu takes China by a storm.”
“’In The Night When I Miss You’ achieves ‘all-kill’ on all music charts and has 500,000 copies of the album pre-ordered.”
“SM’s star Kris has fan girls all over the world swooning over his emotional and touching title track quite different from his previous style.”
“Critics describe his new album to have a finesse that most artists achieve in their 30’s and applaud the hard work the young artist had clearly put into improving his vocal skills.”
EunHyuk is scrolling through his Samsung tablet and picking out random comments to read out loud to Kris. A few months, or even a few weeks back Kris would have given up a lot to hear people say that his albums sell for much more than just its photobook. But right now he could care less. He is just so exhausted. Success comes with such an expensive price tag.
EunHyuk hyung looks so utterly pleased so Kris smiles back at him wanly. He sees a few cameras and phones swivel in his direction and he works hard to make his smile look bigger, look more sincere. He had barely been back from LA after K-CON and they had flown him to a fan sign. And now he is right back in the airport waiting for a flight back to Korea for the first time in three weeks. He feels like he just wants to disappear but he has a shoot for Nylon and then an appearance at Mnet and Music Core and then another shoot for Ivy Club, GQ men, Kolon sport and So cool magazine during the next 5 days. Disappearing, being invisible is a rare luxury for someone like him and even now the Changsha Huanghua International Airport is filled with a hundred odd fan girls with cameras trained on him. He lowers his cap over his face and leans a head on EunHyuk hyung’s shoulder and attempts to sleep for a while.
He is a little groggy and a lot disgruntled when the plane lands in Incheon. He had not gotten much rest on the plan due to a couple of fan girls who had followed him on-board and kept calling out to him all throughout the flight - nobody can really sleep when there are constant camera flashes going off in front of their eyes.
In his irritation and with thoughts of a million things he has to do running through his mind he forgets what it really means to arrive in Korea after a long time like this. With a new album out but no live performances or fan signs in Korea the fans have been revved up to a fanatic state. Nursed by fan cameras and fan accounts, starved by the lack of new material in their official fansites they pounce on him the minute he steps in through customs. The unexpectedness of their screams in his ear makes Kris disoriented for a second, he loses track of manager hyung and he can see nothing but a sea of long hair and winter coats and sophisticated cameras melding together in front of him.
“OPPA!”
“OPPAAAA YOU ARE BACK!”
“”Kris, look here!
“Oppa take this!”
“Kris! Kris! so handsome!”
Kris takes small step after step but it feels like he is trying to go upstream in a raging flood. It’s all a mess of hot bodies pressing against his and frantic hands trying to hold on to some part of him. A girl stumbles and falls to the ground near him and he bends down to help her up despite the many warnings EunHyuk have given him about not doing this. He ends up losing his balance in the pushy crowd and falling to his knees.
He can immediately feel fingers running along the skin on his back between his jeans and the t-shirt, exposed by his fall, and he feels his skin crawling at the touch. Another girl clutches at his arm and he feels as if he can’t breathe when he watches her sink her red nails into his forearm. There is a smile on her face and a manic gleam in her eyes and there are flashes of cameras all around him blinding him, choking him. He feels like he is seconds from snapping, his sanity crumbling around the already frayed edges. While he is pushing himself off the ground back to his feet someone pulls at him making his backpack fall to the ground and its contents are strewn beneath trampling feet.
Some girls stop trying to touch him and instantly pounce on this new treasure squabbling and knocking over each other in their haste to somehow secure something of Kris for themselves. He feels helpless as he watches one girl snatch up his favorite sleeping t-shirt after dragging back another girl viciously by her hair. He watches all this feeling a little more than helpless. He doesn’t have the energy to fight back anyway.
But when he sees a hand reach out for something yellow in his backpack something snaps in him. He gives and gives and always gives. He has given away his free time, his peace of mind, his favorite kinds of sweets, his childhood photos, his smiles, his voice, his personal space and what little possessions he carries in his bags to fans. But the yellow letters, they are something more than precious to him. I didn’t even open it yet, he thinks, how can you take it away? The one thing he had for himself, the one memory of something he loves, the one memory of losing someone he loved because of it. The one thing he had dared to get attached to, the one thing that taught him how to feel again, how to love Luhan.
He stands straight and looks at the girl. So far he had been getting pushed and pulled along with crowd while the airport security tried and failed to take him out of the crowd. But suddenly he feels like something strong is holding him steady and motionless in the midst of the hysterically undulating crowd. Something strong, something yellow and bright, something like a pair of shinning eyes.
“Give that back.”
He hasn’t raised his voice at all but his tone is in such sharp, cutting contrast to his usual easy-going one that the squabbling crowd around him goes still in unison. He lifts his head and meets the eyes of girl pulling his bag apart head on. He remembers seeing her so many times before. He remembers being scared of her. Something like a shiver goes down her back and suddenly she is not the overly-confident, smug girl who likes to drape her arm across his neck. She is small and insignificant and frightened. Kris is not scared anymore.
Before he had had nothing much to fight over. Nothing but his own mediocre self. But now he is special - at least to that one person and the only thing he has left of that person is that one last unopened yellow letter. He finally has something to fight for, something to call his own.
He reaches out snatches the letter from her hands and then his backpack and zips it up. He remembers the quiet but stern voice that Luhan had used to speak in to the fans.
“It is nice seeing you all after such a long time but please move now. I need to get to the van. You can see oppa performing at M!Countdown tonight.” His head is clearer than it had ever been in a long time.
Quite a few girls around him have their mouths hanging open wide in surprise and it looks so comical that Kris can’t believe himself but he almost feels like laughing. Then one girl steps back and pulls another two with her. Kris smiles at her, small but heartfelt. A few more girls follow her and soon there is a small path cleared out for him to get to EunHyuk hyung who he spots waving his arms at the airport security furiously, probably shouting at them for not having better crowd control. Some of them still reach out to touch him, snap pictures of him, they still whisper love confessions and try to thrust gifts into his hand. But it doesn’t feel so overwhelming anymore; he even smiles at few, accepts a few gifts and says a few quiet ‘annyeong haseyo’s and ‘Thank You’s.
When he finally makes it to the van, EunHyuk looks at him like he is looking at an alien with bird-beaks for toes and dinner plates for eyes and pink skin. Kris doesn’t care if hyung scolds him for talking back to the fans so he just dumps the gifts in his hands to the back seat and stretches out comfortably on the front one. There are fans tapping on the windows and usually he would be sitting up model-like and making serious faces at the fan cams because that’s what they expect him to do. Right now, though, he feels like just settling into his own skin comfortably more than anything else. His blood thrums with something inexpressible. It’s not the adrenaline rush of a performance, not the fear of drowning in a crowd, it’s not the high of receiving an award, it’s not the sordid feeling of scratchy-skin that comes with having to belong to so many people. It feels a little like making peace with a little part of himself.
“Dude. Like DUUUDE.” EunHyuk hyung says in wonder, twisting in his seat to look back at Kris. So no scolding then.
Kris smiles at him.
“Dude, that was good. Where did you find a backbone to do that from?” he backs out of the parking spot and the fan girls scatter -waving their final goodbyes to the van.
Kris’ smile gets even more wider.
“Well, look at you. Just look at you. They grow up so fast.” EunHyuk pretends to wipe mock tears from his eyes as he says in a teasing voice.
Kris just closes him eyes and pats himself over the heart. “I have been brave, Luhan-ah.” He whispers softly to himself. “I have been brave. Did I do well?”
The shoot for Nylon goes easily enough though they take hours applying intricate tattoo designs to his skin and the photographer is unhappy with every picture where Kris has his shirt on. At M!Countdown he sings with a newly made peace for lost love and with thoughts how the very first yellow letter that told him of seeing so many of his fan girls outside the Mnet studio lined up days ahead of his performace to watch him.
It’s 9pm when EunHyuk drops him off at home and he has some time to himself till 2pm tomorrow when the next round of magazine shoots start. The skies are overcast and dark with clouds hanging heavy and the winds cold - it’s feels like going to snow soon- the first snow fall of the season. He sighs as he toes off his shoes and sees the living room the same way he had left it - scattered with the contents of the coffee table he had kicked over in helpless anger.
He cleans everything up before flopping down on his bed. After a few moments of staring at his ceiling he pulls at his backpack lying on the ground and takes out the final unopened yellow letter. It’s slightly crumpled but otherwise unharmed.
Kris traces the alpaca drawn in the corner with his finger slowly.
“Why?” the alpaca stares back him silently.
“Why didn’t you ever give me a way to write back to you?” still no answer. “Why did you write again, after such a long time?”
He feels warm just by holding the letter. “Who are you?”
Kris thinks of falling in love, of missing people, he thinks of giving up and then he thinks of the elating feeling of fighting for something he loves. With a final decisive exhale he rips open the yellow envelope.
He reads the letter once.
And then he reads it again.
He feels his whole body tremble as images and memories fly past his eyes in jumbled flashes. His breathe stutters and his ears ring. And then all of a sudden things start to make sense, so much sense. He stumbles out of bed and takes a few shaky steps.
The first few steps are always the hardest - the moments caught between decision and indecision. The first few times trying to remembers to step, step, shoulder-twist and pause, the first whiff of coffee in the air, the first times trying to modulate your voice to sing softly but deeply, the first few tears, the first few flashbacks, the first few sincere smiles - they are always the hardest, he thinks.
Then the shaking stops and Kris snatches his phone from the bedside table and takes off running. He takes off running, heart thundering in his ears but his footsteps sure, because he has somewhere important to be.
PAIRING : KRISHAN
RATING : PG
WORD COUNT : 24K
A/N : This is for exoz, whose comment on the seventh chapter quite literally made my day. No, seriously, it did. Thank you ^_^ Hope this chapter doesn't make people want to hate me. Too much.
“SM Entertainments star solo artist Kris Wu takes China by a storm.”
“’In The Night When I Miss You’ achieves ‘all-kill’ on all music charts and has 500,000 copies of the album pre-ordered.”
“SM’s star Kris has fan girls all over the world swooning over his emotional and touching title track quite different from his previous style.”
“Critics describe his new album to have a finesse that most artists achieve in their 30’s and applaud the hard work the young artist had clearly put into improving his vocal skills.”
EunHyuk is scrolling through his Samsung tablet and picking out random comments to read out loud to Kris. A few months, or even a few weeks back Kris would have given up a lot to hear people say that his albums sell for much more than just its photobook. But right now he could care less. He is just so exhausted. Success comes with such an expensive price tag.
EunHyuk hyung looks so utterly pleased so Kris smiles back at him wanly. He sees a few cameras and phones swivel in his direction and he works hard to make his smile look bigger, look more sincere. He had barely been back from LA after K-CON and they had flown him to a fan sign. And now he is right back in the airport waiting for a flight back to Korea for the first time in three weeks. He feels like he just wants to disappear but he has a shoot for Nylon and then an appearance at Mnet and Music Core and then another shoot for Ivy Club, GQ men, Kolon sport and So cool magazine during the next 5 days. Disappearing, being invisible is a rare luxury for someone like him and even now the Changsha Huanghua International Airport is filled with a hundred odd fan girls with cameras trained on him. He lowers his cap over his face and leans a head on EunHyuk hyung’s shoulder and attempts to sleep for a while.
He is a little groggy and a lot disgruntled when the plane lands in Incheon. He had not gotten much rest on the plan due to a couple of fan girls who had followed him on-board and kept calling out to him all throughout the flight - nobody can really sleep when there are constant camera flashes going off in front of their eyes.
In his irritation and with thoughts of a million things he has to do running through his mind he forgets what it really means to arrive in Korea after a long time like this. With a new album out but no live performances or fan signs in Korea the fans have been revved up to a fanatic state. Nursed by fan cameras and fan accounts, starved by the lack of new material in their official fansites they pounce on him the minute he steps in through customs. The unexpectedness of their screams in his ear makes Kris disoriented for a second, he loses track of manager hyung and he can see nothing but a sea of long hair and winter coats and sophisticated cameras melding together in front of him.
“OPPA!”
“OPPAAAA YOU ARE BACK!”
“”Kris, look here!
“Oppa take this!”
“Kris! Kris! so handsome!”
Kris takes small step after step but it feels like he is trying to go upstream in a raging flood. It’s all a mess of hot bodies pressing against his and frantic hands trying to hold on to some part of him. A girl stumbles and falls to the ground near him and he bends down to help her up despite the many warnings EunHyuk have given him about not doing this. He ends up losing his balance in the pushy crowd and falling to his knees.
He can immediately feel fingers running along the skin on his back between his jeans and the t-shirt, exposed by his fall, and he feels his skin crawling at the touch. Another girl clutches at his arm and he feels as if he can’t breathe when he watches her sink her red nails into his forearm. There is a smile on her face and a manic gleam in her eyes and there are flashes of cameras all around him blinding him, choking him. He feels like he is seconds from snapping, his sanity crumbling around the already frayed edges. While he is pushing himself off the ground back to his feet someone pulls at him making his backpack fall to the ground and its contents are strewn beneath trampling feet.
Some girls stop trying to touch him and instantly pounce on this new treasure squabbling and knocking over each other in their haste to somehow secure something of Kris for themselves. He feels helpless as he watches one girl snatch up his favorite sleeping t-shirt after dragging back another girl viciously by her hair. He watches all this feeling a little more than helpless. He doesn’t have the energy to fight back anyway.
But when he sees a hand reach out for something yellow in his backpack something snaps in him. He gives and gives and always gives. He has given away his free time, his peace of mind, his favorite kinds of sweets, his childhood photos, his smiles, his voice, his personal space and what little possessions he carries in his bags to fans. But the yellow letters, they are something more than precious to him. I didn’t even open it yet, he thinks, how can you take it away? The one thing he had for himself, the one memory of something he loves, the one memory of losing someone he loved because of it. The one thing he had dared to get attached to, the one thing that taught him how to feel again, how to love Luhan.
He stands straight and looks at the girl. So far he had been getting pushed and pulled along with crowd while the airport security tried and failed to take him out of the crowd. But suddenly he feels like something strong is holding him steady and motionless in the midst of the hysterically undulating crowd. Something strong, something yellow and bright, something like a pair of shinning eyes.
“Give that back.”
He hasn’t raised his voice at all but his tone is in such sharp, cutting contrast to his usual easy-going one that the squabbling crowd around him goes still in unison. He lifts his head and meets the eyes of girl pulling his bag apart head on. He remembers seeing her so many times before. He remembers being scared of her. Something like a shiver goes down her back and suddenly she is not the overly-confident, smug girl who likes to drape her arm across his neck. She is small and insignificant and frightened. Kris is not scared anymore.
Before he had had nothing much to fight over. Nothing but his own mediocre self. But now he is special - at least to that one person and the only thing he has left of that person is that one last unopened yellow letter. He finally has something to fight for, something to call his own.
He reaches out snatches the letter from her hands and then his backpack and zips it up. He remembers the quiet but stern voice that Luhan had used to speak in to the fans.
“It is nice seeing you all after such a long time but please move now. I need to get to the van. You can see oppa performing at M!Countdown tonight.” His head is clearer than it had ever been in a long time.
Quite a few girls around him have their mouths hanging open wide in surprise and it looks so comical that Kris can’t believe himself but he almost feels like laughing. Then one girl steps back and pulls another two with her. Kris smiles at her, small but heartfelt. A few more girls follow her and soon there is a small path cleared out for him to get to EunHyuk hyung who he spots waving his arms at the airport security furiously, probably shouting at them for not having better crowd control. Some of them still reach out to touch him, snap pictures of him, they still whisper love confessions and try to thrust gifts into his hand. But it doesn’t feel so overwhelming anymore; he even smiles at few, accepts a few gifts and says a few quiet ‘annyeong haseyo’s and ‘Thank You’s.
When he finally makes it to the van, EunHyuk looks at him like he is looking at an alien with bird-beaks for toes and dinner plates for eyes and pink skin. Kris doesn’t care if hyung scolds him for talking back to the fans so he just dumps the gifts in his hands to the back seat and stretches out comfortably on the front one. There are fans tapping on the windows and usually he would be sitting up model-like and making serious faces at the fan cams because that’s what they expect him to do. Right now, though, he feels like just settling into his own skin comfortably more than anything else. His blood thrums with something inexpressible. It’s not the adrenaline rush of a performance, not the fear of drowning in a crowd, it’s not the high of receiving an award, it’s not the sordid feeling of scratchy-skin that comes with having to belong to so many people. It feels a little like making peace with a little part of himself.
“Dude. Like DUUUDE.” EunHyuk hyung says in wonder, twisting in his seat to look back at Kris. So no scolding then.
Kris smiles at him.
“Dude, that was good. Where did you find a backbone to do that from?” he backs out of the parking spot and the fan girls scatter -waving their final goodbyes to the van.
Kris’ smile gets even more wider.
“Well, look at you. Just look at you. They grow up so fast.” EunHyuk pretends to wipe mock tears from his eyes as he says in a teasing voice.
Kris just closes him eyes and pats himself over the heart. “I have been brave, Luhan-ah.” He whispers softly to himself. “I have been brave. Did I do well?”
The shoot for Nylon goes easily enough though they take hours applying intricate tattoo designs to his skin and the photographer is unhappy with every picture where Kris has his shirt on. At M!Countdown he sings with a newly made peace for lost love and with thoughts how the very first yellow letter that told him of seeing so many of his fan girls outside the Mnet studio lined up days ahead of his performace to watch him.
It’s 9pm when EunHyuk drops him off at home and he has some time to himself till 2pm tomorrow when the next round of magazine shoots start. The skies are overcast and dark with clouds hanging heavy and the winds cold - it’s feels like going to snow soon- the first snow fall of the season. He sighs as he toes off his shoes and sees the living room the same way he had left it - scattered with the contents of the coffee table he had kicked over in helpless anger.
He cleans everything up before flopping down on his bed. After a few moments of staring at his ceiling he pulls at his backpack lying on the ground and takes out the final unopened yellow letter. It’s slightly crumpled but otherwise unharmed.
Kris traces the alpaca drawn in the corner with his finger slowly.
“Why?” the alpaca stares back him silently.
“Why didn’t you ever give me a way to write back to you?” still no answer. “Why did you write again, after such a long time?”
He feels warm just by holding the letter. “Who are you?”
Kris thinks of falling in love, of missing people, he thinks of giving up and then he thinks of the elating feeling of fighting for something he loves. With a final decisive exhale he rips open the yellow envelope.
He reads the letter once.
And then he reads it again.
He feels his whole body tremble as images and memories fly past his eyes in jumbled flashes. His breathe stutters and his ears ring. And then all of a sudden things start to make sense, so much sense. He stumbles out of bed and takes a few shaky steps.
The first few steps are always the hardest - the moments caught between decision and indecision. The first few times trying to remembers to step, step, shoulder-twist and pause, the first whiff of coffee in the air, the first times trying to modulate your voice to sing softly but deeply, the first few tears, the first few flashbacks, the first few sincere smiles - they are always the hardest, he thinks.
Then the shaking stops and Kris snatches his phone from the bedside table and takes off running. He takes off running, heart thundering in his ears but his footsteps sure, because he has somewhere important to be.