The Bodyguard (An EXO Fanfiction)

The News that Shocked the World (and me)

I woke up from a very relaxing sleep and got up to eat breakfast. By the time I arrived in the kitchen to make myself some coffee and eat breakfast, I noticed a grim mood was blanketed around the house. Everyone was extremely silent and huddled in a group.

"What's going on?" I asked in a concerned voice, walking slowly over to them.

"It's Kris..." Suho replied fainlty, "... he's gone."

"What?" I asked, my eyes widening, "What do you mean? He's not dead, is he?"

"No. He left." Suho replied, passing me a peice of paper with his eyes turned down. Everyone watched me intently as I looked at the note written in Kris's handwritting.

It read:

'By the time you guys read this, I will have already been gone. Don't try looking for me because I won't come back. I'm done with SM and the group. I quit. I'm sorry.'

The letter was short, but it still had the ability to rip my heart out of my chest.

Gone? Without a word and without a trace.

"Why would he just leave like this?" Tao asked angrily, his eyebrows drawn together and his fists clenched. "There must be a reason."

Then it dawned on me. The reason had to be his heart condition. But if he hadn't told the boys by now, then there was no way he wanted them to know at all. I kept silent as I tried to console the boys.

"Maybe he'll come back." I said, trying to be optimistic.

"Didn't you read the letter at all Aria? He says he's never coming back!" Tao replied angrily, "Once Kris says something, he means it."

"I hate to agree with Tao, but he's right." Suho said, it looked like he was holding back tears. "If he says he's not coming back he means it."

"Was it something we did?" Sehun asked timidly. "Maybe we made him angry..."

"No that can't be it." Kai replied, "Aria, why don't you try to call him? If anyone could reach him, it's you."

"A-alright, I'll try." I said, Kai's reasoning giving me a glimmer of hope. I went to my room to retrieve my phone. I dialed the number and called, walking over to Kris's room out of curiosity. Everything was cleaned out.

As I waited for the call to go through, I couldn't help but notice a ringing noise coming  from within the room. I searched for the noise and found Kris's phone was set on his pillow with another note that said: 'I refuse to rely on SM anymore, so I'm returning everything they've given me.'

"What did you find?" Tao asked, appearing behind my shoulder.

"H-he left his phone..." I replied, somehow feeling my spirit being crushed. He really didn't want anyone to find him... not even me.

"I'm calling the manager." Suho declared, a sadness still lingering in his tone.

I shifted my attention back to the Tao when he sat down on Kris's bed and groaned loudly. He had his head cradled in his hands and I could tell that he was seething.

Surprisingly, Tao was the only one who was angry rather than sad. As Kris's closest friend, I thought he would be crying a river.

"I've never felt so betrayed in my life." Tao muttered. "After all we've been through together, as the leader of this group and as one of the few Chinese guys here in SM, how could he do this? I trusted him!" He grabbed onto Kris's phone and threw it across the room at the wall, shattering it instantly.

"M-maybe he had a reason." I said, not comfortable at all with this new side of Tao.

"Aria, shouldn't you be as angry as I am?" Tao asked, looking up at me for the first time that morning. "He didn't only leave EXO, he left you too."