broken |exo x male|

12 - The Nights

Su Ju's POV

I woke up to the sound of silence. No alarm, no birds chirping, nothing.

As I got out of bed, the wooden floor creaked underneath my feet. I tiptoed down the hallway, checking the other member's rooms only to find no one.

Even NCT, who had stayed for the night in the living room, was now gone.

"Hello?" I called out. Where did everybody go?

I grabbed the spare keys sitting on the television before leaving the dorm. I called Chen, only to get no reply. There weren't even any people outside. It was completely desolate at 7:00 a.m. in the streets of Seoul. I couldn't believe this. As I looked around, I noticed how all of the shops were closed. Everything was closed. It was like time stopped. I walked around and called out to...anyone.

As I walked down a few blocks, I suddenly found myself at the hospital. How had I gotten there so fast? How had I gotten there overall?

I walked through the empty hallways before coming upon my mother's room.

All that was there was my step father, standing over her.

A long beep ringed throughout my ears.

"This is your fault..." He whispered.

"YOU'RE FAULT, YOU'RE FAULT." He began to yell.

I stood there, frozen.

I felt the urge to cry, but no tears came out.

Something then began to hug me from the back.

"You're not going to leave us, are you Su Ju?" Chen asked, whispering into my ear.

I was unable to speak. I tried to get out of Chen's grasp but he held on tighter. My father turned to me and all 12 of the EXO members suddenly surrounded me. They kept on asking me if I was going to leave them and my father kept on yelling at me, saying that it was my fault. I dragged my body with the weight of thirteen men over to my mother's side. She suddenly grabbed my wrist and stared at me as her black eyes widened.

"Why Su Ju?

Are you going to leave me too?"

I woke up, screaming.

Something was around my waste and I squirmed and pushed against it until it began to move.

"Yah, Su Ju! Are you okay?"

I looked down to see Jeno, curled up against my waist.

"Jeno? Why are you in my bed?" I asked, wiping the sweat on my forehead.

"I got scared in the living room so I came to you during the middle of the night and I asked you if I could stay with you. And you said yes. But it was cold on the floor so I crawled into your bed." Jeno explained. "Are you okay though? You were screaming pretty loudly."

"Y-Yeah, just a bad dream. Just a nightmare. It wasn't real." I kept on trying to reassure myself.

"Well, come on. We should probably get up- we need to work on Limitless again." Jeno said. "We were told everything in your schedule yesterday and Manager Hyun said to just work on Limitless instead of your album songs."

"Yeah, okay. Let me just take a shower." I said, yawning and throwing my bedsheets to the ground.

"Can I take a shower with you?" Jeno asked cutely. He did aegyo, that adorable thing. So of course I had to say yes.

But when he asked that, why did I get a hint of nostalgia?

That's when it came to me.

"Tao..." I whispered.

"Huh?" Jeno asked.

"What? Oh, nothing, nothing." Jeez, I had to stop thinking things out aloud.

You see, Jeno and I were always close friends. Back when I lived in China, I was a SM trainee when I was sixteen and seventeen years old. NCT had been hanging out in China for around a year, and I got the honor of meeting them and even befriending them. I hung out with them after my practice, and they helped me. However, I lost touch with them after I moved to Seoul and they stayed in China for a bit longer. I hadn't seen them until yesterday. I was close with a lot of the NCT members. But there was that one guy who I was really close with.

I shared all of my secrets with him, all of my emotions and feelings with him and backstabbed me.

As I got into the shower, Jeno trailed in behind me. While I was used to showering with him, I would still be embarrassed of course. This lead me to get out of the shower quicker. I dried myself off, got dressed, and walked downstairs where everyone was awake and bustling about. Kyungsoo had made us all breakfast, including me this one time.

But for some reason, aside from the normal seven-glares-of-EXO's-wrath, I also felt a couple more. And automatically, I knew why.

A lot of the NCT members were younger than EXO. And I recall them basically praising or worshipping the EXO members.

Most specifically, Lay.

Something about just plain out appreciating him and looking up to him.

I also recall some of the other NCT members liking the other EXO members as well. A lot.

What did I do to get so much hate?

~

After practicing the dance moves of Limitless with the actual NCT members, we had lunch.

Or at least the other guys had lunch.

I stayed at the dance practice room, working on the album song's dances. Jeno had stayed with me, as well as Yuta- another NCT member who was a close friend of mine.

I was practicing and trying out some of the moves from 'Power' when Yuta spoke up.

"Su Ju, are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, why?" I was quick to answer. I really didn't want anyone to know how poorly I was being treated- what if what I said got leaked out somehow?

"You aren't your normal self. A few years back, you were pumping with so much energy. You were happy 24/7, and now you just seem...depressed."

"I also noticed that." Jeno said. "You're just not happy...are you sure you'll be able to handle the pressure once everyone knows who you are and how you were supposed to replace Lay?"

"Honestly guys, I don't know. But for now, all I can do is work hard."