Deer Luhan, With Love

9

Chapter 9 – In Which I Make Headlines… Again

Deer Luhan,

Permission to take Lay with me when I leave?  He’s a total sweetheart.

Leigh

If Lay ever invites you to spend the afternoon with him, accept, whether or not you’re posing as his fellow group-mate.  He’s one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met, and he has a way of making you feel good about yourself, no matter what Luhan’s absence and loose ends might throw at you.  Not really hard to see why he was marketed as a healing unicorn.  He’s a unique little narwhal, is Lay, and given the chance, I’d say he could probably even cheer up the Grumpy Cat.

I actually thoroughly enjoyed the day out.  Lunch was great (I paid – I felt totally vindicated in using Luhan’s card for the first time), and we spent a pleasant few hours wandering around Seoul, chatting in Korean and greeting people who recognised us.  It was the first time I’d been out without being pretty much stalked by fans, and I have to say it made a change.  We even nearly forgot about buying food for the dorm.

All in all, I was in a relaxed and rather cheerful mood when we got back, only to find ourselves actually blocked from getting into the building through the main entrance by a huge horde of hormonal teenagers (even getting in around the fire escape at the back proved difficult), but my happiness didn’t deteriorate until the manager met us in the stairwell.

“Ah, Luhan,” he said in a tone that I instinctively took to be trouble.  “I was just about to ring you.  How’s the translation for Stay coming along?  We’ve put it up as the fun performance at the start on the seventeenth.  Kai said you two wouldn’t be able to have a decent dance routine polished in time, so we’ll save that one for another occasion.”

It took me a couple of moments to organise my thoughts.

“But Stay’s not going to be ready either—” I tried as Lay slipped in through the door.

The manager clapped me on the back and laughed.  “Rubbish!  It was looking great just before we left on tour.  The bridge needs the choreography to be a bit more bombastic, but that won’t take long to fix.  And besides, you and Kai doing a duet dance isn’t as fair to the others as taking six of you and singing a song you wrote.  I know you’re nervous about it, Luhan, but you’ve got to look at your image too.  You’ve been getting a lot of criticisms lately for not dancing as well as usual, but performing a song you wrote yourself will restore your credibility.  Hell, we could even release it as a single or something if it goes down well.  The fans are going to love it.  But we’re in Korea, so it’d go down better and it would be a better image for you if it’s done in Korean rather than Chinese.  Makes you look more talented and dedicated towards the fans.  Make sure to run the translation past us by tomorrow afternoon.  We won’t be able to record it, but it’s enough time to prepare to sing it live if you only use three singers.”  He ruffled my hair and left before I could object.

Angrily brushing my hair back into position with my hand, I stomped into the dorm.

The EXO members were all huddled round the sofa.  Chanyeol was sitting there with his laptop and an uncharacteristically serious expression.  Baekhyun and D.O. were sitting beside him and Chen was on the floor by their feet, busily engaged in tying all their shoelaces together.  Tao had perched himself on the sofa’s armchair and was peering over at the computer screen.  Kai, freshly showered and with only a towel around his waist, had his arms braced against the sofa back as he stood by Suho and Kris, who were conversing in low voices as they cast glances at the computer.  Sehun was trying to involve himself in the conversation and Lay was staring into space.  Xiumin looked up as the door shut and scowled.