A week later, a weak voice could be heard down a deserted alley in Chinatown, behind an abandoned Laundry Mart.
"Where am I?" asked Eric looking around the darkened alley. Horrific images rushed into his mind. Blood. Dying bodies. Senseless lost of life. Then the running away from it all ... desperate running to safety before tripping, falling and blacking out.
"Ouch," he groaned then he sat up on the kerb and rubbed his head. A bruise was already forming where he had hit the pavement. He glanced at the streets and the neon street signs.
"Am I in Hong Kong? Did I just finish filming a music video with Tablo and Gallant? Sure looks like the streets of Hong Kong," he whispered into the darkness.
Random images interrupted his trend of thought. Screaming. Whizzing sounds as bullets pierced the air. A sharp pain pierced through his skull. He moaned and remembered that he had told all his friends that 2017 was a year to stop, rest and recover and 2018 was the year to work himself to the ground. His head spun and he lowered himself slowly back to a grassy patch between the paving stones.
The dull ache in his heart tired him out more than the sharp pounding in his temples. He muttered under his breath, "If I should die, at least my mum would be happy. I kept my promise. I got married mum." Humour was what his fans loved about him; he could be ironic under extreme pressure. Of course, they loved his love songs even more... no matter how hard he tried it was an image that stuck. Affectionate phrases clung to him like the silken threads of a spider: Every home should have an Eric Nam. The Nation's boyfriend. An ideal son who is used as an exemplar to make all sons feel bad. Most of all, through the years, they liked the fact that he had asked so many girls to marry him through his songs in concerts all over the world.
"Sorry mum, ...I know...the marriage wasn't real but it was the best I could do," sighed Eric as he thought of his on-screen wife Solar. Her laughter made him happy.
They would never be able to even date in real life but those nine months made him realize how much a relationship would distract him from producing music and restrict his travel. He had so many first with her—making Kimchi, helping choose a wedding dress, doing a Middle Eastern dance and lots of other silliness that only Korean reality-shows like "We Got Married" challenged its celebrities to perform.
"Still I levelled up from just being a wedding singer. Tell me I have done well, mum," he whispered.
His eyelids shut as a staccato rhythm floated passed his mind before the nothingness took over.
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Honestly, Beautiful -- Amber Liu and Eric Nam FF
FanfictionIf they had stayed put in the cities where they were born, they probably would have never met... Instead, first Amber then Eric journeyed across the sky to a land where cabbage was pickled in chilli paste and steak was sliced super thin and wrapped...
