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| Kai-shi |
By : Sehunna & Abelu
EXOstans 93 Liners
Foreword :
Ignore my
existence.
Do not ask
who I am or if I matter because I really don’t.
I am
dying.
I’ve been suffering from fangirlitis since I turned 13.
I can’t be cured because the only antidote is the poison itself.
Kai, he
goes by that name.
And he is
both my death and my life.
Characters :
Kai : a K
Pop idol
Ella :
average fan girl / infected by fangirlitis
Yoo Jin :
Ella’s best friend
Ari : Yoo
Jin’s cousin who works for EXO
EXO : A
kop boy band where Kai is the main dancer / visual.
Manager Hyung:
manager of EXO
Kyungsoo :
(mentioned) Exo’s vocal /
Kai’s band mate / has a heart-shaped
smile
Ella’s POV:
I have
twitter followers who retweets every single tweet I make, my YouTube channel
has tons of subscribers, I have hundreds friends in my Weibo account and my
Live Journal is on top 20. I have one
real friend aside from my cyber friends who can understand how K-Pop feeds my
soul. The walls in my room are covered with the grinning faces of K-Pop idols,
whose smiles are enough to brighten up my gray days.
It’s nine in the evening but I’m still
stuck in my step mother’s shoe store finishing the
inventory of our latest shipments. As I opened the boxes, I noticed a simple
pair of white sneakers and I knew I that I have to wear it to EXO’s Dream Kpop Fantasy concert. Yes I’m
a fan girl, you wouldn't know but being passionate for something isn't just
"anything"... it is life (reply 1997).
The price tag crashed my dream though. So instead I pulled out my pen and wrote in the insoles of the right shoe: “You’re so close yet so far”.
The price tag crashed my dream though. So instead I pulled out my pen and wrote in the insoles of the right shoe: “You’re so close yet so far”.
Kai’s POV:
My fans
are mental. I walk out of our dorm to buy Kyungsoo’s
ingredients for his heavenly (you’d literally find no
purpose in life once the flavor settles in that muscle called your tongue) Kimchi
spaghetti. The next thing I knew a bottle of soju dropped before me, the green
shards springing out in every direction, the stench of alcohol abruptly
charging into my nostrils, but I didn’t get to hear it
crash. The screaming voice of a fan girl pierced my ears threatening to bleed as
she shouted : “
Omo! KAI! Saranghae oppa!”. I ran of course, half
of Seoul’s fan girls are chasing me like I’m some sort a meat they mercilessly want to ravish. Sure I liked the attention, it’s people’s affirmation that would
guarantee that you’re doing the right thing, right? But
most days It just feels like I’m living a lie. What if
they got to know me and realize I’m not what they
expected? That the adoration that they are throwing at me would be reciprocated
with disappointments. What if my shortcomings would be rejected and worse, disgusted? I'm an idol, let me spit at the irony.
After running spirally, I was finally able to
catch my breath and ended up hiding in a shoe store, I decided to look around
in the meantime. A particular white shoe caught my attention and I thought I
could buy it for Sulli’s birthday. The girl’s been really clingy for a while, giving her a shoe rather
than something intimate wouldn’t be misinterpreted as a
sign of affection. When I have taken a good look at it, I noticed the
inscriptions in the insoles of the right shoe. What kind of a lunatic would
write in there?
Must be some customer who didn’t want
the shoe to be bought by someone else. I replied using the left shoe,
anticipating an answer from a mutual stranger : “Distance is just a number, what matters is
how close your hearts are.”
Ella ‘s POV:
The next
day on my shift, I noticed a reply that was written in the left shoe. A smile
crept into my face with the thought that someone actually bothered to reply to
my spur of the moment thoughts. I wrote back using the right shoe.
“I
was talking about the shoe but I agree with you because I have a long distance
relationship with Kai”
Kai’ s POV:
I went
back to the shoe store to check the writer’s reply and
I laughed hard as I read it. The girl is an EXO fan, a delusional one at that
but I wrote on.
“Kai
of EXO? Why do you even like the guy? He looks good and all but face it, you
don’t know the real him.”
Next day’s shoe conversation:
Ella : “I may only be a
fan in a screaming crowd, my twisted aberrant one sided emotion might seem
nothing to him but it is everything for me. I like Kai because he is
passionate, like dancing meant the world for him. His presence on stage fills
my hollow existence.”
Kai : “To Kai breathing
is dancing”
Ella ‘ s POV
:
It’s the night of Exo’ s Dream K-Pop
Fantasy concert but my step sisters overheard my conversations with my friend
Yoo Jin that I was going so my step mother stepped in and tore my posters off
the wall and into pieces. She made me stay in the store the entire night. I
called Yoo Jin and she saved me like how the fairy saved Cinderella.
She bought
the shoes for me, brought some clothes I could change into and we drove to the
concert in her pumpkin colored motorbike. As the horizon stretched, the
distance between Kai and I is dissolving. Call me shallow, desperate ,
overly-eager, I stopped caring a long time ago.
It’s so much easier that way, people need to
stop asking for permission to be happy. It’s just plain
sad.
Ella : You’re a life saver
Yoo Jin. What did I ever do to deserve a friend like you?
Yoo Jin : Less talking more changing.
Seeing EXO
perform live, surpassed my expectation. Kris is really gigantic, Tao’s performance is intense, Xiumin’s
chubby cheek is so pinch worthy, I held my breath at Chen’s
high note and I wanted to envelope Luhan in a constricting hug. Lay is a unicorn trapped in the body of an idol. Suho acts like
an old man. The rumor between Baek and Chanyeol is so true, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Sehun’s
cold stare and Kyungsoo’s doe eyes are alluring in
flesh. Did I forget someone, o h there’s Kai.
Kai .
Kai.
Kai.
Kai.
Did I mention Kai?
For once,
I am void of words.
Yoo Gin’s cousin works for them so she gave us a gate pass to the
after party.
Yoo Jin : This
is my cousin Ari. Ella! we are going to meet Exo in flesh . How daebak is that?
Ella was
speechless.
Ari (Yoo
Jin’s cousin ) : Your
friend needs to learn how to talk Yoo Jin. Cool shoes by the way Ella. Have fun
girls.
Ari led
them to an upscale club where the after party was going to take place.
Kai’s POV :
I’m bored out of my wits, damn I hate after parties. I want to
go home and sleep. I texted Kyungsoo and asked if we could make a run for it,
ditch this party and make up for our lost night of slumber. As I took out my
phone, it slipped out of my hands and landed in the floor. I muttered some
profanities under my breath as I crouched down to get it, that is when I
noticed the familiar white shoe I’ve been writing to for
the last couple of days. I averted my eyes and saw a girl smiling down at me. I
smiled back. The music stopped and I heard through the speaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves for the blackout hour!” . The lights went out. We were swallowed by darkness. The moon light replaced the artificial lights, when did i turn romantic?
“Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves for the blackout hour!” . The lights went out. We were swallowed by darkness. The moon light replaced the artificial lights, when did i turn romantic?
Kai: “ The shoes you’re wearing, where’d you buy them?”
Ella : Does it matter? You are Kai of exo. You’re gonna hate me for what I am about to do but I’m going to do it anyway because you will never see me again.”
Kai : Are going to kill me?
Ella : I’m going to kiss
you.
Kai : Then do it.
Ella : Tell me that you didn’t
just paraphrase a yes.
Kai : I did not just paraphrase a yes. But you
have to give me your right shoe first.
Although I
could outline her confused expression, she took it off and gave it to me.
Ella : Can I kiss you n--------
I cut her
off with one quick kiss. It lasted for a second; it was more of a touch than a
liplock but still a kiss none then less. A lame excuse for one even.
Kai : It’s the prince who kisses Cinderella after all, doesn’t he?
I heard no
reply. Did I surprise her to the extent that she fainted? The lights went back
on but my mystery girl didn’t. I was alone in that
balcony with a shoe to keep me company.
Next day
Kai POV :
I talked
to our manager about the girl from last night.
Kai : Hyung! I met a girl from last night and I
think she’s the same girl that I’ve
been writing to.
Manager : What are talking about? Do you like her?
Kai : I have to find her.
Manager : You can’t fall in
love, you know the rules. For five years, you have to remain single as long as
you work for this company.
When the
manager left, Ari interrogated Kai.
Ari : Yah!!! So you’re in
love huh? Who is the lucky girl?
Kai : That’s the thing
, I don’t know who she is, where she lives , what she
looks like in plain daylight. The only thing I know about her is her shoe size.
Ari : You’re weird.
Kai : We’ve been communicating
through a pair of shoes. I know that I shouldn’t affect
me, I’m an idol , she’s a fan,
the biggest cliché
of this century. But being famous doesn’t exempt me,
call it passé , I deserve some too.
Ari
laughed shortly. “What
you said is so damn cheesy, that I’m
proclaiming myself a lactose intolerant”, she
said.
Ari : So how are you going to find her?
I showed
the shoe to Ari. I trusted her; she’s one of the few
people who actually spent more time pissing me off rather than kissing my tan ass.
Not that she had actually been fortunate enough to see it, but that’s beside the point.
Kai : I’m going to find
her using the replies from her shoe.
Ari : I think I saw that last night. Where’d you see them?
Kai : Aside from last night? In a shoe store.
Ari : Why don’t you look
for her there?
Kai : She bought the shoes there. What are the
chances that I’d run into her? A person doesn’t just go back to where she bought something from the
morning after she bought it.
Ari : Would it kill you to try?
Kai’s POV :
In the
afternoon I went to the shoe store. Two blonde girls were there near the
counter. I saw no one in the cash register so I assumed that those girls were
the ones who work for the place.
Kai: Do you know who bought these pair of shoes
from you? I’m looking for the other pair and it’s owner.
I
regretted asking because they instantly recognized me. They squealed, took
pictures , asked for autographs. They were persistent in asking for a kiss or a
hug but please, if I wanted to kiss anyone right then, I’d
simply press backward and capture my mystery girl’s
lips a little longer just in time for the lights to illuminate that club. But
we all know that time is a real bitch. It does not bend for anyone. Not even for almighty Kai.
Step
sister : We own this store and I was the
one who bought that for myself to wear for your concert.
Kai: Really? Can you show me the other pair?
Third person POV:
The step
sister went to the stock room and searched for another pair of shoes that was
identical to the one Kai was holding. She hid the right pair and showed the
left to Kai.
Kai’s POV :
Could it
be true? It didn’t seem right. It was so easy for me to
track her down. I thought that I was going to report back to Ari whitewashed, shouldn’t’t’ fate test me out first? See if I would be persistent; check
if I deserved to be suffocated in cloud nine? After all, nothing worth having
comes easy. I know that it’s really foolish of me to
doubt, to ask for some sort of an impediment before I seize the prize but
really, the best things in life happens after you crumble, after you have
stopped clinging to hope.
Bittersweet.
Kai : This is not it. The inscriptions are
missing.
Step
sister: Inscriptions? I erased them, I
had to wash it, they got erased while on laundry.
Kai : What did I reply to the first sentence that
you wrote ?
She was
clue less, it was evident in her confused face. Just then a girl entered the
store and she saw the shoe that I was holding, she said : Kai? You came to find me?
Kai : Who are you? Let me guess, another one of
my fans who’s going to fool me into believing that she’s my Cinderella.
The girl
spoke to me, “You
wrote in there that “Distance is just a number, what
matters is how close your hearts are,”
Kai : “I was talking
about the shoe but I agree with you because I have a long distance relationship
with Kai”
She smiled
and said, Kai of EXO? Why do you even
like the guy? He looks good and all but face it, you don’t
know the real him.”
Kai : “I may only be a
fan in a screaming crowd, my twisted aberrant one sided emotion might seem
nothing to him but it is everything for me. I like Kai because he is passionate,
like dancing meant the world to him. His presence on stage fills my hollow
existence,”I
walked the distance separating us.
She
continued, “ To
Kai breathing is dancing.”
Kai : So I guess I scored myself a girl friend
without my knowledge.
A genuine smile curved her plump lips,“
Your long-distance-girlfriend’s name is Ella by the way
if you’re wondering.”
~ 끝 ~
~kkeut~
