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“You’re lucky.” Tao tells him, before he leaves. His bags are packed, his room empty, and Yixing knows that despite everything that he’s told them to reassure them, all the lies, that Tao isn’t going to be coming back after his treatment.
It’s easier to believe that he’s leaving, this time, the third time. (You know what they say after all; third time’s the charm.)
“What do you mean?” Yixing asks, confused. Nothing about this situation screams luck for any of them.
Tao laughs. “You can’t tell me you don’t know.” He says, but it’s a dry laugh, filled with insubordination and disrespect.
“I really don’t.” Yixing says, because he’s not in the mood for games. Tao is leaving, and everything is falling apart, like it has again and again, and now isn’t really the time for cryptic messages.
Tao, oblivious to the reality of the situation, continues to sneer. “Don’t pretend.” Everything about him is harsh and strange, from his words to his actions. Yixing wonders what happened to the soft boy that showed up all those years ago, scared of everything and ready to prove himself, if it was something drastic that changed him or just the severity of the environment around him.
Yixing sighs patiently. “I’m not pretending anything.” There’s nothing else he can say, really. Yixing sits cross legged on his bed, willing Tao to understand, but his toes are wiggling uncomfortably under his thighs, and his wrist itches.
He must finally seem to realize that Yixing is serious, because Tao softens slightly.
“You have to know.” And he sounds jealous now, desperate the way he used to be. “They can’t touch you, they can’t hurt you, not like they touched and hurt and ruined us.”
Tao looks deep into Yixing’s eyes, and they both know it’s the last time they’ll ever talk to each other like this again, like brothers. “You have to know that the only reason why they haven’t taken you apart– why they can’t take you apart– is because that–” he nods to the bandage around Yixing’s wrist– “is keeping you alive.”
Yixing is stunned into silence. “Tao…” He murmurs, because there’s no way that’s true, not when having a soulmate is a curse like none other. Not after what he’s seen, people turned into victims for being born the way he was, humans reduced to nothing but what is burned into the skin of their wrist.
Tao nods gravely. “Until the day you find her, ge, you’ll be safe.” He smiles wryly, then, overcome. Yixing doesn’t know whether it’s fear, or anger, or something completely different, but at this point he’s too afraid to ask. He thinks he might understand what Tao is getting at, having this mark has made him special to the group and to the fans, but he wants to scream with how wrong everything is now. How much Tao lacks in understanding.
“But what happens after, I wonder, when you do?” He asks.
Yixing does not answer.
---
Yixing shows his soulmate mark to one person that isn’t his parents.
It’s Junmyeon, because that man is basically a mother to him anyways. It’s Junmyeon, because of course it is. It’s Junmyeon, because he asks, and he’s the leader, and Yixing will never be able to deny him this.
SM doesn’t ask to see it, and for that Yixing is grateful. They ask what it is, whether it’s a male or female name (not that it makes much of a difference), if he knows who it is, if it’s someone he’s met or heard of or is familiar with.
Yixing looks the staff in the eyes and says “Female.” To the second question, and answers the rest with “No.” He does not answer the first question, and they don’t push, all of them realizing that it’s really no one else’s business but his own.
But he shows Junmyeon. He unwraps his wrist and offers it to Junmyeon as a sacrifice, his entire future on the line for this one person, in this one moment.
“I can’t read that.” Junmyeon says, and he sounds confused.
Yixing snorts. “Of course you can’t. It’s in Chinese.” The three characters are stark black against the pale of his inner arm, and Junmyeon peers at it closely with narrowed eyes. He does not touch, understanding the importance of personal space, but Yixing does tilt his wrist towards him, making it easier to read.
“Oh.” He says, leaning back a bit, fully digesting the situation. “I thought–”
“You thought I came to Korea to find my soulmate.” Yixing isn’t good at Korean, not as good as he should be, but the world fall off his tongue with bitter fire anyways.
Junmyeon blushes. “Yeah.” He says, and runs his hand through his hair self-consciously.
Yixing laughs. It’s not bitter this time, because really– it’s funny how wrong some people can be sometimes.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He says, and he doesn’t quite know how to say ridiculous in Korean, and he probably didn’t phrase the sentence correctly at all, but he’s sure that Junmyeon gets the point.
“I came here to dance.”
---
They send him back to China.
SM sends him back to China, claiming that they want him to promote EXO overseas (and, by extension, himself), but Yixing isn’t stupid.
“They can’t touch you.” Tao had said. “Until the day you find her you’ll be safe.”
Yixing wonders if his time is running out.
He’s a little bit afraid that he’ll find his soulmate here, because the name on his wrist is most definitely Chinese. But then he remembers that there are over a billion people in China, and that there are Chinese people all over the world, and really, since he’s so famous, it’s unlikely that he’ll end up meeting or recognizing her at all.
It doesn’t do much to keep him safe, to keep him from turning and watching his back every other minute, but it’s enough to help him sleep at night, door locked, curtains closed, lights completely off.
Yixing misses his members, because of course he does. They’re his brothers, even the ones that left (especially the ones that left), and being apart is like leaving home all over again, only worse this time, because the here he has no incentive to stay.
(The only reason why he hasn’t gone home yet, he tells himself, is because SM needs him here.)
(It’s a lie. SM sent him here because they can’t touch him but they don’t want him, and the best way to get rid of something you don’t want is to send it back to where it came from.)
After a while, though, the ache of missing them turns into something else, something more dulled and permanent. It’s not a knife stabbing into his heart anymore, but instead a weight that never really goes away.
But Yixing promotes, like SM told him to, and he composes and sings and dances and raps, and promises himself that he won’t make this about his soulmate, because this is him, and he’s here to dance.
And after all of this is done, after he’s written the songs he’s been asked to, and performed in all the places he’s needed to, and SM realizes that really, he’s not a threat, maybe they’ll let him go home.
---
He sees Luhan, while in China, and it hurts like nothing else has before.
They get along well still, laughing and watching out for each other. Yixing knows the fans are going to have a field day with this interaction. He just hopes that the outcome won’t be too bad, that there won’t be too many “Is Luhan coming back?”’s and “Did you miss him?”’s because Yixing doesn’t have time to be sad and sentimental.
Luhan is horrible at hiding his relationship. He spends much of their evening together staring at his girlfriend out of the corner of his eye, and her back at him, and it’s ridiculous but Yixing is jealous. He’s jealous that Luhan is allowed to date, that he can find love, that he’s moved on and become a better person with a better life.
Was it wrong, Yixing wonders, to leave home for this? If he hadn’t, would he have ended up like Luhan now, happy in what he’s doing, surrounded by people that love him? Or would he end up lost and alone, no longer dancing but instead with a nine to five job, crumbling under the weight of society and its restrictions on those who are seen but not heard.
(Would he have found his soulmate? Would he be living happily now, with a wife and a kid, taking advantage of life instead of feeling exhausted all the time, struggling to make it through the day, weighed down with the desire to just home?)
It’s useless to think about the things that will not come to pass, though, so Yixing thinks about other things instead.
“How have you been?” He asks Luhan, because of course they should share some pleasantries. “How has life been treating you?”
Luhan is all smiles in his reply. “Good.” He says, and laughs. “Everything’s been good.” Yixing has never heard him this happy before.
They don’t talk about EXO. They don’t talk about the pretty girl Luhan has hanging off his arm and watching his every move when she’s not.
“Are you happy?” Luhan does ask. “Because I am.”
He doesn’t say it to mock Yixing, because of course he doesn’t. But there is a sense of superiority in his tone, as though he is saying that despite everything he’s been through, after everything people have put him through, he can still be happy.
Yixing wishes he could say the same for himself.
---
Yixing wishes he could be surprised when Luhan leaves, but he’s not, and he thinks that says a lot about what their band has become.
If anything, maybe he’s a little bit jealous, that Luhan is allowed to leave, that he has the strength to leave. Luhan is both stupid, because leaving this group behind takes away from him a sort of family, but it’s a brave move all the same
“I’ll miss you.” He whispers into Luhan’s pillow as he sleeps. His bags are packed, most of the room empty. Their social media accounts have already been purged, removing every trace of Luhan being in the band from existence.
Luhan, in this moment, has stopped being one of them. All that’s left is for him to leave. And even though he’s seen it happen before, even though they’ve all been through it with Kris, he still can’t believe that Luhan is leaving.
Yixing watches him sleep for a moment longer, Luhan’s face peaceful in the night.
There is nothing left for him to say. Yixing leaves the dorms, slips away into the shadows, and does not come back until Luhan is gone.
“Where did you go?” Minseok asks him, when he comes back.
Yixing licks his dry lips. “Out.” He says.
Minseok regards him heavily. “Luhan was wondering where you went.” Yixing wonders how he can say Luhan’s name without feeling visceral pain come alive in his chest, without feeling bits of his life slip away from him, the way it did before.
“I already said my goodbyes.” Yixing says instead. It’s not a lie, except that he said his goodbyes while Luhan was sleeping, unable to hear him. It’s the same thing really, because saying goodbye to a person who can’t hear and saying goodbye to someone who won’t exist anymore have the same effect.
Minseok continues to stare. Yixing tries not to take it personally.
“Okay.” He says, and the subject is dropped. They don’t talk about Luhan again.
---
Being part of a survival show is strange.
He’s not exactly part of it, per se, but it’s strange to look out at the one hundred of them and see himself in the past, fighting for a spot in this cruel world. He admires the bravery of some of them, how assured in their own abilities they are. His heart aches for the ones who cover their wrists, and he may not have been at the meeting long but he sees every single one of their faces in the audience, watching with wide eyes and full of fear.
They are afraid, afraid of what is to come, afraid of what they will have to become. Yixing knows this because he too was afraid, and still is, but he knows that SM can’t hurt him until the day his mark turns silver, and it may not be much reassurance, but it’s enough to make him braver than he was before.
As time passes, however, he starts to feel young. Two of the trainees are older than him, yes, but a vast majority of them are younger, and it’s impossible to ignore the way they look at him, the way they watch his every move with eyes wide and mouths open.
(Like he’s a god.)
But Yixing interacts with them, and teaches them, and feels the years fall of him like water. He feels lighter now, lighter than he has in years, lighter than when he finally started to dance again without sandbags weighing him down.
(Funny, how the mark on his wrist and the ache in his heart weigh more than the sand ever did.)
It’s not that he thinks about his soulmate a lot, because he doesn’t. As awful as it sounds, Yixing has gotten used to hiding this part of himself, gotten used to ignoring it and pretending like he’s just as normal as everyone else. It helps, being in a different country where he can circumvent uncomfortable questions by claiming he doesn’t understand. It helps, knowing that he’s safe overseas because no one can read his name.
Even being back here, where things are familiar, cannot take this security away from him.
The worst part about being on this show is that he doesn’t know how to treat the trainees born in his year. Yixing pities Cheng Xiao and Jieqiong, who are younger than a large chunk of the trainees, but also feels for Ronghao, who doesn’t have the physical capability of relating to any of the younger ones.
If anything, perhaps it’s that he pities them. (It’s an awful way to put it, but it’s the most honest he can be.) He pities that he’s the one who already debuted, five years ago, and there are people his age and older who are doing their best to get a chance to debut at all. Even those a few years younger he can’t help but feel sorry for, because they’ve worked so hard and have hardly moved forwards at all.
There’s an awkwardness, between him and the the other 91-line trainees, an awkwardness that he hates and wishes he could get rid of. Despite this, however, he is still old, and he’s still older than Han Mubo.
“How do you know that you’re not abandoning some poor woman alone out there, never to recognize her soulmate?” Han Mubo asks him, in between rehearsals for Mask. All the other trainees are gone, either eating or sleeping or doing something of the sort. Yixing had stayed behind to dance. Mubo, he’s guessing, had stayed behind to interrogate.
“I don’t.” Yixing returns, even though he technically does not have to answer this man’s questions. He is, after all, still the leader and center of this group, and their teacher. He does anyways, though, because this is a conversation that isn’t worth making excuses to get out of. It’s a conversation that needs to happen, one that’s bound to happen sooner or later, and making excuses now will only come back to bit him in the ass.
Mubo hums, and frowns, and Yixing can feel his disappointment but can’t find it in him to care.
“How do you know that I’m not like Wang Ziyi, whose soulmate will never recognize him back?” Yixing asks instead, because he’s not an idiot. He’s seen the way Ziyi used to look at Cai Xukun, and has seen the way Xukun used to look back. He sees the way Jeffrey looks at the two of them, too, one with adoration and the other with thinly veiled fear.
Mubo laughs, and Yixing finds it unfair that he, somehow, gets to be happy. That despite everything, despite the fact that he’s worked so hard and has hardly moved forward at all, he is still happy with a soulmate he loves and a soulmate that loves him back.
(Is this what his life would have been like had he not left China? Would he be like Han Mubo is now, like Luhan is, satisfied with the life they’ve made for themselves?)
The cameras are off, and all the other trainees gone. When they had left, Mubo had pushed up his sleeve and unwrapped his wrist without theatrics, as though it is an everyday thing to expose the cool silver of Qin Fen’s name to the air around. Yixing’s refuses to let himself be jealous, because he’s gotten the success he’s always wanted in life, but he can’t help but marvel at the calmness of it, and how centered Mubo seems to be in himself.
When the other trainees come back, and the cameras are back on, Mubo rolls down his sleeve once more. He doesn’t rebandage his wrist, and Yixing spends the rest of their time together thinking of the used bandages on the floor of the practice room, obsolete and free.
Later, when most things have come to pass, Yixing watches Qin Fen say goodbye to Han Mubo.
“Wait for me at home.” He yells down, from his seat on the pyramid, and it leaves Yixing to wonder. Home for him is nothingness, his apartment in China and the dorms in Korea and the hum of an airplane and bus and car all at once.
But Qin Fen is crying, and both him and Han Mubo are smiling, so Yixing thinks that for those two, home just might be each other.
---
“It doesn’t have to end like this.” Yixing begs, because he’s never felt as alone as he does now, right in this moment.
Kris smiles, and looks infinitely older than he really is. “You don’t understand.” He says, much to Yixing’s chagrin. (He doesn’t know it then, but he will later, and will continue to wonder how on earth Kris was strong enough to leave.)
“It’s not ending.” Kris tells him, whispers to him as he pets Yixing’s hair, and thumbs at the dry skin beneath his wet eyes. “Everything will be okay.”
It sounds fake to Yixing’s ears, like a mother comforting a child, and Yixing wishes he could scream. He wants to yell, to punch something, to break something, but Kris is looking at him with soft eyes, and the fight leaves him in a rush and a sigh.
“You’re leaving.” He spits out, words wet as his eyes. “You’re leaving and I’ll have to be leader of M and I’ll be alone .”
He says the last word like it hurts, because it does, and Kris’s face twists from something cold and detached to something more human. It’s reassuring to know that this is killing Kris just as much as it’s killing him, but he still doesn’t come back, doesn’t put his bags down or halt in his preparations to leave, and Yixing wonders when everything just started going wrong.
“You’ll be okay.” Kris says, and it’s almost as though he has run out of words to say completely and has resorted to repeating his useless platitudes. Yixing sobs, but he doesn’t cry, because he knows the second he lets himself lose it’ll all be over for real.
“What if you don’t go?” He asks, because he has no choice but to.
Kris smiles painfully, and Yixing looks at the bags under his eyes and the creases next to his mouth, signs of no sleep and stress and everything they’ve been through together as a group but more.
He still can’t believe that Kris is leaving.
“That’s not exactly an option for me.” His voice is soft, and, if Yixing is interpreting it correctly, a little bit embarrassed. “SM found out that I found my soulmate.”
Yixing swallows harshly, throat suddenly dry. He didn’t know that Kris found his soulmate either. No one knew. But Kris is unwrapping his arm now, the neat bandage coming apart in front of Yixing’s eyes. He’s revealing the one secret he has left, and Yixing is more curious than he is respectful of the space between them.
Kim Junmyeon. Why is he not surprised?
“Does he know?” Yixing whispers, unable to speak any louder, afraid of making this entire situation real.
Kris laughs loudly. “Of course he does.” He says. “Look.”
And what Yixing didn’t notice before, what he didn’t realize is that the words are silver on Kris’s arm. Junmyeon’s name is silver and recognized, and that means that their leader knows and has acknowledged it, even though both of his arms are clear and unmarked.
“Did you–” Yixing coughs and tries again. “Did you come here to find him?”
Kris’s smile is sneaky and a little bit fond. “Would you be surprised if I said I did?”
Yixing hesitates. “No.” Kris is everything Yixing is not, tall and confident and– most importantly– disgustingly sentimental.
“I did.” Kris’s smile turns sad. “I came here to find him and I did, but I forgot that by coming here I can’t keep him. Not the way I want to.”
Not the way you need to, Yixing finishes for him, in his head.
“It’s unfair to you if they make you leave.” He says, because there is nothing else to say. Kris is right.
“It’s unfair to him if they let me stay.” Kris replies, all knowledge and wisdom, and it occurs to Yixing then that this must have plagued Kris’s dreams for hundreds of nights, all the way back to debut and before.
“What will happen to me?” Yixing asks. The words get caught in his throat, his voice scratchy and overused, as though he’s been singing for hours.
Kris shrugs, rewrapping his wrist. “You’ll be fine.” He says, but it’s no more reassuring than it was before. Yixing supposes that with this, Kris is technically free, no longer tied to taking care of five other children, able to do whatever he wants without any repercussions. He doesn’t have to make Yixing feel better about him leaving, doesn’t have to maintain communications with the rest of them once he’s gone, and the reminder sits heavily in Yixing’s stomach.
“I don’t want to be alone.” Yixing whispers. He’s not sure if Kris hears him.
Kris sends him one small smile, a goodbye that’s both angry and bittersweet, before walking out the door and never coming back.
---
He calls the rest of EXO that night, the night after finals, because he’s alone in China, and even though he was alone in Korea too, the weight of being in his home country makes the loneliness feel worse against his skin.
“We miss you.” His bandmates say, crowding into the screen to see him. He’s missed them too, along these heavy days and heavier nights, and with every passing day as he stays in China and they stay in Korea it only gets worse.
They’re still his brothers, even though sometimes he feels left out as the only Chinese member in their group. They do their best to include him in everything they do, though, and he’s confident that when he goes back to Korea (when, not if) that they’ll be there waiting for him.
He’s exhausted, both from the weight of the finale and the stress of the job. Nine Percent is a wonderful group, full of talented individuals who thirst for success, but he wants nothing more than to go back home to where he doesn’t belong.
(Yixing remembers the hug Qin Fen had given Han Mubo when they reunited, how he had held him close, the way they had leaned into each other all night. He imagines the regret Qin Fen must have, from not making it, and thinks that even if he hates his lack of success, it must be nice to be home.)
He thinks of his own soulmate, her name on his arm, and how he isn’t Qin Fen or Han Mubo or Luhan or Kris. He thinks of how happy they were, how satisfied with life they were, how they’ve still managed to make it through everything with no regrets and a smile on their face.
“I will be happy.” Yixing tells his computer screen after the call has ended.
He will be happy even if he never finds his soulmate, so long as he gets to go back home and dance.