themuziqlover

A/N: IDEK what this is so I'm not even gonna bother. Please pardon the lame word vomit. Thank you. On a side note, I can't even say how impatient I am for EXO's comeback at this point. But it's okay, I've been so busy these days so, take your time SM. I want to be able to properly appreciate the comeback when it comes and not be drowning in work. Thanks. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

I still look for your face in the crowd
Oh if you could see me now
Would you stand in disgrace or take a bow
Oh if you could see me now

Would you call me a saint or a sinner?
Would you love me a loser or winner?

When I see my face in the mirror
We look so alike that it makes me shiver

Luhan knew, the moment he walked out of the door, out of his parents’ lives, away from the path they’d so carefully paved for him, that he would forever have to live with the knowledge that his own family would probably never truly welcome him again.

He wasn’t a bad child, even in his supposed “rebellious teen years”. Just like any normal Chinese boy, he’d gone to school, done his work and did practically everything that was expected of him; the concept of fierce familial loyalty long having been drilled into his head. His parents had been happy with him, not always, but often enough for Luhan. Their affections always came with conditions, though. He remembers joking around the dinner table with his parents when his mom had remarked, as a local Chinese singer performed on TV, can you imagine being like that? There’s no money in that. Those people are just uneducated poor who happen to have some singing talent. Don’t end up like that. They’d laughed then, his father nodding, silently saying he was sure Luhan would never turn out like that. Another time, he’d just gotten home with their first semester reports and his dad had smiled, satisfied at his 98% average, as his mother commented how now that you’re doing so well, don’t you go and do something stupid, okay? I’ll disown you! She had laughed then, they all had, at the joke, at the then absurd idea that Luhan would turn out as anything besides a businessman, doctor, or lawyer.

Oh, how things have changed.

“Luhan!”

Minseok runs towards him, pulling him excitedly out of the empty waiting room and out into the chaos of the backstage world. All around him, there are people. People talking, people yelling, people running around with clipboards and earpieces.

“It’s time for us to go on standby.”

Luhan nods as they arrive at the area just behind the stage where, in just a few minutes, they would be having their first performance in Beijing. Next to him, Jongdae runs through his lines, desperate not to mess up any of the foreign words. Luhan tugs on Minseok’s sleeve. Minseok who should be as nervous as Jongdae about performing in China, who shouldn’t be as confident and calm as he looks now, who shouldn’t appear infinitely more comfortable being in Beijing than Luhan, a native.

“How does it look?”

He’s greeted with an excited grin and two thumbs up.

“Full house.”

The first moments on stage are always the best.

Luhan loves the anticipation, the early mix of both excitement and anxiety behind the stage, hidden from the audience by just a single physical barrier. He loves the countdown as they prepare to be revealed. And when they are. When the noise level rises until it’s deafening and loud and exhilarating and just everywhere. When Luhan’s eyes adjust to the bright lights, all eyes on him, and he can hear his name in the crowd. And despite the fact they’re supposed to look serious and cool and mysterious (or whatever it is SM wanted for the MAMA concept), he can’t help this overwhelming urge to just smile. Smile because he feels like he’s on top of the world right now.

Luhan lives for that moment.

Something’s different today though and Luhan knows it.

Everything else is the same. The people, the sounds, the lights, the performance. But Luhan doesn’t have that same excitement and happiness and feeling of complete freedom singing and dancing on stage. Instead, the nervousness from backstage remains, the sweat on his palms increases, the shaking in his legs don’t die down to the practiced confidence he’s grown so accustomed to.

And when the spotlights turn on him, Luhan doesn’t look at the crowd and see the sheer size of the audience, the fullness of the room, all the people that are there.

Instead, his eyes seek all the people that aren’t.

It was one of the hardest things for him to do, calling back home after all these years. He’d procrastinated and whined and put it off until Yixing had finally had enough of it all and forced the phone into his hands the night before they flew for Beijing.

The phone had rung. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“Hello?”

Luhan’s breath hitches. His mother sounds just like how he’d remembered her, if but for the slightly hoarser tone.

“Hi mom... um.. it’s Luhan.”

There’s a brief silence. He hears his mother breathing on the other end of the line.

“Ah. Luhan...”

There’s an awkward silence, one that Luhan itches to fill. It’s uncomfortable and Luhan shifts his weight uneasily, twirling the cord of the phone around his finger.

“Um... I’m coming to Beijing tomorrow. We... we have a show tomorrow night and... I was wondering if you’d like to see us?”

Silence.

“I - I can email you the details? So if you’re free...”

“Alright.”

Luhan chooses to ignore the lack of actual confirmation from his mother.

He remembers always getting extremely frustrated and angry whenever his parents scolded him, back when he was still in high school.

After all the effort he put in, all the time he’s put into being the best son he could be for his parents, they were mad at him for this? They were always trivial things, small matters that escalated in one of his parents’ bad moods. Really, he could barely even breathe in the house without suddenly being accused of having an attitude problem.

He remembers fuming silently inside, bottling everything up like the good, obedient boy he is, as his father compared him to so-and-so’s son and so-and-so’s daughter who were all somehow becoming much better people than he was. He remembers finally deciding to speak up after being told off for forgetting to clean up the living room the day before and only ending up being yelled at further for “rebelling”.

Look at my classmates, he says in his head. Look at those kids you always tell me never to be like. Those kids you call “bad influences” and “misfits”.

If you like comparing so much, why don’t you compare me to them and let me be enough for once?

It never was, though. Sure there were good days, he still had plenty of memories laughing with his mom, singing along with the radio, playing football with his dad. But the feeling never really went away.

That feeling that nothing was ever good enough.

They’re halfway through their performance, sitting in hard stools and waiting for the intermission interview session. Minseok’s turning his head excitedly, unable to decide which camera he wants to look at, which fan he wants to wave to, which member he wants to poke in the shoulder. Zitao’s shoving playfully at Wufan and Jongdae and Yixing are sitting next to each other, looking as serene as ever.

The feeling of loneliness is something Luhan doesn’t expect to settle in his chest. It’s strange, to say the least, that after all these years of chasing away any trace of homesickness, Luhan finds the familiar feeling returning on the one night he finds himself back in his hometown.

He scans the crowd anxiously.

Not here.

Not there either.

“Luhan, I love you!”

Luhan glances up and can’t help the slight guilt that accompanies the disappointment bubbling up in his gut.

“We are ONE! Thank you everyone!”

Luhan stands, Yixing on his left, Minseok on his right, as they hold hands and bow to the cheering crowd. The noise, if it were possible, is louder than at the beginning of their performance and as they catch their breath from their Angel finale, Luhan looks out at the darkened audience and wonders.

Did he miss them somewhere in the crowd?

Would they be watching from home if they couldn’t make it in person?

Could they see him now?

Yixing gives him a small smile, hand squeezing his reassuringly, understanding passing between them without words. And Luhan realizes, Yixing’s been looking too.

Luhan wonders what they’d think if they saw him smiling on stage with his brothers, standing among thousands who shamelessly profess their love for them.

Would they finally come to accept his decision?

Has he come one step closer to making them proud?

Mom, Dad.

Am I enough now?