1 | uno

It had been one whole month. One entire month, give or take a few days, since Lu Han had decided to leave the group.

Sehun didn't blame him for leaving, nor did he judge him for the decision he had made. The path he had chosen was his own and he was the only one who could make the decision. Though, the maknae of the group would have been lying if he said it didn't hurt--would have been lying if he said he didn't want him to stay. 

At least Lu Han had been straightforward about it--sat his group members in the lounge room of their dorm in China the night before their final show in Beijing and explained that he no longer had more to give for the group. He was exhausted, completely drained to the point where he had put his health on the line for his career. That wasn't the kind of artistic life he wanted to carry out. At the same time, he didn't feel supported. By the boys, he did. But not by the agency. He always felt himself not getting the opportunities he sought for in his career--the opportunities he needed in order to advance. It wasn't what he wanted in the end, though he knew he owed his current success to SM Entertainment and the group.

The group was his family, and they always would be. It was something he felt in his heart. He would no longer be with them, but he'd always support them in spirit.

Of the ten members that were left, Sehun, Minseok, and Yixing had been the closest to Lu Han. His absence affected them the most. But the most affected of the three was the youngest of them. He had been friends with Lu Han since their trainee days, before they debuted. From the very first moment that they met, they had always been close. Lu Han had been like an older brother to the group's maknae, someone he could trust, and he still was. Only now he wasn't allowed to speak to him in public anymore.

SM had used it as a punishment against Lu Han for leaving. If you won't stay, then you're our enemy. That was the way SM Entertainment worked. Choosing to leave meant that Lu Han had betrayed the agency--left his brothers behind. At least that was how SM Town saw it, and how they tried to get the other members to see it.

The other members complied, if only to save themselves the trouble of having negative consequences against them for disobeying.  

One month after they had seen a second departure by one of their brothers, EXO-K was on a plane across the globe to a new country, which they had never visited before. Mexico. The land of tacos, big colorful hats, and mariachi music--as it was most stereotypically known by the rest of the world.

Music Bank's world tour had the Spanish speaking nation as one of their stops, and EXO had been invited to perform. It had been something planned--even before Yifan left the group--and it had been at first decided that the entire group would perform Growl together. Then the four vocalists would perform a cover of a popular Mexican song called Sabor A Mi--which roughly translated to The Taste of Me. 

With the last minute changes that EXO had suffered over the past year, SM Entertainment ended up deciding that it was best for half of the group to go--the most complete group. EXO-M was to stay behind in Korea until the rest of the group returned from Mexico and it could be decided what the best course of action to continue with the group was. Instead of having Lu Han and Jongdae participate in the song cover, they had been replaced with Junmyeon and Chanyeol; one because he had chosen to leave the group, and the other because he was asked to stay behind with the rest of his group. It had been difficult on Jongdae, as well as the two other boys because the replacements for the performance only had one month to practice the foreign song.

Sehun almost wanted to request staying behind with the rest of the EXO members, but he knew he needed to be a professional. He needed to smile through the pain, and maybe it would go away quicker. 

But how could he pretend that he didn't miss his best friend?

-

It was a twelve hour flight from Seoul to Los Angeles, where they would get a connecting flight down to Mexico. From Los Angeles there was another four hour flight before they arrived in Mexico City, where the Music Bank concert would be held at the Arena Ciudad de Mexico--or the Mexico City Arena. 

The concert would be on the thirtieth of October, and the group had arrived three days before. None of them said more than a few words to each other for various reasons. They were tired from the long flight, and they were still visibly upset at the fact that yet another member had left them. They were thankful that in those three days before the actual concert, they would have busy schedules in order to prepare for the performance. 

Sehun and Kai were left with a bit more of free time than the others, since they would only be participating in the group performance. The other four had vocal practices for their performance in Spanish. It was difficult to learn lyrics in a foreign language, especially when they had no idea what they were singing. Their managers from SM Entertainment wanted to schedule things for the maknaes to do as well, but it was difficult, considering that neither of them spoke an ounce of Spanish. 

They found their chance--in regards to Sehun--when they were contacted by Estrellas Y Mas, the most successful and popular teen magazine in the country. The editors of the magazine had found out about the music bank concert and wanted one kpop artist that was going to perform, on the cover of their magazine. Of all the groups and their idols that would be performing, Oh Sehun was chosen, because the editors had determined that he would probably look best next to the super model Florencia Orizaba solely for the reason that he was taller than her, even if she wore heels. 

SM Entertainment was thrilled to have one of their own on the cover of Mexico's most popular teen magazine. When they had been invited to send EXO to perform at Music Bank, they saw it as their opportunity to expand their popularity over Latin America. With the magazine cover opportunity, they had even more of a chance.

At the hotel room the night they arrived, one of the managers handed Sehun a photograph, saying, "You'll be on the cover with her." 

Sehun eyed the photograph in his hand of the beautiful green eyed girl without saying a word. He couldn't help thinking to himself that he wouldn't mind standing next to her in a photo shoot. The smile on her face was sweet and innocent; friendly. He found himself staring at the picture a bit longer than he intended to. 

Curious, one of the other group members snatched the photograph out of Sehun's hand to get a good look at it. It was Baekhyun, whose eyebrows raised in mild surprise when he noticed how beautiful the girl actually was. Nudging the maknae, he said, "Wow, Sehun-ah, you get to spend the next week with this girl? So lucky." Chanyeol was sitting on the other bed in the room and he got back on his feet, walking the small space between the two beds to peek over Baekhyun's shoulder at the girl in the picture.

"She's pretty." Chanyeol agreed with his friend. Though he quickly added his objection. "But Narda-yah is prettier." Narda was a young woman who was teaching at Seoul Foreign School and had met the boys when she pretended she had been run over by Baekhyun. She had quickly become good friends with Chanyeol, and they knew she was Mexican, though born in the United States.

Somehow, Baekhyun didn't fight him on it. 

As their side conversation ended, the manager continued giving the details about the girl in the photograph. "Her name is Florencia Orizaba." He said her name in slightly broken Spanish. He then got his phone out and proceeded to read something, probably a bio about the young model. "She's from Orizaba, Mexico, on the southern coast of the country. They say her family is the oldest in that region and that the town Orizaba was named for them when the Spanish settled in Mexico. Her family owns two professional football teams: Tiburones Rojos of Veracruz, and Albinegros of Orizaba. Last important detail is that she's twenty years old, but she became Miss Universe two years ago, at eighteen. She is currently considered the most beautiful woman in Mexico."

"She's practically royalty." Kai concluded. He had been the most interested in the football teams she owned than anything else. With a chuckle, he adding jokingly, "While Sehun is just a lowly peasant."

The maknae shot his group member a glare.

While they had been discussing the photo shoot and the girl he would be sharing the spot light with, Baekhyun along with Kyungsoo, and the group's leader Junmyeon had been clicking away on their phones. The manager left them to go to his own room and unpack his things. When they found something worth sharing, Baekhyun jumped forward on the bed with excitement. He practically shoved his phone screen in Sehun's face. 

"She has twitter and instagram." Baekhyun informed them delightedly. Sehun was better at keeping his enthusiasm at bay. "Her username is florizaba for both."

Sehun got his phone out and discreetly opened up his instagram app. Without taking his attention off the other boys', he hit the search bar and typed in her username. Florizaba. The clever combination of her first and last name, Florencia Orizaba. The very first picture he clicked on was the most recent, and it was a picture of her with skull make up on.

♥ 40K likes
florizaba: so ready for day of the dead :] <3 #threemoredays #diademuertos

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The comments section was littered with people--all telling her how gorgeous she was.

"Hey. You should ask her if we could meet the players of her football teams, and maybe she can give us some jerseys." Jongin nudged Sehun to get his attention. Though he ended nudging him so hard that the phone fell out of his hand and onto the bed, face up, showing that he had been looking at the girl's instagram pictures. 

Chanyeol's hand reached out with lightning speed to pick up the phone before Sehun could even so much as react. "The maknae was trying to pretend he wasn't looking at the cute model. He's probably shy about us knowing he has a crush." He wiggled the phone in front of Sehun's face teasingly.

Baekhyun wiggled his eyebrows at the youngest of the group, joining in. "And we're allowed to date now, so you can freely chat her up without a problem."

With a roll of his eyes, Sehun took his phone off Chanyeol's hand. "I'm not going to chat her up, and I don't have a crush. I haven't even met her yet. Besides, the photo shoot's only going to be a few days at most. Then we'll return to Korea and I'll never see her again."

"Only in your dreams." Baekhyun teased, barely able to contain his laughter. "Or in her instagram pictures when you continue to stalk her from a distance."

"Wait. She was a Miss Universe." Junmyeon pointed out as he recalled what the manager had told them about her. "She'd never go for an uncooked noodle like Sehun."

The other boys in the room shot the group leader a surprised look before bursting out in laughter. All except Sehun who sat there shyly. "Why do you do this to me, eomma? You don't love me, always so savage." He said in a fake whiny voice. "Am I adopted?"

"As the new patriarch of this family, I'm going to take the liberty to answer that question, m dear son." Chanyeol began with something of a sigh. Placing a hand on Sehun's shoulder, he gave a simple, one worded answer. "Yes."

-

i feel bad bc after i wrote this, i realized i gave kyungsoo literally ZERO LINES in this first chapter. its a good thing this isn't his story. lol so that's okay. i was going to try to go back and give him lines, but it was too difficult. he's a shy boy who doesn't talk that much anyway.

this story starts out in october 2014, about a month after lu han leaves the group. this one is supposed to come after the story "twelve" about yifan, but i was just so tempted to post this first chapter.

also i haven't mentioned this, but here are the stories in order on the time line of this first universe of stories: no you girls (yixing), replacement (lu han), sasaeng (baekhyun), twelve (yifan), MEXICO (sehun), artificial love (kai), losing your memory (kyungsoo), kimbap (minseok), thursday (chanyeol), monday (junmyeon), sing for you (jongdae), and what is love (zitao).

thank you so much for reading and supporting me.

-clary xx