K-Pop Short Story Collection

Diamonds Only (WayV)

Liu YangYang stands under the shining full moon, staring into the thick forest ahead of him. He lets out a long sigh. That's when a hand gently cups itself on his shoulder. He snaps his head around to look into the shimmering eyes of his bandmate, Qian Kun.

Kun runs his other hand through his long wavy red locks of hair. "What are you doing out here?"

"Just...thinking..."

Kun wrinkles his nose up. "Thinking? Yangie, you don't ever take time to think, not with your mischievous maknae actions."

YangYang turns to face him. "Well...maybe I'm changing. Maybe I want to be known for more than maknae mischievousness." He turns back to look at the trees as a crisp evening breeze buffets the leaves.

Kun snorts with amusement. "You can't be who you are not."

"Is that copyrighted to you, Kunnie?" YangYang chuckles as his eyes scan away from the forest and draw up the grassy hill to where he is standing.

Kun punches his shoulder in response. "I'd expect nothing less than that kind of a comment from you."

YangYang's eyes roll upward to the clear sky overhead. The blue shade darkening with the coming night time. Stars twinkle in the vast space, blinking brightly and then dimming over and over.

"I just wish I could...find love..."

There is a sudden rush of starlight as a shooting star zooms across his vision path in the blink of an eye. He gasps and staggers in place, his eyes find a spot in the grass a few feet away and a shining object glitters under the moonlight.

Kun's hands are on the maknae's shoulders, holding him up. "You okay?"

YangYang nods and swats Kun away from him without actually making any contact. "What is that?!" He stalks through the grass up to the object.

Kun is close behind him, confused and curious.

YangYang bends down and picks the object up from the grass. Holding it between his thumb and index finger he can see a beautiful, shimmering diamond glistening like the stars overhead.

Kun cocks his head. "A diamond?"

YangYang looks around him as though maybe someone dropped it, but he would have seen a person.

There was no one.

No. This diamond just manifested out of thin air.

YangYang looks closely at the diamond's clear and smooth edges. In one of the mirror-like sections, he glimpses the image of a fluffy sheep before it morphs into the shape of a cat.

"That's not Louis or Leon," Kun breathes near his ear.

YangYang shakes his head. "It's a magical diamond, Kunnie."

Suddenly there's a bright glow that illuminates YangYang's figure and, holding the diamond, he lifts up into the air.

Kun takes a step back, his mouth falling agape with shock and bewilderment.

YangYang looks up, thinking this has something to do with aliens. Possibly an abduction? But he sees nothing.

Only that he is floating about twelve feet off the ground somehow and glowing brightly, holding a diamond that just magically appeared out of nowhere and displayed the image of a sheep and cat on it.

YangYang looks down at Kun with a playful grin on his face. "I feel like that dude in that Disney Movie about bears, only I didn't piss off any spirits or kill a mother sheep."

"Yangie, shut up!" Kun shouts out. "You're not going to transform into a sheep!"

"Then get me down from here!" YangYang snaps back.

Instead, he glows brighter and brighter.

Kun shields his eyes. "I--can't...YANG--!"

There's a deafening cracking noise like the sound after a large bolt of lightning. The light bursts and strikes a tree nearby along the forest's edge. It instantly goes up in flames but it dosen't spread, it just consumes the tree and continues to lick the bark with flame. From the burst of light, the diamond drops to the grass and then dissolves in a shining array of fantasy-like sparks.

Kun gradually lowers his hand from his eyes to look at the spot where YangYang had been. With the bright light and glow no longer blinding him, he blinks in horror seeing nothing or no one there.

Standing on all four paws in the grass under where YangYang had been floating is a fluffy white cat with a purple diamond encrusted collar.

Kun dashes forward and grabs the cat, picking it up and holding it just inches away from his face. "WHERE'S YANGIE, CAT?!"

The cat looks at him, its ears pinned back.

Then it opens its mouth and lets out a tiny, pathetic mew sound.

Kun glimpses the collar, a silver tag dangles down with the name "YangYang" stitched on it. "Oh...God...Yang...Yang?"

The cat goes limp in Kun's hands, its ears still back.

"I gotta...I don't know...I...we're going to the King of Cat Experts right now!" Kun exclaims, cuddling the cat - that he is pretty positive is YangYang - in his arms and scampers off the grassy hill, heading toward a wooden cabin. "Chittaphon!"