Years passed by quickly. It was 2012 when I finally debuting with my group called EXO. It still felt unreal even after I got down from the rehearsal stage and the staff were saying good job, kids to my members. Sweat trickled down from my neckline to my shirt and what I wanted to do was going back to the dorm and took a cold, refreshing shower.

“So, Kai… no, it’s weird to call you like that.” Chanyeol, one of my members, grimaced at my stage name after we monitored the performance. “Jongin, how do you dance to the chorus part? I feel stiff all over my body.”

I chuckled and began to teach him the dance. It was part of my duty in the group because I appointed as the main dancer. Together with a china boy named Yixing, or better known as Lay, we watched over our group for dance matter.

It was currently summer and Seoul was hot as ever. We took off the leather jacket almost instantly when we entered our backstage room. Baekhyun grunted and took a tissue then wiped the sweat on his forehead.

“I hate summer.” He burst out. “Hot here, hot there, hot everywhere.”

“Summer also hate you too. It’s mutual, buddy.” Kyungsoo who sat across him retorted and we all laughed at his witty reply.

“When you all talking about summer,” Junmyeon took out his iPod from his bag that securely placed on top of makeup desk. “We need to listen to f(x)’s Hot Summer.”

Sehun stared at me knowingly before joined the others in a silly dance over our label mate song. I shrugged it as nonchalantly as I could and took a seat beside Kyungsoo, who was giving the members a dirty look.

“What the hell do you do to my precious girl group, huh?”

Oh, Kyungsoo and his love for f(x).

Junmyeon told him about something but my ears completely blocked their voices when Soojung’s part came out and she sang beautifully over the hyped beat.

After she kind of ended our relationship one‒sidedly, I decided not to mope around like a wimp because I knew, if it was me, I would have to choose the same thing. Our careers really were important for both of us and this was what we had to pay for it, our relationship. Actually, I was grateful that she did break up on me because if I was the one who debuted first, I did not think I could do the same like Soojung.

Speaking about her, she changed a lot after she debuted. She slowly became quieter, the sparkles on her eyes were gone and she looked, well, gloomy? I did not really know why because I never asked a personal question to her. Well, I seldom got in touch with her after we broke up.

I heard lot of gossips flew here and there about her and her bad attitude. No, she was not an arrogant chick just like the rumor said she was. Whoever said Jung Soojung was an ice princess, they needed a full brain check up because as far as I knew, she was the sweetest thing in this world.

Even after broke up, she still treated me nicely, which I did not know bad or good, but decided it was the latter. She greeted me when we met, she laughed at my lame joke that I swore to myself to improve my comedy skill and she complimented my songs even if those were not really her style of music.

I did not know why she changed but it saddened me that she looked better before she became an idol. Sure idol’s life was tough and you needed to show your best smile wherever you went and you needed to stay alert of paparazzi who always trying to pry your life. There was no secret about you anymore since they always managed to find out everything about you, even the smallest thing. And I felt sorry that Soojung had to go under these sick, ugly, annoying things.

“Jongin, you okay?” Kyungsoo stared at me with his wide eyes and I frowned weirdly. “Yeah, why?”

He jerked up his chin at something and I followed it direction. The other members were already going out from the room with loud chattering sound.

“We’re going back to dorm. Come on, let’s go before Chanyeol takes my favorite seat.” He smiled at me and kindly waited for me when I collected my mp3 player and headset that sprawled on top the makeup table.

***

I decided myself that 2013 was the best year in my life so far.

My group finally had a comeback after a long hiatus and the schedule was almost, yeah, almost overlapping with f(x)’s comeback. Only their comeback was slightly faster than us. And much to my luck, I got asked to appear on f(x)’s comeback teaser this time.

So here was I, stood still awkwardly as Soojung circled her arms around my neck and closed her eyes. Her new read hair was strangely fit her and she looked hot as ever. I barely held myself together as our breath mended in one.

“Jongin, don’t be so stiff. Soojung, lean closer to him, yeah, just like that. Hold on, kids.”

The flash blinded me as the world around us disappeared and there were only she and I here. The sound of erratic pulse and our breathing mixed, creating a rhythm together, I did not even know whose heart beating so fast right now because I honestly felt numb. I knew that she could easily listen to the beat of my heart and I did not really care, I wanted her to know that it still and always had beating this fast when she was near me.

“Now let’s change our location, you two are going to sit on that bench.”

We followed the director’s word and walked toward the bench, a small smile grazed on her lips when she glanced at me.

“The hairstyle suits you, Jongin.”

“So does yours, Soojung.”

We grinned at each other before we heard the director yelled at us because our photoshoot was supposed to be the angsty one, no smile and plainly vintage looking. I winced at the ear‒piercing shout and she giggled at me.

Our shoot finished after an hour of posing and changed the location once again at a room. She excused herself to change her outfit because unlike me, she still needed to do some more shoots with her members. I took this opportunity to walk over the photographer and whispering, “Can you give me all the copy of my picture and Soojung later?” When he nodded, I gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“What make you smile like a creep in the middle of the day, Kim Jongin?”

I turned from my secret conversation with the photographer to find satan’s spawn standing behind me, hands crossed over her chest and a judging look on her face. I groaned. “Shut up, Choi Jinri. You just ruin my day.”

She sneered jokingly. “Oh, you don’t even bother to hide the fact that you’re greatly pleased to be starring in our teaser, Kim Jongin? You even got the chance to hold my hand earlier, you must be insanely happy.”

I let out a scoff. “I want to clean my hand but no, I got to hold Soojung’s waist after that. Don’t be such a joy killer.”

Jinri was about to retort to me when Amber came closer to us, in a boy uniform. She cracked a smile while giving me a bro handshake. “Jongin, how are you? Long time no see.”

Jinri’s brows knitted together. “Amber, we met him a week ago in the office room, remember?”

“One week sure is a long time.” I stuck out my tongue at her and turned to Amber. “Well, I’m fine, thanks. I heard your song, the one that Kyungsoo’s featuring, and that’s absolutely great. Never know you can compose a song before.”

She answering lightly, “It’s nothing, Soojung also helped me writing the lyrics.”

“I wish my voice is good enough then I probably can be the one who featured in that song.” I told her sadly and she patted my shoulder with an apologetic smile. “You have a long way to go, Jongin. Practice a lot and you’ll definitely get there next time. Just tell me when you want me to make a song for you.”

“Thanks, Amber.” I smiled back at her. That was when I finally got some interest to a vocal training. Maybe I should consider an extra training with my coach later.

***

A first mini concert together with f(x) was the greatest Christmas gift for me. When my manager said that we were going to hold a mini concert together as a representative for SM Entertainment, it was undecided who were going to get paired. There was only a rumor that two groups going to share two days together. But I definitely did not expect that it were EXO and f(x).

My ears burned after an earful nag from Junmyeon, saying I should not be so obvious of my feeling toward Soojung and that I should stay at least one meter from her. He was being such a naggy mother‒in‒law when a gif of me staring at Soojung at a SM Town concert went viral in internet and hoped that something like that would not happen again.

The first day had finished yesterday and it went well. I prevented myself from looking at Soojung, no matter how hard it was. She was everywhere and literally, my eyes just kept looking at her direction sometimes. It was not only my eyes, my foot too, actually.

We had to give the gifts for the fans at the ending segment and without I realized, I was walking toward her direction. I turned away once I caught a glimpse of her and pretended not to see her.

And did you have any idea how it felt? Freaking hurt.

It was hurt to fake your emotions and acted like you were fine when in reality you were not. I lost count on how many times my heart fell from it place when I needed to pry away my gaze from her, when I could not talk to her freely, when I had to pretend that she was nothing for me when truth to be told, she was my everything. But I had to be professional because this was my choice of destiny and I could not just run away from it.

She, on the other hand, was very passionate on stage. Her chic aura was undeniably charming, but I still preferred the bubbly Jung Soojung than the fierce Krystal. She always managed to look blank, to look unfazed by anything and to look tough despite her real fragile self. What could I say about her? Jung Soojung was just that kind of amazing girl.

That was why, on the second day I was trying not to be obvious but still getting closer to Soojung. And guess what, I did it successfully. There were no weird fancams or anything but you could always see I lingered around her spot.

It made me realized that even after all this time, it was still Soojung.

***

2014 came and soon a lot of bad stuff happened that I became so lost and went to a slump phrase. Kris and Luhan left the group, the dating scandal of Baekhyun and Taeyeon, the shocking news of Jessica who supposedly kicked out of the group by the agency and the members and then Soojung suddenly fainted at the concert.

When I thought that 2015 might be a better year, I proved it wrong because Tao also left the group and Jinri withdraw from f(x). Jinri and the members had some argument because they really wanted to keep f(x) as five members group but Jinri was being Jinri. She insisted to back off from the group because she had lost the passion of being an idol. Rather than doing it half‒assedly, she preferred to be free from it.

It was annoying how people out there made some accusing assumption on our condition, how we looked like we doing our job poorly that we could not meet their expectation on us and how they threw some mean comment that a normal human would not even capable of thinking to write about something so nasty and hurtful.

Everyone looked so tired but we still needed to show our best fake smile to the world to reassure our treasured one that we were okay. I caught Junmyeon crying himself to sleep one time in a hotel room and believe me or not, he was not the only one. Chanyeol, Sehun and Minseok did it too. I felt like someone just grasped my heart tightly when I saw them broke down like that and wondered how Soojung dealt with hers. Maybe she was crying too, knowing how soft her heart was, or maybe she was shutting herself like what any introvert would do when they upset.

Well, those were a few of my guesses. But rather than dwelling on Jessica and Jinri’s problem or taking a nice rest on her mansion like what I thought she would do, Soojung was here, accompanying me inside the dance room with two cups of taro bubble tea, her favorite. We were leaning against the wall with eyes closed, thinking about our own problems.

“Jongin, do you ever feel insecure?”

“What’s it? Twenty questions?”

She looked at me just as I opened my eyes to glance at her and giggled. “Well, let’s play twenty questions.” She started again, and asking the same question only this time a little bit louder than before, “So, Jongin, do you ever feel insecure?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Do you, Soojung?”

“I am, Jongin.” She closed her eyes again, so did I. “What do you do when that feeling slowly killing you inside?”

“I ignore it?” Because basically I was saving myself from dying. “What about you?”

“I let them stay inside me for a while before slowly breaking down.” I could hear the frown from her tone and my brows scrunched at the thought of it. “So, how do you deal with your members after the three left?”

“Shutting myself in a room and playing game.” I could not tell her that I was crying sometime. “Why don’t you ignore your insecurity, Soojung? Doesn’t it hurt you?”

She hummed quietly. “I wonder why too. I guess because something I think too much and I care too much.” There was a paused before she whispering, “Jongin?”

I turned to her with confused stare. “Yeah, Soojung?”

She still shut her eyes, a tight smile that did not even reach her ears on her lips as she spoke, “It’s unfair, Jongin.” Her voice hoarse as she squeaked weakly. “Really, really unfair.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s unfair.” She sniffled before her tears trickled down on her cheeks. I gently wiped them with my thumbs and let her crying