"Kai oppa!!!! Kai oppa!! Do you hear me??? I love you!" one girl was screaming at the top of her lungs, despite being the fan closest to Jongin after pushing her way through a horde of young girls crowding around Jongin as he walked to the security line at the airport. "Do I hear her?" Jongin thought, "How can I not hear her when she is two inches from my face and screeching as loud as an eagle?" Despite the fans shoving and pushing to get as close as possible to him, Jongin tried to keep a patient smile on his face. "Yes, yes, I love you too!" he replied, despite the fact that her screams sent a small piece of saliva flying through the air to land on his cheek.

Accepting the hundreds of letters being thrown to him and pressed into his hands, Jongin couldn't help the feeling of annoyance that flashed through him. He didn't have to read them to know what they said. They all basically said the same. Some letters were written with passion, marked all over the pages where their tears had fallen as they described their love for Kai and EXO. Others were telling him what an inspiration he was and how they began learning to dance just because they were his fans. There were some letters that were scary- where fans couldn't quite seem to keep clear the line between fact and fantasy, sometimes creeping out the members with their over-eager lines and intense declarations of love. Just last week, one fan had given a poem to Minseok that she had written. For two pages, she went on about how beautiful his eyelashes were. Not to say they weren't beautiful of course, but the poem closed with "Until your lashes close one final time, I know I'm destined to be yours and you're destined to be mind." Talk about spooky!

But just in case you think things couldn't get worse, there were the "weird ones" as Baekhyun called them. Letters that went put a star to blush. Letters that went on and on in detail about things they would love to do with the members and things they would love for the members to do to them. And while Jongin wasn't opposed to some of the things, it was a bit disconcerting to have tons of fans give you letter after letter with such similar content, knowing all these strangers who don't even know the real you are busy fantasizing about you... without your permission. Yup, those were the letters that got real weird, real quick. Especially the ones from some American fans who insisted on calling Jongin "Daddy." He got the shivers just thinking about it.

As all these thoughts flashed through his mind, Jongin remembered that for the moment he was Kai. And as such, he smiled and waved and accepted the letters and notes that he know he would never read. WIth one final push through the crowd, he exited the swarm of fans and stepped inside the line of security where they couldn't follow him. He turned back to face them with a triumphant grin on his face. "Freedom!!" he thought. He must have looked even happier than he realized, however, because his brilliant smile seemed to leave fans blinded for a moment as they looked at him with adoring eyes. Well, after all, he did have a pretty gorgeous smile. But just as they started to recover and push forward to grab at him once more, he waved goodbye and slipped further into the security line in order to make his way to his gate.

It wasn't that he didn't like his fans. He did, of course. He wouldn't be where he was without them. And there were plenty along the road who had caught his eye, ones he had chatted with, laughed with, flirted with, even stolen a kiss or two from some here and there. But it seemed like the appeal of the masses of screaming fans became less and less as the years went by. While you might feel loved and adored onstage as thousands of people were chanting your name, as soon as the show is over and the lights are down, you're left once more with a pretty lonely life and not one single person who knows the real you.

"My name is Jongin," he thought as the echoes of his fans still sounded behind him as they chanted for Kai. "I know they love Kai, but do they actually love Jongin too? Is there someone out there who could love me?" He pushed a lock of his thick hair off his forehead and readjusted his fashionable glasses. It seemed like Jongin would never get the chance to find out if there was someone who could love him for himself since, after all, everyone he met already knew him as Kai. When EXO became such a huge global sensation during their comeback of 2018, everyone from Alaska to South Africa started following them. It seemed like every man, woman, and child knew all about EXO and their star dancer Kai, especially after he had made a successful solo debut as well.

WIth his final wishful thoughts about a girl that could meet him as Jongin and not know anything about Kai, he shook his head as if to clear the melancholy feelings away and heaeded towards his gate. He had a long day of traveling head the sooner he got settled in his seat, the sooner he could get some rest.