“Are you nervous?”

He asks, smiling a little as the young girl beside him was slowly counting to ten.

“A little. But I can do this, gege, don’t worry,”
--

Everyone knows that it is damn hard to be an idol. Because you have to maintain your idol image, and you have to work hard as a trainee before actually getting some hope of debuting sometime soon, and you have to learn how to give fanservice or else fans would find you boring and useless, and you have to appear so untouchable because that’s what makes the fans go crazy and want more. It definitely is no picnic. And when one is in SM, take that formula and multiply it by whichever number that’s greater than 10.
--

“I know you can. I’m proud of you,”

She turns to him, taking her focus away from the stage for a little while, and just focuses on his tall figure and his cute chubby cheeks and blonde hair with red highlights (they have a new concept. Something about an invasion of planets or whatever, and he’s supposed to invade Mars. She’s not really sure) and basically him in general. She tries to keep memorizing the lyrics in her head, but she gets distracted by his dazzling presence.

“Thank you,”

She answers back with a deep sigh, and she doesn’t know whether he just gave her a bright frown or a sad smile.
--

A year after being successful in Korea and China, EXO has made it thus far. They have lived up to the level of their company, and everyone was glad that the new babies of SMTown are successful like their sunbaes.

But like S.E.S., CSJH The Grace, Girls’ Generation and f(x), EXO needed one of their own, a girl group counterpart.
--

“Don’t get too flustered, okay? If you get something wrong, just keep going. No one will notice anyway,”

She focuses on the stage again and starts counting backwards this time, trying to gesture out the dance moves as she sings in her head.

“You’ve told me that a hundred times, gege. Stop worrying too much,”
--

Summer of 2013, rumours started going out about a ten member girl group who’ll be a new addition to the SM Family. They say the group is split into two like EXO, also having K and M groups.

A little later, the rumour was later revealed to be true, but the group will be 12 and will bring a new kind of genre to the girl groups of today, according to Lee Soo Man. She gets picked to be in it, and her teaser is the seventh to come out. Thankfully, they don’t have as many teasers as their sunbaes.
--

“I’m sorry, it’s just...I don’t even know why I’m more nervous than you,”

He wipes the sweat off of his forehead and tries to slower his breathing because, “And you go on next so imagine the anxiety I’m in,”

She blows on her full bangs and turns to him again, placing a hand on his shoulder. She looks up at him because he’s too tall even with her heels on, and she gives him a reassuring smile.

“Please, stop,”

She knows he gets it, and they both have a flashback that neither knows the other one also had.
--

“So, you’re going to debut soon, huh?”

She approaches him in the trainee practice room, tying her hair up in a high ponytail.

“Yeah, they say sometime early 2012 if it all works out correctly. Have you seen my teaser? It already has a lot of hits on Youtube,”

The sun peaked in from the windows and it hit her figure so perfectly, she looked like she was glowing. He took a breath and let it out, a bit awed by her.

“So, I’m guessing things have to end now, right?”

And his heart breaks little by little by the sudden realization because he knows she’s right and he knows this was the consequence of having to choose between your dreams and your heart (because obviously, love and work do not mix really well).

“I’m sorry,”

She shakes her head and puts her hands behind her, swaying a little like a little girl.

“Don’t be. You’ve worked hard for this. You deserve it,”

She smiles and he decides he’s done with the choreography because damn, History was such a hard song to dance to, and starts to walk away from the room.

“I’m sure you’ll join us on stage soon enough,”

He says before leaving, trying to make things feel lighter because it feels like a whole lot of weight had just been put down on both of their shoulders.

“I don’t think that’s going to make things any different,”

And he hates to admit it, but she was right. They’re going to make things worse, actually.
--

“I miss you,”

He says suddenly and she gets a little taken aback, but she regains her composure because she was trained to and she had to. Instead, she links their fingers together and they both thought her hand fits perfectly in his and the familiar feeling is both breathtakingly beautiful and so painful at the same time.

“I’m here now,”

But he shakes his head.

“Yeah, but not in the way we both want it to be,”

She swipes his long bangs away from his eyes so she can see him clearly and she takes a good long look.

“By now, I’m pretty sure a lot of girls from around the world want to be your girlfriend, just like how things are with all our sunbaenims. Things aren’t going to change. We have to accept that and move on,”

He catches her wrist and kisses her fingertips and presses her palm again his cheek before leaning on it and closing his eyes.

“I don’t want to move on,”
--

It was announced that K was going to debut in Music Bank, and M was going to debut in some awards show again, releasing a mini-album on the same day. The moment the music video came out, everyone went crazy. It was that same feeling every time a group debuts from SM Entertainment. Everyone expects a lot from them.

And this group was no different.

Having 3 Chinese members, 1 Chinese-American, and 2 Korean in M, and 4 Korean members, 1 Korean-American, and 1 Japanese in K, everyone was booming and anticipating the long awaited debut. And after a few months that seemed to have just felt like an adrenaline rush (and a successful showcase), the group’s debut week finally arrived.
--

She his cheek with her small thumb and he finds the action soothing, as per usual. It was a good thing everyone was too busy with preparing everything else that no one seemed to notice these little moments they would have at the sidelines.

“It’s not like we have a choice,”

And he hates it so much that she keeps on contradicting every single thing he says, and worse, she was right every time. But he sighs and lets her kiss his cheek and they both try to laugh.

“Are you sure you’re born in 1992? Because, I swear, you’re so short,”

She playfully punches his arm and starts to memorize lyrics in her head again.

“When will you be flying to China?”

He smirks and chuckles and put both of his hands in his leather pockets.

“You make it sound like you want me to leave already,”

She doesn’t answer because he was partly right. The moment he goes to promote in China would make things a lot easier. They can both move on easily if they won’t be seeing each other. It was for the best.

She starts a countdown to one in her head, because the song before them was ending, and the moment she steps on that Music Bank stage, her whole life was going to change.
--

Lu Han was Chinese and he was confused of everything around him so he was glad when Amber spoke to him in his language. He felt warm and fuzzy and her tone felt like he was back at home. So, he decided, that Amber would be his favourite sunbaenim.

“Waaah, you’re so lucky. She’s my idol. She’s one of the reasons why I auditioned. Even though she’s boyish, she’s so beautiful. I hope I can have as many fans as her one day,”

A girl in a high ponytail approaches him suddenly, after seeing his interaction with the mentioned sunbae, and starts talking in Korean until she realizes he didn’t understand some of what she said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. You must one of the Chinese trainees here. I have lots of Chinese friends too, so another one couldn’t hurt, right? How old are you?”

“Hi, I’m Lu Han. I’m 20 actually, born in 1990,”

The girl held out her hand and shook his, repeating his name slowly.

“I like your name, gege,”

His heart did leaps, and he knew he was in trouble.
--

“I have to go get ready now. Unnie is going to kill me if I miss last minute practice,”

He remembers the time he was so scared of Kris, despite being older, that he would not dare miss any practice at all.

“You’re going to do great,”

And he gives her cheek a peck as well, because that’s all they can do now. And that’s all they are ever going to do. Because if they did even the slightest bit as to touch, cameras would flash, videos would be recorded, words would be said, and everything else would come with it.

She gives him a last goodbye, and runs off to where her members are.

And when it was their turn to perform, he stands backstage, watching her put on her best effort to wow the audience and try not to stumble and fall because her heels were damn high. Then he thinks long and hard.

Maybe their relationship really was doomed from the start.
--

“So, you’re going to debut soon, huh?”

He approaches her in the practice room, turning off the speaker as he passed by it, wanting it to be silent as they talked again after so long.

“Yeah, they said sometime soon in 2013, so a little later this year. My teaser just came out. I’m happy I’m the seventh one. It’s my favourite number,”

The scene feels so much like déjà vu but it doesn’t bother them all that much.

“Does that mean we’re going to be together again soon?”

She picks up her water bottle and her training bag before approaching him and looking at him straight up in his sweet yet haunting eyes.

“Not in the way you’re thinking, Luhan-ge,”
--

She’s officially debuted. He was on a van riding to the airport to go to China. This was how things were, and always will be. Because they both knew from the start, that they were meant to broken, they were meant to end.

So, they did.