After promoting our debut album, I didn't expect us to be back in the studio in less than a year. Hell it's less than six months actually. Our manager said, "Your debut went better than expected so they decided we might as well promote another album while the hype is still there."

We worked through the days and throughout the nights to complete our second album as soon as possible. I guess this album was better in some ways than the previous one. We were requested to wear colourful clothes, make it a trend they said. I thought I looked stupid, but so are the others. We completed each stage to perfection like our debut stages. The only difference for this promotion was this is our first win. We won an award for this album which was in our first year.

Our company was surprised, our manager was surprised. All in all, everyone was surprised. Nobody expected anything from us but somehow we won...in our first year, our rookie year.

I wonder, what will happen if we didn't win anything? What will happen if-

During our second year, everything became hectic. We managed to win almost everything though. Our company debuted us an experiment. I'm sure they were glad that their experiments were doing them a huge favour. We released more albums, more songs. Our faces appeared on the television daily, our schedules were no joke but we were slowly getting used to it.

Getting a few naps here and there was enough for us. We say we need to keep working hard, harder.

Minho was getting out of his shell, he talked more.

Onew was slowly but surely sharing his burden as a leader with me, even though he still kept most of it to himself.

Key is already used to the attention, he knows how to play the audience and the camera.

Taemin was slowly but surely improving more with his constant training. He still barely sleeps though. He trained after we stopped, he slept later than us and he's the youngest.

I wonder what can I do? I know I cannot do much though. I can only offer my help.

I helped Minho, I helped Onew, I helped Key, I helped Taemin.

Everything was going well until- Minho, he injured himself during Let's go! Dream Team! filming.

Our stage will not be complete without the five of us, but we cannot disappoint our fans. We were determined to give it our all, to make it perfect, even without one of us… It will still be perfect.

Minho was frustrated, hell he was more than frustrated.

He was angry, he was furious.

We tried not to blame him but a small part of me asked, why?

Why did he injured himself? Why?

Onew was doing his best to keep us as one.

Key was doing his best to distract the spotlight to him.

Taemin was doing his best to cover for Minho.

Me? I was doing my best to help here and there.

Soon we released our first Japanese single, from a group that held no expectations, we now have a reputation to uphold.

Another month passed and we released another Japanese single and another one and another.

After releasing a Japanese album, we started to promote ourselves in Japan, to enlarge our fan base.

We were doing everything in Japan, a show here and there, a concert here for a day then another concert somewhere else for 2 days.

The schedule went on for a year. After three years together, working as one, something cracked.

Onew.

He was a mess.

The others including me, we were losing our rock. We were struggling. Without Onew, we quickly becoming a mess but onstage we still did our best. We still performed to perfection even though we were missing our rock. But we knew, that without our rock, we were nothing close to perfection. We were working hard, while our rock was just resting.

Rest was all we want him to do, for now.

Let us suffer for awhile after what he did for all of us.

I was trying to be their rock for awhile, just temporarily. But our fans were curious, what happen to their leader?

What happened to us? I, myself was curious.

What cracked, what broke?

Onew came back after awhile, he was better somehow.

Everything was falling back into their original place, slowly but it was mending-

The fans wanted something, anything. The company too demanded us to come up with something, at least something. This forced us to work to more to come up with an inspiration. Perhaps, a new album, but with something unique, something different because this time our opinion counts. How rare because in this industry idols are puppets but I guess we are different.

I wondered whether it was a good idea to make the album different from those in the market?

Different is good, different is bad...

Bad or good, good or bad...

I wonder, I wondered...

Everyone was ecstatic, except us because the crack was barely concealed, hardly mended.

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ok edited as well, slight changes from the original ver ;;