It’s easy to chart their growth over the years. Most of the difference lies in their voices alone: their earlier live performances sound too high and fragile, the shaky clarity of youth’s voice. These days, their voices are more stable, and their style has changed a little as well.

Over the years, they’ve grown and they’ve steadily improved. Their popularity has practically skyrocketed in China, but they haven’t been doing as much promoting internationally. Somehow, even though Joonmyun is Korean, this is their first time performing in Korea.

There’s something different about Korea. It’s not just the sudden shock of a different language and a different culture.

Maybe it’s the way that Joonmyun acts.

In China, it’s mostly Yixing who talks during the interviews, always knowing how to answer the questions that the interviewers throw at them. But here in Korea, it’s like Joonmyun is really at home. His smiles are noticeably brighter, and he’s the one to speak at the interviews.

Even after four years of living in China, Joonmyun’s Korean is still flawless. Yifan has never really heard Joonmyun speak in Korean before, so it’s still somewhat of a shock to see how comfortably Joonmyun talks onstage.

Being in Korea means that Joonmyun stays with his family until they have to leave to go to Seoul. They’re filming an MV in Korea and they’re doing a few interviews and performances over the span of two weeks. There’s not enough time for sightseeing, but it’s still as close to a vacation as they can get.

It’s after one of the performances that Yifan reaches for Joonmyun’s hand as they walk offstage. It’s like their secret, a small touch hidden away from the cameras, a way of silently saying, “Good job. You did well.”

But this time, Joonmyun walks just a step ahead of Yifan, and when Yifan reaches out for his hand, Joonmyun has already turned away. He’s talking to a staff member in Korean too quickly for Yifan to even catch a single syllable.

Yifan’s hand drops back to his side. He tells himself that it doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t hurt.

He knows that he’s lying to himself.

Yixing nudges him as he walks by. “Hey, so you know what Fanmyun is? It’s apparently really popular over here.” He laughs softly as he tosses Yifan a water bottle. “I’m jealous. Even the fans know that you and Joonmyun are closer.”

“You think so?” Yifan looks over at Joonmyun, who is laughing at something the staff member is saying. For the first time, he wishes that he could understand Korean, that Joonmyun was laughing with him.

Yixing hits Yifan unsympathetically on the side of his head. “Stop being so obvious. Everyone already knows.”

“I’m not obvious,” Yifan protests, but Yixing has already moved away.

There’s nothing obvious in the way his eyes find Joonmyun halfway across the room. There’s nothing obvious in the way he automatically reaches out for Joonmyun in a crowded place to make sure the younger is still behind him. There’s nothing obvious in the small flutter in his chest whenever he sees Joonmyun smiling.

They’re filming the MV at three different sites. They’ve already completed the filming at the school, and they’re doing the outside scene right now. It’s a beautiful place—green grass scattered with white dandelions. The small breeze blowing over them makes the bright sun more bearable.

Yixing collapses into the grass the moment they’re given a break. “Let’s make a wish,” he says, plucking a dandelion from the grass.

Yifan sits down beside him and pulls on Joonmyun’s hand. “Come on, sit.”

Joonmyun looks startled for a moment, but then he smiles and sits down beside Yifan. “Are you trying to kill these dandelions?” he asks Yixing, picking one of his own.

“I’m making a wish and scattering the seeds. It helps the dandelions,” Yixing says. “I wish that our new song will do really, really well.” He blows on the dandelion, and after three tries, the last of the seeds are drifting into the breeze.

“I wish that our new album can pass a million sales,” Joonmyun says, blowing his dandelion. A few seeds cling stubbornly to the root. He pulls them off with his hand.

“That doesn’t count,” Yifan protests, as Joonmyun throws the seeds away.

Joonmyun hits Yifan on the forehead with the dandelion. “Make your own wish.”

“I wish that we will be invited on Running Man,” Yifan says, blowing his own dandelion. He manages to blow away most of the seeds in two tries.

“Running Man? Really?” Yixing gives Yifan a judging look, and Yifan throws the stem of his dandelion at him.

“It’ll be fun,” Joonmyun says, and Yifan gives him a high-five.

“Okay, then I wish that we won’t go on Running Man,” Yixing says, and dodges away from Joonmyun and Yifan, who try to snatch the dandelion out of his hands. He smiles triumphantly when he finishes blowing the seeds away. “Now it’s done.”

“You can’t cancel my wish,” Yifan points out, sitting back and fixing his hair. He’s going to get fussed at when they resume filming. “It’s just going to be Joonmyun and me on Running Man, then.”

“I bet you’d like that.” Yixing speaks with a straight face, but there’s an obvious implication in his voice. Yifan looks away, his cheeks feeling oddly warm. Joonmyun doesn’t seem to notice the silent conversation going on between them as he looks down at the ground, picking his own dandelion.

“I wish that we’ll be able to go home more often.” Joonmyun’s second wish interrupts their eye contact.

Yifan holds his dandelion stem between his forefinger and thumb as he thinks about his own wish. He wouldn’t mind going home more often, to return somewhere where he can really relax and put off his problems for another day. But he also doesn’t mind being with his band members. Even if their days are usually too busy, there are two others with him, joking and laughing with him during breaks, staying by his side and enduring the worse of the trails with him. His happiest members over the past few years have been with his two closest friends, Joonmyun and Yixing.

“I wish that we’ll be able to stay together,” he says, blowing on the dandelion.

Yixing rolls his eyes. “What’s with this cold image you have these days. You’re the cheesiest of us all.” He takes another dandelion. “Let’s each make three wishes. I wish to not to become a boring grandfather when I’m old,” he says, scattering the dandelion seeds away when he’s finished.

“You’re not going to be a grandfather at all,” Yifan says, and dodges Yixing when he makes a “come here” motion with his finger. He makes his next wish to bide for some time, managing to blow the dandelion seeds away and say, “I wish that we’ll be on the same stage ten years from now,” before Yixing tackles him to the ground.

He dimly hears Joonmyun saying, “I wish that we’ll keep improving these years.”

Then Joonmyun joins Yixing in tackling Yifan, and the three of them end up tumbling in the grass. Their makeup is messed up now, but their cheeks are flushed from laughter and they’re having fun. Yifan can’t stop laughing, even though there are limbs pressing painfully into his limbs. They seem to be tangled together, and it takes a few moments before they calm down and they separate from each other.

Yifan stares up at the sky as he catches his breath. He plucks another dandelion and blows the seeds away absently, watching them drift away.

“You made a wish, didn’t you?” Yixing is sitting up now, staring at Yifan suspiciously.

“Hey, you’re not allowed to do that,” Joonmyun says, fixing his hair as he stands up. “We were each supposed to make three.”

“It wasn’t really a wish.” Yifan stands as well. “Hey, you guys want to run?”

“Like, run away?” Yixing asks suspiciously, but there’s excitement in the way he jumps to his feet.

“Let’s go to an ice cream store nearby.” Yifan looks back. Their manager and the director and other staff members are a good distance away from them. Most of them are talking to each other, and they were sufficiently distracted that it would probably give them enough of a head start.

“We’re running away for ice cream?” Joonmyun says.

It sounds like a dumb idea, since they could easily ask their manager to take them out for ice cream when they’re done filming, but there’s the excitement in the plan that makes it hard to resist. There’s the thrill of running away together—the three of them, without the burden on their shoulders, so they can just be kids without the idol and responsibilities attached at the end.

“Let’s go,” Yixing says, and he’s the one to take the lead.

The three of them start running, holding hands as they take off. Maybe they won’t get far, but at least they’re together.

What did you even wish for?

It’s because four is an unlucky number in the Chinese culture. But counting all of the wishes together, they’d made a total of ten wishes. And maybe there wasn’t anything special about the number ten, but they’d made it special.

Close your eyes and count to ten.

I wish that, in the end, we’ll still be together. That, even if the world ends, the person I love the most will still be by my side. 

It’s an informal performance and a surprise of sorts. Which is why, on their last day in Korea, even though the last performance was supposed to be Joonmyun’s solo, halfway through the song, Yifan and Yixing walk onstage.

Joonmyun is visibly surprised at first, but then he gives them a bright smile as Yixing starts singing.

They’re usually told to keep a serious face throughout their performances, but this time, they don’t stop smiling and looking at each other throughout the performance. It’s like a secret joke that the three of them share, and it’s a performance that leaves a warm glow inside of Yifan that means far more than the applause the audience gives when they finish.

They share one last smile before they bow and walk offstage.

“You guys shouldn’t surprise me like that,” Joonmyun tells them later, when they’re in the van and on their way back to the airport.  

“It was a good idea, wasn’t it?” Yixing asks, leaning across Yifan to talk to Joonmyun. There’s an empty back row behind them, but they prefer it this way, sitting so close that their sides are pressed together.

“It wasn’t professional,” Joonmyun says, but the passing streetlamps light up the smile on his face.

They hadn’t been scolded, at least. If anything, their manager had been amused by the impromptu performance, and the audience had loved it. Although they hadn’t practiced it together before, it had gone really well, and their separate parts had been decided on the spot, they still managed to achieve a kind of union only gained through constant practice.

“Ready to go back?” Yifan asks, reaching out his hand tentatively touch Joonmyun’s.

Joonmyun turns his hand over and links their fingers together tightly. “Of course.”

They may not be the most talented or the most experienced celebrities, but they have a common dream and they have each other.