Joonmyun made sure to keep a stiff smile plastered on his face as he made his way to EXO's changing room. Hordes of people passed him as he trudged on: hoobaes, managers, sunbaes, staff, but the smile didn't slip. He bowed respectfully and automatically told everyone that they had worked really hard today. The trophy in his hand seemed to be getting heavy with every step he took, it was dragging him down, he wanted to fling it away from him but that wouldn't be a very idol-like thing to do.

Today was meant to be a happy day, it was EXO's first win for 'Overdose'. He wasn't meant to be on the stage alone, he was meant to be on stage with all s, he was meant to graciously accept the trophy and pass it along to all of s, he was meant to deliver a good speech remembering to include EXO M in it too, lots of things were meant to happen but they didn't.

As soon as he opened the door to EXO's waiting room, all eyes were on him. He shoved the trophy to the nearest manager, not being able to bear its presence anymore. He glanced around the room and saw several staff talking rapidly on their phones before his eyes landed on s. He saw Kyungsoo was trying to comfort a sobbing Jongin, Chanyeol and Baekhyun who was holding on to each other as they cried and Sehun who was staring off into space. He stalked over to them and their heads snapped up. The pain in his eyes were reflected back in their eyes, or was it the other way around.

"Why haven't you guys gotten changed yet?" he asked irritably. "We're on a tight schedule. We start concert rehearsals and rehearsals for tomorrow's music show in about 30 minutes."

"Hyung-" Kyungsoo began.

"Get changed!" he snapped.

He didn't stick around to see if they're listening to him, instead, he walks over to the stylist whilst taking his clothes off. He's always the last to get ready but today, stage clothes were off him and training clothes were on him in lightening speed. He collected his belonging and headed towards the cars. His phone was buzzing incessantly and the beginnings of a headache manifesting. He quickly put the phone on silent and waited for the rest of s to begin filling the car.

Sehun was the next to come in. He didn't say a word to the leader as he sat down next to him. Baekhyun and Chanyeol followed and Joonmyun observed that they had stopped crying. Kyungsoo came in with Jongin, who had calmed down considerably but was still sniffling. The quiet stillness in the car was unnatural but not unwelcomed, no one spoke or made a sound, everyone was left to their own thoughts. Their manager took the driver's seat moments later and they were off towards SME at an illegal speed.

Practise went off without a hitch. Everyone seemed too absorbed in the choreography to remember anything else. Only when they stopped for lunch did Joonmyun notice that the majority of s had excused themselves to go to the toilet only to come back with puffy red eyes. Some half-heartedly poked their lunch whilst others consumed theirs in less than a minute. Then they were practising again. Secretly hoping that the exhaustion would claim them, secretly enjoying the burns they felt from their protesting muscles, secretly wishing things were different.

At 2am, their manager came to collect them. The silence was almost unnerving now and Joonmyun's headache had only increased. Once they had arrived, their manager let everyone leave except Joonmyun. Joonmyun was then treated to a 30 minute lecture on why he was a bad leader, again, and if he or s hear from Kris, to immediately report everything to him. The headache was bordering on a migraine by the time he had reached their dorm. Joonmyun quickly knocked back 2 aspirins and reached for his phone. The EXO members all watched warily from Chanyeol's shared room as Joonmyun went into his own shared room and slammed the door shut.

The phone rang twice before the recipient on the other end picked up.

"You ing bastard!" yelled Joonmyun.

"It's nice to hear from you too Joonmyun." said Yifan drily.

Joonmyun was shaking with rage. "How could you?"

"I presume you heard the news." Yifan said calmly. "Sometimes you need to think about yourself. Sometimes you need to put yourself first before others."

But his calm was only fuelling Joonmyun's anger. "How could you do this to me, to us?! How could you leave me alone with 10 kids."

Yifan sighed. "They're not kids. They're adults. And we are not their parents."

"That's not the ing point Kris!" spat Joonmyun.

"Don't call me that!" Yifan growled.

The members could hear everything from Chanyeol's shared room. Baekhyun and Jongin burst into tears and the rest moved to comfort them. This was going to be a long night.

"7 years Yifan! 7 ing years and you don't think I wanted to leave too? 7 years isn't easy, especially when 3 groups debut in that time and you're not in any of them." Joonmyun barked.

"Joon-"

"No. Listen to me. I get it, ok, I do. You and I, we've trained longer than the rest of the members, so I understand."

"No you ing don't." Yifan snapped. "You're in your home country, I'm not. You're not the one that had leave everything behind, you're not the one that had to master another ing language, you're not the one racist remarks were thrown at, so no, you don't know what it's like." He sighed again. "I didn't even want to be an idol." He said bitterly.

"Then why the did you audition? Why did you train so damn hard? Why did you debut with us? Why did you stay with us for 2 ing years?" Joonmyun asked in a broken voice.

"I thought it would be different." Yifan whispered.

"It'll get better, I promise, just come back." Joonmyun said quickly. "I'll come with you to take to-"

"Don't you think I tried talking to them? They brushed me to the side like they always do. Do you really think I'd leave if I didn't try everything?" Yifan said in outrage.

"Then just come back for the concert." Joonmyun negotiated. "Please. This has always been our biggest dream, please Yifan, don't take this away from us. Our concert is in 2 weeks and we have a lot of injured members on our hands, we can't afford to change the choreography. Then you can leave when we have a gap between concerts, that'll give us enough time to adjust."

"I'm sorry, Joonmyun." He said firmly.

"We can still fix this!" Joonmyun babbled desperately. "Tell everyone it was a mistake. It's still early days, we'll chalk it up to the media making up."

"Joonmyun do you even hear yourself?!" Yifan snapped. "This is no way to live. They push us too hard, expect too much and we're paid too little. We all are in desperate need of medical care, not a bloody concert! We just finished a comeback and they pushed us straight towards training for another one. We don't get time to relax, or recuperate or visit our families. If they treated us like human beings instead of machines, I wouldn't be leaving at all! Sooner or later, we're all going to collapse because there's been too much damage done to us because of this bloody company, permanent damage that we'll all feel in a few years. Is this really worth it?"

There was a long pause. Only the sounds of Joonmyun's muffled sobs could be heard over the phone and through the walls. As much as Yifan's heart ached to hear it, he had to be strong.

"I love you." Joonmyun said finally.

"Joonmyun-"

"I love you so much. I've had a crush on you since you became a trainee. I mean who didn't right? You were the definition of tall, dark and handsome, and boy were you tall, you still are."

Joonmyun laughed a little and Yifan's heart clenched.

"I remember wanting you to notice me so badly. But you'd always hang around the foreign and Chinese trainees. Plus I was really plain, I didn't really think I'd stand a chance of catching your eye so I just admired you from afar. I understand what our fans go through because of that. So imagine my surprise when one day handsome Kris Wu came and talked to me. Honestly it was something right out of a manga, it's so embarrassing. I can't even remember our first conversation, all I can remember is that you somehow managed to look perfect without makeup and that your gummy smile just added to your charm."

Joonmyun took a shaky breath in and Yifan realised that he was crying.

"I don't know how but we became really good friends. It was so hard to hide my crush from you. Every time someone would flirt with you, my heart would just break a little. And every time, you'd tell me that you went out on a date or how you managed to score, I'd actually go home to my mum and cry. Of course she never knew it was about you, she always thought it was because of my training or the fact that I hadn't debuted it. It became increasingly clear to me that I had upgraded from a crush. I was a little bit in love with you. And as the days, weeks, months and years went by, I just fell deeper in love."

Joonmyun paused to furiously wipe away the fluids on his face before continuing.

"I am secretly pleased that you would tell me things you would never tell Yixing or Luhan or any of the other trainees. I'm glad we could talk so openly to each other about everything. Well, almost everything, I mean I did manage to hide the fact that I've been in love with you for all these years but apart from that, everything. I was always worried that I would debut and we'd drift apart or you'd debut and forget about me. Can you imagine how happy I was when I learnt we were debuting together? Well you don't have to imagine, you were there, remember I jumped on you and hugged you for the longest time."

They both took a moment to chuckle at the memory.

"Good times. I was so glad that we were going to debut together. Then I learnt that we were going to be split into M and K and that we were both the leaders. I was sad of course, but at least I had someone to share the burden of being a leader. We made a promise that day; to have each other's back, no matter what, and that we were in this together. I felt like I could go through everything as long as you were by my side; the pressure, the schedules, the sasaeng, everything. Remember when 'We are one' came into our lives? We all thought the phrase was stupid but it grew on us. I loved when we came to the 'Wolf' era and we had to pick numbers for our jerseys. We were 100%, complete."

He took a deep breath in and mentally prepared himself.

"I'm not confessing my feelings for you to make you awkward or so you're obligated to stay. I just wanted to let you know because it's been about 6 or so years and well I deserve to get this off my chest even if you don't feel the same way because it's been eating me up alive. Plus if you're leaving this is the perfect time, the only time, for me to tell you this. If I manage to convince you to stay and you don't feel the same way, then this is the first step to getting over you. And if you stay and you do feel the same way...no I won't get my hopes up on that one."

"Joonmyun-"

Joonmyun continued quickly before Yifan had a chance to finish.

"I know our conditions aren't ideal and it's not what we were promised. I also know that the K members do get more opportunities then the M members and that can be frustrating. But we're a young group and we're really popular, like seriously popular, haters can hate but they can't deny this. Opportunities will rises up left, right and centre for us in the coming years or maybe even months. So please, don't leave us. We are one, 12 of us make up that one and if you leave, we'll just be 11/12ths of 1. If you love us even a little bit, just stay for a while, we've all worked so hard to get to this point and we really can't do this without you. We need you, I need you."

There was a long silence and Joonmyun thought that maybe Yifan had hung up.

"I'm sorry Joonmyun. I am really very sorry." Yifan eventually said.

The line went dead and Joonmyun dropped his phone. He let out a pained scream before collapsing on the floor whilst letting out the most heart wrenching cries. Kyungsoo's dam finally broke down and he held on to Chanyeol as sobs over took him. The only one who remained impassive was Sehun, he was trying his hardest to comfort the rest of s. Over in China, Yifan was mirroring Joonmyun's action and dreaming of all that could've been if he had admitted his feelings for Joonmyun a long time ago.

A couple of hours later, Sehun found Joonmyun curled up on the floor of their room with dried tear stains on his face and a frown on his forehead. Together with the help of Baekhyun, he managed to get Suho out of his training clothes and in to his pyjamas before getting him into bed. Baekhyun quietly told him that he was going to sleep in Chanyeol's room and if Sehun wanted to join them he was sure that there was more than enough space. Sehun politely declined and said that he's going to stay with Joonmyun. Sehun slid into his own bed and laid awake. It was the first time Sehun didn't pray to God to keep all s happy and together.

I'm sorry for the angst