The crowd roars in cheers and claps, some were even screaming while others were in tears - afterall, 17 years is a long journey. Standing on stage, 13 members, whom are now, older but still very good-looking held each others hand as the each member takes turn giving a short speech to their fans. There’s no denying that the members themselves, regardless how old they are now, they still had tears in their eyes.

“This is it.”, the leader of the group, Seungcheol, speaks out. “17 years and we’re still together. We performed, we had good memories of joy and bittersweet sadness, we won awards, we still get hungry together. Most importantly, we lasted. And we still love you guys a lot. 17 years and you still are our fans, growing old with us. Some of you are probably married, some of you are working. But here we are, we’ve made it.”, the speech slowly dies down, the leader having his words choked up between tears and heavy breathing as he tries to recollect himself.

The fans shouted “please don’t cry” though they themselves had tears in their eyes. Seokmin, as he had called himself the moodmaker of the group ever since debut, tries to change the mood, making a foolish scene with Soonyoung, his partner in crime for years and Seungkwan, the ‘mc’ as he had claimed to be, tries to take over, talking about a video of some-sort they will be showing.

The venue darkens as the stage projector plays the said video; a compilation of their pre-debut activities in 17tv, wapop performance and special occasion events like the valentine and Christmas project. It continues on to when their debut, their first winning,them winning rookie awards, their first concerts and what-not the many promotions after. They even played about the most random things like their coming-of-age celebrations, birthday celebrations and other random but treasured moments of the members. Everyone in the venue had a little time-slot travel as they reflect to when they were much younger. The video ends with “Say the name. SEVENTEEN.”

The member by then had already taken place, the encore calls out for them. The few other members exchanged speeches with the fans before presenting Shining Diamond, a song that was pre-released before their debut. The stage comes to an end after their last performance, Adore U, which was their debut song.

This is the last time that they would be seeing their fans on stage. This is afterall, their last stage since it was time to grow up; to establish a strong future and to live in prosper of no longer being too young to be dancing so actively on stage. It was time they had to think about getting married and what not, trying to find ways to cope with being their age.

“17 years and we’re still together. Sure, we don’t wake up seeing each other anymore but that doesn’t mean the bond has broken, hasn’t it? We’ll still be in contact. We’ll still hang out. And if we could, we could still be singing our songs. Afterall, we’re bonded, have you all not forgotten? We’re SEVENTEEN. And this ring we still wear proves that our brotherhood still remained.”, Seungcheol spoke out when they went backstage, holding the ring that is still worn to his pinkies as he held it out. “Last cheer?”, he asked, holding his hand out as the others joined suit, linking their fingers around each other’s thumb.

“Say the name. SEVENTEEN!”