SMTOWN concert brings a lot of emotions, just like every fan feels after watching all groups unite for the ending song.

It doesn’t seem to be the case for all artistes, or bring positive vibes for a certain hamster walking with Luna. She is always left alone with other artistes, which is not an issue but walking with her girlfriend is always best. The pride she carries with her is beyond and over the top, which is understandable because of her group's amazing performance, whether it is a solo or a group one.

“Are you feeling okay, Wendy?” Luna asks good-naturedly. She can tell at one glance that Wendy is feeling jealous of her group members being this close together. She can understand. It’s perfectly normal. “Don’t be too sad! It’s just fanservice, remember?”

Of course, Wendy does.

She just hopes Irene does too.

From afar, Wendy's eagles eyes spot Seulgi running towards the center of stage with that cute cat-eared hairband. Wendy bursts out laughing at her adorable best friend; how can the older woman be so much cuter than her? Seulgi is practically perfect in Wendy’s (maybe everyone's too) eyes; she can sing, dance and has a ton of secret talents under her belt. It’s no wonder why everyone thinks she looks good with Irene; their beautiful leader. Two talented, beautiful people should end up together.

“Unnie! Unnie!”

Irene doesn’t hear her again.

Wendy is crazily frustrated inside. She knows fanservice is important for their fans but she has never hated shipping more than now. All this shipping and hoping for members to be together is getting on Wendy’s nerves as it should have been some time ago. Her silence whenever the manager suggests that they do something for fanservice has already gone above and beyond her own expectations. Just because she keeps shut doesn't mean she automatically agrees. Her hopes of her own girlfriend realizing it has also come crashing down after Irene seems more than willing to play along with the fanservice. 

And the SMTown concert ends.

Walking backstage is always a heartwarming experience because its where all artistes congratulate each other for putting on a good stage for all the fans present.

Now it just seems like a hellish nightmare.

“Oh, Wendy-ah!”

“Taeyeon-unnie,” Wendy greets with a shy smile. She might not have always idolized the latter but having another sister figure like her in the company is amazing. She laughs when Taeyeon ruffles her hair playfully, “Congratulations on the amazing solo stage again. Unnie. I hope you had fun too.”

Taeyeon merely smiles without another word. She approached Wendy because it’s obvious that Wendy is dying to go back to the waiting room, which is very unlike her normal self. Now that Wendy is genuinely thankful and cheerful around her, Taeyeon feels accomplished. She hasn’t felt sincerely happy for a long time either, not ever since she lost a dear friend who was more of a brother to her. Seeing someone else she holds close to her heart be happy because of her makes Taeyeon’s heart at ease too, especially since she failed her own best friend the last time. 

Sighing deeply, Taeyeon wraps her arms around Wendy’s equally small frame and embraces the latter tightly. She smiles when Wendy’s arms tighten around her as well; seems like a hug is good enough to at least take away some of Wendy’s frustration.

“Good job today, Seungwan.”

“Thank you, Unnie.”

The waiting room is oddly silent, Irene thinks. She scans the entire room and spots an empty chair – no wonder she feels weird; her girlfriend isn’t in the waiting room with them like she usually is. Irene wonders why it takes her so long to realize it. A few minutes is all she needs to find out what is missing in their performance but she doesn’t even realize Wendy not being there until this silence is present? Wendy being a person and her girlfriend at that… there’s already something wrong with this whole picture. Wendy should be the first one Irene notices that is missing.

“YAH! YERIM COME BACK HERE!”

Yeri squeals and runs away with Joy’s phone in hand, using their stylists and managers as human shields. She tries her best to avoid Joy’s quick hands but she can tell Joy is not really in the mood for kidding around.

“Okay, okay! I’ll give it to you.”

Joy glares at the youngest fiercely and quickly snatches her phone from Yeri’s hand, striding out of the door at once. She ignores the calling of her name and immediately plugs in her earphones with blasting music, trying to avoid bumping into any of the seniors who might be along the hallway too. There’s nothing more she wants to do than cry in bed right now – the emotions coursing through her veins are driving her crazy. She never thought this feeling would come when in company of her members, her heart aches as if there are daggers stabbing into it repetitively.

No.

Sometimes, fanservice is too much.

Her riled up thoughts are preventing her from concentrating on her surroundings; from far, Joy looks as if she’s rushing to the toilet but doesn’t want to show it on her face.

“Oh, Sooyoung-ah.”

Joy looks up and sees the one person who she doesn’t want to see at this time, really? She just nods in acknowledgement instead of her resorting to her normally clingy antics.

Seulgi is left alone in the corridor, shock written all over her face as she watches Joy storm down the hall. Joy is known to be affectionate and extremely loving towards her, but the latter is obviously not happy to see her unlike on stage. The shock probably stems from the pain bubbling in her chest – something Seulgi never realized. She has never seen Joy this upset in a long while. Whenever Joy is with her, she feels as if she’s on top of the world. Now with Joy shunning her like the plague, Seulgi has an unexplainable feeling inside her… almost as if a literal heartbreak is possible.

‘Sooyoung, what’s wrong?’

Irene sits alone in the waiting room, patiently waiting for her girlfriend to come and cuddle her like they always do. She’s already changed and make-up less but Wendy hasn’t appeared in the waiting room ever since the concert ended. She already sent a couple of texts and called a few times but Wendy didn’t answer either. It makes her worry for the young hamster she calls her girlfriend; Wendy has a high sense of responsibility and she won’t do things to make the people around her worry. After seeing what happened between the maknaes a while ago, it’s making Irene especially antsy tonight.

“Ugh… Son Seungwan, I’m going to murder you,” Irene grumbles under her breath. She still doesn’t like being this disheveled in her thinking over one person even though they’ve been dating for a good one and a half of years. “What is this? Making me worry so much…”

Just as Irene gathers her together and tries not to look like a desperate fool, she finds the youngest watching her from the corner like a hawk. Yeri is practically the eye in the sky when it comes to relationship matters among the five of them; because the person she fancies is a soloist, Yeri doesn’t have to bear any jealousy like the others have occasionally. It also puts her on the fence whenever there are fights between Irene and Wendy; the topic of the argument doesn’t matter whatsoever, Yeri is always the fair one.

Yeri points at the door and Irene groans aloud; being taught what to do by the youngest in the group (not to mention an of 8 years) is pretty embarrassing. Nevertheless, Irene makes her way to the door… only to get almost hit in the face when it opens.

“Thanks for accompanying me, Taeyeon-unnie,” Wendy blushes. She’s still not used to hanging out with the Girls’ Generation members alone despite the close relationship both groups have.

Taeyeon waves to the other members in the room, ruffling Seulgi’s hair when the younger squeezes past the two women unintentionally blocking the doorway. She doesn’t say or show it, but the tension in the waiting room is visible. It’s obvious because Joy is nowhere to be seen and Irene is forcing a smile in front of her, which is so unlike the normally bubbly Red Velvet girls she knows. The kid leader might be oblivious sometimes but the one thing that doesn’t escape Taeyeon’s sharp eyes and instincts is how Irene’s eyes keep unconsciously travelling to her arm around Wendy’s waist.

It’s a dangerous thing to do, but Taeyeon makes sure to be cautious. She leans in and whispers into Wendy’s ear, “someone’s jealous I see. Love yourself, okay? Don’t get caught by the wrong people, Seungwan.”

With that mischievious but well-intentioned action by Taeyeon, the latter takes her leave from the waiting room. The room is left in utter silence as Wendy walks to the dresser in the corner, letting their stylist remove her make-up for her. Wendy hums a song to herself, seemingly oblivious to the boiling leader standing near the door still. She feels her chest a lot lighter and more comfortable after visiting Girls’ Generations’ waiting room. It might be because they have so much experience, so they understand whatever she’s going through too well.

The way they listened ever so kindly when Wendy was trying to so hard to express her messy emotions was amazing. They didn’t have to at all but because they thought of the Red Velvet members of family, they really treated them differently.

Yeri’s breath hitches when she sees Irene walking towards the dresser, her fists clenched by her sides – the eldest never hides her emotions well in front of Wendy.

“Did you have fun with the Unnies?”

“Sure did,” Wendy replies, though her tone is slightly different. She doesn’t look into Irene’s eyes through the mirror reflection as she usually does either. “They really let me open up about some stuff.”

Ouch.

Did Wendy not open up to her?

Honestly, the silence that followed Wendy’s revelation could slice throats or easily top the tension that was there before Taeyeon excused herself. It was obvious that Wendy was not happy with Irene because she and Irene are usually attached to the hip after concerts. Even if they weren’t, Wendy isn’t normally this quiet. She always wants to see the group interacting and being honest with each other instead of a puppet-manufactured one.  The Wendy sitting in this room is different, but Yeri has a strong feeling it’s for the best.

Her eyes trail over to the other abnormally quiet one – Kang Seulgi.

There’s no reason for Seulgi to be this quiet even if Wendy is; granted that they’re usually the partners-in-crime but her silence doesn’t make sense. Seulgi is only quiet when she feels sad, and it’s near impossible because she did amazing tonight.

The night of SMTOWN concert does wonders.

The journey in the car is unusually tense as well, not forgetting one of their members are heading