First off, thank you so much for reading this story of mine! I really appreciate every view, every subscriber, and every upvote, so thank you. I love reading comments, so please don't hesitate to leave your thoughts down below. I'd love to know how you reacted and what you thought about the scenes depicted in the story. I reply to every single comment I get and I'd love to start a conversation with you! Subscriptions and upvotes are highly appreciated, since they let me know that I'm (hopefully) doing well!

As noted in the foreword, this was written specifically for the SURPLUS! Poster-Based Writing Giveaway hosted by ann1914. She's also the one who created the beautiful graphic that inspired this story. She has over a dozen posters that are looking for homes, so you can check them out here and claim one if you get inspired! Along with the graphic, the songs Beautiful Goodbye by Chen and How Can I Love the Heartbreak, You're the One I Love by AKMU were also great sources of inspiration.

Anyway, I'd like to explain why it took me so long to finish and post this. When I first started planning this story back in September 2019, I was buzzing with so many ideas and I had to stop myself from starting to write it then since it was supposed to be my NaNoWriMo project. Looking back, I guess I could have technically started it anyway and then kept track of the new word count once November started. Anyway, I hadn't been this inspired for a story since my previous OC x Idol story, Thanks for Everything. Chen's birthday had just passed and he was going to release his second EP, so there was inspiration everywhere.

Then in early October 2019, I was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend one of Chen's Dear My Dear fan signs and that day was one of the best days of my life thus far. I actually had a lot of peaks in 2019 because of Chen, but this fan sign was the highest summit out of all of those peaks. In April 2019 when he debuted as a soloist, I was bummed out since I missed attending one of his April, and a Flower fan signs near my birthday, but I had already made plans a month prior to meet up with one of my close friends. I wasn't going to suddenly drop those plans, but a small part of me was really sad about the timing. Not to mention, my friend had gone to an EXO-CBX concert a few days before we met up, which I couldn't attend because of work, so I was doubly sad about missing both events. All throughout spring, I missed seeing Chen perform because of conflicting schedules (thanks to SME announcing events like a week in advance when I already had my own plans booked). But then, in late June 2019, I was able to snag a ticket for the SM Station concert that he headlined, which was such an amazing experience. I got to see and hear Bye Babe (his collab with 10cm, one of my favorite Station songs, and their first time performing it live), Sorry Not Sorry, Beautiful Goodbye, and Years (another one of my favorite Station songs) live. I cried so much when he sang Beautiful Goodbye. It was one of the happiest nights of my life. That night, he talked about preparing his second EP and how he was planning to release it sometime in September 2019, which was what he had said back in April during his fan signs, so I was really excited for a chance to meet him then. The album's release date got pushed back, most likely because of SuperM's debut, since SME needed an EXO release around the same time to keep Korean fans occupied while SuperM was promoting in the US.

When the fan sign finally happened, I was overwhelmed with so much emotion. The four hours that I spent at the fan sign are four hours I will never forget for the rest of my life. Being able to finally meet Chen and talk to him, face-to-face, is a memory I will cherish forever. It more than made up for missing out on the EXplOration concerts in July 2019, which was a whole adventure in itself and probably the saddest weekend I had in 2019, LOL, and I was floating on clouds until the tragedies that occurred in the K-Pop community later that fall. As someone who is multi-fandom, they hit me hard and I was in a writing funk for about a month. I did NaNoWriMo for about a week before giving up because I wasn't in the proper mental state to do it, especially since I had a lot of responsibilities at work around that time as well. The fan sign had also dampened my motivation in a way. It wasn't that meeting Chen was a negative experience, because it wasn't at all. In fact, it was such a positive experience that I felt somewhat guilty for writing a fictional version of him that was kind of a jerk. Chen is such a nice person and I wanted to put my all into this story, so that it was worthy of featuring him, but it felt weird writing scenes where he's so angry and disinterested. I know that Kim Jongdae in this story does not reflect Kim Jongdae in real life whatsoever, but the memory of meeting him was so fresh and I didn't want to taint that with this harsher fictional version of him.

I managed to snap out of my funk in early December 2019 and the deadline for the giveaway was also later that month, so I dedicated all of my free time to finishing this story in time. It was hard, especially since I wasn't sleeping well, but I managed to finish most of it before taking a break for the holidays when my sister visited me. We had tickets for the last EXplOration dot concert, and that was the absolute best way to wrap up the year and the decade. After that, I had several deadlines to meet before I could come back to this story, so I planned on finishing it sometime in January 2020.

But then Chen's big announcement happened. I went through a wild roller coaster of emotions when I read his letter and processed everything. I've made my peace with the news since, and I do not condone any of the horrible things that are being said and done to him. I understand being shocked at the sudden news, because it was a lot to take in all at once. But that does not excuse the amount of hate being flung at him non-stop for the past two months. At the end of the day, I just want Jongdae to be happy. He's given me so much happiness over the years. Like I said earlier, he is the reason for my happiest moments in 2019 and I'm not going to suddenly erase those precious memories because of a surprise announcement regarding his personal life that I frankly have no involvement in.

Anyway, it felt weird to pick up this story again and finish it off. Even though I had written most of it before his announcement, I wasn't sure if people would think badly about how fictional Jongdae was so viscerally against marriage and kids. Especially since it's the complete opposite of real Jongdae's thoughts (from what we can assume from his announcement). I still wanted to finish the story, but I didn't know if I should. I thought long and hard about it, and asked a few friends for their opinions. And they all encouraged me to continue. After all, this fictional iteration of him isn't meant to reflect the real Jongdae. I write him as if he's an actor portraying a character I created. All I want to do is honor him, because he is one of my muses and I enjoy writing about him. Not to mention, the Chen fic pool is already very small and it'll only get smaller since several authors have made the decision to stop writing Chen stories because of his announcement. So I finally finished writing this story while in self-quarantine and here it is.

Our leads, Jongdae and Yunseo, aren't perfect people and it's okay that they aren't. Being flawed is being human. Sometimes, two flawed people can work together to overcome their shortcomings and live in harmony for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, they can't, whether it's because of fear, impatience, stubbornness, apathy, etc. Jongdae and Yunseo's relationship falling apart wasn't the fault of only one person; they both contributed to its downfall in various ways. They were never meant to have a happy fairy tale ending, but a lot of relationships don't last forever either. Your first is not necessarily your last and that's okay. You live, you learn, and you grow. When one door closes, another one opens and that's the case for our main characters.

Wow, this got really long. I apologize if I seemed to be rambling. If you have any thoughts on the characters or the events of the story after reading this, please do leave a comment down below and I can either supplement their back-stories or clarify anything you may be confused about. If you'd like to check out my other works, you can find them linked in the foreword or you can follow my stories by clicking the button on my profile to be notified of any future stories that I post. I would be very grateful for your continued support! And if you'd like to monetarily support my work, please join my crowdfund! Every bit of support helps keep me fueled as a writer and you'll also get special perks!

Once again, thank you so much and have a wonderful day!

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