Sehun wouldn’t say he always hated Suho.  When he was a trainee, he used to follow Suho around like a crazy sasaeng. 

            And he would be lying if he said he didn’t have a crush on Suho the first time he laid eyes on the older.  Suho had given off that cool idol vibe and Sehun never thought he’d seen someone so cool in his life. 

            It wasn’t hard becoming friends with Suho either because Suho was a genuinely nice guy.  He was friendly to everyone, always willing to offer advice to those who needed it or listen to any problems anyone might have, and he never failed to pick up the bill at dinners.  But he and Suho were never really friends as trainees.  They knew each other and shared the occasional conversation, but Suho already had his sunbae friends and Sehun just stuck close to Luhan because the Chinese boy was sweet and kind.  He also treated Sehun to bubble tea when Sehun asked. 

           No, Sehun didn’t hate Suho when they were trainees.  His crush did dissipate though and turned into respect.  After learning more about Suho, the cool aura disappeared. Suho was awkward and too nice…to the point where it was annoying. 

            Hate is a strong word.  And Sehun wouldn’t say he hated Suho after they debuted either.  Suho was still the caring person he’d always been.  He was a real guardian angel to EXO.  The leader even started paying more attention to Sehun, which Sehun appreciated especially since Luhan was gone and you couldn’t really separate Baekyeol or Kaisoo.    

            And then all of a sudden, almost overnight, Suho became critical of everything Sehun did.  He kept on telling Sehun he needed to improve and practice more.  He told Sehun to stop acting like a spoiled brat and listen when his hyungs talked to him.  He had to stop eating sweets or he’d get fat.  Suho was on his case 24/7. 

Sehun, being the mature person, retaliated by being even more spoiled.  He disobeyed orders, went out at night, ate at fast food restaurants and got food delivered in the middle of the night. 

            “I’m not your cleaning lady.  Pick up your clothes,” Suho said as soon as Sehun entered their room.  He looked up and his eyes widened. 

            Sehun stared comically at him and their eyes locked for a good 20 seconds before Sehun looked away.  He picked up his clothes and threw them on the desk before jumping onto his bed. He didn’t expect Suho to get off of his own bed and make his way towards him.

            Sehun looked up at Suho and had to push the leader away because his face was getting awfully close to his.

            “What the hell?”

            “What happened?” Suho was patting his cheek.  Sehun didn’t know what the leader was referring to but his cheeks were turning red because the hand was still on his cheek.  Suho was so close he could smell the older’s soap.  Suho had never been this close to Sehun before.  Usually they tried to stay as far away from each other as possible. 

Sehun was about to say something when Suho yanked his chin up and stared even more closely.

            “Did you get hurt?” Suho was lifting his shirt and Sehun yelped because why was Suho trying to strip him. 

            “Why are you bleeding?” Suho asked concernedly.

            “Oh…um.  I kind of fell.  I’m fine though; I swear. I just got a few cuts.  But your bike is a bit---“

            “You what?” Suho straightened up and Sehun flinched when he heard Suho shout.

            “You took my bike?  Omigod!” Suho was running out of the room.

            When Suho returned, Sehun could tell he was trying to contain his anger because the leader was red in the face and breathing through his nose.

            “I told you to be careful if you ever borrow my stuff! Do you know how important that bike is?”  The truth was Sehun did know how important the bike was to Suho.  It was a present from Suho’s older brother given to him after he debuted in EXO. 

Sehun was careful with Suho’s bike.  When he fell, Sehun purposely fell so that he broke the bike’s fall. In the end he got injured because of it.   

“Why are you so careless? Do you ever listen?  Are you that dumb?”

            “Hey!” Sehun got up from the bed, “I was careful!  You don’t even know what happened!”

            “I don’t need to.  I know how you are.  You, Oh Sehun will never change,” Suho’s voice suddenly got softer and he looked disappointed.

            “You care that much about a stupid bike?  More than me?” Sehun asked. 

            “No.  Of course not.  But even if I do care about you, it’s not like it matters.  You only care about one person and that’s you.”  

“You’re not going out and that’s final!” Suho yelled at the maknae; he grabbed Sehun’s arm and yanked him back.    

“It’s only for a few hours!  Jesus, it’s not like I’m going to be doing anything.  I just want to see my friends!” Sehun was red as he shouted at the leader who was staring up at him with murderous eyes.

“Hyung, maybe you should let him,” Chanyeol tried to convince the leader but shirked back when Suho glared at him.

“Maknae!  You’ve been out almost every single night to hang out with your friends.  You’ve been messing up in practice because of it.  You should either be resting while you can or practicing! We have a concert coming up and you’re not even focusing on that!”

“I’ll make up for it!  It’s not exactly science here.  I am one of the main dancers!”

“Yeah well if you keep on dancing like this, you won’t have any skills on this team at all!” Suho yelled heatedly.  Everyone was silent and Suho stopped when he realized what he said. 

“Sehun, I didn’t mean that.”

Sehun’s eyes were slits as he glared at the leader.

“Whatever hyung.  We all know the only reason you were chosen as EXO’s leader was because you were a trainee for so long.  SM was doing you a service.  You don’t even have any talent.”

“Sehun!” Kyungsoo yelled harshly.

“It’s true!” Sehun yelled as he looked at all the members, “Come on!  We all know that’s the reason.  We just never said it!”

“Sehun! Go to your room!” Suho yelled; he pointed at their bedroom door.

“I wish you weren’t our leader!  I wish you weren’t even a member of EXO!” Sehun yelled as he made his way towards their room, “I hate you!” he slammed the door and locked it behind him.  Suho could sleep on the couch tonight. 

“Sehun!” Sehun felt someone touch his shoulders and he pushed the hand away.

“Leave me alone!” Sehun yelled.  Undoubtedly, it was Suho trying to wake him up.

“We have practice in a few hours.  If you miss it, it’s your loss.”

Sehun shot out of bed.  That wasn’t Suho’s voice.  It was Kris’s voice.  What?

“What are you doing here?” Sehun murmured.  He looked over towards Suho’s bed, which was empty. 

But Kris was already leaving the room. 

It wasn’t until they arrived at the dance studio, that he noticed Suho was gone. 

Sehun was curious as to why EXO’s leader who made a big deal of practicing wasn’t there, but he wasn’t curious enough to inquire about it.  After three hours of practicing and still no sign of Suho, Sehun finally decided to ask.

“Where’s Junmyeon hyung?”

Yixing raised his eyebrows at Sehun, “Um…why are you asking?”

“Well since he was the one who said practice was important, shouldn’t he be here?”

Kyungsoo looked confused, “Since when were you two that close?”

“We’re not,” Sehun said through gritted teeth.

“Then why are you asking about him?” Jongin sidled up next to Kyungsoo and put a sweaty arm around him. 

“Because!  Shouldn’t he be here?  He’s the leader!  He shouldn’t be skipping out on practice!”

Everyone eyed him like he was crazy.

Sehun looked at them all with wide eyes, “He’s not like…hurt.  Is he?”  Surely the members would tell him if something happened to him.

“Uh…” Jongin looked at Sehun, “No?”

“Well then where is he?” Sehun thought this was getting out of control.  He asked one question about Suho and everyone was making a big deal out of it.  If he’d known this was how everyone would act, he wouldn’t have asked in the first place. 

After practice was over, they headed back to the dorm. 

            Sehun stayed in the living room with the members for a while.  He thought it was a bit weird that Jongdae and Minseok were taking over the loveseat since they usually came over with the rest of the M members, but he decided not to comment on it. 

            After a while, he decided to take advantage of Suho’s absence and hang out with his friends.  He was just putting on his shoes when he heard Baekhyun’s voice.

            “Where are you going, Sehun?”

            “I’m meeting up with some of my friends.”

            “We have a concert coming up soon.  Do you think that’s a smart thing to do?”

            Sehun didn’t know why Baekhyun was criticizing him for going out.  It’s not like he really cared before. Maybe now that Suho was gone, Baekhyun thought he could take over as leader. 

            “I know that we have a concert coming up, but I’m only going out to watch a movie; it’s no big deal.”

            “You’re just watching a movie?”

            “Don’t tell me you’re going to go all Junmyeon hyung on me and forbid me to watch a movie with my friends!”

            “What?”

            The room went silent and Sehun saw everyone’s eyes on him. 

            “Are you okay, Sehun?” Minseok was looking at him with worried eyes. 

            It felt weird.  Was he missing out on the joke? 

            “I’m fine.  I’m going to go,” he was speaking slowly like he was trying to explain things to a child, “I’ll be back tonight.  I’ll be in bed in time for our normal 4 hours of sleep.”

            When Sehun snuck back into the dorm that night he was surprised Suho wasn’t there to greet him…or more likely yell at him, like almost every single time he snuck back into the dorm. 

            Sehun was pretty relieved at that, but at the same time he couldn’t help but worry a bit.  The concert was coming up and he hadn’t seen the leader all day.   How about if Suho was sick?

            Their leader never let sickness stop him before.  Sehun remembered when Suho ran a 101 fever and still managed to wake up all the members, help prepare breakfast (Kyungsoo was at the hair salon with Jongin), and then herd them to SM to record a song before passing out while doing the choreography for Wolf.  It was tough being a leader and Sehun knew that. 

            He knew he made things harder on Suho and that’s why everyone called him a brat…but at the same time he was still a kid.  Sehun missed his friends and he didn’t want EXO to define who he was. Sometimes it felt like he was only 1/12 of EXO.  He was the maknae, the kid with a stoic face who hardly expressed emotions, who sometimes did aegyo even though he hated it.  But he was also Oh Sehun, the kid who liked to go to movies with friends, and yell when he was angry.  He was someone who would rather stay holed up in his room and listen to music or talk about the small random things that interested him.  He was also a person.  And he needed to remind himself at times that it was okay to be normal.  So that’s why he went out with his friends whenever he could. 

            His other members didn’t seem to suffer from the same identity crisis as he did.  If they did, he couldn’t tell.  Suho had dedicated 7 years of his life to SM.  Junmyeon and Suho were basically the same person.  Kyungsoo and Jongin were close with each other and it was the same with Baekhyun and Chaneyol.  If they had problems they confided in one another; they had someone to lean on.  Sehun had no one.  He used to be close with Luhan; but then they separated into their separate sub-units and it was hard to maintain that friendship because Luhan couldn’t be his anchor when he was in another country. 

            Sehun slipped into his bedroom and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

            Baekhyun shook him awake the next morning.

            “Maknae, time to wake up.  We have a long day of practice today.”

            Sehun woke up and rubbed his eyes.  He looked over to Suho’s side of the room.  The bed was neatly made and yet again, empty. 

            But this time Sehun noticed something strange.  Suho’s side of the room was completely bare.  Normally, there wasn’t much covering Suho’s walls.  It was a clear contrast from Sehun’s girl group posters covering his walls.  However, Suho did have letters and pictures on his side of the room.  Letters from family and friends usually hung on the walls just above Suho’s bed.  On mornings when they had extra time, Sehun would see Suho stay in bed and read a few of the letters before getting up and starting their normal morning routine.  Suho’s desk was usually lined with papers: sometimes song ideas but mostly notes about EXO’s schedules.  And pictures.  That’s where Suho kept all his pictures: pictures of his family, EXO, and his sunbaes.

            But when Sehun looked over to the opposite side of the room, he saw that it was all gone.  Like Suho packed up and left. 

            Sehun was internally panicking.  How about if Suho really did leave EXO?  How about if Sehun was the cause of it?  Maybe Suho was fed up with the way Sehun acted and just decided to leave for good.  Or worse, how about if what Sehun said made him leave? 

            In all honestly, Sehun really did believe that Suho was chosen as leader because SM had no choice but to give the 7 year trainee the role.  He honestly believed Suho wasn’t as talented as the other members.  But that was before.  Before he saw how well Suho led EXO.  Suho knew all the right things to say at interviews.  He knew exactly how to comfort each member.  Suho wasn’t the best singer but his voice was light and angelic and he always used his extra hours of free time to practice their choreography.  Sometimes Suho would go off on tangents and talk too much, but he was still charming and always considerate. 

            Sehun slowly entered the kitchen, where most of the members were eating breakfast.  He grabbed a plate and scooped some eggs onto it and looked around the room. 

            The rest of the members were acting completely normal.  Come to think of it, even yesterday when they were doing the choreography to Wolf they danced perfectly without Suho.  Usually it took a few tries to do a song with a member missing.  I mean it wasn’t hard to change the choreography to compensate for someone who was sick or couldn’t perform, but it was never that easy.  And it was Sehun who messed up the most yesterday.

            As everyone finished breakfast Kris and Baekhyun herded everyone to the manager vans and then they were heading back to SM. 

            They were taking a break from practice when Sehun decided to ask someone about the Suho problem that no one seemed to want to tell him about.

            “Hey,” Sehun grabbed Kyungsoo’s wrist.  If there was anyone who would tell him the truth it would be Kyungsoo.  Kyungsoo wouldn’t look at Sehun like he was an idiot or judge him for being a bratty maknae.  He was the closest thing to an objective third party.    

            “What happened to Junmyeon hyung?”

            Kyungsoo looked at him confusedly, “Why are you asking about him again?  It’s not like you’re close right?”

            “No but he is our leader and…”

            Kyungsoo held out a hand, “Hold on.  What did you say?”

            “We aren’t close but…”

            “You called him our leader,” Kyungsoo put a hand up to Sehun’s forehead, “Sehun, are you sick? We’ve been practicing a lot and—“

            “I’m fine,” Sehun pushed away Kyungsoo’s hand and almost immediately Jongin was by Kyungsoo’s side.

            “What are you doing, Sehun?”

            “I think he’s sick.”

            “I’m not sick, okay?  I still don’t care about him or anything; I just want to know where he is.  Jeez!  Just tell me!  He’s didn’t leave, did he?”

            “Who?” Jongin asked.

            “Junmyeon hyung!” Sehun said exasperatedly. 

            Everyone was looking at him weirdly again.

            Sehun frowned, “This is some joke isn’t it?  He told you guys to act this way, didn’t he?  To teach me a lesson or something?  Well I’m not falling for it!  Tell him that!” Sehun left the room, slamming the door on the way out. 

            Sehun felt someone tug on his blankets and he frowned.  But then he realized it might be Suho and sat up.  He was met with warm concerned eyes.  However they were the wrong ones.

            “Hyung.”

            “Sehun, what’s happening?  You aren’t yourself lately.” Luhan sat on his bed, “The concert is bringing stress on all of us, but you’re so young.  Sometimes we forget how much more stressful it can be for you.”

            Sehun didn’t know what to feel.  He missed Luhan caring about him like this.  Ever since the split, Luhan spent more time with Minseok hyung and it hurt of course.  He used to be best friends with Luhan.  A more selfish part of Sehun wanted Luhan just because he wanted a best friend in the group.  He was close with Tao too but the M maknae had an undoubtedly unbreakable friendship with Kris. 

            “Hyung, can you just tell me what’s wrong with Junmyeon hyung.  Why isn’t his stuff here? Why are you guys not telling me anything?  Is this really a joke or something?”

            Luhan’s eyes became even more round with worry and this freaked Sehun out even more.  Was something really wrong?

            “You mean Kim Junmyeon right?  The trainee?”

            Sehun felt his heart stop.

            “No.  I mean our leader.  EXO’s leader.” Sehun’s voice was shaky, almost like he was asking rather than stating what he knew was a fact.

            “Sehun,” Luhan laughed a bit, “There are two leaders in EXO.  Kris and Baekhyun.  This is a joke, right?  You had us worrying over nothing, you jerk,” Luhan lightly punched his chest but Sehun put a hand out to grab Luhan’s shirt.

            “Hyung, stop.  Junmyeon is the leader.  Kris is the leader of EXO-M.  But there are 12 members and honestly Junmyeon hyung keeps us as one.  Without him, we aren’t even EXO.”

            “Well that’s impossible,” Luhan took Sehun’s pillow and used it to prop himself on the bed, “Because EXO has 11 members.  4 in M and 7 in K.  We don’t have one leader and we don’t have one person who keeps as one because we work together as a team.  We all give ourselves equally to this group.  We don’t need someone to be the glue in this team.” 

            Sehun looked into Luhan’s eyes.  It was hard for Luhan to lie because he was an honest person; he could never lie.  That’s why Sehun was finding this situation scary.  Luhan believed what he was saying, so did that mean Suho….

            “Stop it, hyung.  You’re acting really has improved from our Wolf music video.” Sehun pushed Luhan off his bed. 

            “Sehun, what are you talking about?”

            “Junmyeon hyung really played a good one on me.  Tell him I give up.  He wins.  I’ve been a brat; I know that.  Just tell him to come back; he needs to be the leader of this group.  If he’s gone for a few days just to prove a point then he’s forgetting about his responsibilities.”

            “What are you talking about?” Luhan repeated as got up from the floor.  He put a hand through his hair in frustration, “Sehun! Stop!”

            Sehun looked up at his hyung.

            “There is no Junmyeon in EXO!”

            “But—“

            “Sehun, you acting like this…it’s not right, okay,” Luhan’s voice became soft; “It’s not fair to him to say these things.  You know how much he’s wanted to debut.  He deserves to debut more than anyone.  You’re really being a brat by saying things like this,” Luhan looked at him with pleading eyes, “Please drop this charade, Sehun.” 

            Sehun got up from his bed, “I’m not lying!”

            He raced out of the room behind Luhan.

            “Guys!  Stop okay! This is getting freaky!  I know I’ve been a brat!  I get it!  You don’t have to go so far to prove a point!  I won’t go out anymore until after the concert is done!  Just stop playing this little joke,” Sehun looked at all the members, “Tell him I get it!  I learned my lesson!”  Sehun ran back into his room and slammed the door.  He fell onto his bed. 

            A part of him was frustrated, but a bigger part was actually scared.  He knew it was a joke and a pretty elaborate one at that.  He was going to kill Suho when he did decide to show up and gloat, but right now he was more worried.  He was worried that maybe Suho left the group and the members were trying to cover their pain by pretending that he wasn’t a part of EXO anymore. 

            He tried to fall asleep but he couldn’t because even after everyone else went to sleep, the bed beside him was still empty. 

            He finally fell asleep with the hope that Suho would come to bed sometime in the middle of the night.  He kept on telling himself that’s what would happen because he didn’t want to wake up to the possibility that Suho wasn’t EXO’s leader.   

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sehun's Letter to Suho as reported on radio! 

Suho hyung!! When I first met you I was in 8th grade right? You came in to the company with a new hair cut and you looked kinda confident so then you were in front of a mirror staring at it.. right? When I saw that side of you, I fell for you. And I thought, ah SM is like this isn’t it, SM is filled with cool and handsome guys like you right.. And I even greeted you at first too. But then you looked really lost and thought what am I doing greeting you? And so I redid my greetings to you..
Then I was only an 8th grader when I first stepped inside the company.. Not knowing anything..that innocent pure kid was kind of hurt… (referring to Suho not accepting his greetings)