It's a quarter after 3 in the morning. A man stirred up on his bed, trying hard to had few minutes, or hopefully, hours of sleep. He used to sleep only for 3 hours a day three years ago, but nowadays, he desperately wanted to change that habit, and it wasn’t as easy as he think. In the past, he has the reason to be up all night, but lately, he was just simply became an insomniac.

Even though he never seemed to worried or stressed about everything, he couldn’t pretend to himself that he did. He knows very well that he couldn’t hold on to the life he used to live before anymore. The world has changed and time keeps on passing. He kept on reminding himself that everything was alright. He has bright future ahead, but somehow he just felt so down and restless.

He gave up trying to close his eyes and decide to open his laptop instead. There was few paperwork he needs to finish for next week. He wasn’t planning on finishing it tonight though, but since he didn’t have anything to do now, it was better to get to work, wasn’t it? He spent the next 4 hours focusing his mind on his laptop and pile of papers.

His alarm beeping exactly at 7 in the morning. “I beat you, didn’t I?” He said out loud to no one as he stretched his body. He closed his laptop and gets ready for work.

He spent 15 minutes showering. Another 15 minutes to picking and putting on some clothes – his senses of fashion has fortunately gone better. He left his house 10 minutes later after combing his hair with fingers, reading the newspaper headlines, and took a sip of coffee. Then, he drove to his office in the west side of Gangnam for around 10 minutes. Having quick breakfast of ramyeon on the supermarket near his office building and got in to the office at 8 o’clock. It was his routine nowadays. A completely different – and boring – routine with the one he had before. His routine as a Hallyu-stars.

Taecyeon is someone who always focused on his work and dare to try something new. He always have a good sense of making a decision and have a really good bussiness mind. But he never thought that he would ended up being a bussinessman when he decide to build his own characters company. Lot of people said that if America have the WarnerBros, Disney, or Marvel, then Korea have the one and only OkCat. 

It was once just an insane little project from thousands weird cats – kindergartners obviously did better than him – he drew almost everywhere. He start the project earlier when he was still a celebrity. His first intentions was to made a symbol that his fans could always remember. Now that the little project turned out to be a huge success, he worked his hardest to made it even greater. He started out making plushies, pillows, dolls, and many others little goods he sold for his fans, but now, he was producing comics, cartoons, even a movies from the OkCat character, he also put some others characters that only he knows who inspired it. His friends and brothers, his past as a 2PM’s member, every little and big things that ever happened back then.

He often told himself that he shouldn’t have keep on thinking about the past. But what if the past is the only things he could ever hold on to keep on living? It was his source of happiness, but also the things that keep holding him down. If only he could made a better ending for that past, he wouldn’t have to live now just with a mere memories. And it was another things his past bring to his future that he hated so much. Regret.

“Let’s gather for one last time, guys!” He said out loud, trying to cheered up his friends.

“It’s not the last time, Taec.” Nichkhun said as he got up. He just finished helping Chansung packed up the last box of his belonging. Nichkhun, Junho, and Chansung has decided to sell the apartment where they’ve been living in together for the past 5 years, once they were out from the dorm. 

It was the last 10 minutes before everyone left to their respective military base. Minjun would go straight to Daegu, his hometown that he really proud of, and completed his duty there. Junho would finish his civil service duty in Pohang, Chansung also went there for the Navy. Wooyoung and Taecyeon himself would go to Busan. Wooyoung would spent 21 months in the Marines, while he would spent 24 months in the Air Force. The hardest job goes to Nichkhun, he would take care of 2PM in his own while everyone was serving the country.

“I’m saying for now, Khunnie. Why are you being so sensitive?” Taec said, trying to show his smile. He didn’t want to leave on sadness. He was really proud that he finally went to the military, but he couldn’t help it but to worry about 2PM, about his dear brothers.

“The cars are here.” Junho announced. He’d been sitting near the apartment windows for the last 2 hours, looking out the street, lost in his own thought. 

Everyone was quite all of the sudden, didn’t really know what to do. They might have a handsome face, good body, or a successful carreer as a well-known artist, but deep down they’re just 6 normal boys who’s gonna be a man soon. They’ve been living their life tied on schedule for so long that they forgot how to be spontaneous. They could sing, or dance, or acting, or jump here and there doing acrobatics, but dealing with emotional things and saying goodbyes weren’t really their speciality. Now they faced with that moment and all they could do was looking at each others awkwardly.

“Come on, guys! Let’s gather! Chansung-ah you called the chants.” Their – soon-to-be ex – manager, Lee Ju Seob said, breaking the silence. He came to sent them off today.

Chansung startled and just reached out his hand above their manager hand. They’re all gather in circle and Chansung yelled their sacred chants.The chants that always gave them strength and courage. “DON’T!”

“STOP!” They screamed out loud.

“CAN’T!” Chansung said again with a trembling voice.

“STOP!” Their screams were even louder this time that the neighbours might sue them. They held back their tears, some even have already sobbing, but a big smile was plastered on everyone faces.

“See you guys soon. Work hard and take care there.” Nichkhun said as they walked out the door.

“Don’t forget to call, Hyung.” Wooyoung said as everyone else were busy putting their bag inside the cars. Once they’re ready to leave, they exchanged hugs and encouragement with each others. 

“Take a good care of 2PM, will you?” Taec said as he hugged Nichkhun tightly. The other man just nodded his head, a look of determination put on his face.             

The cars was leaving, taking each of them to their new destination. There were no goodbyes said between any of them. Not yet. 

Everyday was always been so hard for Taecyeon, but weekend was the time where he felt a little bit better. Not only because it was the time when he could relaxed and doing things he love the most – also known as sleeping all day long, it might also be the reason why he couldn’t sleep at night – but also his Friday-night dinner schedule with Suzy, a dongsaeng and close friend he got to know from being under the same company before. It wasn’t that kind of romantic dinner or anything, even when he couldn’t deny that he always been very happy to be with her, it just that the dinner with her was the only time where he could opened up his thought and feeling to someone else.

It started around 6 months after he drowned himself in his work as CEO. Suzy just signed up a contract with his company for a new cartoons where she gonna did a voice-over for one of the characters. She was still an active artist under JYP even after Miss A disbanded. He went to treat her dinner after the contract meeting, they talked about a lot of things that night. It might be because they’ve been working together under the same roof before. Maybe it was because both of them know very well how it feels to lived in fame. Or it’s just because they’ve been through the same situation of break up with their respective group, they surprisingly suited each other so well that they ended up promising each others to set aside few hours in the middle of their busy schedule to have dinner and some talks. And tonight was no exception.

“Oppa, have you heard that Minjun Oppa is preparing for another tour in America?” Suzy said in the middle of their dinner.

“Ah, really? It’s great, isn’t it?” Taecyeon answered awkwardly. Of course he'd know, it was headlines in almost every entertainment news website in Korea. He just trying to sound not to care, but he did, and he’s pretty sure that Suzy knows it too. He knows that Suzy just wanted to check if he was okay with whatever she’s going to discussed with him tonight.

“Of course it is. We met yesterday and he seems to be so psyched about the tour.” Suzy said as she kept on glancing over Taecyeon, examining his response. He just kept on putting meats on the stove in between them. “He asked me about you. He said he wanted to meet you if you have the time,” Suzy continued in a low voices, she didn’t dare to looked at Taecyeon.

“Then why you didn’t just told him to come here tonight? I mean, I obviously have a free time now.” Taec said simply, trying his best not to lose his temper.

“Should I just called him then?” Suzy asked him innocently. She must’ve not heard the irony in his words. Taec just looked up at her and putting another piece of meat to the girl’s plate. “I’m not joking Oppa. Why don’t you just take this chance to talked with him in person rather than using me to stalked on him?”

Her question made him speechless. He knows she was right. Why he’d been looking forward to the dinner with Suzy? Because he could hear some hot news from inside the company. He could hear something about Minjun – and a little bit about Nichkhun too, if he was lucky.

Even back in the old days, Taec is known as someone who take a really good care of people close to him. 2PM’s members was on top of the list. Even when he was busy like hell with his personal schedules, he never forget to catch up with the others life. He would called Minjun and Wooyoung for a night out. Or just called Nichkhun to asked him about his schedule. Chatting with Junho, asking what happened in the dorm, or went to a gym with Chansung. After the band’s break up, it was hard for him to get an update from anyone.

Well, he could easily search for Minjun’s or Nichkhun news online, but everyone knows that it was only 70% of the news that possibly true. Suzy was his only chances to made sure that they were fine, since it was the hardest to get anything about them,  with Nichkhun away in Thailand and Minjun being abroad most of the time. It was kinda hard either to hear from Wooyoung, but he would always called Taec first whenever something happened. Junho? Well, he wasn’t really a problem since he could just see him whenever he wanted to – even when Junho always refused to met him. And Chansung was the easiest one to kept in touch – he was the maknae after all.

“Just finish your food, Suzy-ah. We didn’t want those reporters wrote another scandal about how we quarrel and ended up breaking up, did we?” Taec tried to change the conversations.

“They sure know how to make me even more famous Oppa.” Suzy joked.

“Yah! So you just used me for your fame?” Taecyeon faked sounding hurt. Both of them just laughing and kept on eating their Samgyeopsal.

Tonight, Taecyeon was fine. 

Writing really helped me going through the day, 2PM too ;') I'll try to update it regularly, but I can't promise anything since life wasn't going smoothly lately. RR!