ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjraUUnKAb4  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VFzPg2mM-s

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Do you remember 2013 MelOn Music Awards ceremony? We won the “artist of the year” Daesang and it was a very emotional moment for us. Like Kibum said in his little acknowledgement speech we had been wishing and wishing for it for the longest time. It’s one of the most important awards in Kpop and despite our success we had awkwardly failed to win the “big one” for half a decade. We really needed it.

The following year KBS Pop-channel introduced a new award that immediately became equally prestigious and was devoted to exceptional dance performances. The “Chumchu” opened doors and the award-ceremony was broadcasted internationally, so everybody tried to get their foot in the door.

There were trophies for best choreography, best solo performance, best group performance etc. and we were nominated for “Evil” in the best live performance 2014 category. When we unexpectedly won, Jonghyun dryly commented that finally the blindfolds had made sense.

But the most important category was of course “dancer of the year”, which took into account an individual dancer’s live performances as well as those in MVs and on pre-recorded shows. There was a male and a female competition which gave Jeong Hyeong-don the opportunity to tease Kibum on “Weekly Idol” with the question in which category he would compete with his girl-group performances. Key had slithered out elegantly by saying that depended on how y the other nominees were respectively.

However 2014 the first male winner in the “dancer of the year” category had unsurprisingly been Chung Yunho who raised the bar considerably. Taemin had been nominated too and both Kai and Lay from EXO as well as Lee Joon from MBLAQ and some others. Everybody knew that after Yunhos victory the competition among the younger dancers would become even harder since it suddenly mattered so much more to convince individually.

Of course Taemin wanted the award too and he could be quite ambitious but he didn’t talk about it a lot, so I guess it didn’t bother him all that much. Besides we had already done exceptionally well in many other competitions 2014 so that he wasn’t disappointed when he didn’t win. But Kai was concerned. EXO was a bit in trouble that year. First the illegal pre-release of the “Overdose” dance practice then the scandal about Kris. They were steering into a major crisis and apart from that Kai needed the award for his own career. When he didn’t win his disappointment bordered on despair and everybody knew he would put every ounce of power he had into practice to succeed the following year.

But EXO’s streak of bad luck went on and when Kai badly sprained his ankle in January 2015 Taemin covered for him in two major concerts. Although Kai recovered within a couple of weeks he had already missed the opportunity to distinguish himself in some high-class events. He was falling behind and everybody knew it.

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When I leave Taemin that afternoon Kai follows me outside. I can see that he’s trying to tell me something so I stop and wait.

“I just ...”, he starts obviously lost for words, “... I wanted to say that I’m really sorry.”

I guess there’s more to come so I only nod.

“I’ve told Taemin before but I want to tell you as well. I felt really bad when ... when Key Hyung died and Taemin was hurt.”

He looks upset so I say: “It wasn’t your fault. You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I still feel guilty ... because ... I guess I was the reason ...”

I’m utterly dumbfounded. But before I recover to say something he has turned around and quickly walks away to his car.

He was the reason?