My eyes were looking for you, so I found you. Well, I know you're out there. Show me your eyes, don't hide.

I was laid out on my plush queen sized bed, surrounded my lifeless plushies and my iPhone 5s held in my trembling hands. My phone screen still flashed the blazing title of the news article that had sent shivers down my spine. I was confused and unpleasantly surprised. I wasn’t prepared for this. I remember just moments ago I was listening to EXO’s Call Me Baby, belting out the lyrics and dancing along. The title of the article read “Tao Leaving EXO?”.

My finger slid down the screen, but I was afraid of what the article would say. Yet, I still desperately wanted to see what it had to say. I needed to know what was wrong, but I was afraid of what the problem would be. I wanted to know why, why was this happening? I took a deep breath before I began to read, my heart aching at the thought of my precious Tao leaving EXO. I bit my lip, doing my best not to lose control of my emotions. How could I possibly not be sad when the person I cared about so much might be leaving?

I have a confession to make; Tao was not my favorite member at the start. When I first started watching and listening EXO, I followed the common newbie EXO fan path of falling for the y dancing machine Kai. After him followed the happy virus Chanyeol and so on with the rest of the other perfect twelve members. At the time, Tao was around 7th? I’m sad to say I didn’t pay much attention to him at first, but he was undeniably handsome. Once I was in the fandom for about a week or two, I started watching their Showtime and Happy Camp visits. You know those bias wreckers who just kind of climb their way to the top before you even ing realize what’s going on? That’s exactly what Huang Zitao did.

Somehow, his beautiful self flew straight to the top with ease and little effort and I was shocked. Before I knew it, I started searching for him in the music videos and interviews first, desperate to see his angelic devil of a handsome face. My eyes were glued to his dazzling smile, my ears needy for the sound of his musical, high-pitched laugh that always brought a grin to my face or his rapping that made me scream and roll on the ground like nobody’s business, and my hands always formed a heart when I saw him making a similar gesture to the audience at their concerts and performances. It’s comical that just a couple months before, I had mocked the One Direction and 5SOS fans for being so obsessed with their individual groups when now, I was the exact same if not worse. No, worse is not the right word. What is wrong with caring about a celebrity? I never found a negative to falling head over heels for Tao, only the fact that I lost my voice at times from screaming so much when I was his flawless face.

Now, I could only feel sad for a moment. My melancholy soon turned into worry, worry for my precious Tao who seemed so far away.

I read the article over and over again and read similar articles so that I could piece everything together. With each article, my gut grew colder and tighter and tears smarted on the edges of my wandering eyes. The whole scandal had started when Tao’s father, who had been battling privately with his son to end the contract with SM Entertainment, took the issue to social media. He posted a lengthy letter to Weibo, stating that Tao had not been given enough time to heal from injuries to his leg and ankle and he (Tao’s father) wants his son to leave EXO and come home and get better. Neither Tao nor SM Entertainment has made a statement on the matter, other than SM entertainment stating that they’d wish Tao’s father to keep such issues out of the media from then on. Underneath the article were multiple comments from fans. There were some who said nasty things and multiple fans that only poured their love and support into the comment boxes. I was glad to see those.

Then, I remembered the numerous times Tao had fallen during live performances. Had he fallen because his injuries had been such a problem? Did they hurt him all the time? Did dancing make them worse? What if the injuries were permanent? What if SM was making him dance no matter how much pain he was going through? What if the company didn’t care about his well-being? What if things only got worse for him? For the whole group? Where they all treated this way?

So many quest