Strange Love

Chapter 1

Living in an Asian uptown city, I have been introduced to K-pop ever since I was entering middle high. It was roughly when I was... 13? Yes, that was the exact age I got to know about the song "Sorry, Sorry". Well, it is pretty obvious now that I am 20. Do the math, it isn't hard. I have stanned for many different boy bands, even I lost count of how many "husbands" my friends and I have claimed. Even so, I have always been particularly placing extra affection onto my bias groups and my bias members and they are always (never fail), some pretty boys from SM entertainment. Pardon the plural form of noun, that's because I obviously changed my bias a few times. Stereotypically speaking, SM is equivalent to pretty face. This is a fact well known to anybody who's been in this field (as a fan, of course) long enough.

My main had changed from Lee Teuk from Super Junior to Kim Jong Hyun from SHINee when I was in my final year of middle high. I was madly in love with Jonghyun's voice and his pretty sharp edged face, mind you, I could memorize every line he sang. But well, being a Shawol for almost 2 years, I thought I would settle with liking just the 5 boys from SHINee and dah, live my life as an international fan. What changed my life?

This is the point now.

As Hallyu came in like a tornado, the whole town went under the storm. Basically 90% of the people in my school were following the trend. I was sitting with my usual gang in class (I personally call them my nerd gang, and I really love them a lot. They're my main. No joke), beside Ernie, a very spoiled and whiny girl who appreciates Chinese pop more than Korean pop, in front of Hayley and Min, two K-pop maniacs. Hayley was still an ELF. Min was still a Shawol. But meanwhile, they were both hardcore EXO fan when EXO's Growl came out. That was when I turned 17, in my final year of high school (education system is a little different in my country). I was still a Blinger (Jonghyun's fan) at that moment and I was the girl who would always laugh at those two nerds behind me whenever I overheard them talking about EXO.

"Oof Oof, A-WWOOOOOO, what the heck are they trying to say in exact, duh. The howl sounds totally ridiculous, like, it sounds so damn retarded, girls." I sneered at my friends who were on a very hyped up discussion about the boys winning champion on Inkigayo for some new songs. Growl I think.

"You don't know, Jia." Min claimed.

"*hysterical screams* DON'T INSULT THEM OKAY!" Yeah, that's obviously Hayley, 'cause, who else? But she is usually the cool type. Only when it gets to her sensitive spots, such as EXO and Ryeowook.

That was the same day when class ended, I went home and started scrolling down Facebook using my iPad. It was up on my newsfeed. I swear. I did NOT search for EXO's Growl. Yes, so I saw this bunch of cute looking boys' Youtube video link attachment on Facebook, shared by I-don't-remember-who. Yes, I clicked play. Yes, then I was intrigued to know who in exact is that guy in the red cap. Yes, thus, I clicked into the link to go to the Youtube browser. Yes, so I read the comments to see who the fucking hell is that VERY ADORABLE RED CAP DUDE IN BLAZER.

It was a M Countdown stage. I will never forget that stage. It was what changed my life tremendously, I'm not sure whether in a good or bad way. Frankly speaking.

EXO only boomed to their popularity after Growl. Everyone knows that. They weren't even that famous when it was the Wolf era. Therefore, many people were watching that same M Countdown video I watched with the same exact empty mind- Who is who? People who were attracted like me, would obviously be dying to know (I sort of wanted to deny that after I insulted my friends earlier in the morning) who were the boys that I particularly liked.When I was scrolling down the comments, many comments were like this:-

[ Can somebody pls help, who is who TT ]

[ They are so cute but can someone tell me who's the guy singing solo at 2:30? ]