Because It's Love | EXO CHEN

20. I have a Lover

"Jongdae-ssi." I breathed.

"Yes Min min?"

This beautiful man standing in front of me is speaking my name.

Never before did I find my name as sweet as tonight.

"Jongdae ah." I said again, softly.

He didn't speak, but smiled a soft smile, not tearing apart from my gaze.

I reach out my hand and poked his soft cheeks with a finger, letting out a soft chuckle at the beauty of this contact.

"You're so beautiful," I casually commented.

"So, the mum thing...The picture of you that I sent her."

He started, looking a little, just a little bit uneasy.

"Yeah, you ready to share that now?" I giggled.

"It was the night you were telling me about the song, Promise."

He fiddled with my hands, squeezing and then gently holding onto it.

"It was then, that I felt so...comforted by you."

"How...so?"

"You know us. Our jobs as artists... but we are often viewed in the wrong way. I worked for this with the passion to create music. Do music. But more than that, we're being loved by so many fans. And I'm thankful for that of course. I love my fans.

But sometimes, I feel so lost with what I'm supposed to do, and then I start to forget why we do what we do.

It started when our management said it was all about satisfying the fans, and my passion for music had just became tedious work to do, with no goal and... no motivation.

I have almost forgotten why I wanted to become a singer."

His eyes turned sad when he recalled sour memories.

"But in my eyes, you've always done a great job," I said.

It's true. He may not have known, but his music has always been an inspiration to me. His efforts, and through all his performances I've seen, I watched him grow as a singer.

How could he not have seen that himself?

"I will never want to fail myself, definitely. But it's just sometimes, I get really angry at myself for forgetting what I really want myself to be. And when ot12 became ot9? So much shit happened back then, and it was a really disastrous period for me. I wanted to give up so badly.

That was when I wrote that song, along with Lay, and Yeol."

I nodded softly and continued to listen to him speak.

"All they say was, 'nice song', 'the lyrics are good', bla bla...no one was there to realize how much it really hurt when I scripted it. No one sympathizes anyway."

"Why didn't you just talk it out? At least with the other members?" I asked.

"We don't...work that way. We're really close bros, but it's something too sensitive to talk about. We didn't share our sorrows about the people who left us. We only knew that we hurt the same. But we don't sympathize. We keep it to ourselves."