I am NOT your fan | EXO CHEN

19. Thoughts from a nuthead

Song of the Chapter: Just Friends - MeloMance ✨

'No matter how long we've been friends, in front of the heavy word of love, I realized the truth: that as much as we're close, we can get farther away. As I see you laughing with me right now, all the memories we made as friends, I was worried that we wouldn't be able to make any more, so I hid my heart. In case my love steals away the time that I can laugh with you, I couldn't even tell you.'

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"AH!" My butt landed first with a loud thud, followed by a mini shriek of surprise at my unfortunate event.

"Y-Ya...Are you okay? You're not faking it, are you?" Jongdae came about from a corner cautiously and moved towards me, step by step. I shot him a death glare without replying him while my hands attended to my poor ankle. "Oh shit... your ankle... Can you stand?"

When he finally realised it wasn't a joke, he approached and bent down to my level.

As soon as he came near me, I smacked him on the top of his head and threw a few more punches on his arm.

"Hey! Argh! YA!" He stumbled backward and struggled hard to balance, but it didn't take long before he landed on his butt too. The silly sight of him being knocked over cracked me up in content.

"Pfft!! Look at you!" I roared into laughter. He stayed on the ground with his arms crossed, waiting as I took time to get myself together.

"Are you going to hit me again?" He asked after a while.

I chuckled, "is that your biggest concern now?"

"It's always my biggest concern when I'm with you."

"You can't blame me for always having the urge to beat you up," I laughed.

"And you already did, so from now on, no more violence." He warned with a finger. The both of us were casually resting on the floor of the conference room, where the chairs were out of consideration. It was nice to be around him, to see him, and to get into stupid fights with him. It has been a while since I felt relieved, comfortable and happy. I never thought Jongdae could make my day fun and rewarding, but he did and he succeeded in relieving me from the stress.

What a precious friend.

"Can I ask you one more question?" I started again.

"Go ahead."

"Why are you so negative when it comes to people caring for you? Remember the day we talked about that? I thought about it over and over but I still don't understand what's your deal."

"That..." Jongdae shifted. "That also started because of the stalking issue. A while ago I told you about how paranoid it made me, right? How it made me suspicious of my own fans? Because those awful thoughts got to me, I started to despise how famous I became.

Because I'm a celebrity, I have no private life. Fame gave me fans who claim to love me and care for me, but the stalking incident blinded me for a while. I didn't feel appreciated the right way. I started to dislike how my fans would follow me around 24/7 with a camera in their hands. It irked me so much, and I started to think that I wouldn't want fans like that.

I just thought like, how is that caring for me? Simply following me around without understanding how I feel about it isn't the way to go." He looked up to the ceiling and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"You don't have any idea how much you mean to a fan, do you?" I wondered aloud, and he looked back at me in confusion. "Huh?"

"Look, I'm not trying to pull you down here, but can I just say this? I know it because I feel really, truly sorry that you're living a life like this. But for a true fan, you may mean a world to them." I breathed in and gathered my thoughts. "Just a photo with you, just a handshake, just an eye contact or a wave from you, is enough to fill them up with a lifetime of happiness. Do you know how impressive that is?" I broke into a smile. "Your existence is irreplaceable in our eyes. Yet people only think we're obsessed with you when what we really look out for is that you're living well, that you're still in a good, healthy condition. All-day long... we wait for the moments when you make a smile, and we want to capture them because we're happy like this as long as we see that in you."