no regrets 。taekai 。

xi

jongin loved making music. truly, it was his one and only passion well- after dancing, but he guessed they all connected somehow. he couldn't ask for more, he was one of the hundreds of trainees who got picked to join one of the most influential bands in their country, he had chosen the perfect job for himself and he could never doubt that.

well, never is a very strong word.

moments like this one, where jongin was sitting on the most uncomfortable chair backstage of an award show watching as other bands as well as his own exchanged cds with eachother and by doing so he could even see some sneaky singers exchanging numbers while their managers didn't see them.

jongin found it ridiculous, how most of those singers- people, were restricted by a contract of even looking at a girl they liked or admired, it was a pitiful scene jongin had to witness every now and then.

all in all, those were the things that helped jongin distract himself of the evident panic he would feel before performing, just like the first performance of their new song and all performances before that, jongin couldn't seem to stop torturing himself with more and more practice piling up on the lack of sleep he could never manage to not have before a stage, everything was disturbingly familiar to him.

today was different though, his members seemed more at ease now, maybe because their title song had reached the top 5 in only a day and a half or maybe it was the after effect of a full two hours of an acupuncture session that the members were obliged to frequent, courtesy of their producer, just one hour before.

while in his train of thought jongin almost failed to notice the freshly dyed grayish blonde haired boy coming towards him with the rest of his group.

"hey jongin! the kai of exo!" kibum gleamed and bowed before half hugging jongin in his awkward stage of getting up from the chair he was sitting.

"hope you're doing well, we loved the new song, seriously like..." minho with his exploding charisma embarrassingly started to dance and sing their new song off-key.

"ah we're doomed, but it's okay, super junior is messier than us so it's fine." jinki nodded as if reassuring himself rather than jongin.

"you guys are fun to be with." jongin laughed, also an attempt to distract himself from his current situation.

"i never had the chance to ask you," taemin said just as the other members of shinee started talking to the rest of exo, "did taehee give you any hard work? she's kind of spoiled, not my fault though, she just is."

jongin wouldn't think of taehee as spoiled, maybe whiny but not spoiled.

"no she was just fine, she just mostly locked herself in her room and just came out to eat like any normal teenager would- ah, she also practically begged me to go to a photoshoot with me so she met yixing, that's basically all." jongin looked at the back of his hand in a trance trying to remember everything that happened within the short time tahee resided with him.

taemin nodded in approval of jongin's report as they proceeded to talk about random things to pass the time when the event manager announced it was time for the groups to go to their corresponding seats to watch the award show or get ready to go on stage.

jongin managed to get the seat closest to taemin to continue their previous conversation and when it was time for exo to perform their new song, jongin's worries were too overshadowed by the delight of having a genuine conversation for the first time in a long time with someone he could consider a friend besides his bandmates.

a conversation he was only ever able to have with sehun, who was undeniably his best friend despite him loving every member equally and as much as the other, sehun was always there for jongin since the start and without him and baekhyun the group felt empty.

he couldn't stop thinking about the two since that night in which yixing and jongin spotted both of the men having a nice dinner without even trying to contact any of the members.

when the votes started coming in and they were already standing side by side anticipating if they were going to win or not, jongin couldn't concentrate. it was as if his body was on auto-pilot

"exo!" he heard the mcs shout and suddenly a loud pop and the screams of thousands of fans.

the members next to him in desbelief hugged each other and bowed to the people around him while jongin stood there with no expression whatsoever, as if he didn't hear what was going on.

that was until taemin ran up to him with a big smile and hit his chest right where it hurt, but he didn't mind.

"you won, you punk!" taemin laughed and came up to jongin to hug him.

taken aback, the taller boy could only let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and that is the moment it everything downed on him.

he won.

they won.

he hugged taemin back as a single tear escaped his eyes. all the stress, worry, anxiety and all feelings in between that jongin felt the past few days now gone, forgotten like the watery fluid flowing down his eye that was now dissipated and abandoned somewhere on taemin's jacket.