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The dorm is mostly quiet nowadays.
Baekhyun usually wakes up to the sound of Chanyeol and Sehun bickering over who gets the bigger piece of whatever breakfast Kyungsoo had cooked, or the sound of their manager begging Jongin to please, for the love of God wake up—sometimes it’s Junmyeon that does the begging. Point is, Baekhyun usually wakes up to the dorm already bustling with the life and energy of his bandmates.
Not nowadays, though. He supposes it’s only normal, the hype of their joined schedules have died down—six years is considered a long, long time for an idol group to still be active. He’s grateful for that, of course, but he doesn’t want to push his luck by hoping for another six years. For now, Baekhyun is content, and as long as his fans and his bandmates are happy, he’s happy too.
Sehun occasionally pokes his head in between Baekhyun’s bedroom door at the oddest hours possible—sometimes it’s 10 a.m, and other times at 3 a.m—eyes already glinting with mischief before he even says anything, only to ask, “Hyung, do you want to go and grab dinner with me?” Baekhyun would then roll his eyes, and ask Sehun to bring him food home instead.
It’s not that Baekhyun hates going out, it’s just that he thinks he’s too old to run away from the sasaengs that even after six years, still follows him everywhere he fucking goes. Even he’s tired of himself, why aren’t these fuckers tired yet?
Baekhyun prefers the safety his bedroom provides, and the Supreme hoodie that one of his fansites had gifted him for his twenty-fourth birthday is enough to keep him warm and feel loved. Then there’s his PC and all of his beloved gaming equipment stacked at the one corner of his room. Baekhyun thinks he’s set for living inside his bedroom for the rest of his life when he remembers the monstrosity of his gaming collection. He can even make a living out of it, seeing how his precious fans still stream his live gameplays despite his other members having way more cooler gigs.
Everyone is busy. Junmyeon lives mostly in his apartment now, busy with shooting his latest dramas and rehearsing for his musical stages. Kyungsoo barely ever steps his foot into their dorm anymore due to his jam-packed schedule with all the movies and dramas he’s starring in. Baekhyun remembers meeting Kyungsoo for the first time about eight—or seven?—years ago, eyes wide and hair probably way too long for his own liking now, voice a little shaky as he sang some acoustic English song that Baekhyun can’t pronounce the title of. Chanyeol had been the one playing the guitar with a goofy smile behind the round-eyed boy. Baekhyun remembers thinking how scary Kyungsoo had looked even when he’s singing an upbeat song, and never in a million years then he’d thought that that Kyungsoo would star in seven fucking movies and counting after debuting. Kyungsoo is an amazing actor, though, Baekhyun admits, and seeing Kyungsoo’s face on TV makes him want to burst into proud, sappy tears just because. He lies to Kyungsoo about never watching his dramas, though, when in reality he cried himself to sleep when Kyungsoo’s character in his newest historical drama had to break up with his love interest.
Baekhyun had to message Minseok on Kakaotalk to bring him tissues over to his room because Minseok is the only bitch he trusts in this house.
Jongdae has been running around and busting his ass for his solo album, quite literally running from one music station to another, while Jongin disappears for a few days on end to shoot high-end pictorials in the furthest countries Baekhyun would never even go to. Baekhyun keeps tabs on the tanned boy through his Instagram posts. He’s a little jealous of Jongin’s ongoing aesthetic, but he knows he’d never be able to pull off arranging his Instagram feed because he’s an impatient man.
Minseok sometimes sends the group chat pictures of his newly bought furniture that Sehun never fails to make fun of, never really ever leaving his new apartment, and no one loves to lock themselves in the recording studio more than Chanyeol does. Sometimes, Baekhyun would hear Chanyeol singing at four a.m to some western song he doesn’t know of, but he doesn’t mind. Chanyeol’s voice is extremely soothing.
Sehun shoots a few dramas, too, and travels the world like Jongin for pictorials, too. Baekhyun would know because he’s the first person Sehun tells before he leaves for anywhere. Sehun, for some reason, trusts Baekhyun enough to leave Vivi in Baekhyun’s care—and yet even after 86 playdates, Mongryong and Vivi is still a little awkward. The maknae also stars in a couple of variety shows and it has been absolute hits. Baekhyun has a few of his favourite episodes downloaded on his phone, but Sehun doesn’t have to know that.
Yixing, even when he’s all the way in China, still manages to be the silly hyung that Baekhyun adores. He makes a habit of calling Baekhyun at the oddest times (just like Sehun) of the day. He would call to ask random questions like, “Baekkie, have you eaten yet?” or tell him random facts like, “I saw a puppy today that reminded me of Chanyeol. Speaking of Yeollie, can you hand the phone to him?” in which Baekhyun would tell him to call Chanyeol’s number instead if he wanted to call him so bad, but complies anyway. He’d end up being phoneless for a few hours sometimes—it’s a good thing he has Mongryong to keep him company. Baekhyun misses Yixing.
Spending his days playing games and driving aimlessly at night has become Baekhyun’s routine for now, because he doesn’t know when’s the next time he’ll ever get alone time like this. Every time their full-group comeback rolls around, Baekhyun has to spend every breathing moment with the rest of his bandmates, be it in cars or in the freaking bathroom, jumping around doing the stupidest things to make everyone laugh during their promotions. It’s partly why Baekhyun finds so much peace in his quiet routine. His body is also spent after his back-to-back group promotions with CBX and then EXO while juggling to keep tabs on his new line, Privé, so there’s that. It never fails to amaze him that Jongdae is able to pull through with promoting a solo album after all that.
So it’s not like Baekhyun hates working with his bandmates or anything. He loves his bandmates and his job very, very much.
“Hyung,” Sehun’s voice is just as nasally and just as endearing it had been when they first met, effectively snapping Baekhyun back into reality after his daydreaming session, “do you want to get dinner with Junmyeon hyung and me?”
“You need to learn how to knock, Sehun-ah,” Baekhyun forces himself to sit up, blindly grabbing for his glasses perched on his nightstand. Sehun giggles. “Oops.”
“Where are we going?” the older man asks, pushing his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, slightly glaring at the still giggling maknae.
“Wherever you choose,”
It takes Baekhyun approximately three minutes to get ready—he stopped caring about dressing up when he’d hit the four year debut mark, and he’d be lying if he says he misses trying to match his black shirts with the proper shade of black jeans. As long as it’s comfortable, it does the job. Sehun still cares, though, so he has to wait for Sehun in the living room with Junmyeon for ten minutes. Junmyeon immediately greets him with a bone-crushing hug the moment he sees Baekhyun, because they haven’t met each other for a few weeks—if Baekhyun recalls correctly, Junmyeon had been to... Australia? For holiday, or something. Junmyeon cuddles Baekhyun as both of them play with their own phones, the younger melting into the touch of his (arguably) favourite hyung, waiting patiently for Sehun to finish dressing up. When the maknae steps out in a white blouse and track pants, Baekhyun swears at him.
“You little fucker,” Baekhyun says without a real bite to it, getting up from the couch, “you wear that shirt every day. Why did it have to take you ten minutes to come up with this look?”
Sehun just giggles. It’s his favourite way of answering to his hyungs’ wraths, and Baekhyun partly blames Junmyeon for babying the maknae so much to the point he’s comfortable of doing anything he wants to do. Maybe he has to blame everyone else and maybe a little bit of himself too, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to admit that Sehun’s got the whole EXO whipped for his skinny ass. Junmyeon pats Sehun’s cheek affectionately in return to his giggles. It had been an attempt to lightly slap the youngest EXO member, but Sehun leans into the touch anyway.
Junmyeon offers to be the driver of their short trip to the restaurant (partly because Sehun doesn’t want to drive his baby to a mere restaurant and Baekhyun is just too lazy) of Sehun’s choice, even when Sehun clearly said Baekhyun gets to pick. Baekhyun sits on the backseat of Junmyeon’s car while he listens to the maknae talk animatedly about this new chef he’s met through Super Junior’s Donghae from the front seat. Junmyeon smiles and nods in response to Sehun’s excited babble, and Baekhyun makes occasional comments here and there on Sehun’s story. Baekhyun realizes then that Sehun makes friends like Baekhyun plays games—often and as much as he can. He’s a little proud to see the shy boy he met eight years ago grow into the social butterfly he is now, but he supposes Junmyeon feels prouder because he’s known Sehun for even longer than Baekhyun does.
They arrive at the restaurant a little over 10 p.m. Baekhyun remembers a few seconds too late that Junmyeon is horrible at parking, only after they’ve driven through the valet parking section. Although he grumbles when Sehun tells him to switch seats with Junmyeon, Baekhyun gets into the driver’s seat and parks the car anyway.
Of course, Sehun picks the most expensive looking restaurant on the top floor of a prestigious hotel when all of them are dressed to eat Korean Barbeque at best. They get seated at the most VIP section the restaurant has, somewhere in a private room overlooking the Seoul cityscape. Baekhyun orders a one-hundred-dollar steak and Sehun asks for something that’s not even on the menu. Junmyeon pays for all of their meals, even the cucumber soup that Sehun had ordered just to spite Baekhyun, and to his surprise, Sehun treats them to the most expensive bottle of wine the restaurant keeps. Baekhyun swears he sees Junmyeon tear up a little when Sehun announces proudly, “I’m buying, hyungs!”
As if Sehun deserves to be awarded for offering to pay, when he’s the one that wanted to order the wine and took them out to dinner in a place he wanted to eat in. Baekhyun just grins. His heart fills up with warmth looking at Junmyeon staring at Sehun with hearts in his eyes, Sehun rolling his eyes at the leader’s lovestruck gaze but blushing anyway. Sometimes it makes him laugh when he sees bogus articles of how EXO members aren’t actually close to each other, because are people fucking blind? Do they not see how Junmyeon looks at Sehun like Sehun singlehandedly saved world hunger, or how Kyungsoo is the first to punch Chanyeol when he makes a stupid joke but cooks him food anyway when he says he’s hungry?
Speaking of Chanyeol, Baekhyun finds his phone suddenly flooded with notifications from the EXO group chat that’s been dead for a few weeks now. Chanyeol is the perpetrator—obviously, who else would it be?—and Baekhyun almost doesn’t catch what he’s trying to say over the string of ㅋㅋㅋㅋs and ㅠㅠㅠㅠs.
“I didn’t realize it’s twelve already,” Junmyeon says softly, looking up from his phone, eyes meeting Baekhyun’s halfway.
“Me too,” Baekhyun replies with a crooked smile.
“Why? Why? Is there anything wrong? Whose birthday is it—is it—” Sehun shuts up when Baekhyun points to his phone, quickly picking up the iPhone laid on top of the clothed table haphazardly, not wanting to miss out on anything the hyungs are talking about. A split of a second later, Baekhyun’s phone gets flooded with a bunch of new notifications. Sehun had sent the group chat thirty-eight new stickers with a bunch of ㅋㅋㅋㅋs too.
“I didn’t realize it’s been seven years now,” Baekhyun says, looking out the window, down at the beautiful nighttime Seoul cityscape wistfully. He feels a little dramatic, looking out the window and talking softly like he’s some male protagonist in a cheesy K-Drama, but when he turns to look at the other two men sitting across him, they’re doing the exact same thing he is.
Maybe they’re all a little dramatic.
“Chanyeol is overseas right now, isn’t he?” Junmyeon replies with a question, still looking at the cityscape beneath them. Junmyeon’s wine sloshes inside the wine glass he’s holding as he positions himself to be able to look at the floor-to-ceiling window comfortably.
“Yeah, he’s in Guam or something, I think he’s coming immediately home to the dorms tomorrow,” Sehun answers.
Home. Baekhyun thinks it’s absolutely adorable that Sehun refers to their shared dorm as home when almost all of them have their own respective places now—when they rarely see each other anymore when the sun is up and about. But Sehun isn’t wrong. It is home.
“That figures,” Junmyeon says, settling his glass of wine onto the table, “because if he’s here he’d be the one to round the members up for dinner or something. It’s not like we all forgot, but he’s always the one to take initiative, isn’t he?”
“Sehunnie takes initiative too,” Sehun whines, his face void of any emotion as he stares at Junmyeon, and Baekhyun wonders about the age-old question he’s always had buried in the back of his mind—is twenty-four really Sehun’s real age? Sometimes he suspects SM of forging Sehun’s birth certificate to a few years older so they can debut him faster, because Sehun never acts the age he’s supposed to be. But it's not like Baekhyun has any complaints.
Junmyeon smiles apologetically, reaching out to pat Sehun’s knee quietly. “Yeah, yeah. You take initiative too.”
“Minseok hyung must be sleeping right now,” Baekhyun chimes in, taking a sip from his glass. He almost laughs at how dramatic this whole situation is, the three of them sipping wine and wistfully staring out a window, but the wine tastes surprisingly good and for a moment Baekhyun forgets about everything else. Sehun has a great taste for a little alcoholic brat. “Wow, Sehunnie, this really is good.”
The look that Sehun sends him is smug, and Baekhyun doesn’t know if he wants to wipe it off his face or reach out across the table to pinch his cheeks instead. “Of course it is.”
“I think Jongdae still has a schedule or something. Jongin and Kyungsoo, though, I have no idea where they are,” Junmyeon adds, hand still on Sehun’s knee, although now looking at Baekhyun. As if on cue, Baekhyun’s phone rings, Kyungsoo’s face appearing on his screen and it takes less than a heartbeat for Baekhyun to answer the call.
“Yes, my king?” Baekhyun answers as soon as the line connects and he can already hear Kyungsoo’s groan even when it’s Jongin’s sulky voice that replies him. “Hyung, you went to dinner without us?”
Sehun grabs the phone before Baekhyun can open his mouth. “Come here before we finish our bottle of wine I’ll share you the location from Katalk bye!”
“Where did they say they were?” Junmyeon asks, eyes looking up at Sehun expectantly. Sehun shrugs. “Dunno.”
Baekhyun’s hand itches to smack the back of Sehun’s head at his answer, but Junmyeon just laughs at Sehun’s reply. For a while, they just sit there in silence, sipping on their own wines quietly, until Sehun picks up his phone.
“Chanyeol is doing an Instagram live!” he announces, eyes disappearing into crescent moons. Baekhyun can tell that the alcohol has found its way to Sehun’s system, from how he’s now leaning into Junmyeon’s shoulder. “Hyung, c’mere. Let’s watch Chanyeollie’s live on my other Instagram account,”
“It’s Chanyeol hyung for you, you brat,” Baekhyun scolds him, but gets up from his seat to watch it anyway. He’s too lazy to drag his chair across the table so he seats himself comfortably on Junmyeon’s lap, head leaning against the crook of Junmyeon’s neck, and the leader’s arm immediately wraps around Baekhyun’s middle. Chanyeol is blabbing away about their anniversary, of course.
The Insta-live lasts for another twenty minutes, Chanyeol playing some fan-made video of their six years as EXO together (they can't quite catch it because he keeps on moving the camera) in the middle of it that catches Baekhyun by surprise, and he thinks he saw Junmyeon blink away some tears. Sehun is too busy giggling to notice anything but “Chanyeol’s funny hair”.
Jongin and Kyungsoo bursts through the door screaming—well, it’s mostly just Jongin—and he’s grinning from ear to ear while lifting a plastic bag in his right hand excitedly. Kyungsoo, as per usual, looks like he doesn’t even want to be here.
“Happy seventh debut anniversary!” It’s the first time Baekhyun alongside Junmyeon and Sehun hears the words said out loud, and it feels a little more real now that Jongin has addressed it properly. Baekhyun stands up to give Jongin a hug, because he hasn’t seen Jongin in a while, too. The boy had been away at his parents’ house for a couple of weeks now, and Baekhyun knows that by his constant updates of his adorable niece and nephew on his Instagram.
“Happy anniversary,” Kyungsoo says softly, walking towards their table, “I made some seafood ddeokbokki.”
“It’s after midnight and we’re literally in a Michelin-starred restaurant, Soo,” Baekhyun stares at Kyungsoo pointedly when Jongin places the plastic bag containing the said ddeokbokki onto their table, but stops Kyungsoo’s hand from moving the bag out of Baekhyun's reach anyway. “Doesn’t mean that I don’t want to eat it, though. Sheesh, you overreact too much.”
Kyungsoo stares at him blankly. Baekhyun gets the message even without Kyungsoo having to say anything—he knows that the round-eyed boy means to say: “Fuck you, you stupid faced bitch.” He grins at Kyungsoo.
“Happy anniversary, too,” Baekhyun finally says as he opens the lunchbox that Kyungsoo had stuffed with his ddeokbokki. It’s the perfect time to say the words, when he’s looking down at the food and not at his bandmates, because Baekhyun hates being sappy around the boys and he thinks he’s the most awkward out of all of them when it comes to having serious Adult conversations with the rest of EXO. Actually, all of them pretty much sucks in trying to have an Adult conversation together, where one would somehow find a way to be offended at another’s input, which would lead to a person crying or throwing a punch. After the first few years, it’s more of the latter, so they don’t really try to talk about their feelings in such private settings anymore.
EXO is better in communicating how they feel in front of public eye, anyway, making passive aggressive comments through variety show scripts and telling each other how much they actually appreciate each other’s existences through concert ments, crying together while watching fan-made video projects, holding each other’s hands tightly in front of thousands of audiences. It’s always been easier that way for them, instead of fighting it out in between the confined spaces of their dorm walls, and they think it’s better like that.
Thankfully, when Baekhyun looks up, no one is paying attention to him.
“What are you guys looking at?” Baekhyun asks when he realizes that Kyungsoo and Jongin are now huddled next to Junmyeon and Sehun and he’s the only one left out of the puppy pile. “We’re looking for the video that Chanyeol hyung played on his live,” Jongin replies, but his eyes never leave the phone.
Annoyed that he’s left out, Baekhyun immediately stomps over to the other side of the table, pulling his chair with him so they can all sit down—on the chair or on top of each other—and he positions himself on Jongin’s lap comfortably, arm curling around Junmyeon’s shoulder, Kyungsoo at the other end with his cheeks pressed onto Sehun’s collarbones. They’re all staring at the phone on Junmyeon’s hand, waiting in silence for Junmyeon to finish scrolling and to find the damn video.
Sehun is already nodding off to sleep when Junmyeon clicks on the video, and his eyes immediately shoot open when he realizes the abrupt shift in colors on Junmyeon’s phone.
The video starts with the instrumental intro to one of their first songs ever, Angel—had it been any other day, Baekhyun wouldn’t have batted an eyelash while listening to this song—but something like sadness and longing stirs inside his stomach today at the sound of the piano keys flowing out of Junmyeon’s phone. Minseok’s face is the first to appear, talking about how he’s feeling about the debut showcase they’re going to perform in, and suddenly Baekhyun misses Minseok.
It continues with short clips of each member saying how they feel before they’re about to perform on their debut showcase, and it hits Baekhyun how young they looked back then. It’s been seven years. Sehun's shoulders are twice the size of his shoulders in the video now. Jongin's eyes aren't as puffy now. The video ends with a little snippet of Junmyeon’s speech seven years ago, his voice sounding very much still like it does now when he says, “If we walk together like this, wherever we go, it’ll be heaven.”
Baekhyun knows it’s cheesy. He remembers laughing a little inside when Junmyeon had said those words that had been uncreatively picked out of their own song lyrics all those years ago, but it hits a little different now. The song Angel sounds nostalgic now, a little sad, almost, and the fact that seven years has flew by from the first time he performed in front of thousands of people scares him a little. Baekhyun sneaks a glance at his bandmates sitting right next to him, and all of them looks just about as the same as how Baekhyun feels.
Junmyeon’s eyes are a little glassy, and Sehun is actively trying to blink away the obvious tears in his eyes. Kyungsoo looks distracted. Jongin’s eyes are still fixed onto the phone.
“Sehunnie, you looked like a literal baby,” Jongin is the first to speak, smiling a little as he does, “I wish Yixing hyung was here.”
“I wish everyone else was here,” of course Sehun tries to one-up Jongin’s statement, and that earns him a well-deserved smack on the back of his head performed by Junmyeon. Baekhyun is pleased, the normalcy that comes with Junmyeon smacking the back of Sehun’s head providing him a bit more room to breathe in.
“Yeah, I miss everyone. We should go to Hawaii on our next EXO ladder season. Jongdae hyung would love it,” Jongin says.
The silence hangs thick in the air. Baekhyun feels suffocated again for a few seconds.
“Of course,” Junmyeon responds, patting Jongin’s head softly.
Everyone knows that the possibility of having a third season for their EXO ladder show is nearly impossible. Their oldest member is already going to enlist sometime around this year—Baekhyun never dared to ask when, and their individual schedules for this year have been printed and displayed on their fridge back at the dorm. If you look closely, you’ll see that none of their schedules line up to free at the same time with nine different members who each has very different skillsets in the entertainment industry. Not to forget the ones that are busy taking their university classes, too.
So they don’t know when their next comeback is going to be. Their shared schedules, for now, are for a few CF deals here and there only a few weeks or a few months once, and there aren’t any new concert dates so far except for SMTOWN concerts. Well, there’s a dance practice together scheduled for a few weeks from now, but it’s not like they’d spend more than a few hours together because every single dance move they have is practically etched into their very beings. There had been a few instances where Chanyeol would try to scare Yixing by blasting out one of their songs in the middle of the night, and the Chinese boy would jump while dancing to the beat of Growl at the same time because muscle memory.
The truth is that everyone is starting to live their lives on their own, slowly but surely stripping off the EXO title, and the possibility of the nine of them no longer being together again is scary. No one wants to say it out loud.
“I think we should go now, it’s almost two,” Kyungsoo announces, disentangling himself from the puppy pile to fold the discarded plastic bag on the floor that Baekhyun had irresponsibly placed there, “We have a meeting with the staff tomorrow for a few updates. Wouldn’t want to miss that.”
Kyungsoo’s words are final. Sehun is already dosing off anyway, so they quickly clean their things and head out the door with Sehun’s wine stuffed into the ddeokbokki plastic bag. Kyungsoo had refused when the restaurant staff had offered the matching box set of said wine. Baekhyun loves Kyungsoo’s practicality like that, and he thinks he’s going to miss it when Kyungsoo disappears again for a few months to shoot yet another movie he’s been cast in.
Junmyeon ends up paying for the food and the wine because he doesn't have the heart to wake Sehun up to make him pay.
Everything makes Baekhyun’s heart ache a little. Jongin and Junmyeon have to drag Sehun out of the passenger seat because he’s passed out cold when they get home, while Baekhyun helps Kyungsoo move the leftover ddeokbokki into a smaller container before stuffing it into the fridge with Sehun’s wine.
Baekhyun falls asleep dreaming of their debut stage, his voice cracking while singing that stupid MAMA bridge for the nth time.
*
Their fifth world tour starts at the end of September. Minseok is scheduled to leave for his military service in early November, and Baekhyun thinks it’s stupid that they’re all forced to learn the concert choreography as nine when Minseok wouldn’t be joining right after the first concert, but he isn’t complaining. It’s bittersweet.
Sehun tears up five minutes before the platform they’re standing on is supposed to rise to indicate the start of the concert, but not without sprinting from one end of the platform to the other end to slap each and every member’s butts hard and loudly. Jongin points out that the maknae is tearing up when they’re joining their hands together for their pre-concert ritual chant, and Sehun tells them all that it’s just his dust allergies acting up.
“Sure,” Minseok responds. Everyone knows that Sehun isn’t allergic to anything but cheap clothes. Sehun groans. They all scream “EXO saranghaja!” loudly and clearly after the maknae groans, anyway, and it might just be Baekhyun imagining things, but it sounds a little louder, a little more desperate than they usually do.
Baekhyun swears even Jongdae’s voice cracked a little, but he doesn’t have the time to refresh his memory before he gets propelled onto the stage, eardrums immediately attacked by the screaming of a thousand men and women confessing their love for EXO.
The sound is deafening and the lights are definitely blinding, but Baekhyun feels just right at home. This is where Baekhyun belongs.
Baekhyun thinks today is the most EXO has given to their performances after their debut day. Baekhyun’s clothes are thoroughly soaked by the end of it, Minseok’s make up barely even on his face anymore, and Sehun is already crying before he even gets a word out of his mouth. Their fans are crying, too, and it doesn’t take long before everyone in the concert dome, even their staffs, start to cry.
Kyungsoo and Minseok are the only two sane enough to say a complete sentence. Junmyeon chokes on his own tears before he could finish saying the word “thank you”.
Minseok says a sappy speech about EXO that Baekhyun thinks he’s at least practiced once because it’s absolutely beautiful and it leaves Sehun burying his face into his hands for a full five minutes. Minseok thanks every single fan, member, and staff for their love and support before finally saying a tearful goodbye. Minseok even goes to the lengths of reminiscing their debut stage and their previous concerts, leaving their fans gasping for air. It took them forty minutes alone to end the ment stage before ending the concert. Baekhyun’s heart breaks as the stage under him descends, picturing his precious Aeris walking home with tear-stricken faces, especially when some of them had been sobbing their hearts out.
The fans sing Don’t Go as their stage descends, and Junmyeon looks so dehydrated by the end of it Baekhyun feels bad for him.
The moment their platform lands on even ground, Chanyeol pulls them into a group hug that no one rejects. They don’t say anything, at first, and the silence is enough. All hell breaks loose when Junmyeon says thank you. Sehun yells something along the lines of “I love you guys” before tackling Junmyeon, and soon the rest follows suit. Minseok, being the last person standing, yells “geronimo!” instead, before dropping himself onto the pile of sticky men on the floor.
Someone takes a picture of them like this, and Baekhyun is grateful for that. He thinks of asking for whoever took the picture to send it to him, so he can frame it on his bedroom wall. He never wants to forget this moment.
Baekhyun vaguely remembers reading a news article a few days ago that questions just how long EXO is going to last. Everyone keeps saying that EXO is declining, and maybe they are. Maybe this is the end—maybe it isn’t. There are an infinite amount of possibilities when it comes to a group with so many members like EXO has.
All Baekhyun knows that it’s been seven beautiful years since he’s had the privilege of being in EXO, and that, for now, is enough.