I took a deep breath and walked straight to him, before making my way onto his lap, facing him. Do-hyun froze, but ultimately let me do it. I circled my arms around his neck, purring his name to his ear. 

“Do-hyun…hyung… I think we should go back.”

“I know,” he said, still not making any effort to get going. 

“The others are waiting,” I said, burying my face to the nook of his neck, trying to hide the fact that I certainly wasn’t the person I was playing. My facade was cracking, fast. As fast as my heart drummed, reminding me that my body did, in fact, react to his closeness more than it should. 

The staff members started disappearing around us.

Do-hyun took in a shaky breath through his still clenched teeth. “I can’t…I can’t face Tae,” he said, his tone sounding somehow hurt, angry, and apologetic at the same time. “I can’t stand him. I can’t fucking deal with his hands on you. I want to chop them off and feed them to the wolves.”

I lifted his face up with my hand on his chin, trying to force him to look me in the eyes. I wasn’t very successful—he kept evading me. Once again, I reminded myself that we didn’t have time for this shit and shouted, “Look at me!”

Finally his eyes found mine.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a bit of a softer tone. “Whatever happens it’s just fanservice. It’s all just fanservice.”

Somehow, Do-hyun seemed even more hurt. Fuck. I wondered if I should’ve cleared it up that I meant Tae, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle that level of honesty—even while channeling stage-Minjae.

But somehow, eventually, Do-hyun came around after staring me in the eyes the longest time. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tightly against his chest to my ultimate relief. I glanced at the clock on the back wall and a relief washed over me—we still had two minutes left. 

My heart, on the other hand, was secretly shattering into million tiny pieces for the hundredth time. As sweet as Do-hyun could be in these rare moments, it wasn’t going to last for very long. I knew that this…thing…we had on stage, would come to its rightful end. Once the cheer died down and the spotlights no longer burned my skin, Do would want nothing to do with me for a day or two. 

I pushed that though to the back of my mind. This night was way too important. I wasn’t going to jeopardize it. 

Suddenly, someone cleared his throat behind me. I jumped up from the couch and Do-hyun’s arms immediately. 

The said someone turned out to be Chris. Smiling at us somehow mischievously, as if he was up to something. I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure it out.

“Let’s go?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. 

Both me and Do-hyun nodded back at him, realizing we were too busy to question him. In fact, we nearly had to run to make it before the video would end. When we reached Joonie and Tae, they both eyed us worriedly at first, but as Chris shook his head, they relaxed and smiled. It was almost like they were having an inaudible conversation. Freaked me out a bit, to be honest. Nevertheless, we passed them all and took our spots in the middle of the stage. 

The video ended right then, the spotlight lit up and Tae started to speak. 

"Crew, are you enjoying tonight?!" he boomed into the microphone, and we watched the enormous stadium lit up with endless amounts of light sticks being lit up at once, in addition to cell phones, flashlights... The audience even started to chant our names again.

I was actually taken aback, practically forgetting the incident with Do backstage. In fact, we all got a bit emotional at the sight of it. The fans were obviously very important to us—without them, we couldn't do this. Without them, we were nothing. Without them, we couldn't make music, and even earn something from it. Without them, we wouldn't be able to do something we all loved doing as a profession. 

Seeing and hearing that we mattered to them too, was just a feeling you can't describe. Even Tae who is the most unaffected of us all had to compose himself a bit before continuing.

"Look, I know it has been a while..." he started, and the crowd went silent at once. Seriously, you could probably hear a pin drop. They were all just that eager to hear what we had to say. 

"I believe I can speak with all of our voices combined when I give you a big, enormous, gigantic thank you for sticking with us, despite our insanely long break."

Do-hyun got himself composed and continued where Tae left off. "I know we have some explaining to do..." The audience went wild again, not agreeing with him, but silenced again when he continued. "Well, we didn't exactly go on a vacation, but I can honestly say we all missed you."

Tears burned behind my eyes when it was my turn to speak. I had the hardest part, as if tonight wasn't hard enough already... Unconsciously I took Do's hand in mine; guess I just needed him to get through this. He didn't mind though, he just squeezed my hand reassuringly, and I finally got myself pulled together.

"Truth be told, this night was so close to never happening..." I started, referring to our short discussions about disbanding after the army. "Because we seriously considered if we would even make it again. But thankfully, our label supported us one hundred percent, and we were given this amazing and enormous second chance."

Joonie continued. "We just want to apologize for being away for far too long. I hope you will all forgive us..." he said and nearly broke down when he ended his part.

"But we're back now, and we're going to make it bigger than ever. And WE LOVE YOU, CREW!" Chris ended and we all crossed our thumb and index fingers to make a heart sign and had a short moment of silence. Listening to our fans cheer like there was no tomorrow was enough noise already.

In that precious moment, we all believed we could actually pull the whole comeback thing off. I wished it would continue forever.