#exo planet

Lay had long returned to China, his presence now existing more in memories than in schedules. Then came the situation with CBX, Baekhyun, Chen and Xiumin separating themselves from the company after months of conflict and legal disputes. And two weeks ago, just when she thought things couldn’t possibly become more unstable, Somi discovered that the manager she had trusted for years had been stealing from her.

The news had broken only two days ago. But, for the past week, she had carried the unbearable weight of a decision she never imagined herself making, Leaving SM as a solo artist while remaining part of EXO.

At first, the guilt consumed her. How could she make a choice like that right before the tour they had waited years for? How could she bring more uncertainty to a group already held together by sheer love and persistence?

But the members never let her carry it alone. Every single one of them stood beside her without hesitation, telling her the same thing over and over until she finally started believing it herself. 

“We’re with you no matter what.” they said multiple times.

Still, she hated how everything unfolded. Hated the headlines, hated the pity in people’s voices, hated how something so personal became public before she even had time to process it herself and hated how people reduced years of hard work to discussions about her romantic life. 

So she avoided the subject whenever she could. But tonight, standing under the fading stadium lights as the final notes echoed through the venue, she realized there was no avoiding it anymore.

The lights dimmed slowly around them while the members gathered at the center of the stage for the ending ment. Instinctively, they settled into their rehearsed positions. Somi in the middle with Kai, D.O. and Chanyeol to her left and Suho and Sehun to her right.

“EXO-L!” Kai called out, making the fans scream back. “Are you still with us?” 

“YES!” the fans screamed back loud enough to shake the venue.

Kai laughed breathlessly, placing a hand over his chest. “Wow… you guys are seriously loud!”

“Only now you noticed?” Chanyeol cut in, earning another wave of cheers.

Kai pointed accusingly toward the crowd.

“No, but today feels different! I think everyone missed us too much.”

“We missed them too much!” Sehun muttered beside him.

“We did!” Kai answered immediately, without embarrassment. “We were suffering.”

The fans screamed louder at that.

“Honestly,” Chanyeol said, stepping forward slightly. “we were all really nervous before today.”

“Speak for yourself.” Sehun said.

“You were nervous too.” Chanyeol pointed at his member. 

“I was calm.” Sehun shrugged.

“You checked your mic pack six times, oppa.” Somi mumbled.

“That’s professionalism.”

D.O. quietly shook his head, smiling to himself while the members continued bickering. Suho finally lifted his microphone with the kind of fond exasperation only he could manage after over a decade leading them.

“It’s our first concert after such a long time.” he said softly, the crowd immediately calming to listen. “And seeing all of you here again… really.” he paused briefly, looking around the stadium. “It reminded me why we endured all those years apart.”

The crowd answered with another emotional roar.

Somi was already tearing up again. She understood that she needed to finally discuss the difficult, unaddressed matter.

“Oh, no.” Kai sighed dramatically. “She started.”

“I’m not crying!” Somi protested while very visibly crying.

“You literally are.” Chanyeol laughed.

Somi smiled automatically at the familiar chaos unfolding around her, though her fingers tightened slightly around the microphone resting in her hands.

“We practiced really hard for this tour.” D.O. added calmly once the noise settled a bit. “We wanted to show a good stage after making everyone wait for so long.”

“And did we do well?” Chanyeol shouted immediately, turning his mic to the crowd. The fans screamed so loudly that even the idols flinched slightly. “Okay, okay. Good answer.” he laughed.

Kai suddenly turned toward Somi, nudging her shoulder lightly.

“Somi worked the hardest, though.”

The crowd instantly cheered louder at her name. She blinked, caught off guard.

“Why are you dragging me into this?”

“Because it’s true!” Kai said simply.

“Yeah, he’s right!” Suho agreed. “She was always the first one in the practice room.”

“And the last one to leave!” D.O. continued.

Somi shook her head immediately, already embarrassed.

“Stop. Don’t do this.”

“No, seriously.” Chanyeol insisted. “There were days where we’d leave and she’d still be there practicing alone.”

“She’d send us videos at like three in the morning.” Sehun added, smiling faintly. “Like some ghost. ‘Hun-ah, look at what I imagined for Love Shot’” he mimicked her. 

The fans laughed softly. Somi looked down briefly, trying to hide the way her throat tightened.

“It’s because she missed us too.” Kai said dramatically, suddenly hugging her from the side.

“I hate you.” she muttered instantly against his chest, making the audience laugh again.

“No, you don’t.”

Unfortunately, he was right. Suho glanced at her then. A small look, gentle, careful. The kind that silently asked if she was okay. Somi inhaled slowly before forcing another smile onto her face.

The arena was still glowing silver. Thousands of EXO-Ls watching them with so much love it almost hurt. Then Chanyeol suddenly pointed toward her microphone.

Immediately, the crowd started screaming again.

“SOMI! SOMI! SOMI!” 

Kai grinned beside her.

“Looks like it’s your turn.” he said out of the mic, making her immediately elbow him lightly in the ribs. 

Kai let out an offended gasp anyway, dramatically clutching his side while the fans laughed at the interaction without fully knowing what had been said. Somi smiled softly before lowering her eyes for a brief moment.

“First,” she stared quietly, voice slightly shaking. “I would like to thank everyone for your patience and for respecting my time in silence. I truly needed the time to process everything, to face all the emotions that came at once… and, more than anything, to prepare myself to stand on stage again with my members for the EXhOrizon concerts because I really missed you guys.”

The arena erupted instantly. She laughed weakly through it, shaking her head a little as if overwhelmed by the noise.

“No, really.” she continued once it settled slightly. “I think… I missed this more than I realized.”

Her voice wavered at the end of the sentence. Beside her, Suho subtly shifted closer.

Somi inhaled carefully before continuing.

“A lot happened while we were apart.” she smiled faintly while glancing at her members. “And honestly, there were moments I wondered if this day would feel different. However, I’m going to take a bit longer than I normally would for this, because I think there are some matters we need to discuss.” Somi announced, smiling in a flat line. 

The members went quiet beside her.

“As you might know, I’m not part of SM Entertainment as an artist anymore.” Somi said that for the first time out loud, and reality hit her. The crowd immediately reacted, thousands of disappointed whines and worried screams echoing through the venue at once. “I know, I know. Calm down.” she said quickly, lifting a hand with a small nervous laugh. 

Chanyeol looked at her from the side, eyes already glassy.

Somi glanced down briefly before continuing.

“To be honest…” she cleared her throat. “This wasn’t something I ever imagined happening.” her fingers tightened slightly around her golden microphone. “I spent almost eighteen years of my life there. I grew up there. I learned everything there.”

Her voice softened more.

“And, if I had to go through everything just to be standing on this stage again, with my members, I would.”

Suho lowered his head slightly beside her, listening carefully.

“But,” she hissed, visibly searching for the right words. “sometimes life forces you to make decisions you never prepared yourself for.”

The stadium remained completely silent now. Even the members weren’t moving.

“I found out recently that someone I trusted for a very long time was hurting me financially behind my back.” she smiled faintly again, but this time it looked tired. “And after a lot of discussions, meetings, crying,” the crowd laughed softly through the tension “and talking with the people I love, I decided leaving as a solo artist was the best thing for me.”

Her throat tightened immediately after saying it.

“I need everyone here to understand something very clearly. Leaving the company does not mean I’m leaving EXO.”

The reaction was instant. The stadium exploded with screaming and crying with fans jumping in place while silver lightsticks shook violently across the venue. Beside her, even though all of them already knew about it, Chanyeol physically exhaled in relief like he had been holding his breath the entire speech.

Kai wiped under his eyes again.

Sehun smiled openly this time.

And Suho looked at her with an expression so full of quiet pride it almost made her break.

“I would never make a choice that could harm this group lightly.” Somi continued once the noise lowered enough. “Never.” 

Her eyes moved toward the members beside her one by one.

“Guys,” she said, looking at her members now. Kai immediately started crying harder. “I turned into the woman I am today because of you. You really raised me so well and I’m really thankful for this. I’ll always be that 15-years-old girl, who was too scared of anything, always hiding behind your backs to not answer any questions.”

“Oh, my god.” Sehun muttered, laughing helplessly while having flashbacks of their early debut days.

“All these years, I waited to stand on stage together with you again just so I could have this feeling of being the ‘maknae’. Just having fun and being genuinely happy.” she looked at Suho, who sobbed. “Oh, oppa. Stop it. You’re going to make me cry even harder.”

“We’re all crying!” Kai sobbed dramatically, making the fans laugh and cry at the same time.

Somi laughed weakly through her tears, quickly wiping under her eyes before taking another shaky breath.

“No, because seriously.” she continued, voice trembling slightly now. “There were so many moments during the enlistment period where I was terrified.”

The stadium quieted again immediately.

“I kept thinking…” she swallowed hard. “‘What if people move on from us?’” several fans instantly yelled back in protest. “No, listen!” she laughed softly through tears. “I know now, okay? But back then, I was really scared.”

Beside her, Chanyeol lowered his head briefly, already emotional again.

“So I worked really hard.” Somi smiled faintly. “Maybe too hard sometimes.”

“You won a grammy.” D.O. said quietly beside her for the first time in a while.

The honesty in his voice made the crowd react immediately.

Somi glanced at him with a small laugh.

“I remember calling Suho oppa in the middle of the night once because I dreamed EXO disbanded.”

The crowd collectively whined again.

“Oh my god, don’t remind me.” Suho said, laughing through tears while covering his face briefly. “She was crying so hard I thought something terrible had happened.”

“It was terrible to me!” Somi explained herself, laughing while some tears kept falling. “I think that a part of me spent those years trying to keep EXO alive as much as I could while the members were away because this group saved me too and for that I’ll always be really, really thankful.”

There was this heavy and emotional silence. 

“I think there’s something we never said out loud.” Suho suddenly said, making Somi and the other members look at him. He looks at the crowd, then back at the members, then finally at her. “When we started enlisting, we all had the same worry. Not about ourselves, but about the group. We wondered what would happen to the group while we were gone… if things would slow down, if people would forget us, if we would come back and have to start over.” he exhales softly, his gaze shifting back to Somi. “But at some point, we stopped worrying because we had Somi.”

The words are simple, but they hit Somi in ways she didn’t expect. The turned her back at the fans, trying to hide how much she was crying, while she sobbed. 

“We knew that no matter where we were, no matter how far, EXO wouldn’t disappear because Somi was here.” he sighed. “She didn’t just stay, but she carried us. And because of that we never felt EXO was incomplete.” 

The whole stadium seemed to be crying by now. Kai let out another broken sound somewhere behind them, while Chanyeol looked down, nodding his head slightly and Sehun’s expression tightened just a little.

D.O got closer to Somi, caressing her shoulders, trying to calm her down. 

Suho continued, softer now.

“Somi-ah,” he called her. She looked at her leader. “you’ll forever be EXO’s backbone.”

Somi shook her head as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Suho tightly. The crowd erupted again immediately, crying louder as the leader instinctively held her against him, one hand moving carefully to the back of her head while the other rubbed slowly against her back.

Somi buried her face against his shoulder, laughing weakly between sobs.

“You’re really trying to ruin my makeup right now.” she complained.

“You were already crying before me.” he argued softly.

That made the members laugh through tears.

“Why is this so sad?” Kai whined dramatically, making the fans and his members laugh. 

The fans’ screams slowly softened again into emotional sniffles and scattered calls of:

“WE LOVE YOU!” 

“EXO FOREVER!” 

“DON’T CRY!”

Somi finally pulled back from Suho after a few seconds, though she still kept one hand clutching his sleeve like she needed grounding. Her eyes were completely red now.

“This is so embarrassing.” she laughed weakly while wiping under them.

The crowd laughed again through tears.

Kai suddenly stepped forward dramatically, opening his arms.

“Come here. Group hug.”

“Oh my god.” Sehun sighed.

But none of them refused. They never really did when it came to each other. Somi lowered her head for a second, laughing shakily as more tears slipped down.

“We really went through a lot, huh?” she whispered.

Kai made another broken sound immediately.

“Don’t start again, Choi Somi.”

That made everyone laugh. Even the fans.

Somi wiped under her eyes one more time before finally looking back toward the crowd.

I've actually been thinking about starting my own business. I've always dreamed of opening a café, but cafés require a huge investment, and that's something I simply don't have right now. Still, I've let myself dream a little. I've designed menus, come up with drink ideas, and almost all of them are inspired by EXO or Chanyeol. I really want to make it happen, even if I have to start as small as possible.

Will it work? I honestly don't know.

That uncertainty kept me awake at night, and my stress just kept getting worse. Almost all of April and the entire month of May, I was constantly sick. I felt like I was about to fall back into the same depression I experienced the last time I lost my job. All I could think about was wanting the daily stress and suffering at work to finally end.

But then June was about to begin, and with it came a few concerts I already had planned. So I made a decision: stop thinking about everything that was stressing me out and just enjoy as many concerts as I could.

I managed to get last-minute tickets to see Monsta X on June 6th. I already had tickets for Zayn on June 14th, and I flew to another city with my friends to see The Rose on June 17th. After we got back home, I started taking advantage of all the free concerts our city has been hosting for the FIFA Fan Fest since we're one of Mexico's World Cup host cities. I saw Imagine Dragons on June 21st, DPR IAN on the 23rd, and next up is Santos Bravos on the 28th.

And... I don't know. It feels like a lot of that weight I've been carrying has finally started to lift.

I'm still thinking about how to start my café, what drinks I want to serve, whether they'll be named after EXO songs or the members themselves... but I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed anymore.

So I wanted to come back and share some of the stories I still have waiting to be finished. Maybe one of them catches your attention enough that I can make it my priority and finally bring it to you.

I hope I get at least one reply. Honestly, that alone would be enough motivation for me to sit down and write again. 🤍

- Chen;

Voldemort has taken control of the Ministry of Magic, and the new regime is ruthless. Every suspect is interrogated, and anyone unable to prove their magical lineage is sent straight to prison.

Jongdae and his friends are part of a small resistance, helping half-bloods and Muggle-born families hide or escape before they're caught. But then there's her. She refuses to hide. She isn't afraid to fight.

Jongdae, however, is terrified of losing her.

When he learns that extraordinary service to the regime can earn him a reward, he makes an impossible decision. If it means keeping her alive... what is he willing to sacrifice?

---

- Kyungsoo;

At Hogwarts, everyone is convinced the two of them can't stand each other.

They believe it too... or at least they keep trying to.

But when an apparently harmless Potions lesson forces an impossible truth into the open, the rivalry they've hidden behind for years begins to crumble.

---

- Yixing;

She's the assistant to Theseus Scamander, Head of the Auror Office at the British Ministry of Magic. Yixing works alongside Newt Scamander as his assistant and magizoology partner.

He's heard the rumors about Theseus's new girlfriend. Young. Beautiful.

What he never expected was to discover those rumors were about her.

His first love.

The one that was never meant to be.

Once, she and his best friend shared a magical love story. Now that fate has brought them together again, she's farther out of his reach than ever...

Or at least, that's what Yixing believes.

---

- Jongin;

This one is loosely connected to The World Cup: Between Glory and Reality.

Jongin visits his sister at the magical hospital where she works so they can celebrate his team's qualification for the World Cup final.

What he doesn't expect is for his heart to be stolen in the corridors of that magical hospital.

---

- Junmyeon;

• Junmyeon has the gift... or perhaps the curse... of seeing exactly how much time people have left to live with nothing more than a touch. He keeps himself isolated to avoid carrying the unbearable weight of knowing when everyone will die.

Then he meets her.

For the first time in his life... he can't see her clock.

She's an anomaly.

Terrified of what that could mean, he tries to stay away from her. Yet fate keeps bringing them together in the most unexpected corners of the city.

• In a world where memories can be bought and sold like digital files, Junmyeon works as a collector... a curator of forgotten memories.

Everything changes when he finds a memory that seems to belong to him, despite having no recollection of ever living it.

She's in that memory.

But in reality, she's a complete stranger working in the Department of Data Cleansing... where unwanted memories are permanently erased.

---

- Chanyeol;

Everyone knows Park Chanyeol as Seoul's most feared Chief Prosecutor: brilliant, relentless, and completely untouchable.

What no one knows is that behind his flawless reputation, he's spent the last decade hiding an obsession he was never able to bury.

Her.

When a serial killer resurfaces and makes her his next target, the only way to keep her alive is to place her under the protection of the one man she's spent years trying to avoid.

As the bodies continue to pile up, buried university secrets, unresolved feelings, and impossible tension begin clawing their way back to the surface.

Chanyeol is willing to break every rule, defy the prosecution, and even destroy his own career to stop the killer.

Because this time...

He's not fighting for justice.

He's fighting to save the only person he's never stopped loving.

---

- Baekhyun;

As the Wizarding World trembles beneath Grindelwald's growing influence, Baekhyun becomes convinced that Grindelwald's ideology is the only way he and the woman he loves can finally be together.

She tries to stop him.

She begs him to see reason.

But Baekhyun mistakes obsession for love... until the day she calls him insane and walks away, telling him he's become someone completely different from the man she once fell in love with.

Only then does he begin to question every choice he's made.

---

I'm still not sure who I want to write this one for, but I really love the idea;

He works at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary as a dragon keeper. She's writing a book about the different professions in the Wizarding World, and when she's assigned to cover the sanctuary, they pair her with its most experienced guide.

Out of all the dragon keepers there, he's known for being the friendliest, kindest, and easiest to get along with.

What starts as a simple research assignment slowly becomes something much more dangerous... because spending every day surrounded by dragons turns out to be far less terrifying than falling for the man who's devoted his life to them.