-32- Between love and career

Hey, unfortunately I couldn't update on Sunday because I was in bed with my biliary colic. But today I am well again and so I can provide you with updates again.

A whole weekend without Zhan, I thought I'd go crazy. He called me on Friday night after the show and told me what happened and that he wouldn't be back until Sunday night.

When I said to him that I didn't like not being able to see him, he told me something that made me think. "You don't have time or free thoughts for me anyway, so work out, do something with your group or sleep in."

I got angry at first because I thought, why does he insinuate that I had no time or free thoughts for him. But then I thought about the past week and had to admit that he was right.

Even if he's not completely right. I think about him all the time when I'm at training, but when I'm with him I think about the training. I feel torn between my love and my will to win.

My group deserves my full commitment, my absolute readiness and the will to win this competition. We train hard for it, all of us. And in this matter I have to put my feelings aside.

Which means I'm a bad boyfriend for Zhan. Even though I don't want to be. I really love him so incredibly much that I would do almost anything for him. And if it was up to me, I would want to spend the whole day with him.

But when you're in a band, when you want to achieve something, when you have contracts and all this is exactly what you always wanted to have, you can't drop everything because your heart suddenly loves two things. Your lived dream and the person by your side.

I want to do both justice, my career and my boyfriend. But I cannot find the right balance and I don't have much time left. Today is Sunday and in two weeks I'm going home again.

That means we will train even more intensively now and I will have even less time for Zhan. But of all things I need that now, we need that. Because when the competition is over, I have to leave him here.

It's true, my head is not clear. I'm torn, but I also think a lot about the time after the contest. How can it go on? What can I do to make things continue between Zhan and me?

It almost drives me crazy that I don't know what I should or can do to not lose Zhan. And the worst thing is that, while I'm thinking about it, and my fear of losing him grows with every day, the further I push him away from me at the same time.

But I'm not the only one suffering and torn right now. Seungyoun is also in a bad situation, as he misses Wooseok and the two don't know yet how things will go on between them.

We were sitting together in the common room late last night, just him and me and we talked about our future with our partners. And Seungyoun said that in his opinion a Boygroup has an expiration date.

"Take a closer look. As soon as a Boygroup is known and loved, a new group prepares itself somewhere else, which then overthrows the previous one from its throne. And this group is then overthrown again. It's a vicious circle. Rarely do pure boygroups exist for more than a few years. With every year that we get older, we outgrow the target group. Maybe you should start planning and preparing for a solo career right now. And if you really want to be with your Zhan, you should adjust your plans accordingly."

"Do you really think we'll soon be replaced by another group and be dropped?" I wanted to know from him.

"Our fans won't let us down, but we will hardly get any new fans at all. And that's what counts in this business. If the sales figures stay the same or go down, they try other things so that we get more fans and if that doesn't work either, then our group will be dissolved."

"But Seungyoun, if you really see and believe that, then why are you in a Boygroup?"

"Very simple. Because it can be a springboard. Sometimes you end up in another group, you can start a solo career or you become an actor. Take a look at the film and television industry. How many actors started out as singers in a Boygroup?"

"I don't know."

"There are many."

We talked for quite a while and he made me think even more about my career now.

I don't know when I got the wish to become a dancer and singer. It was suddenly there. I used to think about what I wanted to do later, but I didn't know it.

I probably would have chosen the same thing as my best friend at the time. I never cared about anything as long as I could be with him. We were always together, always there for each other and promised never to leave each other. We were just kids then and I hardly remember that time. But I remember very well that I abandoned him.

My father had been looking for work for a long time and then he finally got a new job. But for this one my family had to move. We moved from one day to the next. I refused to accompany my parents, I didn't want to leave. But what could I do? I was just a little boy. I had to leave him behind. But I promised him to call and write to him often when I learned it.

But I did nothing of the sort. I had written down his phone number and lost it. I couldn't remember the address, although we lived with his family for years.

One month after we moved, I even wanted to run away and return to him. I got into the school bus in the morning in front of my parents and got off three stops later, I said I wasn't feeling well.

I ran to the train station and hopped into a train, but unfortunately I was caught because I did not have a ticket. I did not know that you need a ticket. I just wanted to get back to my best friend. That was all I could think about.

They called the police and they took me home to my parents, where I was in big trouble. I begged to go back to him, I wanted to be with him, nowhere else. But they didn't let me and I gave up.

I gave up and I let him down. The only person I cared about. I began to submit to the life there and forgot more and more my past with him. Today I do not remember much, too much has happened in the years since then.

But with Zhan it should not happen like that. I don't want to give up on him, not abandon him or forget him.