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3 min readJun 13, 2026

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The Home I Didn’t Know I Was Leaving.

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source from Pins.

I don't think I realized it back then, but they quietly became the background music of my youth.

While I was busy growing up, chasing exams, making peace with my solitude, and surviving ordinary days, they were always there—like sunlight through a window I never bothered to notice because I believed it would always be there.

Only now do I realize how much brighter those years were because of them.

The saddest part is that I forgot.

I forgot to thank them. I forgot that they had slowly stitched themselves into the fabric of my life until they became inseparable from my memories.

Somewhere along the way, they stopped being just artists and quietly became home.

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NCT DREAM: 우리의 계절 (My Youth) Live 라이브 — ℗ 2021 SM Entertainment.

Today, just one old song was enough to pull me back to a version of myself I thought I had left behind. It’s strange how nostalgia works. It never knocks before entering—it simply slips through the smallest crack in your heart and fills every empty room with echoes I thought time had erased.

Suddenly, I’m twelve again, sitting in my own little world, listening to their voices and believing that life wasn’t as lonely as it sometimes felt.

People say time heals everything, but I think time only teaches us where to bury our feelings.

I thought I had moved on.

I thought I had outgrown being a Dreamzen.

Yet all it took was a few familiar melodies for my heart to betray me and remember everything my mind had convinced itself to forget.

Maybe love doesn’t always disappear.

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Maybe it simply changes its address and waits patiently for an old song to lead you back home.

I don’t support them the way I used to anymore, but if someone asked whether I’m completely over them, I don’t think I could ever say yes. You don’t simply stop loving the people who walked beside you during the years that shaped who you are. Some distances can be measured in time, but some bonds exist outside of it.

Words will never be enough to explain what they mean to me. They weren’t just artists I listened to. They became the soundtrack of afternoons I can never return to, the quiet comfort of music sessions after exhausting days, and the laughter hidden inside memories that now only live in my heart. They are pages from a chapter that has already ended, yet somehow the ink never dries.

My 7Dream, my youth.

I hope every good thing this world has to offer will always find you before it finds anyone else. I hope happiness chooses your doorstep over and over again. I hope life holds you as gently as your music once held a younger version of me.

And I’m sorry…

I'm sorry that somewhere along the way, I stopped showing up. But please believe me when I say this: leaving the fandom never meant leaving the love. Some feelings simply grow quiet—they don't disappear.

Maybe I've outgrown being a Dreamzen, but I'll never outgrow the part of me that grew up with Dreamies.

Some people become memories,

You became a season of my life that still blooms every time your old songs play.

And no matter how many years pass, whenever those melodies find their way back to me, they'll unlock a door I didn't even know I had closed. Behind it, I'll find the younger version of myself—waiting with the same wide-eyed heart, still believing in tomorrow, still smiling because of you.

Maybe that's why this hurts so much.

Because I don't just miss you.

I miss the girl who rushed home to watch your videos, counted down every comeback, found comfort in your voices after long days, and believed that tomorrow would always be a little brighter simply because you existed.

I may leave the fandom,

but I don't think I'll ever leave the part of my life that you quietly became.

Because some people leave your playlists.

You never left my youth.

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