I suck at conflict resolution. Since I was little, when two of my close friends had a fight, I'd try to get them to make up, but after a while I'd just stop and leave them alone. I think that no matter what outsiders do, a conflict can only be resolved if the parties directly involved want it to and make an effort for it to happen.
When DBSK officially disbanded, I stopped listening to the group's old songs altogether. As much as I loved those songs, they just made me miserable thinking that I'd never hear the five members singing them anymore. When JYJ and TVXQ came back separately, I listened to their albums once, decided that they were sorely disappointing, and did not listen to them again. It was strange; those were the same five people and the same five voices that I grew to love over the past few years, yet it was as if I did not know them. I whined and whined, lamenting over how I disliked their new sound, and how I missed the old DBSK. I avoided their TV appearances, for when I did I'd start smiling and laughing because of them, and I'd get reminded of just how much I loved them. When once in a while I let my curiosity got the better of me and watched any TVXQ's videos, I'd feel guilty because I did not watch JYJ's, and vice versa. And most importantly, even though I kept saying that I was waiting for the day when I stop feeling sad when I listen to their songs, a part of me did not want that day to come. I was afraid that when that day comes, I will finally accept the existence of the two groups, and the fact that DBSK is no more. I thought that by hurting because of the split up, I was keeping DBSK alive in my memory.
In retrospect, I was only thinking of myself. No matter what had happened, I abandoned the five members when they needed support. I blamed them for my pain, and ignored the fact that if even I was in pain, they probably thought they were in hell. It was also not surprising that I disliked all their new songs; it wasn't how good or bad they were that mattered, just that they weren't sung by the old DBSK.
A character in a drama once said that it takes as much time to get over a lost love as the time you've loved. I started liking DBSK in 2007, and even though the group officially disbanded in late 2009, I only gave up hoping that they would reunite in late 2010. It's now 2013. Enough already.
I still believe that the bond between the members was real. I still have hopes of them one day resolving their misunderstandings and becoming friends again. In my imagination, they will one day meet up, talk, scream and shout, punch one another while crying their eyes out, and eventually when they are too tired to move, they will lie sprawled on the ground, laughing at how stupid this whole thing was. I don't even need them to reunite as DBSK; knowing the members make up is enough for me. Or maybe it already happened and they're just waiting for the right time to reveal it.
I will start listening to DBSK, TVXQ, JYJ and the members' solo songs again. Maybe over time, I will stop switching songs abruptly in the middle of an old DBSK ballad because tears threaten to fall as I listen to the familiar melody that seems so far away. Maybe one day I will stop looking for a shadow of the other members' voices in TVXQ and JYJ's songs. Maybe one day I will stop feeling the urge to refer to the new two-member DBSK as Homin, and can stop referring to them as TVXQ, just as I do now just because I don't want to call them DBSK. Maybe one day I will finally know that it is okay to not mourn for DBSK anymore, to like TVXQ and JYJ, and to call the current DBSK, DBSK. It is okay, because they are still the same five people and five voices that I grew to love, and because even though it is TVXQ and JYJ that remain now, DBSK's music still lives.
