I know I'm dry with my commentary on JaeDo updates recently. There are few reasons, the main one is that my initial goal was to show why I think the two are dating, which I completed a long time ago, therefore there is no real need to describe new small events (like Doyoung placing his hand on Jaehyun's shoulder) when shippers on TW do the job with pics and videos to attract attention to them.
I do want to comeback to the moment when Doyoung asked Jaehyun if the latter replied to his drunken messages or not, and to another one when Jaehyun rolled around during Love on the floor number practice.
The two moments were a glimpse at "raw" JaeDo, the way they are as a couple without pretence. They also showcased how the team treats the resident couple nowadays.
The "rolling around" was cut, Doyoung was already clapping when the scene started in the video, meaning, Jaehyun fooled around for a little bit longer. And noone paid attention, knowing that the show was for Do, only Woo got closer to see Jae in the end. Yes, they were in the middle of a practice, but it never stopped, say, Johnny or Hyuk from joking or being annoying.
Secondly. Doyoung said in interviews that Johnny and Haechan (andmaybe Woo, can't recall exactly) with their jokes or aegyo help to lift up his mood. Jaehyun is a silly man, but he is especially stupid silly sometimes when he teases Doyoung (the snorring, the garlic breath, the starfish). I suspect in some situations it's his way of distracting Doyoung, making him laugh instead of worry. Getting attention on himself as well, of course. Silly, uncerious behaviour lightens the mood in the room.
Also, not enough said about how strongly Do adores Jaehyun. Yes, he likes his cute dongsaengs, but even with them he doesn't go as soft or as cheerfully amuzed.
Jaehyun trying to defend himself and Doyoung being indignant with "huh, I don't know, I don't rmember (you tell me)" was especially funny to me. Doyoung doesn't like to be ignored and he doesn't like when his messages aren't answered. So Jaehyun did his best to persuade he really replied.
I guess because Doyoung keeps grudges, his close circle tries to not really annoy him and backtrack seeing a warning.
Two concerts at Seoul Olympic Stadium. 22/10/22 and 22/10/23
#THELINKinSeoul_D1
#NEOCITY_THE_LINK_PLUS
#NCT127_NEOCITY_THE_LINK+
A long post under the cut
NCT Dream was the 7th k-pop group to perform at the stadium, and 127 was the 8th. I couldn't find the number of seats on sale. Potentially the venue can offer 69950 seats, but I think it's less for k-pop concerts.
127 already gave concerts at such big venues, but the unit was never the favourite of Koreans, so it is still was a leap of fate from SM (calculated based on albums sales, Dream concerts, the Dome tour in Japan), I guess. Both neos and the management pushed the promotion more than usual.
A lot of happened during the concerts. Yuta lost his shoe and rapped in Japanese with the rap line, was congratulated with his upcoming BD by fans. Mark found the shoe and was hyper with his friends. Taeyong showed a lot of tongue. Johnny performed his shower half-stripping number before his family. Taeil stood on a chair that was placed on a table during Tasty, also screamed. Jungwoo was told he was sexy. Limitless was on the setlist and fans chanted the old chant. Doyoung's team prepared the event for Golden Dust following his ask on bubble a couple of days prior. Fans also threw paper planes during "Paper plane". Doyoung freebies gathered long queues. There were fireworks. DoJaeJung unit debut, of course. And so on.
LSM and many SM artists, Dreamies, SungTaro, neos' friends and family members came (including the Inkigayo writers who wrote for JinJiDo, MITH team, Gongmyung and Minho with Taeyeon).
But I'm going to talk only about JaeDo, TaeDo and Doyoung's break down.
Right at the beginning of the comeback Doyoung conveyed that he had a burn out of sorts, that he was pushing through thanks to not the music, but the fans and 127 neos. The 4th album sold well (Tae said Do was very happy about it), 2 Baddies got 2 music show wins, the concert in Manila (I suppose because the fans were able to scream (the previous concerts had covid concert restrictions) and show burning support) gave neos a lot of boost. As such, despite the problems with Fanmeets at the beginning, Doyoung was getting happier by the day. Still, the comeback's schedule was packed, Doyoung shot MITH, went to promote on programmes, and neos started Link+ right after coming back from spending 2 weeks in US. It is not surprising that Doyoung finally crumbled during the second day of a huge show in Korea. There will be more Link concerts (3 in December in Thailand, for example), but Link+ was a culmination of 2Baddies comeback and of all the efforts put into the album and into the promotion in Korea.
Taeyong hinting again that Do did a lot for the comeback.
Doyoung's words (another translation) for the fans he posted on his bubble after the second concert, where he explained the reason behind his tears.
Doyoung tears up often on concerts, but it was probably the first time he really lost it (since the award show in January of 2017). He cried several times and had wet eyes during the group photo and when going to the vans. Thankfully, Jaehyun rode the same van. He got hugs (and gave hugs) or comfort from all neos. Mark, Johnny (from afar), Yuta, Jungwoo (another, again), Taeil, Haechan. Jaehyun stood far away, so all he could do is to say in English "Doyoung, don't cry".
The TaeDo very long hug, a thread.
Taeyong had his own meltdowns during concerts as well. But it was time for him to be the sronger one. I want to point your attention to Doyoung shaking his head in "yes, I want a hug". While Jungwoo tried to wipe Do's snot himself and had to be stopped by Doyoung, Taeyong offered and waited for Do's answer. Yes, Jungwoo tried to return the favour, he did what Do always does for other neos, however, Doyoung doesn't like to be babyed and to show weakness. Woo doesn't know it, while Haechan does, he only handed Do tissues without trying to fuss.
During Link concerts TaeDo didn't interact that much. Aside from some words during ments, there were no fanservice, no playing around, no bowing holding each other's hands. But it's the long hugs like this one that show who is the closest friend, with whom Doyoung is intimate to be vulnerable.
Now, moving on to the poor boyfriend, who was the only one neo who couldn't console Doyoung openly.
JaeDo not-a-hug.
For Link+ JaeDo used the same platform to start and end the concert. This is where Jaehyun finally had an opportunity to get to Doyoung.
He started with a "I'm here" pat. Look how he prepared the arm in advance and paused before waving to the fans again (i.e. thoughts on the target). Then Jaehyun waited till Doyoung finished with "Stay" and they needed to step down from the platform. Notice how actively Jaehyun waved, too actively (nervously even in the second half), he distracted himself. You can see it in the way he abruptly dropped the waving, once he turned to Doyoung (and not slowly lowered his arm), it demonstrated the urgency in switching the actions.
Jaehyun gave Doyoung a quick pat and a shoulder squeeze, but didn't keep his hand on Do for long. As Taeyong, Jaehyun knows empathic Doyoung needs a reliable support. When Doyoung himself forgets about hiding due to his emotional condition, it's Jaehyun's task to remember about keeping apart.
Watch Doyoung's hand, how it travelled around Jae's body. This is the norm of touchiness that Doyoung usually supresses and controls.
Who was supporting whom? Heh. You know Jaehyun is emotional himself when it comes to love and everything Doyoung related, it wasn't easy for him to keep his cool (the concert also could affected him, it was the last encore song). However, Doyoung appreciates the adult Jaehyun and his ability to stay strong during hard times (like preparation before concerts) and give Do emotional support during his blue moods. Do talked about it and thanked Jaehyun for it often in interviews. 0:5 - watch Jae sniffing. A close up from an earlier stage.
To sunnier things.
JaeDo moments: Day1, Day2.
Although there is still some restrain, the naturalness returned to JaeDo's behaviour on public. Like Doyoung hiding behind Jaehyun's back in "I'm shy, I need to hide" gesture. Or Doyoung pointing things to Jaehyun. Them high-fiving each other.
During some later NeoZone concerts there was only the moment of JaeDo appering with balloons and briefly standing near each other. The degree of them avoiding any interaction was that ridiculous.
Let's hope the new openly shown friendship will only escalate. I need the bratty Jaehyun in full force back as well.
There are a lot of getting together after many years after a break up or being dumb and not realising the feelings are mutual for many years fanfics, but few, if any, fics with Jaehyun not giving up and continuing to pursue his goal.
Which shows how little people actually pay attention to the reality and more to the surface things and common tropes, but my grief with that is that I find this bit particularly interesting about JaeDo. (Something that other ships don't have). The whole conflict of 2017.
This situation of having "all seasons" to the romance is really unusual and pequliar (idols living their lives before the fans). When I see Jaehyun bragging about being promised a ticket to the first day of the musical or making Doyoung laugh with acting stupid during "Love on the floor" practice, I also remember Jaehyun bying Doyoung hand-cream with "hyung's hands are always so dry" comment. Or when Doyoung likes all Prada IG posts and goes on a PR campaign for "Forever only" release, I remember how he said he should buy Jaehyun-ie a scarf to not be cold. There is a continuity that adds so much even to small current events.
That meme by a kfan I linked earlier showed me that there are shippers with the same sentiments. The moments chosen were very "old shippers" kind of moments, the moments that especially stood out because of how indicative or revealing they were about the ship (Jaehyun ready to jump into the river to catch a crab for Doyoung).
Personally, I'm fond of "Doyoung treats Jaehyun as furniture" moments. It sounds rude worded in this way, but in reality it is one of the best indicators of their closeness. Jaehyun, who doesn't like when his personal space is invaded, allowing Doyoung to do so at any moment. And Doyoung, who is more unceremonious the more he is close to people, allowing himself to be possesive with "my bf, my body to touch whenever, wherever". JaeDo as a couple started with the cooking vlive, and with Jaehyun loosing his last braincells and professional composure over Doyoung resting his arm on his knee feigning innocence and total focus on MCing.
After all the years Jaehyun still finding it funny to change the baby butt bread pose into an incorrect version of holding the chin pose.
And yes, I like how perfectly this fancam captured the speed Jae came to action once Do called him (when asking the members to do the baby butt pose for the group photo). As no amount of bitch face and suave brand looks will be able to hide that Jaehyun is indeed still a puppy.
Lastly, moments like this one, when Jaehyun ignores 7 men and turns to ask something Doyoung, don't get into JaeDo ship videos as they are boring out of context, but they are the ones that keep reminding about the bond between the two. And no, it's not about Doyoung being in Thailand back then, as Taeyong, sitting beside Jae, was present during all NCT Life and Rookies programmes in Thailand as well.
First of all, I like how Jaehyun educates his stans and feeds them with classics, heh. Even if most like him for the looks, he'll post his funny pics and choose old and not hip songs to cover.
Secondly, although I can't be certain, I'm inclined to believe the second cyclist is Doyoung. Mainly because of Jae's reaction to being filmed: the way he shaked his head and the way he started to show off with riding while standing and turning left-right. And because he uploaded the video not as a temporal story, but as a post.
It's a night ride, so there are no people in the park (no witnesses). The person behind the camera filmed without a warning, so it's a person who does that often. Doyoung always films and takes pictures, he used to ride bicycle in the city. In addition, friends like Yuta or Mark should get some verbal reaction from Jaehyun. Lastly, Jaehyun was the focus, not the road, leaves or the interesting appearance and dissapearance of shadows.
My bias is JH and I never see him like this before. I mean I think he’s like going crazy at this situation and can’t control himself but at the same time he must to control himself, too.
The music safe him as I think. The way he sing, the way he dance suddenly maybe made him calm down and not focus about that too much. You can see him show his back to over hundred fans as it shouldn't be at the end of the clip.
Some VLT's opinion about this is JH jealous DY that can back hug with fan ... what!?? 😟
Link, Link2
There was a similar case with Taeyong. Back then Jaehyun also went away to calm himself a bit.
Yes, Jaehyun was jealous, yes he needed some time and a distraction to calm himself down.
It is easy to name the reaction, but hard to dissect it. There is no video of the fan asking Doyoung to stand near her and Taeil offering Doyoung to hug her (in the first clip Taeil says "you should thank me" to the fan). And it is important to have a view of the girl and how she looked at Doyoung. Was she too evidently starstruck and zeroing on Doyoung or not? Or was she shy and polite, and Jaehyun still didn't like her near Doyoung?
He gulped (the second clip, 0:00), said "chincha"=really?/I can't believe it (0:05) and he chewed on his lip (0:07, his jaw muscles are tense). He indeed did a "la-la-la calm down me" action, which looks very weird, but Jaehyun does weird stuff (think of his "dad jokes", he dances to the screams of the fans, "yes, it's so cheesy" kind of way, me thinks). Jae closed his eyes (0:16) - "I don't want to see it" gesture (an adult version, remember how kids close their eyes with their two hands). A tight-lipped smile (0:26) and hastily dropped down arms (the desire to exit the situation as soon as possible). Jaehyun didn't say "farewell" with a look at the fan, he cameback to singing right away. 0:30 - Mark dropped his smile after checking on Jaehyun. 0:33 - the way Jaehyun slowly cameback to his position with a sour expression, it's easy to read he isn't relaxed. 0:44 - this is a nervous exaggerated laugh (you can tell by how easily Jaehyun dropped it, a real hearty laugh is hard to stop, it possesses you). Hand in a pocket. 0:50 - Jaehyun losing any interest to whatever he wanted to say in a second. 1:05 - whistling (another way to distract and calm down oneself).
I'm not a jealous person, so it's hard for me to "get" and measure how acute Jaehyun's moments of jealousy are. How small a trigger can be, what it takes for him to ignore a pang of jealousy. His jealousy does make him act reactively and irrationally (like that time he took off Jeno's hand from Doyoung and later was surprised with himself (why did I do it? it's Jeno?), but it's been so many years?
An explanation I can come up with is that at that moment it downed on Jaehyun that they are doing fan-meetings and fanservice with real fans (after several years of only online calls), and that his Doyoung will be asked to be close with them for pictures without Jaehyun's permission. That fans will act as if Doyoung is free and can be flirted with. And that this reality (and not the fan in particular) what worsened his mood so much.
I suppose, the reaction was exessive because the irritation from needing to hide and lie builds up over days and months. And such moments trigger the supressed feelings of displeasure.
So Yuta, Doyoung, Haechan and Jaehyun went to 6 flags. Me suspects.
Yuta posted pics only with himself and Doyoung. From the Pajama Party we got to know that Haechan went as well. Doyoung was telling the story to Taeyong (he didn't look at Hyuk or Jae), while Jaehyun bowed his head at his every word (same with when Hyuk was showing how it was riding the rollercoasters). When Yuta asked "how many rides?" he looked at Jae at first.
When Jaehyun was asking the question 'How it was at 6 flags?", he shaked his leg. Also look at Mark's pinched expression.
Jaehyun likes amuzement parks, he wanted to be a designer of them in childhood.
A vlog wasn't filmed.
Yuta posted IG stories, but not permanent photographs with Doyoung (he did post pics from going shopping with Jaehyun). Also why no pics with Hyuk?
I'm like 95% positive, Jaehyun was bowing and smiling too much. Was not listening to the story, but agreeing with it. He was too emotionally into it (which is possible when he himself had a great time, it is his memory as well).
Mark thought that Jungwoo went to Six flags (because he came back with Jaehyun=Mark knew Jaehyun was at Six flags, so he assumed Woo went as well).
Taeil told confused Mark that Jaehyun met with Jungwoo later in the evening.
Otherwise Taeil's info doesn't make sense. Why would it explain Mark why Woo wasn't at Six flags instead of simply saying "he didn't go"? What Jaehyun has to do with it?
Jungwoo said that the view from the cable tram was very sunny. And the museum closes 5:30 (20:00 on Saturdays). In other words, Jungwoo visited the museum alone, when the Sun was out and in the evening he met with Taeil and Jaehyun.
Yuta looked at Jaehyun and commented "ah, you met with him? (right)" or smth along the line (which also indicates that Yuta and Jaehyun spent time together, Yuta needed to clear up his own confusion as well).
Yuta posted night pics, the Sun sets around 18:30 (6:30 p.m) in Los Angeles in October.
------------
9 oct - Jae posted surfing pics ig
9 oct - Yuta posted ig stories with 6 flags
So everyone thought that DoYu went to 6 flags the same they as the 4 neos went surfing. I think the IG posts the same day were a pre-emptive measure. It was not only Jaehyun whose behaviour didn't match the story in Pajama Night.
The two concerts in US of 2022 have ended. On both shows JaeDo interacted with more ease than on previous shows.
This moment of Doyoung tapping Jaehyun during almost-bumping-into him incident is a good example. Doyoung didn't just go around Jae, he did a natural thing (patted the butt in a gesture of affection). Doyoung in 2022 allows himself some freedom.
I talked before how Jaehyun was surprised Doyoung decided to hold hand for the final bow.
During the second show he was prepared.
There are many videos from different angels. I'm giving links starting from the longest one, which includes Hyuk and Tae as well.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
(sorry if there are repetitions)
First of all. Doyoung looked at Jaehyun and outstretched his arm, he let him know to come closer. The choice for the second neo was between Taeyong and Haechan. Do looked at the direction of both, Tae noticed him, I think, but didn't hurry up, which let Do know he won't join. Still, Do located all 3.
Jaehyun-ie, come
Hyuk-ie, come
Secondly, Jaehyun changed sides to give a spot to Haechan. Yes, Haechan took his time interacting with fans, but it was understood by both Taeil and Hyuk that he is going to Do's side. Taeil didn't pay attention, he wasn't focused on neither Hyuk or Do, he just went into the centre, he had no preference of a neo to hold hands with.
Thirdly, despite the mic in the way of holding hands, JaeDo insisted on intervining fingers at least partially. Hyuk also locked hands with Do at first, but found it either uncomfortable or wanted to followe the current trend (seems like all used little fingers), and changed to holding with pinkies.
Lastly. Look at Jaehyun biting his lip. Not in the middle, but at the corner. It is his way of supressing glee and a smile. He was pleased with the situation, but tried to stay cool about it.
A supressed smile, which is still detectable.
The big screens show video with a bit of a delay. You can see Jae looking at Do a second earlier than their current positions on the picture. He broke into a smile (but of course).
Funny how they both tried to slot the hands without looking at the hands. Do looked at Hyuk's hand when he had difficulty finding his pinky. It's like talking with relatives at the table while secretly trying to find each others hands under the table, lol.
In the video with a side angle you can see that Jaehyun was afraid to touch Doyoung's back, his hand hovered near.
