hey there. truthfully, the alleged 2019 baekchen beef is new meta to me too? any potential disagreement would have been separate to the divorce, imho. they seemed to be on good terms in 2020. (see: jongdae's enlistment photo, and the 200607 "candy" encore.)

though now i've had time to revisit the "obsession" promotional content, i didn't detect any bad blood (yet)? if there was beef, it would've been a mcdonald's patty to the dry aged wagyu tomahawk steak they have going on now LMFAO. they were fairly affable in the group radio star and iheartradio interviews - and my friend mos has kindly clipped evidence of the latter (twitter.com/mospumpkin7/status/1748452641854890268). perhaps less close than the attached-at-the-hip we're used to seeing for them, but that read to me as the natural consequence of two old friends - who are usually each other's support pillars - having clashing schedules and starting to embark on divergent life paths. baekhyun was SWAMPED with work from three sides, but still promoted aaaf and dmd (to a far lesser extent) on his socmed. meanwhile, jongdae was sick, had his hands full with his own solo debut and seemed preoccupied stressed out of his mind with reflecting upon his impending marriage and fatherhood. this was a period he kept emphasising how much he loved to spend time alone, to think, and looked to be detaching from the group generally.

i also believe that the other relationships baekchen fostered during this turbulent, transformative time said a lot about their individual priorities: emotional support for jongdae through hanbyul and chanyeol right before chengate broke; and career advancement and leadership training through junmyeon for baekhyun during superm activities.

finally, i SHOULD clarify that "best friends to enemies" is a joke! (mostly...) i used the word "(fr)enemies" firstly because it is funny, and secondly as a counter-reaction to how hyper-defensive exo twitter can be about acknowledging ANY form of potential conflict between them - even if it is normal, obvious, has precedent (e.g. xingdae schism), and is, most importantly, interesting. we've come a long way from when baekchen was being hyper-vigilantly "image managed" as a ship by its own shippers (out of necessity, ig) and when "divorce" was a dirty word. (well, actually, if i touch on anything pertaining to the darkest days of chengate, i WILL still get doxxed and/or start a riot on the tl. so i can't go into further detail on that front, sorry.)

ftr, i consider "(fr)enemies" to be one part of a much larger, complex story, and believe they're actively working towards reconciliation atm. but i'll elaborate later because i have a couple more baekchen divorce asks sitting in my inbox and don't want to repeat myself.