The NCT DREAM Saga: The Team That Was Built to Say Goodbye
A debut usually promises forever. NCT DREAM launched with an exit written into the concept: a unit of teenagers, set up so that every member would graduate once he reached adulthood. Ten years later, the rule is gone. The first member it sent away came back, and in 2026 he left again — this time by his own decision, which, he wrote, every member supported — while the other six signed on together. A team built around scheduled goodbyes ended up handling its hardest goodbye the opposite way: talked through, member by member.
Act 1: Fourteen to seventeen
NCT DREAM debuted in August 2016 as a new unit of SM Entertainment’s NCT project: seven members aged 14 to 17 — Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung. A few weeks after debut, their average age was 15.6. The debut single, “Chewing Gum,” didn’t pretend otherwise: a candy-colored video, and SM even put out a version of the performance on hoverboards.
The catch was structural. NCT was pitched as a system rather than a fixed roster — the same idea NCT 127 has lived inside for a decade — and DREAM’s version of it was an age limit. Members would leave once they reached 20 by Korean age reckoning, or 19 internationally, so in principle every exit had a date before the first one ever happened. Writing in 2020, The Ringer called the graduation system “an interesting idea that turned controversial” — one that didn’t account for fans growing attached to these particular members.
Act 2: The first graduate
Mark, born in 1999, was the first to reach the age limit. In August 2018, SM confirmed he would graduate that year, and the second mini album, We Go Up, carried the farewell inside it: “Dear DREAM,” a song made for his graduation, with lyrics by Mark, Jeno, Jaemin, and Jisung.
On December 31, 2018, NCT posted the send-off: a “Mark Appreciation Award Ceremony” where Mark received a medal and a plaque. Haechan, who had written the plaque, joined by video call while recovering from a leg injury, and Chenle read it out. It thanked their leader for giving the others “strength and someone to rely on for the last three years” and, because this is NCT DREAM, also teased him about his forehead. In his interview for the video, Mark said doing the group’s concert, the NCT Dream Show, “was so fun, almost to the point where it felt overwhelming,” and that he was happy he “could perform with the members.” He had already shared his sadness with the fans, he said; now he simply felt relieved. The group posted photos from the ceremony on its official X account.
Act 3: Six, and then no rule at all
NCT DREAM carried on as six, and the rule kept counting. The remaining members, more popular every year, were now approaching their own graduation dates. The Ringer later described the period that followed as “about a year of fan-led discussion and concerns about the quickly approaching deadline for most of Dream’s ensemble.”
Then, on April 14, 2020, SM rewrote the plan. The six — Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung — would release Reload on April 29, and after that promotion the graduation system would change: “The current members will not graduate,” and original member Mark would rejoin, making seven. Fans already had a name for that lineup: 7Dream.
Act 4: Seven, on purpose
The new era opened with Hot Sauce on May 10, 2021 — NCT DREAM’s first full album and “their long-awaited comeback with seven members,” which passed a million sales on the Hanteo chart in less than a week.
At the press conference that day, Mark said his members “played pranks on me without feeling awkward around me and warmly welcomed me” — the same kind of teasing that had been written onto his graduation plaque. Renjun said that while Mark was gone, “it felt like he was away for a different activity and that he was eventually coming back,” and put it plainly: “Mark has always been a part of NCT DREAM.”
For the next five years, seven was simply what NCT DREAM looked like.
Act 5: The goodbye no rule required
That is why 2026 hit fans so hard. On April 3, days after the seven wrapped up a world tour with a six-show run in Seoul, Mark posted a letter to fans in English and Korean. SM said both sides had come to “a mutual agreement to conclude his exclusive contract as of April 8,” ending all of his NCT activities, NCT 127 and NCT DREAM included.
The first time Mark left NCT DREAM, a rule decided it. This time the decision was his, and the Korean version of his letter describes how it was made: he talked at length with each member, and every one of them, without exception, told him they supported him. He thanked the older members who saw him as their cute little brother and the younger ones who saw him as a leader, called his ten-plus years with them the best voyage, and promised to keep supporting and loving them. In the English version, he described the moment not as “a closing door” but as “an opening new one.”
The members spoke to fans too, and they were open about how hard it had been. Jisung admitted he had resented Mark at first, but said he wanted to cheer on, from far away, the road ahead of “a hyung I really liked, even if I couldn’t show it much.” Jeno said it was the first time they had been through anything like it, that they had talked a lot, and that he was sorry they had not, in the end, resolved the situation well. He also thanked NCTzens for the love the group had received as 7DREAM — “thanks to you, DREAM could always be DREAM” — and asked them to watch the new shape of DREAM going forward: “this, too, is our story.” Jaemin asked fans to support Mark as well.
The six kept going. On August 20, SM announced that Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung had signed new contracts “based on their deep trust in one another and unwavering affection for the team.” Haechan had already renewed, so all six would continue with the company. Two days later they began a sold-out tenth-anniversary fan meeting at Inspire Arena in Incheon — two shows for about 23,000 fans, with early songs like “Chewing Gum” and “My First and Last” back in the set. “We want to celebrate not only our tenth anniversary but NCTzens’ tenth anniversary too,” the members said.
Why this story sticks
NCT DREAM were built to say goodbye on a schedule. In the end, the schedule itself got scrapped. The goodbye that finally came was the opposite of a scheduled one: not painless, but talked through member by member, with all six backing Mark’s new start and Mark promising to keep cheering for the six. Both choices came out of the same ten years — or, as Jeno put it, this is their story too.
NCT DREAM’s releases appear on our comeback calendar once they’re confirmed. For the other half of NCT’s experiment, read The NCT 127 Saga, and for where NCT sits in K-pop’s timeline, see K-pop Generations, Explained.