For who? The defining moment for the fans? for them? Or our own personal one? Or all three? Which one are you asking about?

I never really followed taoris, though I’m sure they had many good moments to have so many fans. Most of their moments that I noticed, as someone who wasn’t shipping them, seemed specifically geared towards fanservice, like Kris saying he would “reward Tao later”. He knew that was innuendo, and that’s exactly why he did it. But I’m sure they had a lot of big moments I was unaware of.

As for Taohun, There were several pivotal moments for me, personally. It’s hard to pick just one. When I first got into EXO, I didn’t ship at all. Since I had been a SHINee and Wonder Girls fan before, I knew that people did ship, but I stayed away from it because I knew it would break my heart when the idols started dating someone other than the person I shipped them with haha. (I eventually fell in love with xiuhan which is how I fell into the blackhole that is shipping entirely). Tao and Sehun were two members that did make me wonder about their sexual orientation from early on, though. So here are the big moments:

—> Sehun sniffing Tao’s sweatshirt while holding it for Tao at the ISACs. This seems really small, but it really struck me at the time, even as a non-shipper. When I saw the gifs where he appears where he appears to be sniffing Tao while Tao is wearing the hoodie, I thought maybe Sehun was just being goofy and clingy and that maybe he was whispering something he didn’t want anyone else to hear to Tao (and he didn’t want the fans to be able to read his lips). But when I saw him unquestionably smelling Tao’s hoodie, and sort of drifting out of the view of the other EXO member’s to do it, I got really curious. Sehun had given me, like many other fans, some “gay vibes” before that, but I wouldn’t have been shocked if he was straight either. Sniffing someone’s clothes is just a really romantic thing to do. I remember saying to my friend right after I saw that, “I wonder if he really is gay?” And we notice the things we can relate to, right? When I was in college, I studied a semester away from my school, and a girl I had a crush on gave me her t-shirt to remember her by, intending for me to wash and wear it. But it smelled like her, so I didn’t wash it the entire time I was gone, and smelled it when I missed her. Kind of weird but;; Yeah. Ultimately, though, I just figured that maybe Tao had some nice smelling cologne on that day and Sehun was just a little eccentric to be smelling it so dramatically. Obviously, looking back now at everything at the ISACs, you can see on Sehun’s face when he was with Tao that he was a smitten boy in love. But at the time it was easy to overlook in light of all the other skinship.

—> Taohun seeming to get told to stop cuddling at the ISACs by a staff member. I’m just going to copy and paste what I wrote in my Taohun essay/timeline that I never posted:

“Another very interesting thing that occurred at the ISACs was that, for reasons unknown, Tao and Sehun were broken up from snuggling by a staff member. Many have speculated that it was due to the fact that the two were dating and the staff was aware of it. It’s possible the staff felt they were getting dangerously into the realm of being “too obvious”. That’s just speculation, but I think it’s pretty fair speculation when you look at the situation as a whole, and when you consider SM’s official No Dating policy (more on that later).

Before they were broken up from snuggling, look how happy Sehun looked! Before the ISACs, I knew Sehun to be mostly sulky and scowl-y. There was a surprising amount of contentment and genuine happiness in his face compared to what I had seen for the most part up to this point.

I wish I could find the video that this is from. I’ve seen it before, and there’s a lot more to it than the gifs I can find from it show, but I’ll work with what I have.

First, super smooth Tao puts gets his arms around Sehun, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Chanyeol and the staff member standing near them.

The manager asks Tao and Sehun to break up their hug for some reason.

Sehun decides to cling to Chanyeol instead, but Tao grabs Sehun’s hand and beckons Sehun over to him. Sehun turns around, as if hesitant because of whatever the staff member said to them. He also looks a little giddy? Like he likes the idea of being rebellious with Tao, perhaps, but he also seems genuinely conflicted.

Tao tugs Sehun over in spite of Sehun’s hesitance and Sehun ends up sitting with him.

Chanyeol looks uncomfortable. Of course we can’t know for sure what the manager said, but given the context clues, it does look like Tao and Sehun might have been told to dial down the skinship but they ultimately decided to somewhat shrug off the orders. Chanyeol’s discomfort makes me wonder if he, too, could be concerned about this situation. EXO was still pretty new at this point. This was before even their Wolf comeback. EXO were not huge superstars at this point. Not even close. I live in Korea and can verify that the vast majority of Koreans did not know who EXO was at this point. Most Koreans wouldn’t even have recognized their name if it was brought up in conversation. EXO had a lot to lose, because they probably were aware that their upcoming comeback had the potential to launch them into the big time. I think there was a lot more pressure for them to avoid even minor scandals at that point (not that Taohun dating would have been minor haha). Superstars are a lot more indestructible than rookie groups.”

—> Tao liking a Taohun fanfiction. I used to make fun of him, but even though I thought he had probably liked it on accident, evidence shows that he had actively been looking up taohun when he found that. He had also, not long before that, liked a taohun video and a Sehun photoset on Weibo. It was at this time that I finally started to watch Tao and Taohun. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but I was extremely suspcious that Tao might have a crush on Sehun and I was curious to see what would happen. Tao liking the fanfiction was a minor scandal after it happened, fans were pretty worked up, and Tao responded ambiguously that he didn’t feel like explaining the situation and showed frustration at Weibo. Many fans, myself included, expected Tao and Sehun to be awkward around each other the next day but they weren’t. I was watching them closely because of the scandal, and these pictures were from an interview the day after all the Weibo drama happened:

—> The Cartier. I won’t go into detail on this one, though, because Tao has requested we don’t speculate about it. But since you asked for pivotal moments, this was one of them. I just won’t explain why and leave it at that.

—> Qingdao! Of course this changed everything. It was such a bold move, and it was clearly supposed to have happened in secret. There were already growing suspicious of Tao and Sehun because of the Cartier, and Tao had brushed off speculation one his Weibo like a good SM idol. But some crazy stalker fan, who had access to Sehun’s passport number, was able to find out Sehun had bought plane tickets to Qingdao. Sehun seemed like he has tried to keep a low profile at the Korean airport, and Tao allegedly expressed surprise and even annoyance that fans had known that they could find him and Sehun at the airport that day. When fans asked why Sehun was coming, Tao’s answer seemed a bit frustrated and was something like “he just wanted to!” It’s a bummer that their love vacation got crashed, but Tao managed to spin it into good publicity for EXO. :) When I heard the rumor that Sehun had bought tickets to Qingdao, I thought two things: 1) Wow, sasaengs are out of control and 2) if this is true, there’s really no point in denying Taohun anymore. I thought the plane ticket rumor was just gossip, but when it turned out to be true, and Tao and Sehun were even spotted shopping at a Cartier store together, all my doubts were gone.

—> If I had any doubts left, Tao’s birthday message to Sehun (and Sehun’s response) destroyed them. Dang.