"Why did I even agree to this." Y/n pondered aloud as she stood in the pouring rain under an umbrella at the crosswalk. The light took forever to turn green. So long. She thought back to the day before, wondering why it was that she even went along with this arrangement in the first place. As soon as Ten and Yuta ran at her, Y/n should have known something was up. Those two were the only ones who knew about her longtime crush on Taeyong; they were planning something. 

"We've arranged so that you are going on a friendly date with Taeyong." 

"What? Why?" Y/n exclaimed.

"You know perfectly well why. You like him, and we think you might have a chance with him. You wouldn't step up and talk to him yourself, so we took matters into our own hands." Yuta stated matter of factly, Ten nodding right along with him.

"But.. I can't.." Y/n stuttered.

"Yes you can. And you can't back out now, he has already agreed to meet you at the cafe tomorrow afternoon." 

"You didn't have my permission to do this!" 

"It's for your own good. You'll enjoy it." 

"Why did you even do this?" Y/n stomped her foot in frustration. As much as she liked Taeyong she felt almost tricked, they had done this behind her back. This is not how she wanted her date with Taeyong, or any date for that matter, to be planned.

"It's a friendly date. You'll be fine. And it's only for an hour. You have an hour to make him fall for you." 

"An hour? And what if he doesn't fall for me?"

"Then it's time you get over him." 

"An hour isn't enough time!"

"Well it's the time you've got." 

The ending of this conversation leads up to the point where Y/n is standing in the rain, shoes soaked from the puddles on the sidewalk. It made sense that this was happening, she had a crush on Taeyong for far too long, going back to even middle school. If he didn't feel the same sparks she did when he looked at her, then Ten and Yuta were right, it was time she got over him. But the issue was, she had no clue what the outcome would be, because she never attempted to make a move that suggested that she wanted Taeyong to be more than just a friend, nor he to her.

This was either going to be the longest or shortest hour of Y/n's life, undoubtedly filled with awkward pauses and embarrassment. 

As she walked over the crosswalk, the rain started to stop and she closed her umbrella, making her way to the cafe where she was supposedly meeting Taeyong. How Ten and Yuta had convinced Taeyong to go on this "friendly date" was a mystery to her as well. 

A bell jingled softly as Y/n opened the door to the cafe. She glanced around, a spotted him immediately. His soft dark hair. His warm brown eyes. She would recognize him anywhere, considering how much she thought about him. 

"Hey, uhm, Taeyong!" She called awkwardly.

"Oh, hi Y/n!" He looked up at her with a smile and a small wave.

Y/n walked over to him, feeling very self conscious. It was just a "friendly date" as Ten and Yuta had put it, why did she feel so nervous? She sat down across from him at the table, and smiled back nervously.

"So... What do you want to do?" Taeyong asked. 

"I don't know." Y/n replied. 

"Well you have to think of something, I've only got an hour."

Oh... Seems like he doesn't want to be here..Y/n thought. She brushed the idea away. Whether it was true or not, she still had an hour with the person she wanted to spend time with most. 

"What do you want to do?" She returned the question. 

"I didn't plan anything. I'll just do whatever." He answered offhandedly. 

Geez... He really doesn't care..

"Well... I'd like to get a coffee here and then maybe go to the bookstore down the street?" Y/n suggested honestly before mentally slapping herself. That sounded so lame and stupid, like yes she was a major bookworm but could she at least act cool for sixty minutes? 

Obviously not. 

"Is that really what you want to do?" Taeyong raised an eyebrow.

"... Yeah."

He sighed. 
"Well, I did leave it up to you. Looks like that's what we're doing." 

Y/n ordered her drink, and while she consumed it the two remained relatively silent. She felt awkward, she wasn't making a good impression. Taeyong was cool, perfect in her eyes, and even though they were kind of friends and he knew what she was like for the most part, she felt like she could at least have been a more interesting date. This wasn't so good an idea after all. Once she finished her coffee, they got up and walked down the sidewalk. 

"So why the bookstore?" Taeyong asked suddenly.

"I like books, reading them, writing them... Just books in general. It allows me to experience things I probably will never experience in real life." Y/n answered without hesitation. 

Taeyong looked at her steadily for a moment, as if analyzing her answer, and then nodded as they continued walking. 

As soon as Y/n opened the door to the bookstore, she inhaled deeply. She loved the smell of new books, this was probably one of the few places where she felt at home. 

She immediately started walking to the section of the store that had her favorite genre of books, Taeyong trailing behind, hands in his pockets and abnormally silent, not even throwing a sarcastic remark here and there. 

Y/n flipped through the books, putting her face close to the paper and letting the pages fan her face, every once in a while stopping on a page to read it. Taeyong read over her shoulder. 

"Do you read much Taeyong?" She asked. 

"No. I don't have the time." He said bluntly. 

"Oh... Well that's too bad." She remarked. Then she had an idea. Not anything to make him fall for her, just something she wanted to share with him, one of the small joys in her life. Without a second thought, she darted around the corner.

"Y/n, where are you going?" Taeyong called, following her.

He found her jumping to reach a book on a shelf above her head. He hid a smile. 

"Need some help?" 
Taeyong reached up and handed her the book she was grabbing for. And to his surprise, she handed it right back. 

"I want you to read it. It's my favorite, it's a really beautiful book. I love it so much. I got it from the library and read it, I wanted to buy a copy but never got around to it."

Her eyes shined with a strange sort of happiness as she spoke, and Taeyong found it weird in an endearing sort of way to see her so excited over some words on paper. He normally would've put the book back, he had better things to do than read, but something about how happy she looked with that book extended out to him changed his mind. 

"Oh.. Ok." He replied. "Was there anything else you wanted to look at here?" 

"Not really. Here, I'll buy that book for you..." Y/n said, digging through her wallet looking for change. 

"Don't." Taeyong put his hand on her wrist and stopped her. Y/n felt her face heat up slightly at his touch, and quickly realizing what he had done, Taeyong pulled his hand away. 

"I'm paying for it. It's my book right?" He said, starting to walk towards the cashier. "You go ahead outside, I'll meet you there in a minute." 

Y/n ducked her head in acknowledgement and walked out of the shop and admired how nice it was outside after the rain, until Taeyong joined her moments later as he had promised. 

"Isn't it pretty after the rain?" Y/n asked. "It's so much clearer and a little cooler too." 

Taeyong nodded in agreement. Y/n pulled out her phone to take a picture of the pretty day, and then realized the time. They had ten minutes left. She felt disappointment weigh down on her. An hour was such a small amount of time. 

But at least she got to go on a date with perfection for that long. 
Perfection for an hour. 

Taeyong noticed the lack of time left as well. 
"Looks like time's almost up isn't it?" He stated, looking up at the clear sky and tucking his hands in his pockets once more. 

"Yeah. Sixty minutes went by pretty fast." Y/n replied, keeping the sadness out of her voice. 

"Well, we've only got a few minutes, want me to walk you home?" 

Taeyong's unexpected offer caught her by surprise. Maybe she had a little hope left.

"Oh! Yes, of course, I mean.. If it's not a bother to you or anything." She responded. 

"Let's go then. Lead the way." 

They made small talk as they walked down the sidewalk, Y/n once again avoiding the random puddles on the pavement. In what felt like no time, they had reached Y/n's house. 

"Well... See you at school?" She asked.

"Yeah." Taeyong replied, back to his usual bored tone. 

Y/n turned and walked up the porch steps, a small pain budding in her chest. Her hour had done nothing. It wasn't a waste of time, it was probably the most pleasant hour in her day, no, probably her whole week. But she hadn't accomplished what it was that the hour had been originally set aside for. He wasn't hers and would never be.

Time to let him go. 

She twisted the doorknob, about to step inside.

"Hey, Y/n." 

She turned at the sound of Taeyong calling her name. He walked up the steps and reached into the plastic shopping bag he had been carrying around since his book purchase. 

"Here." 

In his hands was a copy of her favorite book. At first she thought it was the one she told him to get and read for himself, but saw he had a second book in his bag. He bought a copy for both of them. 

"You said you never bought it. But since it's your favorite, you ought to have your own copy." He reasoned. "I'll read it too. Then we can talk about it." 

Y/n nodded, smiling. She was going to hand him the book back, tell him that he shouldn't have bought her anything, but she knew he wouldn't accept that. She looked at it as a way to remember her love for him, and remember the day she grew up and let go of that love. 

"Thank you, Taeyong." 

He simply nodded and walked back down the steps and onto the street, going away to who knows where. 

Y/n went to her room and opened up the book. She didn't have anything else to do today, not that she felt like doing anything. She was about to flip to the first chapter when she noticed some writing on the inside of the book cover. 

 Dear Y/n,
Thanks for today. I actually had fun, even though I probably would have never set foot in a bookstore alone. I hope you enjoyed it too. You seemed to enjoy it, or at least, seemed to like the book. Your face lit up when you started talking about it, and it was cute to see you so thrilled over something so simple. I didn't know you liked reading that much. And I think you looked very pretty smiling like that. I'll read the book for you. 

The real reason I'm writing this is because I didn't know how to tell this to your face. I want to make you smile like that. I know you only went with this because Ten and Yuta told you to, but I hope that you would consider doing it again sometime, because I did this because I wanted to. They said only for an hour, because that would be enough to determine whether you would want to go on a real date or not. I would be happy to go out with you for longer sometime if you wanted. I would've been happy to do this years ago even, just never asked, you didn't show interest so neither did I. But now I'll try. Because if you didn't get the point already, I love you. 

- TY