Taemin hesitantly walked into the small board room.  Tall and slim, he was dressed casually, just a pair of ripped jeans and an oversized jumper.  He had chosen his outfit carefully, as he didn’t want to appear frightening or intimidating to the guest that he knew was sat waiting for him. 

She, however, was not at all fazed by his appearance.  She had a suspicion something like this was going to happen.  As the door opened, she knew before she saw him it would be him.  She wasn’t randomly flown out to Korea just to talk about some terrible fan fic writing for no reason. 

He walked in shyly, looking at her, briefly and trying to avoid her gaze at the same time.  His stomach was turning.  He was the one who arranged this but not for the reasons she was currently panicking about in the back of her mind.  The truth was he had been captivated by her story and in some way, he had fallen in love with the woman on the pages that kept him awake at night and now, here she was in front of him.  The real live version.  It was unnerving, just keep breathing he thought to himself.

He felt like he had been through the fictional relationship with her for real.  When the story ended he didn’t want it to.  He wanted to know what happened.  He wanted to live it.  He wanted his best friend and his lover back.  So, he set about finding her.  It’s true it was not an easy task.  She had done her best to conceal herself online and the only way was to contact her directly and hope for a reply.  So, he posed as a producer.  He posed as the staff wanting to talk through her story with her.  Miraculously to him she had responded and gone along with this charade.

As he shyly grazed at her from the corner of his eye he noticed she was pretty much as was described in the story.  She was beautiful, light golden skin, long, copper hair.  The only difference was she wore glasses, something she had not mentioned in the story.  It made his heart beat a little faster as he walked in and sat down, swallowing hard. She was short, he could tell even from her seated position.  She was slim, but possibly a little bigger than had been described in the story.  This did not bother Taemin in the slightest.  In fact, a well-kept secret of Taemin’s was he did not like extremely skinny women.  It was something that had made him chuckle about the story, this detail she didn’t know about him.

He faced her across the desk and his eyes locked with hers for the first time.  He could feel her eyes had been on him since the moment he set foot in the door, but he refused to meet hers.  He was embarrassed and didn’t want to show her how he felt, at least, not yet.  He didn’t want her to see that look of recognition he had in his eyes.  But now it was unavoidable.  Now his eyes fell into hers, just as he imagined, they were big and deep brown, but not the brown of the ladies of his race, but a warm brown, like hot chocolate mixed with milk.  Her eyes were friendly, warm, and had the slightest hint of amusement about them.  He knew in an instant she knew this had been a set up.  He couldn’t tell you how he knew what she was thinking, but he felt like he knew her. 

‘Hello,’ he said trying to mask his embarrassment, putting on his warmest smile and holding out his hand for her to shake. 

‘Hello,’ she replied, she was definitely amused, he noted by her tone of that one word.  She shook his hand without breaking eye contact, smiling up at him sweetly, melting his heart a little with the slight upturn of her lips he had been dreaming about. 

She looked as relaxed as how she had written herself.  She leaned back in the chair as soon as their brief contact broke and folded her arms over her chest.  She had this look of ‘So, I knew this was coming, what now?’ about her.  Taemin could not help but smile down at the desk despite himself. 

‘So, as you can see, Taemin himself is interested in the book.’ The manager finished speaking to her. 

She gave him a sidewise ‘Is that so?’ glance.  Taemin studied her face and noted the cocked eyebrow he had been daydreaming about for weeks.  Somewhere deep in his stomach something moved. 

The managers looked towards Taemin searching for guidance.  He had told them to act this way, and they had not expected her to react this way to him walking in.  So calm, and so relaxed, they had expected screaming, silence, not total control.  Taemin shook his head slightly to signal it was time to give it up.

‘Give us a minute alone.’ He told the managers in Korean.

‘Ok, everyone out’ they moved instantly. 

She looked slightly taken aback.  It was obvious to Taemin that she did not speak Korean.  She had written this at the beginning of the story, but he had forgotten this detail as she wrote that she eventually did learn.

This was going to be a little bit more difficult than he anticipated, since his English was a far from as perfect as she had written it to be.   

Taemin watched over his shoulder as the managers left the room and closed the door behind them.  He slowly turned back to face her.  She was look at him with intense interest.  He folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head to the side.  Raising his own eyebrow at her, a smirk forming on his lips.

She followed him, cocking her head in the same direction, same eyebrow raised, the only difference, her smile was much wider.

Taemin gave in returning the smile, grinning at her with all he had.

‘I know you know this was a set up.’ He told her confidently, though inside he wasn’t sure how his English was sounding.

‘Do you?’ she quickly responded, her voice was completely unfazed.  It gave nothing away.  He was trying to intimidate her, but it wasn’t working.  He wanted a reaction from her.  It drove him wild with desire that she was as confident as she had written herself.

‘I do,’ he responded simply, trying his hardest to match her confidence.

‘So, I have some questions about your story.’ He told her, watching her intensely.

At the mention of the story, and the fact he had questions, she dropped her gaze.  He couldn’t believe it, but she blushed.  Ever so slightly but it was there.  His heart melted, he wanted her to crumble, but he didn’t realise how he would feel when she did, and she crumbled so quickly.  It struck Taemin that maybe her confidence was as fake as his, endearing her more to him.   She was able to compose herself quickly and mask the embarrassment with a confident smile as if she had expected this.  Taemin knew better.  He was just as quick as she was and he saw it. 

‘Ask away.’ She said.  He noted how she unfolded her arms and sat forward.  She was eager for the questions, and open to answer them, even if she was embarrassed.  It picked at Taemin’s interest how someone could be both open and embarrassed at the same time.

‘You rewrote my life, things that were not true’ he said, deliberately pausing to watch her reaction.  She blinked and continued to smile, but she was nervous, she moved her hands into her lap where her leg was bouncing nervously.  She did not look away from him though, but merely waited for him to continue.  Somehow, she knew he had not finished speaking yet. So, he continued.

‘Yet, the way you wrote about me is quite accurate.  You must have done a lot of homework on me.’ It was a question and a statement.

She gave him an intrigued look, Taemin took it to mean she was not expecting him to say that. He sat back into the chair satisfied.

She took a deep breath before she answered. ‘I don’t pretend to know who you are, I wrote what came into my mind.’ She paused and bit her lower lip, briefly looking down, choosing her words carefully.  Taemin could not take his eyes off her lips. He had fantasised so many times about seeing her do this.

‘I did try to make it realistic.  I interpreted what I saw of you to fit how I was writing the story.  I used your music as inspiration.  I wrote myself the way I believe I am, though it might not be 100% realistic.  I didn’t realise I had gotten you so… accurate.’ She lingered on the last word their eyes still connected. 

They were definitely flirting with each other.  Whether the other party knew it or not.  She was playing with him and choosing her words as carefully as he was choosing how to word his questions.  To anyone watching it was obvious.  To each other they were dancing around, unsure of the other.

‘I am impressed.’ He told her deciding to be truthful.  He wanted to be honest with her.  He had read their ‘story’ and that was a big part of what made him fall in love with it.  The honesty she portrayed. How it wasn’t a simple fairy tale. 

‘Thank you’ she replied instantly, though she was unnerved by his change of tact.  She was polite.  She didn’t want to piss him off. In fact, her insides were dancing around ludicrously.  She was sure he could hear her heart beat from across the desk that separated them.  It was booming in her ears and it took everything she had to not go to pieces.  He had spent weeks reading and rereading the story she had imagined of the pair of them, but she had spent months thinking about it, writing and rewriting it, getting it perfect.  She was just as much invested and in love, with the story and idea as he was. 

‘Most stories are completely rubbish.  Written imperfectly.  Using my, or our names only but nothing about them is realistic.  You even took the time to get the timeline correct.’ He told her, watching how every word affected her.

She blushed further.  His heart gave a summersault in his chest as he watched the effect his words were having.

She laughed a little at his comment.  ‘I tried to get the time line correct, but it has imperfections.  I worked backwards, I wrote the ending as you did that concert.  That album was the inspiration, and then luckily, after I finished writing your music, your visu