Fame Never Fades

The two weeks of school had come and gone and already Taemin had girls throwing themselves at his feet and boys trying to hang out with him. If it wasn’t girls standing in the hallway near the library, gym or music room waiting for him, it was boys nearly tackling him at lunch time, begging him to play basketball or football and even soccer. On a daily basis, those who knew of K-pop and SHINee, or just heard that he was famous, would ask him to sing and dance and perform one of his group’s songs. It was obvious that, even though SHINee’s days in the spotlight were over, Taemin’s fame and popularity wouldn’t be dismissed so easily.

So, like the former celebrity that he was, he took all the attention and satisfied the hunger of the students by playing a game or two with the boys and talking about whatever they were interested in and answering the curious, fangirl questions from the girls and giving them a bit of the attention they craved from him.

There were a few students who weren’t so off the deep end as the others, but none were as interesting to Taemin as the girl he saw in the library on the first day. Whenever he came around, she seemed to be getting ready to leave. At lunch, when he stepped into the cafeteria, she would be throwing her trash away and skittering off outside with an armful of books. And in the library during study hour she would always take a seat far away from him and everyone else and loose herself in her books, school texts or otherwise.

This girl, though he did not know her name, interested him greatly. She always wore that fedora like her life depended on it. It covered her hair completely so he knew not whether she was a blonde or a brunette or even if she had her hair colored. But her eyes...Her eyes were a sparkling cool gray, like the full moon at night. Her skin was clear and fair looking. She was small and fragile, like a china doll in a glass case. She wasn’t too curvy, but she had style. Her daily style was mostly ballerina flats, Converse, or just simple shoes-not too expensive, but not cheap either-jeans or pants of dull, bold color; shirts, both long and short sleeves, mostly cotton; and hoodies, sweaters or jackets. Usually, she wore a few accessories, but nothing like what SHINee would wear-i.e. the numerous, extravagant ones. She was pretty, in a simple way, he decided. He couldn’t help but smile every time he saw her, flittering around, absorbed in her books and schoolwork.

She just didn’t seem interested in the fact that he was a famous celebrity from a boy band. She didn’t even seem to acknowledge his attractive looks that many people would kill to have. If she was interested and did acknowledge his looks, she didn’t show it in the least. She just kept to herself. She was so focused on doing well in school and reading a plethora of books that he wondered if she had any friends. He never saw her with any of the other students. Occasionally, when he saw her alone, he would feel sorry for her and debate with himself as to whether or not he should go over and talk to her. He would always end up watching her from afar, afraid that he’d scare her away. He just wished he knew her name...

It was Wednesday of the third week of school during study hour. Everyone had finished their studies and had left to spend the rest of their free period somewhere else. That is, everyone else but her. She was sitting at a table up on the second floor with her books and her text books and her pens, pencils and notebooks all fanned out around her. Pencil was in hand, eyes were on her work, studying hard. Taemin was checking that all the books that weren’t checked out were in place when he noticed her still there. He was a few shelves down. He peeked at her from around the corner. She was so absorbed in her work she didn’t notice him. He smiled and nonchalantly glided down a few shelves until he was parallel with her, ending with a fashionable twirl. He peeked sideways at her. Still, she was focused on her work. How diligent and determined she was! Not even he, someone from Asia, who pushed their students toward success like no other, could focus on schoolwork for that long and without breaking his train of thought! Seeing her work so concentratedly brought a smile to his face. If all students in the world were like her, the future would look a whole lot brighter. He pretended to be checking their stock (actually, he was), but then he heard her sigh deeply. He looked over to see her rubbing her temples in exhaustion and exasperation. Was she struggling with her work?

“Are you okay?” he asked without thinking.

She jumped a little, almost losing her fedora, and looked over at him with wide, surprised eyes. “Oh, gosh!” She put a hand to her heart. “You scared me!”

Taemin smiled and walked up to her, pulling back a chair and sitting down swiftly, setting his clipboard on the table in an empty space. “Sorry. You look distraught. Having trouble with schoolwork?”

“Um...” She straightened herself out, fixing her glasses, clothes, and fedora. She tried to calm herself. “Yes. It’s Pre-Calculus. I’m taking Trigonometry, but my teacher wants me to do Pre-Calculus work too in preparation for next year. It will look good on my college resume.”

Taemin was taken aback. “Trig and Pre-Calc plus your other classes?! Isn’t that overkill?!”

She just shrugged. “It’s hard, but no pain, no gain.”

“Sounds like something Minho would say...” Taemin mumbled to himself.

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh, nothing. Just being nostalgic.” Taemin smiled at her, leaning his head in his hand and looking at her moonlight eyes. “Would you like some help?”

Annalise willed herself not to blush in front of him simply because he smiled and made friendly eye contact with her. She gathered her things up and cleared the table, trying to distract herself. “Um, that’s alright. You probably have a lot of work to do. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Taemin laughed amicably. “You know, helping out the students here in any way possible was in my job description, last time I checked.”

Annalise stopped rustling paper and sliding text books and sighed. She dared to take a look at his smiling face through her eyelashes. “Please?” She was sure she was pouting subconsciously.

Taemin’s smile just got sweeter as he scooted his chair closer to her and pulled her notebook and workbook between the two of them. There were about thirty questions and she had about ten of them finished. Taemin quickly checked over her answers and helped her make corrections on some of the harder ones. Then, he set out to helping her with the last twenty. It took about thirty minutes for the two of them to finish another fifteen of them, knocking her work down to only five more questions left for her to complete.

That whole thirty minutes, Annalise felt like she was on edge. He was so close to her they were almost touching heads. Their knees kept bumping, but Taemin didn’t seem to mind. And his smell! He smelled like fruit mixed with cinnamon and sugar. He smelled as sweet as his personality. Whenever she got a question right on her own he would clap childishly and praise her. It made her want to keep going, but soon her hand got tired and her brain couldn’t take much more of solving equations and writing out proofs.

She set her pencil down and sighed. “Thank you. This assignment was going to kill me if you hadn’t come along and helped me.”

“No problem. Math was always my best subject, next to phys. Ed.” His accent made her smile. “Can I ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

His peach colored lips pursed out in thought. “How to put this...? Aren’t you...fazed...by me being a celebrity?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Hmm...” He thought of another way to put it. “I guess maybe I should ask, why don’t you react like the others when I’m around? Why don’t you try and get my attention when I walk into a room or pass by you here in the library?”

She shrugged. “Being famous doesn’t make anyone any more or less special. We’re all the same. Being famous and being a celebrity just means a lot of people in the world know your name and know you exist. Fame is only a measurement of the knowledge of others. The way I see it, you’re just like me or Ms. Melanie.”

There was a pause before Taemin smiled with genuine gratitude and said, “Thank you.”

Annalise was surprised. “For what?”

“For treating me normally. It’s refreshing after nearly eight straight years of girls obsessing over me and my looks and talents. When I first started here, I expected everyone to treat me like what I was, a college intern from South Korea. But everyone is still doing the same thing that my fans do. The only difference is that some of the students here don’t even know who I am, though they pretend they do, just to get attention.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Annalise pointed out.

“But you’re not pretending that you do. And you’re not going on the Internet and googling my name and learning everything about me, even though you might not even like the type of music my group made. You just go about your business, focus on your schoolwork, and try not to attract attention. So...thank you. It may not seem like much to you, but to me it means everything.” She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just nodded.

“What’s your name?” Who know a three word question could pack so much of his wistful accent.

“Annalise. Annalise Dawson.”

“Annalise,” he said slowly, as if testing the name out on his tongue. She wouldn’t admit it, but she loved how his accent slightly touched each letter of her name. “And Dawson like Rose Dawson from the movie Titanic.” She couldn’t keep the image of her as Rose and him as Jack out of her mind. She had to force herself not to blush again. Taemin nodded. “Daebak.”

“Excuse me?” Annalise blinked.

“Daebak,” Taemin repeated. “It’s Korean for brilliant, or awesome. Although, I suppose teens these days just say ‘cool’, no?”

“I...guess so...”

Taemin just brushed off her confusion. “Well then, Annalise, whenever you need help with schoolwork or anything else, just come and see me. Okay?”

Annalise smiled at Taemin for the first time. “Sure. Thank you, um...”

“Taemin. Lee Taemin. Lee is my last name.”

“Taemin,” Annalise mimicked how Taemin analyzed her name. “With Lee at the front because Asian countries express names backwards.” She smiled at him and nodded, like he had. “Daebak.”

They laughed together like it was their own private joke. From that moment on, there was no more awkwardness or nervousness. Just friendship, spiced up with a little something more than there should be... 

 

a/n: Fluff! Gah! Hope you enjoyed it! XD