Joon shakes my shoulders. “Idiot ,what are you doing crying? Why aren’t you running after him? Tell him what happened, I’m sure he’ll understand.” I looked up at him, who was blurry through my tears. Tae was everything to me, but how did he know?

“How-how…” I blubbered, unable to form coherent sentences.  He smiled gently. “Micha-ah, everyone knows.” He said, almost reading my mind. I smiled weakly.

“Am I that obvious?” I said. He nodded gently and lifted me up. “Go now.” With that I ran after him.

I saw his silhouette up ahead. “Tae!” I called, reaching out. He was getting further and further away. How was that possible? How was it possible that he was getting further away? Shouldn’t he be getting closer? I kept running and running though. Then I realised why. He was also running. He was faster than I was. I couldn’t tell before because my vision was blurry with my tears. He ran out of the building and straight into busy Seoul.

“Tae, wait!” People started whispering. Isn’t that her? Kwon Micha? Omo, Micha-ah! Micha!

I kept running, ignoring the stares and the whispering. Tae was the most important person to me in my life, I couldn’t let him misunderstand. I loved him a lot, but I didn’t think he felt the same way. I couldn’t ruin our friendship for my sake.

I kept running and running, but he was still running further away from me.

“Tae!” I stumbled and fell over a plastic carton. I lay there on the floor for a second, then got up and ran again. There was a sudden pain in my knee and I looked down. My jeans were ripped there and a large cut had appeared. That was nothing. If I could survive a punch by a mafia don, I could survive a cut made by the concrete. Where was he going?

The further we ran the more I wanted to talk to him. By now I had realised we were heading to Myeong Dong Station. Why there? I reached the top of the stairs when he reached the bottom. I saw him get in, and I ran faster and harder. I jumped the last six steps then ran through the doors just as they closed.

Now, where was he? I spotted him sitting in a two-seater chair, looking out at the window. I walked slowly over to him and sat down. I wrapped his hand in both of mine.

“Tae-ah… Honestly, it’s not what you think it is.” I began in a soft voice.

He looked over at me. “I swear, Tae, there’s nothing going on between us!” I said, slightly louder.

He took his hand out of mine and smiled. “Micha-ah, I’ve been so selfish. If you like someone, go for it. Don’t mind about me, and just go for it.”

I smiled and knocked him on the head. “Who’s going for it? He was telling me about his crush, and I said I’d help. Pabo.” I smiled.

He looked quite startled. “Is that why he hugged you? Because he was happy that you were helping?” I nodded and playfully punched him.

“Now that’s all sorted out, where’s this train heading anyway? It better be somewhere good, or I’m so mad. Manager-unnie’s going to yell at me.” I pouted.

“Oh that’s right. The show’s starting soon.” He picked up his phone and dialled a number.

“Uh… Yeah, Joon-hyung… yeah, sure… okay, take care, bye.” He hung up and smiled at me.

“Joon-hyung was quick and invited all of MBLAQ over. I think that should be okay, don’t you?” I nodded.

“Answer my question though.” I said, tugging on his arm.

“Oh. Dongbong-gu. Where we grew up.” I started jumping around in my seat.

“Really? Really? I’ve wanted to go for so long!” The food lady came and we ordered a feast fit for a king. Kimchi soup, kimchi rice, kimchi egg rolls, seaweed soup, dukkbokki, bulgogi, the whole shazaam.

It was great! I put extra kimchi on the egg roll, then wrapped it up with a bit of vegetable and stuffed it into Tae’s mouth before it could unwrap. He would feed me a giant spoonful of kimchi rice, then add a dukkbokki in there for good measure. After we had finished eating everything, the food lady came again. This time she had treats and desserts.

When we saw the yummy food all the pains of eating too much washed away. We ordered fish cakes, and shaved ice, and mango pudding. All that yummy stuff was making me hungry so I fell asleep on Tae’s shoulder, but I couldn’t remember falling asleep.

I opened my eyes groggily, and looked up. Tae was shaking me.

“Micha-ah, we have to go now. We’re there!” He said excitedly. I was excited too. I would finally be coming back, after all these years. I was quite hyper, and jumped around a bit.

We headed out, and onto the station. There was a vendor selling fish cakes on the street outside the train station.

“Aigoo, I’m hungry again.” I say, patting my belly. Taemin laughed and grabbed my hand.

“Come on. Let’s eat some more before we leave.” We sat down and ate three sticks each.

“Ah, that was good, right?” Tae smiled down at me.

“Mmm.” I say, pinching his cheeks. He has such good skin, I get jealous. “What do you use?”

“What?” He said.

“For your skin. It’s so soft… like a baby’s bum.” I said.

He laughs so hard we have to stop, and he’s holding his stomach doubled in laughter. “Baby’s bum? No, really! I only use cleanser and shaving cream. Oh!” He says, “Maybe it’s the shaving cream. You should try some sometime.” I playfully punch him.

“Yah. How long does it take to get there?” I asked, my feet hurting. My heels were pretty, and killer.

“Until the bus stop, then we get off at the third stop.”

“How do you know so much?” I asked. I’d never been here before, and I hadn’t really thought how I was going to get there.

You see, we didn’t really live in Anyang. We lived close to Anyang, in a little village called Gunpo. It was quite run-down, when I lived there, but it probably was better now.

“I wonder what it looks like…” I mused to myself. Tae overheard this and looked down at me happily.

“It’s wonderful! Everything’s so technological and advanced, but it still feels like Gunpo. It’s like… exactly the same, except its not.” He said and I giggled. Exactly the same, except its not? But I understood. It was the same with people – after I became an idol, everyone was exactly the same, except they weren’t.

I nodded understandingly. We reached the bus stop, and I bounced up and down excitedly and Tae soon joined me.

The bus came in a minute, and we quickly hopped on. The three bus stops were really close together, so we got there pretty quickly.

When we hopped off I was overcome with a sense of nostalgia. There were cars driving around everywhere, and tall buildings, but it was still Gunpo. My home town.

Tae and I went everywhere, eating lots of food from the street vendors and window shopping.

“Tae, remember when we were little, and you’d take me window shopping but we couldn’t buy anything? Now we can buy everything.” I smiled. “And the food from the street vendors are still the same, you know. Still the best.”  We both laughed and continued. We walked a lot, but it only seemed like a few metres.

Soon, we were at a park. I couldn’t recognise it but I knew it from somewhere. “Tae… where’s this?” I whispered. This was slightly disorientating.

“Micha-ah, you… don’t remember?” He said, hesitatingly. I shook my head. “No.”

He smiled suspiciously and grabbed my hand. “Come on.” He led me down a street, where I saw a house that was familiar.

“Tae! Your house!” I said, running into the garden. “It still smells so sweet.”

Tae laughed and took my hand. “My parents moved a few weeks ago. This isn’t their house anymore.” I was confused. Did they really?

Then we walked and walked, and we came across a beautiful little lake situated in the middle of a sparse forest.

There was a little cottage on the other side. I saw it and gasped, my hand going up to cover my mouth. Scenes flashed in my head, scenes that seemed so familiar, but ones that I couldn’t grasp. What was this feeling? I was overwhelmed.

I saw Yuri. And a pretty lady, with a smiling man next to her. I saw my brother. What was my brother doing next to Yuri? Why did they look so familiar? Colours and scenes and sounds blurred until I was dizzy and unable to comprehend anything. Were these people my family? Were those two my parents? I’d never had parents before. Well, once, but that was a long time ago.

Scenes and sounds and tastes and words mixed around me, swirling and twisting. There us five were there again – we were standing outside a little shop, laughing and pointing at a little cicada in the bamboo cage.

It got too much for me, and I saw the edges starting to go dark.

I distantly heard Tae’s voice, but I was too far gone. I felt myself falling, a very gradual fall.

Then everything went black.

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Hello everyone! I'm so, so, so, so, so sorry this took so long. I got a tad bit lazy and there's been school, you see? :) Read and comment, please! The more you comment the faster I'm going to update *hint hint* ;)

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P.S. I just realised my chapter names are weird :S