Taemin seemed to realize the problem before the crowd did, and immediately jumped off the stage before people started reacting. I started running like hell, and he soon caught up to me. The few seconds that had elapsed seemed to have been ample time for the audience to process what had happened.

"OH MY GOD! THAT’S TAEMIN...FROM SHINEE!" people kept randomly screaming as they tried to catch up to me and Taemin. I was running alongside Taemin, who, for a scrawny guy, was actually pretty fast.

"Take off the hoodie," I panted, as I tried to keep up with him. "It's making you stand out too much." Taemin looked a bit frantic, and tugged at his hood unhappily.

"I can't!" he said nervously, "Key's going to kill me if something happens to his hoodie." 

"I'm pretty sure Key would rather you get out of this alive than save his hoodie and get mauled in the process," I growled as I tried to rip his hoodie off him.

"WHO DOES THAT THINK SHE IS? SHE JUST TOUCHED TAEMIN!" an indignant fangirl yelled. I was nearly out of steam and the crowd was beginning to gain on us. Unexpectedly, Taemin pulled me into a darkened building and we ran into a small room. Looking around, I spotted a urinal. An old lady, probably a janitor, stepped out from a stall and eyed us warily.

"Aim carefully," she said to Taemin as she shuffled slowly across the room. "I just cleaned them." Taemin looked mortified as the lady left the room. Apparently, the crowd believed that the sight of a calm person exiting a bathroom was a sure sign that a celebrity was not hiding in that room.

"He probably ran towards the back gates!" someone said confidently, and I let out a sigh of relief as I heard the crowd's footsteps pounding away. After a few minutes, I turned to open the door. Taemin blocked me, blushing a little bit.

"What did you think of my dance?" he asked, smiling at the ground.

"It was really good," I said sincerely, as I tried to get around him. Taemin scowled.

"It was only 'really good'?" he asked, a little bitterly. I blinked in surprise as he swatted the tiger stuffie. “It wasn’t perfect, outstanding, amazing, or even great?”

“Sorry, I left my thesaurus at home today,” I joked, but Taemin gave me a look. “It was way better than that other guy’s dance. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

Taemin snorted, “Why would you compare me to that idiot? And if you didn’t look at me, what else could you have looked at?” He was getting upset, and I was getting angry.

“Well, what do you want me to say? If you want someone to fawn over you with useless words, go find a fangirl,” I said irritably. Taemin didn’t respond to me, and brusquely walked out the door.

He was silent the entire way home, and sat on the other end of the bus away from me.

When we got home, Key opened the door for us, and looked directly at Taemin.

“Manager needs to talk to you. Now.”

“My car’s broken,” Taemin grumbled, staring at the floor.

“Minho’s driving you,” Key said, as he pointed down the hallway. “And you’d better hurry because Manager sounded pretty mad.”

Taemin walked away quickly without giving me a goodbye.

“What happened now, Young Rin?” Key asked me, as he watched Taemin run down the stairs.

“His ego got hurt,” I said tiredly, unsure how to deal with Taemin. I had never been good with words, or even flattery. After my fiasco with my first crush, I’d closed myself off, and I could tell the strain my indifference was putting on Taemin. I tried to tell him I loved him through my subtle gestures, like the straightening of his wig, and the wave of my tiger’s paw, but I knew I would sound awkward and weak if I tried to straight out profess my love for him. As I thought, Key looked at me with a sad smile on his face.

“Taemin wants to be seen as a man by you,” Key said simply. “He’s starting to doubt if you really love him, or if he’s just a rebound.”

Just a rebound. Taemin wasn’t a rebound…

I perked up when I heard Taemin enter the dorm. When he reached the bedroom door, I could hear him hesitate slightly before he entered.

“Taemin, about what happened today,” I stammered awkwardly, “I’m really—“ I dropped my sentence to a whisper when I realized that Taemin had his back turned to me.

“Yah, I’m talking to you,” I said softly, as I walked up to him. I sat down beside him on his bed, and tapped him softly.

“It’s okay,” he said gruffly, as he turned away from me. He opened his mouth to speak, but after a few moments, he shook his head and sighed.

I smiled, thinking that everything was going to be okay.

Sometimes, I was just an idiot for thinking luck would ever come my way.