Later that day everyone had gathered for the wedding rehearsal. The atmosphere was cheerful and everyone seemed to be pumped up. The bride was glowing and Key looked like the happiest man alive. He had always been a romantic, Key. Onew on the other hand… well, quite the opposite. So it was extremely uncharacteristic of him to be so consumed by the thoughts of a certain young girl who looked no older than a teenager that he completely missed out on what Minho was saying to him.

“Were you saying something?”

Minho gave him a suspicious look. “You’re not spacing out because you’re excited about tonight’s bachelor party are you?”

“What?”

“You’ve been thinking about something all day” Minho mused. Had he been that obvious?

“You know… patients… cases…” Onew dismissed the younger man with his vague explanation. “So everyone here is family then?” he asked as a means of distracting his overly curious friend. Minho nodded and gave the gathered people a brief glace.

“And a few close friends” Minho added, tilting his glass of vine to indicate himself and Onew, smiling warmly. Onew smiled back at his friend’s words.

The smile though was wiped off his face when he saw the girl who had been occupying his thoughts all day. She was sitting on one of the chairs lined up against the wall, now fully clothed in a flowery knee-length outfit. Her long straight hair fell on either side of her face onto pale shoulders that peeked through the top of her sleeveless dress. She seemed to be fiddling with a phone and ignoring the proceedings around her.

“I’ll get back to you in a minute” Onew mumbled before walking away from Minho, only realizing that he hadn’t exactly thought his actions through when he was already standing in front of her. He had wanted to apologize to her for the morning but now that he was actually here, the idea didn’t sound too appealing to him, especially considering the fact that he had sought her out randomly could very easily be taken in the wrong sense. Her head was bent in concentration at some game of some sort. He had absolutely nothing to say to her, he realized, beginning to contemplate leaving. Before he could actually put his thoughts to action though, the girl had looked up, an annoyed frown on her face. “You killed me!”

Her eyes widened when she saw who it was and Onew blurted out the first thing that popped into his mind. “I swear I’m not a !”

Mentally kicking himself, he was prepared to turn around and just take off when he heard her giggle.

“It’s okay. You’re forgiven.” She told him, to his surprise; her face lighting up with a wide grin. “Although clearly there’s no more leaving doors unlocked for me.” She added.

Feeling himself relax, Onew nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“Kim Yun Mi” the girl said, extending her hand out for him to take, bowing in her seat in greeting.

“Lee Jinki” Onew offered, taking her hand.

“Oh…” she frowned, “I thought I heard them call you something else…”

The knowledge that she had noticed him came as a surprise and from the way he felt his insides flutter for a moment there, it must have been a pleasant one.

“Onew.” He told her. “That’s what they call me.”

“Onew…” her small lips formed his name slowly, as if trying to see how it felt to speak the name out loud. Something about the way her lips protruded ever so slightly when she said it excited him, something about the way her voice enunciated each syllable made his blood flow just a little faster; and the way her face broke into a bright smile once she had said it made the corners of his own lips to curl in a smile of their own. “I like it.” She declared. “So Onew-ssi; how good are you at Mortal Kombat?”

“What?”

“Mm.” She nodded, her long hair bouncing. “I need help finishing the last level.”

***

“Where’ve you been?” Taemin asked as Onew practically ran into him in his hurry to make it in time for the bachelor party. They went in together and Onew took in the arrangements. Jonghyun had clearly outdone himself. He had always thrown the best parties, but this was probably his best so far.

Onew smiled his way through it all; the flashy lights, the scent of intense perfume and the loud sleazy music as the stripper suggestively swayed her hips around the pole. It wasn’t that Onew did not enjoy this kind of thing; he was a man after all. But something was off. His mind kept wandering back to Yun Mi, her laughter, her bubbly nature, the way her fingers felt on his arm when she put them there while urging him to “Kick Shiva’s !”

“Hyung?” Minho’s sudden appearance brought him back to reality. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Onew said, making sure to smile widely at him; wondering himself if he was indeed okay. This was completely out of character.

Minho stayed silent and simply watched his hyung trying to feign interest in the ongoing party. “Is this about the girl you were talking to at today’s rehearsal?” Minho asked him, causing Onew to snap his head around to look into Minho’s knowing eyes. “It is isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Minho scoffed softly. “Hyung! You forget that I’ve know you for far too long. You’re the sort of person who does everything by the book. You topped in every class at school, you got into medicine and you’ve never had a messy relationship to speak of. At some point, you’re bound to do something that doesn’t follow with the rules…”

Onew patted Minho on the back. “I think you’re overreacting Minhoyah.”

Minho nodded, hiding a smile. “Fine.” He said. “If that’s what you think. But if I’m right, like I suspect I am, she’s –”

Taemin walked in, interrupting Minho’s serious words. “Two words hyung,” Taemin said, putting his arm around the oldest, “jail bait.”

Prying Taemin’s arm off, Onew stepped aside, masking the slight irritation he was feeling with a straight face. “I think I need some fresh air.” And with that, Onew was out the door.

He had been outside, taking slow steps along the lake for more than quarter of an hour now and he still couldn’t shake off Minho’s words. He had of course only been jumping to conclusions and nothing more, Onew assured himself. After all, how much time had he really spent with Yun Mi anyway? It defied all logic. And yet there was this small part of him that betrayed him. Wasn’t that what Minho had been trying to say all along?

It was as he was strolling absently, mulling over the seemingly remote possibility that Minho might have been right, that he noticed the very subject of his musings. She was sitting at the edge of the lake, throwing pebbles in, causing ripples on the otherwise smooth, unmoving surface of water. Onew watched in silence, intrigued by the way the subtle lights from the hotel lamps and the moon streaked her silky hair with silver. He couldn’t really see her face but it seemed that her mere form was enough for him to recognize her.

The faint sound of sobs only reached him a while later, making him realize with a jolt that she was crying. Why? Onew wondered. Why would the cheerful girl he had spoken to that very morning be sitting out here, all alone, and crying? And more importantly, why did it matter to him? Why did he find the need to put an end to those tears?

Logic told him to turn around and walk away. Leaving her alone would be the best option; after all she was out here because she probably wanted to be left alone. It took Onew a moment’s hesitation to reach his final decision as he straightened himself up and approached the sobbing girl.

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