"Oppa... you rode this?!" I stared in awe at the bike, trying to picture Sungmin riding it. Then I saw the stripe of pink down the chasse, and it wasn't that difficult to see.

"I did. Now come on, before the press finds us."

"Me?! On a motorbike?! But my plane! And my bags, and... and..." I trailed off, unable to think of any more arguments.

"Manager-hyung's coming to get your bags. I just had to stop you from getting on that plane. You can't leave, Minsung-ah. We managed to convince the management to change their minds."

"You mean... you mean I can stay? I won't have to leave?"

"If you try again, I think we might have to handcuff you to someone's bed," he replied darkly.

"," I couldn't help but say, although I was speaking to sweet, sweet Sungmin, and he'd just said that they weren't going to let me leave without their permission, which I found unbearably adorable. Still, despite surprise, shock, and cuteness-- no matter what, I was still me.

"Very funny. Here, put this on." He handed me a biking helmet, throwing another on his own head.

"Wait, you're serious?! I'm riding this with you?!" I exclaimed, looking at the helmet in my hands, then back at Sungmin. I had made a promise to myself a long time ago that I would never ride a motorcycle with anyone, unless that someone was my boyfriend. Sungmin wasn't my boyfriend. Buty I guess promises were meant to be broken, because I really wanted to be sitting behind him on that bike.

"Yes! Now get on! We're running out of time!"

Not arguing, I jammed the helmet on my head and swung myself over the seat, situating myself behind him as he started the bike's motor.

"Hold on tight!" he yelled over the bike's roar. He definitely didn't have to tell me twice. I was quite happy to wind my arms around his midsection and lay my head against his shoulder as the bike shot through the parking lot and onto Seoul streets.

It was exhilarating. The hair not restricted by the helmet whipped behind me in the wind, and I wondered if my laptop, in the bag slung over my shoulder, would handle the stress of the ride. I hoped so.

It was terrifying. I could feel the bike moving underneath me, and the frightening way it tiltes just a bit owards the ground when Sungmin guided it through a turn. Every time we came to a stop light, I clung tighter as Sungmin hit the brakes, afraid that the bike would throw us off as it hurtled to a stop.

It was cold. I now understood why bikers always wore the leather jackets. Not only to protect against road rash, but also to ward off the wind that they had no protection from. For me, not wearing a jacket like that, the wind found a way to force cold into the very hollows of my bones.

I clung to Sungmin, glad for those lovely hands on the handlebars, knowing where to go and what to do. I was glad for his body heat that I could feel through the fabric of his jacket. Any girl who didn't think of him as a man was an idiot, I thought. There was no man like him. Who could be so soft and delicate yet strong and dependable?

I could feel his strong, firm midsection under my arms, feel him tense as he went through a turn. The bike went over a rock, and I squealed and squeezed tighter. I looked up to see him tuning and grinning at me, so I made a face at him. I knew that every girl that thought of him as only a friend didn't know what she was missing.

When we came to a stop outside the location where SuJu's fanmeeting was taking place, I finally let go, my whole body shaking. Sungmin got off first, then took his helmet off, I swear just so I could see his sweet smile when he held out his hand to help me off the bike. 

We ran into the building, just in time for the fanmeeting to end. I managed to get there right when the members were saying goodbye to Yesung.

"Hyung, wait!" Sungmin called out, and Yesung turned around. "There's someone that wants to meet you." Sungmin explained, stepping aside to let me see him.

I dropped into a bow, feeling the tears come to my eyes. "I was so ready to leave... I even convinced myself that I was happy for it. But then I put my headphones in and I heard your voice, and I thought 'no, it CAN'T be!' but it was." I looked at Yesung, the tears running down my cheeks. "I'm sorry, Oppa, I'm probably not making any sense," I sniffled, trying to compose myself, "What I mean is, thank you. Thank you for coming back for only a day, so I could hear your lovely voice. It's just not right without you." I smiled, standing back up. "So thank you. You don't know how much it means to me."

Suddenly, he seemed very shy."Oh... thank you. I'm sorry, it wasn't the best I've ever done. I'm out of practice, actually, and I haven't been singing enough..."

I cut him off by throwing my arms around him, too overwhelmed with happiness to care that it was a very intimate gesture. He was the perfect hug height, actually, for me, only being a few inches taller than me. "You were here, Yesung-oppa," I sighed, "that's all that matters to me."

My happiness was temporary, though. After freaking Min Hee out by returning to the dorm that night (And a wonderful freak-out session, after which she demanded to tell me exactly what had happened, and I was forced to tell her), already the next day I was called to one of the management offices.

"Come in, Minsung," an icy female voice demanded. I did as I was told, sitting in the chair across the desk from her, not daring to lift my eyes to look at her.

"I hope you know how lucky you are, Queen Be. This is the first time SM has reversed its decision after it let a trainee go."

I nodded, shaking.

"We had no intention of doing so, either. It would not have happened were it not for the persuasion of the members of Super Junior. Apparently they find you very important to their lives. Especially Henry Lau and Zhou Mi."

I looked up at that. Henry I understood, but...

"Henry and Zhou Mi, ma'am?"

"Yes. They were supporting their friends at the fanmeeting when they discovered your departure from the company. The two of them came here immediately to beg us to reconsider. When we wouldn't do so on their insistance alone, they had us speak to the other members, and then their manager, to tell us that you were important to both the functionality of the dorm and the possibility of Super Junior releasing songs in English. Personally, I think they were being ridiculous. Super Junior did just fine before you came, and they could do just as well after you were gone.

"So then they called anyone in the company who knew you, both of them insisting they tell us how much you deserve to stay. Finally, after every person they called, including BoA and Kangta, insisted that you were an asset to the company, we told them that we'd had enough; you could stay. But you were supposed to have already been on the plane by then," she practically sneered. . She'd been happy to let them get their hopes up, let them succeed, knowing that it was a useless attempt. I was glad she was wrong.

"My flight was delayed," I replied proudly, holding my hea high now. I wouldn't let any of her feelings of success remain. Not when Henry and Zhou Mi had fought so hard for me.

"Evidently," she pursed her lips, looking down at me, "and then, of course, they were tasked with stopping you themselves, since they were the ones who so wanted you to stay. Once you left the country, our decision would be made permanent. Nut they succeeded in that, too. I had not expected Sungmin would so willing go and get you himself, risking being seen by the public. Of course, now, because of that, we have to handle the press, and dating rumors, all thanks to you."

She eyed me, her gaze cold. "You seem to give us no end of trouble, Choi Minsung. But I suppose, we'll have to let you stay. Just do not let it happen again. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now go, go back to your training, so I can figure out what to do with this dating scandal."

I bowed and left, hurrying to go find Henry and Zhou Mi so I could kiss them.

Okay, not really. But you get the idea.

I ran through the company, trying to find either Henry or Zhou Mi. I opened doors, peeking my head in, looking around, and ducking out, once disturbing a pair of trainees in the process of making out, then apologizing quickly and going back to the search.

I checked all of SuJu's favorite haunts: their personal practice room, the cafe, the vocal training room, the recording rooms, the lobby. When, after all of this, I still could not find either of them in order to thank them, I started to debate going to the dorm to ask. I could have just called them, but I felt like that would lessen the intensity of the gratitude.

I heard high heels coming down stairs and turned to see Victoria descending towards the lobby, a plastic cup of coffee in her hand, and chatting with another girl that I recognized, as she got closer, to be f(x)'s Luna.

"Song Qian!" I shouted, running to the base of the stairs. Victoria looked up, smiling at me as she continued to descend the staircase until we were at the same level.

"I see they were able to rescue you. I was one of the people they called, by the way. But don't worry, I made sure to say a whole bunch of nice things about you. So what's up?" she asked, not unkindly, in Chinese.

"Have you seen Zhou Mi?" I asked carefully in Mandarin, but not slowly, being too out of breath for such.

"Zhou Mi? Yeah, he was in an office. He said he wanted a quiet place to read."

No sooner had she finished her answer than I had started running up the stairs, leaping them two at a time in my excitement. I was halfway up them already when I remembered to call down "Xie xie, Song Qian! And it was nice to meet you, Luna-sunbae!"

I calmed down a bit when I reached the office section of the building, slowing down to a walk to steady my breathing. I strolled through the hallway, trying to look through through the windows of those with lights on, to see if Zhou Mi was in it.

Finally, success. I almost passed the office as empty, until I saw the long legs spread out over the ground, their owner leaning against the side of the desk facing away from me. It was the same room we'd first written that song together in, I noticed.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. As the knob turned, Zhou Mi stood up, hiding the book he was reading behind the desk. I was barely able to make out the letters D-I-C-K-E-N-S before it disappeared from view.

"Mimi?" I questioned as I took the first step into the room. "So Victoria was right; you were in here."

"Niuwang," he breathed, a mixture of awe and relief, like someone who has been holding their breath during a dramatic event in a book, and lets it out when the hero comes out unscathed. He crossed the room to me, an easy feat for him and his long strides.

"Yeah, I was looking for you. I wanted to say..."

I never told him what I wanted to say, because when he reached me, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into him, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and holding me there. "You're still here," he sighed, his other hand reaching to brush my bangs out of my face as I looked up at him, then letting his long fingers run through my blonde waves, stopping where the hair met my shoulders. The motion sent little shivers of pleasure through my scalp.

I wanted to tell him to continue to run his fingers through my hair, because I liked it much more than I should have. But already we were standing so close, his arm holding me in his embrace. I'd never been so close to him before. If I were to move just a bit closer, I thought, I could just curl into him and feel his heartbeat against my own. Still, even in the intimacy of the moment, I could feel a kind of rigity about him, a stiffness I couldn't quite explain. It was like he was pulling me close, yet holding me at arm's length at the same time. Like the hug was barely tolerable for him.

It didn't seem like that, though, when I looked up and saw the softness in his eyes. It only confused me more.

"You're still here," he said again, as if still trying to believe it. "When I heard that you were leaving to go back to America, I panicked. I was all too happy to help Henry convince the company to let you stay." He reached up and let his fingers run through my hair again, and I didn't tell him to stop, even when I could have sworn I felt him stiffen even more, and his hands shake a little as he did so. But it was probably just me, shaking with the unsteadiness of my own heartbeat.

"Zhou Mi, I actually came here to thank you about that," I tried to say, but my own voice sounded feeble, even to me, for the first time in as long as I could remember.

Zhou Mi began to say something in Chinese, but they were words that I didn't know, and my brain wasn't working well enough to figure out. I shook my head, indicating that I didn't understand.

He sighed in frustration, switching to Korean. "I just felt so much more confident when you came here. Like your determination was infectious. I started to try harder and harder to make the ELF recognize me; I felt happier, and able to smile a real smile, even when things weren't going very well. I wrote songe, I practiced choreography even harder, even tried to learn some English, and it didn't even seem difficult because Niuwang was always here to say 'Jia you, Mimi!' always so energetically. I wasn't usedto be treated so equally by someone who wasn't one of the members, especially by someone so definitely an ELF. But it made me stronger, for some reason. And then, when I thought you were leaving forever, I wondered if, when you were gone, that strength would be gone, too. It terrified me."

His fingers suddenly stopped in my hair, and he pulled them out and let me go, stepping away hastily, as if he had just noticed that he had still been holding me close to him and, upon realization, thought that it was something he shouldn't be doing. Color flamed in his smooth cheeks, and he looked at the floor.

Feeling unbearably happy, I put my hands on his shoulders, stood on my tiptoes, and quickly gave him a soft kiss on the cheek, rocking back onto my heels as his hand flew to his face, his eyes wide in astonishment.

"That's my thank you," I stated determinedly, although my own cheeks were burning, "for everything. Without you and Henry, I'd be on my way back to the U.S. right now, and never be able to talk to any of my Oppas ever again. And for that, I'm forever grateful. Thank you, Zhou Mi. I mean it from the very bottom of my heart."

His hand was still on his cheek when he smiled. "I'm just happy that Sungmin was able to stop you in time. I was worried he wouldn't."

I smiled back up at him, a my heartbeat pumping through my body. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump... then I realized that it was not just my heart that I was taking note of, but a two-word thought. The age difference between he and I. Ten years, ten years, ten years, ten years...

"And, to celebrate our first success in thwarting SM's plans, we have a party by FASE!" Tiffany giggled, handing me a bowl of ramyeon.

"This is great, Tiffany, thanks. A gourmet meal," I replied sarcastically.

"Isn't it, though?" she laughed, handing me chopsticks. 

"It was what we could get in short notice," Amber explained, slurping up noodles.

"Do you want a party hat to make you feel better?" Henry asked, holding it out to me.

I eyed it suspiciously. "Do I even want to ask where you got that?"

"It was laying on the table when we got here. Don't worry, I'm sure it's perfectly safe."

I raised my eyebrow, and he shrugged and pitched it into the garbage can. "alright, fine. Be a party-pooper. Hey, you guys, who thinks that Mel needs a boyfriend?"

"WHAT?!" I screeched, completely thrown off-guard, "You can't be serious?!"

"I do!" Tiffany yelled first, throwing her arm in the air and smiling brilliantly. I glared at her, but when everyone else agreed, I had too many people to glare at.

"I do not need a boyfriend," I argued. "I'm way too busy. And there's way too much stress in my life for that."

"Come on, Mel, don't you think our lives are even more stressful?" Jessica countered.

"Says you! For the first half of the time I was here, you were the stress in my life!"

She shrugged. "True."

"So, who should we pair you with?" Krystal asked, her eyes wide. "There are so many cute guys in the company your age. It would be so easy."

"Nah, it wouldn't work," Henry argued, "all of the guys her age are terrified of her. She's a very scary person."

"Yeah, I should know. What exactly are you always doing in your dorm that you make so much noise?!" Kris asked, taking a drink through his straw.

"I'm working out! I have to stay in shape, you know, just like you all do."

"Ooh, hot and sweaty. You know, a lot of guys like it that way."

"HENRY!" I gasped, gaping at him.

"What? It's true. But no, I guess that would bother a lot of guys. So seriously, who do we know that might not be scared of her?"

"Hmmm..." Amber thought out loud as i took a drink "Maybe she should date Kris."

I spit out my water, spewing it all over the table. It completely drenched Amber and Krystal, but everyone just laughed. "It's okay, it's okay, I'm just kidding."

"You'd better be. I can't date any of you guys. It would just be WEIRD."

"She's really close with the Super Junior members, though," Krystal observed, "Any of them work?"

Henry shook his head. "Nah, too old. Mel has a double-digit limit when it comes to age difference. Once they're two digits older than her, she crosses the line. Right, Mel?"

I stared at the floor, my thought from earlier that day pumping through my mind. Ten years, ten years, ten years. "Can we PLEASE talk about something else?"

"Okay, fine, we'll talk about it when you're not here. So, Jessica, Tiffany, when is Girls' Generation going to have a comeback in Korea?" Amber asked, quickly waving off the earlier conversation.

I let out a breath, relieved. But Henry was giving me a weird look. I hoped he wasn't able to tell what I was thinking.