Over a year ago in January...
 

Students in front of the Central Main Hall looked surprised when a tall man with guitar case on his back ran in full speed towards the entrance. The winter air was still icy cold, but the man seemed not bothered at all. While many people wrapped themselves in coats, the man seemed comfortable wearing only striped long-sleeves and a pair of blue jeans.

It was Jonghyun's first meeting as one of the staff production for the upcoming summer theatre event, but he was already late. He lost his track of time when he helped his younger band mates with their registration as freshmen in the university awhile ago.

Jonghyun had studied for a year at the SIU, but it was his first time to step inside the Central Main Hall. He never bothered to look around the university central buildings since he was already busy juggling assignments, projects and band activities. Had his senior, Cho Kyuhyun, not invited him to be part of the scriptwriter team for the summer threatre play, Jonghyun would not have the need to visit the hall. Ever.

His pace slowed down as he entered the lobby. He immediately read the board of information next to the lobby desk, but he found no direction to the operational room. He looked around and saw a young woman with long brown hair talking to someone behind the desk.

"Excuse me..." Jonghyun said as he approached the woman, who unfortunately left him before Jonghyun managed to ask for a direction.

Jonghyun raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat in embarassment.

"Anything I can help?" suddenly the man behind the desk asked Jonghyun.

"Ah—can you tell me where the operational room is?" Jonghyun asked.

"Oh, you are going to the same place as the woman before," the man got up from his seat and waved his hand to the right, "It is on the 4th floor. You can use the elevator from there."

Jonghyun nodded. "I see. Thank you."

He quickly ran after the woman who had disappeared at the end of the hallway. It might be safer to stick with someone who was also going to the same direction since he did not want to take risks of getting lost. She might be part of the summer theatre event's production staff as well... 

By the time he turned at the end of the hallway, the elevator door was closing.

"Hey—hey!" Jonghyun's voice echoed at the corner of the hallway. He quickly pressed the elevator button on the wall.

The elevator door slowly re-opened, revealing the woman who was pressing the open door button. Jonghyun immediately got into the elevator and the two caught a glimpse of each other before the door shut.

"Thanks," Jonghyun said.

"No problem," she answered.

Jonghyun stole a glance and observed the woman next to him. Honestly speaking, her style caught his attention. Jonghyun liked a woman who looked good in a pair of blue jeans and white basic t-shirt, exactly the way the woman pulled them off.  Her hair was down, loose in natural style, which fit well with her slim face that reminded Jonghyun of his ideal type, actrees Son Ye Jin.

He wondered what year she was in, but the fact that he never saw her before told him that they were not in the same department.

When the elevator reached the 4th floor, Jonghyun immediately followed the woman. She walked, he walked. The woman suddenly stopped and looked back with curious eyes, but Jonghyun only stared back and raised his eyebrows. She hesitated for a while before walking further and Jonghyun followed behind her again, but this time he put some distance between them.

Out of Jonghyun's expectation, the woman looked confused about the direction to take. Nevertheless, he just followed her every time she moved. When she turned left, he turned left; when she crossed the hallway and walked to another direction, he did so as well. From time to time, the woman threw him a suspicious look, but Jonghyun pretended nothing happened.

After some time of walking without any clue of where to go, Jonghyun began to get irritated. "Do you have any idea of where you are going?"

The woman stopped walking. She turned to look at Jonghyun, who was just standing with annoyed look on his face.

"Hey, are you following me?" she asked straightforwardly.

"Isn't that obvious?" out of her expectation, the man did admit that he had been following her.

"May I ask why?"

"The man at the first floor told me that you're also going to the operational room."

"So?"

Jonghyun raised one of his eyebrows. "So, I was hoping that you could show me the way because I'm heading there as well."

"Ah, is that so..." the woman said to herself, but her eyes were still looking at him curiously "Are you one of the production staff as well?"

"For the summer theatre event? Yes," Jonghyun took his right hand out of his jeans' pocket and raised it to her, "My name is Lee Jonghyun."

The woman shook his hand with a relieved smile. "Im Yoona."

Jonghyun smirked when he heard the woman finally revealed her name.

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, Lee Jonghyun-ssi. I am afraid I don't have any clue about where the operational room is. I am new here, as well," said the woman—Im Yoona—while her eyes were wandering around, looking at the row of doors.

Yoona glanced at Jonghyun, who also seemed clueless, and let out a sigh. If only Hyoyeon had let her know about the meeting earlier, Yoona would probably have enough time to come early and look for the operational room. Unfortunately, Hyoyeon called her five minutes before the meeting started and it took 15 minutes for Yoona to sprint from her department building to the central hall.

~~~

 

"Two of you! Yes, the two of you!"

Jonghyun and Yoona were flustered when a man suddenly ran towards them. They looked at each other with confused look. 

"Come on! Let's get inside. You are already late!" he approached them and slightly pulled Yoona's wrist.

Jonghyun noticed that Yoona was uncomfortable and so he took the man's wrist and softly pushed it away from Yoona's.

"Is Kyuhyun Hyung there?" asked Jonghyun with his hand still on the man's wrist.

"Kyu—hyun—who?" the man frowned his forehead in confusion—of having someone holding his wrist and hearing an unfamiliar name at the same time—but he nodded along anyway, "Yeah, yeah, I think I saw him inside. Come on, you two have to go inside."

The two stared at each other before Yoona led him and followed the man to an opened door behind them. Jonghyun just shrugged his shoulder and followed behind.

When they stepped into the room, Jonghyun and Yoona felt more flustered. It was not a typical operational room they had imagined before. Instead of a meeting, the people inside the room were busy with themselves. The room was more like a backstage with groups of people preparing for their own performances.

Jonghyun could not see anyone familiar, let alone Kyuhyun; everyone were strangers to him. He immediately sensed something was wrong, so he took out his cellphone and dialed someone's number. Aish... I should have done it sooner. 

"Kyuhyun hyung?"

A voice from a far yelled in frustration, "YAH! Lee Jonghyun, where are you? Are you coming or not?"

"I am already here, Hyung! I am at the operational room on the 4th floor! Where are you?"

"4th floor? Operational room?" Kyuhyun's voice sounded confused. "The operational room is on the 3rd floor."

Jonghyun frowned as he glanced at Yoona who seemed more puzzled than he was. "But... they told me the operational room is on the 4th floor..."

"Don't say... you are in the Central Main Hall?" Kyuhyun's voice was getting louder.

"Well... yes. Is there... something wrong?"

"YAH! Jonghyun-ah, we are in the South Main Hall near Social Science Department Building! How can you get this wrong?"

"Are you serious?—Hyung? Kyuhyun hyung?" suddenly the call was terminated. Jonghyun glanced at the screen and found that his cellphone was running out of battery. God damn it... 

Yoona patted him on the shoulder, demanded him to explain what was going on. 

"Im Yoona... I think we have a problem," Jonghyun whispered as he put his cellphone back to his pocket.

Before Jonghyun could explain that they were at the wrong place, a petite woman wearing floral blouse and black mini skirt suddenly approached them. She held a HT on her hand and she seemed like talking to the microphone attached to her headset a few times before she greeted Jonghyun and Yoona.

"Hello, you must be our performers from Music Department," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

The two could not grasp the real meaning when the woman called them as their "performers", but they still bowed in respect.

"I didn't expect you two to be... so visual like this," the woman said with a hint of being impressed, "Anyway, would you like to perform with piano or guitar?"

"Eh, excuse me?" Yoona was dumbfounded.

The woman rolled her eyes, as if Yoona's question did not make sense to her. "I asked, are you going to perform with piano or guitar?"

"Eh, Miss... It might be a misunderstanding, but—"

"I am using my own guitar, if you don't mind," Jonghyun interrupted Yoona.

Yoona was going to sound her protest, but Jonghyun grabbed her wrist and slightly pulled it, telling her to shut up.

"Of course. You are going for a duet, so... two microphones should be enough?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Jonghyun said, slightly smiling.

"Okay, so," the woman paused to scribble something down on her papers, "Your performance will be in thirty minutes, we just need to conclude with the Q&A session. If there is any change in the event's rundown, we will let you know."

An event? Yoona just grasped the situation after the woman mentioned the word. It explained why she could hear people talking on the microphone in the next room, sound of applause, instrumental background music and people wearing similar white shirts walking back and forth in the... backstage?

"Thank you," Jonghyun, meanwhile, acted like everything was fine. He ignored Yoona, who was pinching his wrist to demand explanation.

"Please prepare yourself comfortably, I'll be back shortly," the woman said before she walked away.

With his hand still holding Yoona's, Jonghyun led her to a neairby chair. He casually told her to sit down while he took his guitar case off his shoulder. Ignoring Yoona's questioning stare, he took out his Martin HD28 from the case and sat beside Yoona. He started tuning and strummed the strings to check their sounds.

"Just what-the-hell are you doing, Lee Jonghyun-ssi?" Yoona finally asked in disbelief.

"Would you mind to put it aside, Im Yoona?" Jongyun said, bluntly.

Yoona bit her lower lip, quietly taken aback. "Why are we doing this?"

Jonghyun stopped strumming on his guitar. Out of her expectations, the ice man suddenly gave her a wide-charming smile that showed off his dimples. She looked away to hide her slightly-blushing face.

"Why not? Come on, it will be fun."

~~~

 

Half an hour passed by like a blink of an eye.

Jonghyun and Yoona started off their conversation awkwardly, but they managed to talk comfortably afterwards. Thirty-minute was apparently not enough for the two to engage in deep conversation, but it was enough for them to learn a bit about each other.

Most of the time, Jonghyun saw women as bothersome creatures, who were egoistic by nature and did not have strong will to reach their dreams. But Jonghyun could tell that Yoona was different. She showed interests when he talked about his passion in music and she even asked him about the hardship of being a guitarist. From the way she talked about her dream to become a great ballerina, he could see that she was a woman with ambitions.

However, Jonghyun knew that it had been so long since the last time he engaged in a conversation with a woman, so he could not decide whether the fluttering feeling was because of his lack of encounters with women or it was really because of Yoona as a person. But again, Jonghyun did not believe the bull about love at the first sight—or in this case, first meeting.

For him, at least, love was too overrated that he could not even believe in it anymore.

Yoona had been friends—as she called it—with many men before she met the man next to her who loved his guitar more than woman—as what he himself had claimed. However, she saw different kind of lights in his eyes compared to other men when listening to her stories. It was like he really listened with full attention and he was interested enough to share about music, not merely talking about himself.

But again, were not all men who tried to get closer to her always acted the same? They would act like they were interested on everything she talked about—until she straightened the fact that she would like to remain friends with them. They could never get used to rejections, whatever her reasons might be.

It was not that she could not believe in love; she just could not believe their sincerity towards her.

"Performers from Music Department? You are up!"

Yoona suddenly panicked when someone signaled a cue for them to perform. Her eyes started wandering around as she muttered "what to do" to herself. Next to her, Jonghyun stretched his hands and back comfortably; it was just another performance for him anyway.

"Nervous?" Jonghyun asked as he stood up with his guitar.

"A bit," Yoona whispered.

"We are doing OK," Jonghyun patted Yoona's shoulder before he led the walk towards the stage, "Just remember it."

The two stepped on the stage and took a seat next to each other. Yoona smiled slightly to the crowd while holding her mic tight. Jonghyun, on the other hand, took over the introduction part.

"Hello, all," Jonghyun greeted the audience. Some of the girls in the room squealed like hardcore fans. "Today we are going to perform a song for you, but please kindly bear with us since this is our first time singing together."

Yoona inhaled deeply as Jonghyun began to strum his guitar. We are doing okay. Just remember it. 

She closed her eyes and imagined herself standing on the center of a vast stage, wearing her white tutu and a pair of pink ballerina shoes. She could hear a beautiful sonata playing in the background, serenading her. As the melody slowly deepened into her heart, she spread her hands widely and began to dance.

Yoona opened her eyes and let her voice soar into the sky.

 

For most of his lifetime, Lee Jonghyun did not believe in fate. For him, fate was only a bunch of coincidences, not less or more.

Today, however, Jonghyun's belief was greatly shaken. Could someone explain why Yoona's most favorite song was in fact the first song that Jongin had learned on guitar and he had mastered since years ago?
 

Nothing better,

nothing better,

than you...
 

As their performance neared the end, Jonghyun and Yoona looked at each other. They smiled.

Jonghyun suddenly remembered the most memorable line from his favorite book. For some reasons, he used to wonder whether someday he could feel the feeling that the protagonist had experienced in the story. It was such a beautiful line and he remembered it without having to think twice.

Now he already knew how it felt. Now, he experienced it.

It was Charlie's line from a book titled The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

 

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

 

 

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Author's Note:

Hello, good afternoon everyone!

Forgive me for my late update. By the way, how is it everyone? You like it?

Well, I see that many comments are wondering about their history and their relationship before. So in this chapter I will let you guys know about the first meeting of our Jongyoon couple. YEAY!

Oh and by the way, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is such a good book. And I really love Brown Eyed Soul, Nothing Better is very beautiful!

Please do subscribe, comment, and upvote if you are interested and satisfied with my story. I'll try to update soon. Thank you! xx