After taking one deep inhale, TaeYeon scurries off from the bar counter. She never looks back at her crush and opts to disappear within the crowd of people whilst inwardly hoping that the ATC does not take notice of her awkward action. Her steps falter and come to a stop when she reaches her booth. JongHyun, startles by his partner’s sudden appearance, immediately up a brow after he gets a good look on said partner. TaeYeon is clutching her glass, hands trembling slightly, and she is hyperventilating. Despite the rather dim light inside the bar, the older man also manages to spot the redness on TaeYeon’s face.

JongHyun gasps. “You’re drunk!” He exclaims.

When TaeYeon stares at her co-pilot with unseeing onyx eyes, he takes the initiative to investigate it by himself. JongHyun sniffs the blonde’s drink wearily, expecting to catch the hint of alcohol, but he fails to detect even a whiff of it. He furrows his brows, confusion paints his handsome face.

“S-she is here!” TaeYeon squeaks.

“Who?”

“Rapunzel!”

The outburst earns the duo several stares from the patrons around them. JongHyun immediately tugs the stuttering, blushing mess, which is TaeYeon, to sit beside him. He, again, wraps him arm around the blonde’s shoulder to give the outlook of an intimate couple, while in fact, he is keeping her still by locking his arm around her neck. JongHyun fears TaeYeon will bolt and run out of the bar like a headless chicken anytime soon. The heavy blush on her face does make her look like she is going to explode, though.

“TaeYeon, breathe!” JongHyun hisses on her ear as he tightens his chokehold. “Breathe!”

Instead of doing as she is told to, TaeYeon turns blue. “Can’t-can’t breathe!” She claws at his forearm and he finally realizes that he is, indeed, choking her then quickly lets her go. “You moron!” The blonde nudges JongHyun on the ribs with her pointy elbow, hard.

“I’m sorry.” The co-pilot rubs his forearm and side sheepishly. “But come again? Who is here?”

“My Rapunzel! The ATC girl!”

JongHyun’s eyes become wide in surprise. “She is here?! Where?!” He looks around frantically, trying to spot the unknown woman TaeYeon has been crushing over, although he does not even have the slightest idea of how the woman looks like. “Where, TaeYeon? Where? Is she pretty? How old is she? Can I meet her?”

TaeYeon makes a face at her partner’s overflowing excitement. “Are you sure you’re not the one having a crush on her?”

“Oh, please…” JongHyun continues scanning the crowd. “It’s just SooYoung,” he mentions the stewardess who usually joins their flight every other day, “and I, and also YoonA,” yet another stewardess, “are having a bet about how your crush looks like. I bet fifty bucks that she is nerdy-looking thirty years old—Ouch!” He yelps when another nudge lands on his side again, harder this time. JongHyun grins guiltily. “I didn’t mean it that way…”

The blonde rolls her eyes at her rather childish partner. “You can say goodbye to your money.” Nervousness gone, TaeYeon turns giddy, like a schoolgirl after seeing her crush smiles at her for the first time. “She is drop dead gorgeous! And she is Korean too! And her hair is shoulder length and not blonde, but I love Tangled so she can be my kick- Rapunzel forever! And her eyes—“

“Stop, stop!”

“What?”

“How did you even know that it’s her?”

“You really hate losing a bet, don’t you?” TaeYeon narrows her eyes at JongHyun. She loves the man like a brother, but he can be damn annoying at times, even more than their resident gay pilot, Kim KiBum. “I heard her voice, she came up beside me on the bar and ordered pussyfoot,” she explains. “I didn’t gather more about her, though.” She frowns, regretting herself for being too shy and ran away instead of introducing herself and all. If only I did, I might be talking to her instead of JongHyun right now… TaeYeon sighs then mumbles, mostly to herself. “I was in panic so I didn’t get to use my gaydar on her…”

“Shoulder length brown hair and she is Korean, right?”

“Yeah…” TaeYeon takes big gulp of her drink to sooth her disappointment. “Why?”

“Well… If that is her...” JongHyun points at the general direction where a group of people, probably part the airport staff, is sitting together, and one of them matches TaeYeon’s description of her dream girl. “Then you don’t need your gaydar, because mine exploded the moment I saw her.”

TaeYeon whips her head to where JongHyun is pointing. It takes her millisecond to find her crush, sitting among the group, and she can’t see what her partner meant about his gaydar exploding. “That’s her, yeah...” she confirms dreamily then continues on without letting her eyes off from her crush, “but I can’t see anything gay about her yet and you don’t even have a gaydar.”

“I have the gayest of them all as my best friends; my gaydar is much more honed than yours, but whatever.” The co-pilot rolls his eyes before he slaps TaeYeon on the shoulder, snapping her out of her trance. “Grow a ball and talk to her!”

The blonde gasps, shyness goes back in full force. “N-no, no! I can’t do that! She’ll think I’m a creep.”

“You are a creep...”

But TaeYeon has not heard JongHyun's sarcastic remark and goes on with her panic rant. “How big is the possibility of meeting your crush in a bar after you flirted with her about three hours beforehand and-and I’m not ready. I have no idea of what to say. Can I just come up to her and say ‘hey, I’m the pilot who has been annoying you every other day. I know I’m short, yeah. And I’m also an awkward turtle when it comes to courting and such, but now that we’ve meet in person, I’ll be a brave gentleman for once and ask, would you like to go out with me? Oh! Wait! Do you even swing that way? I’m TaeYeon, by the way.’? And then what? What if she turned me down? In front of her colleagues? I’ll just make fun of myself and—Mmfh!” She gets cut off as JongHyun clamps his big hand over , effectively shutting her up.

JongHyun laughs sheepishly. Apparently, TaeYeon has attracted the attention of the people around them and they are staring at the duo weirdly. “I’m sorry, my girlfriend here get a panic attack.” But the stares do not cease so he adds, “We are going to have for the first time!”

As expected, the crowd cheers. They all just need silly reason to drink more. While they are busy clinking their glasses together, JongHyun takes the chance to pull the too-stunned TaeYeon out of the bar. Only when they are out and safe out of anyone’s earshot that the blonde stomps her heel onto her co-pilot’s, earning a loud painful yelp from the man, before she walks away angrily.

Two days later, after a lot of apologizing and a spa coupon, TaeYeon and JongHyun are back into their normal self, with the former being all ecstatic and the latter keeps rolling his eyes at her. They have successfully landed yet another flight despite the rather cloudy day, which, by the way, has given TaeYeon a perfect excuse to ask detailed direction from her crush. The ATC did not seem to mind at all. In fact, if TaeYeon dares herself to say it, her crush sounded happier than usual, as if she knows something they don’t.

Ignoring the nagging feeling inside her chest, TaeYeon continues talking on the communicator, “I like blue, and sometimes purple too,” she informs without being prompted to. The blonde feels she has the upper hand because she has seen her crush while the latter knows nothing about her. It’s only fair if I tell her about me, right? The blonde giggles happily, empowered by the fact that she, apparently, is the one wearing pants in the relationship. But her glee is not going to stay for a long time.

“I know, Captain Kim TaeYeon.”