Over the next couple of weeks, that became the norm. At first, I saw Taeyeon maybe three times, but by the second week, I saw him almost every day even if it was for brief snatches. If he was working, I would conveniently show up there for a couple of minutes and annoy him while he was trying to get things done. He probably should've gotten in some sort of trouble, but the guys he worked with liked me coming in so much that they wouldn't say anything about it. I would even brave all the guys in the shop leering at me and insinuating things about Taeyeon's and my relationship.

Not that there was a relationship. At least, not as far as I knew. I wanted to say that we had a very tentative friendship. One of those friendships when you both realize that the other is attractive in some way, but you never say anything about it. That was how it was for me, anyway. I wasn't sure how Taeyeon felt about us spending so much time together. Honestly, it seemed more like he was getting entertainment from annoying the crap out of me once again. But it wasn't a bad annoying, it was the kind of annoying that I could only stay mad at for a couple of minutes, which worked just fine for me.

We never spent as much time together as we had that first night. As a matter of fact, we didn't go out and do anything for days. When we did, it was to get ice cream because Taeyeon was tired of hearing me complain about the weather, being bored, and being cooped up in a house for all hours of the day. I think it was more out of pity than anything else, but I wasn't complaining.

He always seemed to be working too. "How come you don't do normal, teenager stuff during the summer?" I asked him one day over a shared homemade sundae. We were sitting at my dinner table on one of our many hang out days. Ice cream was deemed necessary, but neither of us wanted to go anywhere because it was so hot. Apparently, according to the weather, we were at a record high at one hundred and two scorching degrees. The weather channel also said that spending time outside was dangerous, and I wasn't one to disagree with a higher, clearly more knowledgeable source so inside I was. Besides, my parents had left me a ton of money for their little vacation that was spanning the entirety of my summer, it seemed, even though they promised to only be gone for a couple of weeks.

One might ask why an eighteen year old freshly graduated from high school would decide not to go on a cruise that was supposed to last for almost a month. The answer is simple; as an eighteen year old freshly graduated from high school incoming college freshman, I thought that there was no greater torture to be placed on me than to be forced to go on a cruise with my parents who would spend the entire time telling everyone that I had just graduated while simultaneously crying over the fact that I was now college bound. When they gave me the choice to stay home, I eagerly took it. I hated to hurt their feelings, but my life was at stake because at some point during that cruise, I would have surely killed myself.

So here I sat, instead of rocking on a boat somewhere in an ocean that I didn't care enough to remember the name of, eating the coolest, most delicious ice cream sundae with my new, hot friend.

Taeyeon smiled with amusement, "What do you mean?"

I shrugged, "You work all the time. You don't go to the beach or go to parties... or go on dates or anything. You just work."

His spoon stabbed a piece of banana as he scooped up some ice cream, "I like working."

"All the time though? Don't you have anything better to do?" He didn't say anything, but he seemed to be thinking. Still I pressed on. "Any friends?"

"I have no friends," He asserted.

"Bull," I said calmly and he laughed knowing that I was right. "Any hot women to spend time with?"

He smiled and looked at me and I noticed that his eyes were dark chocolate today. "I'm sitting here with you, aren't I?" he said in a voice that had deepened almost imperceptibly. I grinned and shoved him in the shoulder and he laughed again. "Seriously, I like to work. I like cars and it's a stress reliever."

I snorted, "From what stress? It's summer time. You're already solid in school, aren't you? Didn't you get a full ride?"

He nodded, "Yeah, but I don't know how that's going to work out."

"Why?"

He shook his head and he looked a little embarrassed for a minute. "Well, because..." when he didn't say anything else, I nudged him, silently urging him to continue. He took a deep breath, "Because I've got job offers up in Hong Kong."

I choked on a clump of vanilla ice cream. "Are you serious?" I finally managed to get out. He laughed and looked down, into the bowl. "To do what?"

"Act." Taeyeon's acting skills were another attribute that he was well known for. People used to pack into our school's auditorium just to see him perform. I only went to one play that he was in, but it was easy to see that he had a natural talent for it. Thinking about it now, it didn't surprise me that he had been offered jobs for acting, but I still couldn't believe it. That was one of those things you heard about happening to people far from you, never to anyone that you knew. And Hong Kong was so far away.

He never came off as a drama kid which is probably one of the reasons he was so amazingly good at it. Usually, people who have spent any time at all in theater have a certain way about them that makes them nearly impossible to miss. It wasn't like that with Taeyeon. The only reason anyone knew about how talented he was was because the drama teacher and anyone else who saw him perform would rant on and on about it for weeks if you would let him.

I could remember seeing one the current drama teacher doing just that a few days before we graduated while Taeyeon was there. Rather than bask in the glory of his fame, Taeyeon simply shrugged it off, smiling modestly and choosing not to say much at all. That's how you knew that he was good. He could be a character at any moment and do a damn good job of it, but most importantly, he never lost himself. I never had to wonder if I was talking to Kim Taeyeon, or if I was trying to understand some front that he was putting on.

"Taeyeon, that's awesome!" I put my spoon down and looked at him. I could picture him in Hong Kong. "Are you going to do it?"

He leaned on the counter, shrugging. "I don't know. Maybe."

I was confused. Acting in Hong Kong wasn't something that you just waved away. It was nearly impossible to get a job there and yet, he was acting like it was no big deal even though he already had offers. If someone that high up could recognize your talent, then the best thing to do was to go for it. What could possibly be stopping him? "Why wouldn't you do it?"

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter