Kai pulled his dark, wool scarf over the bottom half of his face and his beanie over his forehead. When people walked by him, he made sure to look away and avoid direct eye contact or to purposely look away, faking his interest in something else. It was a fairly chilly night, just cold enough to see the transparent fog of one’s breath. It had been weeks since he had the time to come out like this and it was delightful. Time to himself doing what he wanted to do. He still he to be careful of course but this beat practicing in the dance studio all night. By the time Kai had reached the meeting spot he and Taemin had agreed on, it was already a bit past midnight.

“Taemin.” He called out as he approached him. Taemin turned and Kai could tell that he was grinning under his mask.

“Finally.” he said, “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about our date or something.” Kai snorted and fist bumped him as he sat down on table across from him. Earlier that day, Taemin ad texted him and asked if they could hang out that night. It had been a while since Kai had been out but it had been even longer since he and Taemin had hung out with just the two of them. They may be in the same company but aside from the short conversations and the occasional horse play, they hadn't really gone out to just talk.

“How’s the album going?” Kai asked setting the bag of snacks onto the table, “Any song recordings yet?” Taemin made a face and shook his head. He shoved his hands into his blue puffer jacket and crossed his ankled under the table.

“Not yet. Jinhyuk wants me to brainstorm some ideas for this album and he wants to use a few of my ideas for the songs. The difficult thing is though, is that I have no idea what I want this album to be about.” Taemin reached for the bag and pulled out the bag of shrimp flavored chips and the banana milk he had asked for specifically. “The concept is great though. I need this to get rid of that 'cute maknae Taemin' image.” Kai laughed as he sipped on the bottled yogurt that he had bought.

“But that’s what all of your fans like about you, isn’t it?” he asked with a cocked brow, “What if you start losing fans if you come out all manly and masculine?”

“Huh,” Taemin frowned a bit and scratched his head through his cap, “I didn’t think about that… Why’d you have to go and rain on my parade?” Taking one of the chips in the bag, he threw it at Kai with a huff. Kai snorted again and rolled his eyes as he tossed Taemin his banana milk.

“Stop being a baby, you kid.” He said, “I was just kidding anyway. I’m sure that your fans would love to see those non-existent abs of yous.” Kai snickered and Taemin gave him a dirty look.

“Hey, I just haven’t been working out lately, ok?” he said in defence of his precious abs, “I have abs, but only on a good day.” Kai chuckled in amusement and shook his head at his ridiculous answer. Sighing, he leaned over onto the park table and began to go through the snacks on the table.

“So how’s your album going?” Taemin asked with a full mouth. “Its gotta be going better than mine.” Kai sighed and shrugged lightly.

“We’re pretty much done with it.” he said with a relieved sigh, “We’ve finished recording the songs and Jinhyuk is just putting in the final tweeks here and there. Right now we’re focusing on our choreography and we’re preparing for our solo concert.”

“Whoa, look at you.” Taemin said with a teasing smirk, “A solo concert already? I don’t know if I should be happy for you or envious.” Kai laughed and shrugged with a confident grin plastered onto his face.

“You just have to accept the fact that I am the new wave of kpop, hyung.” With a loud, mocking laugh, Taemin rolled his eyes.

“Please, don't flatter yourself. If anything, SM is the new wave. Without the company you’d still be doing tap and ballet.” Together they laughed freely, more than happy to be away from all of the drama, stress, and trouble that came to being under the limelight. It had been too long since they had come out like this and it felt satisfying. Kai was in a state of bliss, even though he was freezing and tired. He enjoyed this down time he had doing what he wanted with people he enjoyed being with.

“So whats going on with you and that mystery girl, hm?” he asked as he cleaned up the various wrappers on the table. “You two still dating?” Taemin shook his head.

“I told you we weren't dating.” he said, “We’re just friends.” Kai nodded, refusing to believe that he only saw her as a friend.

“How’s you meet her anyway? You said she worked at the company right?”

“Yeah, she does. The company hired a bunch of new people this year so I guess she was on of them. It was really weird how we met actually.” Taemin laughed thinking about it, “I think it was when she just began work about 2 months ago and she got lost taking the papers she had to someone. She was carrying a hell of a stack of files or something and she wasn't watching where she was going. Me and my members had just finished practicing something in the dance studio and they told me to go get some drinks. When I pushed open the door, she ran into it and fell back, dropping all of her papers.” Kai watched as Taemin broke out into a humorous fit of laughter. Taemin had always been like that; oblivious to the people around him. It had been a while since he had seen him talk about a girl like this and he had recognized Taemin’s true feeling before Taemin could even understand what he was feeling himself. Kai recognized it because that was how he used to look like when he talked about her.

“How’d she react when she found out about the article?” Kai asked with a small but smug smile.

“She was…” Taemin paused and thought about it, his brows furrowing slightly. “She was surprisingly calm about it now that I think about it. I was the one panicking.” Kai laughed and shook his head.

“So now I see who wears the pants in this relationship.” He said with a chuckle. Taemin snorted in disbelief and gave him a stern but playful look.

“Look here, I  wear the pants, ok?” he said biting off a grin, “I’m the man and we aren’t dating for the last time!” Kai couldn’t help but to laugh loudly at his friend’s childish behavior as he continued to ramble on and on about her humor, about her sarcasm, about her song writing skill, about her advice, about their conversations. Kai was mentally shaking his head at him and rolling his eyes. Just watching Taemin talk about her was amusing because of how oblivious he was. Taemin was smitten like a love stricken kitten. Kai didn't need Taemin to tell him. He could already tell with how he looked when he talked about who ever this mysterious girl was. It was surprising honestly with how much he seemed to like her. Kai hadn't seen Taemin like this since his appearance on We Got Married with Naeun and it was funny how Taemi couldn't read his own emotions seeing how he had felt them once before. For a long time since forever, he felt like he was normal, someone who didn’t have fame and a world full of fans watching his every move. Maybe if he had been normal then things would have been different.

“You should meet her, Jongin. I think you’ll like her a lot. Maybe she’ll be able to teach you a lesson or two and correct that attitude of yours.” Kai rolled his eyes kicked his foot from under the table.

“Please, no one can tame the almighty Kim Jongin.” Kai’s chin rose into the air and he crossed his hands over his chest, confidence practically radiating off him.

“By the way, Taemin, you never told me her na--”

“SHH!” Taemin quickly shushed him and looked out into the park in suspicion. Kai cocked his brow and followed his gaze. From not too far, he could hear that unmistakable sound. He heard it almost everywhere he went; on his way to radio shows, at variety shows, at fan meets, at award shows, everywhere.

“.” he cursed quietly under his breath. It was the sound of those terrible camera shutters that fans used to take those HD pictures of them.

“We gotta get out of here.” Taemin said as he turned back around. He spoke in low tones now, wary of how many of them could have followed this late at night. “Any ideas?”

“Yeah,” Kai said with a slight nod, “Run.”

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