A blaring alarm woke Jinki from his too-short sleep. He groaned and turned over in bed to stop the painful noise, curling up into a ball in the process. The conversation from last night came flooding back to his mind and he winced. He couldn’t believe he’d been so honest with Jonghyun last night; he must have had more to drink than he’d thought... Hopefully Jonghyun wouldn’t blab to the other members. Jinki wasn’t ready for everyone to know that about him just yet. It wasn’t a big deal, but at the same time it was incredibly personal. He buried his face in his hands. At some point he was going to have to figure this all out.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Hours later Jinki found himself at a photoshoot in full makeup, black skinny jeans, and a black muscle shirt. Having finished his individual photos he made his way back to SHINee’s dressing room to wait for the others. His mind was still reeling from the photoshoot where he’d taken the opportunity to think seriously about his situation. SHINee had been photographing with some random models; male and female. These people had been hand picked specifically for their good looks so they were perfect for Jinki’s test...or so he thought.

Although he was comfortable enough in the way he felt to have told Jonghyun the night before there was still this nagging doubt in the back of his head. So as he’d been waiting on the side and photographing with the models he’d surveyed them very carefully.

He could appreciate the aesthetic beauty of some of them, yes. He wasn’t blind, but this felt different than the way he heard his friends talking about people. The pretty shape of a female model’s eyes or a male model’s charming smile didn’t seem enough for him to go as far as call them attractive. At one point he had looked at a female model he thought was very pretty and imagined kissing her. The thought just felt wrong, and he didn’t even want to think about touching her body...that idea made him squirm with discomfort. He had felt the same way for the men. The most he could imagine doing was hugging someone to comfort them.

The biggest problem Jinki had with all of this was that he’d never heard of anyone feeling this way. Did everyone just pretend they found people attractive or was there something that he was missing?

Lost in his very confusing thoughts Jinki was oblivious to opening the door of the dressing room and running into a young woman carefully carrying a tray of hot food…

Jinki and the woman fell onto the floor, the hot food going everywhere, but mostly on the woman. She cried out in pain as the tray and food burned her skin, but she immediately turned around and bowed politely to Jinki, apologizing profusely, her eyes wide in fear.

“Are you alright?” They said in unison.

Jinki scrambled up from the floor, searching for anything to help the situation. He finally spotted a pitcher full of water which he quickly brought over to the woman for her to submerge her hands in.

“Thank you.”

She smiled at him weakly, wincing from the stinging sensation.

“Do you want me to call for someone? Are you going to be ok? You don’t have to be polite, it was my fault.”

He could have kicked himself. How could he have been so blind and clumsy? He hated causing other people pain, and this looked like it definitely hurt.

Self conscious, the woman kept her head bowed staring at the floor.

“It’s just my hands, I”ll be alright. Thanks for the water.”

Even though it was very warm out that day the woman was wearing a floor length black skirt and a grey zip-up sweatshirt, which was now covered in food. Removing her hands from the water pitcher she slowly removed the soiled sweatshirt to reveal a baggy t-shirt with a taco pun in english on it. [sorry, I'm so bad at puns so i'll leave it up to your imagination :P ]

Jinki chuckled to himself.

“Nice shirt.”

She surveyed him bemusedly.

“You speak english?” She asked him in the other language.

“A little.”

“I went to college in America.” she said, returning to Korean. “It was fascinating, like a whole other universe existing completely separate from our own. I thought everyone would be so different over there, but it turns out that despite cultural differences we’re very similar. I suppose there are parts of humanity that transcend time and space.”

Realizing what she was saying her face fell  and she quickly stood up.

“I’m so sorry, I’m blabbing. Please, you don’t have to be polite for my sake.”

Jinki smiled kindly.

“I don’t mind. Are you new? I haven’t seen you before. I’m Jinki by the way, Lee Jinki.”

She bowed in response.

“Nice to meet you Jinki, I’m Jang Mi. And yes, I’m new, but it looks like I won’t have a job for long if I keep spilling things on myself. I apologize for the inconvenience, I won’t disturb you any longer.”

Once again she bowed 90 degrees and left to get cleaning supplies to remove the rest of the spilled food. Jinki felt bad leaving her to clean it up alone when it was mostly his fault but the rest of s stopped by the dressing room to let him know it was time to go before she had returned.  

It wasn’t until he was changing out of his muscle shirt that he realized how much skin he had been showing and how Jang Mi hadn’t oggled at his body at all. “Well maybe she was a little preoccupied with you literally burning her.” He mocked himself. “But still,” he thought thankfully, “that situation could have been a lot more awkward.”

Author's note:

Thanks to everyone who subscribed! I was really nervous posting the first chapter so thanks for the support and not freaking out about the unusual premise of this story! I hope you find it interesting, and let me know if you have any questions. :)

Um, in terms of her name I wanted to call her Rose, but that doesn't sound very Korean and she's not supposed to be foreign so I looked up a name that means rose and found Jang Mi. In the following chapters I might just end up calling her Rose cause it feels weird, but we'll see?

Have a nice day and happy 6th year anniversary SHINee!! <333