Dedicated to: SKD_11

“Just this once! Please, guys!” pouted Taemin. “I mean, it’s my birthday – you can’t say no to me… Plus, today we don’t have a schedule. Meaning no manager hyung coming around randomly, so we’ll be fine.” The rest of SHINee uneasily looked at one another before shrugging.

“Well,” Onew began. “It wouldn’t hurt. Plus, Taemin-yah does have some points right there. No schedule, he’s the birthday boy…sounds good to me, guys.”

The others soon said yes themselves, while Jonghyun simply rolled his eyes but gave a stiff nod, even though he really just wanted to stay in the dorms. He wasn’t one for having to run from fan girls, even if they were mostly compiled of noonas, something that Onew and Minho always told him, grinning ersely.

Jonghyun was a very cynical guy, you see. And he most certainly wasn’t stupid.

“Whatever,” Jonghyun muttered as Taemin began shouting for joy, jumping around with a big, goofy smile stretched on his face.

“I even have the perfect place to go,” he told his hyungs happily. “It’s this new karaoke café that opened up around here. It’s not far, so we’ll be fine walking there.”

Great. We’ll have to listen to people singing now. Most of them , anyway. Jonghyun knew this was a mean way to think, but could you blame him? The people who sang in karaoke cafés were people who sang as bad as heck but thought they sang really good.

“Alright,” Minho said suddenly, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get dressed, everyone. Wear some inconspicuous, and remember to put on a baseball cap and some shades. We don’t want to be seen by anyone, or we’ll be busted by manager hyung later.”

Everyone else nodded and went to get dressed immediately afterwards.

“You ready?” Onew asked the maknae, who was dressed, as instructed, inconspicuously, his face barely seen by the fringe he’d purposely left covering himself.

“Heck to the yeah, of course I’m ready!” He replied enthusiastically, pumping his fist into the air, to which, Jonghyun once again rolled his eyes. He was indifferent to Taemin’s attitude towards these kinds of things; he just simply didn’t understand the maknae’s ‘strange’ likings.

“We’re both ready too.” Key told Onew, referring to him and Minho. Minho saw that Taemin’s hat was lopsided, so he walked forward to fix it. While doing so, he muttered under his breath about how horrible it would be if manager found out. Not that he was a goody-two-shoes when it came to SHINee being spotted in public and to the manager, just that he was known to be the more cautious member in the group.

Onew nodded to all four of them and led them out of the dorm. They couldn’t take a taxi, so they would have to beg their chauffer to help them. Of course, the ajusshi agreed to the sweet pleading of the maknae himself. The pouting lips and sparkly eyes didn’t only work on noonas, they’d found out a while ago—and ever since then they’ve been using it to get what they’d wanted.

“This is going to be so fun. I just know it.” Taemin grinned again, if any way possible—wider this time.

-----------

“We’re here.” The chauffer announced. “Kamsahamnida!” The boys smiled and thanked him in unison. The chauffer just smiled and tipped his hat.

“Oh yeah. This is awesome.” Minho strode in and selected a table for them. It was easy though; the place wasn’t the most crowded around.

“Agreed.” Key straightened up, looking around the place. It was quaint and kind of antique, with all of those little knick-knacks here and there, something that he’d like, though he didn’t really expect from a karaoke café. But it still had the bar-like ambience, for the most part. “This seems nice.”

Again, Jonghyun rolled his eyes. It was amazing how his eyes didn’t fall out, considering the number of times they rolled around all day long. The only time he wasn’t like this was when fans were around him, and then he’d switch to his ‘I’m-such-a-good-singer-but-I-love-you-all’ attitude and personality.

There was a girl on stage. She wasn't beautiful, nor was she particularly alluring of sorts. She was plain and simple, clad in a pale pink blus med rosette and a blush spot voile skirt, complete with a fairytale-like beige headband and canvas t-bar shoes. Though she had an elegance about her that captured the audiences’ attention.

The nature of her mystified the maknae, something he’d never seen before, even amongst the millions of fans he’d loved and adored. The way her skirt swished lightly as she sashayed (yes, not walked, but sashayed) onto the stage, the way she her heel and gave an Nobel Prize winning smile, and the way her gaze fell on everyone without a hint of nervousness. Taemin admired her, and focused his eyes on the girl.

“Annyeonghasaeyo, my name is Park Min Jung. I’m the owner of this karaoke café—or rather, the co-owner of it. My father founded this place and I was the one he gave it to when he passed away. I hope you enjoy the song I will be singing right now. It is a cover of SNSD Jessica’s Overflowing with Tears.”

Her voice was so soft and melodious, it almost sounded as if she was singing already. With a nod of her head, the song started playing on cue.

Little by little I walk towards you, little by little

Soon I've come close enough to where I can see you

But just watching you like this won't be the end

Today, yet again, a girl like me is standing here

When my tears overflow and become a river, and become an ocean,

Do you want to know more about me, who loves only you?

Can't you be on my side so you can endlessly laugh and endlessly cry with me?

Because I will love only you even though it hurts so much

How did my heart grow to love you, how?

Do you even know that I circle around the same place all day?

I'm afraid that the lonely wind will be cold, too cold

You don't know how the wind is as it blows in

When my tears overflow and become a river, and become an ocean,

Do you want to know more about me, who loves only you?

Can't you be on my side so you can endlessly laugh and endlessly cry with me?

Because I will love only you even though it hurts so much

You in that place, you who never answers, my heart wants you

Can't you wait for my love, so that I can reach you?

If you love me, look back at me, just a little faster

Hold my hand before I move on, before my love dies out

Can't you be on my side so you can endlessly laugh and endlessly cry with me?

Because I will only love you even though it hurts so much

Taemin was entranced as the girl sang—her heart poured out into the lyrics. She was smiling faintly the whole way through, and her voice didn’t waver once throughout the song. The whole audience didn’t make a sound, extremely unusual for karaoke café goers. Not even a low whistle was heard.

She wasn’t afraid to use hand gestures as she sang, throwing her arms out at the most appropriate places, and unlike how shy, teenage girls sang, Min Jung actually opened to sing, wide, as if she had nothing to hide and singing was the last thing she could do.

Minho barely moved a muscle, which was out of his norm considering he always fidgeted, no matter what. Key’s mouth was open, obviously stunned by her singing talents. Onew was grinning widely, thinking of infinite possibilities for the ‘child’—which was what he referred to her as he was thinking. Jonghyun… well Jonghyun was well amazed at her. He was thrown-off, if you could say. He didn’t expect the female equivalent of him to appear so quickly before SHINee could dominate the world.

Taemin, clearly hypnotized, couldn’t even clap when the song ended. Minho had to shake some sense out of Taemin before he could say anything.

“Thank you. Would anyone like to come up here and sing? The stage is all yours.” Min Jung offered the microphone to a girl who looked about sixteen and came with her friends, giggling and probably wanting to serenade her boyfriend that she’d brought along.

Min Jung, after she had seen to the girl, walked towards SHINee. She seemed to not know it was SHINee though, because she wasn’t squealing like a normal person would, which was pretty surprising.

“Hi there.” She waved, bowing a full ninety degrees.

“Oh, no need to be so formal.” Minho could sense that it was safe since she didn’t know that she was in the presence of SHINee. “Park Min Jung, right?”

“Neh, oppa. I believe all of you are older than me. I’m seventeen. What are your names?”

That was when they knew they were in trouble. They had to make up names for themselves, if not their cover would have been blown. I don’t get why I get myself into this kind of situations, Jonghyun thought, flipping his fringe to one side.

“Hajoon, Dawook, Seunghyun, Minhyuk and myself, Daejung.” Jonghyun rattled off names from his college book that he still—somehow—remembered. The SHINee members all made a mental note to thank him later.

“Ah, so you’re Minhyuk.” Min Jung pointed to Taemin and said, smiling softly. “N-n-neh… Lee Minhyuk. It’s very… nice to meet you.” He replied, stuttering and tripping over his sentences.

“May I… talk to you over there?” Min Jung pointed to a table away from SHINee, but the members were okay as long as he was still in sight. Onew nodded quickly and Taemin gave him the ‘okay’ signal in return.

“Of course.” He cleared his throat and managed to reply. ‘Have fun’, Minho mouthed, smirking at the maknae, thinking our little maknae’s finally growing up. Jonghyun just hoped it wouldn’t scale into something massive like a scandal.

“So…. Minhyuk oppa, are you still studying?” Min Jung asked, leaning against the chair, her eyes wide and open with curiosity.

“Oh, me? Yeah. I study in Seoul University of the Arts as a… theatre and arts major.” I replied, thinking it would be reasonable enough a sentence, since I could sing and had experience of being in drama.

“Ah, I see. I haven’t seen you around, huh? I’m in SUoA as well! I’m an international relations major.”

“Um… yeah… I don’t go around much. And I haven’t been in any of the productions yet, so…” As I spoke, she started to think, looking at me as if she’d recognized me from somewhere.

“Do I know you from anywhere?” She asked. I was quick to reply—almost too quickly, “No! … I-I-I mean, no… I don’t believe I have.” I scratched the back of my nape uncomfortably. It was a close call, but my hyungs have taught me how to deal with these kinds of things.

“Well, it was nice talking to you,” She said, after about half an hour of conversing, “but I have to go now, attend to the customers. The karaoke session for the night is over. I’ll see you around, Minhyuk?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, okay, all right. I’ll… see you around.”

“Here’s my number.” Min Jung quickly wrote it down on a small slip of paper. Smiling, she said, “Call me sometime, I’d love to talk to you again.”

“Just call her already. You haven’t called her for two weeks, she’s probably extremely worried.” Key advised.

“No, don’t. Don’t get involved, something bad is going to happen if you continue to be in this situation.” Minho’s dark voice warned the maknae.

“Both of you!” Onew hissed. “Let Taemin decide. Manager already told us that he would respect his decision.”

“But we’re not sure if Lee Soo Man will agree.” Minho spoke through gritted teeth, clearly seething.

“I for one think Taemin should decide.” Jonghyun glanced at the confused Taemin. “You choose.”

The maknae looked once at the grave expression of Minho, the calm and collected one of Key, the annoyed one of Onew, and the laid-back, almost expressionless face of Jonghyun. He muttered incoherent words under his breath and stood up, walking away.

“Where are you going?” Onew asked, “We have schedules in three hours.”

“I’m going… To sort this thing out once and for all.” He replied, grimacing and promising he’d be back in an hour. And if he didn’t, to tell manager that he was running an important errand that needed special attention.

He decided to walk. After consulting the map a few times, he’d found a shortcut that he could take, but it was a back road. Then again, it was in the middle of the afternoon so there really wasn’t nothing much to worry about.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, he thought of what to say. The largest issue he was facing was whether to accept or reject her. Also, if he were going to reject, how would he do it? His mind formed all sorts of possibilities, but none of them seemed to work out right.

He frowned. After a few more minutes, he turned a corner and spotted the girl. This time, she was dressed in a Phillip Lim pale pink silk muscle t-shirt covering her white sleeveless cotton inner, ankle stretch skinny jeans (faded), and some suede flats. She was bent over doing something, but when she heard footsteps, she looked up and took a deep breath, squinting, trying to make out whom it was.

“Minhyuk.”

Her expression was bright and happy. Such a pity, he thought, furrowing his brows and creasing his forehead. She was confused.

“Min Jung I have to tell you something.”

“No wait, me first.” She said, taking a few steps closer to him, smiling. “Okay… you first then.” Taemin replied, deciding to give her what she wanted before he told her the truth.

“Well, Minhyuk. Over these two weeks I’ve been thinking… I really liked what we had going on at the café that night, and I… this might be too early but I like you. I really do like you, Minhyuk. It’s weird right—”

Taemin wanted to cut in there just then, because he couldn’t stand her go on about it anymore, it would hurt him and her too much. “Look, Min Jung, I’m not Minhyuk, I don’t study in that University, and I’m… not who you think I am. I’m Lee Taemin, member of the boyband SHINee, and that night I came was to celebrate my birthday. I can’t be with you, because I’m famous. And that would cause scandals, which you really don’t want to be involved in. Listen to me, I don’t like you back and I can’t be with you.”

When he’d said his piece, Min Jung’s eyes were b with tears. She didn’t expect herself to be rejected so quickly, and that who she liked lied to her before she had a chance of being with him in the first place. She couldn’t believe she was so stupid.

“Min Jung—”

“Don’t… Taemin… Don’t…” Min Jung’s voice cracked, a sign of how upset she was. Turning around, she picked up her pace and ran away from him.

I’m sorry Min Jung, I really am sorry.

You can never be sorry enough.