Minji’s POV

“Tao, can I stop spinning now? I’m getting dizzy,” I laughed, coming to a stop as the dress swished around my legs. Tao blinked up at me from where he was sitting on a bench in front of the dressing rooms.

“Oh! Um, of course,” he said quickly, and then added with a mischievous glint in his eye, “Wouldn’t want you falling over, now would we?”

“No, we would not,” I agreed, grinning at him. He turned red, shyly looking down at his knees, and there was an awkward pause. I cleared my throat.

“So, um…should we get going?”

 “Yeah,” Tao said, standing up—and towering over me. God, he was tall. I craned my neck up to look at him as he said, “But Minji, are you gonna buy the dress? It’s perfect on you—you’d look so good at prom. Not that you wouldn’t look good otherwise,” he added hastily, causing me to smile. I’d been doing that a lot lately—smiling. Maybe Key’s little blind date plan actually had something to it.

“I’ll think about it, Tao.” I glanced down at the dress I was wearing. It was pale pink and skimmed the floor—very pretty. But something was holding me back from buying it—and even though I didn’t want to admit it, I knew what it was.

It reminds me too much of the dress I wore for my birthday dinner with Taemin.

I froze and then shook my head, much to the confusion of Tao. “Minji? Are you okay?” he asked, concern lacing his voice. “You don’t have to buy it; it was just a suggestion…”

“I’m fine,” I replied, more sharply than intended. Tao flinched, and I immediately felt guilty. “I just—it reminded me of something I wanted to forget,” I explained, in a gentler tone. Tao stared at me for another moment or so before his eyes lit up with a hint of comprehension and he nodded, moving aside to allow me entrance to the dressing room. As I was about to step inside, Tao called out, “Hey, Minji.”

I turned around expectantly, and he cleared his throat before scratching the back of his head and saying awkwardly, “I—I think you’d look beautiful in anything you wore.”

His words brought a wave of unexpected warmth coursing over me, washing out all the negative feelings from a moment ago, and I broke out into a smile as I said, in a genuinely grateful voice, “Thank you, Tao.” Then I stepped inside to change out of the gorgeous pink prom dress.

After Tao dropped me off back at home, I retreated to my room with his Hershey Kiss in tow, dropping it into the designated jar. I paused for a moment, staring at the four little silver kisses sitting inside, and sat down on my bed, deep in thought. It was true that Key oppa and the others’ 12-Blind-Dates plan was working in some ways—I didn’t mope as much anymore, and I wasn’t stuck at home with nothing to do. But the plan failed to make me forget about Taemin; if anything, it made me think about him more.

I’d had a crush on him ever since my first year in high school, but he was a popular second year and so I thought he’d never take a second look at me, much less date me. But he was friends with Minho oppa and thus was often over at our house.

One day, a couple of weeks into my second year, the three of us had been sitting in the living room when Minho had suddenly announced that he needed to use the bathroom and surreptitiously slipped out, leaving me and Taemin alone together. We sat in awkward silence for a moment, before Taemin took a deep breath.

“Minji.”

I jumped and turned to look at him. “A-ah, yes?”

His beautiful brown eyes bored into mine, making a hot blush rise in my cheeks. I wanted to look away, but for some reason couldn’t.

Suddenly I felt his hands take hold of mine, and I felt my face grow even warmer. Now, I’m not usually one to blush all that much, but this boy worked wonders on the natural laws I thought my body had. I gulped as he began to speak again.

“I…I like you.”

Time stopped. Like, literally. My mouth dropped open, and I uttered something unintelligible along the lines of “W-w-wuh?”

Taemin chuckled, and the sound went straight to my heart. “I like you,” he repeated, less timidly this time. “I’ve always liked you, ever since the first time Minho hyung brought me over and you asked if I was his boyfriend.”

I practically choked. “Y-you still remember that?”

Yes, unfortunately the very first time Taemin came over around the start of my first year, I had noticed Minho’s skinship with our other male friends and had been suspicious of his uality. (This was, of course, a phase, and has since passed.) So naturally, when he brought a beautiful boy home, I assumed he was his boyfriend. It’s perfectly reasonable, right?

“Of course,” Taemin laughed, his eyes crinkling up in that adorable way. “How could I forget?” Then his voice turned serious again, and I almost melted under the intensity of his gaze. “So what do you say, Minji? Will you…will you be my girlfriend?”

I felt like my soul had floated out of my body to hover over the scene, observing from above. How could this be? How was it that the very scenario I had dreamt of so many times was actually happening…right now?

How had someone like me, a plain girl with nothing exceptional about her, managed to make Lee Taemin fall in love with her?

“Minji?” Taemin’s voice brought me back from my profound questioning on the impossible matters of life, and I focused on his face once more to see that he looked the tiniest bit worried. And the fact that he actually thought I might reject him spurred me on to utter my absolutely heartfelt answer:

“Of course, you idiot.”

And so we’d dated for one long, happy year. A year in which I discovered that sometimes, the person you think you’re in love with doesn’t necessarily reciprocate your love. Or, even if they do, they’re just too damn lazy to show it.

Too lazy even to ask you to stay when you’ve finally had enough.

A/N:  Little backstory into how Taemin and Minji got together, in case you were wondering. :3