Jonghyun had felt a dizzying sense of disorientation right from the moment that he and his band mates had gotten off of the plane in New York.

First off all, there was the fact that they had just crossed into a different time zone. While it was broad daylight in New York, Jonghyun only had to glance quickly at his watch to know that it was well past his usual bed time, in Korea. He had attempted to sleep on his boyfriend's shoulder, while en route, but even the comfort of Key's warm body and welcoming arms couldn't block out the unequivocal roar of the plane's engine, the (English) chatter of a good many passengers who were returning home after a vacation in Korea and the rather unpleasant odors of the unwashed fabrics, the creeping fumes of raw sewage that escaped the in-flight lavatory (that, Jonghyun wouldn't hesitate to confirm, had been exceptionally foul), mixed with the ready-meals that were to be distributed to the passengers.

Jonghyun had actually felt mildly nauseous as he was blasted in all directions by the putrid smells, and had not eaten for the entire flight. He had spent a good part of the journey with his face burried in the jacket that Key had removed, for his sake, and inhaled the younger's trademark scent- a fresh mix of cologne and soap. Watching Jinki, Taemin and Minho share an airline-provided meal, a few seats in front of them, had forced Jonghyun to close his eyes, lest he should lose his breakfast. The thought of Jinki eating cheese, Taemin snacking on pretzels and of Minho actually enjoying a small carton of milk was extremely off-putting to sleep-deprived and slightly air-sick Jonghyun. His only comfort was Key's hand rubbing his back, soothingly, throughout the majority of the flight. 

He had been relieved when the plane finally landed, although he still felt lingering illness. But in the airport, Jonghyun had felt as if he had been nearly knocked over. All around him, people were speaking English, announcements were in English, and various stores boasted signs in English, alone. He, Minho, Taemin and Jinki had all stuck close to Key, like a group of lost tourists, which, essentially, they were. Key was the only one who's English was strong enough to make sense of what everyone around them was saying and he was able to carry himself quite a bit more confidently than the rest. Jonghyun felt lucky, indeed, to have Key as his boyfriend, but he did wish that he was able to say a bit more than "Hello, how are you?" and "Thank you!".

By Key's extensive English, alone, the five young men were able to collect their luggage for the obscurely placed luggage carousel (they, or rather Key, had had to ask a security guard for directions), hail a couple of taxis and once again thanks to Key, give the drivers directions to their hotel. It was a bit of a scene, having Key assure the desperate looking Taemin, Minho and Jinki that he had given their cab driver clear instructions, mentioned that the three passengers were unable to speak English, for the most part and that they needn't worry. Key left them with a pump of confidence that, should worst come to worst, Taemin's (shaky) English that he'd learnt from school ought to be enough to intervene.

Thus, the pressure was put on the maknae, "leader" Jinki clutched Taemin's arm like a life-line as the groups only fluent-in-English member left them to return to his own taxi, and Minho couldn't help but occupy his mind with criticism and wonderment as to why the management team hadn't organized their arrival in a more...welcoming way, and a wish for the taxi's rear to expand so that Key and Jonghyun, but most importantly Key, could join them on their potentially ill-fated trip to the hotel.

All three members made a mental note to work harder on their English lessons once they returned to Korea. 

"Do you think they'll be alright?" Jonghyun asked, as soon as his boyfriend returned beside him, craning his neck and turning back to see if he could catch a glimpse of his surely struggling friends.

Key smiled, wrapping an arm around Jonghyun.

"I'm sure they'll make it to the hotel. And, even if something goes wrong, they have the papers I made for them," Key assured, confident that his friends would be able to make it to the hotel.

Jonghyun agreed, then laughed lightly. Key had indeed made sure that Jinki, Minho and Taemin were well equipped- he had printed off sheets of paper for them, back in Korea, with phrases such as "Can you tell me where is the nearest telephone?", "Where is Hotel ~~~?" and, ultimately, "I can't speak English", in Korean, with their English equivalents so that they could point to the phrase and the English speaker could read the translated line beneath. The almost comical "life-line" hadn't been necessary for Jonghyun- he and Key would likely be trying to spend every minute together, anyways.

"Besides," Key added, rubbing Jonghyun's lower back, as the taxi began pulling out of the airport entrance. "It can't be worse than Japan."

It certainly couldn't, Jonghyun had to agree. Japan had to be where some of their most  embarrassing public appearances had occured. Jonghyun could remember how much he had struggled to say "I love you" to their fans...and hadn't been able to say anything more.

"How are you so talented with languages?" Jonghyun moaned, leaning against Key's shoulder

"Practice," Key answered, amused by Jonghyun's clear longing to be fluent in more than one language.

"Hmm..." Jonghyun mumbled, not feeling much like practicing English, at all. He was tired, he loathed the smell of the airplane that had soaked into his clothes, and he longed to take a shower...

-----

Many a time had Jonghyun attended press conferences and fan signings. But never before had he been surrounded by so much English. He felt very fuzzy and special to see how popular Shinee was, even in a North American sector of the world, but he also felt quite overwhelmed...and could hardly speak with his American fans.

"Hi, Jonghyun!" An excited young woman approached with a poster for him to sign.

"Hello!" Said Jonghyun. "How are you?" So far, so good.

"I'm great, thanks," she beamed, thrilled that Jonghyun had asked after her. "How are you?"

"I'm great, thanks," Jonghyun parroted, and offered a bright smile. He had been able to understand what she had asked him...but he had a difficult time answering.

She then moved on to Key, who was right next to Jonghyun, and Jonghyun determinedly faced the next fan.

"Annyeong Jonghyun-ssi!" The young man quipped.

Jonghyun nearly lept out of his seat with excitement at the thought that someone was fluent in Korean. As much as he appreciated his foreign fans' support and enjoyed (trying to) speak with them, he felt relief at not having to strain to follow with basic conversation, as he had been doing for the last half hour.

How disappointed he was, indeed, when the fan immediately switched back to English. It appeared that he had only learnt a few words of Korean, and Jonghyun ended up returning to his "Hello, how are you?" routine.

A few minutes later presented Jonghyun with a situation that he had no idea how to get himself out of.

"We love your hair," a girl and her friend told him, as he signed a t-shirt of theirs.

"Thank you," Jonghyun smiled, inwardly hoping that the conversation wasn't about to progress any further...but he had a sinking feeling that his limited English was about to be put to the test.

"What hair products do you use? Do you straighten it, or is it just naturally straight? I've been trying to do mine the same way for ages, but I just can't seem to pull it off. What's your secret?"

Jonghyun froze. He felt a little part of his brain, that had gone into overdrive to process the influx of English, explode. He had caught the words "hair", and "straight", and..."pull it off"... but he couldn't really formulate the question, properly, in his mind.

Surely, they hadn't asked him to pull his hair straight off?!

 The loud sounds of music and chatter in the room didn't help the already struggling young man.

Jonghyun grinned in a manner that he thought was quite dumb, at the two fans for a moment, as he tried to buy time."Hair", "straight"...they had previously said that they loved his hair, hadn't they?

Jonghyun felt a sense of relief flood over him. Of course! They were just complimenting his hair, again! He mentally slapped himself. He should have known. The rest of their speech had probably been some slang or something of the sort that he didn't have to know to express his gratitude.

"Thank you," Jonghyun said, giving them another smile, and feeling a sense of pride that he had managed to think on the spot and produce an adequate response.

Both the girl and the boy looked at Jonghyun for a moment, a little taken aback. Then, small smiles cracked across their faces, not maliciously, but ones of a "Jonghyun is so cute!" nature.

"He uses Elastine*," Key intervened, leaning a little to the side to talk to the two fans.

Jonghyun looked from the smiling fans to the equally smiling Key, wondering why his boyfriend had just mentioned his brand of shampoo.

"And his hair is straight, naturally, but he does straighten it, more, himself."

Satisfied with the accented, but much more proficient answer, the two fluttered away, immediately discussing where they could find Jonghyun's shampoo.

Jonghyun cast a rather helpless look at Key, silently begging him to tell him what had just happened.

Key chuckled, then squeezed Jonghyun's hand, discretely, beneath the covered table.

"They wanted to know how you cared for your hair," he smiled.

Jonghyun flushed as he took in the information, replaying his response with sheer embarrasment.

"Thank you", he had said, to a question that was probably along the lines of "How do you style your hair?" .

"Aww, it's okay, Jjongie," Key smiled, picking up on Jonghyun's humiliation. As the last of the fans had just disappeared outside of the room, he quickly kissed Jonghyun's burning cheek. "You were really cute when you didn't know what to say."

Jonghyun blushed a little more deeply, then he couldn't help but to laugh at himself. This was the type of experience that would have his sister bugging him about, for months.

-----

After the signing, the five young men were rather pleased with the fact that they were able to go out in the streets and integrate themselves with the general public, without raising any unwanted attention. Language barrier aside, this privacy was a luxury they could not indulge in, at home, and they intended to enjoy their evening.

They managed to find a restaurant, without too much trouble. It was one that specialized in smoked meats- something none of them had ever tried. The five had stood outside for a few more minutes than necessary, as Key attempted to teach them how to pronounce "smoked meat". Taemin's attempt had been the best, with Minho and Jonghyun not far behind...and Jinki lagging quite a bit, with his comical, but unintended overemphasis of the syllables.

"I'm older than all of you," Jinki had justified. "It's more difficult for me to learn a new language."

All was going well inside the restaurant, until Jinki insisted that he needed practice and decided that he was going to take over Kibum's role and order for the group. Taemin, Jonghyun, Minho and Key exchanged nervous looks, but decided to let their leader have a go.

Jinki began with their drinks- Taemin was to have pineapple juice, iced-tea was destined for Minho, Jonghyun had pointed out watermelon juice from the menu, as his drink of choice, Key was happy with a glass of water and Jinki himself was going to try strawberry juice.

For practicality's sake, they should all have followed Key's suit and had water.

Jinki and Jonghyun wound up with dessert before dinner, as the waitress placed a bowl of strawberry ice-cream in front of Jinki, and a plate of fresh watermelon for Jonghyun. Taemin got his pineapple juice...only Jinki had accidentally ordered from the children's menu (he wasn't comfortable pronouncing the word "pineapple", and had pointed at the menu, instead, without realizing that he was looking at the children's "fun menu"), and Taemin also got a free plastic cup, with cartoons drawn on the sides and a colorful, bended straw to top it off. Minho did get his tea...hot tea, and a whole pot of it. Key was the only one who had successfully received his glass of water.

"Oops..." Jinki had offered, as he and his friends stared at their "drinks", with quite a bit of shock.

"Well...I've got a free souvenir to bring back home, now," Taemin finally managed, as he studied his drink's colorful and fun-filled receptacle.

Not wanting to take any more risks, Jinki "surrendered the wheel" to Key, thereby ensuring that the group actually got the food that they ordered. Jinki's earlier mishap wasn't too detrimental, either, as the boys found that watermelon dipped in melted ice cream wasn't quite as repulsive as it sounded. Minho's tea was gladly distributed aroud the table, and, as Taemin had reasoned, he had a momento of "the time when Jinki-hyung tried to order in English".

-----

Despite their highly enjoyable evening as relatively "normal folk", the five were quite glad to return to the hotel, that night. Jinki seemed nearly on the verge of cardiac arrest, in his panic that someone would approach him and try to speak with him in English, and he, Taemin and Minho had clung to the safety blanket that was Kibum, so that it seemed that Kibum was in a relationship with all four of his fellow group members, rather than just Jonghyun.

"We need to practice," Jinki said, with determination, as they stepped into the lobby of the hotel.

In clear agreement, Taemin and Minho followed Jinki to his hotel room, that night, intending to do all in their power to avoid making fools out of themselves when it came time for them to perform in front of a largely English-speaking crowd, the following day. As it was morning in Korea, Jinki whipped out his cellphone, already punching in his boyfriend's number, hoping to seek assistance. After all, Jiyong's English proved to be far more extensive than his, and he wanted to complain about how much he needed practice to his beloved...

"Well, I guess that just leaves you and me," Kibum smiled, taking Jonghyun's hand and leading him into their own room, once they wished their friends a good night.

The young couple intended to relax that night, with Jonghyun promptly taking a hot shower, then laying on his stomach, on the queen-sized bed, scrolling through television channels as he waited for Kibum to finish his own shower.

He managed to find an interesting horror film, that, blessedly, had Korean subtitles, only he had to turn down the volume and get up from the bed, to stand in front of the large hotel window, in order to avoid scaring himself green, before Kibum joined him.

"I thought you wanted to spend the whole night watching television, Jjongie," Kibum commented,with a teasing grin, when he got out of the shower and noticed Jonghyun blatantly avoiding the television screen.

"It's a horror film," Jonghyun explained, unnecessarily, for Kibum already knew the cause of Jonghyun's sudden television aversion.

Kibum chuckled, before throwing himself down on the bed, and extending his arm, in invitation for Jonghyun to join him. Jonghyun happily complied, curling up beneath the cool, fresh and crisp white hotel sheets and leaning against Kibum's shoulder as the latter reached for the remote control and turned up the volume of the film.

Fifteen minutes later had Jonghyun gripping Kibum's forearm with both hands and cowering into his lover's chest, rather cutely, as Kibum would describe.

Kibum chuckled, wrapping an arm around Jonghyun's frame.

"I love you, Jonghyun," he said, softly, in English.

Jonghyun looked up at Kibum, momentarily distracted from the film, with an expression of pure confusion on his face.

Understanding the problem, Kibum's smile widened, and he laid a kiss on Jonghyun's hand.

"Jonghyun, saranghae," he clarified.

Note:

I had started this one on an earlier date, and decided to finish it tonight ^^ Hope you enjoy :)

*Elastine is a Korean shampoo that I discovered on the internet ^^

x Angela