Seungyoon sat back in his room with a dull feeling, drained from internal conflict. No matter how much he gazed at the numbers, they wouldn't change. They remained in place, unwilling to transform, and burned into the white paper. It hurt his eyes and gave him a headache, like he had been facing the biggest challenge of his life. Thankfully, Seungyoon was just looking at a single set of numbers.

Taehyun's phone number, which jumped at him like a living, breathing object, constantly made him go back and forth in his thoughts. His heart was still beating with joy from the moment he noticed it in his pocket, and so he had no idea how to handle it in a sane way. He just looked at the paper and his phone simultaneously, the only logical conclusion right in front of him. Nonetheless, he could not bring himself to even pick up the phone and dial the number; no, he wanted to delay it until he felt ready (which probably meant never).

Seungyoon knew himself well, however, and he was well aware of his hesitation in these scenarios. As much as Seungyoon would argue that he had plenty of dating experience, the truth was that he didn't. He did not count those "group dates", where he basically socialized with all his friends even though he was assigned a date. He did not count "celebrity dates" either, where he was urged by the company to establish connections with other famous people. In fact, most of his outings were only platonic encounters because Seungyoon did not have time for a dating life, and at the time, he did not care for it.

Yet this moment could have been the sign for him. Their meeting awakened some sort of emotion in his heart, and he enjoyed the odd feeling very well. It was awkward at first to have such strong affection for someone he'd just met, but with the way they'd interacted with each other, it somehow felt right, as if all the pieces fell into the right place. Sure, there seemed to be some obstacles, like their gender and occupation, but Seungyoon could care less about those details. Who cared if Taehyun was a guy? He liked anyone, male or female, who could bring him sincere happiness, not the kind of happiness that he had to fake for the sake of others. And who cared that he was working for the paparazzi? As long as it did not have to deal with him (hopefully never again), then it was a trivial matter.

With these reassuring thoughts in mind, he tucked the receipt neatly in his wallet and tossed it all aside. Seungyoon smiled at the ceiling with his hand on his chest; he thanked the universe for this contact number, as he thought he was practically watching Taehyun walk out of his life forever. Thank the world for Taehyun, too, he thought. Seungyoon would have never had the willpower to come out and ask for a phone number - as outgoing and kind as he was, he tensed up when he had to think in terms of romantic relationships.

Nevertheless, he was content with the way events unfolded, so he got up from the bed and started to put away his belongings. This short trip to Busan was intended to be a personal getaway from his workplace (the city was still pretty busy in comparison to Seoul, however), but he felt that he was satisfied enough with the current state of affairs. Seungyoon felt refreshed and renewed from meeting Taehyun, and now that he was leaving too, there did not seem to be anything else he could do to achieve the same effect. His weekend trip was coming to an end anyways - why not just cut it by one day and go back to singing?

Bearing that thought, Seungyoon motivated himself to try hard, and got ready to check out of his hotel.

~~~

Taehyun was good with directions, so he was able to get back to his and Jinwoo's hotel after finding the bakery and other familiar shops on the way to the park.

"Well, hey," Jinwoo remarked, as he threw his clothes back into his duffel bag. "What adventure did you go on?"

Taehyun leaned against the doorway with a smile. "If I told you exactly what happened, you would never believe me."

"Hey, I don't care as long as you got the pictures for our job. You did get those, right?"

"Umm..." Taehyun trailed off. "I did get them, but I also did not."

"What does that mean?" Jinwoo questioned, narrowing his eyes at the other.

"I met him in person." Taehyun directly stated.

"Seungyoon?"

"Yeah," he sighed hesitantly.

"And what happened? Did he erase everything you got?" Jinwoo carefully asked. He finished packing up his belongings and zipped up the light blue bag. Standing up from the floor, he rubbed his hands against his pants and turned towards Taehyun in expectations of a positive answer.

"I have all the pictures, but we kind of went on a date."

Jinwoo scratched his head and looked directly at Taehyun's eyes, unsure of what to exactly follow up with. "Wait what?" he eventually said out of disbelief. Meeting the target celebrity was not uncommon in the business, so that did not come as a surprise. Naturally, it was hard to capture photos discreetly, so something as easy as a loud click or a bad hiding spot could lead to exposure. But never had Jinwoo hear of such a positive reaction to someone in their profession. It just seemed generally twisted for a celebrity to treat someone like Taehyun with kindness, when his job practically thrived off of the dirt of celebrities.

"I said that we went on a date. Because you locked me out last night, I slept in his room, and then today we visited the park on the coast," Taehyun recalled the sweet memory still fresh in his mind.

"Wow. I don't know what to say," he responded with raised eyebrows. "Was he super nice to you?"

"Well yeah. He let me sleep there, bought me food, and took me to that park. Definitely boyfriend material."

"Taehyun," Jinwoo said aloud.

"What?"

"That's seriously cute."

Taehyun's eyes glistened with excitement, and he nodded in agreement. "But there's only one thing that might be a problem," he added. "I don't want to turn in anything that suggests that Seungyoon is dating that girl. It only makes sense, right Jinwoo?"

Jinw