17. Stay With Me

Pairing: Minseul [Mino and Seulgi]

Concept: Idols!Au

Inspiration: Stay With Me | Jay Park (please give it a listen while you read)

[Completed]

It was barely audible but Mino could still hear the sound of her pencil scratch and glide onto her sketchbook paper. He would sometimes synchronize it with his own pencil as he wrote words that didn’t have a meaning yet. Sometimes, he came up with something through it but most of the time, Mino was just fooling around. Nevertheless, he called the sound of their art colliding and mending in his quiet studio the Afternoon Artist Melody just because he loved to name random things and it was maybe romantic.

"Would a G paired with an F be too unconventional?" Mino distractedly asked Seulgi as he continued to write down some ideas.

"You mean played at the same time?" Mino nodded. "Well, it depends, is it sang or played by an instrument?" Seulgi said as her head jerked up to look at Mino. She was facing his back since she was sitting on the couch behind the huge panel control the songwriter used to work.

"I don't know yet," Mino grunted.

"Then, is it in the background or completely exposed?"

Mino turned to face her with a sour expression.

"Yes, you don't know, I'm sorry," Seulgi nodded before returning back to her drawing.

"I'm not mad at you, I am just frustrated that it doesn't come as easily as it used to," Mino sighed as his eyes lingered on her. From her eyes, to her nose and then to her pursed lips. It had been a while since he met them, he bitterly realized.

"Maybe if you spent a bit more time sleeping, your brain would get some rest and then ideas would come more easily," she reasoned before giving him a small cheeky smile.

He would usually answer back to her smart remark just because he never liked to let her be right without a good fight but Mino was too engrossed in Seulgi's features to notice. He couldn't understand how everything was assembled so well to make her look the way she did. Mino found himself thinking most of the time when she was asleep on his arm or randomly after spending too much time away from her that he wouldn't have changed a single thing about her even if God gave him the task of creating a new Kang Seulgi. She was just that pretty.

And yet she hadn't always been so pretty to him. Mino never understood what was so special about Seulgi until he learnt to know her. She was decent looking, a bit on the skinny side with unique cat eyes and a cute smile, sure but that was all there was to it. He rarely looked back twice at her when they met at official events, not only because she was not noticeable among all the other female celebrities but also because she just wasn't his type. He loved fierce women, preferably a bit older but Seulgi didn't seem to be able hurt anyone even if her life depended on it. Worst of all, the thing that irked Mino the most was that she was extremely polite. He never heard her drop the formalities with anyone that wasn't her age, even her older member Irene and it was too 'perfect' to Mino. Seulgi seemed like a manufactured doll.

Truly, Seulgi was boring.

It wasn't until she bumped into him in a hotel at an event oversea that they began talking. Even then, Mino was a bit cold but Seulgi remained warm to him until the end because she needed to ask him how she could go back to her room since she was lost. He simply explained to her that she was not only on the wrong floor but also in the wrong building and proceeded to walk her back out of courtesy. Their talk was essentially meaningless, Mino couldn't even remember what they were talking about but he could not forget any detail about her since then. He could list every single thing she was wearing on that night, even that weird yellow hair pin and those awful slippers because it was then he realized that she was far from the first impression he got of her: Seulgi was not perfect as surprising at it sounded. She butchered some words, she was flustered and blushed easily and she also smiled a lot for no reason.

All of those things that made him realize that she was not that perfect back then made him swoon head over heels for her two years later.

Mino groaned and turned back to his composition. This was so unfair.

"You haven't been coming here lately," he mumbled a few minutes later.

Seulgi remained silent as she continued to draw but he could hear her hum some music he wasn't familiar with.

"I don't get to see you as often," he continued although he knew she didn't like to hear him complain about the time they couldn't spend together.

"You told me to stop coming," Seulgi reminded him. "Because it was 'dangerous to hang around anyone from the company',” she quoted.

"I can't control the old freak's scandals."

"I know," Seulgi said. "But you cannot complain about something you imposed yourself."

She was right on this and he knew he wouldn't win because they always had this conversation and he never won. Quarreling during the only chance they got to see each other since weeks ago? Mino would die from it, he missed her too much to risk it.

"Seulgi could you please sing this for me?"

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