“That is Nichkhun. You can call him Khun oppa,”

Standing in the middle of the large foyer of a mansion, 6-year-old Minsun looked up at her mother who was smiling ever widely, encouraging her to be friends with the boy who had just moved to Seoul with his family from Thailand a few days ago, as her mother told her beforehand. Khun didn’t seem much older than her, but his attitude was totally different. While Minsun was being shy and kept hiding behind her father’s legs, Khun stood straight and smiled confidently by the side of his father.

“Hello. My name is Khun. Nice to meet you,” the boy spoke in fluent English. Seemed like he didn’t know how to speak Korean. He didn’t even look Korean anyway. 

He stretched his hand towards the shy girl.

“She’s not usually like this. She is probably extra shy today because Khun is too good-looking,” Mrs. Seo added, making the boy blushed. Minsun pouted, disagreeing with her mother.

Well, Khun was really cute, but she didn’t have to tell that to his face.

Mr. Seo laughed along with Khun’s parents. Mrs. Seo pushed on Minsun’s back so that she stepped forward and accepted Khun’s gesture of friendship. She did, but still wasn’t able to look straight into Khun’s eyes.

“Now, we adults have to discuss on important things, so you kids go and play something. But remember to behave,” Mrs. Seo warned. The obedient little Minsun nodded.

“Okay, Mrs. Seo. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Minsun well,” Khun said confidently.

Mr. and Mrs. Seo smiled in satisfaction. The fathers left towards the reading room, probably off to discuss about the business partnership while the mothers went for the kitchen to prepare a big dinner for all of them that night.

Casually, Khun took Minsun’s small hand in his.

“Would you like to play something?” He asked in English. Minsun had no problem understanding and conversing in English at all. Being born in a well-off family, it was natural that Minsun was taught English since a tender age. She was even sent to international kindergarten so that she could mix well with foreign children.

“I don’t know,” Minsun answered shyly.

“I like to play chess. Back in Thailand, I play with my grandfather everyday,”

“But I don’t know chess,”

“I can teach you. C’mon, it’s going to be fun,” he said and dragged her upstairs, into his room.

Minsun looked up from the little chess set she brought on her own that day when Khun entered the gym. The basketball team wasn’t there, because it wasn’t the gym of Miryung High. They were at another school from the same district, where the chess competition was held. Minsun was substituting for a girl just like as she had promised Khun a couple of weeks ago. The chess competition started since the morning, and it was lunch break right now. Both Khun and her had passed the preliminary rounds during the morning and right now she was sitting alone, ignoring the busy people around her and played a little chess game on her own. Khun left a while ago to refresh himself, leaving Minsun alone at the gym.

“Is the break time up already?” Minsun asked.

“Yeah,” Khun simply answered, smiling at her. “Let’s go. Our turn is next,”

Minsun nodded and stood up as she shoved her things into her bagpack. Their accompanying teacher was meeting with one of the committee to discuss a bit on the competition so there were only them both from Miryung High there. 

“It’s been a while isn’t it?” Minsun suddenly asked.

“What is?”

“Since we played chess together,”

Khun reminisced down the memory lane when they used to visit each other almost everyday just to play together. He smiled to himself.

“Because you stopped coming to my house,”

“A lot of things had changed,” Minsun muttered with a light smile on her lips.

“You can come anytime if you want to,”

“Thanks, oppa,”






Miryung High Gym
2.15 p.m.

The basketball team was having their normal practice sessions, this time with their coach around to supervise them. They had just finished their warming up rounds of twenty laps run around the gym, and were doing more stretches.

Jaebum and Taecyeon were sitting nearby each other.

“So, what’s up with you and her?” Jaebum suddenly asked.

“Stop asking me that. It’s not like we’re… for real.” Taecyeon brushed him off but didn’t forget to cut short his explanation to hide his scandal with Minsun from their coach.

Jaebum shrugged.

“Huh? Who? Who?” Coach Cho asked nosily despite looking confused.

“Nah. Taecyeon had a bad fight with his older sister yesterday.” Jaebum simply brushed off his curious coach. Coach Cho nodded to himself and continued wandering around the court, supervising his team even during their break.

“So, where is she right now?” Jaebum asked, instead of asking ‘Why is she not coming today?’

“She had a chess competition or something,”

“I see,” Jaebum nodded. 

“May I add something?” Chansung suddenly slipped in his question, and smiled like an eager little child. He had been picking up their conversation since he was standing close to them as well.

“Yes, you may, Chansung,” Jaebum smiled, even though Taecyeon secretly signaled him to make the kid stay off the topic. He had Jaebum enough to bug him about Minsun every single day. Well, that was probably because he teased Jaebum about Gohee everyday too.

“Sunbae, I suggest you work a little harder, even though you are just a-” Chansung loked to his left and right to make sure nobody unrelated could hear him, and then continued, “-a pretend boyfriend. Take her to a date and stuff.”

“What? Why?”

Chansung shrugged. 

“I just have a feeling that your crazy fangirls might doubt the validity of your relationship with her. Once that happen,” Chansung shrugged, “They might bully Minsun again,”

Taecyeon pretended like he heard nothing and focused on his stretching.

“See? Even Chansung had the common sense to think that you should at least take her out,”

“Geez, will you stop it?” Taecyeon winced, but Jaebum simply laughed at him.




That day, Taecyeon was the last to exit the changing room. There would be a late night cram session that day, and he purposely being late to class. He needed some time alone to reflect back on his actions. He wondered if he did the right thing? He was always confident and firm with his decisions during a game, but not with girls. He could read a game’s pattern, but not a girl’s thinking.

The truth was, no matter how cool he was around girls, nobody knew how he much he trembled in nervousness inside. He tried to avoid any contact with his fans as much as possible.

And Minsun is a girl.

However, eventually he started to view Minsun differently than other girls. At first, he thought she was just another fan. He always spotted her in one seat at each and every of their game. Amidst the cheering fangirls and boys, she just stood still, watching the game quietly, and smiled everytime they scored a shoot. In fact, the rest of the basketball players recognized her, but that was all and they never knew more about each other.

Eventually he realized that he had been harboring some sort of admiration towards her. Whether it was her mature elegance or the mystery air about her or just a simple crush, he wasn’t so sure either. But he was sure that he was somehow attracted at her.

“Yeah, like seriously!”

Taecyeon paused behind the door when he heard girls’ voices outside. They must be his fans.

They were still there? Taecyeon quietly cleared his throat and practiced smiling for a while. He can do it, he told himself.

“Taecyeon sunbae was just being nice to her. Do you think a perfect guy like him would go out with a weirdo like her?”

“That’s true! If you look at his cyworld, there was not a single picture of him with girls! Except for Munhwa, but she’s a different story.”

“I still think Minsun is a b*tch who plays innocent in front of guys. She pretended like the whole incident as an accident when it was actually planned by her!”

“She is deceiving all the guys in the basketball team!”

“I wonder who’s the next victim. Wooyoung? Since the’re from the same class,”

“We’ll just have to wait until the truth is revealed. Then, I will never make her life easy anymore,”

Chansung was right. Minsun’s safety was yet secured. Not until he really proved to them that he was dating her, for real.






5.10 p.m.

Taecyeon had arrived right on time, feeling a bit nervous than usual as the clock ticked away. Dressed casually in jeans and t-shirt, he waited patiently in front of the gate while thinking of what to say when she goes out. Maybe he shouldn’t think so much? Maybe he shouldn’t take this outing too seriously. He told that to Minsun himself. Taecyeon sighed. He was still arguing with himself if he did the right thing because he might just be selfish in the end for asking her out, because who knows? Minsun might not have the slightest interest at him.

That night, after the cram session, Taecyeon bet on his gut and finally called Minsun. God knew just how long he fiddled his phone in his hands. When he decided he just had to press the dial button, everything came out smoothly from his mouth, he surprised himself. He had calmly asked Minsun for an ‘outing’ this weekend, and told her to just have fun and use the chance to get to know each other better since they had to play ‘couple’ at least at school. And to his surprise again, she easily, and simply said yes.

“Annyeong hasaeyo,” Minsun greeted softly as she pushed open the steel gate.

“Ah, annyeong,” Taecyeon automatically put up a smile. Nobody could guess how shaken he was inside behind such dashing smile.

“I’m sorry I was a little late. Halmeoni was being very fussy with my dressing,”

Taecyeon’s eyes instantly stuck at her. Everything else blurred in the background while he took in each details from head to toe. She wore a white denim jacket over her pastel yellow blouse and matched them with a lacy peach pink skirt. And her hair, it wasn’t her everyday-studious-schoolgirl bun, but she simply put them up in a high ponytail, and maybe a little dab of lip gloss on her lips and she looked so much prettier with such small change. It wasn’t long before Taecyeon shook his head to pull himself back together. He realized that he was being rude by staring so he quickly added a comment.

“You look really nice today,” he complimented.

“Thank you,” Minsun said calmly, despite her reddening cheeks.

“Let’s go,” he said and then led the way.

They both caught a bus and headed downtown. Taecyeon being the gentleman he was even paid for her bus fare. They stopped at an indoor theme park. Since it was Sunday, the place was packed with families and couples, including them. 

To the both surprise, Minsun actually had fun with the more adventurous rides but she was surprised to see a new side of the team captain who was hanging onto his dear life on the roller coaster or the Viking Ship. It had been really long since she went out and had fun with her friends so she really enjoyed the date. Taecyeon was sport enough to accompany her with all those rides, but it was all good because they both were able to laugh at each other.

“You know what?” Taecyeon asked as soon as he paid for the ice cream for them both. They took a seat at one of the benches there and just relax after playing so much.

“What?” Minsun asked as she received the ice cream from Taecyeon and started on it.

“I’ve never seen you laugh so much,”

“I know,” Minsun nodded as she continued on the ice cream.

“Why?” Taecyeon hesitated before he continued, “You look prettier when you smile,”

Minsun wasn’t exactly comfortable with his compliment, but she brushed it away, thinking he was just being honest, nothing else.

“I guess I take school too seriously?”

“You do. You don’t just study at school, you know?”

“But I’m not good at making friends.”

Taecyeon shook his head. “You’re doing fine now. No need to force yourself. It’s not easy for people to differentiate between glass and diamond, you know?”

Then, he must be saying that she was a diamond, or that he was good at differentiating between glass and diamond. Either that or both. Minsun never thought she was that special to compare herself with diamond though. In fact, she thought she was lacking a lot, that was why she tried to make herself disappear in the background, so that nobody would be hurt with her weakness. But that was just one of the thousand reasons. She even thought once that her existence was a mistake.

Minsun smiled anyway. It’s good to know that someone could appreciate her for who she was anyway.

“Can I ask you something then?”

“What is it?” He answered casually, his eyes somewhere else, watching the many people passing by.

“Is it true what Wooyoung said about you? About your phobia with girls?”

Taecyeon coughed as he choked on his own saliva. H quickly turned to Minsun again.

“That brat!”

“I have always been wondering why you don’t have a girlfriend since you practically received love letters everyday. So I guess Wooyoung made sense,” Minsun giggled softly. Taecyeon seemed embarrassed, but at the same time never felt more comfortable talking about his weakness.

“I’m not really sure about the girl I like, and I thought girls are really fragile beings. It’s scary to think that I could hurt them at the slightest move. Whenever I think of that, I just… I just get malfunctioned,”

Minsun laughed again. 

“You must think I’m weird.” Taecyeon sighed.

Minsun smiled, “Don’t worry, I’m weirder,”

Taecyeon smiled again. He pulled out his phone.

“Let’s take a picture together,”

Minsun nodded. She complied to Taecyeon when he motioned her to be closer to him. Smiling to the camera, Taecyeon snapped the picture and looked at the outcome. They both looked like a real couple in the picture. Almost brushing cheeks, they both held their ice creams close to their mouths and smiled at the camera.

They turned the phone around to see the picture they just took and was surprised at the outcome. Both Taecyeon and Minsun turned to lok at each other at the same time and both just stared at each other without a word.

It was the first time for them both to take a picture like that, and they really looked like a couple.

And then they laughed again.

“Hey,” Taecyeon said. “I’m going to upload this on my Cyworld page, okay? You know, so people would…”

Minsun nodded, understood. “Sure, go ahead.”

Taecyeon unknowingly scooted closer to her so she could watch him too. With his phone, he went straight to his blog and uploaded the picture there.

“Hm… What should I write for the title?” Taecyeon mumbled.

“How about… With my girl~♥ or something along that line?”

Taecyeon looked surprise. “Isn’t that a little too… showy? Cheesy?” Taecyeon scratched the back of his neck. He wondered how did Jaebum handled these stuffs? He was such a show off but luckily Gohee wasn’t fond of public display of affection, so he wasn’t always mushy and annoying in front of them. 

Minsun shrugged. “Really? But I saw other couples did that on their Cyworld.” Minsun said innocently.

“Maybe we should start with something a bit more… mediocre,”

Minsun nodded.

“Something like…”

“Like, It was so much fun!”

“That’s good. Let’s go with that then.” Taecyeon finally clicked the ‘Post’ button. He figured a few settings for the post, and while his eyes glued on the screen of his phone, he asked,

“Is this your first time in a date? I mean, sort of, date,”

“Yes,”

Taecyeon seemed to think of something when he clasped his lips and did a ‘Hmmm…’ noise.

“Give me your phone,” he asked suddenly.

Minsun obeyed him like a good child. She handed him her handphone and he transferred the picture they took just now into her phone. Then, he set the picture as the wallpaper.

“Here. Don’t change the wallpaper. For now, let’s pretend to be a couple, okay?”

“Nae,” Minsun took back her phone and smiled at the new picture. Just when she was about to put the pone back in her tote, the phone rang. It was Khun.

Minsun picked it up right away after she gave Taecyeon a glance. Taecyeon nodded and relaxed his back by leaning at the backrest of the bench and contined finishing the ice cream.

“Minsun ah, where are you?” Khun sounded anxious at the other end. Minsun wasn’t feeling good at the way he talk. He was always gentle and collected.

“What’s wrong, oppa?”

Taecyeon started to pay attention at her change of tone.

“Minsun ah… Halmeoni…”