Seunghyun's first thought about Los Angeles was that it was quite possibly hotter than hell itself there in the summer time. The heat was literally rippling off the sidewalks, giving everything a wavy, underwater look outdoors. He had been to the city a handful of times before, but never alone. After he checked into his own hotel, he realized that taking the metro would take an hour , but this wasn't much of an issue to him. He enjoyed being able to ride the train and not be noticed. To people watch, scenery watch and also reply to Minhee's 27 messages she had sent him in the span of half a day. He sighed, and slipped on a pair of aviators right before running a hand through his already sweaty hair. The sun here was bright enough to burn someone's eyes from their sockets, he though as he walked towards to station. He heard his phone chime, and saw it was Minhee again. Then he had a thought. It struck him so suddenly that it actually stopped him in his tracks. He was just going to tell Minhee that he was asleep when she was awake and vice versa, so replying wasn't the easiest thing. That should technically be true anyway, what with the giant time difference now. 

He set Minhee's ringtone and message alert to silent just before he bought his metro ticket.

~~~~~

Rachel had literally taken one look at the bed in the room, and dropped her weekend bag on the floor by the door before all but crawling over to it. It had been a six and a half hour drive, and she barely slept at all the night before. Instead she tossed and turned til she finally gave up and got out of her bed at 4am. She knew she could get a good two hours of sleep before Seunghyun even got to the LAX airport. Add travel time to that and she was looking at having the best nap ever. She flipped the hood of her hoodie up and pulled the drawstrings so that only her eyes  and nose showed, and curled up to get some much needed rest.

Instead she had crazy, totally insane dreams. Ones that weren't quite nightmares, but more like ones a person would have if they dropped some acid. Talking trees and flying cats, grass that was changing colors whenever she touched it. Rachel knelt down to pick a dandelion in her dream world, and blew on it. It scattered into a milion diamond like sparkles, which made her gasp. She pulled another and did the same, but this time the dandelion puffs came away as purple smoke. Just as she was going to try a third, Rachel heard a loud clap of thunder, followed by another. She raised her eyes as the thunder sounded again, and suddenly her acid trip dream world was dissolving around her rapidly and quite literally. What the hell.

Rachel sat up in her hotel bed with a start, looking left to right while she tried to gather herself. Was it raining outside? Maybe that is where the thunder in her dream was coming from. She squinted her eyes and saw that the light outside the window was fading into twilight. It was getting dark. Her eyes shot to the alarm clock on the bedside table and it illuminated "8:57pm."

She leapt up and snatched up her phone, seeing three missed called from Seunghyun's number an hour ago, and one text dated less than 5 minutes ago. She rubbed her eyes and cursed out loud. She had overshot her nap by an hour. Her hand came away smudged with dark eyeliner but at this point she barely noticed. She didn't even bother reading that text, it was pointless now. She went to redial his number when an extremely loud knock on the door echoed in the room. It repeated. Again. And again. 

"And now some dickhead is outside, cop-knocking and not getting the point to go away already!" She bellowed as she held the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. 

"Go away, wrong room!" She hollered, and said it again in Spanish just in case.

Finally the ringing stopped, it she heard a generalized Korean voicemail prompt. Oh, and the knocking was still going on. She was going really chew out whatever looser had her confused with their drug connect. Thats what she got for staying in this cheap place. She huffed and jammed her phone into her pocket. Whoever this was must be ing high as a kite. Rachel flung the door open, not caring about her smeared, raccoon eyes or hair that was starting to re-curl and poof from being slept on.

"Can't you take a hin-" She screamed but her voice died on her lips when she realized just who had been beating her hotel door down. She stared for a few seconds, a litle smile creeping onto the man's face as she did so. 

Seunghyun pulled off his sunglasses and glanced at the hallway wall behind him, then back to Rachel. "I've been sitting there for the past hour. People must think I'm your stalker." 

She stared at him, bug eyed at the fact he had actually made his way to her hotel room and secondly that he had just told her that he basically chilled outside for over an hour. She felt like a jackass, even moreso because she couldn't really understand all of what he just said to her. Seunghyun seemed to sense this and leaned in a little bit, whispering.

"How about we stick to English for now, Bora." He made it as more of a statement than a question, and with this she snapped back into reality. She broke into a smile at last and took a step back, motioning for him to come inside. For all she had imagined about him, Rachel had neglected to think that Seunghyun would have turned out as tall as he did. She came right about shoulder height on him, being barely five feet tall.

" You know, I was really thinking someone would call the police on me for sitting there." 

"Not out here," Rachel replied, watching as he flopped back on her bed, arms and legs stretching out, "at least not in this part of the city, unless you're doing something way more stupid than just sitting around. Jetlag?"

He shook his head no, then sat up. "Thats some y eyeliner." Seunghyun said as he tried to stifle back a laugh. It had made large, dark rings around both eyes, and tracked down her cheeks. He guessed she had slept in it, and forgotten about it til he said something. Rachel's hand flew up to her face and swiped under one eye, and she bolted to a mirror when it came away dark smudged.

"Oh, God," she covered her face with her hands for a second before succumbing to a fit of giggles at her reflection of black steaked cheeks and poofy hair, "I look like a crackhead!" She turned around as she exclaimed this only to find herself inches from Seunghyun's chest. Rachel peered up at him, giving him this crazy look and taking a tiny step back.

"You didn't mention you were tall as the trees." 

He grinned down at her but didn't move, "And you didn't tell me you hadn't grown at all in ten years."

Rachel sighed and rolled her still dark rimmed eyes, stepping around him but shooting a faux deadly glare over sher shoulder as she stepped into the bathroom to wash her face. She put on her sweetest, most innocent souding voice. 

"If you keep teasing me, I'll be forced to tickle you to death. I'm sure thats something that hasn't changed on you either, right?" With this she shut the door behind her, and locked it for good measure. She turned the water on but just sat in the middle of the floor for at least a minute or two, listening to its white noise sound and taking in what exactly was going on. It was insane. All of it was insane. But here he was, and here she was, in the same damn hotel room all those years later. And he was....Rachel in a deep breath.....so soooooo damn good looking in person. Not that Seunghyun was ugly before, but age had certainly done him some favors. She scrubbed the dark splotches from her face with vigor and wondered vaguely why he didn't have a girlfriend. Oh well, not something she was going to dwell on or even ask about again. She heard a sharp, short knock on the door, and Seunghyun again speaking Korean, which this time she understood for the most part.

"Shorty, you still alive in there?"

(~*~*~*Enjoy guys, will try and get out the other, much longer chapter in a few days. As always, comment and let me know ^^*~*~*~)