The first time Taeyong sees her, he thinks she is his age, maybe a bit younger. Monolidded doe eyes; small, perky ears; a lanky figure dressed in a hoodie and jeans, with her hands in her pockets; her head of black hair secured by a casual beanie. She's friendly and bright, a bit tomboyish. He's not one to initiate a conversation, but she's gotten him to open up a bit. Their chatter leads to a little awkwardness when he discovers she's a year older, but she tells him not to worry about the formalities.

—

They become acquainted over the months--only as acquainted as a reserved boy could be within the brief talks in that span of time--though considerably more familiar than he is with any other girl his age (which is to say, he knows just about none).

He admires her perseverance as a long-time trainee, and at one point they lightly touch on her worries of debuting. He meets her with encouraging words. He finds that she's a joy to talk to. Although he's still not a great conversation starter, she'd always make the effort to chat with him.

—

Taeyong's always been fairly straitlaced, and he finds himself most centered when dancing. It was something he excelled at and feverishly worked on refining. He never gave much thought to anything else. But this once, as he, the puppy in his hands, and Seulgi stand in front of the camera for a photoshoot, his eyes look down to the top of her head. She's a couple notches shorter than him, even with a pair of slight platform sneakers on. He thinks it's cute. As they're told to ready themselves for the next shot, she leans in slightly, and he does the same.

When the magazine issue is published, Seulgi runs to show him. "Taeyongie, look!" she exclaims. "It turned out pretty well, didn't it?"

He looks at the spread they're on featured on. The height difference is pretty cute, he thinks. He smiles, his warm doe eyes meeting hers. "Yeah."

—

The coming months sees Seulgi's departure from the group they're both in. She's preparing to debut, and as a result they'd come across each other maybe a day or two out of the week, opposed to daily, and usually only in the rest areas or hallways. To an extent, he feels her absence.

—

She debuts, with his and many others' congratulations. By this point, their contact dissipates as she's busy adjusting to the new activities, while he loses himself in practicing.

—

He catches a glimpse of her once every couple of weeks now, maybe, and she begins to look a little different to him each time as the months further pass. It's a slow but gradual change, and he can't seem to pinpoint what. She's a bit more feminine? Alluring? Mature. Lovely, though she's always been lovely.

—

She's swapped a hoodie for pretty dress shirts and wool coats; her sneakers for low heels; jeans, sometimes, for pants. Her thighs and arms were no longer pencil thin; her hips, chest, cheekbones a little more prominent; her lips, a little more plump from the deep hues of gloss and lipstick. In his t-shirt and black jeans, however, he hasn't changed much; not at all. When he looks at himself in the mirror at the end of the day, he despairs inside, realizing that they're now night and day. Though she's still as bright as the day he first met her, and her smiles when she sees him haven't changed, he's never felt more distant from her.

The feeling heightens when Taeyong hears about how she's caught the hearts of admirers. One in particular is a couple months younger than him. Shorter than Taeyong, but strongly built. His arms would be able to wrap around her securely the way Taeyong's slim arms wouldn't, or so he'd think, no matter how muscular his have become. They seemed like a perfect match--the younger boy, with her--where he wouldn't be.

He feels like he can't catch up to her at this rate, that she's no longer within his reach.

He thinks back to one of their few photoshoots. He wishes he'd put his arm around her neck when he was able to; to pull her in a little closer, in the period of time where neither of them were too different from the other, when neither were too far apart; to eternalize them both, at that point in time, in a photo because then, at least, he'd have something in hand to keep.

He wishes he'd been born with a knack for talking, so he could've been the one to start a conversation with her instead; so he could've possibly kept their friendship solidly afloat with something other than brief exchanges of hellos; so he could've given her a tight hug when she ran to him in the loveliest, happiest voice telling him of her debut; so he could've excitedly told her the news of his own debut and receive a hug or a high-five or anything, when in reality she simply found out from word of mouth though other labelmates.

—

It takes him a long while of watching from the sidelines, of her being swept left and right by others, before he sets a resolve. It doesn't matter how unfit they might seem for each other, it doesn't matter what anyone else would think: if he were given another chance, he'd try to convey what he felt for her in the one way he is able to.

—

Like a miracle, his chance comes. She shines on the stage, and in less than a minute she'd be in his arms. It's only when performing that he can dissociate from his more gentle, quiet, boyish persona. He becomes anything he wants to be, and for the mere sixtieth of an hour they have together, he wants to prove that he could be enough for her; for her to think twice before calling him Taeyongie; for her to hold her breath when she sees him in the hallways; for her to acknowledge him, that he could be something more. Look at me, he wants to tell her.

———

The five seconds they spend locked in the embrace--his arm around her neck, steadied by her own hand's grip--seems more like an eternity for Seulgi. Taeyong's face is a few mere inches apart from hers, his gaze locked on her lips as he's panting from exhaustion. She is aware of it all, but as much as she needs to catch her breath, she holds it in, frozen from his intensity. Her confidence has all but left her; the heat rises in her cheeks, but any hint of redness is hidden underneath her foundation and long hair.

When the spotlight fades, she finds her chance to escape and abruptly releases his arm, hurrying away from the stage in the calmest manner she can manage.

—

Seulgi is in bed, and it's well past midnight. 4AM, in fact. They haven't spoken since she uttered a small thank you to him behind the stage and hastily left. It'd be at least a couple of days before she'd have any chance of seeing him again, but how could she look him in the eyes now? How could she call him by his nickname when all that's plaguing her mind is whether or not she'd possibly stutter over even speaking to him?

She wakes up the next day with a cold and a minor cough from the lack of sleep; the sole thoughts keeping her from shivering of cold weather are ones of him--they cause the heat to rise to her cheeks, the same way they did that night.