October 2005
 

“It’s DBSK’s Tri-angle!” one of the girls swarming at the studio’s window shouted. Indeed, Taemin is dancing to that popular song right now. He started representing his school in various dancing competition since last year, and him winning almost all of them earned him a fanclub of his own. He can never train without being stalked everyday since then, but Taemin is thankful that his fans never cross the border up until now. He receives gifts and candies once in a while, and whenever he practiced his dancing every day after school, the girls always make sure they always watched him from outside of the studio.

“Taemin oppa, good job!” he can hear them screaming as soon as he is done with the dance routine. Taemin smiles and bowed a bit to them, causing them to squeal even more.

He walked to the corner of the studio and took a seat on the floor, where he left his bag just now. Knowing that Taemin needed time to be alone, to rest after his practice, his fans left the studio one bye one, only to return again tomorrow, as Taemin practiced at the school studio every day, while waiting for 3.30PM.

After he wipes his sweat with a clean towel he brought, he took out a small planner from his bag.

“Another 4 months..” he whispered more to himself, counting how many days left before he can finished his primary school and finally joined Chanseul in middle school. He then, keep his planner back inside his bag and put both of his palms together, closing his eyes, praying.

“Dear God, please make February comes fast so I can join Chanseul noona really soon! And please stop Kris hyung’s growth! Make sure he doesn’t get taller, and doesn’t get even more good looking than now, thanks God!”

After he prayed wholeheartedly and laughed a bit at himself, Taemin packed all of his items after that, preparing to leave the studio. 3.30PM is just around the corner.

No.

A walk with Chanseul is around the corner.
 

*     *     *

At the Writing Club small meeting.

Chanseul is sitting on a chair, facing Kris, who is looking so focused on the piece of writing he is holding in his hands.

The 14 year old girl looked around while waiting for Kris to finished reading her short story. The writing club is in charge of the school weekly newspaper, and ever since she joined the club last year, Chanseul never get a chance to contribute any of her work. Simply because she was too young, and Kris said it is better to give chance to the seniors first. However, last week, the tall president called her and asks her to submit a short story.

“The principal granted our proposal to have two additional pages to our weekly newspapers starting next week. I’ve decided to start a short story column, so do you have anything?”

That was what Kris had said to her last week, and Chanseul quickly came up with one short story, and Kris is currently reading it.

She is very nervous, and she had a little bit of hope that Kris will like the short story. But knowing how particular and meticulous Kris is, she thought it is okay to be turned down a few times, too. Especially that she is still new in this field, even though writing has always been her favourite hobby since forever.

“So..”

Chanseul quickly looked at Kris as soon as she heard his voice. Seems like he is done reading the short story.

“I like the title,” he said at first. Chanseul nodded her head a bit as she stares at the title of the short story, written on the top of the paper.

If Cupid had a Heart.

“What’s your pen name?” Kris asked as he took out his pen, and he looked like he was about to scribble something on the paper.

“Pen name?” Chanseul asked, blinking her eyes twice, naturally appears cute, to which Kris quickly looked away for a while, trying hard not to appear too obvious with his feelings.

“Yeah, pen name. A name adopted by an author. Sometimes people doesn’t want to use their real name when they write,” Kris responded, looking at the younger girl after he managed to keep calm.

“Ah, neh.. I’ve heard of that. Um, wait. Why do I need a pen name?”

“Because this story of yours will be published in our next weekly newspaper?” Kris raised one of his eyebrows.

It took Chanseul a moment before she actually jumped on her feet and give the tall president a friendly hug as an appreciation for accepting her short story, which is proven to be accepted as more than ‘friendly’ by Kris. He quickly pushed the girl away, gentle enough not to hurt her, smiling at the same time upon seeing how happy the girl is.

“Komawo yo, sunbaenim!” Chanseul is still way too happy to notice the weird reaction by Kris, and bows a couple of time to him.

“Yah~ are you expecting me to reject this? This is really good. Keep on writing, Chanseul-ah. You’ll do really well in the future if you keep this up,” he said as he patted on her head, and the girl nodded really quickly, still smiling brightly.

“So, pen name?” Kris asked again, ready to scribble on the paper.

Chanseul took a few seconds before she responded to Kris’ question.

“CH-25879”

*     *     *

“Did anything good happened today?” Taemin asked. Both him and Chanseul are walking home right now, side by side.

“Um, nothing much, but then my short story will be published in the school’s weekly newspaper next week,” Chanseul said, and though she tried to hide her excitement, Taemin knows her way too well.

“Chukae, noona! I’ll be sure to read your story next week!”

“Neh! I’ll keep one copy for you, okay?”

Taemin smiles and nodded his head. Chanseul’s happiness is his. But he couldn’t help but to notice there is a slight worry on her face.

“You’re really happy, right noona?” he asked, looking at her.

“Neh! And worried at the same time,”

“Because you’re afraid people might not like your writings?”

“Exactly! Oh God, Taemin, you always read my mind!”

Taemin smiles as he looks at her. She is playing with her fingers, which indicates she is worrying a lot.

Slowly, his hand reached for hers. His fingers tighten the grip on hers as he keeps on his usual facial expression.

Chanseul let the younger boy do what he wants, because deep inside her heart, she knows everything will be okay, just because Taemin is holding her hands.

And Kris is watching both of them from the school gate, thinking if there will be one day Chanseul can walk home with him, instead of her younger best friend, who is now almost the same height as her. Almost.

“What does 25879 means anyway?” he whispered to himself, thinking hard on Chanseul’s pen name. He then, closed his eyes and put both of his palms together..

"Dear God. Don't let Taemin join our school next year, jaebal!"
 

*     *     *

It was 10.30PM at night, and Taemin is trying hard to focus on his studies but fails miserably.

Even with the door of his room closed, he can hear his parents shouting to each other very clearly from his room. It is not a rare event, but Taemin can never get used to it whenever it happened.

“This is going no where, let’s just stop!” he heard his father’s voice.

“Can you lower down your voice a bit? I don’t want our son to hear us!” his mother is obviously trying hide their fight from Taemin, but her volume is not any difference from her husband.

“I’ll speak however I want, and I wouldn’t care about him! He’s your son!”

Taemin stopped his attempt to focus as soon as he heard that sentence. He hates it when his parents sometimes keep on shoving him to one another whenever they fought. Sentences like “He’s your son!” , “Your son is studying, can you please stop!”, “Quiet! You don’t want your son to hear us!” hurt him a lot. Sometimes his father would say them, and sometimes his mother as well.

Those sentences make Taemin feels unwanted.

He then, closed the book that he had been trying to focus on just now. Taemin walks to his bed, get on it and covered his whole body with his comforter after he rests his head on the pillow. He is feeling down, upset and empty at the same time. Usually when this happens, he will visit Chanseul at the orphanage since she is the only one that can make her feel better. But the orphanage is locked sharp on 10PM, which was 30 minutes ago.

Lying on his side, Taemin picked up the phone receiver and rest it comfortably on his ear. Though his eyes are both shut, his fingers can still dial the number of the orphanage. The number he called the most since 7 years ago.

*     *     *

[I'd like to suggest to my readers to listen to this song while reading starting from here, thank you ^^]

Chanseul is sitting at a big table in the middle of the dorm, doing her homework. Some of the small kids already at went to bed. The others who are sharing the table with her are all around her age. Some are doing some readings; some are just talking randomly to each other. There are not that much of them around her age. They weren’t lucky enough to be adopted when they were younger. Now that they are already in their teens, the possibility to be adopted is almost next to nothing since most people who came to adopt kids at the orphanage are young parents.

Most of them are feeling they were unlucky. But it is different for Chanseul. Unlike the rest of them, she is glad she is not adopted. She doesn’t want to leave the orphanage since it is really close to Taemin’s house. Chanseul planned to grow up at the orphanage, get into a university, graduated and get a decent job and finally move out. And probably still be close to Taemin.

Chanseul’s imagination was disturbed when there is an announcement on the dorm speaker.

“Shin Chanseul, please come to the counter now. There’s a phone call for you,”

Chanseul’s heart leaped with joy as she quickly jumped on her feet, knowing Taemin is on the line. No one else ever called her since the past seven years except for him.

“Komawo unnie!” she thanked the staff who is in charge of the counter as she took both phone and receiver a little bit far, being careful at the same time to keep the cord attached. The staff smiles, patting on Chanseul’s head a bit. Chanseul is almost everyone’s favourite at the orphanage, that they are glad she is not adopted. She is definitely the vitamin of the orphanage.

“Taeminnie!” Chanseul said as she sits down on the floor as soon she found her comfort zone, a secluded area at the corner of the floor.

“Noona..” on the other line, Chanseul can feel that Taemin needs comfort just by listening to his voice.

“Are your parents fighting again?” she asked.

“Neh ..” came in Taemin’s short reply.

“What song do you want to listen to?” Chanseul quickly asked.

“Umm.. anything from Fly to the Sky, please,”

Chanseul cleared a bit, and started to sing her favourite song from Fly To The Sky, "Condition of my Heart" for that special best friend of hers.

I wanna know, where were you
When I cried
The night that you said goodbye
You expected me to die
But I made a brand-new start
And got on with my life
I did what I had to do
To get myself over you
I'm not falling apart
You underestimate
The condition of my heart

“Noona..”

“Neh..?”

“Eventhough the lyrics is so sad, I am feeling better now, I don’t know why,”

Chanseul smiled at what Taemin had said. She does not have the voice of a professional singer, but her voice somewhat came with very positive vibes that only works on Taemin whenever he needs comfort.

Actually, Taemin has this habit of listening to Chanseul’s singing whenever he felt upset. It started probably three years ago when Chanseul sang to him a random song when he felt the worst, and fortunately, he got better after that. It is like, Chanseul’s singing is a medicine and sedative at the same time, to which Taemin’s heart can heal and calm down at the fastest rate whenever he listens to it.

It was then when Chanseul saw the staff made a sign language, signalling that she should go to sleep.

“Taeminnie, the staff said I shouldn’t talk on the phone anymore,”

“Ah~ waeyo?”

“I guess.. maybe other people might need to use the phone,” she chuckles.

“Maybe,” Taemin sighed jokingly, but he really wanted to keep on talking to Chanseul.

“Go to sleep now, Taem,” the girl said.

“Um.. Noona..?”

“Neh, Taem?”

“Can you please promise me one thing?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Nothing much, actually. I just want you to promise me that you will always sing for me whenever I’m down.. or upset.. or .. in need of comfort..”

Not really sure why, but Taemin’s request made Chanseul’s heart skipped a beat. It made her think that she is, somehow, important to Taemin.

“Can you, noona?” Taemin asked again, since the girl didn’t respond.

“I will never say no to you, you know that right?” Chanseul finally managed to utter a respond.

“So, promise?”

“Promise!”

“No matter what happened?”

“Yes, no matter what happened!”

With the very recent promise, Taemin can finally go to bed with a happy heart. They both said their good nights and Chanseul was about to return the phone to the staff when the phone rang again. Smiling still, she picked up the receiver.

“Neh, Taeminnie, why are you calling again?” she said as soon as she places the receiver on one side of her head. Taemin sometimes did that. One phone call is not enough, so he made two phone calls to say his good night twice.

“Um.. it’s me,”

Much to Chanseul surprise, she heard a different voice this time. A deeper voice.

“Sunbaenim?”

*     *     *

With his fingers tightened on the receiver, Kris’ heart skipped a beat as soon as he heard Chanseul’s voice on the other line. Though the fact that she actually mistook him for Taemin did hurt him a little bit.

He was thinking what should he said to the staff when his call was picked up just now, but fortunately, it was Chanseul who answered the call. Kris knows it is her, there is no way he won't recognize her voice.

“Kris sunbaenim?” the girl asked again and Kris quickly cleared his throat.

“N-neh!”

“How did you get my phone number?”

Damn.

Kris didn’t think of that earlier. If Chanseul knows that Kris went to the school’s store room and spent almost an hour looking for Chanseul’s personal document in order to get the phone number, she will definitely think of him as a stalker. A very creepy one at that, considering how did he lied to the teacher in charge, in order to get the key to the store room.

“Sunbaenim?” he heard her voice again. He himself is not sure why did he suddenly wanted to hear her voice tonight.

“What will you do tomorrow, after school?” Kris asked, trying hard to control his nervous heartbeat.

“Umm.. nothing, sunbae. Why? Do you need help to clean the club?”

“A-aniya. Actually, there’s this new, floral garden’s grand opening. It was just 20 minutes walk from our school,” Kris is trying really hard not to not stutter his words.

“Floral garden? I love flowers!” much to his relief, Chanseul sounded excited. Kris couldn’t help but to smile, his crazy heart started to beat at a normal pace. He closed his eyes, gathering as much strength as he had within him before he responded to her.

“Really? Great! Um.. Chanseul-ah..”

“Neh, sunbaenim?”

“..Do you want to go to the garden tomorrow with me?”

RAMBLES___♡♥♡
Another year had passed.
Taemin is almost as tall as Chanseul, now.
Both him and Kris started to see each other as a rival, causing them to pray for weird things, LOL.
And seems like Kris already asked Chanseul out for a date!

Just in case you guys are interested to read the short story that will be featured in the next
weekly newspaper, click HERE. This was written on 2009 (I'm an senior Shawol, hahah), so please
forgive all the childishness and awkwardness in my writings, LOL. Random advertisment, hahah.

I'll post the next chapter soon, probably this weekend, so yeah.
Don't just leave. A few words from you guys will make me smile.

Till the next chap, thank you everyone!

PYNKFAERY