Taemin sighs to himself. This is the second time he, and the rest of SHINee, is in France: Paris and he´s quite tired. Not of this beautiful place, no, but due to the large work load he has had on his shoulders lately. They´ve had a hectic schedule and his body feels heavy after the concert they had yesterday. The European fans were really happy to see them so he feels that it´s worth it the effort.  However, there were some fans that were just a bit too eager to meet them. Taemin shivers visibly. Some stalked their hotel all night, making noises, so none of them could sleep properly. He´s glad Onew didn´t have to go through this. What their leader needs is a lot of rest.

Taemin exhales deeply and a white foggy cloud is brought to life in the air. It´s cold. Paris is really cold and windy compared to Korea. Taemin shivers as he follows Jonghyun, Key and Minho down the famous street of Champs Elysees. Key is running in and out of stores buying souvenirs for his friends and family in Korea. He looks so happy. Dark brown eyes looks at his surrounds from beneath a part of pitch black sunglasses. They´re lucky that none of their fans is following them so far. It seemed as if they managed to sneak out unnoticed while the stalker fans were sleeping, since they were up all night to stalk them, outside their hotel. Taemin´s eyes widen a bit as he spots a ferris wheel in the distance. He doesn´t know how long they´ve been walking. He never expected to see such an attraction in the middle of Paris, especially since there´s no carnival today. And it´s cold, he thinks once again, as he longs for a warm drink.

“Taemin, ride the ferris wheel and take pictures!” Key orders him suddenly as they´re standing below the giant wheel. He even takes forth his camera and pushes it into Taemin´s chest.

“Hyung, why?” Taemin complains a little bit at the request but he takes the camera so his hyung won´t drop it. It is important to him after all.

“I want to get a picture of the view!” Key explains as if it´s obvious.

“Then go yourself?” Jonghyun suggest with a raised brow.

Key smacks Jonghyun on his head and the older man makes a surprised sound at the sudden “attack”. He laughs at Key´s reaction though.

“Nuh-huh. I don´t like heights…” Key shakes his head before shivers visibly at the thought of him being all the way up there. He swallows the lump of saliva that´s suddenly stuck midway down his throat.

Jonghyun makes an “aha” sound in understanding as he scratches the spot Key just hit him. Taemin is about to give in upon seeing Key´s expression of dread as he thinks about riding the ferris wheel, but he gets no time to.

“Go go go!” Key pushes the younger man into one of the white and quite big passenger cars.

The door is with a loud sound behind his back. Taemin sees how Key pays for the ride as he turns around to complain. He touches the door handle but it´s locked from the outside. Eyes widen with dread for a moment before Taemin sighs to himself as he sits down and he gives up. There´s no turning back now. His eyes widen as he hears a low gasp of surprise from the other side of the cart. His brown eyes look up and he notices that a girl is sitting in front of him with a bewildered expression on her face. It seems as if she has been sitting there for a while: listening to music all by herself. A pair of big headphones decorates her ears as her quite long hair is tied up in a neat bun. The dull sound of music can be heard.

“S-s-sorry.” He stutters in his broken English. It seems just as if he disturbed her private time. Taemin curses Key under his breath a bit, since he actually pushed him into an already occupied passenger car.

She shakes her head, saying it´s no big deal, Taemin thinks before she looks through the window. Her long fringe makes it impossible for him to see her expression but it feels like she wants her privacy back.  Taemin looks away from her. He doesn´t know what European language she spoke but it sounded nice to him. He feels very uncomfortable to be there with a stranger and he wonders how long the ride will take. It´s a very BIG ferris wheel. Taemin shrugs to himself as he follows the girl´s example and looks through the window.

The attraction starts to move slowly. The two of them are busy to look at the view so they won´t notice each other. Taemin smiles weakly as the girl makes an amazed sound at the scenery. Her smile is quite pretty. The dull sound of a familiar song can be heard in the small passenger car.

Taemin takes the camera and stands up as they reach the top. He´s planning to take some beautiful pictures of Paris for Key, just as his hyung asked. It´s dark outside but thousands of light can be seen from here, and the Eiffel tower is sparking beautifully in the distance. He takes some photos and the girl moves a bit out of respect when she sees that he wants to take a picture where she´s sitting. Taemin nods his head as a thank you before he looks at the view through Key´s beloved camera.

The attraction suddenly stops and the passenger car shakes a bit which makes Taemin lose his balance.  The sound of the camera hitting the floor can be heard. The girl´s eyes widen as he falls towards her but she cushions his fall, giving her a bruise or two, instead of moving out of the way. Taemin´s eyes widen as he´s suddenly in the arms of the stranger and a distant scent of spring flowers washes over him. She´s so soft.

“Ouch.” She mutters under her breath as he´s lying on top of her.

It makes Taemin pull away from her slowly, not to hurt her more and their eyes meet for a brief moment as he checks of she´s alright. Her eye-lashes are surprisingly long and curved and shows a pair of bright eyes looking at him.

“What happened?” She asks in a dazzled voice.

“…We´re stuck.” Taemin concludes as he looks around to see that they´re still not moving and that some other passengers are also looking around worriedly in the passenger cars below them.

The girl nods silently as she un-plugs herself from her ipod and shut it off. The Korean idol looks at the view in silence and he suddenly feels light-headed so he blinks several times in confusion. Taemin understands why Key didn´t want to go on this ride. They´re stuck so high up and God knows when they´ll be able to be back on safe soil again. Taemin turns pale as he stares towards the ground where he can see the rest of SHINee waiting. His eyes are eerily wide.

“Are you ok?” He hears her voice wonder.

Taemin can´t bring himself to give her a proper answer. Her eyes look worried at this and she quickly motions him to sit down in the middle of the passenger car. Taemin is hesitant to do as she say at first but she´s suddenly grabs his shoulder and moves him firmly until both of them are sitting on the floor with their shoulders slightly touching. Taemin´s eye sight gets a bit blurry and his breathing is heavy as he sits there not knowing what to do. He didn´t know he´d react like this. He has never been afraid of heights before. A hand touches him on his shoulder gently.

Her scent is calming, Taemin, realizes as his focus leaves the fact that he´s stuck in a high place to the stranger he´s stuck with. She´s doing her best to calm him down. She takes deep breaths and he thinks she´s trying to make him copy her. A smile is born as he starts to take deep and slow breathes as well. His vision is getting better slowly and the uneasy feeling in his stomach fades. It´s only then he notices how close he´s to the girl. She´s literally holding him by his shoulder, as if she´s trying to protect him from his fear.

Taemin turns shy, his cheeks slightly red, as he avoids looking at her in embarrassment. He can´t push her out of his comfort zone since she just did all that for his sake, and it´d be considered very rude even in Europe. But, Taemin also feels that this closeness isn´t too bad either. This girl has a very calming effect on him and he knows she isn´t doing this for any strange purposes. A deep sigh leaves his lips. The fact that he´s sitting on the floor makes him able to forget exactly how high up he´s stuck and his fear has almost vanished. All thanks to her.

Taemin glances at her from under his fringe. She looks fine, her wide eyes tells him of the shock she´s in, but she´s somehow able to keep a strong façade.

“I wonder… how long we´ll be stuck here…”She ponders out aloud.

Taemin would have said she´s totally fine if he didn´t hear the slight tremble of her voice. She´s a strong girl, not like the ones he has met before. It seems like she´s trying to be brave for his sake even though she´s secretly just as scared as him.

Taemin avert his eyes as a shiver runs through his body. It´s cold. He thought it got warmer when he entered the passenger car, since it´s shielded from the outside, but his breath is one again creating frosty clouds in the air. It´ll be difficult if they´re stuck for too long.

He suddenly realizes that even though the girl clearly tries to pretend that she´s unaffected by this, her body is trembling by the cold. Taemin glances at his wristwatch: they´ve been here for 20minutes already. The girl bites her lower lip before she covers half of her face with her big black muffler in an attempt to stay somewhat warm. Taemin also notices that her hands are shaking so slightly.

His expression turns distant as he silently lean onto her, resting his head on her shoulder. This makes her tense a bit but she won´t complain: much to Taemin´s surprise but he´s too shy to look at her. Their warmth mixes together and she stops shaking.

“Thank you.” She murmurs quietly.

Taemin doesn´t reply but he feels how his chest grows warm. It feels as if the two of them, complete strangers, connected somehow just now. A small smile grows bigger on his lips as he feels how her light colored hair tickle his face. He has never found this connection or comfort with a stranger, above all: a foreigner, before and it makes him strangely warm inside. He thinks a bit in silence before he decides to try to communicate with her. He has, after all, gotten a bit curious about her.

“Are you traveling?” He asks her, thinking that they won´t think of the cold if they talk.

It´s silent for a while, and he wonders if his English was too poor for her to understand, but it seems as if she was just choosing her words wisely.

“Yes, I´m on a short trip to Paris. I´ll go home tomorrow…” She tells him with a hint of sadness in her voice. “I wish I could have stayed here longer.”

Taemin nods. She seems to have fallen for Paris´ beauty as well.

“How about you?” She adds.

Taemin can´t see her eyes since he´s resting against her shoulder but he can hear her curiosity. Taemin blinks twice at the question. “Ehm… same.” He starts, not sure how he can answer this without telling her everything.

A soft chuckle leaves her lips just as if she knows he´s keeping a part of the truth from her. It makes Taemin´s eyes widen a bit. She can´t know, can she?  Taemin let that thought slip as she starts talking about something totally unrelated. She wouldn´t act like this if she knew who he is. No fan would miss this kind of opportunity. It makes Taemin relax: she´s an ordinary girl and has no clue.

“I love to walk.” She changes topic. “I like to walk alone in the dark, listening to music. It makes me think. I decided to walk tonight, since it´s my last night in France, and I couldn´t help but want to ride this ferris wheel when I saw it on my way back to the hotel.”

Taemin doesn´t understand half of what she said but he likes the sound of her voice. It´s soothing and very passionate.

“I never thought…” She gazes down at him dreamily with a blush on her face. “That this would happen.” She laughs merrily to herself as she turns to look at the sky through the window.

Taemin doesn´t know but he smiles, thinking she´s laughing at the fact that they´re stuck together like this. He doesn´t understand that it´s not the reason behind her blush. The warmth inside him is constantly growing stronger as they talk in quite voices. He doesn´t feel so bad anymore, he even feels a bit refreshed and alert. Taemin closes his eyes as he rest against her with that soft smile lingering on his lips.

The sudden sound of his cell phone ringing makes both of them jump. It makes the two of them pull apart a bit and that comfortable warmth is lost. Taemin looks at the girl with a frown on his face as he answers. The girl glances a little at him as he speaks in Korean but she stays silent and gives him some privacy. She looks at the floor while hiding beneath that muffler again. Taemin feels strangely calm as he talks with a panicky Key on the phone. They´ve been worried about him. Key explains what´s going on and it seems that the ferris wheel broke but will be fixed shortly. Taemin hangs up.

“They said it´ll move soon.” He tells her in his broken English.

“That´s great…” She smiles at him gently.

It got cold again since Taemin moved to take the call but he´s too shy to move closer to her a second time. He doesn´t get a lot of time to think about it though since the ferris wheel starts to move again. The two of them smiles at each other dorkily before averting their eyes in embarrassment. They don´t speak as they slowly descend to ground level. Both of them sighs in relief as they are allowed to get of the ride. Taemin lets her exit the passenger car first before he enters and walks over to his friends. They all seem to have been worried about him.

The girl looks at him as Key, Minho and Jonghyun greets him. Key´s all stressed out, talking about that that could have been him getting stuck up there for 30 minutes while claiming that Taemin will be his hero from now on.  Taemin turns to look at the girl again with a gentle smile on his face. She flinches as their eyes meet, almost as if she expected him to have forgotten all about her, and she returns the smile as she approaches them shyly, bowing her head a little. Taemin´s smile fades slowly at the sight. People don´t bow in Europe. She bows to Minho, Key and Jonghyun before she turns to Taemin and he´s surprised to see that the girl looks like she´s about to cry.

“Make sure to take a rest now, ok? D-don´t catch a cold…!” She smiles sadly, as if she´s hesitating about something, before she adds “….Your concert yesterday was amazing”

Taemin´s eyes widen at this. The girl forces another nervous smile before she bows again, turns around and starts to walk away. Taemin looks at her retreating back wide-eyed as he´s slowly understanding what she just said. He had no idea she was a fan, he thought no fan would be that respectful and down to earth as she was, so he dismissed the thought. He was so wrong. It makes him feel a bit breathless with appreciation. He was able to enter the passenger car and ride with her safely: she even helped him out when he was about to faint and they kept warm together. An ordinary fan would probably have taken advantage of him somehow. A smile grows bigger on his lips as he watches her retreating posture.

Key looks at the girl and then at Taemin with a confused expression. “Earth to Taemin…?”

There are some good fans after all, Taemin thinks, as he turns to his hyung and asks for paper and a pen. Key, Jonghyun and Minho looks surprised but they´re quick to understand. Taemin grabs it before he semi-runs after her.

“E-excuse me!”

She turns around wide-eyed at the sound of his voice. Her cheeks turn cherry red as Taemin hands her his autograph with an added “thank you” at the end. It seems like she had been trying her best not to act like a fangirl in front of him but upon getting his autograph her emotions just burst and she starts to cry. Tears fall down her cheeks and her lips are trembling.

“Ottoke!” Taemin exclaims with a panicked expression.

She shakes her head in an attempt to tell him she´s alright.“Hahaha...” She starts laughing through her tears. “T-thank you, I´ll always treasure this!”

The two of them smile at each other in a silly manner as she wipes away her happy tears.

“Come to our concert, again, please. “ Taemin tells her sincerely, because he really wants her to come.

“Of course.” She bows her head once again. “I´ll support you and SHINee forever. Fighting!”

He can see that she wants to stay and talk with him more but she swallows her fangirl needs as she turns around and walks away for a second time. Taemin is amazed with her and he regrets that he didn´t give her his contact information. However, Taemin has this burning feeling in his chest that he´ll meet her again in a not too far away future. A pleasant smile grows on his lips as he watches her until she disappears into the shadows.

SHINee does have plans to return to Europe this year after all.