BGM:

Apink, Wanna Be

Taemin, Drip Drop

This chapter is inspired by: Taemin, Drip Drop (feat. Seulgi)

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Tokyo, August 2019. 

Taemin was exhausted. He was just finishing up his Japan tour and started to prepare for Super M’s debut. Yes, Super M, SM’s new global project group that consists him, Kai, Baekhyun and 4 other juniors from NCT. He liked the idea of targeting the market in US, but of course... debuting again in a new group was a new experience for him, and he wasn’t sure if the fans would like it, since they wanted to prioritise his own solo career as well. But he still tried his best to prepare and got closer with the younger members. 

Today he was here for the SMTown concert at Tokyo Dome. He was alone, since all his SHINee hyungs are gone, but he was slowly getting used to it. He still tried to text s as much as possible, to show that he misses them. 

He prepared a special stage of ‘Drip Drop’ with Seulgi, a friend that he knew from being a trainee. She started training at a similar time as Taemin, but ended up debuting 6 years later. He felt kinda bad for her but also happy that she got to debut at the end. Seulgi was always a good dancer and he appreciated it, so when the company asked him for a collaboration stage, he thought of her right away. 

The stage was short but powerful, the fans roared at their synchronised dance. 

After the stage, he thanked Seulgi and she bowed slightly with respect. 

“I’ve learnt a lot from you, oppa. Thank you so much!” She exclaimed thankfully. 

They parted ways and when back to their own waiting rooms. Some of his colleagues came up to Taemin and praised him and Seulgi’s teamwork. 

“To be honest, you guys looked great on stage!” 

One of the colleagues joked, “I thought you and Seulgi could date each other because you guys both are such talented dancers.” 

Taemin frowned slightly at the comment and his smile became forced. 

Before Taemin can clarify himself, another colleague dismissed the comment. “Stop joking around, our Taemin has a girlfriend already!” 

Taemin gave a relieving smile to the second colleague, then joked back, “Sorry hyung, but I think Seulgi and I will never have that kind of relationship. I can recommend guys to her though!” 

Many senior members of the company, and his celebrity colleagues, like Super Junior hyungs, Girls Generation noonas, they all knew that Taemin is dating Naeun. At the early stage of dating, Taemin didn’t want Naeun to feel alone in the entertainment industry, and wanted to include her into his friends and family as well. So, he introduced girls generation members, especially Taeyeon, whom he was close to, and also Tiffany to her. Naeun blended in well and the news spread amongst various artists from SM. 

He was proud that his friends and family acknowledge his girlfriend, and that his Naeun opened up to more people as well. 

After he went back to the waiting room, he texted her right away. 

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Seoul, August 2019.  

Naeun scrolled onto the Naver page. She had a few advertisements to film for and a few photoshoots, but besides from that, she had a lot of free time this Summer. As opposed to her boyfriend which had hectic schedules and flew back and forth from Japan and Korea throughout the whole summer. 

She knew he was busy and he did try to keep their connection by texting whenever he can, but constant concerts and preparation for new albums drained his time. Despite this, she felt grateful that her boyfriend tried to text her as much as he can. 

On the headlines of the Naver page, Taemin and the Red Velvet member, Seulgi came up. She read the article: 

Taemin and Seulgi, perfect synchronisation and charisma on stage

She clicked onto the performance video. 

They were synchronised on stage. Her movements followed him and they worked together to create this masterpiece. Naeun wasn’t surprised that Seulgi, being the talented dancer would be able to match against her infamous boyfriend. She watched their smooth movements but couldn’t help but to feel a twist in her stomach. 

Seulgi, whom was born coincidentally on the same day, same month and same year as Naeun herself, matched her boyfriend perfectly... there was one moment where Naeun felt out of the place, where she felt that Seulgi and Taemin could’ve been a better match and that... Naeun herself wasn’t a match to Taemin,  but instead, Seulgi was. 

She swatted those feelings away, but throughout the clip, she couldn’t help but to think of it more and more. 

After watching their ‘Drip Drop’ performance, she couldn’t help but to feel a pang of jealousy. She felt this before at the early stages of their relationship — a few years back. At that time, the jealousy soon evaporated because Taemin noticed it and resolved it by talking and comforting her. 

It had been a while since they’ve dated, and Naeun thought she wouldn’t feel like that anymore. But after seeing him with another talented female idol, dancer, she couldn’t help to feel this way. 

She knew her boyfriend was busy with tours and albums, and she thought she was fine seeing her boyfriend dancing with other female idols or dancers on stage. It was until this collaboration that she realised she was wrong. She cared. She cared about him and she didn’t want that. 

At the same time, she knew that this was just a performance, its just for the audience and its a way of performing art. She is an idol herself, and she knew there would be unavoidable skinship on stage. 

But she couldn’t help it.