The opps-I-make-a-dance-mistake look ;)

Ahhh…he’s definitely troubled

Its 2 in the morning, a time when many people should be at home, lying on their beds, fast asleep.

 But I certainly don’t have this sort privilege at the moment.

“Ahhh chooo!” I sneezed as I walked down the dark alleys with Alex by my side. After that short break at the coffee club, we resumed back to our work, patrolling around the areas.

“Want a scarf?” Alex offered.

I shook my head. “Nah…I got one.” My hands slipped into my bag and I took out Taemin’s scarf and wrapped it around my neck.

The touch of his scarf against my skin reminded me of him and his silence as we met at the coffee club a few hours ago. The dull pangs of pain hit my heart again.

“Sense anything yet?” Alex broke my thoughts and I refocused back to our current mission. That’s right; I still have an important job to do. Stop thinking about irrelevant matters.

I bit my lips at the thought. But is he really irrelevant?

I closed my eyes and felt the December chilling winds surrounding me, each passing breeze tells me a tale of this city, but there is only one that I’m specifically looking for…

A sudden image shoots through my mind – a large looming figure in the dark. But wait, it seemed to stare right at me with eyes glowing a furious crimson. Has it singled me out already?

I snapped my eyes open. “It’s nearby.”

I grabbed Alex’s hands and a strong breeze swept us to the location in an instant. What greeted our sight suddenly solved the mysteries in our heads.

“Shadow…” Alex grimaced at our targeted creature. “No wonder we had such a hard time tracking it.”

“Yeah…” I agreed. “Their presence always come and goes within the darkness.”

My eyes fall upon the lighter readied in Alex’s hands. With a quick flick of his fingers, a flame was ignited on the lighter’s top.

In a moment, his hands swiped over the flame’s tip and gave life to the fire. A stream of fire burst through and head straight at the Shadow. It surrounds the creature in an instant with numerous circles of fire closing in on it.

It was the signal for my turn. I closed my eyes and summoned the wind within the circle of fire. The wind and the circles of fire combined, sending the ball of fire to burn fiercer than before.

The combined forces were so great that I even cringed at the effects trying to swipe both of us back.

After a few moments, we stopped our power and watched as the ball of fire died down.

But what we saw wasn’t what we expected.

“It escaped.” Alex said out first.

I looked up at the starless night sky. “Let’s just wrapped it up for tonight.” I sighed.

“Want a ride back?” He offered in a tired tone. I guess he was as exhausted as me too.

“I’m fine. I can just let the wind brisk me back home in an instance.” I gave a weary smiled. “See you tomorrow.”

Without waiting for his reply, I swept off. I was too tired, too frustrated, too stressed, and too worried over everything to care about anything at the moment. And to add on, I lied about going home.

Because there was a place I wanted to be at, right now.

 ******

“What’s with you, Taemin-ah?” Key umma stopped the JoJo dance routine after watching the Shinee maknae tripped over his dance moves for the nth time. “You’re not focusing today.”

“I don’t know.” Taemin lied in a soft voice. But he knew exactly what was troubling him – the guy that was with Seo-Yun at the coffee club.

“Was it because of that girl whom we met at the coffee club?” Onew hyung cuts into the conversation.

“Ooooo?” Now it attracted the attention of everyone. “Who’s that girl?” Jonghyun hyung propped.

It took every ounce of self-control for Taemin not to groan out in frustration. “Really it’s nothing, hyu-“

“I saw her.” Onew hyung cuts in again, happy that he holds the juiciest part of the information at the moment. “That girl, Seo-Yun. Quite a pretty little girl.” He gave a sheepish smile. “I was even a bit shy when Taemin-ah introduced her to me. Will she think I’m being rude to her?” He leaned towards Taemin with a worried look.

“Oh oh oh?” Jonyhyun hyung’s interest perked at the description. “She’s so pretty that even you were nervous?”

Onew hyung gave a nod. Even Minho hyung had an interested expression on his face.

“I got to see her someday! Bring her home Taemin ah!” Jonghyun hyung exclaimed to his maknae and received a head blow from Key umma instead.

“Shut it Jong.” Key umma frowned and turned his attention back to Taemin. “Let’s just call it off for tonight alright? We’re all exhausted anyway.” All five agreed in unison.

 “Let’s go.” They got up and packed up.

“Erm…” Taemin pondered over his request. “Can I just walk home on my own for today? The dance studio isn’t far from our house anyway.”

“Eh? You’re sure Taemin?” Onew hyung showed surprise at his maknae’s demands. “But….” Onew hyung’s words were cut off as Key umma clasped his hands over his mouth.

“Just go.” Key umma answered hastily. “Remember to don your disguise.”

Taemin threw a grateful look at his umma. Though Key umma was well-known for being naggy, he do displayed his sensitivity and understandings during crucial times like this.

“Thanks!” He slang his bag over the shoulders, threw a beanie over his disheveled hair and head out.

As soon as Taemin disappeared out from the dance room, Key released his hand from the angry Onew.

“Yah! What you do that for?”

“Please…” Key rolled his eyes. “Give the love-sick boy a break yeah? Let’s go to the company car.”

They packed up and walked off, leaving the confused Onew in the room.

“Wait…!” Onew finally broke out of his trance. “I demand chicken as apology, Key!”

#Author's note - Here's another update for the day! I couldn't resist bringing in the chicken joke again! =x

Here's a very serious question for all my readers and I hope you can answer them as soon as possible in the comments...

The end of this story has something to do with Christmas and I originally wish to post the last chapter on Christmas Day itself. But there's still quite a couple of chapters till the end. So since there's only two days left to Christmas, I'm stuck with two options to give to my loyal readers....

1) Update VERY VERY frequently (multiple chapters per day) and see the ending on Christmas Day. (But I'm still writing the story and the chance for me to finish writing before Christmas is about 70-80%?)

2) Update daily and see the ending on New Year's eve? Though the ending is still probably going to have to be about Christmas. Aigooo.....

I'm sorry for forcing the choices on all of you, but gah...time is not on my side for the moment =(

Depending on your comments, I will change the frequency of my updates!

Please forigve me! (>_<)

To new readers, if you like my story, please subscribe and comment! :DDD