kind.

By SHINee 

The swirls of the wine go on in circles. Never-ending and slow. Perfectly gliding across the transparent walls of the glass. I found myself gawking at it for several minutes until I found the reason to take a long sip. 

It's too damn early for me to open this. I thought inwardly as I sighed and set the cork back into the bottle. Squatting down, I opened the wine cooler and gently placed it back down to mature.

"You miss her a lot don't you?" A voice echoed beside me and I huffed with a small smile on my face. 

The fact that I opened her gift way too early is apparently the innuendos of my longing. She's way too adorable not to miss. When her dark and big eyes grilled me back into that day where she had to let me go to chase my dreams here. 

When her strong and porcelain arms wrapped my small frame tightly. Saying it is okay to be happy.  She always wanted to be the bigger person despite her small stature, nonetheless, it is true.

Taeyeon has always been my rock. 

And she gave me this pretty cheap wine saying that when it matures more, it will be the best. And by that time, I will be home. With her. 

And we would drink it together.  How time flies when you are happy seems pretty bleak to me.  I am more than happy to chase my dreams here, although several patches of dark covered my heart.

“I love you and you are worth the long wait.  Please say that you will come back to me?”

So cheesy and she always loves cheese. And the cute pajamas that seemed to age way faster than her.  And how her little chin dimple showed how childlike she is.  I somehow saw my future right there.  But one snap. It was gone.  All because of my desire to have it all.

Money, career, fans, love, and Taeyeon. Oh well. My Taeyeon.

"I just had to taste it. Cheap wine kinda intrigued me." I looked at him square in the eyes and he was smiling while leaning on the sturdy-looking bookcase I forgot existed.

I smiled, "What are you doing here Kev? I need to rest."

"Just got a ticket home. For you. I think Sooyoung needs the support." The knowing nod he gave hurts me. I was never going to keep my promise of going back to him without myself changing.

I left with an expectation that the things around me would change and that is what's happening now. I would leave him here and go back to Korea after a year and a half of dodging these predicaments. 

In some aspects of this, I do reckon he finds it hard but I never led him on. I just happened to acknowledge his feelings more and I let him in. It's a simple act of nobleness for him to do this. And I respected him for that. 

"In case you may want to reevaluate your choices. I'm here."

"Okay." That's the least that I can do.

------

I growled while matching my pace with my two-piece suitcase. Calling Taeyeon with my other phone and it all went straight down the drain of voicemails.

Believe me, when I say, I certainly do understand the little hostility. I apparently left her and fed with her own doubts for a few months before I got established on the thought that I did this to her. And by the time she was ready to communicate with me, it was cold and utterly not Taeyeon anymore.

I called Manager Jung instead and almost cursed when I almost tripped on the wrong car. Overly exaggerated stares wander around my whole soul and I knew that these are Taeyeon's sasaengs.

It's midnight after all. Past the corridor of privileged arrivals for people like me is a small parking lot for other--well, privileged people. I may have doubted my safety right there and then but I knew why they were angry. 

"It's always you before everything you know that?" One of them says, Mellow.

I was about to answer but one of them got out of the car and grabbed my hand. I was stricken by the act but I didn't react. 

"Now, please be well. So that our Taeyeonnie can be well too." 

And by that alone, I never expected that this has become so messed up.

------

After they left, I was stuck in between my thoughts and the slow urge to sit on the nearest pavement. I was astounded by the fact that I hurt Taeyeon so much. Although, it is low of me to believe them that it was neither a threat nor false information. It's more of truth and a reminder.

I checked my phone and saw Manager oppa's message saying that I don't really need a lift. I crushed my eyebrows together. How the hell would I get to rest then? For all I know, this is not LA where no one could just hail for a cab. 

I decided on the alternative. I will hail Sooyoung or better yet I will swallow my pill of shamelessness and go for a cab. In the dead of the dawn. So I held my head up high, dialed Manager Oppa’s number, not caring if he by any chance is smooching his wife or something but I am here and I need him to be at least considerate of my well-being and safety.

And I am emotionally wrecked too. 

“!!!!” I screamed. Just to vent my frustration out, it is hell. The dust from above flicked my eyes and it was intense. Wondrously intense. I screamed another “!”

“Please stop cursing?” I heard her voice. And I almost fainted.

------

I stared at Taeyeon’s side profile while driving. Her eyes never left the road or may have left it a while back when she opted to drive through a fast-food chain to give me a burger. But that was it. It was really easy for the person on the other side of the glass pane to gawk at the seemingly familiar celebrity inside the car. 

She gave three burgers with trembling hands and Taeyeon took it with a bow.  A crumpled tissue paper with her butterfly signature and my rather girlish signature scribbled on it was all it took for the news of my arrival to be announced to the world.  And Taeyeon picked me up. 

Probably tomorrow? But you see, it was enough to cause mayhem.  In both rainbows and Taeny. And all that .

But I could worry less of that right now, they said to live in the moment.  But as I looked at her dead stare towards the empty road, I died a little inside.  Hoping I could mend it before I go back to LA.

I was merely a one luggage woman since I came here for Sooyoung’s premiere only and she may have been working quite a lot when she hurled my luggage at the back of her Mercedes. I would've freaked out if it cracked but I'm so distracted by her presence.

“You can ask though. I would answer.” Taeyeon says out of the blue, and she pouts. 

“You didn't answer my calls, Tae.” She looked at me briefly and nodded.

“I was driving. As you can see.” 

My hands automatically went to caress her face, and in a moment of silence she briefly closed her eyes and her breathing softened. My heart hurts seeing her like that. 

“I'm sorry.” My heart says to her, out loud. I'm sorry, in so many different ways for so many different reasons. 

For leaving you, baby.

For reaching for my happiness without you.

For being harsh on you when all you wanted was the best for me.

But most of all for your love whom I failed to return back with the same intensity. 

For your love, that is so passionately strong and I can't return it back just as much, although I had love and will always love you more than you could ever imagine.

“For what?” Taeyeon looks at me, this time confused.

“For a lot of things.” I rest my hands back on my lap. And she reached for it, kissed it ever so softly, and smiled back at me.

“It's okay. You're back now.”

My soul was crushed, I can't stay. For now, I can't. 

“Tae, I can't...I can't stay.”

“At Least you're here. I won't ask for you to come back to me. I'm saying that you're here now. That it's perfectly fine. To be here with you even for a short time.”

So this must be the reason why her sasaengs are there in the parking lot. They saw Taeyeon leave. And I have to admit that it angers me, knowing how much privacy they are invading.

“I saw them. At the parking lot. I'll sue them.”

Taeyeon chuckles, “It's hateful but leave them for now. I don't want anything to ruin this day. I can't have you for a long time you know. Is he treating you well?”

I realized that the car stopped and Taeyeon was looking down at me with her full body facing my entire being. Long and dark lashes illuminated through the light of the moon and some passing cars by the road.  Why is she even asking about him?

“You let him in.  I know.” She smiled, softly this time.  I don’t know if she is even happy about it.  

“I didn’t.”

“Then why did you run away from me?”

I shook my head, “He was not the reason why I went back there.”

“Yes, I know but somehow with my absence filled the void.  I can never be that person for you, right? That is why you have to lock me out of your sphere for the whole damn year. Giving me nothing but the maximum of your bare minimum.  It is like living in a bubble and you constantly poke it to let me drown.” 

When her eyes threatened to let the tears fall after her outburst that is when the impact of her words sank in.  I was too hurt to even look at her.  It is ridiculous, even horrifyingly true.  It