2/3 of the way through this story...

Chapter 20

Onew turned over on the futon, he just couldn’t seem to drop off to sleep tonight.

The headache that had started just after dinner wasn’t helping any.   

As the moon peeked under the blinds Onew gave up and just sat up on the edge of his bed, planting his feet on the carpeted floor.

He sighed, and stood up.  Maybe a glass of water might help?  Or at least it gives him something to distract himself for a few minutes. 

Onew moved as quietly as he could through the house, moving swiftly down the stairs and slipping into the kitchen. 

But he wasn’t alone. 

“What are you doing up?”  Lex asked as she pulled the carton of milk out of the fridge.  She wore a pair of her brother’s basketball shorts and a t-shirt that had been washed so many times there was no way to tell what color it had once been.  Her hair was a knotted mess and wisps flew around her head creating a horrible bed-head affect.  She’d clearly tossed and turned quite a bit before finally deciding to give up and head to the kitchen.    

“Couldn’t sleep.  You?”  Onew slipped into a chair at the table, well aware that the cameramen had wired the house with plenty of still cameras and so he wasn’t free to hug Lex or approach her as he might have wished. 

“Same.”  She nodded, and poured some milk into the kettle on the stove.  “You want some warmed milk?  It’s supposed to help you fall asleep.” 

He nodded, “Sure.”

Soon enough, two mugs of steaming milk were sat on the table before them. 

“Know why you couldn’t sleep?”  She asked idly.

“Nope.”  Onew took a sip of the milk, it wasn’t bad.  “Just seem to be awake tonight.” 

“Same here.”  Lex gazed out the window over the sink and suddenly turned to Onew with a conspiratorial smile, “Let’s make a break!”  Her eyes sparkled and Onew found he couldn’t tear his away. 

“What are you talking about?”  He laughed a little, utterly confused. 

Lex stood, tugging on his arm, “Come on, we’re going on a drive.”

“Where?”  He asked, being pulled down the stairs to the doorway.

Lex just threw a hoodie at him and tossed one on herself before jamming her feet into her gym shoes that had joined the pile by the front door. 

“Nowhere?  Anywhere?”  She threw her hair up quickly into a messy bun with sure, practiced motions in her wrists and hands.  “It doesn’t matter, just out…” She looked giddy as she snatched the keys of a peg above he light switch.  “I used to do this all the time in high school, just take off for a drive for no reason when I needed to think or just get away from something.  It’s actually a lot of fun!”

She locked the door behind them and they ran down a few houses to where the car was parked in the street before jumping in and driving off. 

Onew had to admit, Lex was right.  There was something so thrilling about being out on the road with no one else, of driving with no destination in mind.  It was like in that moment, there were no limits and anything was possible.  They could do anything that they wanted and there would be no one to judge them but themselves. 

Onew kept glancing over at Lex, your girlfriend, his mind reminded him with a little rush, and suddenly he realized that there were no cameras, no one to see what they do here.  He reached out and grabbed Lex’s right hand where it was resting on the gear shift, lacing their fingers together. 

Lex squeezed his hand and glanced over at him with a small smile before turning her attention back to the road. 

They drove around for over an hour in a companionable silence, Onew taking in the landscape where his girlfriend had grown up – so different from the tall buildings and neon lights of his own home – when the edges of sleep finally began to make themselves known. 

Lex yawned loudly, “Okay, time to head back.”  She sounded almost sad.  Onew couldn’t blame her.  For that short time, they didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than themselves.  They could show whatever affection they wanted.  They were just a couple out for a late night drive.  They weren’t famous; they weren’t putting on a show.  They were just them.  And it had been lovely in its ridiculous simplicity.   

Once they got back to the house, they would have to slip back into their rolls again, and neither was looking forward to that if they were truly honest with themselves. 

Lex sighed and did a quick u-turn.  They were heading back. 

A less comfortable silence overtook the car for a little while and Onew’s mind wandered again.  And suddenly the conversation from earlier popped back in his head, the one about Lex’s father. 

He bit his lip for a moment.  He usually didn’t ask questions about her family, but all the rules seemed to be thrown to the wind right now.  He wondered if it would be alright to ask…

“Sorry about earlier…asking about your dad…it slipped out…”  Onew apologized, gazing through the windshield at the way the road just seemed to appear out of the nothing in the inky black sky. 

Lex seemed to pause for a minute, letting her mind catch up to where Onew’s musings had led him.  “That’s fine, don’t worry about it.  It’s nothing people can’t find in my online bio anyway.”

“If I asked you the real story about your father – would you tell me?”  Onew asked, looking out the window of the car, watching the trees flow past, formless shadows in the night. 

Lex furrowed her brow as she slowed for a stop sign.  “My dad…wasn’t a good guy.”  She said after a moment of silence. 

Onew turned to face her, cocking his head to the side, “What do you mean?”

“He…well, he wasn’t a bad guy – like he didn’t do anything illegal or anything…he never hurt us or did anything horrible…I dunno.”  She paused to turn down the next street, a small two-lane road without any streetlights to guide the way, lit up only by the yellowish headlights of her mother’s car.  She drove it with the ease of familiarity, years of having taken this route couldn’t be wiped away by her years in Korea. 

After a moment she tried again, “Looking back now, I don’t think my dad was ever cut out to be a father or a husband.  He just wasn’t a long haul kind of person.  Honestly, he should never have tried to settle down in the first place, but he also was incredibly stubborn and he wouldn’t give up on anything once he had started.  So once he was a husband and a dad he wasn’t going to run away…but, we always kind of knew that he didn’t want to be there.”

She shook her head again.  “We weren’t really close.  I don’t think that he was ever really that close to anybody though.  Not even his own siblings really knew him.  When he died, well it didn’t really seem like we had lost anyone.”  She grimaced slight, “That sounds horrible, but nothing really changed in our lives as far as not having him as a person.  Him not being there didn’t make much of a difference from him being there except the loss of his paycheck.  My mom ended up working two jobs just to keep the house and put food on the table and I ended up looking after Andy quite a bit.  It was easier on her when I was old enough and she didn’t need to hire a babysitter anymore.  Clothes were all hand-me-downs from cousins and I can’t remember ever having new shoes until I went to university and had found a job on campus.  I had to take out massive loans to go to school,” she smiled over at him momentarily, “it was needing to pay off those loans that first got me over to Korea – because I could pay off $500 a month and still be able to live very comfortably.” 

Onew nodded.  Both of his parents had worked and he was an only child.  Money had never really been an issue growing up and since he joined SM, he’s never really had to worry about it because the company kept them cared for and as a member of SHINee they hauled in a lot of money.  It was one of those things that he had just never really thought of, and no one that he knew had ever really had to worry about – well, no one until now at least.

Before he knew it they were back on Lex’s block.

Onew didn’t want to leave the car.  It was like their own little private world where nothing else, and no one else, mattered.  Once they opened the doors he had to rejoin reality again, and he wasn’t sure he liked reality all that much, when he could show the girl he cared for how much, because he had to worry about what other people that he had never even met would say about it.

He suddenly reached over and grabbed Lex’s shoulder, pulling her in for a kiss.  Lex’s hands grabbed at his arms to maintain balance but she melted into the kiss. 

They slowly pulled back, eyes searching each other.  Onew still wondered at the fact that his lips still tingled every time he kissed her.

“We need to do that more often.” Lex quipped, smiling gently.  She laid one hand on Onew’s cheek and Onew pushed back into the embrace slightly.  “Now we should be getting to bed.  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I need to be up bright and early to help with the cooking.”  She mock-glared at him, “You get to sleep in…”

Onew fell asleep almost immediately upon slipping back into bed.  That night he dreamt of long winding roads that disappeared into the sky.