3^rd Person POV, SM Entertainment Artist Dorms

“Hey!” Jonghyun said, walking into the SHINee shared dorm and holding up his phone. “Manager Hyung just called. He said that Min Haneul-ssi called him and said that her daughter wanted to meet us again.”

At that, the boys looked up. They had met lots of nice  girls before, but none of the ones they didn’t work with had ever come back.

“Really?” Taemin was the first one to react.

“What was her name? Heechan?” asked Minho. “I wonder why she only goes by her given name?”

“Forget about that, Hyung.” Said Taemin. “She was cool! And she wants to see us again! Wouldn’t it be awesome if we became friends?”

“Yeah,” agreed Onew. “But what are we going to do?”

After a moment of silence, Key spoke up.

“We should take her on a date.”

“Yeah! A date with SHINee! What girl wouldn’t want that?” Jonghyun laughed.

“Where should we take her?” asked Taemin.

“We should go to the amusement park!” exclaimed Onew.

“That’s perfect!”

SHINee spent the rest of the afternoon planning all of the fun things they were going to do with Heechan. Then they called Min Haneul and told her that they would love for her daughter to come with them to the amusement park the next day. Excited, the boys went to sleep in anticipation of having a wonderful date.

Heechan’s POV

Next Day

I examined my reflection in the mirror one last time, searching for any imperfections. Normally I wouldn’t spend more than five minutes on my outfit, but today was a special occasion.

Today, I had a date with SHINee.

I wore black skinny jeans and a black long sleeve t-shirt with a white and pink t-shirt on top. I had on my favorite new lace-up boots and my short hair was flipped to the side. All in all, I looked pretty awesome. I quickly evened out my eyeliner and went downstairs.

“Heechan. Your breakfast is getting cold. Gang Daeho will drive you to the theme park. Don’t forget you phone-“

“I’ll be fine, Umma.” I said, ignoring the quickly cooling breakfast she had set out for me and grabbing some poptarts. Waving, I ran outside and met Gang Daeho by the car.

“Ready?”

“Totally.” I smiled and slid into the passenger seat. On the way there, I ate my poptarts and listened to Sherlock by SHINee. Since I met them, I had taken the initiative to download some of their songs. They still weren’t better than f(x) or Nu’est in my eyes, but they were pretty freaking awesome dancers.

We arrived pretty much on time. I saw the five guys waiting for me outside of the gate.

“Thanks, Gang Daeho! I’ll call you to come pick me up, okay?” I waved and got out of the car. He smiled and drove off and I walked up to SHINee.

“Hey, guys-I mean, Annyeonghaseyo!” I corrected myself, bowing. I had to remember my manners in Korea. Taemin turned around and smiled at me.

“Annyeonghaseyo! Hyungs! Heechan is here!”

“Annyeonghaseyo!” They greeted, nodding. They were all wearing hats and sunglasses. I thought it was a little weird, but then I remembered they were superstars and probably couldn’t afford to be seen in public.

“Let’s go, then! I wanna show you the whole park from the top of the ferris wheel!” said Taemin. I laughed. He was more child-like than I thought.

We scanned our tickets in at the front booth (Umma had bought my ticket in advance) and got our wristbands that permitted us to go on all of the rides. I thought it looked kind of strange, walking as a group with five guys in sunglasses and hats and one girl without a disguise, but as I looked around, I noticed that there were some other people wearing strange things to cover their faces, too. Huh. I guess lots of superstars like to go to the amusement park on their day off.

We waited in line for the ferris wheel for only about 10 minutes. Honestly, I would have expected it to be longer, considering the sheer number of people here, but the line moved quickly. It looked like you only got to go around once. As I got onto the ferris wheel with SHINee, I found another reason. It was pretty fast… Until it broke down. We were almost past the highest point.

“Well, that’s convenient.” Said Minho. We had a view of the whole park.

“Please remain seated, we are experiencing technical difficulties. The ride will resume shortly.” An intercom squeaked. Key leaned his head out of the car and looked down.

“Hey, there’s a snack place. I think they have chicken, hyung. Yeah, they do. It says-“

“Where?” asked Onew, leaning over the side as well. Key pointed. “Let’s go there next,” said Onew.

“Chicken Hyung.” Muttered Jonghyun under his breath.

“Yah, I heard that!” yelled Onew, smacking Jonghyun lightly.

“Hey, there’s the arcade,” Minho said, leaning across Jonghyun  and Onew to see better out of the ride. “We should go there too.”
As soon as the ride was fixed and we got off, Onew and Key made a beeline to the snack stand. The rest of us reached them just as they finished paying. Onew had a chicken leg that he was already beginning to eat, and Key had two cotton candies. He walked over and handed one to me.

“Thanks,” I said, slightly confused.

“Yah! What about us?” asked Jonghyun.

“You guys can buy your own snacks.” Key said, sticking his tounge out at him. “Mehrong.”

“YAH! I’m your Hyung!” Jonghyun yelled, swiping at Key. Key ducked, laughing. I laughed, too.

“To the arcade!” Onew said, throwing out his trash.

“That quick?” teased Taemin.

“But what about your snacks-“ Jjong started.

“Forget about the snacks.” Said Key, offering him some of his cotton candy. “I’m going to beat you at air hockey this time, Taemin-ah!”

“Not a chance,” said Taemin. “I am the champion!”

“We’ll see about that!” said Minho. Soon, we were inside the air-conditioned room, buying tokens and starting an air hockey tournament.

“First up, Key VS Minho!” I announced loudly, getting weird looks from the other people in the arcade. The first round began. They were both really good, but Minho outmatched Key.

“Noooooooo!” Key yelled. Minho cheered and highfived Taemin. Key stomped over to where I was sitting and sat next to me, resting his head on his hands dejectedly.

“Next, Minho VS Jonghyun!” Minho also beat him and Onew. Then it was time for him to go against the so-called ‘Champion’.

“Minho VS Taemin!” I yelled, then sat back down between Key and Onew. By now, we actually had a small crowd gathered around the air hockey table and Minho was sweating. But he looked determined and calm, and Taemin started the serve.

This was the most intense air hockey battle I had ever seen. They went back and forth so fast that I got dizzy trying to follow, and instead focused on the score. 1-0 Taemin. 1-1. 1-2 Minho. 2-2. It had already been about 15 minutes. Both boys were concentrating hard and everyone was cheering.

3-2 Taemin. 3-4 Minho. Another 20 minutes passed by. By this time, both Minho and Taemin were sweating hard, but neither looked like they were going to back down.

3-5 Minho 3-6 Minho. Minho’s eyes shone and Taemin panted. He was losing. I looked at my other Oppas. Onew was sitting on the edge of his seat, looking as though he was about to fall off. Key was squinting and trying to follow their moves, making his catlike eyes appear even smaller. Jjong looked worriedly at Taemin. He obviously thought the younger was going to lose.

Impulsively, I stood up and walked over to the table. I grabbed an extra puck and stood next to Taemin. Without time to talk or concentration to spare, I joined in, blocking the goal and returning Minho’s hits alongside Taemin.

“Hey! Not fair!” Minho protested. We scored.

“Yes!” Taemin and I high fived.

“Thanks,” he muttered as Minho served again.

“No problem.”

With two against one, we managed to score another goal. The score was now 5-6 to Minho. I was getting really hot in my double t-shirts, and my hair fell into my eyes every so often. But I was having a lot of fun. I could hear my Oppas cheering for me.

“I’m done,” Taemin said suddenly, stepping out. I quickly took over the space where he had been and continued to return Minho’s persistent hits. Taemin sat in my seat, fanning himself.

I concentrated on the game with new fire. By what I counted as pure luck, I scored one more goal. Now we were tied, 6-6. Whoever scored the next point would win.

“GAME POINT!” the machine reported, depositing the puck on Minho’s side. He was sweating buckets. Hadn’t he just played 4 other consecutive games? This guy was impressive. But his exhaust would be his weakness, and I knew I could win if I held out long enough for him to drop. For the next five minutes, the little puck slid across the table amazingly fast, me only just barely able to hit it each time.

Then, my phone rang.

My pocket  vibrated and a familiar piano piece played. It distracted me for just a second, but every second mattered, and Minho took the opportunity and scored.

“HOME TEAM WINS!” announced the game. I collapsed against the table, panting. Minho whooped and high fived everyone within reach. Then I realized my phone was still ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at my screen. ‘Choi Sang Hyo’.

My eyes widened and I quickly got out of the arcade, answering the phone as I went.

“Yeobsaeyo?” I said. Out here, it was a lot quieter and I could hear my heavy breathing. The sun was already going down, and the cool air felt good.

“Heechan.” My breathing slowed.

“Hey, ChoiChoi. What’s up?” she sounded like she was about to say something, then stopped.

“Hey, what were you doing? You’re all out of breath.”

“I was in an air hockey tournament.”

“Sounds like you. Did you win?”

“No. I might have, but somebody called me.” I said, joking. Why was she calling me out of the blue like this? Obviously she didn’t want to just talk. She hadn’t even been responding to my letters.

“Oh. Sorry about that. I’ll let you get back, then…”

“Um, okay.”

“Bye, Heechan.”

“Bye……..Wait.”

“Neh?”

Why havn’t you been responding to my letters? What do you need to say to me? Why do you feel so distant? Are you mad because I left? Do you hate me?

“Nothing. Saranghaeyo, Unni.”

“Saranghaeyo, Heechan.”

Click.

I walked back into the arcade.

“Hey, Heechan! There you are! You were really good! I’ve never seen anyone get that close to beating Minho before, let alone a girl!” said Jonghyun.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“Thanks to you, for helping me out, Heechan-ah.” Said Taemin.

“Yeah. It was fun, Oppa.” Taemin smiled, obviously  enjoying being called Oppa. I was suddenly really tired. “Thank you all for spending time with me today. I really had a great time.” I bowed.

“No problem, so did we,” Said Minho, grinning. “Awesome game, by the way.”

“Kamsahamnida.”

The rest of the night was quick. After spending the rest of the tokens at the arcade games (there wasn’t much left) and saying goodbyes, I called Gang Daeho to come pick me up. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.