TaecYeon frowned at his reflection in the mirror. He couldn't get used to the white surgical face mask that covered his nose and mouth, and he certainly didn't like the bloodshot, watery eyes looking back at him. He swallowed again, and against his own will, he groaned aloud. The doctor had diagnosed him with strep throat, and faster than a 50% off sale, his manager Min Jae Seo, rounded up the rest of the 2PM boys and carted them off away from the contagious, sickly one. He felt like a leper. When he walked back into the dorm apartment, they parted like the red sea, when they saw his face mask. The worse thing that can befall a singer is to have any type of illness that affected their throat. So he didn't blame them… but still they all left him completely alone. He removed the mask briefly, just to allow him enough time to gargle with warm salt water in attempt to soothe the pain.

He peered up at the ceiling while he gargled and closed his burning eyes. At times like this he felt like he wanted to be held. He knew it wasn't manly, but who cares… he felt like a truck hit him and no one was around to pick up the pieces. He spit out the excessive water into the sink and refilled his mouth with more of the remedy.

He thought about her without even wanting to. It happened almost daily now. Whenever he wasn't actually engaged in an activity that caused him to focus, his mind would wander back to Yoona.

It's not even like they were that close, but the short time he spent with her over lunch and at their first 'nut club' meeting was enough to re-ignite the sparks he had felt when he met her for the Elite Uniform catalog shoot and the Idol Army show earlier that year.

He remembered how shy she seemed at first when the 2PM members stood to greet the SNSD girls for their catalog shoot. It was just before the 2PM debut, and they were so excited to be able to meet the gorgeous and famous girls of SNSD that it was all they talked about for days since they had heard about it.

Back then he first thought Yoona to be unapproachable, until the caterers arrived with the food. She was the first one to line up, and he queued up behind her. He watched in admiration as she piled food onto her plate and made a comment about her healthy appetite.

"It seems like all my favorite things have something in common: great food which is good for the body, wonderful friends that are good for the heart, and my family which is good for my soul."

"What about your fans? And boys? They don't fit in your 'favorites'?"

She her fingers to remove the sauce that had spilt onto them from her plate and replied without hesitation, "Fans are good for our well-being, because they keep us employed and without them, we would not be here. And boys?" she shrugged, "They are either friends or family at this point in my life." With that she laughed at herself and scooped one more serving on to her plate.

It was that same laugh that rang out every time he met her that kept him wanting to hear it more and more. It was infectious. More infectious that his strep throat, he thought.

"You're completely infatuated," Taec said aloud, talking to himself.

No doubt that it was one sided, he wasn't going to fool himself. But still, it's not like he could just stop his feelings either. All he wanted to do was try to spend more time talking to her, because when he was with her, nothing else mattered.

"Wait, didn't Khunnie say something last night about a meeting?"

His mind was foggy and he tried to remember. It didn't help that his head pounded and he knew he should be sleeping it off. But it was so boring to sleep all day, and he couldn't now even if he had wanted to, since his throat hurt so badly.

After he spat into the sink for the final time he covered his face with the mask.

He headed back to his room and glanced at the closed laptop on his desk. He grabbed it and brought it back to the bottom bunk bed. After getting back under the covers, he opened the laptop so that the keyboard was balanced on his chest, and the screen hovered over his face.

He logged on to one his favorite online game sites and found almost as quickly as he logged in that he was not even up to playing his favorite role playing battle game. He sighed as he logged back out.

He closed the screen and placed the laptop across his chest as he attempted another swallow, and grimaced. It wasn't quite has bad, since he had gargled, but it still hurt like trying to drink nails.

That's when he remembered!

Khunnie will be meeting with Yoona today! He had mentioned it the night before, trying to cheer Taec up, asking if he wanted him to relay any messages to her.

"That's right," Taec remembered. "They are going to be on some show together. Lucky dog!"

He missed her. He missed talking to her. He missed her laugh. He missed how she would often hit him when he or when she laughed hard. That made him smile. So many girls he knew would giggle or have a soft, light laugh. But not Yoona. She thoroughly enjoyed herself when she laughed, and so did those around her. You couldn't help but be drawn in to the laugh and join her the way she threw her head back, and almost cackled. It was so unlady-like. Yet it was uniquely her own, that was one of the things he adored about her.

But ever since their three-way conversation with Yesung, he hadn't had a chance to talk to her. Her schedule was full from morning through the late night, and his own wasn't anything to frown on either. With the activities that were planned for 2PM's new song, he wasn't surprised that his immune system was worn down and he got sick.

Still, at least he took some comfort in knowing that she would know about him being under the weather. Khun would tell her, wouldn't he?

Then again, this was Khunnie. This was the Thai Prince that melted hearts of women around the world. This was the same NichKhun that battled ChanSung for Yoona on Idol Army in the beginning of the year!

Taec didn't want to think about that.

He quickly re-opened the laptop and decided he needed an ego boost. He logged on to his Cyworld site and began reading some of his fan messages.

"I love Oppa so much!"

"Oppa, can you sing to me please?"

"Taecyeon, I dream about you every night!"

"Oppa, can you come visit my school, please?"

"Oppa, you make every day brighter for me!"

He smiled as he kept reading … without understanding why, he really felt his spirits slowly start to lift. He didn't even know these girls, yet they believed in him, and truly supported him. It made him want to get well soon.

He started to feel a less sorry for himself and decided to check out some of 's pages as well. He belonged to all of their fan sites, and would often leave them messages under his secret identities!

"Let's start with Leader, Jay," Taec smiled to himself. It was time to play!

Nichkhun sat across from the conference table and smiled at Yoona as the director continued to speak. Truthfully he had not heard the last five minutes what was being said, because he couldn't help glancing over at her.

Every now and again she would look over at him and return his smile and nod in agreement as she listened to the director.

He was caught off guard when she asked him out loud, "So what do you think?"

"Uhhh" he was screwed. He had no idea what the director had said! He didn't want to look like a fool in front of her, but he had found himself under a spell, just watching her across the table.

"Well," he cleared his throat. "What do you think?"

She smiled back at him so kindly. "Ah, so maybe you didn't understand it all because he spoke so quickly, right?"

She looked back at the director, "Can we talk about it amongst ourselves first?"

The director looked at Khun and then shrugged. Poor foreign boy. He knew his Korean wasn't strong, but he thought at least he should understand the basic storyboarding of the concept.

"I'll go get a coffee and be back in about 30 minutes," replied the director.

Yoona stood up and bowed slightly and NichKhun jumped to his feet and repeated the action.

She then waited for the director to leave the room and waved to Khunnie to follow her to the front of the room where the white boards were covered with colored marker drawings.

"So it's a love story, basically." Yoona explained slowly in simple Korean. She waited for a reaction from Khunnie, and when he smiled and nodded she continued.

"There's a young boy and a girl who fall in love," she began and she pointed to the first drawing. She then indicated the height of a small young child with her hand and NichKhun smiled even bigger.

She thought he couldn't understand Korean! She mistook his pauses for a language barrier!

"I got it, Yoona-shii" Khun tried to reassure her.

He remembered the beginning of the story but was distracted by her towards the middle and completely blanked out on the ending!

"Then how about we give it a try?" she asked.

"Give what a try?" he repeated.

She thought momentarily. "Your reaction! What would your reaction be if you had met your first love again after 15 years?"

"I'm not sure," Khun answered honestly, "Because I haven't ever fallen in love yet."

"No way!" the surprised shock was impossible to hide. "You're kidding, right?"

He gave her another one of his dashing smiles and shook his head.

"Honestly!"

"I don't believe you! After all, you're from the States, and you've been on many dates!"

"Does that mean am supposed to be in love with all the girls I date?"

"But then why would you go out with them if you didn't like them?"

"Who said I didn't like them?" he grinned at her.

When she cocked her head to one side, he stepped a few steps closer to her. He felt comfortable closing the gap of space between them.

"Just because you date someone, Yoona-shii, doesn't mean you love them. And liking isn't the same as loving is it?"

"I know that," she said a bit too quickly, almost defensively, "I'm not naïve!"

"Oh I didn't say that either," he tried to smooth things over so she wouldn't misunderstand him, "I am just trying to explain that I've never fallen hard enough for any girl to consider myself 'in love.' I guess I'm just waiting for the right girl."

He continued as he watched her closely mull that over in her mind. "If I like a girl, I want to get to her better, so I ask her out. It just so happens that it always remained at 'liking' and never advanced beyond that."

"I see," she noticed he had actually gotten quite close to her. She turned to face the board so he wouldn't see her face. She felt the heat in her cheeks blush, and she wasn't even sure why.

Maybe it was because he had just revealed something very personal, or maybe it was because of the topic of this mini drama they were working on about a love story, but for whatever reason, she was feeling nervous now. Even though she didn't know him very well, but he had always been very friendly with her whenever they met for work related activities.

He leaned in closer to her and reached around her shoulder, his face was directly behind her head. "So what happens here?" he pointed to the 4th panel of the drawing.

Her eyes followed his arm down to his hand and she forced herself to look at the board.

The drawing of the two stick figures had a heart drawn around it.

"That represents the couple, I mean us… well, the couple… it represents us falling back in love ."

"Ahhh" he spoke softly and she shivered slightly at the sound. "Rekindled love."

When she didn't respond, he continued to speak softly to her, inches away from her hair.

"Have you felt it before?"

He wasn't purposely intending to bait her, because he actually liked Yoona. She was one of the few girls that made everyone feel comfortable around them. She wasn't flamboyant or coy. She didn't try to flirt with him immediately after he walked in the room the way most girls would. But he also realized that she didn't seem to be drawn to him either, which rather puzzled him. Not that he was conceited, but he knew that most women found him to be attractive. So why wasn't she reacting to him?

Without realizing that he was doing it, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. He reached up and raised her chin up with his right hand while his left hand leaned against the white board.

"Have you ever felt so strongly about a person that you don't want to leave their side?"

His eyes twinkled at her. She had never seen such big, sparkling eyes as his this close before. But he was much too close for comfort.

"Wait a minute," she pushed him back at arms reach, "too close!"

"I'm just trying to understand that story line, Yoon-shii. I'm trying to understand what love is."

Yoona saw the earnest look in his eyes, and wasn't sure she should answer him or not. He wasn't trying to seduce her, but every time she looked in his eyes, she felt like moving in closer to him.

"All I know is," she looked directly into his gaze, and then smiled at him, "when you love someone, no one else in the world matters as much as they do. They make you want to be a better person."

And with that she walked back to her seat and sat down. She began writing down some notes on her tablet and then almost as an after thought added, "Don't worry, Nichkhun-shii, that day will come."

He laughed out loud causing her to look up. He was genuinely pleased at what she said, even though she didn't think it was funny at all. She chuckled at his response and watched him come sit next to her.

"I'm sure it will. I have no doubt." He looked directly at her.

One of the assistant's popped in and said the director was sending in lunch for them because he had some urgent phone calls he had to take.

"Lunch with a prince!" Yoona smiled.

He laughed again at that, and for the next hour they found themselves in deep conversation about things that were of little import, and seemed to vary between topics of existence of UFO's and what places in the world they'd like to visit if they could travel freely without being recognized.

Taec had felt a surge of energy come from all of the mischievous comments he left on his fellow members pages! He was almost done when his thoughts wandered back to Yoona.

He couldn't help himself. She didn't have a mini home page or a Cyworld site. She most definitely did not have a FaceBook or MySpace site, very few Koreans did. But there were hundreds of fansites that were dedicated to her. He gave into temptation and created a bogus login at one of the most well known sites.

One of the advantages of these sites were the galleries! He immediately found himself clicking and viewing page after page of her beautiful smiling face, her soft far off look she had while advertising a skin care product, her y look she had while sleeping, and then he saw a few shots of her with those Super Juniors again! Her and Siwon Choi were arm in arm. He stared at the look on her face for a few seconds, trying to determine if that smile was genuinely enjoying the closeness of the male next to her.

"Bad girl!" he scolded her image jokingly. "How come you look so good with that rich brat?"

He considered leaving a menacing comment on the photo but instead he navigated back over to the last 2PM member site to visit. As he logged into NichKhun's Cyworld page, he wondered how the prince was getting along with Yoona. Knowing Khun, he would have her charmed in an instant.

"Oppa," Taec started to type, "I simply can't live without you! I kiss your photo every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. Oppa, I could not bear it if you got a girlfriend! Please stay loyal to your HOTTEST fans!"

Taec's envy of Khun spending the day with Yoona brought out the devil in him as he continued, "Oppa, please marry me!"

"Serves you right!" he laughed as he clicked on the 'submit' button.

He closed the laptop screen and sighed deeply.

"I guess either Khun didn't tell her or she doesn't care that I'm over here dying."

When he closed his eyes, the photos he had just seen on her fan site flashed in his mind.

"The headache, the sore throat, the fever… none of it comes close to the pang in my heart that I get when I think you're ignoring my very existence, Yoona."

The director had been explaining the final changes on the story board and both of the idols took notes.

Yoona watched Khunnie remove the page from his planner he was writing on and began folding it in to an origami shape. As the director wrapped up the meeting she closed her own tablet and gathered her things.

NichKhun bowed to the director and thanked him for being patient with him.

He walked over to Yoona and bowed to her. He then reached out his hand for an American style hand shake, and Yoona smiled at his gentleman-like gesture.

When she placed her hand in his she felt him exchange a piece of paper from his hand to hers and she looked up at his face he gave her a devastatingly charming wink and said, "Be sure to call TaecYeon sometime soon, Yoona-shii, he's got strep throat and is probably being a big fat baby all by himself."

With that he was out the door and she was left looking down at the piece of paper in her hand. She tucked it into her pocket and reached for her cell phone.