“Smile!”

“What?! NO!” you screamed as you hid your face.

“Oh come on ______-shi! PLEASE?” he said with his voice dripping with aegyo. The very aegyo that you always fell for.

You turned away from him.

“PLEASE?!”

“Fine.”

He smiled brightly knowing he had won yet again, then took out the old polaroid camera he had found in his house.

“Smile!"

___

You stared at the Polaroid you had found in a shoebox.  You had just moved into your new apartment not too long ago, and were looking through your things. You had found a shoebox hidden in one of your boxes and decided to look through it. This box had lots of different things but the old polaroid picture from when you were a kid had caught you eye.

You were laughing in the picture because your best friend Jongin had tickled you so you wouldn’t ruin his picture with a frown. You had known Jongin for the longest time; you first met in the 1^st grade when he had defended you from a group of bullies who were messing with your crayons. From that point on he secretly vowed to always protect you, because the week before his dad had passed away due to cancer and he was always depressed. Even though his mom would always try to cheer him up it wasn’t enough, until he saw your cute little smile. Somehow your happiness had made him feel better, and hearing your laugh during recess was like music to his ears. But of course he never told you this.

You plopped down on your couch and decided to turn on the tv. By mere coincidence the channel that it was already on had a music show on. You decided to watch it, or let it be background music, while you looked through that box of stuff. You had a bunch of things in there that was from Jongin, the last time you seen him was before high school, you had moved to the states to pursue your dream as a dancer so you went to a fancy art school to learn. You had just recently gotten back from the states after graduating and decided to attend college in Korea and pursue a career as a dancer in the Korean Pop industry.

You were just looking through a bunch of old pictures of you and your best friend and some old letters that he sent you to keep in touch like you promised. The letters would come every other week, but as the years passed the letters dwindled and soon stopped. But it didn’t mean you never thought about him or vice versa.

-FLASHBACK-

“You’re leaving?”

“Neh~ My parents have to move for work and well I have a great opportunity to go study dance in the states…”

“B-but can’t you stay here, and study at Seoul School of Performing Arts with me?”

“I want to Jongin… but you know my parents…”

Jongin stared at you as tears threatened to spill over, “I’m going to miss you so much ______-shi~” he said as he hugged you.

“I’ll miss you too~” you hugged him back.

He pulled away and looked you in the eyes, “promise me that you’ll write a letter to me every other week…”

“I promise~” with that he smiled.

“I have to go now Jongin…” you said as you turned around to walk away. But before you could take another step, he reached out and grabbed your wrist. Then he pulled you to face him, before you could protest anything he pressed his lips to yours. Instantly, your eyelids closed and you enjoyed the moment with him.

“_______-shi, I love you” he said as he slightly pulled away.

-END OF FLASHBACK-

You were staring at a letter he sent you, that had a bracelet that was a little too big for you to be honest, attached. Because it was big you barely wore it, being afraid you would lose it. You were brought out of your thoughts at the sound of a familiar voice.

“We are one! Annyeonghasey Exo imnida~!”

You looked up at the tv, and the mcs were doing a backstage interview with some rookie group called Exo. You had no idea who they were, but you personally were a fan of SHINee. You actually got to meet the last time they had a concert in LA, because you were walking down the street and Taemin accidentally walked into you.  And as an apology for literally running into you he asked you to dance with him. Because you had no interest for this rookie group you went back to looking through your box of stuff when all the members were introducing themselves.

“Annyeonghaseyo Kai imnida~”

Your head shot up to look at the tv when you heard the voice. You blinked a couple times to make sure you were seeing correctly. Your eyes widened when you saw him on the tv.

“Jongin?” you whispered and the teddy bear that was in your hand dropped to the ground.

During the entire interview with the rookie group Exo you couldn’t take your eyes off of the tv, in fact you couldn’t take your eyes off of Jongin… or Kai… You listened to them speak of their fans and a question popped up from the mcs that caught your attention.

“Did any of you have a first love?” one of the mcs asked.

You leaned forward a bit towards the tv, most of them said no but then it was Kai’s turn to answer.

“Well…” he scratches the back of his neck slightly blushing, “I did actually…”

Your heart rated sped up as he continued on with the mcs questioning about his first love.

“She was my best friend since the first grade” he smiled shyly.

“Do you still talk?” one of the mcs asked.

“No we don’t she actually moved to the states to pursue her dreams as a dancer” he answered while he had a hint of sadness in his eyes.

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes… I do… she was my best friend for a long time… but I’m glad she went after her dreams and I fully support her for doing that” he smiled at the mcs.

After the interview ended you ran to your bedroom and grabbed your laptop. You went on and researched about Exo to see if you could learn more about them, and the different members. You didn’t find much since they had just debuted you just knew there were 12 members and they split into two units that promoted in China and Korea. You had discovered that their next fansigning was tomorrow and you decided to go and see him.

___

It had been years since you had seen Jongin in person, you were nervous. You had changed your outfit about 15 times already because you didn’t think they were good enough. Finally you decided to wear shorts over your leggings and a hoodie because it was cold out.

You left your house and went over to the location of the fansigning. It was crowded there. The line of fangirls was insane, and you were towards the end of it sadly. About an hour of waiting in line you were finally able to see the long table that the group was sitting at. You grabbed out the cd you had bought yesterday and got it ready for them to sign, and then as you neared the table you grabbed out the letter you wrote to Jongin.

You finally got up to the table and were slowly making your way to Jongin who was at the end. The other members smiled and were really sweet, especially the leader, Suho. Your heart started going crazy the closer you stepped to Jongin, and when you were right in front of him you thought your heart was going to jump out of your chest.

“Annyeonghaseyo~” you said shyly.

“Annyeonghaseyo~” he replied smiling at you, “thank you for coming~ what is your name?”

You swallowed, “um… my name is _____ imnida…” you said nervously.

“Okay~ have a nice day _____-shi” he smiled and handed you your signed album.

Your heart dropped and your smile faded hearing his words. You gently placed the letter in front of him and walked away before he could thank you afraid of crying in front of him.

___

Kai looked up after he saw a letter placed in front of him. All he saw was you running away and he shrugged and put it in a box for him to read later.

‘That voice… that name… why does it sound so familiar?’

___

After all the fans were gone, Kai decided to read that letter from the mysterious fan with the familiar voice.

Dear Jongin,

Hi. We haven’t seen or talked to each other in years… I recently moved back after getting an offer to become a trainee, my dreams are finally coming true Jongin-ah~ But I see you already beat me to it hahaha.

Anyway just wanted to tell you that I am so proud of you, I saw your performance and interview on tv last night.

I miss you Jongin-ah~

Love,

___________-shi

His heart sunk as he read the letter, finally realizing that the fan that seemed so familiar yesterday was actually you, his first love. He wanted to find you but had no idea how he was supposed to do that being that you didn’t leave no contact information, just an old picture of the two of you.

“Jongin! Let’s go we have to go practice!” Suho called from the door, and Kai quickly shoved the letter into his pocket and joined the rest of the members in the van and headed off to practice.

__

You had just gotten home when you had received a phone call. It was from you’re new manager saying that you needed to come in to start learning the choreography for the debut song that you and your group had recorded the other day. So you took a taxi to the SM Town building to practice.

__

You arrived at the building and immediately headed to the practice rooms, only stopping to change into your dancing clothes. When you were finished you went to the practice room and immediately started practicing with the others. After practice you had decided to stay for a bit, because you had the studio all to yourself and you couldn’t turn down an empty studio all to yourself.

When everyone had left you plugged in your ipod and hit shuffle. When the song started you decided to do some freestyle dancing. You got lost in the music, you felt free, and this is why you wanted to become a dancer. It made you happy. When the music stopped, you jumped at the sound of someone clapping. You turned to face the person and both of your heart’s stopped.

“_____-shi?” Kai’s smile faded and his heart raced seeing you for the first time in years.

“Jongin?” you whispered back.

He immediately ran up to you and embraced you. You hugged him back and started to tear up. He slightly pulled back to see your face and saw tears threatening to spill over.

“I missed you so much _____-shi~” he said looking into your eyes.

“I missed you too Jongin~” you said as a tear of joy rolled down your cheek.

He wiped away you’re tear and softly kissed your cheek, then whispered, “I will never let you go again~”