This ceiling is not her ceiling. This duvet, pure white and incredibly soft, is not her duvet. And, oh Lord, this cotton button down shirt is definitely not her shirt. It’s a man’s shirt, if that makes any difference. But despite the fact that the items that surround her are nothing she’s ever come to own or was familiar with, Joo Yeon refused to get up. She lay awake on that bed, not exactly wondering where she was. In all honesty, she didn’t even know what to think.

Finally, after a long beat, she turned to her side, where a tall, glass window greeted her with the morning’s sunlight blanketing Seoul’s cityscape. Judging by the sun’s position high above Seoul Tower, it was nearly noon. And yet, Joo Yeon refused to get up. She remained on that bed, staring out the window, watching a flock of birds fly south. As she lay on bed with her hand cradling her head, the door behind her slowly opened. Joo Yeon slowly edged her head around to look over her shoulder. Jong Yoon smiled at her, stepping into the room, dismissing her silent reverie.

He sat at the foot of her bed, where he gently rubbed the arch of her feet.

“Nothing happened last night,” Jong Yoon was quick to point out. “Except you had some wine and thanks to my ty coordination after 1 AM, it accidently spilled down your blouse. But I put it in the wash right before you fell asleep last night.”

Joo Yeon lacked the initiative to say anything back. She only sat up and watched him massage her feet slowly.

“Hey,” Jong Yoon leaned over and cupped her face. “What’s wrong?”

 Under his palm, he felt Joo Yeon’s porcelain cheeks quiver. He predetermined the oncoming waterfall as her eyes turned glassy and downcast. And then after awhile, one teardrop finally cascaded down her face. The warm tear landed on Jong Yoon’s hand and he took the liberty to wipe her tear for her.

“I’ve…” Joo Yeon started to say. She pursed her lips and swallowed hard. Jong Yoon tried to get her to look at him straight in the eyes, but Joo Yeon avoided them.

“What is it?” He urged. “Come on, what’s on your mind?”

Jong Yoon was too close with his summery aroma filling Joo Yeon’s senses. She shut her eyes and the achingly close contact with her ex-boyfriend made her feel irresponsibly vulnerable. Joo Yeon felt her hand move up against his chest, sliding towards his neck. Tears began to fall at an incessant rate and at this moment, she really, really wanted to kiss him.

It was supposed to be easy. Jong Yoon’s delicate, thin lips were right there. She could have just leaned over just an inch – just a measly, mothering inch – and their lips could have done the deed. But it was way too difficult. It was just, okay, sometimes when she’s kissing Taemin (her boyfriend, in case you forgot), she sees Jong Yoon when her eyes close and even if it’s Taemin’s soft, plump mouth she’s kissing, something in her mind snaps and she believes she’s kissing her ex again. It’s so disgustingly wrong; it’s despicable. But now, when Jong Yoon’s right in front of her and Taemin’s nowhere to be seen and it’s Jong Yoon’s lips that are a few inches from her and not Taemin’s, she can’t do it. She can’t do it.

Joo Yeon pushed him away, opening her eyes. They’re still wet with her tears, but at least it’s stopped flowing. Jong Yoon looked on at her, utterly perplexed. There was a pregnant pause in the air as they stared at each other, until Joo Yeon finally spoke. Comprehensibly, this time.

“Why did you come back?”

“I – I – ”

“You, what? What, Jong Yoon, what?!” Joo Yeon had suddenly become monstrous. The waterworks are back, and this time, it’s hot with her sudden anger. “Why are you back here? Why did you show up in my life again? What are you trying to do? What do you expect me to say? What do you want me to do?” Joo Yeon’s voice pierced the ear-ringing silence of Jong Yoon’s guest bedroom and, ironically, the daylight outside began to dim as overcastting clouds rolled over Phoebus’ front. “You leave me without telling me where you’re going, you expect me to pick up where you left me, and then you come back as if nothing’s ever happened? Oh Jong Yoon, you’re ing delusional.”

Jong Yoon stared at her in intense horror, suddenly feeling like he’s got the air knocked out of him in a bare knuckle fight. He watched as Joo Yeon got off the bed and picked up her bag from a desk chair by the door. She ignored his silent, pleading awe as she pulled her phone from her bag. Her heels were also by the door, under the chair, and clumsily she put them on. Her anger had not subsided and being in his presence did not seem to ease it any better. And to think, a second ago, she wanted to kiss him.

In all honesty, though, she still does.

Jong Yoon can sense it. He knows – of course he does. He’s dated her for a majority of their high school careers, and three years is long enough to know what Joo Yeon is feeling when her jaw is tight but her eyes are going soft. Even if he’s absolutely puzzled with Joo Yeon’s odd behavior, he stands up and grabs her by her upper arms and finally.

Finally, he kissed her.

He kisses her because she’s beautiful. Because he hasn’t seen her face for awhile, aside from the pictures on her minihompy. Because she smells like a dizzying mixture of his sheets and candy. Because she followed him home even if she has a boyfriend. Because he knows she feels guilty for her current whereabouts but doesn’t do about it. Because she still looks like an angel when she has just woken up. Because her anger blows a fuse in his brain and he can’t think straight either. He kisses her because he wants to. And she does, too.

When they break off, Jong Yoon looked at her. His expression is painful.

“You didn’t come back to Korea because of me, didn’t you,” she whispered. It was more of a statement than a question.

Jong Yoon somberly nodded. “Sometimes I lie awake at night, wondering who he’d look like. I’d always imagine he’d have your eyes.”

For the first time that mid-morning, Joo Yeon let out a light chuckle. Tears continued to run down her face. “I imagine he would have your nose.”

***

Key’s left foot was right by his nose and his neon pink mat was hurting his eyes.

This, Taemin thought, is the epitome of what his relationship with Joo Yeon had eventually amount up to. Weak attempts at yoga and meditation, and then pit stops at any nearby frozen yogurt shop at random intervals. In fact, after they’re done sticking their legs up in the air in a virabhadrasana III pose, Taemin will go out with Jonghyun and get another cup of frozen yogurt.

Or whatever. He had only started today, but he felt that if Joo Yeon continues to act strangely, then all this yoga and yogurt nonsense would become what his relationship resulted in.

Minho says it’s going to result in a break up, but of course he doesn’t tell Taemin that. Just the other three members.

“Okay,” Key breathed out as they both settled down on the floor after their first yoga session. “Do you feel rather relaxed right now?”

Taemin twisted his lips and shrugged. “Perhaps.”

A deep, throbbing pain suddenly panged through his chest, and Taemin clutched it worriedly. “Whoa.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Taemin replied. “I just, wow. I felt this weird strike in my chest.”

Key glared at him. “Minute by minute, Taemin, you’re getting much weirder. You really should quit it before Manager-hyung senses something’s wrong.”

“But that’s the thing,” Taemin hisses. “Something is wrong.”

Key looked around the room, hoping someone or something would pop out of nowhere and save him from delving into another unnecessary conversation about Taemin’s feelings and transgressions and anxiety and how his heart hurts and maybe he should change his hairstyle back to brown because Joo Yeon finds it hot. But to his misfortune, nothing appeared to salvage Key from his present doom. He pushed himself off the floor and rolled up his yoga mat.

Taemin sighed as Key left the room with some excuse to take a shower before going shopping with a friend of his. He laid back on his mat and stretched his arm out to pick up his phone from the couch. No new messages from Joo Yeon yet, and it’s nearly 1 PM. He wanted to go ahead and see her at work, but they had to be at the SM building that afternoon for another dance practice. These were seriously trying times. It’s only been six months into their relationship and they’ve already reached the base of a rather steep mountain.

***

Some people tell you that you need to get up and grow up, but for Taemin, growing up was something he was paid not to do. That’s why, when he was asked by Ceci magazine to do a rather racy shoot that involved him to take his shirt off several times, he gladly accepted even with the terms and conditions given by his own manager that he do strict workouts and gain some serious weight before the shoot.

With luck ever so ready at his side, Taemin gained enough body mass to deter imaginative dispositions that he was a scrawny little girl in the minimum amount of weeks before the Ceci fashion editorial. Also, it was at this editorial shoot that he looked good and met the girl of his dreams.

Cue Park Joo Yeon, a recent graduate from Daewon Academy who deferred acceptance to Kyoto University just so she could become a junior writer at the magazine. That day, the day he was bound to strip off his security blanket and show off his lean abs, Joo Yeon was aptly assigned the job as assistant stylist for the shoot.

She walked into his dressing room with such grace that Taemin initially thought he’d have a co-model at the photoshoot. Joo Yeon entered, carrying thick, studded leather jackets and dark Dr. Martens boots, and Taemin, whose hair was being straightened and sprayed into position by a hairstylist-noona, watched her from his makeup chair. Yes, she was beautiful, but what he liked most about her was the fact that she was only nineteen. Of course, he didn’t just know this already. He had to do some interrogating as soon as she exited the room.

Anyway, the point is, she’s the same age as him and she has an awesome job. And she’s ing gorgeous – in the vernacular of Taemin.

The whole courtship – well, that was a tougher game to play. Taemin was able to meet her because the main stylist of the shoot found it irrepressibly adorable that he had developed a huge crush on her assistant, but what ensued after wasn’t as easy as their meeting. As elusive as all women were, she was the pinnacle of girl playing hard to get. What got to Taemin was the fact that she wasn’t too interested at all. Not that he was going to rely on his fame and his face plastered on every Etude House ad, but that’s basically the cherry on top of everything that’s so amazing about him. I mean, come on. That’s got to garner some interest, wouldn’t it?

Jonghyun-hyung’s first impression of her was that she was quite the presumptuous little princess, but Taemin didn’t fully consider his hyung’s comment because he knows that Jonghyun is probably only judging her over the fact that she graduated from Daewon Academy. More money, more problems, as Jonghyun pointed out. And that could be the one of the reasons why she isn’t too keen on Taemin’s advances. Little did these boys know that Jonghyun was almost right. She was born into a life of money and status and that was that.   

However, after two months of shudder inducing flirtation mostly from Taemin’s part, Joo Yeon finally gave in. It was probably something Taemin did or said, Key concluded, that allowed her to realize what a great boyfriend material he’d be if she gave him a chance. Be that as it may, Joo Yeon actually fell for Taemin because she no longer garnered feelings for Oh Jong Yoon. Or so she believed she didn’t. When you share a life with someone, it isn’t an easy task for you to try to forget them. Let alone if they were extremely good looking.

But she dove into a new relationship anyway. It didn’t hurt to try something new and even if she didn’t see Taemin as often as she saw Jong Yoon when they were still dating, she liked this new world. High school was now history and the idea of dating a Korean pop star felt exhilarating. There was the sheer excitement of sneaking out and hiding from Taemin’s strict management. Then there were the perks that Taemin presented to Joo Yeon as part of his direful stardom. But what Joo Yeon loved the most about Taemin and this new relationship was that, finally, it was simple.

No complicated disagreement between families. No threat of further segregation by her parents because of his family. No difficult arguments about who does what and when they do it and why they do it, because Taemin’s typically not the violently jealous type and Joo Yeon can’t be begged to go through that trauma again. It was simple. He liked her and brought her out on dates. She liked him and couldn’t help but fall deeply for his big brown eyes and his velvety singing voice. And that was that.

***

“Hey.”

Taemin looked up from the novel he was reading (or tried to read, actually; he probably read the same sentence about ten times already and still didn’t process a word). He smiled almost too gleefully before getting up from his seat. His favorite waitress at a particular Italian restaurant, Kang Yeo Jin, stood before him, holding a pitcher of iced water.

“Hey yourself,” he said, reaching over his table to give her a hug. Yeo Jin deftly returned his hug with her one free arm.

“It’s been awhile since I last saw you come in here,” she said, her dimples slicing her apple cheeks with a warm smile. “Unless, of course, you were avoiding me.”

Taemin chuckled. “Not really, no. I just got busy, you know that.”

“Right,” Yeo Jin replied with sarcastic connotations.

“Hey, come on,” Taemin half-pleaded, grabbing Yeo Jin’s tiny wrists and petting her hand. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“You owe me one for missing you too much.”

“Aw, I’m flattered.” Taemin shot her a bigger grin and sat back down. “Anyway, I’m sorry that I haven’t had time to come in at all during your shifts. It’s just that, what with all the things I’m supposed to deal with right now at the company and my girlfriend, it’s really hard to take some time away to – ”

“Wait.” Yeo Jin put the pitcher of iced water down. “What girlfriend?”

A look of definite perplexity expressed through Taemin’s features: he furrowed his brows and slackened his jaw. “Wow, um. I thought I told you about Joo Yeon…”

Yeo Jin pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nope. You didn’t.”

“Oh, well, if that’s the case…” Awkwardly, Taemin rubbed the back of his neck and avoided Yeo Jin’s glare. “Um, yeah. Actually, I have a girlfriend now. We’ve been together since August.”

“August?” Yeo Jin exclaimed, nearly startling a few restaurant patrons near Taemin’s table. She lowered her voice after noticing their peer’s odd staring. “You’ve been with someone since six months ago and you care to tell me this now?”

She was seething by now, and Taemin only delved further into unusual confusion.

“Ok, hold on. What’s wrong? I guess I just I didn’t have the time to tell you everything that has happened lately because it just never… really... came up… So.”

“So, what, Taemin? You’ve been coming here a couple times after August, after you clearly got yourself a girlfriend and you only tell me all of this lately?”

“Yeo Jin, what’s the big deal?” He asked again. “I’m seriously sorry for not telling you. But as I said, the topic never came up. I mean, if you asked then I would’ve said something, but you didn’t. So I never said anything.”

Yeo Jin scowled deeply. “So this is my fault?”

“No, what – ?”

“You come in here, making it seem that you weren’t with anyone. You look like you’re not so single anymore and that’s good. I was happy for you. And then suddenly you say you’ve got yourself a girlfriend. Not only that, you’ve been with her for six months, Taemin. Six months. And during those six months you never even dropped a hint, a name, anything, to indicate that ‘oh by the way, Yeo Jin, I’m seeing someone right now’.”

Before Taemin could say something, a customer at a farther table began waving their hand over at Yeo Jin. She picked up the pitcher of iced water and tossed Taemin a dirty look before rhetorically asking, “Why do you even come here when you apparently have your own girlfriend to tend to?”

Taemin, feeling suddenly dejected, stared after Yeo Jin in wonderment as she hurried over to the table with the customer who needed assistance. It seemed as if all the important young women in Taemin’s life were now becoming inexplicably strange, tout de suite.

After the odd exchange with Yeo Jin, Taemin didn’t see the rest of her during his dinner time at the Italian restaurant. He paid for his meal without the chance of seeing Yeo Jin and bidding her a proper goodbye. What was odd was how she had reacted to his news of dating someone new. It wasn’t the first time that Taemin ever divulged to Yeo Jin that he was taken; he met Yeo Jin on his third monthsary date with the girlfriend before Joo Yeon. During his walk back to his dorm building, he carefully looked back at what could have caused Yeo Jin to be so shaken in retrospect.

“What does it matter?” Key merely asked. He was popping zits in front of his bedroom mirror. Taemin laid on the older boy’s bed, after relaying his dinner events to his hyung. “She’s just some waitress at that restaurant. It’s not like you guys are best friends or anything.”

“No, actually, that’s the point,” Taemin said, propping himself up on his elbows. He watched Key plaster on a blemish bandage over his open pores. “She is sort of like a best friend. Kind of like that those anonymous people you talk to when there really isn’t anyone to talk to.”

“And so.”

“And so it’s weird! It’s weird that she’s acting up like this and when you think about it – and I’m not trying to sound really conceited or anything but – but I think it’s maybe because she likes me.”

Key sat down next to Taemin on his bed, acne bandages and all. “I don’t even know why you come to me when you can clearly figure things out for yourself.”

Taemin secretly wished that was true so he could figure out what the hell to do with Park Joo Yeon. 

Author's Note: An update already?! Whaaaat? Yes, I'm as shocked as you (maybe) are. I just thought that for an amazing story like mine (if you don't mind me tooting my own horn), it ought to be continued and written down as soon as possible. So, yeah. I added a lot of important elements and information into this chapter because I'm going way too slow without getting necessarily anywhere. Jong Yoon and Joo Yeon slowly reveal their secret and *gasp* Taemin's got a not-so-secret-anymore admirer! It's about time I got this show on the road, right? What do you think? What works for this story and what doesn't? BTW, I finished this chapter somewhere around 3 in the morning when I was slightly stoned so spellings and usage of wrong words may apply. Please graciously ignore!

PS: I made an amaze-balls new trailer that I think y'all ought to watch over here.