There’s something exhilarating about going out in public with a Korean pop idol. There’s always that imminent feeling of knowing that there may be someone, somewhere nearby, standing at the ready with a Canon SLR camera. Okay fine, Taemin was making sure he took all the right routes that didn’t involve hustling past a crowd of people whose ages ranged from 13 to childish adult maturity, but Yeo Jin couldn’t help but feel good. It was like, for once, she was playing the girlfriend that Taemin had been so wary of keeping under wraps. All she needed now was to reach over and hold his hand as she tried to fall into step with him. He was walking awfully fast ever since they had left the restaurant where he paid for their early dinner.

She didn’t say anything, just tried to keep up with him. She watched his head turn left and right now and then as they sped past quiet store-lined streets towards the next bus stop. When Taemin finally reached the stop that would take Yeo Jin back home, he rolled his head around to give her a knowing smile. Then he twisted around on his heels to face her.

“Well, today was fun,” Taemin told her.

“Yeah,” Yeo Jin replied gruffly. “I’m glad we got to meet and talk somewhere outside of my workplace. We should do it again some time.”

“Definitely,” Taemin agreed. “Hey, what time is it?”

“It’s nearly 6,” Yeo Jin looked at the time on her Samsung phone. “I hope your dance choreographer doesn’t kill you for skipping out on practice.”

Taemin waved it away. “Well, if I run back without stopping for oxygen, I could make it in time to give a plausible excuse that I overslept. Or something.”

“Or,” Yeo Jin tilted up on the balls of her feet, “you could just skip it altogether and come over to my place.”

There was the slightest trace of a smirk in Yeo Jin’s lips and suddenly, Taemin began to feel uncomfortable. It was a seemingly innocent suggestion, but there was no way Taemin could ignore the wicked, wicked double entendre in her sentence.

“I really can’t miss practice anymore,” Taemin fidgeted, the toe of his boots hitting each other and piling a tiny channel of snow between them. “We have a showcase next week and I was seriously hoping to do well. Our choreo this time is really tough.”

Yeo Jin looked up as her bus pulled up at the stop. She heaved a sigh, her breath visible in the cold, winter air. “I guess I’ll see you at my work, or whatever, then.”

“Sure,” Taemin started to move backwards before Yeo Jin’s smile or overall persona would draw him in and refuse him the power to leave on his own will. “I’ll text you, then.”

The last few people waiting at the bus stop were already boarding the public transit bus. Yeo Jin plastered on a smile and waved briefly at Taemin before she, too, got on the bus. Taemin smiled back politely and pocketed his hands as he trudged back up the street. He wondered what his hyungs might say if they find out about Yeo Jin. Because, the truth is, his hyungdeuls have somewhat become quite conceited motherers, most notably Key and Minho hyung. It’s like, nothing really impresses them but the best. And Yeo Jin really isn’t the “best”. But it’s not like that mattered anyway, because after all, Taemin had just gone out for dinner – alone – with a girl that was not his girlfriend.

As he quickened his pace, Taemin patted around the pockets of both his jeans and his coat to find his phone. When his feel-to-find search had been proven fruitless, he stopped in his tracks, immediately descending into a deep trench of unprecedented panic. In this day and age, there was no greater horror than the nightmare of having to lose your mobile phone.

And it’s not like Taemin could easily replace his phone. It’d take days for him to find enough free time to go down to his phone company, buy a new phone, and then have to wait in line to change numbers. This was his lifeline, basically. In a desert full of long, tiresome schedules, his phone was his one jug of water. It brought him up through the depths of boredom, and of course, how the hell could he stay sane without communication with the outside world? Also, his phone’s contacts were of the irreplaceable kind. It’s not every day that you got to input the phone number of some famous Korean singer or the head CEO of the country’s biggest entertainment company. If, somehow, his phone was found in the hands of a nosy fan, then the privacy of his hyungs and noonas at his company would eventually be violated and he’d be the prioritized source of blame.

Within minutes, Taemin was running back to his dorm like a madman; in an oddly ironic sort of way, it was also kind of like he was running away from the brooding conjectures that scared him less.

“Taem – oh!”

“Whoa, !”

“Taemin!”

“Joo Yeon?” They both exclaimed simultaneously.

“You better control that tongue of yours.”

“I – uh – What are you doing here?” Taemin shuffled back a little, like bumping into her was not enough physical evidence to prove that oh, your girlfriend is here outside your dorm.

Silently, Joo Yeon held up Taemin’s Samsung Galaxy to which he widened his eyes.

“H-how did you g-get that?” He stammered, dazedly reaching out to take it from her.

“Jongin gave it to me. He said that you accidently left it in his bag or something when he was at your dorm,” said Joo Yeon.

“Oh, right,” Taemin fiddled with his phone, toying with the plush charm to avoid Joo Yeon’s eyes. “Yeah, I guess I forgot it with him.”

Joo Yeon looked flushed for a minute, but heaved out a heavy sigh. The funny thing was that Joo Yeon really did expect him to play along with her lie. It was a stupid lie, really, and not properly constructed, but she figured that Taemin would not admit that he never met up with Jongin that day. She expected him to lie.

 And unfortunately, he did.

***

Coffee Tree was doing very well under the hands of an inexperienced business and political heir. The Oh family never had to rely too much on luck, but it seemed that they struck gold for the first time when they had permitted Jong Yoon to open up his own coffee shop merely out of a whim. Now, after months of increasing sales and an appealing take on its younger market, talk began to burgeon about franchising the store.

And nineteen was too young of an age to be running a coffee shop and a new art gallery – successfully. Furthermore, to do it without any help from one’s own notable CFO father was a tremendous feat in and of itself. But for Jong Yoon, his talent and intellect was something not everyone could have obtained arbitrarily, let alone explain it. To put it simply, he was born with it.

Of course, Jong Yoon’s father and grandfather ought to be proud. After going through a long, scandalous year of damage control, to have one’s son and grandson achieve acceptance to a top-notch American university whilst running a small yet prosperous coffee shop seems to be the perfect light at the end of their tunnels. All he needed now was that MBA (and quite possibly a PhD, too) and a gorgeous wife. The kids and picket-fence family would have to wait. Especially ever since the incident –

The tiny chimes on the glass door of Coffee Tree jingled as Joo Yeon entered the coffee shop. It had been nearly a week since she stepped inside with Taemin, and then eventually bumped into Jong Yoon. To be back there harvested a sense of shame and irrepressible guilt, something that Joo Yeon was not unfamiliar with. And to think, her current transgressions were once again associated with Oh Jong Yoon.

She slowed up to the counter where a young barista was attending to another customer. Jong Yoon was nowhere to be seen and relief subdued Joo Yeon momentarily. As the customer before her paid for his drink and left, Joo Yeon moved up.

“I’ll have the white chocolate latte,” she said flatly, pulling out her wallet. She bit her tongue, fighting the urge to ask for Jong Yoon. As the barista rung up her order and prepared her drink, her wishes had been fulfilled once Jong Yoon appeared from the stock room behind the counter. He stopped in his tracks and nearly dropped the box of ground Colombian coffee as soon as his eyes met Joo Yeon’s.

Joo Yeon opened to say something, but decided against it. Jong Yoon laid the box down on the floor next to the espresso machine and slowly moved towards the cash register where Joo Yeon was standing in front of. His eyes brightened under the recess lighting of his coffee shop.

“I’m grateful to see that you’ve come back,” he said casually. “I told you our coffee is so much better than the other coffee shops you frequent.”

Joo Yeon couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, well, just think of this as giving Coffee Tree a second chance to prove itself.”

The barista came back with Joo Yeon’s drink as Jong Yoon laughed at her comment. Joo Yeon held out her card, but Jong Yoon gently pushed her hand away and offered to pay for it. Joo Yeon briefly declined but resolved to let him do so considering it wasn’t that expensive anyway. As she moved to find a table, Jong Yoon automatically followed her. They settled in a small table by one of the windows.

A pregnant silence consumed them both. And it wasn’t the kind of awkward silence that you’d experience after having with someone for one night only and then having no idea what to say the next morning. This silence was brought on because neither person wanted to get to the point straightaway and yet not wanting to beat around any bush either.

Jong Yoon never really told her the real reason why he was back in Seoul. Assumedly, it would be because he was looking after Coffee Tree, but his recent actions towards her felt otherwise. One could come back home after a term in college to look after your coffee shop, yes, but that never really entitled them to take their ex-girlfriend out and bring them back to their place. It was just out of question. Of course, as Jong Yoon swore, nothing really happened after he took Joo Yeon out to his art gallery. They had come back to his place, had a glass of wine, and Joo Yeon eventually fell asleep in his guest bedroom. Nobody did anything wrong. Not until the next morning, obviously, when Jong Yoon and Joo Yeon kissed out of the provocation of a dangerous mix of passion and anger. Then, afterwards, when Joo Yeon’s eyes had dried, she left. It was, at first glance, a bit wrong but not to the point that it was unforgivable.

But Joo Yeon will not accept that it was a forgivable lack of judgment. A part of her wanted to come clean to her boyfriend about it, but a part of her wanted to save face and just forget about it altogether. Which is another reason why she had come by: she wanted Jong Yoon to really, really cut any communications with her for the rest of his break in Korea. Once he got back to Chicago, she would have nothing left to worry about. She could continue being Taemin’s supportive girlfriend and that was that.

 Now, on Jong Yoon’s case, what he really wanted to say – and this is in his own vernacular – is that Joo Yeon is so much better than that little sprout she’s always hanging with. He meant Taemin, of course. And although that “little sprout” is no less than a few centimeters shorter than Jong Yoon, he was still a bit of a and ultimately dressed like one, too. And this is all in Jong Yoon’s rather harsh vernacular, also. He was definitely a Fitzgerald or even Wilde when it came to proper college writing; but when it came to describing his ex-girlfriend’s current beau, he was a bit of a Salinger or Palahnuik.

Thus, they remained quiet for a good five minutes.

It was not until Joo Yeon realized she had to be somewhere soon and got up to leave. Jong Yoon offered to walk her home, and Joo Yeon reluctantly agreed. The walk back wasn’t that long anyway, but Joo Yeon hoped to God she didn’t have to run into Taemin. She didn’t have much to worry about, though. Since coming late to practice the day before, Taemin was bound to the practice studio by arm and foot, literally, and that morning he had sent a pitiful text to Joo Yeon about being really busy the entire day.

But still.

Jong Yoon followed Joo Yeon as she walked back to her apartment complex. They stopped at a traffic light, waiting for the cars to speed on by.

“There was this girl I met at my university,” Jong Yoon began, haplessly kicking a tattered tennis ball he found by the curb. “Her name was Lucy and she reminded me a lot of you. Albeit, she was Vietnamese and came from an upper middle class family from Connecticut, she was really pretty and really brilliant. Like, you could have conversations with her about anything – anything, like politics or even the salt content in a cup of fruit – and you’d never get bored.” They proceeded to walk when the pedestrian sign permitted them to. “Anyway, I was sort of dating her during my first term. And when the American holiday of Thanksgiving came, she invited me over to Connecticut. You know that state right?”

Joo Yeon nodded, only looking ahead. “Eastern United States, yeah.”

“Connecticut, yeah. So, I went over to her place to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with her family. She wasn’t as rich as you, of course, but her parents kind of reminded me of yours, too,” he chuckled, and Joo Yeon cocked an eyebrow at him. “Not that they hated me or anything, but the way they carried themselves. Her dad drove a Lexus and you’d see him polishing his headlights each morning even if the temperatures of the early dawn were threatening to bite your fingers off. Anyway, her family was cool. But what really got to me was that she had a two year old daughter.”

By now, Joo Yeon had abruptly stopped in her tracks. Jong Yoon had to stop as well and turn around to face her. She waited for Jong Yoon to say something. She was going to give him this one chance to withdraw his words because why did he have to bring that up.

“I…” Jong Yoon’s throat had immediately gone dry the second he opened it, the cold wind pouring in with a biting sting against his tongue. He sighed heavily. “What I’m trying to say is that – ”

“That what, Jong Yoon?”

“That we – I mean, you – well, the thing is – ” He was stammering. There were only three people in the entire universe that could make someone as ill-dignified and preposterously godly like Jong Yoon stammer like an idiot: his father, his grandfather, and Joo Yeon.

“I’m giving you three ing seconds to say what you need to tell me, Jong Yoon, and that’s it,” Joo Yeon spat. “This conversation ended a long time ago. I don’t understand why you have to bring it up now. Is that why you’re back in my life? To tell me that we could’ve –”

“No, no!” Jong Yoon growled back. A few passers-by tossed them curious looks before speeding away. Jong Yoon moved closer to Joo Yeon. “Joo Yeon, listen to me. The decision you made for the both of us was beyond your control, and I don’t feel bad for you. To say that I don’t regret it, though, is a different story. What I want to tell you, what I’ve been wanting to tell you ever since the day my parents forced me to exile in America, is that when I’m not with you, I’m ed up. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and I can’t think straight. Heaven only knows how the hell I went through my first term of college like that.”

Joo Yeon stepped back. “What are you trying to say?”

“What we did a year ago messed me up really bad,” he grimaced, looking up at the sky. “And now, it’s like I really can’t do anything without thinking about it. It’s like this weird parasite eating away my thoughts and taking over every aspect of myself. Nobody else understands, except you. That’s why I wanted – no, needed to see you.”

“Jong Yoon, are you – do you feel guilty?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer. He ran his hands over his face and then clutched a clump of his hair in his fists, grumbling incomprehensibly in the process. This was the first time she saw Jong Yoon in a sick, twisted condition: his otherwise perfect, composed front was finally marred by their secret that they both have tried to bottle up during the last year. In the beginning, Joo Yeon thought this would happen. But when Jong Yoon showed no emotion throughout the entirety of their ordeal, she began to believe that maybe he was an expert at suppressing his emotions.

Today, was the day she was proven wrong.

“Only you could understand why my heart is in the saddest state it has ever been.”

Joo Yeon felt the biggest urge to kiss Jong Yoon’s trembling lips as he said those words, but a black BMW pulled up on the curb next to them. Her heart fell.

***

“You’re lucky the choreographer likes you,” Key mumbled to Taemin as they hopped onto the van that was to take them home after their long dance practice. He was referring to the American choreographer that SM Entertainment hired to direct their new dance for their next single. Taemin merely scoffed as he pulled out his iPod from his backpack.

“I’m serious,” Key went on. “If that were me, or worse yet, Jinki-hyung, he’d make us re-do the entire choreo until he liked it. But he only made you do it once and boom, you’re off the hook.”

Taemin rolled his eyes. “He probably was too tired to chide me any further. Besides, it’s not like I missed the entire practice yesterday. I came, didn’t I?”

“They’d kill you,” Key insisted as scooted closer to Taemin to let Jonghyun and Jinki take their seats in the van. Jinki chose to sit next to Key and Jonghyun sat in the two pilot seats in the middle. Minho called shotgun.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Taemin retorted, choosing a song from his iPod and tucking his earphones in. The bass of “By My Side” by Nicki Minaj boomed through his earphones. Key took the liberty to pull one out.

“They would, if they found out about you going out with a girl yesterday.”

Taemin’s scowl dissipated into a look of shock. Jinki, who was only just catching up to Key and Taemin’s conversation added, “If management does leave you alive, then you’d still be killed. By Joo Yeon, that is.”

Key nodded in justification. A small, taunting smirk played on the corner of his lips.

“We know you weren’t with your girlfriend yesterday,” Key narrowed his eyes at the younger boy. By now, he had paused his music. Taemin swallowed thickly.

“And what makes you say that?”

Key’s iconic eye roll irritated Taemin. “You weren’t being too inconspicuous. You were right outside our dorm for everyone to see. Baekhyun from EXO-K said he saw you there. He thought you were with Joo Yeon, but hell no. We know that Joo Yeon doesn’t have hair that long and dark.”

“And so?” Taemin’s stubbornness was obvious in his words.

“So, would you like to explain to us what you were doing with a girl that was apparently not your girlfriend?” Key’s smile grew wider, curiosity twinkling in the corners of his eyes.

“Um, no,” Taemin said, guardedly, as he pushed his earphones back into his ears. As his manager began to pull away from the SM building, he looked over at his two nosy hyungs. “And a you, too, for not minding your own business.”

Author's Note: Just out of curiosity, does anyone know or have any idea on what Joo Yeon and Jong  Yoon's "secret" may be? I haven't revealed it yet, but I've been dropping hints like a rabbit, but I don't know if anyone has gotten an idea because I don't really see any reactions from the readers. IDK. I don't want to reveal anything yet, but I just wanted to build the suspense. and yeah. A lot of curse words in this chapter because I felt like it and the characters needed to be free for a bit. lol.

Oh, and I think Taemin owns an iPhone? I was watching Shinee's Wonderful Day and in one scene, Taemin was at his hotel room and on the bedside table you could see an Apple charger plugged to the wall, but the camera didn't go close enough for me to see if what he was charging was an iPhone or an iPod. Anyway, in this story he owns a Galaxy S3, but if he really does own an iPhone then we'll go with that because it's easier for me to write about because I own one and therefore know how to describt it lmao.

New style of chapter banner because my files got corrupted and I couldn't access the PSD for the previous chapter banners. Oh, well.

AND I'VE GOT A NEW FIC TUMBLR: 

angelastyles-fics.tumblr.com

GO FOLLOW FOR FIC-RELATED FUN TIMES! <333