“My heart is calling?” Kibum sang it out with a questioning tone. He dropped the papers onto the table and leaned against the back of the chair. The writer had told them that the song was about falling in love, and that ringing would go off in the head and the heart when that happened. “How does this even make sense? Ringing in the head. Okay, I get that. But in the heart? Really? Plus, ring ding dong cannot be the sound that goes off when somebody falls in love. It’s like an annoying doorbell or maybe a ringtone or something!”

Jinki was still skimming over the lyrics. “…Maybe it’s…,” he tried to make up an excuse for the….questionable lyrics that their manager had handed them. “Yeah. I got nothing.” Not even a gag. Nevertheless, he continued to read on.

The door to the conference room was opened by their manager. Taemin spoke up without looking up from his laptop. “Something smells good. Did a fan send flowers again? Or chocolates or some other food? Food is always good.”

The manager ignored him. “Yes, thank you for the envelope. Tell them I received it just fine.” A girl handed their manager the yellow envelope and bowed slightly to him. She straightened and glanced into the room with the SHINee boys in it. She smiled shyly, gave a nod to them, whether they noticed or not, and then left before the manager turned around and closed the door behind him. He opened the envelope and handed Taemin a CD.

Taemin played the CD to their new song on his laptop. “Well, at least the tune is catchy…”

“That’s the most important thing I guess…,” Jonghyun said. “Fantastic fantastic fantastic…,” He tried to sing.

“True…like ’If you wanna pretty?’ I love the Kara girls and all, but really now, that makes no sense. Who wrote those lyrics?” said Kibum.

Minho looked at the random English words in the song. “Like you’re an expert at English,” Minho teased. Kibum scowled.

“Let’s just start practicing guys. It’s not like we can do anything about it,” Jinki sighed.

A week later, they had successfully finished recording all the songs on their mini album. How did they do it? Easy. Just not sleep as much. It had been pretty slow for them, as an idol group, ever since they stopped promoting “Juliette”. They needed to re-accustom themselves to an irregular sleep pattern anyway. As soon as they make their comeback, the days of little to no sleep, napping in the car, and trying to not mess up their make up as they rubbed their tired eyes would come back.

Minho was currently sitting upright in a chair but had his head hanging down and arms crossed over his chest as he was napping. He had maybe ten minutes before his break was up and he was dead asleep right now.

“Where’s that coffee?!” someone shouted.

“Coming!” a girl shouted back. Her heels clicked against the ground but the sound paused at the door to the room that Minho was napping in. The girl looked at the sleeping boy. He had to get up soon before the director got angry! She didn’t like forcefully waking people up though. Glancing at the two coffees she was holding, she had an idea. She clicked over to Minho and set the coffee that she got for herself on the table in front of him. Then, she just left.

A few moments later, the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee wafted up towards Minho’s nose. His nose twitched and flared before his eyes opened. Looking around, he saw no one. He looked at the coffee in front of him and touched the cup. It was still really hot. He was generally not a coffee person but the smell really energized him. He picked up the coffee and walked back towards the filming area.

“NO NO NO! That’s not right! Take a break Jonghyun! Let’s try Minho’s part again. MINHO!” The director of their MV was obviously in a bad mood. He turned around and saw the tall teen. “Oh there you are. At least you look less dead now. Come on, we’ll do that part you tried over again.”

Jonghyun bowed slightly to the older man before getting off the set. As he passed Minho, he mumbled, “Man, I want to just singe him. Just a little.”

Minho smiled slightly. He took one last whiff of the coffee before setting it down. He stepped onto the set and stood still as the stylist fiddled with his hair and makeup. The female worker moving the props around yawned.

“Aiysh! I thought I just leant you money to go get some coffee for yourself! What? The caffeine not kick in yet?” A different female worker asked the yawning girl.

“Hmm…?” She picked up a stray feather that fell off somebody’s outfit. “Oh. Yeah. I gave it to someone.”

“…I leant you money to get something for yourself…and you go and buy it for somebody else. Aiysh! You better not fall asleep. We don’t get breaks you know.”

The louder female worker walked off the set, passing Minho. The younger girl was going to follow after her but paused, startled when the tired, old, and cranky director yelled, “WHO LEFT THIS COFFEE ON TOP OF THE EQUIPMENT!”
Everyone stopped their actions and looked at the director and the coffee he was pointing to. Jonghyun, who was sitting on a metal foldable chair looked at Minho, remembering that he held a coffee while standing near the equipment table. Minho was about to admit it, lifting his hand slightly but paused when the younger female worker rushed passed him.

“It’s mine! I’m so sorry! It will never happen again!” She remembered seeing Minho set down that coffee minutes before. She didn’t want him to get in trouble. Who knows when this filming would end if the director kept finding more reasons to get frustrated with SHINee!

She bowed to the older man. The director tapped a pamphlet on top of her head in scolding and she cringed. “You better make sure this never happens again! I remember you got me good coffee earlier so I’ll excuse you for this time.”

She thanked him, took her coffee and walked away. She swirled the contents of the cup and felt that it was still a great deal full. “I guess he doesn’t like coffee,” she said quietly as she passed Jonghyun. She took a sip of it as she walked out of the studio.

The girl turned a corner and almost walked right into Taemin. “Oh! I’m sorry!” She bowed slightly and then straightened. She looked up at him. Even though he was younger, he was still taller than her. She blinked twice before pointing at his head. “Do you know you have a…mouse? In your hair?” she questioned. There was certainly a rodent on top of his tousled red-brown hair.

Taemin covered the mouse with his hand, “No there isn’t.” The mouse squirmed out from under his hand and jumped off the boy’s head and to her shoulder. “Hey!” He went to try to snatch the mouse out of the air but he was not quick enough.

A normal reaction would have probably been to scream, drop her coffee, and try to brush off the rodent while jumping up and down. The mouse scurried down her arm and stopped at her wrist. She lifted it to the level of her face and smiled. “It’s cute. A field mouse in the big, busy city of Seoul. How’d it get here?”

“Eh??? You think it’s cute?” asked a shocked Taemin.

She guessed that the animal was tame so she lightly petted the pepper colored fur of the tiny, chubby animal.

“…She likes you…that’s…weird…,” Taemin looked confused.

“Hmm?” she tilted her head slightly to the side. “Is it yours?”

“Oh! Yeah. Don’t tell anyone about her though. People would freak out if they knew I brought my pet mouse to work with me.”

She laughed lightly, gave the mouse one last of the finger and then brought her wrist to Taemin’s shoulder to let the animal crawl over to its owner. Taemin turned his head towards her wrist to watch the animal move over to him. His nostrils barely flared. “Are you wearing perfume?”

“Huh? No…”

“Oh. It must be the smell of the coffee. It’s really strong.”

“Really?” She lifted the cup to her nose. It did still have its coffee scent but the beverage wasn’t as hot anymore so the smell wasn’t so strong as to spread around in the air.

“Nevermind. I’m Lee Taemin by the way. Are you a trainee?”

She blushed, “Oh no no no.” She waved her hand to deny the assumption. “I don’t have the talent for that. Nice to formally meet you. I’m-”

“HEY ERRAND GIRL! WE NEED YOUR HELP!”

She looked back and blushed even more. “Well, I got to go now. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about your little pet.” She winked, discarded her coffee in the trash and rushed off to whoever was calling her.

“ACTION!” shouted the director in the studio.
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Posted: 31 Jan. 2010 (Winglin)
Posted: 19 July 2010 (Asianfanfics)
Approx. 3 pages out of 46