And with that, junior year passed for the couple, leading them into their final year of high school. Backstage with Key, Vera watches as Taemin and Minho walk onstage with 5 other guys, the crowd hollering.

“Why aren’t you performing this year?” the blonde asks, watching as the girl sits in an empty chair across from him.

She shrugs. “Just didn’t want to. Maybe I’ll perform at the end-of-the-year one.”

He nods. “Oh! And I have to tell all of you something.”

“What? Tell me now,” Vera stands up from the tall seat. “Is it something good?”

Key nods, once again. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Then tell me.”

“I’ll wait for everyone first :D”

“Key....” Vera glares at the vampire with crossed arms.

“Anyways,” he starts, ignoring her. “I’ll be heading out to see the performance.”

She sighs. “Fine. See you then.”

“You don’t want to see the performance?” he asks, confused.

“I do...”

“But...?”

“All the fangirls will eat me alive if they see me sitting with you guys...” Vera says, sending him a pouty look trademarked by Taemin.

Key walks over to her and rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Poor Vera,” he says, laughing. “We could probably protect you.”

“No it’s all good. I’ll be fine back here, trust me,” she nods.

“There’s no one back here, though,” he notes, looking at her warily. After hearing about the big performance featuring some alumni, everyone rushed down into the audience.

“I’ll be fine. I’m not some weak girl, you know. I’m Vera Hale!” she shoots him a wide smile.

The blonde vampire sends the girl a sad smile, knowing more than she does, but nods nonetheless. “If you say so. See you after the performance,” he waves before disappearing into the shadows.

“Now for the performance everyone has been waiting for! A performance featuring some big names who graduated from KSPP! Everyone give it up for Spectrum!!” the principal says, a bit too enthusiastically.

The crowd screams as Taemin starts the performance with a solo.

Vera hides behind the curtains and watches, making sure not to let her face show. Four minutes later, the performance ends with a pose and a dying crowd of fangirls. Noticing that the showcase has ended, Vera tries to discreetly escape before the group comes backstage, but Taemin grabs her arm and pulls her into a hug, having noticed her early on. “T-Taemin...” she says, still trying to escape.

“Is that your girlfriend?” one of the alumni asks, with teasing eyes peeking out from under his straight-across bangs.

“Dae. Everyone, this is Vera,” Taemin says, letting go of her momentarily so they can fully see her.

“She’s so pretty!” the taller alumni says, the black haired one nodding in agreement.

“Taemin, who are they?” Vera asks, staying close to him.

“Oh. This is U-Know, Donghae, and Eunhyuk,” he says, pointing to the 3 older performers. “This, of course, is Minho,” he says, as Minho waves at her. “They are my hyungs.”

She nods. “Annyeong,” and bows.

“She speaks Korean?” Donghae asks, surprised.

Taemin nods, smiling, before he finishes the introductions. “These are my two friends, Kai and Lay. You’re their sunbae.”

“Annyeong,” she repeats, still showing the same respect.

The 5 laugh, finding it funny. “She’s so cute,” Eunhyuk muses.

At that second, the other 3 members of SHINee show up. “Oh look, everyone’s here,” Jonghyun says.

Ducking under the protection of her friends, Vera gives Key a look. “So what did you want to tell me?” she asks him only through eye contact, while the rest of the guys talk.

“It’s a surprise,” he sends back, holding back his laughter when she gives him a death glare. “We have to wait for Angel and Chaerin first.”

“Can’t you just tell me and I’ll share the news!?”

He shakes his head, still enjoying pissing her off. “I want to see Chaerin’s reaction.”

Vera sends him yet another glare, but sighs.

The guys laugh at something funny, so funny that Onew ends up on the floor.

“Well then...maybe we should get going,” Minho says, helping his still laughing-and now tearing up-hyung off of the floor.

“Maybe we should,” Jonghyun says, sending him an annoyed look before laughing it off.

“It was great seeing all of you,” Donghae says, nodding at his dino brother.

“And meeting your pretty girlfriend, Taemin-ah,” Eunhyuk teases, causing Taemin to blush lightly.

Vera just nods politely, brushes back her bangs, before bowing to the 5 guys once again. “Bye~” she waves at their retreating figures, before sighing and letting the smile drop once they’re gone.

“Aww, why is little Vera so sad?” Jonghyun teases her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“She wants to know about the surprise,” Key says, smiling as she shoots him yet another glare.

Minho laughs. “And Eunhyuk hyung called her cute.”

“Oh yeah!” Taemin smiles widely as he remembers that.

Vera elbows him in the stomach. “You should’ve said something.”

“I couldn’t...” he says, apologetically, as he rubs his stomach.

Onew, who was now laughing at the couple, starts to cry from laughing too hard.

“Maybe we should really go now,” Vera says, not sure whether to get him a tissue or just watch awkwardly.

“Someone wants to know the surprise,” Jonghyun teases.

“Of course I do!” she says, throwing him a death glare, Minho laughs.

“Ok, ok. Let’s go meet with the others then.”

“Thank you,” she says, grabbing the 2 people closest to her-which happened to be Key and Taemin-and walking towards the door while dragging them.

“But Taemin-ah and Minho-yah need to change,” Jonghyun calls, after the girl.

“They can change later!” she yells back, garnering laughs from the hyungs.

As she exits backstage, Chanell sees Vera and bolts toward her. “Vera, there’s a problem.”

“There’s no time for problems, SHINee were just about to reveal a surprise!” Vera whines.

“Really?” the older girl’s eyes widen at the news. “A surprise? For us?”

Vera nods. “A really big one. Key wouldn’t tell me until you and Angel were present.”

“That’s the thing. I can’t find Angel anywhere.”

Jonghyun’s ears perk at the sound of Angel’s name and rushes next to the two girls. “What about Angel?”

“Chaerin says she doesn’t know where she is,” Vera responds, watching his reaction.

“I’ll go find her,” he starts, ready to run in any and every direction.

“Wait,” Chaerin says, stopping him by grabbing his arm. “I think Vera should go find her,” she says, sending her friend eye signals.

She sighs, but reluctantly nods. “Ok, I’ll go look for her. Don’t tell them the surprise without me!!” she yells, as she runs off in search of her lost friend. Searching around the school, Vera stops to ask a few students if they saw anyone of Angel’s appearance anytime before, but they all declined. With a sigh, she continues searching the school-staying clear of Mr. Kim’s room-and stops in an abandoned hallway. Maybe I should try her cell... Taking her phone out, the girl starts to dial her friend’s number, until she notices she has no signal. She sighs again and leans onto a wall while thinking of possible places Angel could be. Whilst thinking, she hears a faint cry from somewhere near. “Umm...” Vera hesitantly walks towards the sound, which seems to be coming from a nearby staircase. Walking down the steps, she sees a girl curled up in a ball crying at the foot of the stairs. Upon further inspection, she realizes it’s Angel. Unsure of how to approach her in this situation (Vera wasn’t good around crying people, especially not crying girls), she awkwardly stands by her. “Hey...Angel...How’s it going?” she asks, in English.

“Leave me alone,” she sobs, not looking up at her.

“...What happened?” she tries again, awkward as ever.

“I said leave me alone!”

“Angel, Jonghyun’s worried about you.”

The girl raises her head and looks at her with surprised eyes. “Really?” she asks, blinking her red eyes.

“He really wanted to go look for you. But I...offered to come instead,” she lies, as she switches between her feet.

“Good,” Angel says, before hiding her face again. “I don’t want him to see me, anyway.”

“Dude, what happened? Is it cuz you haven’t seen him around school anymore? The vam-guy, I mean, graduated!” Vera says, catching her slip up and watches to see if her friend caught it too.

Thankfully she doesn’t. “You can’t tell him, ok?” the girl offers, looking up at her a bit.

“Tell him what? That you were crying?”

“What I did,” she says, ominously, as more tears spill down her face.

“...What did you do that you don’t want him to know? Did you, what, kill someone?” she jokes, sarcastically.

“That would be better than what I did,” Angel murmurs to herself.

Vera stands there awkwardly, trying to figure out what she meant by that, but doesn’t dwell too long on it. “Well, whatever you did, I’m sure he’ll forgive you if that’s what you’re worried about. Anyways, the boys have a surprise for us.”

Her ear perks at the word. “What kind of surprise?” she asks, instantly wiping her face with the back of her hand.

“I don’t know! Key wouldn’t tell me unless you and Chaerin were there,” Vera whines.

“And where is she?”

“She’s with them waiting for me to come back with you.”

Taking a shaky breath, the younger girl stands up. “I’ll go if you promise not to tell him.”

Confused, but eager to hear the surprise, Vera nods. “Fine. Now let’s go,” she says, grabbing her friend by the wrist.

I’ll tell him when I’m ready... Angel thinks as she lets Vera drag her.

Running at practically full speed, the American almost runs into crowds as she makes her way back to her friends in attempt to hear about the big surprise that had been eating away at her the whole night. Finding them in a room, Vera slides the doors open. “WHAT’S THE SURPRISE?!” she yells, flinging the door closed.

Chaerin smiles widely as she yells “WE’RE GOING TO BARCELONA!!”

“We’re going where?” Vera asks, her feet planted firmly on the ground as she stares at her friends in disbelief. Jonghyun watches Angel as she quietly finds a chair and sits by herself.

“WE’RE GOING TO BARCELONA!!” Onew yells again, this time in her ear, so that she can hear better.

Vera pushes the oldest vampire away as he laughs. “I heard her the first time, pabo!” she yells, with a smile on her face.

“Just making sure,” he replies, still laughing, as he goes back to his seat.

“But how are we going to Barcelona? Is it like the class trip this year? How do you guys know already?” Vera asks.

“It’s not the class trip, they’re just sneaking us off :D” Chaerin answers, smiling proudly, before Key lightly hits her in the arm. “What~?”

“You weren’t supposed to tell her that part,” the blonde whispers, before smiling widely at Vera to cover their side conversation.

“I know you guys told Chaerin already, you can cut the act,” Vera replies, glaring at the 5 vampires.

“We had to tell her or else she was going to bring up the picture from Switzerland,” Taemin explains, walking towards her.

“But I thought you said...” Vera whispers.

“Let’s make them think it was real,” he whispers back, smiling innocently when the hyungs watch him curiously.

The girl laughs silently, nodding, as she follows him back to his seat.

“But no,” Minho starts, standing in front of the group. “This isn’t the class trip. We just decided that since it was Taeminnie’s last year that we should all go somewhere really fun,” he says, laughing as the maknae pouts at the nickname.

“I wanted to go to Las Vegas!” he spouts.

“But we decided that that wouldn’t be such a good choice,” the tall vampire responds, eyeing his younger friend.

“And we wouldn’t be old enough,” Vera adds, referring to the 3 girls.

Minho nods, before continuing. “And then Onew hyung suggested we go somewhere warm this time, since you, Chaerin, and Taemin-ah were in Switzerland last year and Angel and Jonghyun hyung were in Japan.”

“So then how did you settle on Barcelona?” Vera asks, turning to look at the 5 vampires. “Especially when none of us speak Spanish.”

“Well...” he struggles to explain and looks at Key before sitting down.

Key stands and walks to the front of the room. “Pretty much, since this is you three’s last year, we wanted to do something fun with you guys. So stop picking at the details and be appreciative!” he huffs, going back to his seat.

The group laughs, with the exception of Angel, and this worried Jonghyun. He wonders how to react, but keeps it to himself for the time being.

“Can I ask a question?” Chaerin asks, holding up a finger.

“Of course,” Key smiles sweetly at her, earning a glare from Vera, at which he only chuckles.

“How long will we be in Barcelona?” she asks, giggling at her two friends.

“We’ll be in Barcelona for a week, while everyone is on their class trips,” Onew says, nodding all dignified and such.

“Oh cool :D”

“What about Angel? She’ll be coming with us, too?” Vera asks, her question making the 6 friends notice Angel for the first time since she entered the room.

Onew nods. “She can come along with us, because she’s a student here.”

“Great! So it’ll be the 8 of us in Barcelona with no adult supervision!” Chaerin says, happily dancing in her seat like a drunken fool.

“Speaking of drinking, Vera, you should totally see Taeminnie when he drinks,” Key says, smirking as he turns to face her.

“Why?” she asks, unsure if she should be worried.

“If Taemin drinks, he takes his clothes off one by one. He goes around removing his shirt in one room and then his socks in another. What’s after that? ;)” the blonde winks at her as he playfully pushes her, sending her flying into her boyfriend’s lap as the group laughs.

“And then I lock the door,” Chaerin says, joining in on the teasing. But not before getting a few pictures for the road... ;)

Jonghyun laughs, applauding. “Stop teasing them! Now they’ll never do skinship in front of us.”

Minho laughs at his hyung’s comment. “Jonghyun hyung sounds like such a ert.”

“Well it’s true!” Chaerin says, coming to his defense, while laughing at how it now made her sound.

“Is that it?” Onew asks, while Jongkey and Chaerin laugh.

While the other two continue to giggle, Key nods for them, trying not to laugh at the other two’s wild imaginations.

“Good, so we can go,” Vera smiles, standing up, having recovered from her friends’ teasings.

“Yup,” Onew smiles as they all stand up, save for Angel.

“I’ll walk you home,” Taemin offers, hooking his arm into hers.

“It’s too late to go now, so I’ll just follow you guys,” she says, shrugging.

“Can I come, too?” Chaerin asks, trying to discreetly get pics of the couple’s skinship.

“Won’t your parents be worried?” Vera asks, turning to face her.

“Nope,” she smiles, now hiding the offending camera.

“If you say so,” Vera shrugs again as she and Taemin walk ahead of the pack.

“Jagiya?” the vampire asks, a smile on his face as they walk.

“Hmm?” the girl turns her head to look at him.

“Are you excited?”

“For you to get drunk and strip, hmm, I don’t know...” she muses, smiling when he pouts bashfully. “But yeah, I’m a bit excited for our little journey.”

“It’s not my fault it gets so hot when I’m drunk,” he pouts.

“It’s your fault you’re drunk,” she retorts, laughing at him.