When you awoke the next morning, Taemin was the first thing on your mind. After washing your face and dressing into something more appropriate for the day, you stepped out of your room and headed toward the front desk. The clerk from the night before was gone and replaced by an elderly woman.

“Excuse me,” you said, sliding into her line of sight. The woman peered at your through her glasses. “I’m looking for my passport; has anyone turned it in?” the woman searched the desk and the lost and found section behind her, and when she returned to you, she regretfully told you that nothing had been turned in yet. You explained you situation further, but eventually, people began filing into the hotel with the intent of checking in, and your case was flung down the priority list.

You were headed back to the elevators when the doors opened and Taemin himself greeted you on the other side. He donned a pair of dark brown boys’ shorts and a t-shirt in a lighter shade of brown. A white face mask hid his identity. His eyes were still bright despite a slightly worn look. “Morning,” he said, sounding a little more tired than usual. “You’re early.”

He walked past you and headed toward the front desk himself.

“There’s nothing yet,” you called out to him and he stopped in his tracks. He sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He looked longingly at the front desk, as though he were willing it to turn into his passport. Then, he turned decisively toward you and walked until you stood in front of him.

“I need your help with something,” he said, and without saying anything else, he took you by the hand and began dragging you toward the front desk. He stopped just in front of the line that was forming by it.

“We need our passports back, don’t we?” he said in a whisper, and you nodded.

“Yeah, that would be preferable,” you answered. Taemin nodded.

“Good,” he said. “If they haven’t been turned in yet, that means that the Jangs still have them. It’s morning now, so they should be up. Let’s just knock on their suite and tell them it was a misunderstanding.”

You shrugged. “Alright, that sounds easy enough,” you said, crossing your arms. “But what room are they in?”

“We have to look at the guest list,” Taemin said with a little smile. You shot him a puzzled look.

“The guest list is confidential, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Taemin said. “But it’s not like we’d be stealing it; we just need a quick look to find out what room the Jangs are in and then we’d put it back--,”

“Wait!” you said, putting your hand up to stop his talking. “You mean, steal it?”

“No, not stealing!” he said. “Just borrowing it for like five or ten minutes, or enough time to look through it and find out--,”

“But still!” you said. “That involves… betraying confidentiality!”

Taemin in some air and stood straight up. Scratching his head, he gave you a sad look. “Well, that’s the only plan I’ve got,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t have to do anything; just ask the front desk clerks some questions and distract them. Let me worry about the snatching part; I saw where they keep it.”

You clenched your eyes shut and just cringed thinking about all the horrible things that could go wrong. Distraction and decoys weren’t exactly your fortes. But you just knew that Miss Hong and the girls would come for you soon and Miss Hong would check for documents and there was no telling how long the Jangs would stay in town. It would be best to clear up this fiasco in a hurry. So you sighed.

“Alright, fine,” you whispered. “But be fast, okay?”

Taemin smiled. “I will,” he said. And then with a bow, he disappeared behind the crowd of people in front of the reception area, leaving you alone in the check-in queue. The line moved surprisingly fast and by the time three guests had been helped, your poor nail beds were disappearing by the minute as your nerves became more and more disturbed. Finally, you were at the front of the line and your cheeks were hot and your heartbeat was in your ears.

“Next guest, please,” the middle-aged man at the end of the desk called. You snapped out of your trance and approached. The man smiled and his eyes squinted. “How can I help you, miss?” he asked. Your eyes grew wide and you could taste anxiety on your tongue.

There were only three people working the front desk: the elderly woman, the middle aged-man, and a girl barely older than you were. Distract, Taemin said. That’s what he wanted you to do. But what could you possibly do that could distract all three employees? You looked behind the man for any traces of Taemin. But he was nowhere to be seen. You gritted your teeth, thinking that he might have abandoned you in the endeavor. The man reached out and tapped your wrist.

“Miss?” he asked and you tried to smile at him. “Are you okay? You look a bit faint.”

Faint? Now there’s an idea. Suddenly, in your peripheral vision, you saw the door leading the area behind the front desk opening a tad bit. A bit of hair, a hand, a face. Taemin! You thought, finally seeing him sneaking into the area. He caught your eye and froze, waiting for your signal.

Showtime, you thought. “I’ll be okay,” you said, almost in a whisper, and the man leaned in to hear you better. “I just need a room.”

And in the nest second, you shut your eyes and just let go of everything, falling to the ground in a heap, and taking care not to make your performance too believable as to actually hit your head on the way down.

Even with your eyes closed, you heard the frantic screams of the elderly woman, the middle-aged man, and the heap of guests as they all crowded around you. Some wondered if you were dead, others fanned you with handkerchiefs, and a few fraught with fear, shouted for some people to call an ambulance or ask for a certified CPR practitioner.

How taken they were with your fainting act, you thought to yourself. An entire crowd of ers.  You resisted the urge to smile. You felt a pair of arms lift you up to a sitting position and you leaned your head back to keep up the act.

“Stand back, please,” said a muffled voice close to your ear. “No need to panic, it was probably just the heat. I got this, thank you everyone for your concern, though. Please go about your day as usual.”

You heard the footsteps hesitantly stepping away and forming a line again by your side. The person holding you whispered in your ear again. “That was good,” it said. “I got the list; let’s go.”

You let your eyes flicker open little by little and you eventually found Taemin looking over you. Half his face was hidden by the mask, but you could feel him smiling at your theatrics. Taking you by the forearms, he helped you stand up again, and then he clutched a something at his back. Giving you a knowing look, he motioned for you to follow him to the elevators. A rectangular shape at the small of his back poked out occasionally. The guest list, you presumed.

You smirked. So Taemin-the-idol had a bad-boy streak after all.

“The Honeymoon Suite,” he announced as you both stood outside the white double-doors at the very end of the 18^th floor. A golden plaque on the side labeled it “The Honeymoon Suite”. Taemin held the open guest book in one hand and the master card key in his other. You stood beside him, wondering just what you both planned on doing with the new information you’d gotten. You checked your watch.

“It’s 9 AM,” you said, looking at him. “You think they’d be awake by now?”

Taemin scratched his head with the card key. “They should,” he said, and then he blushed. “But God knows how long they were up last night. They’re newlyweds, after all.”

You felt your cheeks burning up, and you huffed your breath. “Let’s get this over with, then,” you said. “But knock first. Just because we have the master key--,”

“Right right,” Taemin said with a nervous laugh. Then, you reached up and knocked on the door with your knuckles. Then, you stepped back two steps, afraid that Mr. Jang might answer the door dressed in naught but a towel. After five minutes of silence, Taemin reached over and knocked as well.

“Housekeeping,” he said, although his comparatively deep voice might not have been as convincing. Five minutes later, no one had yet come to the door. You both tried one last time to knock and wait for an answer, but once again, you were both disappointed. Taemin sighed, and then walked toward the door with the card key.

“Taemin!” you yelped, grabbing his wrist. “We can’t just go barging into people’s hotel rooms!”

“I’m desperate, though!” he said. “My manager is in my room and he’s going to check my bags tonight and if he finds out I lost my damn passport again, SHINee is going to turn into a four-man act!”

“But we can’t barge into a honeymoon suite! What if we go in there and… see things?!”

“What are we going to see?!” he argued, although his cheeks were just as red as yours, behind his face mask. He sighed and passed the guest list to you. Then, he poised himself in front of the door and slipped the master key into the slot. Withdrawing it fast, he opened the door just a crack and announced that he was housekeeping again, and politely asked for permission to enter.

Silence. Looking to you, you both entered the room slowly. The honeymoon suite was a large room, larger than two hotel rooms put together. The first room had two red sofas facing each other and slightly angled to face the large windows, which overlooked the cliffs. The second room had a big white bed which might have had scattered rose petals. But they’d been swept away and now lay in a crush pile on the hardwood floors. The bathroom had a hot tub large enough for two people. But the couple was nowhere in sight.

“Where’d they go?” Taemin asked, roaming around the room and flipping through the guest list again. “This is definitely the room. There’s no one here.”

Taemin let out an exasperated sigh and sat down on one of the big red couches. You took a circular turn about the room, admiring the view of the cliffs. Reaching into your pocket, you felt the corners of Mrs. Jang’s passport. How could they not have noticed that the passports had been switched? Were they looking for their travel documents as well? Were they as frantic as Taemin?

You leaned against a table when you heard a pile of papers drop to the floor. You stooped down to pick them up. They were brochures, you observed. Brochures to various Jeju attractions. Perhaps they’d gone out for an excursion, to one of the locations in the brochures. With a tiny spark of hope, you picked them up and sat on the couch opposite Taemin.

“Well, this is a vacation spot,” you said. “They probably just went out to see the sights.”

Taemin looked up at you and took one of the brochures you laid out on the coffee table between you. Cheonjiyeon Falls. Hallassan Mountain. The Teddy Bear Museum. Yeomiji Botanical Gardens. Seonimgyo Bridge. Jungmin Bridge. They were all good, scenic sights that were sure to attract many a honeymooning couple. But they were also a ways away from the hotel, and it might be nighttime by the time the couple made it back to their suite. And Taemin couldn’t wait that long.

“Let’s just meet them at one of these places,” Taemin said, and you looked at him.

“Mwoh?” You widened your eyes at Taemin, believing that he surely must have lost his mind this time. But Taemin had a determined smile on his face as he took the rest of the brochures from your hand and then fled out the door.

“Follow me!” he yelled from the hallway. You stood from the red couch and took a look around. Then, with a sigh, you followed the idol out the door.

Taemin led the two of you back to the ground level and he rushed up to the front desk again. He laid the brochures down in front of the clerk and asked him to list out the top ten most famous attractions for honeymooning couples. The man looked between you and Taemin strangely at first, and you promptly explained that the attractions were not for you and Taemin.

Clearing his throat, the man looked at the brochures and picked out ten.

“So, you’d say that these are the top ten sights?” Taemin said, repeating what the man said. The middle-aged man from the front the desk nodded again, pointing at the brochures with his pen. Then he looked up at you.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. You offered him a nervous smile.

“Oh, I’m fine,” you said. Taemin looked between the two of you and gave him an eye-smile through the face mask.

“Well, that’s all we need. Thank you!” Taemin said, gathering the brochures again and then turning toward the exit. Furrowing your brow, you turned and followed him.

“Wait!” you said, grabbing his elbow. “You don’t really expect us to go to all of these sights in a matter of a few hours, do you?”

The blank look on his face was scaring you. He shrugged. “Why not?”

You dropped your jaw and then crossed your arms. “That’s ten sights!” you said. “And they’re all miles apart from each other! That just… seems like a bit of a stretch just to get some passports.”

Taemin shrugged again and then looked at you sadly. “So, you’re not coming with me, then?”

His shoulder slumped a bit and he gripped the brochures a bit tighter. You crossed your arms tighter and then sighed, scratching your head. Taemin only continued to stare at you. You considered what he was asking you; to ditch your group of friends and go look for a pair of needles in ten different haystacks with the possibility of not finding said needles at all. In the end you’d just be that much closer to getting kicked off the school trip and more tired.

Taemin sighed and you could feel him smiling sadly behind his white face mask. “I’ll come look for you if I find them, then,” he said, and with that, he turned around and walked slowly toward the valet.

You stood there and stared at his back for a long time, and you started pacing back and forth across the hotel’s welcome mat. Then, with an exasperated sighed, you called out to him: “Just a minute!” you said, and Taemin turned and faced you. “Let me just get my cell phone and sweater.”

And think of an excuse to give Miss Hong.

“But wouldn’t that be the most obvious place for a couple to go?” Taemin said, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove. He’d only spoken up when he heard you verbally crossing out the possibility of the Jang couple going to an attraction called “Loveland”. A newlywed couple would surely want to celebrate love, so why wouldn’t they go there?

You scoffed a little. “It’s an sculpture garden, actually, and it’s closed today anyway, so I don’t think they’d be there.”

“Oh,” Taemin said, stopping at an intersection. You nodded and then held up to him the brochure to the Yeomiji Botanic Gardens. Taemin took note of the location and changed his route. Soon, you were both on your way.

“Sorry,” Taemin said suddenly, and you looked up from the brochures. “For dragging you into this, I mean. I just didn’t want to have to do it by myself.”

You gave him a wide smile and went back to the brochures. “I told my teacher that I wasn’t feeling good so I would stay at the hotel,” you explained. “That’s okay. I guess I’d rather be doing this than pretending to be sick in bed, waiting for that couple to come back.”

Taemin laughed. “And you got to ride in my car,” he said. “And we’re off to do popular honeymoon activities together. It’s like you won an online contest or something and now you get to spend a day with Taemin of SHINee.”

You laughed. Despite only knowing him for about a day and a half, you admitted that you sometimes forgot Taemin was an idol. Especially when he dressed and acted so normally. But then, he’d take off the face mask, declaring that it was too hot to wear it, and he’d stare at the road ahead. His profile would be highlighted by the sun behind his head, and the way his hair fell over his forehead, framing his face and eyes would remind you once again just who you were with.

And this little adventure you were going on with him; that was just it: a little adventure that you’d both have to forget after today. Idols don’t spend their time with you.

After buying both your tickets at the entrance of Yeomiji Botanical Gardens, you and Taemin walked in, wondering where to start looking for the couple. Upon entering, the first thing you both saw was a circular fountain with black stones and a small garden encircling it. Palm trees guarded the fence that enclosed the site. The greenhouse up ahead looked like a palace made of blue glass.

“Let’s go here first,” Taemin said, leading you to the outer garden area to the left. This section of the gardens was more cultural, and more crowded. On either side of the walkways, the employees had set up small, traditional houses amidst the stones, fountains, and foliage so that it looked like a peaceful jungle from an earlier era.

The area was so densely packed with people that you could barely keep up with Taemin, who’d put his face mask back on and was carefully maneuvering through the crowd of people. You went up on your toes to search for him.

“Taemin!” you called out over the crowd and immediately worried if doing so was the right thing.

“I’m here,” he said in his muffled voiced. In front of you was a group of old ladies, all snuggled together amidst the huge crowd that had come to see the cultural exhibition. Taking care, you pushed a little past them until you saw a bit of brown, the shade of Taemin’s shirt.

Nearly tripping, you grabbed a handful of his shirt and then steadied yourself. Taemin turned his face to you, and he asked if you were okay.

“I’m fine,” you said. Then, you looked back at the dense crowd. “How are we ever going to find the Jangs in a place like this?”

Taemin looked at the huge crowd and winced a little bit. But with a sigh, he turned to you and tried to smile. “Just keep your eyes open,” he said. “If they’re here, I’m sure we’ll find them. We have to be thorough. And we have to think like them.”

“Think like them?” you asked.

Taemin nodded. “Just think about it,” he said. “If you were here on your honeymoon, what would you be doing? Or where would you be? Think like they do, and we just might be able to find them.”

With that, Taemin turned again and began to walk forward, looking down at the map. Unwilling to lose him in yet another crowd, you instinctively reached out and placed your hand in the crook of his arm. You started to look up at the trees, and Taemin looked down at your hand around his arm. He couldn’t deny the slight butterflies in his stomach from the contact. But clearing his throat, he tried to focus on the task at hand.

The Yeomiji Botanical Gardens was much larger than he thought it would be. 11 acres of botanical garden to search for two people. And if you planned to visit the ten sights you’d both agreed on, you’d have to make your rounds quickly.

“Think like the Jangs, think like the Jangs,” Taemin repeated to himself. You took your hand from Taemin’s arm, and he mildly mourned the loss of warmth.

“We don’t even know the Jangs,” you said. “How are we supposed to think like them?”

“Just think like any normal couple, I guess,” Taemin said, and you laughed a little.

“We’re not a normal couple, though,” you said. “For one, we’re not even a couple, and two, you’re… you. Not normal.”

Taemin furrowed his brow at you a bit. “Hmm,” he said. “Well, why should that make a difference? You know that idol thing is just a mask; on the inside, it’s still me.”

You nodded. “That is true,” you said. “Okay, thinking like the Jangs. What would you do if you were here with your girlfriend?”

You and Taemin both stopped walking and took in your surroundings. You were still in the Korean cultural garden. You both stood on a bit of walkway that bordered a small body of water where lily pads floated across the surface. Thick blossoming trees surrounded you both, and on the water was a little red pagoda. For a moment, you could have sworn you’d stepped back in time.

Taemin laughed, looking at the scene. “If I were the Jangs, I’d recreate a scene from a drama in this place.”

You looked at Taemin and imagined him in Korean period clothing, his hair long and plaited, a wide, black Joseon hat on his head, and a sword at his hip. Then you imagined yourself in similar a Joseon costume sitting at the pagoda playing an instrument of some sort while he wielded his sword and you started to laugh.

Taemin looked at you. “What” he said. “You don’t think that would be fun?”

“I think it’d be funny,” you said between laughs. “But if I were the Jangs, I’d clear out of here before either of us got that idea.”

Taemin protested and before you could say anything, he’d pushed you to go stand by the pagoda and he was going to re-enact a scene from an old drama he used to watch with s. You stood by there for a while, covering your face in secondhand embarrassment as he tried (and failed) to recite a monologue by some actor you hadn’t heard of in a Joseon drama. That was when you spotted her, and you gasped aloud.

“Taemin!” you tried to say as loudly as you could without yelling. Taemin stopped his silly acting for a minute and froze.

“What?” he said, and turned in the direction you pointed.

“No!” you said, rushing to him and then pulling him away.

“What is it?” he asked, poking his head out of the foliage hiding spot you’d forced him into. “Did you find them?”

“No,” you said, staring at the high heeled woman. “That’s Miss Hong!”

“Which is?”

“My teacher!” you said. “Oh gosh, I’m supposed to be sick in bed! And Hyo Jin is here, she’s the biggest fan girl in the world! What’s she going to think when she sees you here with me!?”

Taemin shrugged. “Lucky me?” you looked at him with wide eyes and he cleared his throat. “So what do we do? Just avoid them. Let’s go in the opposite direction. This place is 11 acres, I’m sure we can stay out of their way.”

“Yes, we better,” you said, whispering. Miss Hong led the group of girls over to the edge of the waterway and made a path for their tour guide to come up to the front and say a few words about the exhibit. Many of the girls seemed slightly disappointed that you wouldn’t be accompanying them. But from your point of view, they seemed perfectly comfortable without you. You weren’t sure how to feel about that.

“Let’s go, now,” Taemin said, standing up and offering you his hand. Taking it, he pulled you to stand up. “We’re burning daylight,” Taemin said, looking at his watch and then looking at your school group. “Let’s go from the outside in. We’ll scour the outer gardens first and then check inside.”

“What if we don’t find them?” you asked. Taemin stopped and looked down at the map.

“Then we try another attraction,” he said, looking at you. “We’ve got a list of the top ten most popular honeymooning attractions. They’ve got to be at at least one of these places.” Taemin turned and began walking along the path that would take him to the other outer gardens. He stopped and then turned back to you.

“You coming?” he asked. You nodded, and then ran ahead to take your place beside him. Then, you both hurried to put as much distance as you could between you and your school group.

Taemin had been right about the botanical gardens being large enough to hide two people from a large school group. But if he’d been right about that, then you were sure that it was big enough to hide the Jang couple from you two, as well. The both of you made your rounds in the outer gardens, dodging large crowds and nearly slipping into man-made ponds. Taemin took a small break at the men’s restroom and you decided you were thirsty and so went to buy some water. Then the two of you got separated and lost at the same time, and finding each other again took up more precious time.

A salesman approached Taemin and convinced the naive boy to buy, not one, but two disposable cameras. When you finally met up again at the Korean cultural gardens a second time, Taemin gave one of the cameras to you, and, caught in the moment, he insisted upon taking a picture by the red pagoda.

Seeing the red pagoda reminded him of the red flowers exhibit in the greenhouse, and he dragged you along to take pictures next to those flowers as well, claiming that Key had a shirt the exact same shade and Taemin wanted to show him. Thinking about Key reminded Taemin that he’d promised to buy souvenirs for the members. That led him to dragging you over to the gift shop to find appropriate gifts for them, which led to him offering to buy something else for you.

Finally, you refused his offer to buy you something from the gift shop, and reminded him that you were looking for the Jangs, not going on vacation. Taemin fished out his wallet and laughed at you.

He snatched a flower pin from the shelf and handed it to the cashier. After paying, he turned to you, the red flower pin in his fingers. Then, he leaned forward and lightly clipped the pin to your hair. “We can do both,” he said.

You reached your hand up and touched the red pin, then you looked at him again. Taemin blinked. “If I were the Jangs, I’d buy that flower.”