[Current timeline: 111025―okay, I am aware that SHINee was arriving in Japan (after long, long flight from JFK~) that day, but for the sake of the continuity of my story, let’s pretend Minho was in Korea back then. HAHA. AUTHOR CONTROLLING REALITY LIKE A BOSS.]

Ugh. Ugh. UGH. The last four days were a complete torture for me. Why? Because Jung Soo was not here with me. He was out of the country... nah, I corrected that; he was out of the continent. Yes, I was used to him not being around all the time, but he never left me this far before. The kid is just so mean. f(x) and some of SJ members were going back to Seoul today, but Jung Soo... he just had to have a trip with Donghae and their mothers to Saipan―an island located somewhere in Pacific Ocean. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad that he finally had days off (the man needed it urgently!). The matter was... I missed him. I wanted to see, hug and cuddle him. I missed him so much. Ugh. I should wait for three more days until he came back here to Korea.

Speaking of f(x), I managed to escape from them and let Krystal and Ye Eun do the explanation. It was awkward and somehow embarrassing to admit in front of the girls that I was dating their senior in the company. Plus, Taeyeon was there. I quickly left their dorm and even though they were pouting when I chose to leave, their pretty faces lit up again after I gave Krystal permission to spill things to them―just not in detail.

Later at night, Krystal phoned me, telling me that she only told the group members that Jung Soo and I were a couple―not even to Taeyeon, because she was not sure that I would want her to tell it to the older girl. “But yeah, I guess, without even me telling her, she probably had known it already.”

“Oh, what makes you think so?” I asked.

“She’s one of Leeteuk oppa’s friends in the company. He didn’t tell you?” I hated that kind of question; it only proved that Jung Soo did not tell me basic things about his life, the ones his general colleagues knew. “Nah, don’t think about it. He probably just doesn’t find Taeyeon unnie an important topic to talk about.” Krystal knew how to make me feel better... I loved this girl so much. People might think that she was rather cold and snobby, but I found her so warm and lovely. “OMG, Sulli is calling Heechul―should I stop her?!” Krystal asked. “Jinri~!”

“Are you calling ______-ah?” I could hear Luna’s voice. “Can I talk to her?” Not even waiting for Krystal’s answer, she grabbed the phone from the younger girl. “_______-ah! You and Leeteuk oppa, omona that was hard to believe! Congratulations, anyway!”

I blushed so hard upon hearing Luna’s comment. “Thankies, Sunyoung-ah! So... what are the other’s reactions?”

“Amber called Henry immediately... He said you two are such a cute couple! Aw, I should see the interaction between you both,” Luna answered in awe. “Sulli is now calling Heechul oppa, asking about you and cutely scolding him for not telling it to her. Victoria umma is worried though... Aren’t you worried as well, _______-ah? We all heard that Leeteuk oppa is taking part in We Got Married, and Vic umma is now going out with Nichkhun oppa basically because of that show. _______-ah, are you okay?”

Am I okay...? “I am, Sunyoung-ah. Thank you so much for concerning me,” I said whit a tranquil smile on my face. “We talked about it already. Everything is settled.”

“You’re such a mature girl,” she uttered sincerely. “If I were you, I would strictly forbid my boyfriend from joining such show...!”

I let out a laugh due to her remark. “Haha, Sunyoung-ah, no wonder you’re still single!”

“Y-Yah! I’m single because I haven’t found the right person yet, not because I am such a scary, possessive girl!”

The two of us exploded and laughed together. After we calmed down, I continued, “Sunyoung-ah, can you do me a favor?”

“Huh?” She hesitated. “What is it, _______-ah?”

“Um, don’t talk about me in front of Jung Soo. Don’t... you know, . I’m sure that by now, he has known that you guys knew it. But well yeah, I don’t want him to be embarrassed.” I unconsciously bit my lip, feeling kinda ashamed.

“What?” Luna seemed taken aback by my request. “Jeez. You and your low self-esteem... Oppa won’t be embarrassed having such nice girlfriend like you!” Why did everyone say that?

I shook my head even though Luna could not see me. “Please, Sunyoung-ah. I don’t wanna be a burden to him...”

“Hhh...,” Luna heaved a sigh―a tired sigh, not a comforted one. “I will make sure the other girls know about it.”

A smile unknowingly appeared on my face. “Thank you, Sunyoung-ah. I know I can rely on you.”

“Mmm...,” she murmured, showing me how she was not really amused right now.

Ugh. Ugh. UGH. The last four days were boring. Ye Eun did temporarily move in to my house for that period of time, but today, right where I missed Jung Soo the most, she moved back to her house and EVEN, now was going out to see Dongwoon.  Compare that with my current condition. Ugh. Jung Soo. I miss you. So bad.

‘Ding Dong’ (a/n: RINGDINGDONGRINGDINGDONGRINGGIDDYDINGDIGGYDINGDINGDING), the bell suddenly rang. I lazily pushed myself to get off of the bed and go downstairs, checking who was coming. My facial expression was straight, trying not to press the tips of my lips a little down more. Jung Soo, see what’s waiting for you when come back. I clenched my fists.

‘Buuuugh’... the moment I opened the door, someone suddenly crashed onto me and hugged me with both of the arms. Confused and shocked, I could only stand there, doing nothing. For a second, something inside my heart wished it was... my boyfriend. Who knew that he could magically appear in front of me? But my brain worked fast, and the baseless imagination got destroyed by my own sense of smell that was able to quickly detect whom that men’s perfume filling the air belonged to. “Minho...” I was saying that more like a question than a statement.

The guy broke his hug and flashed me a grin. He looked tired, but also excited and happy at the same time. However, the light in his eyes slowly disappeared as he examined my flat expression. “Hey.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Not happy to see me?”

What? Not happy? “What are you doing here?!” I was not unhappy. I was shocked. “You were supposed to be going to Japan right after SMTOWN! What are you doing here?!”

Minho came inside my house, closed the door and led me to the living room, giggling in all the whole process. “True. In fact, Jinki just texted me, saying that they’ve already arrived in Nagoya.” (a/n: 111027~ SWC Japan)

See? SEE?! “They’re all there! So what are you doing freaking here?” Oh Gawd. No. No. “Don’t tell me you’re not joining your Japan concert!”

Minho shot me a judging look. “______-ah, why are you slow and foolish? I am going to Japan tomorrow dawn...”

Dawn? “But why did you not go there with them?”

He ruffled his hair, seeming frustrated. “I wanted to check on you and Ye Eun! That’s why I went to Seoul first. Now where’s the other girl?”

... ... ... Minho. Something inside my heart felt so, so warm. “She’s out with Dongwoon.” He did this for me and Ye Eun!!! “Aargh, you my stupid, lovely best friend!!!” This time it was me that was hugging him tight. The only difference from the previous hug was, unlike me, he returned it gladly, wrapping his arms around my waist. For a quick few seconds, I felt his fingers tracing my back, feeling the sudden intimacy. But before I could confirm whether it was really happening or just my crazy thoughts, Minho let go of the hug.

“Hoahm,” he suddenly yawned. “I’m kinda sleepy. Wake me up in 30 minutes, okay?” He took two cushions from another couch and pushed me out of the sofa, creating some space for him to sleep. I watched him putting those cushions under his head, taking off his shoes and warming himself with the shawl around his neck. Something felt wrong. “Why are you sleeping on the sofa? Dude, just move to my room!” Don’t get me wrong, but this guy just sacrificed his time and energy for me and I wanted him to get at least a more comfortable place to lay his body in. “Minho...” No response from him. “Yah...” I approached him, taking a better look of his face.

He was sleeping already, soundly drifting away to the land of dreams.

A sincere smile crept on my face. Minho... why? Why are you doing this? To both Ye Eun and Me? Boy, you have such endearing, noble heart.

At the moment I was, again, really thankful that God brought me to meet him. and a wrong thought managed to pop inside my mind, before I felt so miserably guilty and shook it off; ‘Jung Soo, why aren’t you like Minho?’

I sat on the couch across the tall guy and pulled my phone out. Jung Soo had not called yet. Our last two-way communication happened two days ago. But the significant time difference between New York and Seoul made us give up to insist on staying connected through phone. He was busy―not only because of the concert, he apparently had videos to shoot (a/n: SS4 VCR. OMG, such a ksdjfdsajfkljdlgjdgiuet touching VCR. I cried anyway LMAO). I did not have the heart to distract him, both when he was working and when he was resting.

Playing with my cell phone for a while, I realized that I did not have any pictures of Jung Soo in it. I had lots of me, Ye Eun and Krystal, some of Minho... heck I even got like two photos of Donghae (taken by the kid himself when I visited their dorm). But no Jung Soo. I did have two or three photos of him in my laptop though. The one as my wallpaper, remember? The one that Gaby saw and then later, she knew that there was something going on between Jung Soo and me. But not even a single one in my phone. I should maybe ask him to take selca with me later.

The room was quiet. Really quiet. The only noise indicating life was coming from Minho’s heavy breaths. He must be so tired right now. It might be a boring four days for me and Ye Eun but for Minho, Krystal and Jung Soo... sure they were in such hectic condition. Long flight, time difference, preparation for the concert, the concert itself, another long flight... I phoned Krystal few hours ago when she just arrived in Incheon and she was practically whining, telling me her bones hurt so much. She got to rest now, but Minho... I bit my lip unconsciously.

My legs moved by themselves, drawing me closer to his sleeping figure. I stood right in front of him and opened my Twitter account from phone. ‘I’m glad that I have you in my life, kiddo,’ I pressed ‘send tweet’ button. Ugh. Minho... My precious friend, a loving guy. I felt so blessed for having such awesome friends surrounding me. Ye Eun and Krystal were fun to be with―not exactly the type of person who would give you advices, but more of one that listened carefully to you and without even judging, would pull you into a group hug and cry when you cried, laugh when you laughed. Minho... I guessed you all already knew how he was like :)

“______-ah, I...” Oh, did Minho talk in his sleep just now? So cute >.< “Ugh, baegopa jukesseo...” BAEGOPA JUKESSEO? He was so hungry that he felt like dying?! And he said that unconsciously like this? Aw, Minho!!!

He slowly opened up his eyelids, groggily getting up from his sleeping position.

“Hungry?”

He nodded with a pout, kinda shocked that I read his mind. Haha. “And I bet you have nothing to eat. Let’s go to the supermarket and buy some ingredients. I feel like cooking.”

--

The shopping went a bit... well, we were being plainly dumb, especially me. As the whole world knew, I was just clueless about cooking. Minho was kinda average in it, but his knowledge did not help much either. The two of us randomly put anything we saw into the trolley... until we realized that we could not really make any food, at least the edible one, with all these ingredients we had chosen. “I think we have to first, decide what we want to eat,” Minho said, eyebrows creased. “What do you want to eat?”

“You pick it.”

“Uum, how about apple pie? I ate one in NYC, it was super delicious...”

I blinked my eyes several times, looking at him in confusion. “But I don’t know how to cook it. Neither you do.”

Minho took out his phone from the pocket. He lightly elbowed me as he said, “Well, google it, duh~”

Oh yeah, right... Haha. I chuckled bitterly and we continued strolling around the hallway of the supermarket, searching for the ingredients Google told us to buy.

• pie crusts
• all-purpose flour
• sugar
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• salt
• butter
• apple

We quickly drove back to my house and started experimenting with the recipe.

I took out all the stuff we bought from the plastic bag and put it on the pantry table. Minho heated the oven and read the recipe on his phone again. “Mix sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and flour,” he said. “Let me get the apples and peel it.”

“You’re peeling the apples? You know how to do it, right?” I asked him.

Minho rolled his eyes. “Just do your part. I’ll manage to do it without getting cut.”

I took the ingredients he told before, but before I mixed it all in a bowl, I remembered something, “I’m allergic to cinnamon.”

“You are?!” Minho’s tone rose. “Don’t put it in, then!”

After struggling for some time with the crust dough, the aluminum foil and the baking part, the apple pie was finally ready. Minho took it out from the oven and the sweet smell of it filled the room immediately, making me drool. “Ah, it looks so delicious!” It really did, I was not even kidding. The outer crust was golden brown the scent of the apple was just so, so pleasing, looking so crunchy and fattening. “Minho, you’re not bad at cooking! Or baking, I’m not sure!”

The guy grinned in satisfaction, placing the hot apple pie on the pantry table. He cut it into several slices and put one on the plate I prepared. Carefully, he sliced it again into smaller bits, blowing air onto it before feeding me one of the pieces. “How is it?”

“Oh Minho, it’s really good!” I squealed like a baby. “The simplest apple pie I’ve ever eaten but I’m not joking, it’s really yummy!”

“The yummiest? Ever?”

I nodded in excitement.

Minho smiled a bit as he observed my pleased, happy facial expression. “It took an apple pie to make you smile and happy again...”

Huh? I raised my eyebrows for a split second, and then shyly turned away my face from him, hiding the red tint on both of my hot cheeks.

“Missing Jung Soo hyung?” he asked in a not so careful tone.

One name. One exact name. It took only one exact name to trigger all my feelings. Something really hot stung my eyes; the tears were threatening to fall. This indescribable sensation inside my heart was killing me, the pain was still bearable... but I did not know when it would turn into the unbearable one. I nodded my head slowly, afraid that if I moved a lot, the bottled up emotion would abruptly explode.

Minho calmly touched my shoulder, whispering in my ear, “It’s fine, it’s just me...”

Yes, it’s fine because it’s Minho―the one who always stayed and never once left my side. “I miss Jung Soo. So bad,” my voice cracked here and there, enough to prove how fragile my current state was. Dammit.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Minho patted my back, caressing it. “You didn’t call him?”

WHY DID HE MEAN BY ‘YOU DIDN’T CALL HIM’? “I can’t,” I choked. “I don’t want to disturb him. He’s busy, remember?”

Minho hugged me again for the umpteenth time today. “Let’s call him.”

Still in his embrace, I shook my head weakly. “Don’t. I don’t wanna make him feel bothered or what...”

“Okay, then I’ll call Donghae and ask his condition, okay?” Minho untangled his arms around me and took his phone placed on the table. “A call won’t hurt anyone, ______-ah.”

I looked so unconvinced. Well, in fact, I was. But Minho was pretty fast, and before I could react to anything, he was already connected to Donghae via Skype. “Hyung!”

Curious, I approached Minho. He stretched out his phone so I could see Donghae on the screen. The older male was lying on the bed, looking fresh. “Minho-ya~” I supposed he just finished taking a bath because his hair was wet. “Whooa, ______-ah!”

Minho smiled, waving his hand, “What are you doing, hyung? The flight went well?”

“Yes, I just finished taking a shower. Saipan is really beautiful.” Donghae grinned widely. “You two are together there?” His smile seemed to dim, but such thoughts shrugged off as he continued in excitement, “Let me go get Jung Soo hyung!” He what...? “Jung Soo hyung! JUUUUUUNG SOOOOOO HYUUUUUUUNG! Come here now, ppaliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~”

Then a familiar voice spoke lazily, “Shut up, Donghae-ya. I’m so tired, not in the mood to play with you.”

“But hyung, it’s―”

“You ruined my mood with that high-pitched, squeaking voice of yours; I’m leaving to the beach.”

...

...

...

That was just really awkward. Donghae, Minho and I could not bring ourselves to utter any words as only the sound of a banging door could be heard. Donghae’s face on the screen was uneasy as ever.

Finally, Fishy spoke up, uncomfortably rubbing the back of his neck, “Jung Soo hyung has been a bit off... He didn’t get proper rest, and the fact that we’re here with our mothers did not help at all.” He continued, “Why don’t you try to call him, ______-ah? Jung Soo hyung grumbled about how he had not enough time to contact you, or you did not contact him...” He did?

“She will, hyung! Personally!” Minho exclaimed, his happy tone sounded so fake in my ears. I forced a smile, assuring Donghae that I would, even though I was not sure of that after hearing what Jung Soo said. The male seemed tired, I better give him some time to rest.

The phone call soon ended and I could only shake my head... “I miss him.”

“Call him...”

“He hasn’t called me yet.”

“What’s so wrong being the first one to call?”

“I don’t want to disturb him!”

Minho let out a sigh and pulled me back to his warm bear hug. “But you’re his girlfriend, it’s not like you calling him will bring him any disturbance or such.”

“You have no idea how bipolar he is. He can be nice and explode in rage seconds later.”

“Ssh, he won’t. Trust...”

“______, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY KITCHEN, HUGGING A GUY SO COMFORTABLY LIKE THAT?!”

Darn. Darn. Darn. Mom’s here.