[OO1]

Amber feels a lump in as Krystal divulges yet another cringe-worthy tell-all about some male idol condoning her to give up her cellphone number. She plasters on a huge grin and lets out short bouts of laughter to make it sound like she's honestly intrigued with her friend's recount, because, honestly, she's not.

"Weird, isn't it?"

Amber realizes that Krystal had just acknowledged her. Retrieving her thoughts from the vast, incalculable space, Amber nods.

"Yeah. Definitely."

"I mean, it's not that I don't want to, it's just that I think it's better if I..."

And Krystal's voice is fading away again as Amber retreats back to her own world, semi-unconsciously. It's not a rare occasion for a hormonal teenage boy from other idol groups to latch onto Krystal like a leech. What could anyone say? She'sbeautiful. Boys liked how her long, dark hair swooshed back and forth with each bounce in her steps. She had those innocent eyes that twinkled when she smiled and those delicate pink lips that every boy wanted to kiss. Krystal flaunted the body of a twenty-some supermodel, and the sad truth was that she was only two months shy of her 17th birthday. There are certain things that Amber deemed unnecessary, and one of them would be the idea of her lamenting after her beauty queen friend who overshadows her when it came to boys.

It's fact that Amber doesn't always get the guys - the cute ones, the gentlemen, the one that she'd see as "perfect boyfriends". But it's fact that she secretly wants to.

With a swipe of lipstick she secretly bought out of a whim and some eyeliner, Amber would stand in front of her bedroom mirror and wish she was just as pretty as the other girls in her group. She liked her short, boycut hairstyle; her large eyes; her thin lips. She was a pretty appealing person. She had spunk and personality. She just didn't understand why boys didn't see her the same way she did.

Krystal is now furrowing her eyebrows over at Amber. Her attention is evidently elsewhere, noting that she lacked any reaction when Krystal abruptly stopped her story.

"And so yeah. I killed him in the process. I've actually got his liver in a jar back in the dorm," Krystal remarks sardonically.

Her attempts to attract Amber’s attention are proven faulty when the other girl is still lost in her thoughts. Giving up, Krystal resorts to a roll of her eyes and then getting up. Amber feels the sudden shift of the seat next to her and snaps back to reality.

"What's happening?" Krystal is now standing as Amber looks up at her.

"I'm going to go find someone who's going to listen to me." Krystal waves her friend off in search of Victoria, who would probably offer more than her presence when she re-tells her story.

Amber simply shrugs as Krystal walks away and sinks back in her seat.

[OO2]

It could be his darling peal of laughter that gets her every time. Perhaps it’s the way every word he utters reverberates in low, surfeiting harmony. Or it could just be his eyes.

Amber swears it's his eyes. And his nose. And his lips. His whole face, actually.

Whatever it is, Amber knows she has never felt this smitten with a boy before. There was, however, that one time in middle school when a new kid moved into town and she had become good friends with him, only to be ditched and replaced by his boyish counterparts who focused more on this silly thing called hip-hop dancing. Other than that, Amber was surprised to be head over heels for him.

Choi Minho. Mr. Flaming Charisma himself.

It was a simple thing, really. The way it all started; how she had come to terms with the fact that her heart fluttered at a dangerous rate whenever he walked into the room.

When she first came to Korea, she knew not one soul. This grew to change, obviously, as her knowledge in everything and anything Korean progressed just as much as her popularity with her peers. She had ties with many of her sunbaenims in the company, specifically with Jonghyun from SHINee.

But all hell broke loose just as soon as Jonghyun had invited Amber out to lunch - Minho in tow.

Of course she knew him. She had seen him in TV shows, flaunting his gorgeous, lean body and his dazzling smile. He had large eyes - like hers - but there were something about his that screamed beauty in every blink and wink and flutter of his eyelashes. She knew him alright; who would want to deny knowing him? Rumor had it that he was more gorgeous in person.

And rumors were sure as hell right.

Everything Amber had learned to put up as her own persona - her looks, her toughness, and her invulnerability - had been melted into nothing but useless goo once her eyes set on the flaming charisma that lingered off of the presence of such a beautiful boy. Of course, the "flaming charisma" was just up for show when he performed for the fans, but Amber knew better than that. She knew that deep down inside of him, he was as y and appealing as it gets when it comes to his offstage ego.

Jonghyun was sitting at a booth in the farthest corner of the restaurant when Amber walked in. She spotted him immediately, but her eyes then quickly flickered over to the boy sitting next to him. Minho was looking down, apparently at his phone, so when Amber walked up to greet Jonghyun, Minho tilted his head up to meet Amber with his endearing eyes.

And for that single moment, Amber felt like a girl again.

It could be his darling peal of laughter that gets her every time. Or his doe-eyed beauty. Whatever it is, Amber knows that she has never been smitten by a boy like this before - in which everything she was known for had been shredded and scrapped into nothing. The boyish demeanor Amber fronted was gone, and though unaware of it, Amber was in love with Minho because he was the only boy to ever make her feel like a girl.

[OO3]

The thing about men is that they usually are very superficial most of the time. Outer appearance implicated the most points in a boy's "who I'd like to date" criterion, so when Amber finds out that Minho's ideal girl is Yuri from SNSD, her heart is crushed.

Not that she expected that she even had a chance to begin with, but a tiny part of her secretly hoped that Minho wasn't like that. That he didn't only look at what was on the surface all the time. But Minho was like any other boy with a libido as ravenous as a male dog.

Amber could never stand a chance.

She would squeal inside every time Minho would smile towards her whenever they made eye contact, or when he'd pat her on the shoulder to compliment her rap performance on Music Core. But by the end of the day, Amber only knew that he was doing that because he was nice and that she was just a friend. Just like how Minho was friends with every other guy in the industry.

"Just one of the guys," she'd mutter miserably to herself. It was like that. Amber's convinced that Minho looks at her like one of his guy friends: a buddy to punch on the shoulder when something they said was funny; a pal to compete with when it came to anything competitive (considerably video games or a 1 on 1 half court showdown); a chingu when all they needed was to talk - about guy things. It almost felt like Minho had forgotten that Amber was a girl.

"Well, at least he talks to you," Sulli would tell her.

Whether Amber liked it or not, Sulli knew about this heart-wrenching situation of hers. She had no intentions whatsoever to let anyone in on her big secret, but the day she accidentally slipped up with a comment about how hot Minho looked on their most recent performance in SM Town Paris, Sulli couldn't let her imagination just fade away. With an almost childlike innocence, Sulli had Amber succumbing to her wishes of revealing what she really felt about the handsome boy. And Amber has regretted it since then.

When the conversations between the two bandmates would halt into an awkward silence, Sulli would immediately come up with questions about Amber's "quest for Minho's love and acceptance". Of course, it was not only very intrusive, but Amber also found it to be quite uncomfortable to talk about. Sulli spoke as if she actually did have a chance. Among the fact that her "love" for Minho seemed to always be the topic of their conversations one way or another, Amber didn't like it when Sulli would bring her hopes up.

"Just like he talks to you, or to Krystal, or to Victoria-unnie," Amber would reply back to her dongsaeng.

Sulli then pouts, before telling her that it's still a good thing, because it's far off better than him not talking to her at all. Amber's not convinced.

[OO4]

It's a Monday. Amber finds herself sitting next to Minho in one of the backstage dressing rooms as they await their turn to perform onstage for tomorrow night's broadcast of SBS' Inkigayo.

In one corner, Krystal and Key are hogging up the latter's Macbook and taking goofy selcas in its built-in webcam. Luna and Victoria are on their makeup chairs as the coordinator-unnies are adding the last bits and touch ups of their makeup, while Sulli and Taemin are deeply engrossed in some American movie that the boy had just downloaded into his iPad.

Minho's talking to Amber, his voice not only deep in tone but also in conversation. She couldn't have it any other way.

They're talking about Los Angeles, and while Minho's mouth is currently moving a mile a minute with his stories about that day they had touched down in Los Angeles for the first time a year ago, Amber's mind is entangled with different methods she had picked up from Victoria when it came to "attracting guys". She was crossing her legs this way, she was pouting her lips that way, she was batting her eyelashes like this, and she was tilting her head like that.

It wasn't until Amber had crossed and uncrossed and crossed her legs for the fourth time that moment did Minho finally catch up to her little jig in her seat.

"Are you okay?" He asks. Minho lays a steady hand on her arm. Electricity shoots through her veins.

"What?" She merely stutters. "Oh, um, yeah."

Minho looks at her for a moment, staring into her eyes and Amber is quick to realize that she's blushing on the cheeks and looks away.

A soft, rumbling chuckle rolls out of his lips. He stops suddenly and then leans in close. Amber swears she can smell his cologne. It's provocative and hints off everything that's manly about Minho. For a minute, she trembles.

And Amber's never trembled before.

"Amber," he says. His accent twirls out adorably as he utters her English name. "How do you say nega joh-a in English?"

Slowly, Amber turns her head, inching it back so as not to accidentally knock her lips onto Minho's. "Wh-what?"

Minho smiles (and it's simply beautiful, nothing too extravagant about it). "I like you," he reiterates ever so slowly in English.

Amber stares back at him, wide-eyed before he laughs a little one more time and then elusively grazes his rough, careworn fingertips on the surface of her soft-to-the-touch palms.

It's a miraculous feat, but Minho does it. Later in their respective dorms, everyone will be wondering why they didn't see it when they were in the same room, but Minho does it. And that single moment is only shared and witnessed between those two alone.

He kisses her lightly on the lips.

Minho pulls away, his fingers now clutching her hand lightly. He gives it a light squeeze and his warm eyes dart up to meet hers. He curves his eyebrows slightly so, as if he was silently asking her if that was okay. Amber stays quiet, her expression blank. A thousand thoughts are progressing in her brain, and it's not until one finally raises itself from the crowd and enters .

"You're lying," she says. Her tone is half-hearted and as much she felt elated over his kiss, reality has set in.

Minho's small smile fades away quickly and then he holds both of Amber's hands in his.

"Just because everyone thinks you're a boy," Minho says to her. "Doesn't mean I think the same way, too."

Amber still can't settle her thoughts for more than a second. She's thinking if she looked pretty that day, if the methods of "attracting guys" really worked, if it was just dumb luck, or if Sulli had anything to do with this.

Whatever it may be, only that moment was etched in the back of her mind, foreshadowing anything else.

(And for that single moment alone, Amber feels like a girl again.)