Note: Any text like [this] is to be translated from English to Korean.

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"Twenty... one. Twenty...two...  Ah, twenty-three."

A girl rolled her carry-on luggage across the flat cream-colored floor tiles of the Incheon Airport towards Gate 23. With a backpack slung onto her back and a cup of hot chocolate held carefully in her hand, she scanned the waiting area. Among the rows of seats, she found an empty seat, in the corner next to the large clear windows, with an open view of the Korean Air aircrafts and the busy runways outside... Oh, and right next to an electrical outlet. *Perfect*, she thought. 

Rolling her luggage to her left between the window and her chair, she sat down and placed her hot drink next to her on the floor. She slipped off her backpack and put it on the chair to her right. She then pulled out her boarding pass from her jacket pocket and looked at the gate's information screen. 

"Flight number... K213... to... San Francisco. Yup, it's the right gate," she mumbled to herself as she took a sip from her hot chocolate and put the drink on the floor beside her again. "Let's see... It's 10:27am... Hm. Boarding's at... 16:10, so... 4:10pm.  Wow! I still have 6 hours." 

She took out her iPhone from her jacket pocket to text her parents about her safe arrival in Incheon. She then dug through her backpack, pulled out a plain white binder and opened it to the first page. It read, "AP US History Writing Assignment: Primary Source Analysis," across the top. She sighed, pulled out her laptop, opened a new Word document, and began writing her paper.

Time flew by, because by the time she finished the second draft of her five-page analytical response that explored the journal entries of some prominent US war colonel from the 1800's (well, she finished eating a sandwich she had bought earlier, too...), she looked around her and saw that the previously empty waiting area was now filled with people. Only a few seats were empty, including the seat to her right, which was occupied by her backpack at the moment. She glanced at the top of her computer screen. 1:03pm. *Only...?* she thought. *There's still three hours left...*

She drank the remainders of her now cold chocolate drink and quickly went over to a nearby trash bin to throw away the empty cup. When she sat back down, she plugged the power cord into her computer to charge it and continued revising her paper.

Just then, she heard a voice with a slight Korean accent.

"Excuse me... May I... sit here?"

The girl looked up to see a tall young man gesturing towards the seat beside her. A dark grey scarf covered his face up to his nose, and a black flat-billed cap was placed stylishly slanted to the side on his head. Even though his eyes were shadowed by his dark brown bangs, the girl still noticed that his eyes were strangely familiar. His voice was familiar as well...

"Oh, sure!" the girl responded with a bright smile as she moved her backpack next to her luggage bag and then went back to revising her essay.

The man shuffled off his backpack and sat down. He then took out his smartphone and its charging cord.

"Um... could you help me plug this in over there?" he asked the girl. 

She looked up from her laptop screen. "Sure. Here?" She gestured towards the unused electrical outlet. 

The young man nodded and smiled slightly behind his scarf. The girl gently took the charger from him, plugged it in firmly, and continued with her writing assignment.

As she worked on the essay revisions, she glanced to her right to see the young man looking curiously at her computer screen. Seeing the long essay, his eyes widened in surprise. She smiled on the inside. *Yeah, this is my homework. Heh...* But when she glanced to her right again, she noticed that the man was no longer looking at the computer screen, but at her. *Strange...* she thought as looked away and tried to concentrate on her homework again.

The girl began to dig through her backpack and pulled out her headphones. She connected then to her iPhone, plugged the earbuds into her ears, and selected "Shuffle." She smiled when SHINee's "Lucifer" began playing, and the intense "Lucifer" album cover was shown on her iPhone screen, but she noticed the young man next to her tense up slightly...

Suddenly, a flight attendant began to announce on the loudspeaker, and the girl quickly unplugged one of the earbuds from her ears to listen.

"Gate 24, Flight K368 at 13:40 to Los Angeles. We will begin boarding now, starting with..."

*Oh, not my flight... That's why there are so many people here...* the girl thought as she plugged her headphones back into her ears and went back to working on her homework.

When boarding began a little later, however, she noticed that the man sitting next to her hadn't moved. *Maybe... he's on the same flight as me...?* she wondered.

He must have noticed it, too, for when the flight attendant announced the last chances to get on the LA flight, she saw him glancing at her to see if she would rush over to the gate to board... but she didn't need to.

Now, flight K368 to LA had departed, and the waiting area for Gates 23 and 24 was completely empty... except for the two of them, who were sitting side by side.

The girl glanced over to her right to look at the young man and noticed that his face was no longer buried in that grey scarf. *Oh! He looks so familiar! He's... He's... ugh.. who is he?* she thought desperately after recognizing his face. She stared blankly at her computer screen, trying to think of the name...

"Um..." she weakly began after pulling out one of the earbuds and turning to face him. "Are you SHINee's Lee Taemin, by any chance?" 

He froze slightly and looked up at her. "Uh... yeah," he answered.

"Really? That's cool!" she responded calmly with a smile and returned to wrapping up her essay.

They stayed silent for a while, but then Taemin spoke.

"Um... are you a Shawol?"

The girl looked up again. "A Shawol? Uh, yeah," she said with a shy smile.

"Um... Thank you for supporting SHINee." Taemin said and shyly bowed his head slightly to her in appreciation. 

"You're welcome," she responded, smiling. She glanced briefly at the gate's information screen, and then asked, "Uh... Are you heading to... San Francisco?"

"Oh, yeah," Taemin answered and nodded slightly.

Interested, the girl asked, "Really? What brings you to SF?" 

Taemin stopped. "Uh... SF?" 

"Oh, it's an abbreviation for San Francisco," she explained.

"Ah, I see. Uh, I have—um—SHINee has some promotions in the San Francisco Bay Area... and in LA, too," said Taemin, his hands shifting uncomfortably in his coat pocket.

"Wow, that's great! I'll see if... I can make it to one of your events then," the girl exclaimed.

"You're from San Francisco?" asked Taemin.

"I'm from around there... like about an hour south from San Francisco," she replied.

"Oh," said Taemin, shifting in his seat to sit more comfortably.

The girl gave Taemin a smile, added the final edits to her essay. She soon closed her laptop gently with a small huff of accomplishment.

"Um... why are you here in Incheon—er—Seoul?" Taemin asked.

The girl looked up after packing away her laptop and pulling out her colorful pencil case.

"Oh, I had a connected flight from Thailand, uh, Bangkok... and I had a six-hour layover here in the Incheon Airport," she said.

"Wow, six hours... that's long," commented Taemin.

"Yeah..." she replied while rummaging her pencil case for her favorite pen.

"And... you've been here the whole time?" Taemin asked.

"Yeah... I have homework to finish, though," she answered as she pulled out her small planner book and happily checked off the little box next to the small note, "analysis essay."

Taemin stayed silent for a while as he watched the girl look over the several other notes with boxes that remained empty. "Is school hard in America?" he then asked.

She laughed quietly. "It's not hard. It's just a lot of work, I guess. If you manage your time well and space out all of the work without pushing it for later, it's not that hard. I guess if you procrastinate, then it's harder."

Taemin was suddenly on his phone and took a pause to think as he stared at the phone screen, with his head tilted to the side, his cheeks puffed up a bit, and his lips forming a slight pout. He then looked back up. "Have you ever been here in Seoul before?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, I have... a few times," she responded.

"What were you here for?" Taemin questioned.

"Uh, some photoshoots..." she said hesitantly.

"Were you... in an Elle Korea magazine, by any chance?" he asked.

"I was, yes," she replied with uncertainty.

"[That's why you look familiar]," Taemin mumbled quietly, but she had already heard. Her eyes widened in surprise. *Lee Taemin knows me? Woah...* she thought.

"Uh, weren't you in the 2012 March and November issues?" Taemin asked hesistantly.

The girl answered, "I was! Um, how did you find my pictorials?"

"One of the SHINee members, Key... he's really into fashion... so we have almost every fashion magazine, especially Vogue and Elle and stuff, in our dorm...  and I look through most of them..." explained Taemin.

*Oh...* the girl thought, not really knowing how to respond.

"And your shots stood out the most..." he continued. "You were the only female model in the entire magazine... and the only model I don't know the name— Well, yeah."

"Oh" was all the girl could say, shocked that Taemin, a famous South Korean idol, had noticed her out of all the other people among various magazines.

"Um... what's your name?" Taemin asked the girl.

"My name? Liza. Liza Cheung,"  she replied, sharing information about herself to people she didn't know.

"Liza. Nice to meet you," Taemin said, holding out his hand. 

Liza shook his hand gently with a shy smile. 

Taemin asked, "Are you... Korean?"

"No, I'm Chinese," Liza answered.

"Really?" 

"Yeah." Liza grabbed her backpack from the floor on her side. She slipped out her iPad, scanned through the pages of apps, and selected one to open her Calculus textbook. 

"Oh. Wow, working here in Korea, too. Do you speak Korean, then?" asked Taemin.

She looked up from the iPad screen. "Heh... [Yes, a little.]"

Taemin smiled and asked, "[So, are you the model who wore the long flowing dark blue dress and with the row of white flowers in your hair?]"

"[Wow, uh, yes...]" *Wow, he really knows...* she thought.

"[The straight, long, violet dress, too?]"

"[Yes. Holding the light pink flowers]—"

"[Oh, right, those pink ones! And your hair styled in an updo and stuff,]" Taemin added.

"[Heh... yeah,]" Liza responded while she slipped out a sheet of binder paper and used her white binder as a hard writing surface. She saw Taemin lean back in his seat in his seat with a smile as if he had finally accomplished something.

Taemin watched her complete the first homework problem and then asked, "Actually, if you don't mind, I need to practice my English... So can I speak to you in English?" 

"Sure. That's fine," she said smiling before she focused on her calculus homework again. After a while, she stopped and asked, "Where's the rest of SHINee? Since you're promoting in SF..."

"Oh, they're taking a flight to San Francisco later this week," Taemin responded with a smile.

"Oh, cool," she said, giving Taemin a calm smile back.

Liza completed her calculus homework—along with all those tedious graphs—in less than an hour. Packing away her work, she checked off the assignment in her planner. She glanced at Taemin, only to meet his curious gaze. Taemin looked away bashfully, biting his bottom lip in attempt to hide his wide smile that stretched across his face and to hide the rosy color that began to spread across his cheeks.

The waiting area began to fill up again, and over the next hour, Liza continued to complete her homework assignments one by one. She would look up occasionally at Taemin. He was staring at her—or Liza thought he was—because every time, their eyes would meet, and Taemin would quickly revert his gaze from Liza's pen—really from her face pouting slightly in deep thought—to his colorful phone screen, warmth spreading across his face. 

An hour sped by as Liza finished the analytical paragraph for "The Great Gatsby," some AP Biology pre-lesson prep, and the AP Chemistry worksheet. She checked the time on her phone (along with seeing the lovely album cover for SHINee's "누난 너무 예뻐 (Replay) The First Mini Album"). She took the mental note, "*It's 3:23 right now. So, 15... 17 minutes before boarding.*"

Liza looked up to see Taemin holding out her boarding pass to her with a smile (as well as a slight blush).

"Uh, here. It fell on the ground," Taemin said.

"Oh, thanks!" Liza responded as she gently took it from his hands. *It must have fallen out of my pocket*, she deduced.

"Oh! We're sitting next to each other!" Taemin exclaimed with an even brighter smile than he already had. He seemed to have spotted the seat number on her boarding pass and began fumbling in his pocket to pull out his own. "You're 30A, right?"

Liza looked at her boarding pass. "Yeah, 30A."

"I'm 30B. We are sitting together!" Taemin confirmed with a wide grin still stretched across his face. But Liza soon saw that he raised the back of his hand up to his smile in attempt to cover it. 

Taemin then asked, "Have you taken this Seoul to San Francisco flight often?"

Liza looked up in thought and answered, "Often? Not really... Maybe one or two times per month."

"That is pretty often, though," he responded. "What do you do for such a long flight?"

"You've never been on such a flight?" Liza asked, surprised. 

"I have... a few times, but it's always so boring on a thirteen hour flight," Taemin said. "How are you not so bored?"

"Homework," Liza said simply as she reached for a candy from her bag and quickly popped it into . She smiled and spoke again, "Homework and sleep. Usually thirteen hours isn't enough for both, so homework is done at the gates, and I sleep on the plane... and set alarms for the food."

"How much homework do you have, usually?" Taemin asked in a slightly worried tone.

"Depends, but usually around eight to ten hours on the weekends and around four hours on the weekdays," she said.

"Oh... that must be a lot. And you finish it all at the gate? In just six hours?" he asked.

"Well, I had a short few-hour flight before this from Bangkok, and adding the six-hour stopover here... it's enough," she said, crossing her legs and leaning back against the backrest of the chair comfortably.

Taemin's eyes swept across where her neatly packed bags lay on the ground and asked, "Are you done?"

Pausing the music and packing away her headphones, she smiled, looked up at him, and swiftly pulled the sleeves of her jacket to cover her hands. "Yup! All done," she happily responded with a soft muffled clap of her hands at the end.

Suddenly—

"Gate 23. Flight K213 at 16:10 to San Francisco. Boarding will begin in fifteen minutes..."

Taemin's face lit up when hearing the announcement. "" he exclaimed and began to use his phone.

Liza smiled at his little outburst and looked around the waiting area to see the most of seats occupied once again. She heard Taemin talking on his phone as she went on her phone to text her parents that she was going to board the plane soon.

"Hey, Liza?"

Liza turned to Taemin. "Yes?"

"You know SHINee, right?" Taemin asked, seemingly still on his phone.

"Of course," she replied with a smile.

"Uh, do you want to say 'hi' to the other SHINee members?"

Liza froze for a moment and spoke softly, "Am I allowed to?" Her sleeve-covered hand covered her half-open mouth from shock.

Taemin smiled and answered, "What do you mean 'are you allowed to'? Of course you are. I've called them and they're still connected. Here." He held out his phone to her. "You can talk to them."

Liza reached out, took the phone hesitantly, and held the phone to her ear, her hand still over her lips and now covering her shy smile.

"[Hello?]" she finally said, unsure whether to speak in English or Korean.

"[Hello? Is this Liza?]" an awfully familiar deep voice spoke on the other side of the line.

"[Oh, yes...]"

"[Uh, wait a moment while I put the call on speaker.]"

"[Sure.]"

She heard a thud of the phone being put on a hard surface or table, a faint count-off, and then— "[Hello! We are shining SHINee!]"

Hearing four very familiar voices, her smile behind her sleeve-covered hand grew wider. 

"[Hello, this is LIza,]" she greeted shyly after moving her hand from her face.

"[Yes, we know that,]" a familiar sharp voice pointed out. She could imagine the almighty rapper's strawberry blond hair framing his smiling face as he and the other members laughed at the rapper's comment.

Liza then felt a light tap on her shoulder and turned.

"[Can you put it on speaker phone?]" Taemin asked.

Liza nodded as she switched the call on speaker phone.

"[Liza, can you tell which member is which by just our voices?]" the clear voice of the main vocalist asked.

Liza smiled and answered, "I might not be absolutely sure, but I can... and I know that the one who asked the question is Jonghyun-sshi."

There was light laughter both from the other end of the call and from Taemin next to her, and above that, a softer and slightly angelic voice exclaimed, "[That's correct!]" as if he was the MC of a Korean TV show.

"[What about me?]" the deep voice of the main rapper asked, hopeful for a correct answer.

"[Minho-sshi]," Liza responded simply, knowing the answer easily. 

Taemin nodded and said "[Correct!]" with a smile.

"[Liza, what about me?]" a high squeaky voice asked through the phone.

She paused, trying to identify the strangely altered voice as either the tofu leader and the almighty lead rapper, the two SHINee members that remained. Taemin looked at her quizzically, not sure if she was going to answer correctly or not.

"[Onew-sshi...?]" she finally answered.

All of the SHINee members went "Ohhh~," and Minho remarked, "[That's correct!]" over the other responses.

Jonghyun asked, "[Then... who's the last member you haven't mentioned yet?]"

Liza paused for a moment, thinking of what to do. Of course she knew the last member was the almighty rapper, Key, but she decided to joke around a bit...

She threw a mischievous glance at Taemin and answered,  "I don't know...]" in a shy voice, her face showing an "I'm innocent" expression.

Two of the members gasped, but the others, including Taemin, began laughing their heads off. 

A few moments later, Liza finally said, "[Just kidding! Just kidding! It's Key-sshi. I heard that you were once voted on the show Weekly Idol as one of the most bullied idols by fellow band members, so I decided to make fun of you a bit.]" 

All Key said in response was "[Ah, I see...]" but soon joined the other members in laughter.

Liza talked with the SHINee members happily, and not only did she get to know a little more about the group, but she had also shared a little information about herself. Their conversation, intermingled with a few jokes and stories, did not feel like fifteen minutes at all. 

It was soon time to board. The two gathered their bags, and Taemin wrapped up the phone call as the two waited in line together. After the boarding passes were scanned, they headed towards the plane, walking side by side down the walkway. Liza tried to roll her carry-on luggage awkwardly to the side so that it wouldn't accidentally bump into Taemin along the way. They soon entered the aircraft and later approached their designated seats. 

Liza tossed her backpack to the window seat and turned to lift her carry-on luggage to the overhead compartments, but—

"Here, I can help you with that," Taemin said with his hands already on the bag, ready to lift it.

Liza moved slightly to the side as Taemin bravely lifted the bag and gently placed into the overhead storage for her. 

"Thank you," Liza said with a smile and soon scooted to her seat by the window. 

"You're welcome," Taemin replied while returning the smile, and he scooted to his own seat beside her. "You pack pretty light."

Liza smiled and answered, "Yeah, I tend to not need much stuff when I travel." She securely attached her seatbelt and pulled out her little box of candy from her backpack.

She turned to Taemin and held out the candy container, silently asking him if he wanted one. Taemin only opened his hand in front of her, but just as she was going to pour candies out of the container, he shook his head and pointed at the container itself. Liza smiled and placed the box in his hand.

"There's strawberry, peach, lemon, and... the white ones are a mix of the three." Liza said, describing the different fruity flavors.

"Hard candies?" Taemin asked.

Liza nodded. He looked curiously into the box, picked out a light pink coral colored candy which he placed on his tongue, and handed the box back. 

"Oh, it's yummy!" Taemin exclaimed as he settled back in his seat. Liza smiled and popped a white candy into . The sweets were put away for now, and she gently nudged her backpack under the seat in front of her with her feet.

Liza looked out of the window. Check-in luggages were stacked neatly on carts, and the neon orange vested people happily drove along the paint-bounded roads, its long snake of luggage containers trailing along as they swerved around the idle aircrafts. The runways in the distance remained busy as airplanes sped across them, took off, and slipped into the overhanging grey clouds one by one.

"Uh... Liza?"

She turned to Taemin. "Hmm?"

"You said before that you set alarms for the food?" Taemin asked.

"Oh yeah, I need to do that," She replied as she quickly pulled out her phone from her pocket and began setting the time. "Thank you for reminding me."

"Uh... can you wake me up at those times if I'm asleep?" 

Liza looked up from her phone. "Oh, sure," she responded, then saved the settings and put away her phone.

Their attention soon turned to the review of the aircraft's safety procedures. Liza saw Taemin watching the small screen in front of him, and she just scanned the illustrated steps from the card that she pulled from the pocket of magazines at her knees. Liza looked out the window to see the view of the airport whiz by as the plane sped across the runway and smoothly took off into the grey sky.

The airplane soon rose above the clouds and remained at a consistent altitude to follow the long steady path towards San Francisco. The fluffy white cloud formations below seemed to form an endless cotton blanket over the urban landscape that lay below. 

Liza leaned back in her seat and smiled at the thought of home and the sight of her welcoming family, but her eyes widened when she felt something on her shoulder. She slowly turned her head to see Taemin peacefully asleep, his head gently resting on her shoulder. Instead of making attempts to push his head away, she just turned her head and continued looking out the window. As she admired the beautiful blue sky enveloping the never ending sea of white fluffiness below, she began to wonder...

Taemin greeted her, talked to her, and smiled at her, as if he knew her... as if he had met her, although they had never met before. It makes her wonder how he had known about her pictorials, what more he knew about her, and whether... there was more that she should have known herself.

 

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140109 [4110 words, 12 pages]

Author's note: A 12 page (baby) monster (originally intended to be titled "Dream Girl"), this work was actually intended to be the first chapter to a full chaptered story. However, writing one chapter took almost an entire year since my crammed schedule only allowed me to write little bits at a time. While I have been able to piece together my scattered ideas into this one cohesive chapter, I feel too lost and disorientated to continue the story. I do have all the plot points, fully brainstormed and listed out, but I don't have a strong enough motivation to continue writing. Thanks to my best friend (and writing inspiration), I've gotten myself to post this work online for people to read and enjoy.

Those of you who have been kind enough to read my writing here, I would greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions, so that I can use your feedback to improve my writing. Let me know your thoughts and whether you think I should continue the story. At the moment, I plan to leave this work on its own, but your feedback might change that. But, I'll still need lots of time to write a new chapter.