You shot up immediately from the bench. Your first thought was to make a run for it but you knew that it wouldn’t work because one, he could easily outrun you and two, he was standing in the middle of the hallway that you came from. You had no choice but to try and talk yourself out of this situation.

“Where have you been?!” He asked as he strode towards you, with his arms out. It was obvious that he wanted to hug you, but you backed away quickly. He was insistent though and eventually reached close enough to pull you into a hug. You used to love hugs from him because it always filled you with warmth and comforted you but this just felt awkward.

You lifted your arms, which were till now limp by your sides, and placed it palm down on his chest before pushing away from him to break the hug. You gave him an uncomfortable smile and he finally seemed to get the message.

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and cleared his throat. “So, where have you been? And why are you here?” He asked, looking truly puzzled.

A part of you couldn’t believe that he was acting so calm and cool, as though whatever happened 2 years ago didn’t even take place. You frowned a little at this thought and bowed your head to try and hide your expression. All this while, you had felt nothing but sadness and pain when you thought about Junhyung. Now though, after seeing him again, you felt a tiny bit of anger starting to bubble up from within you. It made you feel rather strange.

However, when you finally looked up at him again and saw him standing there, looking at you with a puzzled expression on his face, you couldn’t stop the sinking feeling in your heart. The Junhyung standing in front of you right now, gave off the feeling of the old Junhyung you knew; the one who was your best friend, the one who made all those promises to you. You forced yourself to looked away to clear your head. They were the exact same person.

You let out a soft sigh. “I was away… somewhere and I’m here because I’m visiting a friend.” You answered as vaguely as you could. The only thing on your mine was to get away from him as soon as you could. You really couldn’t deal with this right now, especially not here.

“But where exactly did you go? I tr-“

"Oppa!!!!"

He was suddenly cut off by a high-pitched shout and the next thing you knew, there was a pretty doll-faced girl attached to Junhyung's arm. In fact, the more you observed the girl, the more you felt like you were looking at a doll instead of a human.

"Oppa, who is she? Do you know her?" The doll-like girl asked.

"No, I lost my way and was just asking for directions." You quickly answered before Junhyung even had the chance to open his mouth.

The girl cocked her head to the side. “Where are you headed to? Have you got the directions?”

You shook your head. “No. I’m trying to get to SHINee’s waiting room actually.”

"Oh! SHINee sunbaenims' room is down the hall, to the left. Should be the fourth or fifth door… Anyway, you'll see their name on the door." The girl answered kindly with a smile.

"Thanks." You said and bowed a little stiffly to the both of them before heading down the hallway.

You took a couple of steps and before you could even breathe a sigh of relief, he called out to you.

“Wait!”

You turned back to see him detaching the girl from his arm and striding towards you.

"We haven't finished our conversation. Can we meet another time?" He asked in a hushed voice when he reached you.

You looked over his shoulder to see the girl still standing were Junhyung had left her and looking slightly confused. You shook your head. "I don’t think that would be very fair to her." You said while looking at the girl.

He followed your gaze and when he didn't deny what you were implying, you just gave him a small smile. "I can tell that she's a great girl. Treat her well. Goodbye, Junhyung-ssi." You said before walking away from him again. You didn’t turn back again so you missed the slight furrowing of his brows as he stared at your back.

You felt making a run for SHINee’s waiting room just in case he tried to stop you again and it took almost all of your will-power not to sprint the rest of the way back. You kept reminding yourself that you had to remain calm so that Kibum wouldn’t notice that something had happened and then pester you to tell him until you gave in. You knew that he could never find out about this. He just couldn’t. You knew that it was a bad idea for you to come here.

There was something that you couldn’t figure out though and it kept bugging you while you walked back, causing you to almost walk past SHINee’s room. You stood outside SHINee’s waiting room door and shook your head to clear your mind. You were just about to push the door handle down and enter the room when the door was suddenly pulled opened from the inside.

“Omo!” You and Kibum chorused when you saw each other. You placed your hand over your heart to try and recover from the shock.

“Where did you go? Minhyukkie started to miss you so we were just about to go look for you.”

“Sorry! I was sitting at the area with the benches talking to my mom. I told her that all of you were going to visit as well. Oh, is it alright if we make a stop before going there? I promised to get her samgyetang for dinner.” You explained, trying your best to seem casual about it.

“Of course it is. I’ll just go let manager hyung know so that he can arrange it.” He passed Minhyuk to you and walked back into the room.

Minhyuk wrapped his arms around your neck and snuggled into the crook of your neck. It seemed like he was still suffering from the effects of jetlag. He was feeling sleepy and moody now that all the adrenaline from the excitement had finally wore off. You gave his back gentle pats to soothe him and pressed a soft kiss into the side of his head. “It’s ok, mommy’s here now. Sleep, Minnie.”

He made a small noise and snuggled even closer to you before his movements stilled and his breathing evened out. He was asleep by the time Kibum came back to the both of you.

“Ok!-” He began but stopped when you put your finger to your lips to shush him before pointing to Minhyuk.

He nodded in understanding and gave you an OK sign with his fingers before taking his phone out and typing furiously on it. “Are you coming to watch us perform on stage? We’ll probably be up in the next hour or so.”

You gave him an apologetic look and pointed to Minhyuk who was fast sleep and shrugged ever so slightly, not wanting to wake Minhyuk up.

He pouted and started typing again, showing it to you when he was done. “PLEASE??? You’ve never seen us perform before.” You looked back up at him and saw him push his lower lip out even more.

You chuckled. “Oh alright. I’ll come.” You mouthed and he did an air clap and went off to tell the others. You settled in a chair in the corner of the room to let Minhyuk get as much rest as he could, while he could.

“Minhyukkie.” You softly called, trying to wake him up as you ran your fingers through his hair. His only response was to shift closer to your neck but was still sleeping peacefully with his cheek pressed against your shoulder and his small mouth slightly open. You chuckled at how cute he looked before trying again. “Minnie.” You gently tapped his back. He scrunched up his face for a brief moment before opening his eyes and squinting a little because of the bright lights from the stage.

“Omma, where are we?” He asked, sleep still evident in his voice.

“We’re at the side of the stage. Your samchons are going to perform soon. Do you want to watch?” You pointed to the SHINee members, who were taking their positions on stage.

His eyes immediately widened and he turned his head towards the stage. You let out a soft laugh as you carefully adjusted the way you were carrying him so that the both of you could watch them comfortably. They had all changed into their stage outfits already and Kibum and Jonghyun were in red and black while Minho and Taemin were in red and navy blue. Leeteuk, who was in black and silver, was currently standing beside you since he would only go on towards the end of the song. You could tell that despite him being their sunbae (senior) and the leader of another group, he was still nervous about going on stage especially since he still wasn’t sure off the choreography.

“Oppa, hwaiting!” You cheered him on just as the music started.

“Hwaiting!” He pumped his fist and the both of you went back to watching the SHINee members.

You were once again blown away by their stage presence and their fierce image on stage. Taemin couldn’t be more different in real life but he still looked so convincing on stage with his fierce expressions and dance moves. The more you watched them, the more you felt proud of knowing them.

“Oppa, do you know whether the idol group, Xing, is here today?” You suddenly remembered the question that had been bugging you earlier.

He shook his head. “Nope. They disbanded over a year ago.”

You furrowed your brows but he was too nervous to notice or to probe you about it. “Ok, I’m up now. Wish me luck!”

“Good luck.” You responded but your mind was already elsewhere.

You were only snapped back to reality when Minhyuk started bouncing and clapping excitedly in your arms and you had to quickly wrap your other hand around him so that he wouldn’t fall backwards. The SHINee members, Leeteuk and the dancers were all walking off the stage and heading towards you. The members were quickly surrounded by their stylist noonas though, all hurriedly dabbing the sweat off their faces and necks. You stood back and watched, slightly in awe of the treatment they were getting.

“So… how did we do?” Kibum asked, still a little out of breath, when all of them finally came over. He reached out and literally plucked Minhyuk out of your arms after Minhyuk extended his arms out to Kibum. You saw Minhyuk whisper something that made Kibum’s face light up and earned him a huge kiss on his cheek.

“Daebak!!! All of you had so much stage presence and charisma! Very fierce and cool.” You praised, feeling proud once again. You did watch most of their performance after all, only just missing the last part at the end, but you could tell from their faces that nothing bad happened so you turned to Leeteuk gave him two thumbs up. “Leeteuk oppa! Good job!” He laughed and ruffled your hair in response. “Thanks, for cheering me on, SHINee’s number one fan.”

You blushed and ducked your head as the rest of them started laughing as well. You didn’t see the frown that formed on the face of someone who was lurking at the back. Junhyung had just finished his performance with BEAST when he saw you approaching with the SHINee members and Leeteuk. Naturally, he got really curious and hid at the back where it was poorly lit, telling s to go on ahead without him and that he would join them later. Although he couldn’t hear what you were saying from where he was, he wasn’t too happy about all of them crowding around you and the way you seemed so happy around them. But most of all, he was really curious about the little boy that was now in Kibum’s arms.

Jonghyun and Kibum were supposed to lead the way back to their waiting room but they seemed to be more interested in bickering over whose turn it was to hold Minhyuk. Usually, you would also see Minho added into the mix but today, he was extra calm and stuck by Leeteuk’s side most of the time, even now. You and Taemin just watched everyone from the back.

“Taeminnie, can you give Jinki oppa’s number to me?” You asked.

He immediately rattled some numbers off the top of his head. You stared at him with a curious expression as you didn’t manage to catch even half of the numbers. “Heh. Hyungs made me memorize everyone’s numbers because apparently, I lose my things very often.” He said sheepishly.

You made him repeat the numbers twice more before you were sure that you got the numbers right and stored it in your phone. “Oh! Noona must give me her number too! I tried to ask Kibum hyung for it but he refused to give it to me.” He stared accusingly at the back of Kibum’s head while he reached into his pocket for him phone.

His expression immediately changed into one of mild panic as he patted his front and back pockets a few times. “I can’t find my phone!”

Before he could even go into full panic mode, Minho turned his head slightly and said, “It’s with manager hyung, Taemin-ah.” before resuming his conversation with Leeteuk like nothing had happened. Even Kibum and Jonghyun also didn’t bother to get involved.

You looked at Taemin with an amused smile. “So, apparently, this is a common occurrence?” You teased.

“Aniyo!” He still tried to deny everything.

“Noona, was our performance really good?” Taemin suddenly leaned very close to you and whispered.

“Mmm. Yes, it was really really good. I’m not just saying this to make all of you happy. I really truly mean it.” You reassured.

He nodded before whispering another question to you, “Did you really think we looked cool on stage?”

So this was what he truly wanted to ask. You hid a knowing smile and leaned in to whisper back, “Yup! And you were the coolest! Shhhh.”

Taemin couldn’t hide his happiness at that and beamed at you. “I love you, noona!” He exclaimed, hugging your arm really close to his chest.

You turned your head away from him and smiled. You saw someone disappear around the corner at the end of the hall.  

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Ok, let me clarify yet again. If you had a chapter update notification from this story just now and clicked it only to go to a chapter that you've already read, it's because I did repost the chapters again. When the server was restored, it was restored to a point a few days earlier, so all the data that was posted in the days after that restore date was lost. This included chapter 75 and 76 of my story along with all the comments. 

Let me just be clear that I'm NOT trolling all of you -.- 

Anyway, here's the update. I decided to add more content into it when I re-read it just now, which is why this took longer to post than expected.