...this fandom does something weird to me. Like, if I don't write enough of it, then I feel like I'll start to explode and there's something in me that goes like...whoosh, just building up pressure before I burst...OH DEAR GOD, JANG GEUN SUK WHAT DO YOU DO TO ME. That man is sin. Sin, I tell you.

je t'aime
love is more than just a game for two
two in love can make it
take my heart and please don't break it
love was made for me and you...

The thing about Hwang Tae Kyung was that he had a certain habits. Like scrunching his lips together when he was annoyed or irritated in a sort of pout. And washing every single article of clothing he bought. And making sure that his room was in tip-top shape, not a fibre on the carpet out of place whenever he walked in through the door. There were things like CD collection—which was placed in alphabetical order and colour-coordinated—and his clothes—which were folded to a crisp and starched—and the only thing that could be said as "out of place" was the white pig-rabbit plushy on the side of his laptop.

And another thing about Tae Kyung was that his habits didn't just stop at his room; they affected his life too. He would always organize their songs and notes and lyrics. He would plan their press conferences, fan meetings, signings, performances, anything that had to do with ANJell with President Ahn first. (It was the reason why he was the leader of their group, not to mention being the oldest.) He planned. He organized. He was pretty sure he had some sort of advanced OCD.

But anyway—because he was always an overachiever and a compulsive planner, he couldn't help but plan their date. Which, thinking back on it, made him even more nervous—because it was their first date that counted as a date. And you wouldn't expect cool, sophisticated, cold Hwang Tae Kyung, leader of ANJell, to be nervous about something as trivial as a date. But that was the problem; he was.

Because of the anxiety, he spend two hours just planning the whole thing. The butterflies that were in his stomach did not stop fluttering; at the mention of all the things he would do, the preparations that would take place, made them flutter so hard it felt like they were having a war inside his stomach. Not like he'd admit that to anyone, of course.

Mi Nyu was his first love. She was probably going to be his only love too, because Tae Kyung seriously doubted that he would feel the same things he felt for Mi Nyu for another woman. And hey, he wasn't going to get this chance any other day. Why not take it? He had been to a few dates before, but they were blind and usually set up to be a sham for the public's interest (much like his relationship with Yoo He Yi). But this was real. The feelings he felt for Mi Nyu was real and frightening because he felt things he didn't feel ever before.

He had barely closed the thick folder filled with his scribblings—be it random dates, times, or lyrics—when a knock on his door informed him of someone there. Jeremy stood at the entrance, which confused Tae Kyung to some point—Jeremy rarely ventured to his door. As if reading his mind, the blond grinned.

"Shin Woo hyung sent me to get you," he told him cheerfully. Jeremy stepped inside and bounced over to him, sitting Indian-style on the carpet by his leather chair. "He said that it was almost time for the lunch meeting and he wanted to know if you were ready."

Tae Kyung blinked. Oh, yes—the lunch meeting with AS Entertainment. They were going to work with another band on one of the joint products, something that was gaining popularity in Korea. He forgot all about it in his hype about his date. "Yes, I'm ready. Go now." He dismissed his bandmate with a flick of the date, which caused Jeremy to pout.

Suddenly, the blond's attention focused to the binder, which Tae Kyung was unnoticeably fingering, as if he was considering opening it and making another note. A mischievous look twinkled in his eyes. "Oh, Tae Kyung hyung has got some secrets from me~!" he sang, snatching the binder/folder out of Tae Kyung's hands with nimble fingers.

The dark-haired male made a move to get it back, but Jeremy moved out of his reach and was now running across the room. He was right next to his water bottle too, and it was plainly obvious by the way that he was tipping the bottle precariously that Jeremy would tip it on his laptop, and—even worse—the pig-rabbit plushy.

He opened the binder and fingered the pages while Tae Kyung fumed. "Oh, there are some really good stuff here, hyung! How come you never showed this to us?" Tae Kyung was about to make a move to get it back, but then Jeremy's eyes widened and he knew that he had gotten to his date planning page. "Ah? You're nervous about your date with Mi Nyu?"

"Who said I was?" he snapped.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Oh, hyung, anyone—even you—that goes this far to plan the whole date minute by minute is way too nervous." The blond frowned. "Or has too much time. But I'm pretty sure it's the first for you. Mi Nyu's been walking around in this sort of daze, and it's not going to be long before Mi Nam figures out." Go Mi Nam's over-protectiveness for his sister was surprisingly severe.

"Give it back," Tae Kyung said evenly, keeping the emotions in his voice in check. "It's none of your business!" he said finally when Jeremy refused to give it back. He knew he sounded childish, but he really wanted the binder back. He's getting his fingerprints all over it!

Jeremy puffed up his cheeks, but handed over the binder to Tae Kyung. The elder immediately opened it and started to reorganize everything, as if Jeremy's touch had done something to them. The drummer of ANJell watched this with a raised eyebrow.

"You know," he started off-handedly, "If you really want to have a great date with Mi Nyu, all you have to be is yourself, hyung." Jeremy's words stopped Tae Kyung momentarily. Jeremy really didn't know what he was thinking, because his back was turned on him, but he hoped that his words got through to him.

Jeremy smiled and clapped a hand on Tae Kyung's shoulder. "After all, that was the Hwang Tae Kyung that she fell in love with, right?" He released a boisterious laugh and walked out his door, calling out, "Don't forget the lunch meeting!"

Tae Kyung felt a little bothered, but didn't let it show much. It was the thing he was afraid of; letting himself be completely bare in front of Mi Nyu, all his feelings laid out to rest in front of her. He didn't know how to react to something like that. He heard Shin Woo say something and was snapped out of his thoughts.

He closed the binder in the middle of fixing the contents; as he turned around and closed the lights, multiple paper corners stuck out of the binder, completely out of order.

It's not like I'm taking his advice, Tae Kyung thought to himself, smoothing down the label of his black coat. I'm just...wearing what was left of my closet. Of course, he wore something completely unlike him and casual; usually, he would wear something at least in style, considering how much he had to grow up with. But he didn't want to show himself off today. In fact, he didn't want any attention on his or Mi Nyu's date at all. He wanted it to be the two of them only.

It was nearly seven o'clock, but he was too nervous to go out of his room. He had not touched the papers since he came back from the lunch meeting, deciding (surprisingly) to follow Jeremy's advice (why was he doing that it was going to fail) but he was pretty tempted to. Planning was an organization.

He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. "I am Hwang Tae Kyung," he told himself authoratively, nodding in satisfaction. Just that little sentence told him that he had the strength to be calm and impressionable.

He stopped in front of Mi Nyu's door, not giving himself time to pause. Knocking, he opened the door slightly and called, "Go Mi Nyu?"

She was standing in front of the mirror, and he took that moment to glance at her fully. After the last year and a half, Mi Nyu had slowly became more comfortable with herself. She wasn't there fully, but she was getting there. With Coordinator Wang's help (most probably) she looked the part of being Tae Kyung's girlfriend (even though there was much controversy about the Shin Woo triangle thing and he really couldn't care if she wore men's clothes).

Right now, Mi Nyu adorned a white button-down shirt that went all the way to the middle of her thighs, a black belt buckle cinching the fabric at her waist and showing off the curve of her hip. White capri pants fit with the attire, and then she wore small black ankle boots. A glinting pin glistened in her hair, pulling it back behind her ear and giving her an overall sweet look. Tae Kyung felt his breath hitch in his throat; after her hair grew, it seemed she grew to be an even prettier woman to him every day.

Mi Nyu turned around at the sound of his voice, lips a pretty coral pink and little eye liner highlighting her eyes. "Hyung-nim? I-it's seven already?" Her eyes flickered to the clock, where they widened. "Oh! Sorry, I must be late..."

"I'm right here, so there's nothing really late about it," Tae Kyung was able to choke back his voice, clearing his throat when it sounded too hoarse for his liking. A thought crossed his head, unbidden: she's pretty. No, beautiful. "Come on, Go Mi Nyu. The car is ready in the parking lot."

Mi Nyu nodded and her lips curved up into a smile. She grabbed her phone from the table beside her and the dark black coat from the bed, shrugging it on her shoulders and buttoning it up as they went outside. Tae Kyung was just happy that none of his other housemates had caught them.

When they were well on the highway and Mi Nyu had stopped humming happily, she asked, "So where are we going, hyung-nim?"

He was too happy to correct her. "A cinema first, and then to dinner." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye; she was fiddling with a button. "Which one do you want to see?"

Mi Nyu blinked, then smiled shyly. "Anything is fine with me."

He supposed that it was supposed to make it easier for him, but it made it all the harder.

In the end, they had decided to watch a semi-romantic movie, seeing that it was Valentine's Day and that was all that they were showing in the theatres. But he didn't miss how Mi Nyu jumped in her seat when the thrilling parts came and how her hand clutched his just a little tighter when part of the movie gave them both a scare. And really, Tae Kyung would be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy it either.

They exited the movie theatre, still holding hands. Tae Kyung found it to be an extreme form of luck that he wasn't recognized yet. Maybe it was because he was actually smiling instead of scowling, or maybe it was because everyone in the world was actually too busy with their own loves.

And he would be lying if he said that he didn't feel as though his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

"Hyung-nim, let's go there!" Mi Nyu pointed excitedly at the open playground, just opposite of the street that they were walking on. Thankfully, the restaurant he had booked had been about a block away, and it was nice enough to just walk there and back when they were finished. But he took Mi Nyu's suggestion into account.

The playground was cloaked in darkness, without anyone there to inhabit it. Sprigs of green popped up in between the graves of the ground, ready to bloom from a long season of harsh cold. All in all, it didn't really look like the ideal place to be, but they still have about thirty minutes and Mi Nyu's eyes were shining in a way that he couldn't ignore.

"There?" he echoed, not willing to have his dignity showed up. "But it's a place for kids. And besides, it's closed—"

"No it's not!" she smiled widely, pointing to the very open door. Tae Kyung was surprised, but decided that it made sense—after all, who would have anything to do at a playground in the middle of Seoul, nearly nine into the night? "C'mon, c'mon!" She grasped his larger hand in hers and lead him across the road. She sure had gotten much more bolder since last year.

There didn't seem to be a place of fun anywhere between the plastic slides and chained swings, but Mi Nyu gave this little squeal and headed over to a twisting structure that he barely made out in the dark. It was only thanks to the lights beside them that he could make out her vague figure.

"Oh, me and oppa used to go down this all the time!" she said fondly as he had no choice but to come over. "One of us would sit down there and then wait for the other to come down...and then the other kids would do it too, and we'd all be stuck on the slide, like a backed up clog..."

Tae Kyung snorted at the simile.

Mi Nyu smiled and continued. "And then, one of us would get too tired—usually the person at the bottom, over there—and we'd let go, and everyone would fall off." She gave a hearty laugh, stroking the side of the slide fondly. "How about you, hyung-nim? Did you have any memories of slides?"

He didn't, in fact. Most of his childhood was spent in the vicinity of his own home, having to learn things from his cold-hearted tutor and his mother and the shows on the television. He rarely had time to go out and play with other kids, and he really didn't know how to act other than how his mother and tutor acted; cold, uncaring, and rude. He wasn't about to say that to her, though. He was quiet, searching through his memories for the vague times when his usual tutor would be absent and another nicer one would come, one that let him go out and made him home-made lemonade...

"When I was seven," he started, voice uncharacteristically soft, "I went outside with my tutor. She took me to the park, and on there, there was a bunch of kids playing around." He let a smile flicker on his face briefly. "That was the first time I went on a swing."

Even in the dark, he could almost feel Mi Nyu's eyes on him, not pitying or sympathetic, but heartfelt and real. It was one of the things that he loved about her. She sniffled for a moment, and for a terrifying second Tae Kyung thought that she was going to cry, but then he heard a shuffling of movement and a small arm on his shoulder. "Let's go on the slide," she said determinedly. "I'll push you."

"What?" He didn't object to her hand, but turned to face her—or, at least, what he thought was her direction. "Are you crazy? Those things would break!"

"They won't! They're really strong, I swear! C'mon, Tae Kyung, you said that it was your first swing ever, right? Have another one!" She tugged on his fabric, but he stood stubbornly. What if someone saw them?

"It's childish," he started, but was cut off by his girlfriend.

"You're childish!" Mi Nyu stomped her foot in what was a form of irony with her statement. "Everyone is childish! It won't hurt you, hyung-nim. Come on." Her voice was oddly soothing and persuasive, and he silently cursed Coordinator Wang and Yoo He Yi for being bad influences. He was starting to do everything she said.

But as he sat down on one of the wide seats hesitantly, he warned, "Don't you dare push me. I won't go any farther." Unbeknownst to him, Mi Nyu bit her lip to keep back a smile from laughing at Tae Kyung's sullen attitude. She sat on the seat next to him, swinging slightly.

They're was an uncomfortable silence between them, Tae Kyung refusing to talk and Mi Nyu not having anything to really talk about. She glanced up at the sky with nothing else to do, her eyes following the twinkle of bright white stars as they shined in the sky. Tae Kyung stared at his boots, unhappy with the sudden onslaught of emotions and memories that his childhood brought with him. The bulge in his right pocket was left unnoticed.

"You know, Tae Kyung...I always thought that the stars were way out of my reach." Tae Kyung turned to look at his girlfriend slowly, following her gaze up into the sky. Mi Nyu pressed her lips tightly together. "They were always so bright, so dazzling..." she reached up an arm, as if going for one of them. When she clutched her fist, air appeared in between her fingers. "...and I could never really get hold of them."

Her hand floating down to her neck, as did his eyes. They landed on a slightly twinkling silver necklace that adorned her throat; not as attention grabbing as the stars above, but subtle and beautiful in it's own way.

Mi Nyu felt herself smile. "But you got one for me. You gave me a star." Her fingers tightened over the bumpy surface of the inlaid diamonds. "You gave me a beautiful star. And you gave me hope. And you gave me love." She paused. "You gave me so many things, Tae Kyung. I'm so happy. I've never felt that kind of happiness anywhere else in my life other than when I am with you."

She poured her heart out to him, he was realizing. Despite all the hurt he knew he caused her, she still loved him, and to this day continued to love him. And she was telling him this, bringing her whole soul into it. And he would be damned if he didn't say that she had this sort of effect on him, the effect of making him see the world through different lenses, the effect of suddenly brightening the world around him.

He licked his hips, the creak of the swings the only sound in the world, it seemed, along with their soft breathing.

"I always thought love was for fools," he admitted, calming himself and staring down at his hands. "That it was a waste of time and energy. I guess that was because I never experienced it truly. My mother..." Here, Tae Kyung swallowed thickly. "...she never bothered with any of those motherly things. I was ignored by her. I was convinced that she didn't love me. I still am." He glanced at her, and found that she was staring right back at him.

"But you showed me something that I can't really explain, Go Mi Nyu." There it was. His feelings, all smushed together in one sentence. He wasn't a man of many words, but he knew that he was trying his hardest to tell her everything that he could. "I saw that some things were worth fighting for, worth keeping, worth being hurt over. You taught me that as long as you try hard enough, you can reach for even the most farthest things." Like her love, when he believed she was smitten with Shin Woo.

"I have clothes, money, fame..." the reminiscent words that he had once thought to himself long ago suddenly resurfaced in his mind. "But I will never be able to recreate what I feel for you for somebody else."

Suddenly, he found himself being brought toward a warm body; Mi Nyu had reached over after his little rant and brought her head to his, kissing him on the cheek and nuzzling into his neck in a sort of broken hug. He was too surprised to react, but his cheek did feel much more warmer where her lips had touched it. He heard a small noise, and realized that he had actually made her cry. "G-Go Mi Nyu? Why are you crying?"

"Because, Tae Kyung, you can't say those type of words and not expect me to cry!" she sniffled. "Who knew you were just mush on the inside?"

"Don't push it," he replied flatly.

"Thank you," she said a heartbeat later, voice soft, sincere. "Those words mean more to me than you'll ever know."

Tae Kyung didn't respond, but placed his own arm around her small form, bringing them closer together. You mean more to me than you'll ever know, he thought in his mind, and then remembered something important. Something that he had been so nervous about in the morning.

He reached into his pocket, fingering the velvet box in between his fingers. "Go Mi Nyu?"

"Hmm?"

Slowly, he took out the box and flipped it open with one hand, moving it in between them and letting her see the beautiful silver band and small, perfectly cut diamond laid in the middle, glinting like one of the tiny dotted stars above. "Stay in my sight always."

She gave a little choked gasp, stuck between shock and amazement. Then, even though he couldn't see it, she smiled so large it was as bright as the sky. "Always."

And as she kissed him under the brightly starred sky on a swingset, he slipped the ring on her finger and imagined how his life would have been if he had never met Mi Nyu. They were far from the perfect couple, but they didn't need to be. It didn't matter that he had proposed to her in a playground in the dark on a child's swing. All it mattered was that she felt the same way he did.

The dinner reservations were completely forgotten.

.:.

fin.
11.30.11