Bubbles
For the 5th time that morning, Taeyeon pressed on a tissue over her eyes to keep the tears from flowing. She wasn’t particularly sad but, a mist of loneliness has suddenly come to envelope her in its embrace and didn’t seem to want to let go. It was the 47th day from which she had felt some sort of emptiness in her being. She hasn’t yet figured out how it started but, it was there and it has been frustrating her to no end.
No matter how much she tried to ignore it, the feeling just consumed her and she was sure that everybody has noticed how much the twinkle in her eyes has lost its sheen. She smiled weakly at the metaphor, just some months ago, she was singing how much she is twinkling and now, she was fighting so hard to keep it.
She was thankful for the time alone as she swept her eyes over the empty café. Except for her and the ever smiling manager, the place was curiously empty for a Saturday morning. She needed time to sort out whatever she was feeling and she could only do that from snatches of time away from their exhausting schedule as the top girl group of South Korea.
Not that she has accomplished much anyway. Most of the time, she was just trying to keep herself from crying herself dry. She consoled herself with the fact that she can still actually cry. What worried her is when everything has caught up with her and she can’t give even an ounce of emotion.
The time when she’s just a soulless shell, functioning like some kind of marionette, ready to dance and sing at anyone’s bidding.
Might as well take the robot label from Seohyun, she mused, suddenly feeling laughter flow from her veins, she is happy with whatever she’s doing with Yonghwa anyway.
She shook her head and concluded that she probably has gone crazy. The rapid shifting emotions she was experiencing just added to the growing list of her frustrations. She sighed as she folded the crumpled tissue paper, staring intensely as if she could find the answers to her nonexistent questions in its wrinkles.
-
Jonghyun whistled merrily as he walked the narrow street towards his new hideaway. It was exactly 27 steps from the parking lot of his agency’s new building. It was something that he hasn’t told his Yonghwa hyung yet, he was still relishing the feeling of having his own secret sanctuary away from being Lee Jonghyun, the man on the left side playing the guitar in CNBLUE. There, he was just Lee Jonghyun, the man busily scratching away at a music sheet, dreaming of bringing his music to the world.
He was insanely happy, that much can’t be denied. But he hasn’t yet figured out from where it came from, he just knew that he can’t keep his mouth from smiling. Jungshin has never failed to point it out every possible moment that he can and if before, he gets annoyed at the maknae’s incessant teasing, he just gives the boy the best dimpled smile he could muster.
As soon as he steps inside the café, he was greeted by the nice manager, already standing up to prepare his usual order. He noted the light drone of The Shins’ song coming from the speakers and makes a mental note to download the album as soon as he got the chance and to tease Jungshin about having a namesake band.
“We have company today,” the kindly old man smiled conspiratorially at him as soon as he reached the counter, “do you know her? I heard she’s pretty famous.” The man’s eyes travelled towards the isolated corner of the café.
He followed where the manager was looking and squinted at the hooded figure, wisps of light brown hair escaping the cover. He scanned his memory of people he knows with that hair color, cringing mentally as Yonghwa’s face came into his mind. Whatever possessed that large child to go blond, he had asked himself time and again.
“Ahjussi, give me a large cup of the almond one. Add a lot of bubbles, please. I think I know her,” Jonghyun grinned at the sudden inspiration - the light brown of her hair reminding him of roasted almonds.
He sauntered carefully towards where the girl was sitting, a large cup of milk tea in each of his hand. He wanted to make sure that it’s not something of a mistaken identity. Once he was sure enough, he grinned when he saw that she hasn’t noticed him yet.
He put the cup in front of her and, in the classic Jonghyun style, effectively knocking over her previous cup. He jolted for a bit but, became thankful when he saw that it was empty.
His grin grew wider when she lifted her face to meet his, “fancy meeting you here, noona.”
-
Taeyeon’s hands darted out to save her empty cup of milk tea; it was, after all, her only companion for the past 2 hours that she has been sitting in the café. She raised her eyes to look at the culprit and was quite surprised to meet the grinning face of Jonghyun.
“Oh?”
“I said, fancy meeting you here, noona,” Jonghyun dragged out the honorific, enjoying in having to call someone smaller than him with it.
Taeyeon looked at him confusedly for a second before panic settled in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes widened as she tried to discreetly look around the place. Once she saw that it was still empty, she let out a long sigh of relief which was promptly followed by a loud guffaw of laughter from the newly arrived intruder in her space of loneliness.
“What’s funny?” She scrunched up her face, trying to feel annoyed at the situation.
“I made sure no one’s around before I walked to you,” Jonghyun settled on the seat across from her, “and besides, apart from me, I don’t really see anyone come here anyway. I thought before that I may be the only one keeping this business afloat. But now, I see that you’re helping me in that department.”
She stared at him and wondered when that guy has become talkative. He usually just gives out a small smile and mumbled responses covered by embarrassed laughter. Not even in the past few months that she was sure that they have become closer. He even just brushed off her mention on him on the acknowledgement section in their album saying that she really didn’t have to do that. After all, it was just a couple of times that he bought bubble tea for her and it was because of just coincidentally meeting her at the place. But thankful is thankful so, it was written there and it’ll remain there.
“Yoona’s not with you?” Taeyeon tried to start a conversation after the awkward pause her scrutiny gave them.
Jonghyun looked at the petite girl confusedly for a moment before the realization came to him, “why would you ask about Yoona from me?”
“I… don’t know,” Taeyeon faltered, she was quite sure before that there was something going on between the two. She had suspected that much when they attended their concert last December. “Wasn’t she going out with you?”
He let out another laugh, “Why would you think that? Our fans are arguing as much as it is, anyway. Only a national little brother can stand next to her and even he would drown in antis. But not as much as I would get if I did.” He grinned mischievously.
Taeyeon thought for a bit, “national little brother? You don’t mean Kang Minhyuk, right?”
“Well, Yoona didn’t come for me during our concert, that’s for sure,” Jonghyun’s eyes sparkled at finding out that the unexpected couple hasn’t let their secret out of the bag, “I was probably just the first one who found out about it. Playing the messenger, I guess."
She felt overwhelmed at the information. She certainly didn’t see that coming. After all, most of the girls had speculated that Yoona has fallen for this guy’s shy dimpled smiles. She slapped herself mentally on why she didn’t come to Seohyun to ask about it. The girls enjoyed discussing and guessing about the status of their other maknae’s love life and almost always came to the conclusion that Jonghyun and Yoona are the new couple borne out of their close affiliation with CNBLUE.
“That’s… quite something,” she played with the straw he handed over to her, “and this is…?”
“Almond. To match your hair, I guess.”
She almost curled her fingers at the cheesy statement but rather she felt a small smile creeping on her lips. It has been a long time since someone threw her something like that.
“You have to stop hanging out with Yonghwa too much.”
He laughed again and she felt his energy radiating towards her. The small smile playing on her lips grew to a full grin. It felt like a real morning, when the rays of sunlight reached out to tickle her face. It was the kind of laughter that fills a place, sweeping all kinds of darkness away.
Jonghyun scrunched up his nose, “how is that even possible? I have nowhere else to go, everybody’s too busy nowadays.”
“You have a lot of friends, don’t you?”
“It’s not fun to always go out and drink alcohol. I sometimes like to be alone.”
“You too?” she poked at cup’s cover and started to stir the contents, suddenly fascinated by the swirling bubbles inside it.
Jonghyun considered for a while, he has known Taeyeon for some time now but, it was only now that he was able to talk to her like this and it felt comfortable. He sensed some kind of gloom about her and he has seen it before, from the past when he tried to coax Yonghwa out of the slump he was getting into. And at that moment, he knew what he can do with the weird happiness overflowing out from him.
“Do you want to be alone together?” he tested out as he brought out his notebook and his music player from his bag.
Taeyeon looked on curiously at Jonghyun’s outstretched hand, offering her the other bud of his earphone. It doesn’t give out concrete questions or answers to her but it was something, probably a start to figuring out what was the loneliness that was bothering her was about.
Two people sharing being alone, it was something that she has yet to understand but, she felt suddenly awake and suddenly smiling. It’s not a bad thing at all. Not at all.
She put the bud in her ear and smiled, “I’d love that.”
--
AN:
Nothing's going to stop me from loving the Bubble Tea couple. Haha.
Short drabble that came out of that endless CNSD interactions that we've been having. That unusual closeness between Jonghyun and Yoona got me thinking about writing something about them but, it ended up like this.
This is just to keep the writing faucet open, I really have a hard time doing chaptered ones but I'm doing my best in completing my other stories, it'll be updated soon.
So yeah. This is unedited, be warned