oneshots • nctdream x aespa

one time 🐯💙

Perhaps it was the pianist's performance of Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 No.2, a piece far too 'classy' for a secluded, dingy bar filled with a bunch of rowdy college seniors having their drink out nights and some noisy, drunken overtime white collar workers having their weekly 'gathering,' that Jimin finds herself returning to the bar on a regular basis every late Saturday, despite the atmosphere.

She believed it was a few weeks back, about two to three weeks at least, that Jimin fell in love with the way the dark-haired pianist would lay his long, slender fingers gently on the white piano keys and started playing the Chopin piece. It lured her to the bar like a siren's song, calling upon unwary sailors onto the rocks. Unknowingly, it became her unwritten schedule to find her way into the bar, order a drink or two, and take the closest seat to the pianist.

Tonight was no different. The pianist had finished his usual Chopin piece and had moved on to the next song segment – a popular pop song Jimin recognised as it would be played uncontrollably often on radio stations. The pianist is passionate as he plays his pieces, which Jimin admired and had her notice the little details like how the pianist's brows would crease tight when he played a fast song and how gentle the pianist's eyes would look when the male played a gentle and mellow song. Perhaps she was simply infatuated.

The clock strikes half past eleven, and the dark-haired pianist ends his session for the night; his last song being a dedicated piece to an old, loving couple who had requested for him to play Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely, which was a song the old couple had used during their proposal years before. Jimin had stared longingly at the couple, wondering if she had to do the same later on – having and sharing a 'special' song with someone else.

After the performance and the reminiscing proposal scene from the old couple, she bought the pianist a drink for the first time and even tried to strike up a conversation with the man.

"Hi." Jimin started off simply yet awkwardly, her hands busy holding two glasses, but she placed one on the piano top board hinge for the pianist. The male looks up from putting his piano scores into his bag and offers a smile with a soft reply of "hello."

Admittedly, Jimin found the male's voice just as wonderful, if not more, than the pianist's piano playing. If not, it was a good fit for the pianist's personality. She then snapped out of her wondering thoughts as she cleared her throat lightly as a precaution so her voice wouldn't crack as she tried to talk and motioned the pianist to the glass she had placed on the piano top. "For you."

The pianist raised his brow, more with amusement than curiosity, before he flashed a smile at her and thanked her for the treat. "I'm Mark. And... you are?" Mark settled his bag on the piano fallboard as he got a hold of the drink to take a sip of the liquor in it.

"Jimin. Jimin Yu." She replied almost immediately as the male sipped his drink before placing it back on the piano top surface and raising his brow. "Korean?" the latter questioned in the Korean language, which took her aback at the fluency of the pianist's knowledge of the foreign language before she nodded in reply to the male's question and switched languages accordingly to continue on. "But I've been staying here for years. Since a child actually. "

The dark-haired male replied with a soft exclamation of an 'oh' before he flashed another smile at her and switched back to English as he gestured for Jimin to settle herself in a seat next to where she had sat earlier when Mark was performing. "I was born here. But one side of my parents is Korean, so we speak the language sometimes at home."

"Oh? That's pretty amazing. Both my parents are Korean, so it was a language I grew up with. English was developed when I was here studying in preschool, though. But hey, enough about me, I like your piano playing though." Jimin returned to her previous seat, taking a closer look at the pianist she had been admiring from a distance.