Taemin in real life.

Part 8

After 10 days in Bali I invited her to my villa for dinner. She had to work until 6pm that night so that left me with a whole day doing nothing and alone. I spoke with my family who I had neglected for the entire holiday and caught up on messages from my managers, friends and the other members.

I also recorded a song. It came to me one evening I was with her, as we laid together and the only sound came from our breathing and hearts beating. It needed a lot of work, but I did what I could with the resources available to me. After our conversation about what I do she had not pushed me or asked me anything about it. She told me she was a fan, she had heard of me, which meant she had heard of the people I worked with and knew, but she didn't ask about them. I was grateful for this, I didn't mind if she asked about my friends, but I couldn't bare it if she started acting like a fan. That's not to say we didn't talk about what I do. My love for dancing, what I had planned, different places I had been.

I had asked all about her. I felt I knew about her family, a brother, and a sister who she adored. When she spoke of them she had the most breath-taking look of someone who was insanely proud and full of love. It was sweet and endearing. I knew about her childhood, how she grew up, what she liked and what she didn't. What she liked about teaching, linguistics, what she didn't, the things she would write about. She was very passionate about certain subjects which was sexy as hell, but she never made you feel like your opinion was wrong while hers was right the way some people could. She had this way of understanding everyone had different opinions, came from different backgrounds and it was fine not to agree.
She told me about how she came to be in Indonesia. She had fallen in love. The way she spoke about it broke my heart. She had been married, briefly and her husband had died. He had an accident a little while after they married and he was gone. Tears fell softly down her cheeks as she told me the story, and I wanted to take the pain away. I felt guilty that I felt jealous. Jealous of the love that she had experienced with another person, but it was replaced quickly with pain and sorrow. I wanted to help her not feel that again. She felt better in Indonesia to deal with her grief which is why she had stayed and couldn't face going back to England where it was so final. But it had been a few years and she was finding herself ready to take that step and leave that story behind.

I was intimidated by her and in awe at the same time. She had so many experiences, regular and extraordinary that I had never had. I felt like I was learning from her, she was wise and sweet and I enjoyed finding out all these things about her. She was just so interesting and real.

I had asked the chef to cook something special for us and set it out on the table on the balcony. She was coming at 6.30pm just in time to eat while watching the sunset.

I had asked one of the villa staff to get me a whole bunch of candles in varying sizes and place them all over the villa. When she arrived she looked breath-taking in a simple white dress, with her long wavy hair curled into a long plait down her back.

She stepped in and took in all the candles.

'Do you like it?' I asked her timidly.

She smiled sweetly at me, while simultaneously rolling her eyes slightly.

She sighed happily and said 'it's lovely. You're kind of romantic huh?' grinning at me.

I laughed at her comment. I never thought myself romantic, not the same way Jonghyun was or Minho could be. But I guess I had never really tried before.

'Come on, we have dinner and a sunset' I said giggling at her pulling my most excited looking face. She chuckled back at me, allowing me to take her hand and pull her through the villa.