Revisiting my old fiction folders made me feel nostalgic and eager to share some of the previous stuff I wrote. This certain piece will be turning eight years old on the 21st of May—that was the date I actually finished it in 2007—and I thought of posting it here (with revisions) to share it with everyone who might recognize it from the old Soomp! forum and new readers who are coming across this piece of fan fiction for the first time.

She Who Must Not Be Loved was first published in Soomp!, and eventually posted on my personal writing journal the year after that. It features the members of TVXQ or DBSK, a popular South Korean boyband, as well as original characters. The main character, Shim Solmin, was inspired by actress Jeon Jihyun.

Hearing Bill Withers singing at seven o’ clock in the morning on weekdays and nine o’ clock during weekends was almost a custom in the Shim household. Since forever, there had been no other song that served as the Shim siblings’ daily anthem but this:

When I wake up in the morning, love
And the sunlight hurts my eyes. . .
And something without warning, love
Bears heavy on my mind. . .

Shim Changmin fixed his blue tie against his newly pressed white school uniform in front of the mirror and smiled, lipsynching to the song playing in his background. From the reflection in the mirror, he saw his bed covers stir a little and remembered that his sister was still asleep.

Wake me up at seven.

Changmin looked at his watch and slapped his forehead a few times when he realized it was already fifteen minutes past seven. Quickly, he reached for the video camera on his study table and turned it on while walking to his bed. Using his right hand to zoom in to his subject, he reached for the bed covers with his left so that he could see her face.

Then I look at you…
And the world is alright with me…
Just one look at you,
And I know it’s gonna be a lovely day…

With one swift move, he pulled the covers off his sister’s head, “Good morning, noona!”

Shim Solmin squinted as the bright sunlight of Changmin’s room permeated her eyelids. She had always loved sleeping in Changmin’s room because the sun always kissed it so generously in the morning, and she could not help but smile whenever she woke up.

“Changmin!” she squealed upon seeing her brother’s video camera pointed at her, “I told you not to take videos of me! I look like a mess!”

Giggling, Changmin sat at the foot the bed and watched Solmin from the LCD of his videocam. She sat up, stretched her arms and rubbed her eyes. Her long black hair was in total disarray, but he still thought she was very beautiful. He leaned back when he saw Solmin’s hand reach for the lens of the video camera and then stuck out his tongue at her.

“Shim Changmin! Stop filming now!” she ordered, still sitting on the bed. “Look at you! You can’t even make a decent-looking tie!”

Changmin pressed the red button of the videocamera to stop the filming and looked at his tie, “It looks fine, noona!”

“Yes it does. If my head were positioned like this,” Solmin said and abruptly leaned her head to the right, making Changmin laugh. Then, she straightened up and reached for Changmin’s tie. “How old are you? Seven? Aish. . .” she mumbled while she fixed his tie.

“Psh. You should stop fixing my tie for me so I can learn how to,” he said and wrinkled his nose.

Her hand flew to his head. “Smart ass,” she said and aimed a punch at him. He chuckled and winced, waiting for the punch to land. When it didn’t, he smiled at her and stuck his tongue out.

“I have to go, noona.”

She nodded, “Right.” She reached for his face and planted a soft kiss on his nose. “Have a good day at school now. Be careful.”

Changmin rubbed his nose and kissed his sister on her hair. “I will,” he said and left the room, closing the door after making a little wave. She waved back, although she was two seconds late, and then fell back in Changmin’s bed again.

She had a relatively peaceful dream, and she tried her best to transport herself back into it. Her senses, however, were already wide awake. Vivid images of the job she had finished the previous night flashed in her head. Sighing, she pulled the covers up to her head and resorted to just taking in the silence of the morning.

Three seconds later, the silence was broken.

“Damn it,” she cursed under her breath, bolting out of bed and running to her room. The mobile phone she had carelessly chucked onto her bed the night before rang relentlessly.

Picking it up, she asked, “What do you want?”

“Job well done, Sniper,” the caller said. “Shadow is picking you up soon. Get ready.”

. . . . .

“Paradise Flowershop.”

Those were the only words Solmin said as she got inside the back seat of the black car waiting for her outside the house. The young man driving the car didn’t bother asking questions nor even opened his mouth to greet her. He just fixed the rearview mirror so he could get a good look at his passenger and drove on.

She was in a bad mood again, like she always was after closing a deal. He saw a mixture of anger and sadness in her eyes, and her silence sealed everything. Secretly, he wished she would say something else in the course of her trip. At the very least, he wanted her voice to keep him company.

He was part of the deal too. Ever since he became part of the group four years prior, she had never closed deals without him. Deals became bigger, more significant, and more risky, and Jungshin thought Solmin needed some sort of assistant to help her out. Solmin had been averse to the idea of having someone following her around, hence the constant misunderstanding between both of them.

There is a cliché, however, that goes, “The only constant thing in the world is change.”

“Stop the car, Yunho.”

Abruptly, he gently stepped on the brakes and pulled over. Again, he decided against asking questions even if they weren’t anywhere near Paradise Flowershop just yet. He looked outside the window and saw Solmin’s brother, Changmin walking with some friends to school. Instantly, he understood the reason for the sudden stopover.

“You can start driving now,” he heard her say when Changmin and his friends walked into the school gate and disappeared from sight.

He stepped on the clutch and looked at her from the rearview mirror. She leaned back on her seat and looked out the window with a thoughtful look on her face that never failed to squeeze his heart.

. . . . .

Park Yoochun smiled when he sensed that the flowershop door opened. “Solmin-ah!”

“How do you know it’s me?” Solmin asked, smiling. Ever since Solmin became a regular customer at Paradise, never once did Yoochun fail to call out her name every time she opened the shop door.

“Aish. . . I told you that you’re the only one who can open that door without a sound,” Yoochun replied. “Everyone else just barges in or makes it creak.”

Solmin walked up to the counter where Yoochun stood. “Okay, then. . . if your hearing is THAT good,” she started, “Can you tell—just by listening to my voice—if I’m happy today or not?”

“Solmin, you’re teasing me. . .” Yoochun said, his smile drawing wrinkles beside his eyes. Solmin always found these wrinkles amusing, even cute, that’s why she always loved to see Yoochun smile.

Not that Yoochun was the opposite of cheerful. Aside from never failing to recognize who she was at the absence of sound when she comes by, Yoochun also never fails to share his laughter and smiles with her.

To put it bluntly, Yoochun to Solmin was a breath of fresh air. A well deserved coffee-break. Most importantly, he was a friend.

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are.”

“Why do you say so?”

Yoochun shook his head and felt for Solmin’s hands on the counter. “You can smile all you want while you talk to me, but I know. . . you came here to buy flowers. You only buy flowers when you’re feeling low.”

Solmin paused, and then stepped back to look at the flowers around her. “I don’t just come here to buy flowers.”

“You come to buy flowers in the morning. And you come to listen to me playing the piano in the afternoon or at night.”

Solmin’s fiddled with the petals of the gerbera near her and nodded. There is no use arguing with Yoochun, who seems to know each and every one of his customers by heart.

“I’ll have a bouquet of gerbera today,” she finally said, breaking the silence.

“Okay, go pick the colors you want. I’m bad with colors,” he said, making Solmin smile. As Solmin picked out her flowers, Yoochun listened to whatever sound her actions made. Because she was always very careful with her movements, it was very hard for Yoochun to read through them. He relied on her voice to tell him something about her, about what she’s feeling, about how she might look like.

Solmin was one of his few customers who came back often. Yoochun sensed an air of mystery in her, because he always felt that she tried to hide so many things, even from herself. She laughed at his jokes, but he could hear her heart crying. In the short gaps of silence they share, just like when she goes to pick her flowers, Yoochun feels like she is actually praying for something that was not about to come.

“Is Yoori around?” Solmin asked, breaking the silence as she carried the flowers she picked back to the counter.

“She just left for school,” Yoochun replied, feeling for the flowers Solmin lay on the counter. “I’m so thankful you don’t like roses that much.”

Solmin laughed, and he did, too. As if by clockwork, he pulled out some plastic wrapper and ribbon from the drawer and started wrapping the flowers. Solmin watched his every move, again in awe. She’d always wondered how he’d ever learned to work so quickly and precisely, given that he was unable to see.

“Did your jaw just drop?” Yoochun asked when he finished creating a beautiful bow out of the ribbon he tied around the bouquet.

She laughed again. “How much do I owe you?”

“Just five dollars.”

“Aish. . . you’re going to end up bankrupt if you do this all the time!” Solmin said and slipped three five dollar bills on the counter. She took the bouquet in her hand and leaned over the counter to kiss Yoochun on the cheek. “Thanks for making me laugh.”

Yoochun touched the part that Solmin kissed, “You’re taking advantage of me now?”

Solmin laughed again, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you steal a kiss from me next time!”

Yoochun strained his ears. He knew she’d already left.

He sketched beautiful pictures that seemed almost lifelike; his precision for detail unmatched by any other kid in his school. There was always something about lonely, teary eyes that attracted him and inspired him to draw, and thus, he was known for sketching melancholic faces with dark lines and shadows defining deep emotion.

In the same way that other talented and good-looking boys are, Kim Junsu was popular with the girls in school. Unlike the other popular ones however, he was quiet, cheerful, and not the type to cause trouble. Cordial and respectful to his seniors and softspoken by nature, half of the female population in school thought that he was leaning toward his feminine side more. He knew it was not the case.

Always, he would sit at the back of the room because he wanted to sketch while everyone else gets lulled to sleep by the teacher’s lectures. He always looked so busy and focused that the teachers thought he was very much into what they were teaching.

Today though, someone interrupted his hand while he drew someone’s face on a blank sheet of his sketchbook.

That someone was Shim Changmin.

Like Junsu, Changmin always sat at the back of the room as well, but his reasons were not of the extra-curricular type. It was an inevitability that he had to work with, being the tallest in his class. He didn’t want to cause any trouble to his classmates who wanted a clear view of the blackboard without having to lean sideways.

An involuntary movement caused Changmin’s pen to fall on the floor and roll toward Junsu’s feet. Instinctively, the young artist picked it up and handed it back. In those several seconds that the unfinished artwork was left unguarded, Changmin’s gaze fell on it, and he felt extremely convinced that he knew who his classmate was sketching.

It was a beautiful girl with very lonely eyes that brimmed with tears, her face slightly covered with strands of stray hair.

“Uh. . . Your pen?”

Changmin woke up from what seemed like a five-second trance. He looked at the pen in the boy’s hand and took it. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes travelling back to the artwork.

The boy had gone back to work.

“Excuse me. . . Kim Junsu?”

The young artist looked up at his classmate. “Yes?”

Changmin didn’t know what to say next. His eyes were fixed on the face that the boy had sketched, and the only name he could think of was his sister’s.

. . . . .

The wooden door to the Big Boss’ office had opened even before Yunho reached for the knob, and a man in a black leather jacket over a wifebeater came out. He wore a gun holster diagonally against his torso, and a smug look on his face. With him is a girl who looked unfamiliar to Solmin.

“Solmin-ah!” the man greeted, reaching for her chin and giving it an affectionate pinch. “I thought I’d see you around. You never stop by the shop anymore,” he said and then glanced at Yunho. Yunho just gave him a blank stare.

He turned to Solmin, “Have you been busy lately?”

“Yeah, I have been,” Solmin replied after pushing his hand away from her face. She looked at the girl. “Who is she?”

“She’s the boss’ newest messenger.”

Solmin nodded, acknowledging the response, though she did not like the thought of having another girl in the group. She wasn’t being selfish or jealous, though. She just never liked the idea of having another Solmin around. Another monster pretending to be a human being.

“We have to go. I have to show her the ropes. . .”

Solmin caught hold of the man’s hand before he finally passed her. Yunho glanced at the physical contact and clenched his teeth but said nothing.

“Boojae…”

The man stepped back and looked at Solmin with a sly, seductive smile that could make any high school girl’s knees shiver. “What is it, baby?”

“Take care of her,” Solmin said, looking straight into his eyes.

He laughed and looked away, “Yah, Shim Solmin. . .”

She cut him off. “I’m serious, Jae.”

Kim Jaejoong raised his arms in front of Solmin like he was being held up. He smiled and shook his head, “What can I say? You’ve always got a hold on me.”

“Go,” Solmin said.

“I’ll see you soon,” Jaejoong said with a teasing wink and walked off, the girl following beside him. Solmin watched as they went out the door, and turned to Yunho when he felt his hand in hers. The look in his eyes were of annoyance, but it softened a heartbeat later.

“Let’s go,” he said and led her inside the Big Boss’ office.

. . . . .

She looked back and saw that the girl with the lonely eyes had already turned around and entered the room she had been in a few minutes ago. The short exchange between that girl and the man escorting her out of the building was within earshot, and hearing it upped her anxiety several more notches.

She wasn’t the type to be faint-hearted, but she wasn’t particularly brave, either. At that moment, she thought herself foolish for diving into something that she did not completely understand but guaranteed a large sum of money. Keeping her head down, she thought of the reason she even tried to spread her wings this wide, even when she really didn’t know if she could even fly.

“You okay?” Jaejoong asked her when they got inside his car.

She nodded.

“You’re perfect for this job.” Jaejoong started the engine and put the car on reverse to get out of the parking lot. “You’re young, you look innocent, and you’re beautiful. Nobody’s going to suspect anything.”

He started driving. She kept silent and looked out the window. When they passed by a flowershop, she wanted so desperately to get out of the car.

“Yoochun-ah. . .”

“Huh?” Jaejoong looked at her when he heard her mumble something that sounded like a name. She was still looking out the window, touching the glass as though she was being taken away against her will and the only one who can save her is standing on the other side.

It was actually her who wanted to save someone. Not from death, but from the loneliness of eternally being in the dark. He had shown him so much love and warmth, when all she had ever done for him was sing. When he kissed her the first time, not too long ago, the fire in her heart told her that she too, loved him as much, and that she would do anything in her power to make his eyes sparkle and see how beautiful the world is.

“Don’t be scared. I’ll teach you everything you have to know. You just have to be careful with the drop,” Jaejoong said, oblivious to her feelings. “The drop, sweetheart, is everything.”

She heard everything he said and yet could not comprehend anything as her mind wandered aimlessly. She told herself to get herself together, or else fail the first and only chance she has to save him.

“By the way, I don’t think I got your name. . .”

Jaejoong parked his car inside a dark bodega which looked to her like it could house a sum of dangerous animals. He looked at her closely and studied her face. “You don’t wanna give me your name? I’ll name you then. . .”

“No.”

“Oh, the pretty one speaks.”

“Aeri.”

“What?”

“My name is Aeri.”