---

Request: Hello can i request one where the reader and Taemin casually meet eachother in Paris, and they have flashbacks because the city was their last trip together before breakup? Thanks:)))

---

Paris.

Bustling cafés, crowded streets, and people rushing either to their jobs, or to the newest art gallery with temporary exhibitions opened in town.

The rampant palaces, domes and monuments built in a Gothic style contrast the tall buildings with intricate sculpted designs, making the city the perfect mix between modern and traditional, between functional and pleasant to look at.

It's already been 5 years since I've last been here, and walking through these busy streets again feels simply surreal. Many memories I tried to forget about are resurfacing, and even though I enjoy seeing this city again, my mind wanders off to that time, and it feels bittersweet.

I breathe in the November air and continue walking, the familiar unfamiliarity somewhat comforting, and after 20 minutes of going through narrow passages in-between boulevards, I finally reach my destination, and I'm glad to see it's still here, opened, despite the unappealing area that's surely deprived of tourists to keep it alive.

Rencontre moi à Paris – or 'Meet me in Paris', a café I accidentally stumbled upon last time I came here after getting lost with my then-boyfriend.

The weather that time was similar as it is now, and I, too, am similar, even if it's been 5 years since then. The only difference is that now I have an umbrella, whereas then we stumbled upon this café soaked wet and dripping from the merciless rain outside, both of us unequipped and powerless against the black November clouds. That was nothing new, though, as we almost always ventured into things unprepared, head-first as if we were invincible, and our relationship was no different.

Maybe that's why it all went down in flames, leaving me this acidic feeling in my stomach.

It's funny, really. I haven't thought about him in years, but being here, all of the sudden I'm the same 25-year old girl with hopes and dreams, madly in love with him, and heartbroken by his absence, to the point of no return. This truly makes me realise that I never got over him, and I probably never will. It's just that the gaps between thinking about him got longer, they became years instead of seconds, and I somehow turned 30 and haven't seen or spoken to him in 5 years.

After standing like an idiot in front of the café in the pouring rain, I realise that it's best to walk in. The smell of freshly roasted coffee beans immediately invades my nostrils, and I smile to myself noticing the décor is still the same, with vintage round metal tables and matching slightly rusted chairs in front of the large arched windows viewing the street.

I head to the table I once shared with him, displeased to notice a half drunk coffee cup with steam still coming out of it, and a discarded coat on the back of the chair.

Tsk. I utter to myself and sit down at the next table, my back turned to that space filled with good memories and laughter.

I lazily grab the menu and skim through it, pondering between a hot tea and a coffee. On one hand, I'm feeling pretty tired and could use the caffeine, but on the other, bad weather is most enjoyable with a cup of warm tea, so I settle for some green tea, the perfect mix.

Looking outside absent-mindedly, I follow the raindrops fallen on the large glass windows. There is no sign of anyone brave enough to set out in this weather. I don't hear the person behind me returning to their seat, and I get startled when they tap me two times on the shoulder.

I turn around, and my eyes can't believe what I'm seeing. I must've gone as white as a ghost, because he starts chuckling immediately, his warm smile sending alarm bells to my poor heart, that started beating faster.

There he is, dressed in black trousers and a black fitted turtleneck, with his brown hair and perfect pearly whites, looking at me with surprise in his eyes.

"It's really you! How weird to meet you here!" He exclaims with a soft chuckle, and I stand up, shocked.

"Taemin...?" His name plays on my lips, burning my tongue. I haven't said it out loud in years. In fact, I avoided it like the plague, afraid of what saying it would make me think about, but now that I said it, it felt like it was the most natural word that ever came out of my mouth, like my lips missed it, and they wanted me to shout it out all this time I've stayed silent.

All of a sudden, his arms encircle my body and he pulls me in for a hug, and my body reacts unconsciously, grabbing onto his waist and holding tightly, not wanting to let go.

However, we let go, as we can't possibly stay embraced in the middle of a café. I'm not sure he wanted to, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him, feeling my eyes swell up with tears that I try to swallow back. He looks like he's moved on, and his life looks amazing, and everything is fine, but I... don't really want him to know about mine. I tried so hard to stay away from him, but now...

"I should be asking you the same thing." He chuckles. "Would you join me for a cup of coffee? Or a warm tea, since I know it's your favourite drink when it rains."

I smile, remembering how attentive he's always been about my likes and dislikes. Even when we accidentally found this café 5 years ago, we got caught up in the rain because I mentioned in passing that I'd love to see an unknown painter's works and he found an exhibition in some obscure museum with 15 reviews on Maps. With his bad sense of direction and both our phones discharged, we unsurprisingly got lost, and ended up finding this place to take shelter in from the rain.

I nod and sit down at his table, in my exact same spot from the past, just as the waitress brings me my green tea, her eyes scanning the familiarity between me and the man in front of me.

"Being here, I kept thinking about us. What have you been up to?" He asks me with curiosity, slightly leaning in, as if he would hear me better. He always used to do that in the past, which I loved. It felt like being listened to, being heard.

"Oh, you know... just the usual. Work, chill in bed with Kkoong, meeting up with friends. Nothing much, and certainly not as interesting as what you've been doing." I smile, pointing at his successful career.

"Mhm. Even if my work took off, I truly am the same simple guy I was when we used to-" He abruptly stops and scans my face, before changing the subject. "Anyway, is Kkoong good? Daeng misses you two."

"I miss you- I mean, I miss Daeng as well." I correct quickly, mentally slapping myself for letting my heart take the lead.

Of course I missed him. So many years have passed, and I am still stuck in a state of inertia. Being with him here again, at this same café, feels like we are still the same clueless 25-year-olds, visiting Paris for the first time, full of hopes and dreams that would only end up crashing and burning in front of our eyes as the weight of the world got too much for us to bear, and love doesn't conquer all.

Taemin doesn't seem to mind my little slip-up. He knows how I've always worn my heart on my sleeve. After all, we've been together for many years, before ultimately breaking up. He knows me the best, and I know him like the back of my hand, still.

"The name of this café is pretty ironic." He says, and I raise an eyebrow.

"Ironic? How so?"

"I mean, Meet me in Paris? Isn't it funny that I've searched for you everywhere in Seoul, but I ended up finding you here, in a café lost in time on the outskirts of Paris?" He looks at his coffee cup, now empty.

Perhaps as empty as the two of us.

Taemin has always been like this, expressing himself in cryptic ways, especially when it comes to feelings that don't easily lend themselves to words.

He searched for me? I wouldn't have known.

When we broke up, I decided to let go of everything I once knew, and left my life with him behind. I took Daeng and I left, I changed my number, deleted my socials, and did everything to stay out of radar, while Taemin did the exact opposite, being everywhere: on billboards, in magazines, on TV...

We were simply too different from each other. We lived in incompatible worlds.

"I also didn't expect you to be here." I smile. "Isn't a star like you too busy to waste his time in a deserted café?" I mock his fame, and he blushes. "Also, I assume the drinks are on you."

"Of course they are!" He exclaimed quickly.

"I don't know, you used to be pretty stingy with money." I shrug playfully, and his cheeks only grow redder. He gets embarrassed and avoids my gaze, before scratching his nape and starting apologetically.

"I was kind of an ass, wasn't I?"

We both laugh, and we talk about anything and everything, watching as day turns to night and noticing the exasperated gaze of our waitress.

"The poor girl wants to go home." I say after a while, noticing her sighing for the 10th time in the past 3 minutes. We've been her only clients today, and she probably hated us for spending so many hours and ordering drinks one after another.

"Would it be so inappropriate of me... to invite you back to my hotel?" Taemin asks hesitantly, and I so desperately wished I had the power to refuse him.

But I don't refuse him, because I missed him, and I want him so much still, and just for these few hours spent talking to him, I felt like breaking up with him might've been a mistake, because I was so painfully still in love with him.

He is perhaps but a guilty pleasure.

We walk out of the café at the end of the world and begin walking slowly next to each other. The rain has stopped, and even if the ground is still wet, Paris stays pretty.

The way we are quietly walking next to each other is in such a stark contrast to how we left the café 5-years ago, embraced, and in love, and loud, that it's almost funny. Maybe we've matured in the meantime, or maybe we just aren't brave enough to grab onto each other so openly in the street anymore.

Maybe we simply aren't as happy. Taemin used to smile so much more brightly, being able to light up any room he was in with his cheerfulness. I've never been that joyful, except for when we were together, because he used to bring out the best in me, until he didn't.

Actually, thinking about it, Paris was not only our last trip together, but also the last time I recall being happy next to him. We broke up not even one month after, and it felt so life-altering in that moment, that it's funny to think that it was simply a regular Wednesday morning. Caught in the moment, he said things he regretted, and I paid him back in the same coin, and it was just the last drop that filled the glass of on-going arguments and differences between our life choices.

I know that we didn't work out because we wanted different things from life, but at the end of the day, it's just water under the bridge.

We continue walking to the hotel without saying much, and I wonder how people see us. In the past, they would be looking at us and chuckling to themselves seeing two dumb idiots in love, but now, there was a palpable tension in the distance between our bodies, that wanted nothing more than to touch each other again.

Of course, his hotel is 5 stars in a good area, and his room is on the last floor. We hop on the elevator and wait and wait and wait, and it's moving so slow, it's eating at me and making me reconsider if this really is a good idea.

Last time we were together, we made out everywhere. On the street, on empty hallways, under the burning eyes of the paintings at the museum – but now?

I turn around with determination and watch how awestruck he is still looking at me, 5 years later, and I wrap my arms around his neck and let my body take the lead, remembering his. Our lips brush against each other shily, but after a few seconds, automatism kicked in.

It's way too easy to fall back into each other's arms.

We start kissing passionately, his hands holding onto my hips so tightly, it might bruise, as if he were afraid I would disappear if he didn't hold onto me, and he pins me up against one of the walls and sticks his tongue down my throat. It's so obvious that my mouth missed him, as they sync perfectly, and it feels as good as it feels bad, like we're eating popping candy each time our tongues touch.

Thankfully no one joins us in the elevator, and Taemin keeps grabbing onto me as we make our way towards his room, that's so large it's ridiculous.

We had limited financial resources back then, so our rooms when travelling were always small and cramped, but we were in love, and it didn't matter. A room this large must've felt cold, when he was here alone.

My back finds the mattress of his king size bed quickly as he undresses me hungrily, and soon enough I am naked waist-down and he is towering over me with a look of raw desire in his eyes.

He presses small pecks on my abdomen and kisses downwards slowly and sloppily, until his mouth makes contact with my thigh, and he spreads my legs apart. I let him do whatever he wants, I just revel in the feeling and let my body remember how he felt like on top of me.

When his mouth connects to my core, tongue licking stripes up and down, I roll my head back and put my hand in his hair, caressing him gently, letting him know what a good job he's doing. He's always loved praise, especially in bed. I wonder if his partners after me knew how to praise him; these small gestures and touches that make him feel appreciated.

His tongue continues working on my clit for a bit, before he moves it down, teasing my entrance, just as he knows I like it.

"You taste so good, baby." He says, letting his tongue enter me, and I moan.

"Taemin, please." I whine, impatient to feel him more.

"Please what?" He chuckles, and I playfully slap him on the head, when he looks at me, a dumb smirk playing on his lips.

"I want you so bad." I whimper, and his smirk drops. He immediately gets on top of me, pressing his body against mine, as if he were my knight and I, his Queen, and I've commanded him something.

There is no time to think anything through with the urgency he's undoing his belt, and the feeling of fullness is quick to overcome me as he slips his dick in me, thrusting mercilessly as if it's the last time we're ever going to be together.

And it might be.

The room is filled with moans and whimpers, and we hang onto each other desperately, our bodies remembering each other perfectly. Our clothes are quick to disappear completely. He slips my blouse off and clasps off my bra, his mouth instantly connecting to my nipples, and I, with the same neediness, grab on his turtleneck and help him take it off. Seeing his naked body, I involuntarily clench around him, and the way he moans sends shivers down my spine.

"I missed you so fucking much." He says, voice full of painful beauty as he kisses my collarbones and nibbling on the sweet spot between them and my neck, and I melt once again against his touch, and I know that I'm going to get my heart broken again, but once you start something and the lines start blurring, it's already too late to stop, for you get greedy and you want more.

"I missed you too." I cry out and indulge myself in his touch.

The way he caressed my body was still the most intimate someone touched me. I've had my fair share of partners before him, and many others after, and this still hasn't changed. Taemin's body and mine are made for each other, and this fact gives my heart a sharp pang.

"My love, ever since I lost you, I searched for you in every woman I've been with. I am no longer creative, and I so desperately want it all back, the way it was. I want us back." He confesses while he's thrusting in me.

But what point is there in wanting? I think, but it's so hard to stay focused, with his dick grazing against my sweet spot over and over, when I'm almost seeing stars.

My toes become a curling mess and I wrap around him, and oh, how well he knows me, for he realises I'm so close, and knows exactly how to move his hips right, and I reach my high and hold him so tight, our shadows become one, completely indistinguishable. It's so good that I start getting ashamed of the loud sounds I'm making. Taemin, however, doesn't seem to mind, it even seems to send him over the edge, because his thrusts become sloppy, and his eyes are closed tightly; he looks focused, faint lines on his forehead giving him away.

I am moaning his name, and he is moaning mine, and dancing the Devil's tango has never felt so right, but in the end, if what we're doing is a sin, then we should just be sinners.

He presses his plum lips on mine, muffling both our moans, and he comes inside me, cupping my face with his hands.

"My muse, please don't leave me again... I promise you I won't make the same mistakes..." He kisses me hard, and if until now I was able to control my tears, they are now breaking my wall of strength, and he wipes them off my cheeks with his thumbs and kisses them away.

"Taemin... empty promises will wear..." I say, and he shakes his head.

"Please... don't leave me again... I've just found you..." He insists, sounding so needy, I melt. But how can I go back to how we were in the past? What if what he's feeling for me is not love, but limerence?

I no longer want to make any mistakes. We were so wrong for each other; what guarantee is there that this time we'll get it right?

At the end of the day, we are still different people, living our lives in different ways, so...

He guides me to the bathroom and we wash each other, just as we used to do. Five years ago, when we came here, we had such a small bathroom, we barely had space to shower at the same time. This bathroom now, however, is so much bigger, it's almost uncomfortable.

There's too much space between us we simply can't fill.

We then head to bed and fall asleep embraced, but as I always used to, I wake up way too early, and being tangled up in his sheets like this makes me think that maybe giving us another chance wouldn't be so bad. However, even if we share the same bed, we still have different dreams, and that's not something that can get changed easily. If it were, we would've never broken up in the first place.

I get up, careful not to wake him up, and get dressed slowly, thinking thinking thinking thinking.

I could get out and make sure he'll never see me again.

But... is that what I really want?

~

~one year later~

Paris is still the same bustling city I remembered it to be, but my safe corner is as quiet as usual.

Rencontre moi à Paris still smells of coffee beans, the chairs are still rusted, and not much has changed in a year, except for the wallpaper on the wall that's slightly ripped around the corners.

I slowly head to my table, occupied by a brunette man in a black fitted turtleneck, who sits with his back turned.

I don't say anything, I simply walk over and sit right in front of him, in my empty chair, and he raises his gaze from the cup, his eyes glimmering in the soft lights.

"Taemin." I smile. "You really came."

"You're fucking crazy." He shakes his head in disapproval. "Who leaves like that?"

"Like what?" I chuckle and play dumb.

"Like what?" He imitates me, and I stick out my tongue at him. "Normal people leave their phone numbers at least, but you?! You fucking- who the hell leaves a note like this?!" He angrily takes out a napkin carefully folded and throws it on the table in front of me.

Rencontre moi à Paris, 18 November, 15:00. Is what is written in pen in my handwriting.

Seeing it, I chuckle.

"You kept it!"

"What if I wouldn't have been able to change my schedule and come here?" He scolds me, but I just shrug.

"That would've meant nothing's changed, and that I made the right choice to not give you my number last year."

"I told you, didn't I? I won't make the same mistakes again. I really want to make us work."

"Then... shall we go back to your hotel? I really missed you. Besides, we don't want the waitress to stare daggers at us again, do we?" I whisper with a slight laugh and stand up, giving him my hand, and he takes it quickly and kisses it tenderly.

"I missed you too, my love. Please never disappear on me again..."

I smile and nod, and we get out of the café hand in hand. His thumb slowly brushes against the back of my hand, and I smile, because I truly missed him, and I was glad he actually listened to the stupid note I left on the napkin and came here.

Perhaps we won't fuck it up this time around, and we will finally be happy together, for we are already in madly love, and time apart hasn't changed that.

After all, two negative signs added together make a positive, right?

~The End~

(A/N) my first Taemin oneshot!

I hope you enjoyed it, and that I did the request right hahah.

Thank you for reading.

Love,

Storm