g_odalisque13 | Alice in Wonderland (Aron/Alice) (Reply)

Title: Alice in Wonderland
Pairing: semi one-sided!Aron/Alice (NU'EST/Hello Venus)
Rating: PG
Genre(s): fluff, humor
Word Count: 800
Summary: For the prompt Aron finds Alice intriguing. Alice thinks his crush is endearing at

seoulfulness
a/n: I just wrote het. Me. The world is ending guys.

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She knew. She had to know. She absolutely had to have noticed by now. Aron had been staring at her like a moron for at least five minutes while they waited to start filming Weekly Idol. He knew that he should snap out of it and stop acting like a creep but he couldn't help it. Ren had already snorted at him, his facial expression a mix between wow that's unfortunate- I'm glad I'm not like that and I'm a little embarrassed to be seen with you. And JR had nudged him in the ribs lightly, raising his eyebrows as if to say play it cool, man.

They were both right, but Aron still found his eyes drawn to the blonde across the room as she transitioned from singing along enthusiastically to the song being filtered through the sound system to joking with Lime to completely zoning out and appearing as though she was in her own little world. She was unique, that was for sure.

Aron caught another eye roll from Ren directed at him, but he chose to ignore it even though it would have been in his best interest to go spark up a conversation with Minhyun or something. But there was something about Alice's irreverent tendencies that drew him to her.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that she was from Korea at all. Not that he could easily place her into any culture that he had come into contact with. But that was the beauty- she was entirely her own person. She wasn't so crazy that she alienated the people around her. But she wasn't like anyone else either.

Being from the US, Aron found that there was often a culture gap between himself and many of the people that he spent his days with. Not that he didn't like the other members of NU'EST or didn't like spending time with them. Or anyone else he knew, for that mater. But there were still many instances during the course of each day where he was reminded that he was an outsider whether it be a joke that he didn't understand that he had to pretend to laugh at regardless or something that he said or did that had his companions staring at him like he was insane. It wasn't all that bad, really. But it had him on edge- always being careful not to do anything that might call unwanted or negative attention to himself. He wanted to fit in and be Aron, the rapper from NU'EST, not Aron, that weird guy from America- what's wrong with him, anyway?

That fear, though, wasn't there around Alice. Because she didn't seem too concerned about the way that a person was expected to act. She was just...Alice. And he could be Aron without worrying about putting his foot in his mouth.

“Um...Ara is looking over here like she's afraid you're going to sneak into their dorms at night and make a coat out of her skin,” Baekho whispered in his ear, looking sheepish when Aron whipped around- startled out of his reverie.

“Oh uh...sorry,” he mumbled, standing up from the stool where he'd been perched as if he had somewhere to go.

“It's cool...” Baekho replied hesitantly as Aron wandered off to find a bottle of water or something to do. Anything to make him look normal. But at this point, he was afraid he'd already passed the point of no return. Alice was probably creeped out already, along with the rest of Hello Venus. This won't be awkward at all, he thought sarcastically to himself, resisting the urge to smack his palm into his forehead.

---

“Unnie?” Ara said softly, pulling Alice over to the side of the room so that they wouldn't be overheard, “Aron was staring at you a minute ago...”

“I know,” Alice replied breezily, tossing her hair easily over her shoulder.

“Um...it was kinda creepy...” Ara admitted, “I think maybe he likes you...?”

“I know,” Alice said again, gaze moving to where Lime and Yooyoung were laughing loudly about something as though she wasn't even remotely interested in the conversation at hand.

“Okay...” Ara frowned, trying to read Alice's facial expression to avail. As her friend, should she do something? Tell him to stop staring or...?

“It's kind of cute,” Alice added, shrugging before walking over to Nara and pulling the blanket off her lap to make a cape.

Ara stood there dumbfounded. That hadn't really solved anything at all. Alice was surprisingly unconcerned about the whole ordeal. Or maybe not surprisingly, considering it was Alice, after all.

And now Aron was back with a bottle of water, gazing at Alice as she flitted around in her own little world. Oh well, Ara thought, at least it's not me he's staring at me.