The Tutor

by Kelsi Clayton

  Crawling up on the bed beside her, he pulled her against him. His hand ran up her bare leg as he molded her body against his. Claire stirred, rubbing her t-shirt covered butt against the nook of his hips. Cheol let out a sighing chuckle. He was trying to be good and she wasn’t really helping.

  “I missed you,” Claire murmured, letting him know she was awake.

  “I missed you, too,” Cheol lifted himself up on his elbow, turning her head so he could reach her lips.

  “I’m sorry I fell asleep,” She rolled over to see him better.

  “It’s okay, 애인[63],” He ran his thumb along her cheek. “You had a long day.”

  “Like you didn’t,” She pointed out teasingly. “You did so well on your interview today.”

  “Yeah, you think so?” He grinned.

  “Mmm, you always do well though,” Her assurance came softly with a brush of her fingers along the side of his neck.

  “You were pretty impressive yourself,” He mentioned, thinking back to her reprimanding their interviewer. “How did you catch those questions so fast?”

  “How could I not?” She explained. “I see the questions when they come in and they run them by me if they are in English first, then I send them back with comments. If they want to change them or say no to any of them, that is when they send them back. Sometimes there is a back and forth a couple of times but not always. After that I get the questions back with a translation to give to all of you to work with. After that I start going over them with some of you individually and then as a group if possible. I know the questions well, before any of you hear them the first time.”

  “I never really asked what you do with them before we see them,” He realized to his embarrassment.

  “It’s okay,” She was amused that he seemed embarrassed by that. “I haven’t asked much about your composing and choreography. I love hearing about it but I don’t know enough to even ask you smart questions about it. My whole contribution would probably be something along the lines of just saying wow in a really impressed way about a hundred times. Maybe I could throw in a few really approving nods, too.”

  “At least you know what I do,” He couldn’t help but laugh at her description.

  “Yeah, your job is interesting,” She felt like she was stating the obvious.

  “Whatever you do for your next job, I want to know everything about it.” He told her softly.

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” She promised. “But if I am working with TEENz I’ll have to keep their secrets like I keep all of yours.”

  “Right, of course,” That was something he hadn’t thought of with her possibly working for another company. “Do you think you’ll get the job? Will you take it if they offer it to you.”

  “Maybe and Maybe,” She didn’t meet his eyes, instead looking at her own hand on his forearm.

  “Does that mean you don’t think they want you after all?” He asked.

  “No but I think a lot of things can go wrong so I’m trying not to get my hopes up, I guess.” She hid the worries she was carrying behind a small smile. “But either way, it’s okay. You and I, we’ll find a way through whatever comes.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Cheol agreed.

  “But hey,” She said, changing the subject. “You didn’t come here tonight to waste time talking about this stuff. There’s no point in worrying over things when we could be enjoying the time we have together now.”

  “I am enjoying it,” He didn’t want to pretend that everything was just fine. “I don’t want all of it on your shoulders. What happens is a part of my life, too.”

  “It’s just,” She sighed, sitting up. “You have enough in your life, you have so much to do and so much to worry about, I don’t need to add to it. It’s just not important and I can’t be something that just adds to the burdens you already have. I want to be the fun in your life, I want to be that pleasure at the end of the day. I want you to think of me at the end of a day and smile.”

  “You are my smile,” He sat up with her, leaning closer to her. “Just thinking about you makes me happy. When I am not with you I think of you. I wonder what you are doing and what you are thinking about. But I also want to know that you are happy, that things are going well for you. We are together and that means what happens to you matters to me.”

  “You have enough to worry about,” Claire said firmly. “I can worry about me.”

  “I’ll worry whether we talk about things or not,” He countered. “When you’re happy, I am happy. When you’re worried, I worry, too. You aren’t hiding how you are doing that well.”

  “You shouldn’t worry about me,” Her voice was soft but there was a finality to how she spoke.

  “I love you,” Cheol wrapped an arm around her. “My 애인[64] is a part of my life and my heart. Even if we couldn’t be together, you would be on my mind. I would wonder where you are and what you were doing, if you were happy, if someone was loving you like you deserve.”

  “I know you care, but I’m so afraid of being a burden to you and where you are going in your life,” She leaned into his chest.

  “You make my heart so light,” He pulled her into his lap and guided her head to his shoulder. “You could never be a burden to me. I want to share your life and your joys and your fears.”

  “I can’t be the thing that hurts you if things don’t work out,” She whispered against his neck. “Do you promise you won’t let things between us hurt your life and stop your dreams?”

  “If you can promise you’ll tell me what is happening with your life, yeah?” He wrapped his arms around her back and held her close.

  “Alright,” She finally agreed. “I love you, too. I forgot to say that to you when you said it.”

  “Even if you don’t say it, I know,” His hands moved down to her hips, repositioning her on his lap. “But I’ll never get tired of hearing it coming from you.”

  “사랑해요[65],” Kissing along the line of his shoulder, she ground her hips against his. “Let’s not waste any more of our time together. I wish you could just stay the night.”

  “Me too,” He admitted. “At least I can stay a few hours.”

  “We should set an alarm for you to go back,” Claire leaned back, reaching for her phone. “How about 6? Is that too late?”

  “No, that’s probably good,” Cheol shrugged, figuring that gave them a few hours at the very least.

  “Good, then lie back and get under the covers for me,” She instructed, turning off the lights and pulling at the blankets under them. They crawled under the blankets together, tangling their limbs together as they lay down.

  Chapter 19

  Friday was going to be filled with on stage practice sessions at the concert venue and Cheol’s interview with a music magazine doing a feature on him as the main composer of the group’s music as well as something on the group as a whole. They came to the arena for the interview and sent a photographer to get some shots of them practicing for their performances. The photographer would be back for part of the first performance to get photos of them in action.

  Claire spent most of the day fading into the background while the members were busy getting themselves ready to be on stage the next day. They practiced to get the choreography right in the space and with the props that would be in the location. While some things would travel with them, in each city there would be some things that would change. They had to learn quickly how to get everything right for their songs and choreography in each location. An injury on stage could be a disaster and a major mistake was not only unprofessional, it could ruin the experience their fans had paid to have.

  She watched from the seats as they practiced portions of the choreography to get a feel for how it had to work on the stage. It was fun to watch and looked exhausting, though it had to be less so than an actual performance. The boys would occasionally catch her eye and wave at her from the stage as they waited for some change or adjustment to be made to the stage or equipment. They took
a break for lunch, splitting up into groups to go in search of food.

  Claire, Cheol, and Seunghoon decided to go get a big slice of real New York pizza together. Claire led them to one of the local hotspots and got them in the line, which was luckily moving pretty fast. Claire ordered the white pizza, Cheol the classic pepperoni, and Seunghoon just plain cheese.

  “These are huge,” Cheol remarked excitedly as they sat down in a booth in the corner of the restaurant.

  “Yeah, that is the magic of New York pizza,” Claire grinned at his enthusiasm. “A slice is both a slice and a meal. Oh, did you two want some pictures of you enjoying your real American experience?”

  “Oh yeah, can you take a few pictures?” Seunghoon pulled out his phone and handed it to her. They posed for a few shots of them eating the pizza and showing it to the camera which they could post later. When they were satisfied with the pictures, Claire handed back the phone and picked up her slice, folding it to make it easier to hold as she took the first bite. It was hot and the cheese was perfectly melted to give that satisfying stretch you had to slurp in like a string of spaghetti. Cheol gave a groan of satisfaction as he took his first real bite.

  “It’s good right?” Claire said behind her hand, hiding the bite in her mouth as she spoke.

  “Oooh so good,” Cheol moaned happily.

  “This is so different from pizza in Seoul,” Seunghoon looked at his friends with wide eyes. “It’s so thin but crispy...and huge.”

  “But you still don’t use silverware to eat it,” Claire pointed out. “Never use silverware to eat a New York slice. Just fold and bite.”

  “You got some sauce here,” Cheol put his slice down and motioned towards her chin. “Just..” He reached out and swiped his thumb over the little spot on her chin before licking his thumb clean. “Mmm, that’s good too.”

  “Do you want an actual bite?” She couldn’t help but giggle as she turned the slice to offer him a bite. He leaned across the table and took a big bite of the offered pizza. His expression was one of pleasure as he chewed and swallowed the salty, chewy, glory of the pizza. Claire loved how much he threw himself into the happiness of every experience, enjoying things fully and letting everyone know it.

  “You’re adorable,” Claire shook her head before taking another bite for herself.

  “What?” Cheol gave her a surprised look, not knowing what he had done to inspire the comment.

  “Just you being you,” She teased.

  “You’re both stupidly cute when you get together,” Seunghoon grimaced. “Thank god you two have to hide that you are together or I swear you would never stop touching each other.”

  Cheol laughed at his friend as his ears turned a little pink. “The world is a better place when my 애인[66] is in my arms.” Claire crooked a finger at him across the table. He stood up and leaned across the table to sneak a quick kiss after glancing around the room to make sure no one seemed to be watching. Seunghoon caught the quick kiss on his phone and gave a little scoff. They really were just perfect together despite the challenges they seemed to be facing.

  They headed back to the concert venue after lunch. While everyone else continued their stage practice, Cheol headed back to a small dressing room with the interviewer from the music magazine. The middle aged man motioned to one of the seats in the room as he took the other, inviting Cheol to sit.

  “Thanks for giving me some of your time.” The man was dressed casually, giving off the vibe of someone who belonged as much in dives discovering the next big thing as backstage hanging with the top stars of the industry. “You can call me Matty. It’s good to meet you Mr. Park.”

  “Ah, call me Cheol,” He offered his hand with a smile before leaning back in his seat.

  “Sure thing,” The interviewer nodded, his lip curling in an amused expression. “So let’s just jump into it. You are the main songwriter for your group, can we start there?”

  “Sure,” Cheol bobbed his head and sat a little forward, giving him his full attention. “It’s a collaborative effort, mostly with Jaejin and Changho and me working on things together, but I do most of the music, at least to start with.”

  “Alright, of course no one ever really does it alone,” Matty gave a friendly smile as he scribbled down something on a small notebook in his hand. “But where does it start for you? How do you start something new?”

  “It depends. It’s never quite the same thing every time,” Cheol started, looking off to the side as he considered how to answer that. “Sometimes it will be something like I get a beat stuck in my head, other times there is a set of notes that just strike me. Whatever it is, I get a starting point and I just build up, see how it feels, where the notes and the beat take me. There have been songs that it felt like almost came out complete, I could get them out of my head and into a song in a day, then sometimes I have to sit with it and tweak until it feels right and it will take weeks to get it right.”

  “Where do you work? Do you have a place you have to be or a space that you go to for inspiration?”

  “I seem to think of a lot of things when I’m in the shower,” Cheol’s face broke into a huge grin. “Probably because my brain just empties out when I’m there. It’s a place where I’m not dancing or planning or helping the other members. My mind can go blank and just open up to new ideas and inspiration. But as for working on my music, I mostly just do it where I can. When we travel I do it on the plane and in the hotel when we have some downtime. A lot of the more complicated stuff I have to do in one of the studios at KXO where we also record all of the members’ parts, but aside from that, I can just work on it with my laptop and my dj system.”

  “So you don’t usually have a lot of downtime to just sit with your music?” Matty prodded.

  “K-pop is a fast moving business,” Cheol shrugged. “We all have so much to do in a day. We dance, we sing, we perform, and you have to give your all to all of it. Maybe when I’m older I could move into just producing and writing, but I love that I get to perform what I’m writing and that I get some input on the whole performance that is built around it. I might not get to just focus on the writing, but I get to be a part of the whole process. Oh, it’s just so amazing and I love it.”

  “So you have your hands in everything then?” He gave him an interested glance.

  “I get to work with my whole team and other amazing people,” Cheol leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Some of the others are some of the most amazing dancers and they come up with choreography for the music that just...fits. Of course we all get to collaborate and figure out what works and what could be better. If we were missing someone, it wouldn’t be the same. We are a unit, a whole, and each of us brings something that matters.”

  “That must make you all really close, like family.” Matty remarked.

  “Yeah, all of the members are like my brothers,” Cheol stated without question. “They would be the first people I would want to talk to if something good or bad happened in my life. I see them everyday and I am so grateful to have them in my life. Without them and without our fans...I wouldn’t have a purpose to my life.”

  “You mentioned that Jaejin and Changho are the other two who work on the music with you. What do they do?” Matty turned to the next topic.

  “They give me feedback on the music that I write but they also write most of the lyrics with me,” Cheol explained. “Changho writes most of his raps himself and is just so good at getting the beats and lyrical flow down. Jaejin works on lyrics and can just create amazing lyrics so quickly and with such feeling. Both of them are really phenomenal at what they do.”

  “Right,” Matty noted, looking at some scribbles he had a few pages back in his notebook. “Speaking of lyrics, I looked at some of your work, including things from your pre-debut group you had with those two. You mostly write songs about growing up, reaching your dreams, and the challenges of youth and ambitions. Why has that been what has inspired you most?”

  “Well it reflec
ts our experiences,” Cheol disclosed with an air of honesty. “You can’t write good music that is relatable if you can’t bring a genuine feeling to what you are writing. If you are just pretending to talk about something, I think it usually comes across as hollow and hard to identify with.”

  “Is that why you haven’t written any love songs?” Matty laughed.

  “Well,” Cheol laughed nervously, leaning away and rubbing the back of his neck. “Love is a hard thing to find time for with our work.”

  “It can’t be terribly hard to meet girls though?” His tone clearly indicating his confidence in the assertion.

  “You’d be surprised,” Cheol hedged.

  “Oh come on,” Matty scoffed amicably.

  “Really, a lot of the people we meet aren’t our age,” Cheol shrugged. “When we were trainees we had classes with lots of people, in school we had classmates, of course, but now we see each other, we see staff, we see make-up and wardrobe… and we see fans. It’s really not an open dating field even if we were in places to be able to date right now. So yeah, most of us haven’t really fallen in love yet.”

  “Is it the dating ban that stops you then, or the pace of your life?” Matty followed up.

  “I don’t know,” Cheol tried to avoid a direct answer, wishing Claire was there to snap at him over the question like she had the other day. “I guess a lot of things can get in the way.”

  “Alright,” Matty was happy enough to leave it there, returning to more questions about how they created the magic that was the phenomenon of k-pop and YTHTonic, specifically. The interview lasted another hour before they wrapped it up, covering Cheol, the band, and their journey to success. Matty handed him off to the photographer who took a few pictures of Cheol in the industrial environment of the wings just off the stage. Finally done, he rejoined the practice for the last hour of refining the dance and mic tests.

  Finally free, they headed back to the hotel for some downtime. Tomorrow was the first concert, and between the warm up, getting stage ready, and the performance itself, it would take up the whole day. Having tonight to relax and have some fun kept the members sane. Mostly, everyone planned to relax with dinner and hang out around the hotel. Hyunwoo and FX had plans to use the indoor pool before they ordered some room service and settled down to watch something or play some games together. They invited Cheol to come along, but he declined, wanting to see if he couldn’t sneak some time hanging with Claire under the radar.