by J. S. Lee
“Jongsub?” his mother’s voice could just about be made out. “What are you doing in there?”
“Just a minute, Mom!” JongB bellowed. “Fuck’s sake,” he grunted as he returned his attention to us. “I gotta go.”
“Jongsub?!”
The phone went dead.
I caught CX’s gaze and burst out laughing. He’d actually gotten caught by his mother?
제 17 장
The Real One
JongB was in a sulk the entire journey to the airport, as well as through check-in. Safely on the other side of security, he turned to Sungmin. “I need food, hyungnim.”
Sungmin folded his arms as he stared back at the younger man. “JongB, while I fully expect you to be hungry, because you always are, I didn’t expect this mood you’re in. Seeing your family is supposed to make you happy.”
“And I am,” JongB grumbled.
“That’s your happy face?”
“This is my hungry face,” he retorted.
“Can’t you wait until on the plane?” his manager asked. “We all ate before leaving the hotel.”
“I didn’t!” JongB objected. “My mom cooked lunch hours ago. We’ve still got over an hour until they start boarding. Plus, I promised to show Kate what a true pizza tastes like.” He pointed down the terminal to a giant sign that said Chicago. “The only place you can get a real pizza is in Chicago. If we don’t get one now, she’ll never know that she’s been eating inferior food until now.”
Sungmin turned to me in exasperation. “I will pay you to take him for food.”
“I’m not sure there’s a large enough sum of money,” I said, dryly.
“No, you’re probably right,” Sungmin agreed.
“Guys!” JongB objected.
“Just take someone else with you. There are fans about and the last thing I want to deal with is some dating rumor.”
“I’ll go,” CX volunteered. “We can share.”
Sungmin, completely oblivious to CX’s faux look of innocence, the pink spreading on my cheeks, and JongB smirking like a schoolboy, waved us off with a handful of dollar bills. “Don’t miss the plane,” he called after us.
He was never going to let that one go.
It was obvious when we stood in line at the pizza place that a handful of people knew who JongB and CX were, lingering around, but either not quite brave enough to approach us, or choosing to leave a respectful distance. “So much for having a date,” JongB muttered under his breath.
“Even with CX here?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“You think after this afternoon I care about that?”
The pizzeria wasn’t big, and we were limited in where we could sit. “I think we should head back to the others to eat,” CX said quietly as we stood in line. “The last time we were in an airport, someone was listening to our conversation.”
I was inclined to agree, but the suggestion seemed to put JongB in a bigger funk. When we’d started the tour, I had been given a face mask, like the others had, but I had yet to use it. Now, I pulled it out of my pocket and its wrapper, hooking it over my ears.
“How are you going to eat the world’s greatest pizza with a mask on?”
“I’m not. I’m going to wear it while we wait, and while we walk back to the gate, because it might help a little with fans videoing us.” I nodded my head in the direction of three girls, all of whom had their phones out, trained on JongB and CX.
Rolling his eyes, JongB pulled his out, putting it on with unnecessary sighing.
“Alright, what’s wrong?” I asked him, keeping my voice low.
“Nothing.”
“Is this because your mom caught you jerking off?”
JongB sent CX a death glower. “No. It’s because I got to spend a few hours being normal. I got to play with my younger siblings, one of whom I hadn’t ever seen in person before now. I spent the morning being told by my mom that I needed to eat more, sleep more, and to keep my room tidy. Then I spent the afternoon with my dad as he told me it was time to start considering investing my earnings. And now, I’m in an airport, trying to eat a slice of pizza with a girl I like and instead I can’t because I don’t want to upset management, and I don’t want to upset fans.”
I had the overwhelming urge to wrap my arms around him, so I stuck them in my pocket.
“You don’t mean that?” I was fairly certain, behind his own mask, CX’s mouth was hanging open.
“I do,” JongB nodded. He turned around to the server and ordered three large slices of pepperoni deep dish pizza.
It wasn’t until the pizza was in our hands that JongB made an abrupt turn, back towards the small seating area, rather than the concourse so we could head back to the gate. “I thought we were heading back?”
“We are sitting here and eating pizza,” JongB disagreed. He made a beeline for an empty table in the back corner.
It was one of those tall ones with stools for seats. I took the one in the corner, facing out into the room, to allow the other two to have their back to everything. It was the closest I could come to giving JongB the privacy he wanted.
I tugged the mask down, already irritated by it, and took a bite of the pizza. Despite visiting Holly in Chicago a handful of times over summer breaks, I’d never had a true Chicago Deep Dish pizza. It was delicious, and I devoured it quickly, but… “I prefer the stone baked base,” I told JongB.
“Who are you?” He gave me a look of disbelief.
“I’m with Kate on this,” CX chimed in. “Although I’d still prefer the hot dogs… even if they were cold.”
JongB pulled his mask up, then slumped over, propping himself up with one hand. “I didn’t really mean it before,” he told us, quietly, his mood doing a 180 again. “I love what I do, and I know how lucky and blessed I am to be here. It’s just… it hit me today. Really hit me. There is no normal.”
“There is. It’s just a different normal.” I reached for a napkin, wiping my fingers and mouth, and then pulled my mask back up. “It’s a new normal for me too.”
JongB drummed his fingers on the table before looking at CX. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through some shit and this probably makes me sound really ungrateful but, being back in the US… we’ve been able to walk the street without being followed or photographed for much longer than we would back in Seoul.”
“You had a taste of something as close to freedom that you could get,” CX offered.
JongB nodded, glumly. “It’s not the not being in the group. It’s the fact that when we get back to Seoul, we’re going to have to be so careful. My mom adores you, Kate.”
I blinked. We had barely had a conversation.
“You’re the first girl I told her about and the next thing I knew, she was talking about marriage. I’m not far from twenty-four. Most of the kids I went to school with here, they’re getting married. Even in Korea they marry young. We can’t. We can’t even date without running the risk of the public turning on us. Not that it stops many people,” he muttered dryly.
“Really?” OK, so I knew about H3RO, but I’d not really heard of many other idols dating, aside from on the rare occasion Dispatch, (what I liked to call the Korean paparazzi) struck it lucky.
“Oh god, yeah,” JongB exclaimed. CX didn’t look as though he was hearing new news. “You meet at shows, exchange numbers, and leave Seoul to date. It’s a pain in the ass, but it happens way more than the public ever find out.” He let out a long sigh. “The point is, I moved out to Korea when I was young. I never dated before joining Atlantis. I just won’t get the chance to date normally.”
“What we’ve got isn’t ‘normal’,” I pointed out, keeping my fingers as low as possible as I did finger quotes. “So, screw normal. Besides, I did ‘normal’. I’d rather this.”
CX nodded. “We’ll find our own ‘normal’ hyung. Whatever that is, it doesn’t have to look like anything else; it’s ours.”
JongB fixed me a look. “I just want to show you o
ff.”
“We’ll work it out,” I promised him. “But not now, because we have to catch a plane. If we don’t, I’m fairly confident my future will be in a coffin.”
We cleared our trash away then made our way back to our gate. Seeing as we still had an audience, I lingered behind the two, taking advantage of being able to stare at their butts.
Sue me.
I swear Sungmin gave me a look of relief when we returned to the gate with plenty of time to spare. I sat down on a spare seat next to MinMin. Just as I was pulling out my earphones, he got up and walked to the other end of the seating area.
I watched him go with a frown. OK, so maybe there was something completely innocent about that; that he was going to get up anyway. Yet my gut was telling me that wasn’t the case.
MinMin, I’d discovered very early on, was the one member of Onyx who was completely different to the person on-stage. When he was performing, he was vocal and confident. Off-stage, he was much more reserved, spending a lot of time by himself, playing with his handheld consoles.
I’d assumed it was me, and not because I had done anything wrong, but simply that I was a female. He was the same way with Ina and Eunhae. Polite and respectful. I’d caught myself smiling on more than one occasion at the ‘hover hands’ in group photos.
And it wasn’t that it was a skinship issue, either. Skinship in Korea, was much like in Japan. In America, whether you chose to or not, it was normal to hug people, kiss their cheeks, rest and lean against them. That wasn’t really the case in Korea and Japan, unless you were close to them. If you were a guy and a girl, you pretty much had to be dating them.
It wasn’t the case with Onyx. OK, I was dating them, and frankly, none of us had an issue with touching each other, but even with the fans out here, it was different. Onyx were happy to hold hands and give the occasional hug, except MinMin, but that was his manners. The only exception I had noticed was when MinMin and Jiwon interacted.
So, for MinMin to just get up and move to the other side of the waiting area – it felt unnatural.
Maybe I was overthinking it.
I had been spending so much time with the others that I’d barely had a proper conversation with MinMin for the whole tour. In fact, the longest conversation we’d had must have been when we’d come back from the dentist.
I brushed the feeling aside as we were called to board the plane.
Or I did until I got on the plane. I’d been assigned a window seat for the short ninety-minute flight to Toronto. My belt was already buckled up when MinMin came down the aisle. As soon as he saw me, realized he would be sitting next to me, he moved to the seat behind me, instead choosing to sit besides CX.
Xiao, who was supposed to be sitting next to CX sent MinMin a questioning look. Whatever the response was, I couldn’t see it from where I was sitting, but the result was Xiao taking the seat beside me.
“Did I miss something?” I asked him.
“Miss what?”
“Never mind.” I settled back into my chair and stared out of the window as the team of people outside busied themselves with getting our plane ready for takeoff.
Xiao’s head suddenly appeared beside mine. I moved back slightly, so he could see, but his head moved with mine. “What’s the Mile-High Club?” his hot breath tickled at my neck.
I turned my head a fraction. “Don’t pretend you’re all innocent and don’t know what it is.”
“Let me rephrase that: want to become a member of the Mile-High Club?”
“Yes,” I replied, honestly. I kept my attention on the luggage being flung on the belt up to the plane because I knew looking at Xiao at that moment was not a good idea. “Only, it’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“This is a public plane, Xiao, and not a big one either. Too many people would notice us going into the tiny cubicle together, including your manger, and all the fans who bought tickets to be on the same plane. Don’t pretend they don’t exist.” I pulled a face. “Besides, those things are filthy.”
“Do you think you can persuade Holly to buy us a private plane? Or one for Atlantis?”
“Yeah, let me drop her a text message.” I flopped back into my seat with a sigh. Now I had images of having sex on a plane running through my head. Images that didn’t leave my mind for the whole flight.
Until we got to baggage claim. We’d waited together for the baggage to be unloaded, but after a while it was evident that several passengers on the plane were missing items of luggage. Ina was freaking out. While we had most of the cases, there were three cases missing, and according to Ina, they were some of the ones with the stage outfits in.
“I’m taking the group to the hotel,” Sungmin told me. “It’s late, we have a show tomorrow, and we’re starting to gather an audience,” he indicated to the small group of fans who had been on the plane with us. “Please, can you take care of this?”
When I nodded, he left me to join the long line of passengers waiting to complain at the lost baggage counter. At some point while in the line, it had filtered back that one of the carts carrying the luggage had been missed, and in an attempt to get it on the next flight, had stuck it on a plane to Victoria, Canada.
I was in the process of Googling that airport when the next set of whispers came flooding back. Victoria was right by Vancouver – the opposite side of the country.
Ina was going to have an aneurysm.
By the time I made it to the hotel a couple of hours later, it was the middle of the night, and I had nothing for Ina.
Ina, on no sleep, a lot of caffeine, and missing items of stage outfits from all members of Onyx, was terrifying. The woman half my size had turned into a monster, freaking out on everyone. She was trying to run an inventory on what clothes we had and didn’t.
Sungmin was stressed, a vein at his temple looked like it was going to explode. Apparently, Ina had become either lazy or distracted by sightseeing when we had downtime and hadn’t been giving the clothing as much care as she should have. The clothes we did have hadn’t been washed and needed repairing.
And we had a show in six hours.
“What’s a tour without some drama?” Xiao sighed. Of the six members, he was the one which looked the most relaxed. Then again, he was the one who would pretty much strip when performing, so having no clothes to start with probably made things easier for him.
It was early in the morning and we were at breakfast, waiting for Sungmin and Ina to make a decision. I was on hold with the airport, getting an update. I eventually hung up and walked over to Sungmin. “The cases have been loaded onto a plane due to leave Victoria in the next hour, however, they have a snowstorm at the moment, and that’s likely to be delayed. They are confident the cases will get to our hotel today but can’t promise a time.”
“Ina!” Sungmin snapped. “What do we have?”
“I can have two outfits ready by the show!” she squeaked.
“Do you have any interviews scheduled for before the show?” I asked Sungmin before he murdered the flustered woman. I felt bad for him. He’d started out calm and stress free, but now he looked like he needed medicating to keep his anxiety levels under control. It might look like this tour was running smoothly to the fans, but behind the scenes, the only reason it was still ticking so well was because Sungmin was constantly on top of things.
Sungmin gave me an incredulous look. “Two, after lunch.”
“This is Toronto, not the boonies. We have time to head to a mall and grab some outfits,” I told him, keeping calm.
“Kate, not only do I not know what the boonies are, Ina needs to fix the outfits we have. She does not have time to go shopping. I have to get us organized for this afternoon. I do not have time to go shopping.”
“Then let me take them.”
Ina’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “You want them to go shopping by themselves? Nothing will match. Jiwon…” she couldn’t even finish the sentence at that idea.
<
br /> “Well, I guess the other option is mismatched clothes… Or no clothes at all,” I shrugged.
Sungmin rubbed at his temples. “Take MinMin and Xiao. MinMin has the best fashion sense and Xiao is the most difficult to buy for because of his size.” He handed me the credit card. “Two outfits each, double each item just in case, and for goodness sake, be at the venue by midday.”
Ina hurried over to MinMin and started giving him instructions. Although startled, he pulled out his phone and started taking notes. I joined Xiao and explained what was happening. “OK,” he shrugged, nonplussed.
We were about to leave the hotel when JongB came charging over. “Wait!”
“JongB, you are not going with them!” Sungmin cried in exasperation. “I need them to make it back to the venue, today.”
“I was just going to suggest they take the camera with them and video it!” JongB exclaimed.
Sungmin’s eyes narrowed. “JongB, just go and sit down. You are not going with them!”
제 18 장
Waiting for You
As we were going to the venue straight after we had finished shopping, I had brought my backpack with me, with all my cameras inside. While I could have asked Sungmin to make sure it got to the venue, my camera was not only my most prized possession, but also my source of income. Heavy as the bag was, it wasn’t leaving me.
It also meant that I would have the camera with me if I needed it. That being said, no matter how much I liked JongB’s suggestion, our priority was clothing.
The advantage to doing anything on the day of a show meant that most people who knew who Onyx were, were likely to be standing in line at the venue, and not at the mall. It was also a Monday morning, so the rest were either at school or work. Which meant we were able to move around relatively empty stores with no one around who knew who we were.
We were in the second store, following MinMin down the aisles of clothing, when a hand slipped into the back pocket of my jeans, squeezing. “Do you think we can sneak into a fitting room?” Xiao murmured in my ear.
