Chapter 8
EIGHT
HOT TO GO! - CHAPELL ROAN
“Feeling good?” Teddy asked, as they all met at the BINJ lobby, getting ready to head out to dinner.
It just felt like the best kind of reward for a long day of recording.
Soobin had suggested a grilled-meat place he knew not far away, so Dong Yeon arranged for them to be picked up at the front entrance.
“You seem to be in a different place than when we first landed.”
The thing they hadn’t expected about recording live in a studio was that Cal was going to hear things he wanted to change up, and it wasn’t going to be as easy as going back a bar or two to get there.
It was exhausting, but it made him feel more alive than he had been in a year. And that was only the first track.
“I am,” he admitted, because even as they walked, he could already hear the next song they were due to record, something he’d picked out of stacks and stacks of demos that felt endless at first. But this song, in particular, he liked, it was just fun and a classic CoBOLT sound that he would have loved to play in his debut years. “She was right.”
“Who?”
Cal pursed his lips in the direction of Teddy’s sister, walking ahead of them with Siwan. “She told me to follow my instincts. I forgot what that felt like.”
He kept his eyes on her, at the way she focused on everything Siwan was saying, the way her hands moved when she spoke, like she couldn’t stay idle.
It was odd to him, knowing that he had been the object of her attention years ago, and he had absolutely no idea.
Now that all he wanted was her attention, she couldn’t look him in the eye.
“It’s okay,” Teddy said suddenly, and Cal wondered what he’d accidentally revealed. Dongyeon used to remind him to school his face—he always had subtitles on. “She could use someone to love her.”
“Love?” Cal echoed, feeling his chest tighten and his hands get clammy. And he never got this nervous for stage performances.
“If that’s your thing.” Teddy shrugged.
They reached the lobby, and Cal could already see the car by the exit, with Lia, Soobin and Siwan ahead of them, with one of their managers up front, and Dongyeon just behind him.
To his surprise, there were a few people who exclaimed excitedly when they saw them, and Cal’s instinct was to wave, smile and greet the small group of fans politely.
It was like stretching an old muscle, one that needed little prodding to get back to work.
He could almost feel his public persona slipping in, waking up after a year.
“Oppa, finally, you’re back!”
“I hope you had a good day today!”
“We left a letter with Dongyeon-nim! We hope you get to read it!”
“Thank you for coming.” He smiled, bowing politely. He could feel his ears grow hot at their attention. He put his arm around Soobin as Teddy moved behind him. “Soobin, greet your fans.”
The maknae shuffled over to Cal and Teddy and bowed, to the delight of the small group.
Siwan joined them, and Cal nudged his head at Teddy to go ahead to the car with Lia.
The session was quick, but Cal had a sudden rush of love for the women who had come to the middle of nowhere in Cheongdamdong, hoping to get a glimpse of them.
Mostly because there was absolutely no reason for them to do it, other than because they liked him, too.
That warmth was familiar, and nice, and he missed it. He missed it so badly, and wanted to be able to perform for them, make them happy.
“You guys should head somewhere warm,” he said, letting Dongyeon herd them to the car. It was a fuller van than usual, so Sunghwa their second manager, was already in the driver’s seat. “It’s chilly out today. Have meat! Or maybe hotpot!”
“That’s a great idea, oppa!”
“Don’t get sick,” Siwan reminded them, none too sternly, and soon enough, they were in the car. Teddy, Soobin and Siwan crowded together in the back, while Cal and Lia were comfortably in the second row. She was looking at the small group through the window, and Cal nudged her arm.
“Missing your old friends?” he asked. He meant to tease her, but he realized that maybe she remembered her terrible friend, whom Cal took to calling Birthday Abandoner in his head.
She’d mentioned that they had both been fans, and he wondered if he would have stopped longer if he’d met them just like that, on the street, with sincere smiles and greetings.
“I’m happier to sit here,” Lia said, the wistful look on her face replaced by a genuine smile. “Let’s eat.”
“Rehearsal hits were my favorite CoBOLT thing,” Lia was saying to Siwan. “You were producing that?”
“Yeah, I thought it would be great if people saw us playing different songs and just having fun. You think we could bring them back…?”
“You should! And post them on your accounts, too.”
“Hyung-nim, you stop,” Soobin complained as Cal checked the meat once again.
This was standard band practice when they ate out—Siwan was de facto food captain, because he was actually the pickiest eater among them.
He was also really good at keeping up with the local food scene—he claims to have tried all the restaurants run by the chefs who appeared on that cooking battle on a streaming service.
Food captain also meant he ordered for everyone, even when Soobin managed to get a choice in.
Then there was Soobin, who was glaring daggers at Cal over the grill top. His role as the maknae was to make sure everyone ate and that all the orders arrived. But most importantly, he made sure Cal didn’t hoard the beef.
“We ordered tofu for your protein. Stop grilling everything on your side,” Soobin practically slapped his hand away from the tongs, as Cal had just taken half of the grilling meats. And the kimchi. “Hyung! Even the kimchi, aish.”
“Soobinnie, why are you so…steamed?” Cal asked, holding the tongs up to his bandmate’s annoyed face.
His position on the chair—one leg tucked under the other so he was sort of sitting on his ankle—made him a little more flexible, enough to reach over and put the beef on Lia’s plate, noting that she had no trouble constructing a wrap herself. “Don’t worry, it’s my treat tonight.”
“This. Is. Grilled!” Soobin’s ears were practically blowing out steam. “Since when did you treat us, hyung?”
“What!” Cal exclaimed. “I treat you heathens all the time!”
“The ‘yong’ in Yongjin means dragon, so we’re used to him making a little hoard and never sharing,” Siwan explained in English. He sounded disappointed, but not surprised. “Seriously, hyung, you get the tofu.”
“He’s been putting meat on Lia’s plate.” Teddy announced without looking up, busy as he was with his bowl of doenjang chiggae.
The whole table went quiet as they looked at Lia, who suddenly looked up in confusion from a mouthful of meat and rice.
“What?” she asked, she waved her chopsticks at the plate Cal’s hoard had been building up in. “I’ve been taking from that loose plate in the middle.”
“You mean the one I’ve been putting meat in? For you?” Cal asked, chuckling.
“Hyung is playing favorites!” Soobin continued to whine as Cal took a second to look at the girl he was hoarding meat for.
Lia’s glasses still had a bit of fog near her nose bridge, but she looked happy, her cheeks flushing pink as she started to build her little ssam. Meat, kimchi, samjang sauce, grilled onion, grilled garlic, a bit of rice…
He noticed Lia struggling to pick up a perilla leaf from the bowl with her chopsticks.
“Here, let me.” He extended his arm toward the perilla leaves, plucking one expertly and placing it on top of her ssam. “That looks like a winner.”
“It is,” she agreed before chomping it all down in one bite. Cal was too busy laughing to notice the table had gone silent, watching him and Lia until Siwan and Soobin began making various Korean vowel noises of disbelief and shock.
“Yaaaaa, hyung. Such a romantic!” Siwan exclaimed in Korean, clapping a hand on Cal’s shoulder and making Cal swat his arm away. “Am I wrong, though? The perilla and everything? Don’t worry hyung, even if you date the straight girl, you’re still part of the club.”
“Wait, is she…?” Soobin looked as if he were solving three complicated equations at once. “She’s the fan! ??!” Soobin exclaimed. “Waaaa hyung, you really like her. You could just be nice with the meat, but then the perilla leaves?”
“What is happening?” Lia asked, having not understood any of that. Hopefully.
“Don’t listen to them.” Cal scowled at the two, even as he felt his entire face get hot.
“Wala akong nagets though?” Lia said, but there was an odd look in her eye, one that Cal already knew meant she knew more than she was saying, like you know, that time she didn’t tell him she was a lapsed fan of his band. “Did you know that the BOLTs call you baby hyung?”
His bilingual brain didn’t process it fast enough, but Soobin caught on quick and started laughing.
“We call him choding,” Siwan explained. “Like a kid.”
“I thought I was Best Butt,” Cal mumbled, absolutely pouting like a kid. “Leave me alone.”
“Cal, I was going to ask. Who was the fan that inspired the new alb—“ Teddy started, but Cal shot him a glare so severe that all he could do was laugh into his doenjang. Lia also pressed her hands to her ears and said, “Lalala, no spoilers!”
“Kala ko ba ex mo na,” Teddy teased, and now Lia was just as red as Cal, so much that her cheeks pushed her glasses up higher on her nose, and there were now little half-moons of steam on the base.
“Don’t listen to him.” She pouted at her brother, which made the whole table crack up. “Also, don’t tell me anything, I want to be surprised.”
“Oh really?” Uh oh. Siwan was making that face. That ‘dare me’ model face of his that had luxury brands and every gender under the sun fall to their knees and give him what he wanted. Once he gave Cal that look, he knew he was fucked. “Did Cal hyung tell you that—”