CHAPTER TWO
CHA CHA
The bodyguard I never hired bumps us over the rocky ground that leads us farther away from everything I know and closer to everything that apparently, he does. Not that I’m complaining right now, despite how strained our enforced silence grows with every passing mile.
Tonight’s concert’s strains still echo in my ears, despite the hearing protection I always use to conceal the in ear speaker that feeds my music directly to me. Unlike everyone else on the stage, I hate the constant thrum of the crowd. They might find it energizing.
To me, every fan is a vampire, sucking music directly from my soul.
Not that I've ever told anyone that. I might as well hand over my career and my remaining songs at the same time.
Every K-pop star knows they have a limited life span.
My band, Helium3, ‘broke up’ three months before our contract expired a little over a year ago.
Every tear, every photograph was planned.
My band mates at the time, Annie and Kie body slammed into their own solo careers alongside mine a day after the formal end of our harmonic, K-pop existence.
And then, we were on our own.
And yet, I never am.
No matter where I go, they follow me. The sasaeng. My fans. Loyal, ever present, obsessive.
It was my agent who insisted that they stay around. Take my excess clothes. Show off my charity, be a mini street team of influencers who are almost as invested in my career as me. But with a twist. I just want to exist.
They want to be me.
And so…we let them.
It’s the worst idea in history. I’ve written songs about them, coded in language and twists hidden for my own personal version of therapy to clear my head because I can't say anything. Either my team is watching me, they’re listening, or the media is. Or the world.
Anything I say or do is heard. Everything I say and do.
Which means that I can't misstep. And in the end… I don’t have to.
The same agent who created the influencer sasaeng team also devised the same behaviors used to ‘ruin’ every dressing room in every arena I perform at.
A part of the crafted Idol persona, even when I hate it.
Just another part of the act.
And now, someone who sees that same performance thinks that it’s part of me and emulates the same childish behaviors until it’s something far from childish at all. Something worse.
“And now I need you,” I whisper into the darkness.
Drake glances across at me as the behemoth he drives lurches into a deep rut. The steering wheel jerks in his hands. He curses, a string of words growling from him that I don't follow, staring out into the night.
It must be after midnight, but I don’t check my phone. He turned that off when we changed cars hours ago. Something about becoming untraceable.
Perhaps he expected me to fight. I wouldn’t know. Choices like that have been up to someone else for so long that I’m not sure what the appropriate action is right now. I stare out the window and try to imagine what the nightscape will look like during the daytime.
We left the city’s glow behind miles back, and then the truck began to climb.
The offer of a toilet was a good idea and I wish I’d taken it.
Still, I've endured worse, packed into skintight PVC and latex costumes with hands that polish me like a second skin. The invasion of my body then is beyond forced intimacy, but I manage to endure that for a stage show and so I’ll hold out now in silence.
“You didn’t hire me.” Drake speaks to the road in front of him.
I shake my head, knowing he’s not looming, though he seems to be as aware of me in the small space of the inside of his truck as I am of him.
“I didn’t know."
He breathes out hard, or maybe it's his version of a laugh. I don’t know him well enough to discern the difference. “You didn’t know that you had a stalker, or that you should have better security than your gang of groupies in the waiting room?”
That he gets the term right for the room beyond mine surprises me. “You did your research.”
“Before agreeing to protect the most iconic voice in the world right now?" This time the sound he releases, deep and short and disparaging, is definitely a laugh. I file that away for future reference. “Yeah, princess, I did my research.”
“Don’t call me that.” The childish objection tumbles from my lips, breathy and full of frustration. Fear, even. And now that sits between us, and I can't take it back.
Drake snorts. “If you want me to call you something else, Cha Cha, then I have ground rules. Hold on.” He nods to the bar in front of my hands, attached to the dash above the glove box.
I twist to face him. “Do you think that I—”
The vehicle sways dangerously to one side, then lurches forward.
Straight up.
In ways that gravity never meant for a car to travel.
“This isn’t possible—” I start.
“Princess, my driveway doesn’t see a whole lotta traffic.
It’s been a while since I’ve been home, so some things have changed.
Can we hold off on the tantrums until after we’re at the top?
” Drake yanks the steering wheel to the side, righting the vertical axis back to level, and powers us up the incline.
His drive? My mouth snaps shut on the next rejoinder. Right now, he really does seem to need to concentrate. I can wait to rip him a new one, at least for a few more minutes.
Which turns into nearly half an hour as I use the bar before me like it’s the only thing holding me to the Earth’s surface.
I’ll be dreaming of this stupid hill for the next month.
My eyes squeeze shut though I have no idea how he knows where he’s going, though that doesn't last too long. Impending death and I have a deal—I’ll stare it right in the eye, and even though I hate heights, I glare at the darkness like it might glare back.
The night is pitch outside, and the headlights barely seem to penetrate the mist that flows around the car the higher we climb.
The higher we climb.
“Are those clouds, Drake?”
My bodyguard coughs as the truck finally levels out, and the bumps stop. The engine quiets, and the only thing that’s loud is my heart that seems to have taken up residence in my ears.
He grins as he reaches one hand between us and unsnaps my seatbelt. “Yeah, princess. Get used to new things. My home is your home for the next few weeks. No entourage allowed.”
I’m not sure if I should scream, cry or try to run back to the city and beg Shayne to change his mind. Maybe the stalker is safer after all that. But there's one thing I’ve learned about my bodyguard in the hours he didn’t talk to me and the rough drive up his mountain:
Drake doesn’t joke. We’re here to stay.
I’m not sure who I should be more scared of right now. But if I was my stalker? I’d run a long, long way.
In the opposite direction. Because this man gives off the same vibes as the one whose obsession is focused on me right now.
And he doesn’t fuck around.