KYUNG
I can’t help but stare at the beautiful woman in front of me right now.
I wasn’t lying when I said that I’m probably the stalker.
It does kind of feel that way. I just didn’t realize it until now as I said the words out loud.
It didn’t start that way. I just needed to get out and clear my head, because I was starting to feel the drain of doing the same thing every single day.
Even the walks started to become monotonous. Until I started noticing her.
Always in the same spot, looking out over the city.
Almost always with the same lost-in-thought expression on her face.
I found myself starting to wonder what she was thinking about every time that I saw her.
It became a game I’d play with myself, trying to imagine what had her attention every single time.
Then the first night I decided to speak to her, I was so nervous that my intrusive thoughts told me to just launch myself over the railing rather than say anything.
I’ve performed in front of tens of thousands of people, and even that didn’t have me as nervous as I was that night.
Part of the reason I only managed to get one question out before I ran.
Which is so unlike me. If anyone were to ask the men who’ve been with me for the past ten years, any of them would’ve said that I’d be the last one to be nervous like that.
The second night was better and this one even more so. Especially since now I don’t feel like I’m hiding anything. Be it my status or my face.
I wait until she’s done laughing before I smile down at her. “I happen to think you’re prettier.”
A slight blush turns her cheeks pink, and I know from experience with one of my members that she’s not used to taking compliments. I sidestep her with a little dramatics, making her laugh again. Taking a few steps, I make sure she turns to follow before I keep going.
We take it really slow, or maybe it just feels that way to me because I’ve got long legs and can eat up some distance when I’m not even thinking about it.
“So, did you look us up?” I ask, clasping my hands behind my back and looking over at her.
She smiles softly, and I like it. “I did not actually. I wasn’t even going to bring it up until you did, but you did that trick with your pretty face and got my brain in shambles.”
“You’re going to have to stop calling me pretty,” I tell her.
Glancing up at me, she asks, “Why?”
“Because,” I answer, staring up into the sky, “either I’m going to get a big ego or get offended that you aren’t using the word handsome or sexy instead of pretty.”
She snorts softly, drawing my attention back to her face.
“So, why didn’t you look us up? If you don’t mind me asking,” I say curiously. I think any other person would have. I can’t even say that I would’ve held back if I found out she was famous.
Shrugging, she says, “It didn’t seem important. I figured that I would give you the chance to tell me first.”
“It’s not important that I’m an idol?” I ask.
She bites her lips while she thinks before answering, “It’s your job. Not who you are as a person.”
My steps falter, and I can’t seem to get my feet working again as I watch her take a few steps before stopping and turning back to look at me over her shoulder. Her head tilts slightly in question, but she doesn’t say anything.
“It’s been a long time since anyone said something like that or thought of me in that way,” I admit on a quiet murmur shared just between us.
Taking the few steps back to me, she wears an odd expression. “What do you mean?”
I pause, trying to gather my thoughts like we’re trained to do.
Always making sure that we say the right thing.
“We are constantly surrounded by nothing but staff. Especially when we’ve got busy schedules.
Our people really are the best, and we love them.
It’s just sometimes, I feel like they don’t necessarily see us for who we are. If that makes any sense.”
“That’s sad, but it makes perfect sense,” she replies softly. “Is that why you’ve been coming out here every night?”
Letting out a long sigh that feels like weight off my shoulders, I ask, “Do you ever feel like you’ve hit a point in your life like you don’t know who you are anymore? Like maybe I’m having trouble seeing the difference between myself and the idol right now.”
“I think we all feel that way at one point or another. Just on different levels,” she tells me. “You’ve just got to find a way to separate the two and find something that makes you feel happy as a person and at your job again.”
“Mmm,” I agree, starting our walk again. “That got heavier than it should’ve. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she says. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger than someone we’ve known our entire lives.”
“Is that who we are?” I ask slightly teasing. “Strangers?”
“I mean, we did just call each other stalkers,” she retorts easily.
I laugh, liking how quickly the conversation goes from serious to teasing. “So, are you going to stalk me now?”
“You mean, you as a person? Or am I going to go home and spend hours falling down a rabbit hole of the idol?” Her face is straight, but her lips twitch slightly giving her away.
“Either,” I say, barely containing my chuckle.
“I guess you’ll have to wait until you see me standing outside of your apartment or whatever later for the first,” she says, the smile finally breaking through.
I can’t help but grin with her. “And the idol?”
“That depends on you,” she replies. “Do you want me to?”
Tucking my hands in the pockets of my pants, we walk in silence while I think about it before I give her an answer. “No. Not yet. I want to keep you to myself for a little while longer.”
“That’s a deal then,” she says with a cute little nod. “I won’t so much as take a peek at the idol until you tell me to. Speaking of which, would you mind holding this for me?”
I take her phone that she sticks out between us, and give it a confused look before glancing back up at her.
She huffs a short laugh, saying, “For both our peace of mind.”
Sliding it into the pocket of my hoodie, I feel it bump my stomach with every step that I take, reminding me of the amazing girl at my side. “So, you know one of my secrets now. You should tell me one of yours to make us even.”
Clasping her hands behind her back, she bites her bottom lip as she looks out toward the city. “Umm, okay. So, I have this odd habit of trying new things until I get really good at it and then drop it and move on to the next thing.”
“Like what?” I ask, insanely curious.
She huffs, biting her bottom lip while smiling. “Literally anything and everything. I learned seven different languages and still want to learn more.”
“What’s one that you know that isn’t obvious and one that you want to learn?” I ask.
“Obviously, I know English and Korean, but my most random one is Thai. One that I’d love to learn is Russian,” she answers easily. “I haven’t had as much time to work on a new language since coming here because I’m busy a lot of the time teaching English.”
This catches me by surprise. “So, you’re a teacher?”
She does this little side to side motion with her head. “Somewhat. Yes, I am a teacher, but I volunteer. It’s not my job.”
I feel like with every answer she gives me, it opens up five more questions I want to ask her, wanting to know everything there is to know.
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” she asks, beating me this time. “Did you always want to be where you are?”
I chuckle. “No, not always. When I was younger, I had two options that I was dead set on. I was either going to be an astronaut or a cowboy.”
She smirks before smoothing her lips together to try to hide it. “Those are good goals too, though. What happened?”
Wistfully, I remember back to the time that I took to dancing after school every day. It made me happy, and I loved it. “I learned that I could dance and was really good at it. I went for an idol audition when I was fifteen and got picked up by a small company for training.”
“So no more cowboy, Kyung?” she teases with a cute little smile.
I laugh again. “I wouldn’t exactly say that. I got to be a cowboy on stage for one of our comebacks. That’s as close as I’ll ever come to that dream.”
“What about the astronaut?” she asks.
Fighting my grin isn’t even an option. My astronaut dream helped name our band and gave us our first concept as a team, even going as far as giving a name to our fandom and our animal representations.
But I don’t want to tell her that yet. I’m not sure how much she knows about us yet, and I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to keep her out of the loop for a little longer.
“It came somewhat true,” I tell her, skirting around the truth. “Just not in the sense that I thought it would. Not everything is black and white.”
“That’s fair,” she murmurs, thinking on my words.
"What did you want to be?” I ask her.
It’s her turn to laugh. “Remember how I just said that I wanted to try everything? It literally changed with the wind. Though, I don’t think cowgirl was ever on my list. Quite disappointed in myself for missing that one.”
I laugh before filling her in, “There’s still time, you know? They always say that it’s never too late.”
She bites her bottom lip with another smile. “I’d probably have to leave Seoul to make that one happen, and I’m pretty content where I’m at right now.”
“Okay,” I tell her, pretty content myself where she’s at right now, too. “What was one of your other options?”
“I don’t know,” she laughs lightly. “Take your pick. A chef. A teacher. An MMA fighter.”
“You’re kidding,” I blurt, the last one catching me by surprise.