CH 18: July 23, 2013

“And so she told me Nyx was her favorite group tonight and, aigoo, she was just so cute!” Hyerin gushed. 

“How many people do you think came?” Emika said, drumming her fingers on the wood of the bunk bed. 

“More people than the first fansign,” Ahra offered as nobody spoke. 

“Well, duh,” I used the American expression in response to Ahra’s dry answer. 

“Maybe a hundred?” Jia tried from her top bunk. 

“No way,” Hyerin and I said simultaneously. 

I continued. “It couldn't be a hundred. Much less, I'll bet.”

“Why don't we ask Jaesung oppa?” Jia questioned. 

“Because Jaesung oppa has been awake since three in the morning and he has to sleep,” Ahra informed. 

“So have we!”

“Jia, just don't bother him, he did a lot of work.” 

Sixiao settled down after grumbling about us doing just as much work. 

After our comeback about three weeks ago, we had been promoting non stop. They had paid off, of course. Our first mini album was very much a success. Gemini, the title song, had conjured up 11 wins, and we still had a week of promos left. 

I stared at the bunk on top of mine, Emika’s, as the four other girls murmured their ‘good nights’. I had stuck stickers to the wood, taped papers, too. Fans had given me various gifts, some I had been able to accept, others that I had been forced to discard. In the little light granted by Sixiao’s nightlight, I could read some of the messages on the papers. 

‘Nyx, fighting!’

‘Lani unnie, saranghae!’

‘Lani unnie, you're the best vocalist ever!’

There were many messages among these lines, praising me, encouraging me, supporting me. I reminded myself how lucky I was as I traced the details of a portrait of me made by a fan. I could have been in college right now, this very moment perhaps, listening to some professor drone on and on about theories. 

Maybe I would go home every weekend, listen to Eomma yell at me for not doing my laundry, talk to Lauren about boys and school, blackmail Appa and Langston into giving me money. 

Maybe I would talk to Marianne and Alex every day, my old best friends who I hadn't talked to in over a year. 

Maybe I would get more than ten hours of sleep per week, maybe I wouldn’t read random anonymous hate about myself. 

Maybe I would never have met Hyerin or Sixiao or Ahra or Emika, never performed on stage, never have someone I didn't know tell me they genuinely loved me. Maybe I would never have famous people I didn't know saying I was their ‘ideal type’. Maybe I would never have broken any records. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

A soft buzz yanked me from my thoughts. My pillow was vibrating on its right side, where my phone was kept. I ran my hand under the soft cotton, groping for the thin rectangular shape of my phone. 

The latest notification was a message from a contact named ‘jongdae’. 

what are you doing for your birthday, it read. I yanked the phone off its charger, writing a reply. 

‘promotions’, I wrote back. Jongdae’s reply was instant. 

you're not celebrating?

Then, why are you awake?

‘Why are you awake,’ I asked as a reply. 

Practice, why are you

‘Promos, and i have to wake up in three hours anyway’

why aren't you celebrating???

‘no time ㅠㅠ’

we celebrate during promos why can't you

‘i don't know’

ask your manager

‘no, i'll look like a loser’

you are a loser

‘shut up, dae’

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ, he replied. 

Our banter seemed to go on forever. Somehow Jongdae and I had grown fairly close over th