Chapter Seven

Falling to her knees, Nik gave a full bow that was quickly mimicked by her two companions. The girls stood and Nik tried to gain some composure. “Oh my gosh!” She was still catching her breath from the last performance. She pressed her hand to her chest, slowing her breathing and calming the nerves that had crept up immediately after the song went off. All three women were shaking a bit, completely overwhelmed by this turn of events. Nik turned to the audience, “I will tell y’all, this was not planned.” Shinhwa all laughed and she flushed a bit brighter as she let her gaze drift over each of them. She then turned back to the audience and shook her head. “Well, come on y’all. Give it up for our first generation ahjussis, the one and only legendary SHINHWA!” she yelled, motioning towards the men who were now giving her an amused look after the ahjussi comment.

“Hana, dul, set! Hello, we’re SHINHWA,” they yelled out their introduction. Junghyuk, the leader and one of the more fluent English speakers continued, “We saw a lot about this show going on and had to come check it out for ourselves. I must say, we were not disappointed by the show that you put on.”

The girls all bowed. “Thank you so much,” they said in unison.

Nik’s face suddenly changed as she turned to face the crowd. “Oh my gosh, I just realized that we have gone over our allotted time here today, and there are a lot of things going on across the street at KCon. We are going to have to dismiss everyone so that we can clean up. We will be at the concerts and we look forward to seeing everyone out there tonight.” She then flipped her microphone off and turned back to Shinhwa as everyone slowly started making their way out of the room. “We truly want to thank y’all for coming. We are so honored to have y’all here,” she said, switching to speaking in Korean. The other two nodded an agreement.

Nik had reached around to hold on to Lily around her waist to keep her fangirl behavior under control as they continued talking. Lily in turn leaned into her friend for the same reason. “This is honestly a fangirl’s dream,” Lily said. Although they had been so outgoing and courageous during the performance, none of the girls could even meet the men’s eyes now that it was just them speaking privately.

“We couldn’t really say no,” Minwoo responded. “Your fans were so adamant about us coming.”

“We apologize for them bothering you. As soon as we saw what they were doing, we told them to stop,” Lily sighed, flushing.

“It’s ok, we noticed that you told them to stop.” Choongjae said.

“We ended up watching several of your videos after that, actually,” Pilkyo admitted. The girls blushed again. “The way you interact without being together is funny.” His brothers agreed.

Nik noticed that Choongjae was watching Lily a bit closer, so she slipped her arms away and put her hand on her friend’s back, slowly adjusting the way they stood until her and Choongjae were standing right next to each other. She tried to do it slowly and make it look as natural as possible as they all talked as a group. Noticing what she was doing, Sunho waited until they were close enough and then ‘tripped’, pushing his fellow maknae into Lily. This made everyone laugh.

After the laughter died down, Choongjae tried to take some of the embarrassment off of him. “I have a question. Lily has my face. Briley has Hyuk hyung’s face. Nik has Pilkyo’s face. That is not the parts you were singing. Why are you wearing who you are wearing?” He had a slight smirk playing on his lips as he asked.

The girls all flushed a deep red again. “Briley’s bias is Junghyuk-ssi, Lily’s bias is you, and my bias is Pilkyo-ssi,” Nik said, playing with the sleeves of her denim jacket. There was a sound of understanding that passed through all of the men and a slightly satisfied look from Pilkyo and Choongjae.

They continued talking for a while afterwards, until it was time for them to clean up. They only had the room until 1 and had to have all of their stuff out of the room for the janitor to clean. Shinhwa offered to help clean up, which the girls tried to argue but ended up losing.

Pilkyo followed Nik over to the speakers that she needed to pile into their cart to pull up to their room. “You know, I wasn’t lying when we said that we had started following you on your YouTube channel. It’s really funny.”

Nik blushed and gave a slight bow, a habit she had picked up from years of taekwondo. “Thank you. We just started it for fun. Never thought it would take off into anything,” she admitted.

“Your brick break was impressive. It’s been a long time since I attempted to break bricks.”

“Yeah, I saw when you had done your break. That was what, twenty years ago?” Nik asked with a cheeky smirk. Pilkyo laughed and confirmed.

Lily and Choongjae had been close by at this point, picking up cords. Lily looked up, “You think that’s impressive, you should come see her next weekend. She’s competing for the world title.”

Nik shook her head and blushed. “It’s really not that big a deal. It’s only for my rank and age group.”

“Are you going?” Choongjae asked, reaching up to unplug some of the cords that Lily was too short to reach.

“I am, actually. Briley and I are going to drive down to Little Rock with her and Aaron. We are getting a vacation while she works her off.”

“Hyuuuuung,” Choongjae called to Junghyuk. “Can we stay another week?”

Junghyuk, Minwoo, and Sunho had been helping Aaron pack up the computer stuff. “We were just discussing that with Aaron. He was asking if we could come watch him compete.”

“My child, I swear,” Nik grumbled under her breath, making Pilkyo laugh. After a short discussion, it was settled that Shinhwa would drive down to Little Rock with the girls for a vacation since KCon was the end of their latest promotions. Nik looked over towards her English friend who was leaning in and talking quietly to Dongwan. “Looks like someone is trying to convince my friend that she should change biases.”

“I think your friend is flirting with my friend,” he countered.

Nik motioned first to where Choongjae had reached out to remove some hair from Lily’s eyes, and then to Dongwan who had taken another step in to talk with Briley. “To me, it looks more like your brothers are hitting on my sisters.”

“Maybe it’s a little bit of both. So,” he pointed to his photo on her dress.

Nik looked down, confused. “Mm? Oh! Yeah, you’re my bias.” She quickly turned around to load something so that she was not facing Pilkyo as her face flamed up.

He laughed, “Why?”

“I sense that you are fishing for compliments. Now we have twenty minutes to get all of this stuff out of here or they will charge us for using their banquet hall.” He laughed again but left the question for now. “It all has to be taken up to our room,” she informed the guys who were kindly helping them with everything like the gentlemen they truly are.

Everyone went up in groups, Aaron, Sunho, Minwoo, and Junghyuk taking up all of the computers and lights. Dongwan took everything out of Briley’s hands and then shot a look at the remaining four as if asking that they not join them in the elevator. That left Pilkyo, Choongjae, Nik, and Lily waiting last for the elevator with the rest of the speakers and wires.

“Can they be more obvious?” Lily asked as the elevator doors closed on Briley and Dongwan.

Nik and Pilkyo shared a look, “No honey, they could not.” She reached over to pet her friend’s head. Lily gave her a confused look and Nik motioned to her and Choongjae with her eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lily whispered, elbowing her. Nik just gave her a knowing look but didn’t say anything else. Lily took the opportunity to help her fellow eternally single friend. She turned to Pilkyo, “Did you know that she has a shrine?”

Nik turned quickly to her friend, face flaming and mouth agape. “No I don’t!”  She turned back to the men standing in front of her. “I do not. I don’t even have any of my posters hung!” She glared daggers at her so-called friend. “Tell them the truth!”

The other three all laughed. “I was about to say that I was flattered,” Pilkyo continued laughing.

Nik was still glaring at her friend. “Okay, I lied. She does, however, own all of your albums and is planning on framing your posters,” Lily winked at her tomato shaded friend as the elevator arrived to take them up.

“You say that like I’m only planning on framing his posters.”

“Who else were you wanting to frame?” he all but pouted, feigning offense.

Nik turned and looked sheepishly into his eyes. “I plan on framing all of my posters one day to keep them in good condition. Right now they are all being kept safe in their rolled containers.”

“Hyung, can I see your phone?” Choongjae asked out of the blue. Pilkyo passed it to him, not thinking anything about it. That was until his phone was being handed to Nik with his Kakao open. “He will probably never ask. Put your number in here.” Nik hesitated, tilting her head slightly and looking for Pilkyo to nod or give her permission before typing in her ID.

As she handed Pilkyo back his phone and he sent a quick message so that she had his number as well, she turned to grin mischievously up at Choongjae. “You know, Lily has a dolphin plushie that she sleeps with every night. Any guesses as to what his name is?” she asked as they stepped out of the elevator.

Lily tried to cover Nik’s mouth, but Nik grabbed her wrists and spun her into a bach hug, wrists held tightly in place. “It wouldn’t be Junjin, would it?” Pilkyo asked.

Both girls shook their head, much to the confusion of the older males. Lily started squirming in Nik’s hold. “Close. It’s name is Choongjae. He’s laying in her bed right inside of our hotel room.” Nik then released her friend after giving her a peck on the cheek and reached into her pocket for the room’s keycard. Her and Pilkyo carried everything inside.

“That’s really cute,” Choongjae whispered to Lily after they were left alone in the hallway. She blushed more and followed him into their suite.

“MOOOM! What took so long?” Aaron whined. “We’re hungry!”

“Yeah, Mom, we’re hungry!” Sunho and Minwoo agreed.

Everyone laughed. “Well then, my children, what would you like for lunch? It’s already after one, so we can either snack now and have a big supper before the concerts, or we could eat a meal now and then have supper later in the evening.”

They all discussed possibilities as they got everything put away and decided on a large snack and then supper after the concerts. This was decided when Briley and Lily told everyone that their Texas friend could make nachos because they had enough ingredients to feed everyone.

Aaron dragged Sunho and Minwoo into his and his mom’s room for video games. Briley, Lily, Choongjae, and Dongwan sat in the living room playing Go Fish while Pilkyo and Junghyuk watched until the two decided to check on the food.

“Do you need any help?” Junghyuk asked before his friend could.

Nik didn’t look up from her shrinking block of cheese that she was currently shredding. “No thank you. I appreciate the offer, though.” She then spun around to her saucepan that she was making a chili sauce in. Grabbing a plastic spoon, she took some sauce out and blew on it for a moment before offering a bite to the oldest.

He took the bite happily, side eyeing his now slightly jealous friend. “It tastes great!”

Nik glowed at the compliment, quickly turning to grab a bite for Pilkyo and once again blowing on it before feeding it to him. “I have some jalapenos to put on top,” she started before he had swallowed his bite. “Briley can’t handle a lot of heat or I would have the chili spicier on its own.”

“It’s really good,” Pilkyo told her.

Nik thanked him and went back to shredding the cheese. “How is Hyemi-ssi?” She asked as she spread the chips out on a larges backing sheet, layered on most of the cheese, spooned out the chili sauce, added the rest of the cheese, and then sprinkled out the jalapenos.

“Ah, she’s really good,” Junghyuk smiled. “She just got a script for a new drama that she was cast for. Also, you can drop the honorifics.”

“Thank you. You know all of us were so excited when you got married,” Nik confessed, “but we are all waiting for you to announce that she’s pregnant.”

Junghyuk’s ears turned slightly pink as he laughed.

Soon after, everyone grabbed a plate and sat to eat. They got to know each other as they ate, talking about past experiences, KCon and YouTube, and the music industry. When everyone had eaten, Pilkyo checked the time. “I hate to end this, but we have to go to rehearse.”

“Or we could, you know, not,” Minwoo grinned. Pilkyo threw a pillow at him.

“Can we meet you for supper after the concerts? Our treat since you treated us?” Choongjae asked. Everyone agreed, and Pilkyo asked Nik to send them a message when they were done at the concert. Shinhwa left and when they were sure that the elevator had left their floor, the girls all let out a huge fangirl squeal.