South Korea has been treating you nice enough. In the course of a week you visited many landmarks and random tourist spots.  Visiting the landmarks has been nice, but a bit boring. You had wanted to talk to someone since it was just you aimlessly walking around with no one except for other tourists (with friend, mind you) beside you.

            By the end of the 8^th day, you lay in your hotel bedroom because you are too lazy to go anywhere for dinner. You sit on your bed wearing your PJs as you hug your pillow and read your book. The story was dreadful, the plot was terrible, characters lacked emotions, and the writing was overall bad; you don’t even know why you’re reading the story. Your mind is distracted thinking about the past week. You usually end the day like this, too bored and too lonely to go out to eat, sometimes reading the ty book or sometimes browsing the internet. You think of what to do tomorrow since the wedding starts the day after tomorrow. Finally you groan and close your book and ready your bed to go to sleep. You turn off the lights and bring up the blanket to your neck. Right before you hit the pillow your phone rings. You jump out of bed and find it hiding in your travel bag. You pick up without looking at the caller.

           “Hello?” You answer.

           “Do you want to get some coffee?

           “Huh?”

           “Let's get something to drink.” You check the caller ID. It says Dorito Lay Chips Yixing. Wait. Chips? He put himself in your contacts as Dorito Lay Chips Yixing? That’s so... adorable. But why is he calling you?

           “Um. Why?”

           “Oh. For no reason really, I had practice from 1pm till now. I’m pretty tired and exhausted but I feel like going out and tea sounds good right now.”

           “Oh.”

           “You sound exhausted. Your voice is a pitch higher what the did you do." He laughs.

            Did he get the wrong number? "Um.... Nothing?"

            "Maybe that's just me then. Just come please.

           “Where are you?” It slips out of your mouth before you could think of what to reply. He just sounded so desperate, a bit whiny, but desperate all the least. He gives you the address and hangs up. It's about 10 o'clock so you groan thinking about drinking caffeine late at night. You put on something warm and hurry out.

           You pop the address into your phone and see that it’s about a 30 minute walk away. You take a cab, being lazy, and arrive in 5 minutes. You arrive at a lit alleyway that looks a bit shady so you turn back to the taxi for directions to get to the coffee shop but the driver is already turning to leave. You slowly venture out into the alley not sure what to expect. Little way in, you start to see that, like a tree, the alleyway branches into little corridors and into a handful of shops along and at the end of these corridors. You try to spot Chips at one of these shops to no avail. Finally after 10 minutes of wandering around you call him.

            “Hey. So, uh, where are you?”

            “Huh? Why…?”

            “What? Where’s the coffee shop you told me to meet you at?”

            “ I didn’t tell you to…”

            “You just called and begged me to come though!!”

            “Calm down, I can hear you screaming.”

            You do a 360 spin to see where he was hiding. You turn to see Chips emerging from a corridor fingers frantically typing away at his phone. He puts away his phone and walks over.

            “Ah. I texted my friend, but I think I accidentally pressed your number instead.” He raises his right fist and bites his thumbnail looking at you sheepishly. 

            “Oh, I'll go back, I was going to sleep anyways.” He grabs your arm and slightly shakes it.

            “It’s 10 o’clock and Jongin isn't going to come to have coffee with me now.”

            “Oh. But-” He turns and starts dragging you into a corridor.

----------------------------------------------

            You end up at a small dinky little coffee shop. You’re a bit afraid as to what the food would taste like since the shop looked pretty shady. He orders some sort of herbal tea while you decide to have hot chocolate. He quickly changes his order and you end up ordering two hot chocolates with marshmallows on one and plain on the other.  He leads you to a small table in the corner and realizes he still has one hand tightly gripping your arm. He lets go and you wince realizing you lost sufficient amounts of blood circulation through your arm. You sit in the sofa chair, rubbing your arm to get the blood flowing. The table between you is a small circular coffee table with one dim light hanging above it.

            “So…”

            “So.”

            “How…did your dance practice go?” His eyes widened and practically shines as he begins.

            “Great! I got this one piece of hard choreo down. I’ve been trying to perfect it for weeks! I can’t wait to show Jongin.”

            “So, Jongin is, I’m guessing, a dance buddy?”

            “You don’t know who Kim Jongin is?” You shake your head.

            “Kai? Kkamjong? y Dancing Machine Kai?”

            “Uh. No.”

            “Ah. Not the biggest pop culture fan.” You bite your lip and avert your eyes.

            “Do you even know who I am?”

            “Uh.” You stretch your mind back to when the lady at the information desk was talking to you.

            “EXO? Counterpart or something?” He pouts slightly as you hear the lady at the counter call out our order. You hang your head as he gets up to bring the two hot chocolates. He sets the two hot chocolates on the table. He takes the one with marshmallows and sips it. You take yours and sip some but immediately you burn your tongue. He smiles and takes another sip. You fight the urge to wipe that smirk off his face.

            “Didn’t the hot chocolate burn your tongue?”

            “I got used to it. I  drink lots of tea anyways, and as a trainee and I would usually be in a rush, so I got used to scalding my throat.”

            “I thought you wanted coffee today.”

            “Jongin likes coffee. i wanted tea, but you took hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is never meant to be drunk alone.” His mug hides his smile but his eyes crinkle. He has really pretty eyes...

            “Oh.” You stutter and duck your head down to gulp hot chocolate only to burn your throat and start coughing.

            You continue to awkwardly small talk for 10 minutes until Chips finishes his mug. He picks up his mug tilts it over his mouth. He then taps the bottom of the mug and you watch as the small marshmallows file into his mouth. He doesn’t stop until the mug is empty and his cheeks become filled of marshmallow. He smiles a cheesy grin at you, cheeks plump. He starts chewing away at the marshmallows then laughs, dimples evident and eyes sparkling.

            “I haven’t done that since trainee days.” He looks extremely proud of himself.

             You roll your eyes at him. “Brilliant.” You bring the mug up to your lips trying to hide the fact that he was out-cute-ing himself and it was quite evident on your cheeks. You finish your chocolate and pay for your own drinks.

            You walk out into the alleyway. It's getting colder and you can see your breath fog up. “So now what.” 

            “Are you busy tomorrow? It’s 11 o’clock right now.”

            “I'm pretty sure I don't.”

            “Seoul at night is really nice. We can walk around.” You contemplate his offer. You could go home and sleep or walk around Seoul- at nighttime- with an adorable guy.

            “That sounds fine to me.”

            “So where will we be going?”

            “Hm? Just walking around. Any place you wanted to visit?”

            “Uh, not really, I’ve been planning on sleeping for the next two days.” He smiles when his phone rings out.

            “Hey…Oh…Yea I’m with her…It’s not…Dhui-” he looks at you and his jaw sets. He holds up his palm signaling you to stay. He bites his lips and turns his back to you and walks a few steps away. He starts to talk in rapid Mandarin. You pick up a few words and your name being tossed around, but you can’t formulate what they are talking about. He drags his fingers through his hair as he looks at the ground listening to the person on the other line. You know something bad is happening but you just stood awkwardly, waiting.

            “Look. It’s fine. I’ll be fine, okay.” He listens to the other person and whispers a bye and hangs up. He drops his hand to his side and stares at the ground. He then shakes his head and puts his phone into his back pocket and walks back to you. You expect him to say something, but he instead he puts a hand on your back and pushes you forward. He soon takes his hand off but continues to briskly walk.

            You continue to walk along a sidewalk for a while. The silence is a bit awkward and you want to see Lay’s face but he walks faster as you come nearer to him. You want to ask what happened, but you kept quiet not wanting to intrude.

            He suddenly turns into an alleyway and then wanders around, craning his neck as if he was trying to find something. After looking around and you, following him silently, he stops at a door on the side of a wall. The door was locked with chains and a combination lock which he fiddles with for a while until finally it clicks open. He steps inside and throws a hand over his shoulder beckoning you in.

            It's a small cube shaped room. There isn't anything special inside other than a small CD player sitting in a corner and another door that probably is a storage closet. The walls and ceiling corners are covered with cobwebs and the single hanging lightbulb flickered in the middle of the room. Chips whispers your name and you finally see his face. His right hand is in a fist, thumb pressed up against his lips. His eyes are sparkling as he slowly spins around as if basking in the room's sad glory.

            His voice is a soft whisper. “I would come here during my trainee days and practice dancing.” He pauses and smiles. “I haven’t come here in a year.” He disappears into the storage room and comes out with a mat and shakes off the dust. He lays it on the floor, sits down and pats the spot next to him. You sit down.

            “Do you know Kris?” You shake your head.

            “The guy who got mad at me for forgetting at the airport. Tall. Big eyebrows. Small mouth.”

            “Oh. Hair in a fancy bouffant.” He ponders that for a second then nods

            “Mhmm. So… You don't know about EXO, so i should probably explain that?”

            “Uh. Sure.”

            “So, I...” He puts a hand on his chest, “…am part of Asia's Super Rookie Group EXO.” He said the last part with flair of mockery.

            “EXO is a group of 12 people and they are split into two groups, EXO K and EXO M. EXO K is the counterpart that sings in Korean and promotes in South Korea. EXO M sings the exact same songs only in Chinese and promotes in China.” His hands flail around trying to explain, using sharp hand gestures and twirling his fingers.

            “I am Chinese so I was put in EXO M. I’m the lead dancer of the group, except I’m also good at singing, and I’m trying to learn how to rap since our lead rapper .” He smiles at the last fact.

            You try to absorb all the information. “Who’s the lead rapper?”

            “Kris.”

            “Oh, him.”

            “Mhmm. So now that you know who I am. Kris called and told me it was dangerous for my image to be out with you on the streets. But I’m honestly not popular enough to be noticed on the streets of Korea.” He laughs but his eyes are solemn. “But, Kris is the leader, and I have to listen to him, so… we’re just going to stay here.” You unconsciously look around.

            “Unless, you just want to go back to your hotel of course.” He rapidly adds.

            “Oh. No. That’s not it. It’s just… not... homely?" It was more of a question. He raises his eyebrows. 

            “Yet." He pushes himself up and dusts his hands on his pants. "Let’s make it homely.”