While it’s a common consensus that idols look smart and therefore do things the smart way (because they look smart so they don’t do things that don’t make sense), Nicole realizes that there are exceptions to everything. She would like to think that most idols do things the right way, the logical way but that’s just the bulk of them because some idols apparently don’t.

Some idols, ironically and ridiculously, find it perfectly reasonable to wake up in the morning and visit Nicole without forewarning, without even the least bit of guilt because it’s freaking morning and mornings meant sleeping and disturbing someone else’s sleep is a really, really terrible thing to do so naturally, Nicole expects that whatever or whoever that’s waiting by the door is waiting for her with a good reason because waking up physically is already difficult on it's own.

Having to wake up mentally at the same time takes so much more effort than that.

But of course, life never treats her the right way she thinks she deserves because of all the many idols that fit perfectly into the common consensus, life decides to send her one of the rare few that doesn’t.

It’s not like she’s going to complain either because no one really complains about idols anyway.





“I don’t understand why.” Nicole puffs her cheeks and kicks the snow to her right.

“Because it’s going to be fun,” The other kicks it back. “You know, since the boys will be there.”

“It’s not about that,” And Nicole stomps and crushes the pile of snow with her ugg. “It’s morning, Hyuna-ah. You don’t knock on someone’s door in the morning and yank them out into the streets without even telling them where the hell you are bringing them to. That’s just immoral and horrible and—” She pauses and looks up. “Wait—what?”

“It’s Sunday.” Hyuna replies, sounding as if whatever she said makes perfect sense.

“And?” Unfortunately Nicole doesn’t understand how perfect sense works but she sees Hyuna looking at her expectedly, as if there’s something she’s supposed to know but she’s not getting it so she tries to get it and she thinks and thinks and thinks and—

“No way.” She widens her eyes, looking so horrified as though a murder just happened in front of her and the perpetrator is now smirking and looking satisfied and all that blood is too gory and too horrible and she wants to vomit because that’s just too much for her to handle.

“Yes way.” Hyuna skips back, grinning and linking their arms together.

“What—I—how—why?”

“You miss them.” There was a thoughtful pause. “And they miss you too.”

"No, we're not going." Nicole frowns and feels herself being pulled forward.

“Yes, we are.”

“No, we’re not. You don’t understand, I’m just going to spoil everyone’s mood.”

"You're spoiling my mood now."

"Exactly."

Nicole feels Hyuna slowing down and she heaves a sigh of relief because finally, the other gets that she’s a mood-wrecker which means she’s going to let her go back to sleep because it’s in the morning (it’s still in the morning after so long which means Hyuna woke her up not just in the morning but in the early morning and that adds up to the terrible) so she’s happy and relieved and glad and really, really—

“Do you think we should buy lunch for them? I mean, the people at Inkigayo might provide them with some food but you know Yoseobie and Hyunseungie, one share is never enough.”

Nicole proceeds back to abusing the snow.





“Just to let you know, I still don’t understand why.” She sighs as another fan pushes pass her, trying to get as close to the stage as possible.

“I don’t understand why you don’t understand why.” Hyuna replies (completely disguised and covered up with fedora and sunglasses and she wonders why nobody notices because who the hell wears sunglasses indoor?). “You know how difficult it is to get tickets for pre-recordings? I’m giving it to you with zero effort so you should be excited.”

“Right.” Nicole scoffs. “You woke me up in the morning just so we can squeeze with all these people here and now I’m in dire need of a bath, so much excitement going on.”

“I hate you, you know that?” And she feels a light slap on her arm but before she could retort, before Hyuna could even hear her retorting, she already long lost her voice to the screams and shrieks just as 6 boys shuffled out to the stage.

Nicole thinks that with the current adrenaline level of everyone present, there might be enough to run a marathon around the whole Africa continent.





Okay.

Okay, so maybe b2st’s coordinator decides to give him the best looking clothes out of the six choices.

Maybe he woke up this morning with a good hair, maybe he has been eating more regularly now so he’s getting less skinner which means he’s looking better. Maybe—just maybe he wrote good lyrics (he always writes good lyrics) last night and thus had a good night sleep so he is looking perfect (he always looks perfect) right now on stage, rapping and dancing which means that Nicole cannot stop staring.

She wants to scream, wants to jump and wave and sing along with everyone around her but she doesn’t want to get any attention. She doesn’t want any of the 6 to know that she’s here because it’s just going to make all of them unhappy and unhappy idols won’t be able to put up brilliant performances (they always have brilliant performances) and all the fans won’t be as satisfied as they should be and then Nicole would have to apologize to them because she’s a mood-wrecker like that and—

Beside her, one particular idol is screaming.

Of course.

Of course of course of course of course of course.

It’s Kim Hyuna and Nicole doesn’t understand why she was even hoping because by now, she should already establish that life hates her to the core.

She just wishes she knew what kind of awful things she did to life.





To be honest, it’s not that difficult because rappers like to stand really near the audience and couple that with a 10/10, or somewhere near a 10/10 eyesight, it’s not hard to spot someone off stage especially if that someone is the only person wearing a pair of sunglasses.

Although, she thinks, even if Hyuna is looking as normal as possible, Junhyung will still be able to spot her amongst the sea of people because you’re supposed to possess that ability towards your girlfriend, right?

It’s just, she didn’t expect Junhyung to spot her as well.

She didn’t expect to meet eyes with him but when she does, she stops breathing and feels her heart rioting in her chest because now she really have to apologize to all the b2uties who are here and it’s sad and she hopes Junhyung doesn’t forget his lyrics now that his mood is ruined by her.

It’s sad and it gets even sadder because Nicole gets it. She gets that she’s making a mess out of everything and she’s supposed to leave right now and stay 10 miles away from all of them or else the depress will get them contaminated. She gets it so Junhyung needs to stop looking at her because she knows, she really really knows and she mentally promises that she’ll abide to whatever he wants because he deserves it, because all of them deserves a good treatment after all the damage she had done to them.

Nicole doesn’t know why but she does it, she mouths ‘I’m sorry’ and she hopes Junhyung gets it as well.





Clearly, Hyuna doesn't understand the theory that if you keep stretching rubber bands far more than they can withstand, they'll snap.

Although, because they dance, Junhyung and Yoseob and Doojoon and Hyunseung and Dongwoon and Kikwang might have better elasticity, but that still doesn't mean that Hyuna can do whatever the hell she wants.

Nicole feels herself being dragged (it's a familiar feeling by now) into the backstage and she wonders where Hyuna gets so much strength from because someone as tiny as her should never be endowed with that much amount of strength.

It's not like she puts those strength to good use all the time anyway.

She doesn't know how long it has been, but she knows it's probably really really long because it seems like her memory of the waiting room is far from what it is in reality. It's smaller, messier, and whiter than she remembers and she starts looking around for a place that she could hide herself in so hopefully no one will notice.

Hyuna pushes the door open.

The first thing Nicole notices is a table at the far corner, big enough for her to hide and she starts planning her route there but just when she's about to execute it, she feels light tap on her shoulder and when she turns around, she sees two sincere smiles.

Dongwoon and Kikwang leads her to the table (of which she now cannot hide under anymore because then she would be found) and when she's pulled down onto a chair, she realizes Doojoon and Yoseob on the same table as well.

It's a lot better because Nicole expects worse. She expects frustrations and irritations and ‘Why is she here?’ and ‘Who the hell let her in?’ so when Doojoon and Yoseob decides on ignoring and continuing what they were doing before, she feels like it's a lot better.

It's a lot better because being regarded as non-existent is always better than being hated.

"Don't mind them." Kikwang whispers and smiles.

"Yeah, they are crazy." Dongwoon echos and smile as well.

It's a lot better because at least 2 out of 6 still cares and that’s more than what she deserves.





"Because of you," Nicole stabs the piece of meat with her chopstick just as Hyuna stuff hers into . "I'm going to have to sleep till evening tomorrow."

"You're such a pig." The other chews and laughs.

"Hyuna-ah, if you don't remember, you woke me up this morning before I was even done with sleeping."

The other laughs even harder.

"I don’t understand, why won’t you want to go to all their performances?"

She raises her eyebrows.

"I mean, they improve every single day and it's just, it's amazing. Junhyung can really rap well, and he writes well, too. All of them just get better and better.” She picks up the meat from the griller and places it on Nicole’s plate. “And it’s just, I don’t know, don’t you want to witness all of that?”

It's weird. It's really really weird how her heart aches every single day (from splitting into halves and then quarters and then eights and then into pieces and further and further) and she hears Hyuna talking about the boys, telling her things that she never knew, letting her know how wonderful all of them are, and she sees her eyes crinkling with happiness while she does it.

She feels pure joy and contentment radiating from her and all of a sudden, she feels like the stupidest fool ever in this whole wide world.

How could she think that she's better?

How could she think that she deserves Junhyung more than Hyuna?

How could she even believe that she's going to win in the end?

There isn’t even a fight in the first place.

It's not a fight if there's a clear winner.

It's not how much more Hyuna knows about the boys as compared to Nicole, it's about how Nicole never cared about knowing them.

She never felt the need to.

How could she?





It's really weird how her heart, albeit still in pieces, feels as if it had been given anesthetic.

Nicole finds it ridiculous that Hyuna, being so honest and kind and cute and funny, does such a wonderful job at being an idol but at the same time—

She makes a good doctor too.

A/N: This chapter, you guys, is 2000 words give and take and it's a compensation for disappearing the past two weeks because exam was trying to destroy my life all those time. But I hadn't put the two weeks to waste because I finally got the whole story overview (chapter summaries and what not) written out so I can safely say that if things go as planned, this story will end in 25 chapters ^-^

Thank you for all the comments! I really, really appreciate it :)

@cljy123 Junhyung is just, a plain fool if I may say and Yoseob will always be a kind soul like he always is (because it's not like I'm able to write him evil even if I wanted to). And why, oh my god, I'm officially making it one of my mission to make you like Nicole all over again ^-^ Your comment is so loved, seriously *hugs you tight*.

@yannie Enjoy! :)

@Hequella Yessssssssssss :)

@amburritosRtacos Wae? You—just—WAE? Nicole will be good, I promise you :)

@JLover1822 I know right? It's just—the stories they write is nice and brilliant and all but it makes me sad when Hyuna becomes the bad girl because to this day, I still cannot understand why she's perceived that way. Thank you so much for the compliment! Hope you like this chapter :)

@ChickenLover You should, that's what I'm aiming for :)

@SHieMa Thank you so much, seriously. The time I take to write should produce works with a much better quality than what I've been producing but I'm just not as good as many other writers out there so yeah :/ I'm sure your stories are much nicer than mine anyway :)

@f_mama You know, I've been trying to keep the story as close to reality as possible but I already lost it right after I got Nicole into an accident and everything after that is just purely, solely meant to happen in another world or something. It's always better to dream, right? :)

@shineekey I would've, too. Seriously. But I've planned better (hopefully) things for Nicole :)

@dnakaram T_________T