Yonghwa

“I’m so nervous,” I said after letting out a big sigh.

“We all do, hyung. Even though it’s not our first concert, it still feels like that,” Jonghyun said as he hopped up and down while shaking his hands to overcome his nervousness.

I peeked behind the curtain on the side of the stage. Even before the concert started, the crowds were already cheering excitedly, waving their lightsticks over their heads that from the stage it looked like one vast iluminating blue ocean.

“Look at the crowd, man. We never had this many people seeing our concert before,”

“Of course, hyung. It’s our first Asia tour. We’ll be performing in a bigger venue for several months starting today. Hopefully there will be as many fans as today’s crowd coming to our concert. Fingers crossed.” Jonghyun said, still doing his pre-concert ritual.

“Hyung, it’s no different. Even if there are only two people watching our performance, or the whole blue ocean like today, we have to give it our all.” Jungshin patted my shoulder, trying to peek through the curtain too.

“Yeah, you’re right, Shin-ah. Well, let’s give them our best performance yet!”

Ten minutes before the concert started. The boys and I gathered around in a circle and prayed for the best. After yelling our cheer, we went into position behind the curtains as the opening VCR was playing on the monitor at the back of the stage. Right before that, my phone vibrated. As I opened the message, my face lit brighter than the phone screen.

[

SH: Oppa! Good luck on the performance! I’ll be cheering for you among the fans. I’ll take you to dinner after the concert! Love you!

]

I didn’t have to reply her because I knew she knew exactly how my face looked like right now: tomato red with a smile from ear to ear. Receiving her message like this was all I needed.

The others entered the stage while I remained behind the curtains, wating for my cue in the middle of their intro. When the intro was coming to that part, I came out to the stage, holding my guitar, and joined in for the intro of the first song. The blue ocean in front of us was waving so excitedly, like waves crashing. The cheers of the crowd kept us spirited and washed away all our stage frights and nervousness from before. The sight of their faces full of joy brought us the strength to give it everything we’ve got.

As I walked over the catwalk part of the stage, smiling, wingking, and giving other fan services to the crowd, I caught a glimpse of someone waving from afar in the middle of the crowd. As my eyes focused on her, everything around her seemed to blur, leaving a clear outline of the girl whom I could not stop thinking about. I caught a flash from her smile, countagiously infected me with joy and giddiness.

I felt my body lightened. Soon, I realized my feet were several centimeters off the ground. I was literally floating up, very slowly. It was a stage act; me hovering above the crowds with a pair of cables that were attached to a contraption around my waist. On the rehearsal, I was always scared of this flying part, but right now it just felt right. Maybe because my heart was already above the clouds.

The concert ended. Everything went very well. The boys and all the crew did a very good job. Holding a bottle of water and a towel in my left hand, I went to every single person in the backstage, congratulating them for the successful night. I was exhausted but the satisfaction from tonight’s show kept me up. After a while congratulating everyone, I bumped into my manager.

“Hey, great work out there!” He took my hand into a friendly shake. “You’ve brought a good start for our Asia tour,”

“Haha, thanks, hyung. You know we couldn’t have done it without you,” I said.

“Hahaha, of course. I should be congratulating myself,” he said with his joker smile. “Oh, by the way…someone wants to meet you. I took her and told her to wait in your room. Just hurry up and go there, gentlemen don’t make the ladies wait too long,”

At the thought of that, I smiled. Without further thinking, I rushed to the hotel where we stayed just across the street from the concert venue. I hurried over, put my hoodie over my head, and avoided groups of fangirls who still couldn’t move on from the concert. Thankfully, I arrived at the hotel lobby in one piece without anyone, especially the fangirls, recognizing him. Just as I was rushing to the room, after getting off from the elevator, a text pinged in my phone. Without slowing down my pace, I picked my phone and opened the text message. When I saw who it was from, I stopped abruptly, causing me to stumble. Something was off.

[

SH: Oppa! Are you ready for dinner? I’m on my way to the hotel. Be sure to get a shower soon! I don’t want to wait for too long. I’ll take Jungshin to dinner instead if you don’t show up soon. Merong~ :P Love you!

]

Manager hyung had said he took her to my room and told her to wait there. But instead she texted him saying she was on her way to the hotel. Maybe she decided to go outside first instead of waiting for me here all alone. But if she went outside, I should have bumped into her on the way here. Or did she go outside before I got here? But it hasn’t been that long since I saw her in the concert. Maybe…

Before my negative thoughts took over, I decided to just continue my way to the room. Once at the door, I hesitated. I finally took out my keycard and insert it into the key slot on the door knob. The LED flashed green with a beep, and the door was unlocked. I turned the knob and went inside. It was quiet, no sign of anyone. I went on to the table in the living room. The table was exactly like how they left it before: empty cans of soda littered on the table, and a half-empty bag of chips with crumbs all over the place. I really need to get them to be more responsibe, I thought.

Just as I was thinking about sitting down for a minute to relax a little...

“Oppa, I’ve been waiting for you…” someone called from the bedroom.

I jumped straight up from my seat, surprised from the sudden voice of a female inside my room that broke the peaceful silence. And the worst thing is that it was not Seohyun's voice.

It was Park Shinhye.

“It’s been a long time, isn’t it oppa?” the girl said, smiling sweetly.

I froze in place, too stunned by shock to talk or move. I didn’t understand why she was here, and why now of all the time in the world. It’s been months since the press conference about the denial of rumour about Shinhye and I, where I revealed Seohyun as my real girlfriend. A day before that was the last time I saw her.

She walked over towards me in a black dress and white blazer, her high heals tapping against the solid floor. Slowly, she put her arms around my neck and began swaying gently side to side. I tried to shrug her off, but she didn’t let go.

“Ever since the rumour broke out, you rarely contacted me. And then you showed up in front of the press with a girl who claimed to be your girlfriend. I was quite surprised. Otherwise, I didn’t mind playing along.” She kept swaying side to side, dancing slowly.

“What are you trying to do here?” I finally found my nerve to talk.

“You know I’ve always liked you. But ever since that girl showed up, I couldn’t get to you without her being around,” She smiled, more sincerely and sweet rather than slyly. “Right now we have the time for ourselves.”

This whole thing was making me extremely uncomfortable. It made me think about all the time I had spent with Seohyun. I couldn’t let her down now. I have to get myself out of this situation.

And then my phone rang. The sudden ringtone broke the tension in the room. Shinhye let go of me and took a few steps back, then waited for me to pick up the phone, arms crossed. And then I did.

“Yeoboseyo?” I answered.

“Oppa! What’s taking you so long? I’m down here waiting at the lobby. You did get my text, didn’t you?” Seohyun said from the other side.

“Yes, Hyun. I got it. It’s just that I got a bit of trouble with the shower. I just called the housekeeping about it. I’ll be there in no time,” I forgot to say Hyun~ in the right way due to panic.

“One more minute and I’ll go upstairs,” And then she hung up.

It hurt a little, but it was nothing compared to what I would cause if I don’t get myself out of this. Then Shinhye moved closer to me again.

“I bet it was your beloved girlfriend. I knew she was going to take you to dinner, that’s why I am here. I will take you instead.” She put her hand on my cheek but I caught it before it made contact.

“I don’t have time for this. I have other place to be.” I said. And then I left her and walked towards the door. Then my phone beeped a text message. I took it out and read the text. It was Seohyun saying that she was going upstairs now. Panic took hold of me, pinning me in place instead of making me rush outside. Then, as if the first surge of panic wasn’t enough, there was a muffled beep from the other side of the door. Someone was coming into the room.

“Oppa, why are you avoiding me?” Shinhye whined which I ignored.

Then, the knob on the door rotated and the door opened from outside. My heart was beating so fast I could hear the beat ringin in my ears before it stopped so suddenly when I saw the figure coming inside the room.

“Hmm? What are you doing? Go take a shower and change your clothes. You’re going to have a dinner, right?” Manager hyung said as he took off his hat and hanged it on the hanger.

“B-but…what’s she doing here?” I blurted out.

“What are you talking about? She’s taking you to dinner,”