Chapter 6

Jae

Saela, saying my name and shaking me lightly, wakes me up much earlier than I want her to. I hear clattering in the kitchen and know Unnie is already making breakfast since she woke up Saela already. I roll over, not ready to open my eyes, and grunt to let Saela know that I’ll get up as soon as I can force myself.  I listen to her move around the room for a minute, throwing on clothes and folding the blankets, and then successfully open my eyes and sit up. When I’m finally up and dressed, Saela’s done with breakfast, sitting at the table with her feet on my chair. She has her phone open on the table and shakes her head at the screen.

“What is it?” I ask, nudging her feet off and slumping into my chair. Unnie puts breakfast in front of me and I thank her. Saela gives me a dark look as she holds her phone up for me to see. I laugh as I scroll through the pictures on Woohyun’s Instagram. There are already 5 of SaeHyun. She sighs and locks the phone before standing up and walking back down the hall to our room with a face of deep thought.

“We have a special outing today so the coordinator is bringing your outfits,” Unnie yells to Saela before the door closes. She yells that she heard it and I look at Unnie.

“What are we doing today?” I ask, still eating slowly.

“You’ve been invited to be the guest on Weekly Idol,” she tells me and I almost choke on my toast. I take a quick drink of water before staring back at her.

“Already?” I ask, already feeling the excitement building up in me. Unnie nods and tells me to hurry up, our day will be starting earlier than usual. I shovel in a few more mouthfuls and then go to get ready. I’m way too excited to eat for real. Saela and I are in the van in record time, both of us smiling and fidgeting. Both of us feel the same nervous excited energy running through our brains and I’m just so damn excited! Singing through the ride to the studio gets loose some of the nerves and by the time we arrive, we’re laughing on our way out of the van. The coordinator meets us in the dressing room and we get suited up for the show; both of us in patterned short shorts and silky and roomy shirts. Saela and I decide that we’ll have to do something special for our coordinator since her outfits are so tame and normal.  That was one thing we worried about incessantly before we debuted and we were pleasantly surprised by our coordinators conservative fashion sense. We move to the studio and meet the MC’s: Defconn and HyeongDon.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you two,” Saela says after we introduce ourselves. “We watch the show all the time.”

“Oh thank you,” HyeongDon says, “We’re looking forward to working with you and we hope we have a great show. I have a lot of intrusive questions planned to ask you two.”

“You should prepare yourselves,” Defconn adds, smiling almost sympathetically.

“Time to start,” the director calls and they move onto the white backdrop for the show, introducing themselves and then calling us out.

“The newest group that’s topping the charts already, the American girls from Butterfly Kisses!” The cameras pan towards us and we smile and walk on, both trying not to trip or look like idiots; Saela more than me.

“Hey We’re Butterfly Kisses!” we flash peace signs instead of bowing like we wanted to. Unnie told us to work the “American” thing. We had to do things differently to stay different. She didn’t want us to be a copy of any other group.

“I’m so sorry you had to come on such short notice,” Defconn says conversationally.

“The truth is that the group we were supposed to have on all got sick and had to cancel,” HyeongDon laughs. “So you were our back up.”

“Oh I see,” Saela says, laughing with him. “I can’t say I blame you. There are only two of us.”

 “But we’ll try to be as amusing as possible,” I add, “Without embarrassing ourselves.” HyeongDon laughs a sort of evil laugh and Saela and I give each other looks of concern for our secrets safety. Since there are only two of us, both of us will get difficult questions and be exposed instead of the huge groups in which several members escape the inquisitions.

“Embarrassment is his only form of humor,” Defconn says to us and we laugh. We already know and I’m wondering why I even wanted to come on here. Then I remember crying from the laughter and rolling on the floor when watching episodes. I hope our episode can turn into one of those.

“Ya!” HyeongDon hits his arm, “Are you talking about me behind my back?” Defconn and the two of us shake our heads vigorously in sync. “Liars,” he scoffs and looks into the camera. “I think they’ve already made an alliance against me.”

                “So Butterfly Kisses debuted last week with the song Drop Dead Gorgeous,” Defconn moves on, leaving HyeongDon spluttering to the camera. “How do you feel about your song and it’s place at the top of the charts?”

                “We’re very thankful to everyone who likes our song,” Saela explains, “We really relate to the lyrics and we feel like this song was really written about our story of our road to becoming Idols.”

“Oh so this song is about you two?” HyeongDon rejoins the conversation. He sings the line in the song that goes, “This music that gave me strength, I’ll sing it now with full confidence” to the camera, off key, and with terribly melodramatic facial expressions, and they turns back to look at us. “What music gave you strength?” he asks, “Any groups that really empowered you? I bet it’s some obscure band in America.” He and Defconn exchange knowing nods like they’ve got us pegged.

“We’re actually huge k-pop fans,” Saela laughs embarrassedly, looking at me before going on and earning surprised looks from both of the MCs. “Back in America, it was a little hard for us because we sang and loved music that our friends and family didn’t understand.” They nod understandingly. “But we loved the music so much that we stayed with it and never gave up on our dream.”

“Wow,” HyeongDon says and starts to clap. “That’s inspiring. Now I think I’ll keep fighting for my dream to become a swim suit model.” We all laugh and he looks back at the camera. “They’re laughing at me. But I’m being serious.”

“I’m sure you’ll achieve your dream someday,” I tell him sincerely, and he smiles at me and pulls my arm so I stand by him.

“I like this one,” he says to Defconn and he and Saela laugh. “She’s the nice one.” Saela shrugs like it’s an accurate thing to say and HyeongDon looks at me. “So what’s your favorite group right now?” I feel my face blush and cover my face; HyeongDon laughs. “It’s ok, we’ll just edit this part out,” he assures me with a smile. I know he’s lying, but I drop my hands anyway.

“Saela and I have always loved Infinite,” I confess and he exclaims loudly. I know this is so going in the show.

“Which one is your favorite?” he asks; voice full of interest. I blush brighter and look down this time.

“Sunggyu,” I say quietly, the name almost gets caught in my throat, and he claps.

“Wow, that’s great,” he says, “Would you like to send a message to your hero? You can just send him one right now!” I shake my head and protest, knowing that I would die of embarrassment. My hearts already beating way too fast thinking that everyone, including Sunggyu, is going to see this.

“I really couldn’t do it,” I say defending myself and shaking my head until he agrees.

“Ok, since you’re my favorite, I’ll let you off the hook,” I smile thankfully at him. “Now let’s move on to member profiles.” We cheer and clap and move into tall bar stools on either side of a board.

“First up,” HyeongDon rips the paper off the top covering Saela’s profile, “We have leader, main vocalist and rapper Saela!”

“It says here that you’re American,” Defconn points out and she nods, “and that you speak English, French, Korean and Japanese.” She laughs a little.

“I’m best at Korean and English,” she says, “Jae’s French is better than mine.”

“She’s nicer too,” HyeongDon says, nodding at me, and she laughs again. He crossed through the “French” on the profile and Saela laughs again, unable to do anything else. “Your birthday is May 16^th 1995. Wow, daebak, you two are really young!” He looks at us with wide eyes. “I feel old sitting this close to you and you’re the older one.” He shudders and scoots his chair farther away from me. He sighs a little and looks at Defconn. “I feel less old over here.”

“We aren’t that young,” she objects, laughing at his reaction. “You can’t be that much older than us.” HyeongDong stares at her with a horrified look.

“She’s trying to be nice now,” he tells Defconn, “It’s scary.” Saela’s mouth drops open as Defconn and I laugh, and she tries to defend herself. It’s even funnier to me because that’s exactly what I say to everyone. I think she was trying to be nice.

“Your hobbies are writing, reading and playing soccer,” Defconn reads off, changing the subject before she can defend herself. She nods reluctantly and HyeongDon smiles mischievously.

“Did you ever write fan fiction?” he asks suddenly, bringing a look of fear to her face and causing Defconn and I to laugh. “Don’t lie!” he warns her, “I bet you did!” she nods slowly, looking trapped. “I knew it!” HyeongDong yells in triumph, and then looks at her with a condescending. “Another reason I like Jae better; she wouldn’t lie.” I laugh out loud, knowing full well that Saela wrote that one story for both of us, but decide to keep it to myself. “I think I should keep a list of the reasons,” he adds almost to himself as he adds “Fan Fiction” in the hobby section. “Nah,” he says, looking at Defconn. “We don’t have enough paper.”

“On to the better member,” HyeongDon rips off Saela’s paper and throws it over his shoulder unceremoniously. Saela points at it with her jaw dropped, but HyeongDon ignores her. “Main vocalist, dancer and maknae Jae. The nice one,” he adds as a side note to the camera as he scribbles it under my name, Saela laughs again. “Hobbies are drawing, painting, dancing, and loving Sunggyu,” I stop nodding suddenly, slide off my stool and look incredulously at the paper to see if it really says that; it doesn’t.

“You made that up!” I accuse. He laughs, taking out a marker.

“I’m only adding what truths I learn,” he says, scrawling it on the page next to my picture.

“So you draw Sunggyu, paint Sunggyu and dance with Sunggyu?”  Defconn asks and I shake my head violently. As I deny it, he and HyeongDon laugh. Saela pats my hand sympathetically, knowing that I’m dying but probably happy it’s not her. I could tell them about her bias since they never asked, but I decide not too; someone has to be the nice one. Luckily they end the segment and move on.

“Moving on, next we’re going to play one our favorite games,” The stools, board and Saela’s discarded profile are taken off the floor. Actually HyeongDon kicked it towards the garbage can off the set and left it there, but we just laughed and continued. “Since you two are so new and only have one song, we thought we weren’t going to be able to play this game with you very effectively,” HyeongDon explains and I know what game he’s talking about. “But since Saela has explained you’re both super fans, we’re going to play not only your song, but random other groups songs and see if you can dance to them correctly!”

“What happens if we don't know the dance?” Saela asks and HyeongDong looks at her.

“Make it up!” he laughs, “You’re the leader!”

“But I’m not the dancer,” she protests.

“Excuses,” HyeongDong scoffs and she sighs, shaking her head in defeat. “Jae, are you ready to play the game? I’m sure you’ll be really good at it.” I nod, shaking loose and readying myself. I’ve always memorized dances I liked, and I never really forget them. If I ever have a problem remembering lyrics, the dance helps me learn them. “Alright, begin!”

The first song is ours, starting from the lead into the bridge, Saela and I rush to our spots on either side of each other and begin dancing; I can tell we did it perfectly. They both clap as they watch us, then the song switches. The next is A Pink’s NONONO with we know by heart and get it perfectly. They applaud again, in wonder, (they underestimated our fangirling) and the song is followed by Teen Top’s Miss Right. Saela guesses the wrong chorus since the choreography changes slightly at the end, and HyeongDon pounces on the chance to yell at her.

“Ya!” he yells, she knows she did it wrong when we don’t match and runs to the corner to hide. “You did it wrong!  But Jae did it perfectly,” he comes over and shakes my hand excitedly as Saela drifts back over toward us, head hanging in shame. “If you do it wrong again, you’ll no longer be the leader!” HyeongDon says to her and her head snaps up to look at him. “Got it?” She nods enthusiastically and Defconn looks at me.

“She must really not want you to be the leader,” he tells me, HyeongDon laughing and clapping in agreement.

The music starts again and Saela and I look at each other with looks of pure joy; it’s Come Back Again. We sing along, the dance moves not enough to satisfy us. Perfect is an understatement for that dance for us. We step up to sing the parts that we divided out for both of us and forget that there are cameras and people watching us. They let the entire song play and when it ends everyone in the studio is clapping and applauding. We take a bow, remembering embarrassingly that we are on a TV show and go back over to stand by Defconn and HyeongDon.

“I guess you are still the leader,” HyeongDon admits dejectedly and Saela claps for herself, nodding proudly. “If I had know, I would have had them play a harder song.” He turns to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, “I failed you. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t want to be the leader,” I tell him laughing and he gives me a confused look.

“But you’re so much cooler than her,” he says, Saela laughing and clapping to hide her embarrassment. “Oh well. I guess you’ll just have to live under her for the rest of your life.”

“We’re best friends,” I smile, “We’re on the same level.”

“Aw,” Defconn says and Saela hugs me, thankful I’m still on her side. “The best friends of Butterfly Kisses.” He and HyeongDon clap again, and we bow. “Say goodbye to the viewers.”

“We are Butterfly Kisses,” we say in sync. “Please take care of us in the future. Thank you.” They clap again and the recording is done. It wasn’t that long, but I feel exhausted when I sit down in a chair in the waiting room. HyeongDon and Defconn come over to us and thank us for coming on the show.

“You can both come back again,” HyeongDon says, smiling at Saela. “You are fun people to have on the show.”

“Thanks for finding entertainment in bullying me,” Saela laughs, “I hope it will be entertaining to watch as well.”

“So do I,” he smiles and they both say goodbye to us before leaving. We go back to our dressing room and change quickly before Unnie shunts us back into the van on the way to see the President again. We’ve seen him so many times this week, I feel like we’re best friends already. Although I do still zone out when he talks, I respect him as the president so it still feels oddly stiff when we sit in his office. Unnie tells us that this meeting should be short since we only need to discuss the people who will be feature in our music video. On the way up to his office, Saela wonders aloud if HyeongDon really hates her. Both of us laugh at her, he was obviously teasing her for fun like he usually does. The President welcome us into his office and we all sit in our usual chairs.

“It seems this has become quite routine for us,” he laughs heartily as we sit facing him and Unnie hands him the list of the people back to him. “So who have you chosen?” We don’t answer because he looks down at the list and laughs. Saela and I look at each other, knowing that he’s laughing at our notes. We took the list into our room one night and sat up looking at pictures and videos of every man on the list, rating them and their personalities. Saela even drew little red hearts by specific names in red pen. “So spent a lot of time with this,” he observes, flipping through the pages. “I’m hoping that you’re 100% confident in your decision.” We both nod and he finds the back page where we wrote who we chose. He smiles as he reads it and I feel awkwardness prickling at my skin. “Choi Minho from SHINee and CNU from B1A4,” he reads, “I know them both and agree with them. I’ll have them contacted right away to see about availability.” He slides the papers inside a folder and stands up, signaling the end of our meeting. We stand up too but then he remembers something.

“Ah!” he looks at us, “How is the song coming along?”

“Great,” we both say together and he laughs.

“I’m glad you’re not having any problems,” he nods, satisfied that we’ll be ok. “I’ll be ready to hear it tomorrow morning but today I have another meeting soon. I’ll be waiting in anticipation to hear it,” he tells us as he walks us to the elevator. We bow our thanks and our goodbye and the elevator closes. I feel a kind of sinking feeling in my chest and I think Saela feels it too. She slumps against the wall and rubs her face.

“You’re not done?” Unnie asks, looking at us incredulously. “I thought you said you were done.”

“We just have the bridge left,” I explain, looking at Saela. I don’t feel any motivation to write a bridge to our song. I almost feel like it’s done the way it is, but I know it’ll be boring if we don’t have one. I want it to be good so bad that I don’t want to ruin it with a last minute attempt at figuring a bridge out.

“I’ll do it,” Saela says, her voice serious. I look at her for confirmation. I never wrote very good bridges in my songs, so I hoped she would do it anyway. She nods at me, smiles slightly and I reach out to squeeze her hand. She knows what I’m thinking and after a small shake of her head she returns the pressure.

“You two can be kind of creepy,” Unnie laughs and steps out of the elevator ahead of us. She leads the way back to the van and brings us to our dance studio where we sweat, sing and yell when we can’t get something for 3 hours. After dance, it’s already night time and I’m starving. We stop on the way home, grab some fried chicken, which never happens, and eat happily in the car. Unnie warns us that if we get fat she’s getting herself a new group but we laugh her off because she’s not serious. With the weight of the bridge gone from me and the weight of the fried chicken in my stomach, I feel like it was a good day. It was a great day and when we get home, all I feel like doing is sleeping so that nothing can make this day bad. I ask Saela one more time if she wants any help but she waves me off because she knows I’m tired and disappears into the piano room with her fried chicken in one hand and a staff notebook and her phone in the other. Before I slide under the covers, I check my phone one last time. To my surprise there’s a message from Sunggyu.

“HyeongDon and Defconn sent me a cut of the show. Thank you for being my fan ^.^”

I can hear him say it as I read it to myself a million times, looking at the little smiley face at the end until the bright screen burns my eyes and appears as a white shadow on my fluttering eyelids. I finally fall asleep with my phone on my chest and a slight smile on my face.

           I remember reading these when the authors would ask "Does anyone actually read these?" and now I totally understand... it truly feels like I'm talking to myself... But that's ok! Because I just hope that people read the story :)

Aaaannnyyywaaaaayyy..... I'm currently editing some later chapters and wondering how strict the "M" ratings are... If anyone has personal experience with what qualifies as "cute" and what's "mature".

     Didn't think I'd leave without one of these did you?                                              Cause i didn't!!!!