Ara frowned as she grabbed the earpiece from her lap and put it on. Her heart skipped a beat when she checked her phone and saw who it was.

“Hey! Can I call you back? I’m driving.”

“Get me out of here. I’m surrounded by idiots,”

“Can you give me a second?” She checked her rearview mirror and glanced at her blind spot. It was already 7:38 in the morning according to the clock on her dashboard, and the streets were still empty. She scanned the area for parking and decided to stop in front of a still closed café.

“Ara?” He whined.

She sighed as she stepped on the breaks and turned off the ignition. This was going to be a long conversation. “I’m here. What’s up? You guys filming already?”

It's not that she minded, but sometimes she wondered how it felt to receive a call from him just because.

“Yes. Junmyeon’s acting like a moron and they’re expecting me to do the same thing,”

“Um…ok…”

“They said that it would increase the show’s rating if I do random stuff every now and then. Where are you? You didn’t call me last night,”

“I’m just on my way home,”

She had spent most of the night working at the office, trying to meet a deadline for a project that was dumped on her lap when a colleague had unexpectedly quit two days ago. Fresh out of university and with very little experience in the field, Ara had been hired by the advertising agency with the unspoken condition that she will have to work twice as hard. It was also expected of her to pick up the slack of her co-workers, who were either burned out by the amount of stress that they go through, or were just taking advantage of the fact that she was there to catch the balls that they drop on purpose.

“From work? What happened? Did you sleep at all?”

“Jiwoo quit,” She sighed.

“Prick,”

“He was getting sick from all the crap that’s been going on at the office lately. Can’t really say I blame him,”

“Why don’t you just quit, too? You can easily go anywhere,”

It was true. She graduated on top of her class and with her older sister's contacts, had all the help that she needed to possibly gain entry to other advertising agencies. The one that she worked for now, though, was one of the biggest and most prestigious in the country. They handled accounts that ranged from the biggest department store chain to a world famous electronic brand. She has had her eyes set on working for the company even before she graduated from college, and now that she got in, she was doing all that she possibly could to stay.

The working conditions were not the best, with the high-strung environment and irregular working hours. She also had to deal with people who were more intimidated by her youth than her obvious skills. Her parents have been concerned when she started to lose weight and when she continuously declined invitations to family get-togethers on weekends and holidays because she had been so preoccupied by her job. She felt bad at first, but she also knew that people would kill to be in her position right now. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it would be crazy to waste it. It was something that she thought Kris Wu, of all people, would understand.

“I can’t,” She sighed.

“Can’t or don’t want to?” He drawled.

She shifted in her seat and rubbed her eyes. “Either way, I want to do this. So. Do you want me to go over there or what?”

“Why are you even driving if you didn’t sleep at all?”

“I took a nap earlier, before I left,” A forty-five minute nap, to be exact, and she was functioning because of the two big mugs of black coffee she chugged down for breakfast.

“Ok then. Come now before I start punching people in the mouth,”

She shook her head, thinking about how typical it was of him. As long as he knew that she wouldn’t get herself killed, fired from her job or get hurt in any way (not necessarily in that order), it doesn’t matter if she was bone tired; she had to come right away when he needed her. She checked the address of the shoot location on her gps and felt relieved to know that it wasn’t very far away from where she was.

“Want me to get you something for breakfast?” She asked.

“I already had a glass of milk and a cookie,”

“A cookie? It’s not even 8 yet. I’ll get you something on the way. What do you want?”

“Another cookie?”

“Yifan, look, I’m tired-“

“A muffin and a coke,”

“A muffin, ok. How about the boys? Your managers?”

“Nothing for them, just for me, your favorite. See you soon.”

Ara found Kris sitting on a curb, the hood of his coat over his head. He had his sunglasses on and was hardly recognizable, but the man could be wearing a potato sack and half of South Korea would probably still agree with her that he was one of the most attractive men that they have ever laid their eyes on. She slowly pulled up in front of him and rolled down her windows.

“Yifan,” She called out.

His head snapped up and he flashed her a lopsided grin. “Hey you. Want to take me far, far away from here?”

Ara swallowed.

Yes, she wanted to take him far away from here. In a place where nobody would recognize him, where nobody would care if she was walking right next to him. She wanted to live in a place where they could do whatever they wanted, where they could have normal lives with regular jobs that only required regular working hours.

She wanted to take him far, far away from here.

But first, I wanted to tell you that I love you, I love you, I love you.

“Not really, but I want to kick your for sitting out here by yourself. Are you insane? All it takes is one crazy fan girl and you are done for. Get inside, I’ll be there in a bit,”

Drive away, Ara, don’t look into his eyes, she warned herself.

“What are you waiting for?” She asked as he stood up and sauntered towards her car.

“My muffin?” He leaned against the car window and his newly dyed blonde hair shone in the morning sun. She took a shaky breath and the faintest whiff of his cologne reached her nose.

“You know I can just easily drive home right now if you’re going to be a pain like this,”

“You wouldn’t,” He said as he straightened up, the stupid smile still on his face, “You love me too much.”

She greeted everyone as she walked in to the set. Most of the people who worked there recognized her, and she handed the big bag of pastries she had gotten for everyone else to one of the coordis. She steeled herself when the producer of the show, Soo Jin, greeted her.

“Ara, why don’t you just work for me? You’re the only one who can handle Kris when he’s in one of his moods, we’re always so stressed out when he comes to work looking like he’d rather have his toenails ripped off than be here,” She looked behind her, where Ara could see Kris looking like someone just died, “I mean look at him, the rest of the boys would be horsing around an