K I M C H I - 01

April 21st, 2014

And there I was again, waiting for famous SungGyu on his not-so-famous rooftop. It was late, and even though it had been a warm spring Monday, it had started to cool down ever since sunset. I was glad to have brought my sweater with me; otherwise I might have caught a cold in the ever-present breeze of the rooftop.
 
SungGyu was – as always – the last customer of the day. It just kind of happened to turn out this way. With his schedules running until late in the night, and then wanting to talk to me without me having to rush off to the next customer, we settled for making him the last delivery whenever he orderd.
 
My stomach grumbled loudly, as if reminding me that I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet – let alone dinner.
 
Impatiently, I put our two servings of jjajangmyun down and made myself comfortable, crossing my legs Indian style. SungGyu wouldn't mind if i started early, I decided, taking the wrapping film off of my serving. A small cloud of steam evaded the plate, and filled the air with the scent of my uncle’s ever so delicious black bean paste.
 
I my lips in anticipation, and just as I was about to dig in for the first bite, I heard the heavy door to the rooftop open.
 
"Yah, MinAe, wait for me," SungGyu panted.
 
"Then hurry up, will you," I greeted him back, "I'm starving-"
 
He laughed. “I spent ten hours rehearsing our new choreography, I’d bet all my money that I am more starved than you.”
 
“I spent half the day listening to my professors at uni and then I had to make deliveries to places so far away I even had to look them up on Naver Maps,” I retorted. “Wanna swap?”
 
“Hm, let me think about it,” SungGyu sat down next to me, and ran his ring finger along his sweaty fringe. “Nope.”
 
He was wearing what I called his favourite dance rehearsal clothes – grey Thom Browne sweatpants, an oversized Givenchy T-Shirt and a pair of Balmain high top sneakers. [A/N: I posted pictures of him wearing the items at the end of the chapter]
 
“Ew, did you even shower after practise?”
 
“Do I look like I had time for that?” SungGyu defended himsef, raising his hands in defence. “Look at you, I barely made it to the rooftop before you started eating all by yourself! Besides, my sweat smells nice.”
 
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?” I remarked sarcastically.
 
He shrugged. “Well, truthfully speaking, it doesn’t smell at all. Is that my portion?” he pointed toward the plate between us.
 
“Yup,” I deadpanned. “Can I eat now?”
 
"See, it wasn’t that hard to wait for me, right?" he chuckled, and tore open his serving. "Hm, I've been looking forward to this for days...."
 
I raised an eyebrow. "But you just had it exactly one week ago."
 
SungGyu flashed me a smile. "That's how good it is, for me to already crave it like this. Still no chance of your uncle giving me the recipe?"
 
I shook my head no, and swallowed. "You can't cook for the life of you, anyways."
 
"You have a point there," he grinned smugly, not bothering about his jjajangmyun-tinted teeth. "But I have about enough money to have someone cook for me. Besides, I’m the leader, so I shouldn’t have to cook anyways. I could just order the boys around if I need to."
 
As I tried not to laugh, I got a piece of noodle caught up in my trachea and instead ended up coughing helplessly. SungGyu's grin grew even bigger as he proceeded to pat my back.
 
"Easy, girl, don't hurt yourself."
 
"Thanks," I coughed, feeling my eyes fill with tears.
 
SungGyu waited for me to regain my composure, while diligently patting my back.
 
"You're so hopeless, sometimes," he said, faking defeat in his voice.
 
Despite my tear-induced eyes, I still managed to shoot him a death glare, to which he responded with a wink.
 
We proceeded to eat our meal, but before we could finish SungGyu went all business on me: "The reason I actually ordered jjajangmyun today was to talk about next week's order...."
 
"Okay?"
 
He handed me a piece of paper, adding: “Here’s everything I need. Can you tell me what you can get, and how much I should pay in advance?"
 
As I took a look at the note, I couldn't help notice his neat handwriting. Actually, I had never seen his handwriting before, I reckoned – one of the many details in which our friendship lacked common sense. "Did you write this?"
 
"What?" he asked in confusion.
 
"Look at the letters, I always took you for the messy handwriter.”
 
As he understood where I was coming from, his confusion turned into a hearty laugh. "You have never seen my handwriting, right?"
 
I nodded. “It’s not like we go to university together, right?”
 
"Well, this is MyungSoo's. He complained nobody would be able to read it if I wrote it, so he wrote it down again, once we were done deciding on what to order," SungGyu chuckled. "But good to know that you think I’m the messy one, when usually it’s MyungSoo whose room is a mess."
 
I laughed, trying to imagine MyungSoo’s messy room. Although I didn’t know too much about the visual, I knew that it didn’t exactly suit his image. The awkward memory of MyungSoo staring at me like I was a sasaeng fan crept up my spine. Why, thank you, SungGyu, for ordering jjajangmyun without even being at home. Luckily, already half a year had passed since then. (Remember when I told you? I only knew MyungSoo except for SungGyu – well, that one time I met MyungSoo… let’s just say it had been awkward.)
 
SungGyu nodded toward the paper, jolting me off my thoughts. "So?"
 
I scanned over the bullet points that MyungSoo had written down. "I'll have to give it to my uncle for a definite answer, though I don't think it will be a problem. I'll tell him you're a friend of mine, so you won't need to pay in advance.”
 
"Thanks," SungGyu grinned, showing me a peace sign.  
 
"You owe me big time, for everything till now," I teased. “Where would you be without me and my jjajangmyun.”
 
"I'll sing at your wedding," he offered blatantly, shoving jjajangmyun into his mouth. “How about Man in Love?”
 
"Really?" I deadpanned, raising my right eyebrow at the thought of having Man In Love being played live at my wedding. I barely remembered the song; all I could recall was SungGyu whining about having to wear cheesy pastel colored clothes for their promotions. "Stealing away all the attention from my husband is how you want to repay me?"
 
He chuckled. "Well, if you put it like that....wait,“ he pointed his chopsticks at me, suddenly realizing something. ”So you think I can steal away your attention from your husband? On your wedding?"
 
I rolled my eyes. "Boy."
 
As he contently grinned, mumbling something along the lines of “Finally she admitted that I’m famous” (which I decided to ignore), we finished our servings, and laid down at our usual spots, looking at the sky while having our feet just dangling over the edge.
 
"Has anyone ever told you that you eat a lot for a girl?" SungGyu suddenly teased.
 
I hit his stomach (lightly because I'm not that evil). "Shut up."
 
"And that you speak like a man," he added, rubbing where I hit him, but I heard a smile in his voice.
 
"I'll have my uncle mix chili powder into your birthday serving."
 
Apparently my threat worked because he didn't respond. Instead, we both comtemplated the view of the city at night. Seeing the prominent Namsan Tower being iluminated in various colours at the far end of Seoul always managed to make me feel at home.
 
"MinAe?" SungGyu interrupted the silence, looking at the sky.
 
"Yeah?"
 
He hesitated and scratched his neck. "Nah, forget it."
 
Now he had me curious. "What?"
 
"No, really...forget it."
 
I turned my head towards him, and caught him biting his lip. "Whaaat, tell me."
 
"Can you keep a secret?" he asked, turning his head my way, locking his unusually serious eyes with mine.
 
"As always, of course," I sighed at his unnecessary request. It was obviously not the first time he was about to tell me something I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone else. As far as I was concerned, asking me to keep a secret for him was a waste of breath. Since no one knew I knew SungGyu - or had ever met him even - no one would even believe me.
 
"No, I mean, can you keep this a secret from everybody, including the boys at my birthday?" he said sternly. "Especially WooHyun and SungYeol."
 
"Of course," I repeated, firmly. But my thoughts wandered off to how naturally he had said that I would be present at his birthday. I still had to ask him if he had finally gotten the OK from his manager to let me take part on this special day of his.
 
He cleared his throat, only to fall silent again.
 
I decided to not interrupt his train of thought by asking about his birthday, and instead looked back at the sky, tracing the lights of an airplane flying above us.
 
After what felt like half an hour, he eventually started speaking again: "SungYeol has had a girlfriend for about two months now..."
 
What?
 
"Ooh," I managed to say, after overcoming the surprise. I turned my head, only to face his profile, his eyes shut closed. He must’ve been really stressed about his group's image, I figured. How cute. "But isn't that good news for SungYeol?" I tried to reason.
 
"Yes and no," he sighed, and then guiltily looked back at me. "I kind of need your advice."
 
"Sure. Although I have no idea how I could help.”
 
SungGyu shook his head: "Him dating…that's not what I am worried about...well, I am, but it's not my biggest problem... “ He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, obviously at a loss for words. “Uhm, I don't know if I should tell you this, but please, whatever you do, keep this to yourself."
 
I supressed the urge to roll my eyes. "I promise."
 
"WooHyun had already been crushing on her for about a year," SungGyu said, lowering his voice, "and you can imagine, the atmosphere is not too good now..."
 
What?
 
"Wow," I uttered, imagining the triangle. "How did that happen?"
 
"She's the niece of our dance instructor," SungGyu said, as if that explained everything.
 
We both shared a minute in silence, before he started talking again: "I just really don't know what to do. I mean, SungYeol is very happy with her, and that's something he hasn't been for a few years now. He always stressed about his singing abilities and not keeping up with the rest of us...you know, he has even had a bunch of people hating on him, telling him to leave Infinite,” SungGyu sighed. “She is good for him....but we all knew WooHyun has had a thing for her since forever."
 
I tried to picture how WooHyun must have felt when he found out his group member snatched his crush away, ignoring his feelings for her and also their friendship. I could only imagine that it wasn’t exactly a nice feeling. But honestly, I didn’t know much about WooHyun; I just guessed he was one of the easier members to cope with, since SungGyu barely ever mentioned him when asking for my advice.
 
"WooHyun never approached her because he always knew that any kind of dating scandal might scar our image," SungGyu continued. "I feel kind of bad for him."
 
I nodded. "It's kind of messed up..."
 
"Very! And the worst thing is, he can't even be mad at SungYeol because she totally chased him for three months before he eventually agreed to date her. And, like I said, he's really happy so you can't really hold a grudge. He tried to apologize to WooHyun, but WooHyun being himself, he just played everything down and they couldn't really have any heart to heart conversation."
 
"Oh, man…so are your managers approving of them?"
 
SungGyu snorted. "As if. But they can't forbid it, either. We already passed the dating-ban-time. And since she is kind of part of the entertainment, it's impossible to keep her out. She sometimes helps her father with some choreography steps; like, when he is showing us new moves which include two people, she assists him. She's the one that came up with the hand-movements to Be Mine."
 
He made the famous gesture, as if wanting to show me.
 
“So, WooHyun has a crush on SungYeols girlfriend, and she obviously chased SungYeol. And WooHyun is now feeling unfair, and not really talking to SungYeol? But, as you said, SungYeol is actually happy?” I tried to sum up the situation.
 
SungGyu nodded, scratching his neck. “Yeah, roughly. You just missed the part where WooHyun dumped HyeMi despite actually liking her because…well, idol-reasons.”
 
Wait – what?
 
“HyeMi. The girl is called HyeMi," SungGyu explained, looking pained. "SungYeol tried to console her, she was really down. I guess that’s when she noticed SungYeol. Doesn’t help the situation, because WooHyun kind of blames himself for the whole mess.”
 
“Well,” I deadpanned, “that escalated quickly.”

"You don't say," SungGyu commented flatly.

I tried to recollect the information: "So HyeMi liked WooHyun and he liked her back, but he dumped her for the sake of Infinite?"

SungGyu nodded "And then she was devastated, but somehow SungYeol managed to get involved by trying to cheer her up, and then she started chasing after him."

"But he didn't really react until after three months," I continued, "Out of respect for WooHyun and for Infinite?"
 
"But you know Yeol, his nickname is choding for a reason..." SungGyu groaned. “Can you imagine what would happen if this ever leaked? WooHyun would be suicidal. He’d think it was his fault to begin with. It was bad enough when MyungSoo’s scandal got out – WooHyun already blamed himself for not stopping him, when in fact he had been the only one who ever really tried to talk MyungSoo out of it – despite knowing that MyungSoo is the most stubborn out of us.”
 
SungGyu covered his eyes with his right arm. “Sometimes it being the leader. I wish I could be like SungJong, occassionally taking care of the one or other thing and getting 20 times more credits for it because it wasn’t my job to begin with.”
 
I nudged his side. “Hey, you’re doing a great job.” I had rarely seen him this desperate. Only twice, to be exact – when his album flopped and when the whole MyungSoo-scandal broke out.
 
He laughed bitterly. “Compared to?”
 
“The many other idol leaders that I visit on regular basis,” I joked, trying to cheer him up. “I’ve gotten quite famous, you know.”
 
SungGyu laughed, but it sounded forced.
 
I sighed. “Have you tried talking to WooHyun?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“And?”
 
“He told me it was none of my business.”
 
“But aren’t you their leader?”
 
SungGyu sighed in exasperation. “You tell him that. Sometimes I wonder who is worse at being stubborn – him or MyungSoo.”
 
“Hm…well…”
 
SungGyu laughed, and this time it sounded less forced. “Dito.”
 
“Who is the closest member to WooHyun?”
 
SungGyu pushed himself up on his elbows, shaking his head. “Me.”
 
“Oh,” I couldn’t help but sigh. I had been hoping to advice him on letting WooHyun’s closest member talk to him. Obviously, that wasn’t an option.
 
“But I guess DongWoo has been taking care of him a bit more than usual as of lately.”
 
Well, that was certainly something I could finally work with. “Have you talked to DongWoo?”
 
SungGyu buried his head between his hands. “He said to just leave them be and give them time.”
 
“But that’s not an option, I guess?” I elaborated from his reaction.
 
“You should go and see them at practice. Like today. Usually we get a lot done after ten hours of training but today was a complete disaster. The reason you had to wait for me was because SungJong wanted to talk to me about WooHyun and SungYeol. Otherwise I would’ve been in time and would’ve had showered, of course.”
 
“And if you talk to the girl? What was her name again? Hye…?”
 
“HyeMi. Yeah, the thing is, she has been avoiding me. I tried getting her number from SungYeol and WooHyun but both refused. And all of our managers are kind of angry with me for not keeping the boys at bay and I can’t exactly ask the CEO.”
 
I leaned over the railing, and looked down at the street below us. “Well, to be you.”
 
“You don’t say.”

“And HyeMi is an okay person? I mean, changing so quickly from WooHyun to SungYeol seems kind of…” I struggled at a loss for words. I didn’t want to use the word-

“Cheap?“ SungGyu finished off my sentence. “She’s trustworthy. We’ve known her for quite a few years. I personally think that she’s a good person.”

I raised an eyebrow, but well, if SungGyu gave the girl an okay who was I to judge?
 
“I’ll try to think of something,” I said apologetically, “but I actually am out of ideas.”
 
SungGyu groaned. “You’re not the only one…”
 
We remained in silence, and watched the nocturnal hustle and bustle of the city, feeling somewhat left out of normal life. I really felt sorry for SungGyu – having relationship issues with people close to oneself was hard enough  – adding the many restrictions and difficulties idols had to face concerning love-related issues was certainly nothing I envied him for.
 
I was about to get up and say goodbye to SungGyu – since it was way past midnight already and I needed to get up early for classes the next day – when he suddenly turned around to face me.
 
"Give me your cell phone," SungGyu demanded, holding out his hand, a sly grin dancing on his lips.
 
"What?" I was sceptical about his sudden change of mood. Hadn’t he been all gloomy just now?
 
"Just give it already," he winked at me. "I'll give it right back to you."
 
Since I kind of felt sorry for the troubles he was going through, and also I didn't want to spoil his sudden good mood, I handed him my Samsung Galaxy S4. I had a screenlock anyways.

What I didn’t expect was that he unlocked it in a matter of seconds.
 
"You have your birthday as screen lock?" he asked incredulously, already typing something into my phone.
 
"Shut up," I snapped, but then realized. "Wait, you know my birthday?"
 
"Sure, your uncle called you last year in october when we were sitting here, eating, and he asked you to take an extra shift the day after, but you refused to work on your birthday,” he shrugged. “Sorry I didn't say anything, I didn't want to sound like a stalker."
 
I laughed, resisting the urge to snatch my phone back from him. Him being taller and stronger than me, it was futile to engage in a fight over my cellphone. Still, I eyed him wearily. SungGyu knew that he was dead meat if he did anything I didn't approve of with my phone. Knowing close to all of his idol secrets, I practically had him over a barrel.
 
Instead, I decided to carry on the conversation to maybe catch him off guard and snatch my phone back. Also, I had a feeling this was cheering him up. "But now it's okay to admit to being a stalker?"
 
He grinned, showing off his perfect white teeth. "Well, I am already stalking your cell phone's contact list, so..."
 
"Yah! You are so dead if you do anything embarrassing!"
 
He just chuckled. "Trust me, for once."
 
"We'll see how that works out," I said, eyeing his hands on my phone. "You done?"
 
"Just one second…" he said and I heard the faint sound of a call connecting.
 
"What are you doing? Who are you calling?" I got anxious. "I have customers saved in there, you're so dead if-"
 
I stopped mid-sentence as I heard the familiar uber-greasy ringtone of SungGyu's phone. Leave it to him to have an Infinite song as a ringtone.
 
Shigani ddo meomchoon geolggayo...
 
He smirked selfapprovingly, hung up on himself and handed me my phone. "Now I can text you as soon as I need your help on love triangle management."
 
"Your number?" I asked in disbelief. In the two years we had known each other we hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. I never asked because he was famous and whatnot, and I didn’t want to be repsonsible for his number being stolen from my phone; it was basically always him calling me at my uncle’s jjajangmyun store anyways.
 
He nodded. "Please don't sell it. It's annoying having to switch numbers."
 
I grinned, looking down at my cell phone. "Depends on your behaviour... wait - what?"
 
SungGyu Oppa [speed dial #1]
 
He started laughing at my startled face. "Sorry, could not resist."
 
"As if I'd ever call you oppa, boy," I smacked his right upper arm. "Look at you, getting advice from me, about every time we meet. What kind of shameless oppa are you?"
 
"Just change it if you like," he said. "I only wanted to see your reaction.”
 
I grumpled. “You’re not even that much older.”
 
“You looked up my age? Oh, an Inspirit in the making,” he teased me.
 
“Shut up.” I said, my cheeks betraying me by blushing. Of course I’d look him up. Since my parents always pushed me into studying, and also helping out my uncle at his store took up most of my time, I had never had the time to recklessly spend on the hallyu wave. I knew most of the groups because their songs were played about everywhere – but the only group I actually really got into was DongBangShinKi. And those were obvisouly not what they once had been. After I had delivered to SungGyu for the first time I had to google Infinite to find out he was their leader. Can’t blame me, though, Infinite hadn’t been that famous two years back.
 
“It’s only natural to be curious, you’d google me, too, if our roles were reversed,”  I defended myself.
 
SungGyu chuckled. “Actually, I did google you.”
 
“And?”
 
“Nothing.”
 
I laughed. “Well, can’t say that about you.”
 
SungGyu run his hand over his fringe. “Well…it could help if you told me your family name. I tried it with Jang, like your uncles, but I’m not too sure…“
 
I grinned mischievously, loving the advantage on personal information I had over him. "Won't tell."
 
"Please, I want to properly save you to my contacts," he begged.
 
“As if, you just want to google me!” I laughed, “But you can write jjajang as family name. As in jjajangmyun."
 
SungGyu groaned. "Come on, MinAe! That’s unfair!"
 
"What do I get in return?"
 
"You already have my cell-number and full name!”
 
"Goes to show how cheap you are, boy," I laughed, and earned a light smack on my head. "Yah! That hurts!"
 
“Do you know how many girls would kill for my number? Or getting hit on their head by me?" he asked, grinning smugly.
 
“Well, their numbers certainly don’t include me!” I whined, rubbing my head.
 
"Stop crying," he laughed, and crouched down next to me, suddenly holding up his cell phone. "Kimchiii~," he ordered.
 
I barely managed to confusedly gaze into the camera lens, when already the shutter went off.
 
"What?" A picture? Where did that come from? SungGyu had never taken pictures of us. Something about this recent change in behaviour definitely smelled fishy right there.
 
"I'll send it to you if you tell me your family name," SungGyu proposed, grinning slyly and hiding the screen from my eyes.
So that's where the fishy was coming from.
 
"Let me see!" I demanded, getting up.
 
"Family name," he repeated, giving me a half-crooked smile.
 
I grabbed for the cell-phone, but he easily held it out of my reach. "Let me see!"
 
"Nope."
 
"Yah."
 
"Family name." He was relentless.
 
"What are you going to do with the photo, anyways?" I changed topic.
 
He mused for a second, then a grin broke on his face.
 
This didn't look too good for me. I braced myself.
 
"I'll upload it to social media with directions to your uncle's jjajangmyun shop."
 
The sudden image of endless girls storming my uncle's jjajamgmyun shop, asking for me with the ulterior motif of killing me, came to mind. Why, no thank you.
 
"Cha! It's Cha," I helplessly confessed. "Please don't use your army of sassaeng fans to threaten me, they’re scary,” I added, crunching my teeth. "Unfair."
 
He just chuckled victoriously. "There, wasn't that easy?"
 
I just snorted. “That was a low blow, SungGyu. Knowing about MyungSoo’s ex, threatening me with releasing the photo is not funny.”
 
He chuckled mischievously. “Well, it worked.”
 
"Where's the picture?"
 
"I'll send it to you on Ka-To."
 
I raised an eyebrow. "Can I trust you?"
 
"Sure," he said, nodding vigorously.

“And you won’t upload it so social media?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”
 
"You better not abuse my trust."
 
"You know way too much for me to do anything you wouldn't like," he stated. "You don't even really need to trust me, just follow the nature of human logic..."
 
I rolled my eyes. "Really, who would actually care about me releasing news on DongWoo's hair malfunctions..."
 
"You would be surprised how many," SungGyu chuckled, safely tucking his cellphone away. “Let’s get some sleep, okay? I have a horrible schedule tomorrow.”

I nodded, and SungGyu helped me gather the empty dishes of our late-night dinner before saying goodbye.

Hey guys I am back, as promised! :)
Thanks a lot for all the new subscribers!!! :) Makes me really happy, and also, welcome to this story! I hope I can keep to your expectations ^^/

If you have any requests or wishes, maybe I can incorporate them, hihi :D

I hope you liked this SungGyu-filled chapter, I'll make sure to have him a regular in all chapters from now on. I just want to make this as real as possible, so I hope you can bear with me! ^^/ Only one more chapter to go, and MinAe will be helpless against the charms of our OT7~~ yes, SungGyu's birthday party is about to happen, and SungJong has a few ideas prepared to make it great :D (I'm already writing it, but wow, writing all seven boys interacting in one chapter sure is a challenge for me.)

Did you notice what I did there? Minor WooGyu moment with SungGyu having WooHyun's Solo as his ringtone.... /dies I know, I'm so cheesy. Plus, this fanfic is straight....mainly. Don't know what I will do to the others, though....hehe Click here for WooHyun - Time

Here are SungGyu's outfit essentials~~as promised (from left to right: Givenchy Shirt, Thom Browne Sweats and Balmain Sneakers)

And for those who care, this is the uber-cheesy Namsan Tower:

I've been watching It's okay it's love recently (since High School Love On always gets cancelled =.=) and it's such a fun drama, hihi~~ Can't lie that I'm excited over Lovely Girl taking over the time slot in little over a week, though~~)

See you next Friday, I'll upload the next chapter then! :)

XOXO, JaeRin - out