Dizzy Debut

When you got back to your apartment after seeing HanJu safely home from the hospital, you were surprised to see that YongHwa was still there. You expected him to have stormed off as soon as you had taken off with HanJu after the fight, and started in fright when your eyes first landed on the figure of a man sitting on your sofa. Your hand leapt to your chest and you let out a quick and quiet "Ommo," until you realised who it was and your pulse soon steadied again. He didn't turn his head as you entered, nor when you closed the door or exclaimed at his presence. Because your apartment had been unlocked, it could have been anybody waiting there for you and you were quite worried about finding the unexpected in your apartment the whole ride home and your quick flight up the stairs. When you recognised the side profile of YongHwa's face, it was both a relief, and a new kind of anxiety which followed. Perhaps he realised his mistake in accusing you of kissing HanJu and decided to stay and wait for you to makeup and apologise. You cautiously stepped over the threshold and tiptoed down the hall to stand at the edge of the sitting area. Now that you were closer, you noticed that YongHwa's eyes were shut as he rested his head back on your sofa's backrest. He looked so peaceful, so handsome just sleeping there, you didn't want to have to wake him. However, in light of everything that had happened tonight, you knew you had to wake him to see how things were sitting with him now. You cleared your throat, but he still did not stir. So you hesitantly walked over to him and touched his arm gently so that he finally stirred at the contact.

YongHwa's eyes fluttered open in lazy surprise. It seemed he did not expect to fall asleep there on the couch and be caught out like this, caught off guard. His deep dark eyes flickered to you and then back again, as he pulled his arm away from your touch in a slow forward stretch. He groggily wiped at his mouth and cricked his fingers above his head with a deep intake of breath. Your stomach was in knots as you waited for him to waken properly. Something told you things weren't going to go well between the two of you. Perhaps you could tell from YongHwa's demeanour, which was too sedate, too indifferent to your presence. You half expected it to diminish as soon as he woke properly, but when he still didn't smile at you when he finally turned his head to regard you, your heart fell flat within your chest and you realised he still wasn't impressed. His face was blank as if he had no feeling towards you at all. Somehow, that hurt more than when he was angry with you. You preferred him to react strongly towards you, even if it was negative, rather than have no reaction at all. It was as if the two of you were strangers like this. "Oh, you're home." He finally said in a bored tone. Without waiting for your answer, he stood up.

"Neh," you replied, turning to face him as he went to walk past you. "The nurses took care of HanJu well. I just came back after dropping him back to his home. He'll be okay..." You trailed off as YongHwa continued to walk towards your door without looking at you. Was he just going to ignore you? Your eyes widened, frightened at the sudden change in your lover. His indifference was suffocating. "Do you still think that I kissed him?"

YongHwa stopped at your door as he reached it. He stood there with his back to you for a few very long painful seconds, seconds which felt like minutes or hours. "That's what I saw." He replied finally, in a soft voice which made it seem like his voice was disappearing altogether.

"I don't think you saw properly," you snapped, your voice uneven. Your eyes burned as if they were about to well into tears, you wanted to stop them just before that happened. You hated that he was thinking this way about you. If he saw it, he should have understood it. "When HanJu kissed me, I pushed him away. Where were you looking if you couldn't see that?" Damn. One tear pricked your eye and trickled down your cheek, followed by another straight after. It was too hard to keep them from falling. You wiped them away with your sleeve with an indignant sniff. They were getting in your way. You felt YongHwa would just give up on you and leave if you started crying now.

"Why was he here with you at one in the morning, in your apartment?" came YongHwa's faint voice. He still hadn't turned around, but he hadn't lifted his hand to the door handle yet. "The two of you... here... alone... hugging?" His voice choked on the last word and you looked to him sharply, unable to glean any more of his emotion as you could not see his face.

You sniffed and stared at the back of his head, your mind whirling. You couldn't believe this was happening. Did YongHwa suspect you of meeting HanJu in secret? "H-he came to visit me while I was sleeping," you blurted desperately. "I was... He wanted to apologise for everything so I let him in." It was getting harder and harder to form coherent sentences let alone argue your case. Why should you have a case to argue? It was hurting you too much that YongHwa didn't just trust in you better, you couldn't focus on convincing him properly. But that was basically what happened, what more did you have to say?

"You let a strange man into your apartment at one in the morning," said YongHwa in a tone which made your heart sink, "just because he wanted you to?"

You shook your head, not that he could see. You were frustrated. Why did he make it sound like you were being naive, stupid and untrustworthy? "He wanted to apologise!" More tears started falling down your cheeks and you rubbed angrily at your face with your sleeve. Stop crying! It isn't helping!

"He wanted to apologise so you let him hug and kiss you?" YongHwa looked down at the floor. He seemed resigned about something, it made you panic.

"It was a goodbye hug!" you cried out, overcome with your emotions now. You had your face in your hands to try and stop the streaming of tears. Your voice was thick with anguish. "I had no idea he was going to try and kiss me!" You added between sobs.

YongHwa slowly brought his hand up to the door knob of your apartment door.

"Anduweh! Listen to me, YongHwa!" you ran forward, but stopped just short of him. You didn't have the courage to hold onto him. The back of him was too intimidating, not being able to see his face this whole time. You were scared. What if he rejected you and threw you off? Even if he was just to shrug you off, it would shatter your heart into pieces. You stopped with your hand reached out to him, but not touching him. He had paused again, you supposed to hear your last words before he would leave. "I didn't want this! It was all just a surprise!"

YongHwa sighed and looked up at the ceiling. His shoulders were shuddering, you  thought you heard a stifled strangled sound coming from him but you weren't so sure. His voice was as thick as yours when he answered you for the last time. "When a man comes to visit his girl and sees that she's accepted  another man to come into her place in the middle of the night, only to find them embracing, to see him kiss her... And when she doesn't seem to fight him off, in fact she doesn't even seem that bothered. She doesn't try to explain herself, she only defends that man and rushes to his side... Then the man who thought he had that girl, wonders... if she's even his girl at all."

At his words you felt your outstretched arm fall back to your side. All the life seeming to have escaped you and left you with no energy, out all your willpower and numbing you to any further emotion. "No..." you breathed, and that was all you seemed to be able to say as you stared at the fuzzy figure in front of you, your eyes blurred with tears. That fuzzy figure moved to the side, and was then blocked by a solid darkness which soon consumed the entire room. YongHwa stepped out of your apartment and closed your door behind him, all you could do was stare dumbly as he did so. His footsteps faded away, and with each step you wished your body would move and grab hold of him of its own accord. You wished his footsteps would stop, turn and come back to you. Neither of these things happened, and soon it was just silence out in the corridor. He had really gone. You were alone, and you were miserable. Why couldn't he just have more faith in you? It wasn't as he had thought he had seen it... Why couldn't he just have opened his eyes that much wider? You slumped down the back of the door and succumbed entirely to your tears.

......................................................................

Over the next few days you are utterly swamped with work commitments as your debut is only around the corner. Most of the time you spend with MinHyuk, working on the duet together and another cover piece the company had also given the two of you to work on together. The stylists meet with you and evaluate your profile, face, hair and outfit options for the upcoming show that is only days away. Your nerves are growing more and more as the days whirl by, and everything starts becoming so much more real now that your performances have really come together and preparations are being made in how you will be dressed. You have barely had time to think about YongHwa let alone try to meet up with him. The two of you have not been in any contact whatsoever since your misunderstanding with HanJu at your apartment a few nights ago. There was undoubtedly a hole in your chest as you went about your growingly busy schedule, but there was not much you could do about that at the moment as it was the worst timing for you. In the lonely nights in which you would flop into your bed through exhaustion from the day's work, you would reach for your phone and check that you hadn't missed any messages from him. You were always hopeful yet slightly worried. A message from him could go two ways, the way he seemed to be thinking. But there was never anything, and eventually you stopped looking.

The day before the performance you and MinHyuk attend dress rehearsals early in the morning, and you are all but tripping everywhere in your ridiculous sparkling high heels your makeup noonas had insisted on you getting used to. You had continuously reminded them you are a rock and roll style star, not a diva like all those other dance and singing girl groups, but it seems nobody is listening to you around here. You sigh and resign yourself to what you are given, obviously you are not a big enough act yet for people to really care how you feel about your outfits or your image.

MinHyuk tries speaking up on your behalf, watching you staggering around and cringing at the sheer height and pain of them, he couldn't bear to watch it himself. His charming appeal to the makeup and fashion department earned you some slightly thicker, slightly shorter heels. It made a small difference, and although you would have preferred to not wear any heels of the sort, but much rather some elegant leather rocker boots, you were grateful to MinHyuk for taking the edge off at least. He smiled at you sweetly with a pat on your back, "Anything for you, noona. Those shoes looked way too painful. I don't understand how girls can wear them."

You laughed at MinHyuk's adorable comment. "Me neither, MinHyuk-ah, me neither."

At that moment the rest of the CN BLUE members entered the performance hall. Tall and gangly JungShin was noticeable right away as he strolled into the room, looking around at the vast size of the hall, the hundreds of chairs and the fancy lights that were being set up. JongHyun was beside him, not quite as tall but definitely graceful and well built in his own right. He was looking to the points of the room that JungShin was pointing out to him. They had big grins on their faces, as if they weren't used to performing in places as big as this every other time they had an event. It seemed they had never lost their humble appreciation for these things even after becoming such a big act. Even after travelling the world on tour, they were still blown away by a typical Korean concert hall. You supposed that magic would never die down for a true performer. However your eyes had flicked instantly to YongHwa the moment you recognised who had walked through that door. He was the shortest out of all of them, but to you he was definitely the most handsome. Today was no exception. In fact he seemed even more handsome than usual, and you wondered if that was just because you hadn't seen him in a few days. His mop of thick straight black hair framed his face perfectly, cutting under his strong jaw and flicking up at the top and sides. His pale face was radiating a beauty that didn't seem fit for a man, especially with those amazing plump heart-shaped lips. Your heart faltered as those soft heart lips pursed and enclosed around the straw of his coffee drink he was holding. Your heart further ascended into frenzy mode as his beautifully large brown eyes looked up from his drink and straight at you. It was as if he knew you were looking at him all along and only waited for this moment to meet your stare.

You looked away instantly, your cheeks burning. In your heels you lost your balance and MinHyuk quickly grabbed your elbow as you toppled to the side. If your cheeks had just been burning, now they had to be on scorching fire. Why did that have to happen as soon as YongHwa had to be here to see you? You had been doing so well with these burdensome shoes up until now.

At the sight of you toppling in your heels, the three other members of CN BLUE came dashing over. MinHyuk straightened you back up again and you thanked him quietly and shamefacedly as JungShin and JongHyun fussed over you, YongHwa looking concerned but saying nothing as he went back to sipping his coffee through the straw. Those lips... You shook yourself. Get a grip.

"What have they dressed you in, ________?" JongHyun looked you up and down as you shifted uncomfortably. "This isn't your normal look at all! Did they get your clothes mixed up with one of the dance groups?" He sniggered, and you realised he was poking fun at you in his own gentle way.

You lifted your chin, grasping at any pride you had left. "Perhaps. Doesn't it look good on me, JongHyun-ah?" You ran your fingers nervously over your torso, attempting to flatten out the creases in your shiny skin-tight dress. It was also very short, a lot shorter than you were used to. It felt weird showing off this much of your legs. Under the boys' gazes that feeling was only magnified tenfold.

JongHyun gulped and gave you an awkward smile. JungShin just openly stared at you and the way you were running your hands along your hips. You noticed the affect and stopped immediately, clasping your hands in front of you instead. YongHwa had a dark look on his face, he let out a huff and quietly regarded his band members, aggressively at his coffee. He coughed suddenly, as some got caught in his throat. JongHyun gave him a thump on the back and YongHwa soon went back to sipping his coffee. It made you think of a baby with his pacifier.

"Everything looks good on you, noona," JungShin replied, and JongHyun nodded. He looked at the tallest member gratefully. "Even if it's bright and flashy disco style!" At this you rolled your eyes.

"Neh," JongHyun smiled that charming smile you had missed over the past few hectic days. "Just don't forget who you are." You never got over how much his eyes twinkled whenever he smiled.

"Our cool noona is the best," added JungShin. He rocked on his heels and looked around the room, as easily distracted as ever. "Pwah, they're really putting in a lot of effort for you. Look at the size of those lights!"

The four of you followed his gaze. It was true, lights that took four people to carry were being connected to the ceiling and turned to face the stage. They were interestingly shaped and seemed to include ever colour of the rainbow. Definitely the kind of lights you would expect to find at a seriously big concert. You felt a bubble of nerves tickle your stomach in an unpleasant way, along with that feeling some colour drained from your face.

YongHwa's gaze came back to you first, he brought it around in that slow lazy way he used to do when the two of you first started meeting, and you had found him both unreachable and infuriating. "Kwenchana?" His question surprised you. Did he still care about you? That was the first you'd seen since before all the media trouble started - which you had learned by now had been settled again. This knowledge having been obtained through following the trend online and talking with other artists in passing when you weren't interrogating MinHyuk during practice.

"Neh, kwenchana," you replied awkwardly. "Komowo." You bowed your head, unable to look YongHwa in the eye. He was looking at you so directly, unwavering, forcing all of that powerful exterior onto you with an intention you did not understand. However his face was expressionless. It was even more noticeable next to his cheerful, smiling band mates. You couldn't bear to look into those eyes any longer than you had to. It brought you both pain and confusion, reminding you of your shared unresolved issues you wished you could address.

The rest of the band members didn't seem to pick up on the forced attitude you and YongHwa had with each other. However you felt it was less of YongHwa being particularly awkward, most of that feeling seemed to be coming from you. YongHwa was cool, calm and collected. He was also unreadable. While he wasn't as chatty as his band members, he was subtle enough to go unnoticed by all of them apart from you. It was dizzying being in his company, and not being able to address the issues you so desperately wanted to resolve only made it harder for you to keep up your carefree mask. You wondered if he felt the same way as you. It didn't seem likely, the way he was acting. He was too aloof, too complacent in his demeanour. If anything, it seemed that he no longer cared what went on between the two of you. It was as if you had both just gone back to being acquaintances. Not even friends.

MinHyuk and JongHyun were relaying a story to you, and it just finished as you returned to the conversation in fine timing, tuning back to the present in time to laugh politely where they expected you to. You had no idea what they just said but they were all treating it as something with an amazing punch line so you did too. You cringed at your own fake laugh but nobody seemed to notice. Well, maybe the one that thought he knew you the most did catch on because he caught your eye and raised his eyebrows.

"I don't think she actually gets it," YongHwa observed, as you looked around awkwardly while the rest of the boys continued laughing at their little joke you had completely missed. You cursed yourself for getting too caught up in your own thoughts only to be noticed by the one person who had caused it in the first place.

"Jincha?" MinHyuk nudged you playfully with a pout. "What part did you not understand, noona?" But you were saved as a staff member came over to fetch you and MinHyuk for another run-through of your stage entry and introductions speech. You gladly excused yourself and went with MinHyuk behind the curtains to listen again to your directions, praising yourself on a near perfect walk in your heels from the boys, across the stage to the closeted safety of the curtains. Graceful enough, you thought happily.

You breathed a sigh of relief to be out of that awkward situation. You had missed the boys, but you wished you could see them without YongHwa being there. In turn, you also wished you could see YongHwa on his own. If only there were a way of getting him on his own just by coincidence. You knew there was no chance of that today. CN BLUE always stuck to their leader like glue while they were working. Like faithful hounds, like a spirit gang. There was never one without the other. MinHyuk was only separated from them now because he had working business which took him out of the equation for a short time. His place was at your side until your debut was a thing of the past and everyone could breathe easily again at your smooth transition from nobody or newbie to somebody special.

After the run-through, you re-emerged from behind the curtains cautiously and relaxed when you noticed CN BLUE were no longer there. They had been pulled away somewhere else around the venue to receive their own instructions before they would undergo a sound-check. You and MinHyuk had already done all that, having been the first to arrive for the day, and your work here was done. You said your goodbyes to MinHyuk and he went off to find the rest of his band members so he could go through the same process with them as he had done with you all morning.

Feeling like you were in need of some R&R you trudged out onto the street to catch a cab to your apartment and rest for the remainder of the evening. You needed to be well-rested for tomorrow's performance. It was to be your first official public appearance for the company. Debut time was finally here, and you were both excited and anxious. There was a little bit of fear there, but that was to be expected as you had never done anything this big before. It would have been a lot worse if you were completely on your own. But even though you no longer had YongHwa with you for those first few terrifying moments on stage, on live television at that, at least you still had MinHyuk. You were glad things had worked out this way in the end. You couldn't imagine how difficult it would have been for you to have to perform with YongHwa after the fight you guys had had in your apartment. You had to put that out of your mind for now. It was Showtime.

The next day you were out of bed before the crack of dawn. You were too nervous for breakfast so you ate half a piece of toast and otherwise drowned yourself in coffee, and red ginseng tea, and even chamomile... Anything to get the energy up and the nerves down. You got to the concert venue early, and whipped out your borrowed red acoustic guitar that had been put by for you as soon as you arrived. Like a woman on a mission you practiced hard long before other artists started rolling in, most of them stopping to praise you on your dedication and to wish you luck on your debut. There were a few others performing in this concert with you tonight. You and MinHyuk would be performing two songs together, then you would be performing one of your own songs by yourself; though MinHyuk would still be there on stage with you and this gave you the reassurance you needed. However your performances would be towards the end of the show, making people wait in suspense for your appearance. Before that the other artists would perform some of their popular songs just to set the mood and keep the crowd happily in waiting, CN BLUE included in the line-up of course. You tried to forget that YongHwa would be there behind the curtain watching you. Any thoughts concerning YongHwa you pushed angrily from your mind. The debut had to go smoothly, that's all you had to worry about. Thinking about YongHwa only seemed to make you dizzy, and that's all you didn't need for your debut day.

Six o'clock rolled around and the concert began. CN BLUE came as a group to wish you luck, but for the rest of the concert they had to wait on the other side of backstage with their similar line-ups. Just as yesterday, JongHyun, JungShin and MinHyuk had been their friendliest chirpiest selves with you, and their leader was back to his old stoic dark beauty self as he was in the early days. At least he had the decency to wish you luck with the others. Even if it was rather quiet and half-hearted in comparison with the others. Today you couldn't care about things like that, you could analyse his behaviour later. After CN BLUE had done performing their first round of singles, MinHyuk came around to your side backstage and practiced with you a couple of times before boosting you up for your performance. You were ready, you knew these songs like the back of your own hand by now and you felt good in general about how things were going to pan out. You were due to be on in five minutes. You took a deep breath, stilling your nerves relatively successfully for now. Your mind was clear, you were gradually moving into the zone where you knew you could focus.

As you were in the middle of centring yourself and working through your breaths, someone touched your arm and you half turned, eyes still on the stage, thinking it was MinHyuk. "Mmmm?"

"________, you'll do great out there. I know you will."

It wasn't MinHyuk's voice, so you turned around slowly to gaze at YongHwa with wide eyes.

He unexpectedly grabbed your hand and pried open your fingers. You felt something small and soft being pressed into your hand. It felt slightly waxy, some parts of it spiky but delicate. You didn't tear your eyes away from his meaningful ones until he finally gave you the faintest of smiles and disappeared again. Your heart was pounding. Your head was whirling. You clutched at whatever it was in your hand but you were too surprised at the sudden close proximity of the one you had missed so desperately these past few days to look down at it. He was here... and then he was gone. Just like that... What was that smile? That beautiful angelic smile... Had you imagined him smiling at you? So much for keeping  that dizzy feeling at bay. Thank you very much Jung YongHwa for ruining that progress! Your breaths had become unsteady all over again.

MinHyuk came up behind you then and grabbed you by the hand. He grabbed onto the same hand which was holding whatever it was YongHwa had given you, and at the surprise of someone else touching your hand you opened it and dropped what you were holding. Immediately you whirled to look at MinHyuk, and he grinned at you with all the encouragement in the world. You vaguely returned the smile but looked around quickly at your feet for the mysterious token. You couldn't see anything in the dark of the backstage steps, and then it was too late as the announcer then called out your name. It was time. You jerked upright and stared right ahead like you had been poked up the behind by a hot iron. You couldn't have been any less ready. And with that, MinHyuk gripped you tightly by the hand and pulled you with him to the cheers of the crowds below. Oh god, oh god, oh god. YongHwa of all the time in the day...

______________________________________________________________________________

YongHwa P.O.V.

When you walked out on stage, the eruption of applause was deafening. YongHwa felt an unexpected wave of pride as he watched you gracefully make your way to the middle of the stage where your guitar was sitting in waiting for you to come and claim it. They loved you already, just seeing you walking out on stage next to MinHyuk, so full of confidence, defiance, that elegant beauty that you naturally possessed but tried to hide with your more side had them adoring you. Well maybe YongHwa was speaking for himself with those specific details, but there still was no doubt that they seemed to adore you anyway. The cheering, the shouts and screams, that pure positive noise was all for you. Everyone had been on pins waiting to hear you perform. He wished it was him up there with you, and a part of him was still jealous of MinHyuk. But he had no animosity for his drummer he had worked and lived with for the past few years, and he knew you were in good hands. It was just his bad luck things had panned out this way, nothing more.

He looked at your hand now, to see if you were still holding what he had given you. Your hand was empty. His heart plummeted. What did that mean? Did you throw it away? Suddenly the saliva in YongHwa's throat seemed to dry out and he couldn't swallow properly. He didn't know what he would do if you rejected his token, for in it, he had displayed a piece of his heart to you. The thing was; he didn't want you to go on stage, this big moment of your life, thinking that he didn't care about you. So no matter how furious he was with you about the whole HanJu situation, he could deal with that later. What mattered right now was that you were experiencing one of the most memorable moments of your life, and he knew exactly what it felt like to walk on stage for the very first time, to a crowd of this size. It was utterly nerve-wracking, even to most artists dozens of performances after, it was still nerve-wracking. He knew you were particularly worried about this performance. All those times he had to steady you during your practice sessions, when the two of you were still working together. He wanted you to know that, even though you and him were fighting, he was still there supporting you. He would always be behind you. In turn, he also wanted to know if you acknowledged his feelings... But where was it?

End Chapter Seventeen