2010 . 02 . 01 – 10:32PM

“Try hitting it harder near the end of the hook.”

A figure nodded at the suggestion as she wiped off sweat trickling down her face.  She exhaled through and swung her arms, feeling them become heavier by each dance session.  She glanced around the room and noticed everybody else half-alive from practice.  Their long schedules were killer—each taking a toll on one another in their own way.

“Let’s just do one more and call it a night,” Victoria suggested as she sipped on her bottled water.  She tossed it to the rest of f(x)’s stuff in their general corner and walked back to the others.  She saw Amber practice the one part that was confusing her as she had suggested just now. 

“Hey,” she called out in Chinese.

The latter looked as a response.  “You’ll get it better with the music on,” Victoria said with a small smile.  The tomboy nodded and smiled back.

As Victoria ordered, the rest of f(x) conducted one more practice routine for their new and upcoming song, “NU ABO.”  Amber made sure to focus on hitting the move that she was having trouble with and fortunately enough, she hit it right on the money.  The others smiled, seeing the improvement. 

“Good job,” Sulli said with a bright smile.

“Haha, thanks,” Amber replied.

“I’ll go call our manager,” Victoria notified as she headed towards the direction of her and everybody else’s things.

Everyone gave out a unison of approval and they took seats on the floor in their place.

“I’m going to go use the bathroom before we leave,” Krystal announced after five minutes and got back up.

“Ooh,” Sulli said.  “I’ll come with.”

The two youngest left arm and arm—as the best friends they were.  Amber lied down, immediately spreading herself in a starfish position, releasing a deep breath of air through .  She could feel exhaustion take over and she could feel herself becoming comfortable with the idea of spending the night in the practice room—no covers or a pillow necessary.  The floor was fine for her.

“Amber,” Luna called out.  She scooted closer to the tomboy, placing herself directly next to Amber’s head.

Amber hummed a response, her eyes closed as she naturally allowed her breathing to catch up.

“Are you and Krystal alright?”

Amber opened her eyes a little too quickly at the sudden question.  She tried her best to keep a poker face, now making herself focus on a crack in the ceiling above them.

“What do you mean?” she asked nonchalantly.

Luna eyed the tomboy.  “I don’t know—I just noticed that you guys haven’t been really talking a lot.”

“Really?” Amber questioned, trying to keep her tone from changing.  She hummed a feign confusion.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  She sat up.  “I mean, we talk.” Amber paused for a second, remembering to be careful with her words.  “I didn’t think there was anything wrong.”

“Well yeah—I just wanted to check,” Luna said with a small smile.  “You know me,” she added.  “I’m just looking out for you.”

Amber chuckled, letting her wall come down a bit over the situation.  In reality—her and Krystal were fine.  And she knew that very well.  “Yeah, we’re good.”

Luna nodded.  “Okay.  I was just curious since, you know.”  Amber’s face read slight confusion.  “She wasn’t really the first one to know about you and like, Vanessa—and then she found out.”

“Ah,” Amber said.  She added a nod.  “Yeah, I know.  It’s fine.  We spoke things out.”

Luna gave out a smile as a response and lied down on the floor, also spreading herself as a starfish.  Amber stayed in place, drifting into her thoughts for a moment.  Luna had already known that Amber was gay—she even told Krystal that and the younger girl immediately found it surprising.  She sighed to herself.  Amber knew all too well being stuck in the closet again was highly uncomfortable and it was a state of mind she didn’t wish to relive.  But how could she not?  Her and Krystal just started dating and being outed as rookie-idols who were gay wasn’t something they wanted to live—at least for a very long time.  It was where she found herself relating to music too much—to one specific song to be exact: 2PM’s “Tik Tok” ft. Yoon Eunhye.  She mentally slapped herself in the head for noticing how much it was on repeat in her iPod and if she plugged it into her laptop—the number of times the song was played would multiple by 10 each day.  She didn’t know where else to go—but music itself; if only finding similarities in music wasn’t this vile.

It was hard, though.  Amber saw herself slipping subconsciously at moments just by being next to the girl—having the struggle to not hold her hand, or even sneak a kiss on stage.  She could only assume that Krystal could feel the same way because she and her would make eye contact in certain moments—even looking at each other’s lips for brief moments when they were next to each other—and that was quite often.  Sure, they could get away with holding hands in public and even having their arms around each other.  But with the ongoing speculation from fans that could be deemed harmless—it could easily go into another direction with anti-fans and just like that, rumors instantly become a harsh reality.  Her and Krystal thought about it very well—too well to even think about how they could get away with it so easily.  But that was the thing—it was so easy, yet so hard.

Amber got up with the announcement from Victoria that their manager was out waiting for them.  Just in time, Krystal and Sulli came back and smiled with relief hearing the statement coming from their leader.  Amber and Luna, along with Krystal and Sulli approached their generic corner that had their stuff from the points they were standing in the room.  Amber could feel eyes on her and she turned to the direction, seeing Krystal look at her.  They made eye contact as they reached their stuff and she saw Krystal blush at the small mutual action.  Amber smiled to herself.  As difficult as this all was, she found an interesting excitement out of it.  It was very new, yet very familiar with her—the whole hiding aspect.  But this time it was different, they were both celebrities and while fans were constantly speculating on “KryBer,” only they knew the truth—no one else did.  And that was just the exciting part.

All of f(x) headed for the door and began the process of exiting the building.  Exhaustion crept into the girls’ bodies, letting silence take over within the group.  As they exited the main doors, they found their manager standing next to a man, the both of them smoking a cigarette and leaning on the van.  He was younger compared to the rest of their managers, maybe by a few years.  The male didn’t look that much older than Victoria—if not maybe around the same age.  He could pass for at least being twenty-five years old.

“Hey girls,” their manager said.

They all greeted him back with a smile and a “hello” in unison.  Their manager gestured towards the man next to him.  “This is Park Il-Suk,” they heard their manager say.  “He just got newly hired.  I’ll be on leave for a while.  My best friend is getting married in the states.”

“Oh man,” Amber let out with a small groan.  It earned a confused look from the rest of her group.  “That’s the life right there.”

Everyone laughed at the statement, noticing the tomboy automatically miss home.  “He’ll be taking my place in the mean time as your general manager,” they heard him add.

Il-Suk opened the doors and gestured the girls to get in with a smile and hand signal.  Il-Suk had broad shoulders and wore a navy blue puffy winter jacket.  He sported a typical South Korean military haircut and had grey jeans on, with some black Nikes.  The girls had a sense he was strong, considering not only his name and what it meant in Korean but also by his built—he wasn’t fat—no not at all, but he was big.  They obliged with a small smile and began to enter the van. 

Krystal purposely let Victoria, Luna and Sulli go in ahead of her and made physical contact with Amber, brushing their arms against each other.  She lightly smiled as she looked up to her.  Amber bit her lip to make sure the smile she had on her face wasn’t as big as it needed to be.

“Hey, I wanna lie down in the back,” Krystal lazily called.  Sulli groaned seeing she was just about to sit down and moved up a seat and sat in the seat behind the manager.  Luna laughed and sat in the seat directly behind Victoria who was in the front passenger seat.

Krystal quickly pinched Amber’s side lightly, causing Amber to bite harder on her lip again—making sure she didn’t smile obnoxiously.  She knew what Krystal wanted—with all the seats taken, the only ones left was the back where Krystal wanted to lie down and Amber along with everyone else knew that she had to sit somewhere.

“I’ll see you guys again in the morning,” their manager said.  “Il-Suk will drive you guys home.”

The girls nodded with a smile and gave their approvals.  They said their goodbyes while Il-Suk entered through the front.

“So, from what I was told,” Il-Suk began as he put on his seat belt.  “It’s Soojung’s house first, right?”

“Yes,” Victoria said in approval.  She laughed lightly hearing the same late response come from the girl in the back.  Victoria took a quick peek at her new manager.  “That’s a nice haircut.”

He chuckled.  “Thanks.”

“By any chance,” she started.  “Were you in the military?”

Il-Suk whistled.  “Good eye.”  He nodded.  “I just got out last month.  I was in Dongducheon, near the border.  I worked with the US.”

“Wow,” Victoria said in awe.  She smiled.  “That’s pretty cool.”

Il-Suk gave out a small laugh and nodded.  “You don’t dorm with them, Soojung?” he manager asked, switching topics as he looked through the mirror.  He started the van and turned the heater on.  Upon his question, he was only met with legs through the mirror and he chuckled.  “Guess she fell asleep, huh?” he asked, turning his head to Victoria.  The leader laughed and nodded.

“You’re warm,” Krystal said in English low enough for the other native speaker to hear.  Amber could feel Krystal scoot her head closer to the tomboy and could feel her hands on her stomach.  Amber smiled as she began to play with the younger girl’s hair. 

“Your head is kind of heavy,” Amber said in the same tongue.

She laughed feeling Krystal playfully slap her in the stomach.  Amber locked eyes with Krystal when she turned to look up.  “Will you sleep over tonight?” she asked.

Amber nodded.  “Of course.”  She added another smile seeing Krystal snuggle closer to her after the sensitive approval.

“I’m sleeping at Krystal’s tonight,” Amber called out to the front, the other girls already fast asleep.

“Oh, you don’t dorm with the girls?” Il-Suk asked and peeked through the mirror.  They pulled up in front of Krystal’s house.

Amber lightly shook Krystal, waking the other girl up.  She began to get up and make her way in exiting the van without waking up Sulli and Luna up in their seats ahead of them.  “I do,” he heard her say.  “But sometimes I sleep over at Krystal’s house, or sometimes Krystal will sleep with us.”

“That’s allowed?” Il-Suk asked, a little embarrassed with his lack of knowledge.

Krystal gave out a tired laugh.  “Yeah—but only because it’s with each other—not with anyone else.  If I were to ask to sleep over my friend’s house out of f(x) then I can’t.”

Il-Suk gave out a tired “ah,” followed by a nod.  As Krystal and Amber headed out of the van, Victoria turned her head to them.

“Remember that we have a meeting tomorrow to check up on the sales that we did in China for “Lollipop,”” she said tiredly.

Amber and Krystal nodded and gave their okay’s.  They said their goodbyes and headed towards Krystal’s house, Amber wrapping an arm around Krystal’s shoulders, the latter doing the same around the tomboy’s waist.

“Does Amber sleep over at Krystal’s often?” Il-Suk asked Victoria as he pulled out to drive to the dorm.

Victoria hummed.  “Not often, but every now and then.”

He thought for a minute.  “What about the rest of you?”

“We’ve done it before,” Victoria answered.  “But out of all of us—Amber is the closest one to Krystal.”

“Really?"

Victoria laughed.  “Yeah, it’s the English thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re both from America.”

“Ah,” Il-Suk said.  “You know, I really did think Amber was a boy at first.”  He laughed.

Victoria chuckled.  “Yeah, you and everyone else.”  She sat back in her seat and sighed quickly out of exhaustion.  “Krystal has been with Amber the moment she got to Korea so they have a little history.”

Il-Suk hummed as a response, letting the silence take over in the car.  After a few minutes, they pulled up in front of the dorm.  He woke up the girls behind him and the three of them thanked him for the drive home.

“They look—awfully close for best friends,” Il-Suk carefully worded.  It stopped Victoria from exiting further out of the car, the other two who had already exited.  She turned her head to her manager.  “What do you mean?”

He shrugged.  “They just do.”

Victoria blinked uncomfortably.  “Well, yeah… they’re close.  They’re best friends.  I don’t see how else they can be seen as.”

Il-Suk hummed a response and just feigned a smile.  He shook his head.  “My sleepiness is talking.  I’ll see you girls tomorrow.”

11:21PM

“Move over, you’re taking up the whole bed,” Krystal said with a laugh as she attempted to push Amber.

Amber mumbled into the pillow and stood still.  She turned her head to face her girlfriend.  “How about no,” she said playfully.

“I hate you,” Krystal said with a pout.

“No you don’t,” Amber said with the same tone.  The two of them continued to laugh.  Eventually, Amber turned around to her back and sat up.  She released a breath of air and turned her head to look down at her partner.  “Happy one-month anniversary,” she said softly.

Krystal’s heart skipped a beat.  “I really thought you forgot.”

Amber chuckled and lied back down, except this time on her side, her left elbow used for support.  She reached over and caressed Krystal’s face, straying away strands of hair.  “Never.”  She added a crooked smile.  “I just never got time alone with you to say anything.”

“I still can’t get over it,” Krystal asserted.

Amber tweaked her head.  “Can’t get over what?”

“Us,” Krystal answered with a small and tired laugh.  She slowly leaned into Amber for a kiss—still hesitatingly—but still slowly.  Amber caught the message and leaned in herself, as well.  After a few seconds of holding the kiss, Krystal leaned back and gently held Amber’s face.  “It just—” she chuckled.  “It just doesn’t seem real.  That’s all.”

Amber smiled.  “I know what you mean.”

After a few seconds of silence, Krystal’s face dropped slightly.  “It’s hard, Amber,” she admitted.  “This is so hard.”

Amber could sense the girl’s emotion; knowing very well how upset she was.  And she was right.  It was hard for them.  They didn’t know what else to do—nor how else to even go about this situation.  “I know,” Amber agreed.  She grabbed Krystal’s eyes by gesturing her head lower to capture her attention—it worked.

“But it’s okay.”

“Yeah, I know,” Krystal said.  She sighed.  “I just—I don’t mean to make it seem like I don’t want to talk to you sometimes.”

Amber nodded.  “I know.  I catch on.  Don’t worry.”

Krystal paused for a second, looking away briefly.  She could feel herself becoming so vulnerable with the girl so quickly.  She couldn’t even believe it.  Aiden was her first relationship, but her relationship with Amber—had no comparison whatsoever.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Amber shook her head and scooted closer to her girlfriend.  “Babe, no—don’t apologize.”

“I really do wish things were different,” Krystal stated.  She added a quick sigh.  “I mean, we’ve only been together for a month—but still.  No other couple has to go what we go through.”

Amber looked away for a moment.  The truth couldn’t be more real than that.  The younger girl was right.  She thought for a minute.  When she was with Hope, she wasn’t famous—still in the closet, but wasn’t famous.  When she was with Vanessa, she was borderline famous—totally not in the closet, but only hid it from certain people.  And now Krystal?  No one knew.  They were both famous. 

She thought about how lucky people like Nick and Michelle were—not only did society naturally respect and accept their relationship—they didn’t even have to hide it.  And Erika?  She was slowly coming out; and even then, she wasn’t famous so eventually no one would even care, anyways.

They have it easy.  No one could begin to understand where Krystal and Amber were coming from unless they were in their own shoes—and that’s where it the most.  They had no one to turn to and Amber knew very well with her prior experiences and shares with relationships that all couples fight.  Nobody was perfect.  It’s healthy to have an argument—to get into a fight every now and then.  Why?  Because it was a part of the growing experience not just only to the couple, but to the individuals, as well.  The best advice she had been giving to herself is to stop hoping for the worst—stay in the moment and cherish every single time and notion she had with Krystal.  In their particular case—it was necessary.  They had no other way; there is no other way.

Amber exhaled.  “You’re right.  They don’t.”  She leaned in to plant a small kiss on Krystal’s forehead, the latter shutting her eyes softly.  “As long as we have each other,” she continued.  She gave out a small smile.  “Krys, I’m not gonna stop trying.”

Krystal smiled back, knowing what she was referring to.  Amber was referring to them—them as a couple—her as her girlfriend—their relationship.  And Krystal knew she couldn’t end what they had, no matter how short ago it started.  She wanted this.  I want this.

“Neither am I,” she replied, her facial expression becoming serious.

“It’s you and me against the world,” she said lowly, capturing the tomboy’s eyes into hers, letting her walls down.  “Right?”

Amber nodded and hugged Krystal.

“It’s you and me against the world.”