Chapter 11  - Day by Day

HER

Needless to say, my mind was not at all on my lesson that night. I was such a spazz, I think all of the housewives who attended this free class noticed. They kept saying it was fine and giggling at each other, as if they were in on some secret I wasn’t privy to.

The next day at school was worse. I kept spacing out, forgetting things everywhere, and I even called one girl “Min Seok” one time (her name is actually Min-soo, can you blame me??), to the great delight or my little Doremi triplets and all the EXO fangirls in the class who laughed at me while I pretended not to know why they were laughing.

I was feeling elated from last night’s meeting, but also kinda nervous since I hadn’t heard from him at all after we’d parted ways in front of the school gate. At the end of the work day, when I left, I even waited by the gates a bit, looking left and right for a minute, wondering if he might suddenly appear again, but he didn’t.

HIM

“Aaaand cut!” yelled a director, and we all relaxed.

Today we were shooting a CF for a sports drink. First we had to do a “fake” dance rehearsal this morning, and now they were recording us play a basketball game. That part I must admit was pretty fun since they just let us play a real game. We were just encouraged to be extra friendly with each other, and then if someone did something funny or cool, they’d ask us to do it again and shoot it from different angles. Every once in a while we had to go to the bench and drink some of that sports drink like it was the most refreshing thing in the world.

As soon as they had stopped filming, most members just slumped on the floor right where they were, but I just kept bouncing around, grabbed the ball from Kai and ran to the hoop to toss it in the net.

“Yaaay!” I cheered like a little kid, running circles around Chen.

“Waaae, what’s wrong with you?” he called, peeking at me over the arm he’d thrown over his face, “did you eat the Energizer bunny??”

“Yeah, just looking at you is exhausting me” added Sehun, “please stop.”

I shrugged, ignoring him, and trotted over to the refreshment table, grabbing a cup and downing it. “I’m just in a good mood, that’s all” I said, crushing the cup and tossing it into the waste basket with a little jump, as if it was a basketball. The camera crew should really have filmed that.

After the game scene we had to shoot our individual slots. We were taken to another room so we could get changed and dried off, and told to wait there until our name was called.

“Sweet! Food!” called Chanyeol, who was the first to spot the pile of lunch boxes that were neatly stacked on a long table against the wall.

He ran over there and a bunch of the others followed him. Notably, Kai and Baekhyun who started arguing over a box that seemed to have more meat pieces in it. In the end, D.O. walked over and, without noticing, grabbed the box that they were fighting about and they both looked up at him, in synch and dumbfounded as he walked away.

“What??” he asked, seeing them still staring at him as he sat down. I laughed.

They both quietly picked up a different box and then came over to the table without a word. I also grabbed a box and joined them.

I picked up my phone as we ate and looked at the messages. There was nothing from Sora. Although, it was kind of normal, I thought; I should probably be the one to call her first. But not now.

I put the phone down.

After the individual shots, we had to go and get changed again. They had set up a part of the gym to look like a stage, and brought in a crowd of hyper teenage girls to play our fans (or maybe they really were our fans? I don’t know…) the concept for this part of the shoot was that of a mini-concert. We had to perform the CF song, and then as we walked off the stage, the camera would catch us ily drinking the advertised product, and hopefully that was gonna make people want to buy it.

It was passed 2am by the time we were finally done and everyone was thanking us for our hard work. (But who was thanking them, though?) We all trouped into the vans and our managers drove us home.

In the car, I looked at my phone again. I don’t know why I kept checking it. It was obvious that I should be the one to contact Sora first. But it was nearly 3am now. Much too late. So I shoved the phone back in my pocket.

“You keep checking your phone and making that face.” said Suho, who was sitting next to me. “You got a date or something?”

“Haha! No.” I laughed.

“Did you make up with ReAh?” he went on.

I made a different face, “No.”

“Well what’s the matter then? You’ve been giddy all day.” he prodded. “I mean, more than usual” he added, and I stuck my tongue at him, which made him laugh.

“There’s nothing going on” I said, in what I hoped was a convincingly offhanded tone, “I’m just happy, that’s all.”

He looked like he didn’t believe me, but didn’t press it. I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to lie to my members about Sora, but… well… there was nothing to say…… yet. So I didn’t want to jinx things.

HER

The following day, I’d come off my cloud a little. I’d checked my phone in the morning, but there was no mail from Min Seok. And I’d checked again during the break after first period and… well… every single chance I’d gotten after that, but there was still nothing. ‘Should I maybe mail him?’ I thought, ‘But no, that would look too eager… I guess I should wait…’

HIM

Things had been so busy lately, it was just one thing after the other, and we kept coming back home at ridiculous hours. I was dying to talk to Sora again, but there was just no time. ‘At this rate,’ I thought, ‘I’ll never get a chance to call Sora... Maybe I should just mail her first… but during the day, yeah… it’s creepy to mail in the middle of the night… let’s wait til tomorrow.’

HER

And yet another day came and went. I hadn’t even thought about Min Seok much today. Ok, that was a lie. But I hadn’t checked my phone that often. Less than 10 times. Ok, that was a lie too… but less than 20 times for sure!

I decided to buy some beer and junk food from the convenience store on the way home and screw eating healthy for a night. I was going to sit on the couch, watch dramas and drink some beer. I was an adult, after all. I could do whatever I wanted. Even if it was a school night… I dropped my bags on the kitchen table and went to my room to change into my pajamas. It wasn’t until I got back that I noticed the screen of my phone was flashing with a new mail alert. I swiped to the right and my heart started beating faster when I saw it was from Min Seok.

[Hey! I’m so sorry I didn’t get the chance to mail you until now. I’ve been so crazy busy!]

Well of course, he’d been busy. He was an internationally famous idol. I wasn’t too sure what that implied, really, but I assumed… well… busy-ness. And crazy fangirls. And signing autographs. And lots of singing. And dancing. And hip-ing… and… ok, Cheon Sora, focus!

I thought about what I should reply for a moment and wrote.

[That’s ok. I understand]

Ok that was really lame. But I’d already hit the send button. There was nothing to do but wait. Luckily, the reply came almost instantaneously.

[How about you?]

[Oh, it’s been busy too, but just the usual, you know?]

I walked over to the couch, staring at the screen, awaiting a reply, and plopped down.

[What’s the usual?]

[What’s it like being a teacher?]

So I told him. I told him about the early mornings, and the roll-calls. I told him about my adorable brats. I told him about Mr.Oh and the grief of office parties. And for the next hour, my convenience-store dinner lay quite forgotten on the kitchen table.

HIM

The next day, I texted Sora at every chance I got. It wasn’t that much though, considering we were out in the countryside, shooting a summer special at a private beach. But every time the cameras weren’t rolling, I would check my phone to see if she’d replied. I even sent her some selcas we’d taken down by the sea... That was ok, right? Or was it too soon? Nah, I think it was ok…

[That looks so nice!! Aahh, I wish I could go to the beach too!]

[You should come!!]

[And what about my classes?? Should I bring my students too?]

[Yeah!]

[Haha, oh they would LOVE that…]

HER

There hadn’t been as many messages from Min Seok as that first night during the rest of the week. Usually I’d get two or three in a row, and then nothing for several hours. I was just beginning to understand just how completely hectic his life was. What was “busy” to me, was probably a nice, relaxing, chill day for him. His schedule was like, I-don’t-even-have-time-to-eat busy. Seriously. On Thursday he’d mailed me at 10pm saying he was so happy because they were finally going out to eat… for the first time of the day.

[Didn’t you have breakfast, at least?!] I’d mailed him, completely shocked.

[I slept in, so no time] was his reply.

Turns out “slept in” meant getting up at 6:30 after having slept 3 hours. Poor kid.

I didn’t want to admit it, but every day, I was looking forward to his mails more and more. I knew they probably didn’t mean anything to him, and I did feel rather stupid for letting them mean this much to me, but… I couldn’t help it.