Author’s Note: I was pleasantly surprised to learn Kyungsoo’s favourite genre of music is Western R&B and although he’s a foodie who cooks generously, he doesn’t have a good tolerance of spice, which suits me just fine ^^

Any comment or upvote would make my day, jeongmal! <3

She knows what she signed up for. She knows it won’t be easy. She knows what to expect. She knows that by falling in love with one of the members of the most popular boy bands in South Korea makes her one out of a million, not one in a million.

What she doesn’t know, was how much this would hurt.

-

She was never a fangirl and preferred to listen to American, or white music as the locals called it. She shunned music shows and fan meetings like the plaque, shaking her head despondently whenever her friends would coax her to buy tickets to their favourite band’s showcase or blow money on getting 20 versions of the same band’s album.

To be honest, she thought the Kpop craze was way too overwhelming. These “idols” were also normal humans who had to go to school and make a living; why did singing teenybopper songs and performing them make them any different from us? She had wished that the music culture was more like in America or Ireland, where it was more laid-back and it was all about the music, not who made them.

She found herself hitting the malls one lonely Saturday morning, when most of her friends had wanted to go for an album showcase by one of their favourite bands, EXO, where they had so many members she couldn’t even differentiate them. She had wanted to go to the HMV to listen to some new CDs released by the Irish bands she liked. To her dismay, she found the store entrance clogged to the brim with girls holding signs and covering their squealing faces every few seconds or so.

Squinting, she tried to read off the signs. “EXO saranghaeyo…” she murmured and sighed in defeat. Why was this band everywhere? She had nothing against them, but the fact that they were so popular and asive in her everyday life when she had no interest in them was getting on her nerves.

But alas, she wasn’t intimidated. She was a regular at the HMV and she knew the back door, where the store managers would let her in. She always tipped them off when new CDs were going to release and which were going to be big hits, so they treated her like staff.

What she didn’t foresee was so much yellow tape and barricades at the back door, with burly men in suits standing at the fore. She closed her eyes in exasperation. Were they that much of a big deal? She decided to try her luck and tried to get past them.

“No entry to non-staff, fangirl.” One of the men barked at her, holding out a bulky arm to stop her.

“Fangirl?!” She repeated, feeling very much insulted. “Hey, not everyone’s a fangirl of EXO okay? I come in by here everytime, you can ask the manager.”

The men shook their head, with sinister looks on their face. “They always come up with convincing excuses nowadays, these fangirls.”

She rolled her eyes, seriously losing her patience now. “Does EXO own this place? I said I’m not a fan, you can me in and I won’t even so much as LOOK at EXO when they do their self-indulgent nonsense inside, I-” 

“She’s not a fan?” She heard someone call out and a ridiculously tall boy with elfin-like ears and the goofiest grin bound out. He looked so picture-perfect, he was definitely a product of the South Korean tourism market aka a Kpop idol. “Hello, you’re not a fan?” He seemed a bit hurt, but was still grinning nonetheless. 

She felt guilty about what she just declared, but to prove her point, she shook her head firmly. “No, sorry, I don’t listen to Kpop.”

“Then you must know our D.O. at least. He’s in the latest drama!” The boy insisted and then called out behind him, “YAH! D.O., COME HERE!”

A shorter boy dressed in the same fashion as the first boy walked out, looking extremely disoriented and blank. “What?”

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