April 9, 2016,

10:51 AM,

Tomorrowland Day 2 (Boom, Belgium)

       Loud music, half-stripped women, alcohol everywhere, and half across the world from Seoul: Something Jiyong really wouldn’t mind if it lasts a life time. Except, the prickling sensation and the intruding thoughts that someone, or rather everyone, could recognise him and end up snapping a photograph of him made him lower down his cap as much as possible, and make sure his sunglasses wouldn’t slip.

       The cigarette fitted perfectly between his tattooed fingers as he dragged a shaky scorching fill of smoke into his lungs. Being in a crowd this big without his manager was terrifying, he had to admit, yet he had realized how much he missed this. How much he missed being a nobody.

       He manages to find a spot at the very back of the crowd around the main stage, with a decent view and where Diplo’s remixes weren’t screeching through his ears from a speaker blast. His fans liked to label his relationship with the DJ as friendship. In actuality, the only reason Jiyong tolerated the man was because Yang Hyunsuk was forcing the two to work together. It was supposed to help with his image, the plan was.

       As he crushed the cigarette in a nearby bin, his phone vibrates in his pocket once again, probably the tenth time that morning itself since he woke up in some woman’s camp sheets. He knew who was calling, and looking at the caller ID wasn’t helping his guilt either, yet his lack of judgement prevailed: Seunghyun Hyung Calling.

       He sighs and silences the call, and the screen blinks, announcing the eleventh missed call. Messages from Youngbae were also there. He had read them, making sure his best friend knew he was alive, but never once had he felt the motivation to reply. He guessed it would make him look like a bastard, and frankly, he didn’t care. And that scared him less, because it’s Youngbae we’re talking about.

       The tabloids back in Seoul were going crazy, that much he knew. Well, that much Seungri and Daesung kept him posted about in their frequent messages. ‘G-Dragon disappears off the face of the earth?’ was a title he had come across, and he remembers holding in his frustrations, because damn it even in his hiatus they keep wanting to get updated. Ever since then, he had made no attempt to entertain anyone.

       The people he considered his closed knotted friends – none of them had even tried contacting him since that night. If someone had even dared enquire about that, he’d say he didn’t care. He’d say he wasn’t expecting much anyways. He’d say it was okay. Truth was, he did care, he did expect a little from them, and it wasn’t okay. He didn’t know much these days, but he knew he wasn’t okay.

       Another tobacco roll is between his chapped lips in no time, his mind working overtime, and he wants to stop it immediately. He looks around him, the EMD beats of some other European DJ filled the whole grounds, and his eyes scan groups of friends, laughing, clinking cups of beer, and their faces glow like a bulb given life to. Chatters start zooming in his hearing range, and the mixed scents of food from the Tomorrowland ‘village’ carried around from the surrounding travellers.

       His mind goes to Lee Chaerin back in Brussels. She hadn’t escorted him to the train station two days ago, so the last time he had seen her was while they were having dinner in that sorry excuse of a hotel. When he had agreed to sponsor her, he hadn’t known that they’d end up in hotels made for people who can’t even afford a train ticket.

       Okay, he may have exaggerated that a little.

       Nonetheless, he always wonders if her chocolatier-days are as glamourous as she had imagined. When he finds himself in situations where all he can think of is Audrie, like when he had taken to a stranger’s embrace under the influence of the same whisky that was dragging down his coat, he wonders what would the blogger do differently.

       Like the answer of many other questions, he didn’t know.

       But maybe he did.

       “Oh my God, look, look!” he barely overhears a conversation in Korean behind him, and he glares at the burning stick between his fingers when the sentence is completed. “Isn’t that G-Dragon?”

       “What do you mean- Oh!” the other screeches, and he lowers his cap a bit more to cover up his stoic expressions, trying to formulate a way to leave this short lived haven. Fixing his gaze on his shoes and the fading grass underneath, he rests the Marlboro roll between his lips and swerves through the crowd towards the Dreamville market place. If they had tried to take a picture of him, all they had was his back. Good luck at proving it was the ‘eloped prince of YG’.

       As he leaves, a remix by Diplo is blasting throughout the whole place.

       He rolls his eyes.

       The market place was also buzzing with people, but the crowd wasn’t something he wouldn’t be able to handle. The stores on one side of the pathway looked like something out of a fairy tale book in contrast with the green forest and lake around it. Food vendors yelled out their offerings, merchandised cotton T-shirts swayed around the summer breeze, and people rested from their festive rendezvous, beers refilled glass after the other.

       In his daze, he bumps into someone. Or rather, something solid. In a blur, dozens of boxes are on the ground, with a young man sprawled on the floor next to it.

       “I’m so sorry,” Jiyong hurries in dusting himself up, cursing himself for not being more careful. The boy doesn’t look up, and instead nods towards the ground. “I really am sorry.” He repeats, helping the wrapped goods into the boxes: Planète Chocolat.

       “I-It’s okay,” the boy stutters in a soft voice, worsening the guilt in his guts. “I c-can do it by m-myself, monsieur.”

       “No, no,” Jiyong shakes his head, his cigarette long lost as he helps with the mess he’s made. He can feel people starting to stare. He was such an idiot – it’s not like he had needed extra attention. “It’s my fault, I should’ve paid attention to where I was going.”

       “Monsei-”

       “Christian, Où des chocolatés?” A middle aged woman approaches them from behind, the grim expression on her face darkening as she zooms in on the situation. From the way the boy, Christian, stiffens, Jiyong speculates the woman won’t go easy on him.

       “I-Ils sont t-tombés,” he stutters even more, gulping and stealing glances between the distorted chocolates and his boss’ face. “J-je suis très deso-”

       “It was my fault,” he cuts in, his stomach churning with nerves. Such a ing idiot. “He had nothing to do with this, it was all me.”

       She turns her scrutinizing gaze towards him, and he’s off the ground in seconds, not liking being belittled. She twists on one side, raising her brow at him, probably thinking he looked like a burglar with the way he was dressed. “Your fault?” she narrows her eyes at him, her Bulgarian/French accent heavier than whipped cream. “You sorry? Sorry not bring money.”

       Behind his sunglasses, Jiyong closes his eyes and sighs. “Look, I’ll pay for all of it. I’m sorry.”

       The woman looks at him from head to toe, and he could see the engines turning in her head. Eventually, she nods and asks him to follow her. Through the crowd, where some were looking and others weren’t, he gets twitchy. What if someone had filmed this? What if the media gets a whiff of this? Hyun Suk hyung was going to kill him.

       Busy with his self-pity, he doesn’t pay attention to a familiar face grinning at him as he enters the customized chocolate store. She’s settled by the cashier, dressed in foreign aprons with a wrist-watch-like entry pass into the festival – damn, she was proud of herself. Mumbling with himself, Jiyong settles on one of the plastic stool chairs and takes out a cheque book, ready to pay for his damages.

       There went a month’s worth of copyright payment.

       Behind the faux wood desk, Chaerin decides to make her presence known. “Fancy running into you here, Kwon Jiyong-ssi. You smell like smoke.”

       Feeling like a ton of bricks had just been dropped over his head, his first instinct was to cover his face with his cap and pretend he hadn’t heard anything – after all, if it was a fan they would either get a hint or second guess. However, as drained as he had felt, Jiyong recognized the owner of the voice after a brief second.

       So taking the risk, he sneaks a look to where the voice came from, and his shoulders dropped in relief. The blogger was holding in her laugh, and he’s sure it’s because of his reaction, but instead of getting agitated, it is a relief seeing a familiar face in this insane crowd. But then, he furrows his brows, an obvious question hanging in the air and its answer dying to leave the woman’s lips.

       “Chaerin-ssi,” he adds the formality awkwardly, almost forgetting it. What is the point of it anyways? He is certain he was older. She tilts her head to the side, her dyed blonde strands falling out of place and her red lipstick pouts out. He almost forgets what he wants to say. “Why… How are you here?”

       Her face brightens, and the woman from before comes from behind the tents, her scowl disappearing when she lays her eyes on the signed cheque. Chaerin covers as a giggle escapes, and a small smile tugs at his lips, genuinely happy to see the other person. “Well,” she starts, “It’s a long story.”

       He shrugs, turning around the stool that he didn’t mind as much now, his full attention with her. “We have from today to China.”

       “So!” She beams, and with her hair and her lipstick and her demure, she took his mind off Audrie. Even if only for a second, she did. He gulps, and she’s oblivious to it, and he didn’t know if it was all an act or not, but he wanted to let go for a second. Chaerin tells her story amidst chocolate buyers and Jiyong moves to sit behind her, hiding his face perfectly from Asian festival dwellers. If he dares say, it could be the most carefree talk he had had with anyone the past two days.

       After hours of nonstop chattering from the Chaerin’s side, her morning shift comes to an end as the sun starts setting behind the renewed architecture of the festival grounds, turning the scene’s colour palate into something warmer than it was in reality. Jiyong hadn’t moved an inch from his place, glad to get a break from the constant paranoia that someone might possibly recognize him and word goes out. Glancing back at him, Chaerin makes sure he doesn’t run away as she hands over the keys to Chris for him to take over. She too found herself quite elated – was it because she had gotten into the festival of her dreams, or because of the rapper’s company? She doesn’t give herself the chance to think much about it.

       “T-thank you,” Chris keeps his gaze on his shoes as he receives the keys from her, and she almost feels bad for the boy having to deal with customers in this demeanour. One would have thought he would have been more comfortable with her since they work together now (albeit for one day). But he was pretty much hesitant when it comes to everyone, so she didn’t take it personally.

       Smiling at him, which had looked more like impatient grinning to Jiyong, she puts on her coat and questers for the rapper to follow her out of the store. He sighs, not wanting to leave this comfortable shroud away from the prying eyes of people – he would have tr