Eating breakfast in the house doesn’t sound appealing, much more eating breakfast doesn’t sound appetizing after the discussion I had with my Mom that blew me out of the water, clouding my mind and disabling my brain to instruct my stomach to call for food. 

I drop by my room shortly to change my sleeping clothes. I pull up my light sweater, strip down the gray sweatpants before slipping into faded jeans with distributed rips on my right thigh, left knee and right leg. I don’t even have it in me to take a shower, I’ll just conceal my unwashed skin with small amount of lotion to rub on my skin and hide my bad bed smell by forcibly spraying some perfume around my body, though I hate perfumes in the first place - adhering to a proper hygiene. Although I’m not already executing proper hygiene the moment I decide to not take a bath, so I don't know if such would count.  

I check the time on my phone. 8:20 AM. I pull out a white shirt with a calligraphed word “romantic” over a broken heart from my travelling bag lying on the floor beside my bed wide open and haphazardly strewn with clothes. I remember Jeonghan borrowed the shirt once.  Before I can hear my heart crack, I drop the shirt and it helplessly falls on the floor beside the bag. 

There are certain clothes that hold more meaning than they’re supposed to, either a special someone borrowed it or a memory was shared when I wore it. Every clothing inside the bag reminds me of Jeonghan, like the navy blue shirt where he rested his head on my shoulder for the first time because he was dog-tired after practice, or broadly speaking, worn-out from all the trainee days both physically and emotionally. With the doubts of debuting adding to our burdens and snuffing out the fire of motivation inside us, we were practicing days for days like robots. Moves were mechanic, routines were boringly habitual, passion was thrown out of the window. We were trembling about our future, as if anxiety itself is the future we were facing. We were all exhausted of doing everything for nothing, and Jeonghan needed emotional support and I became his emotional pillar. I was always there for him, but now, he’s nowhere to be found when it’s my turn to need him most.

The difficult part is I can’t blame him of his absence because I hesitated to lean on him for I wasn’t sure if he’s sturdy enough to keep himself from breaking, consequently keeping me from falling.

Get him out of your mind for once. You’ve had enough of flashbacks. 

I shake my head roughly to physically shed the thoughts like they are dry leaves caught in my hair strands when they are leaf-moulds sticking on my brain, and I can’t sweep them off easily.

Flapping down my hands on my lap, I stand up from my bed and cross the room half- to get to the closet where I draw out a white shirt with a bold script “Haters” in red and below it is “direct” in blue, and finished with three small red Xs, which I slip on after.

Of course, I can’t go outside without a disguise considering that I’m under the surveillance of curious minds regarding the mystery of my sudden temporary departure, so I cloak my head with a black cap which I draw out from one of the hooks by the side of the closet crowded with belts, scarfs, and other caps I haven’t brought with me to South Korea. It would be a good disguise, since I won’t wear familiar caps being caught in fansite pictures.

I walk back to the bag, grab a black face mask and slip it in one of the back pockets of my jeans. I pass by my room’s door, go downstairs to the kitchen and take a turn to a narrow hallway extending to the door which leads to the garage.

It is dim and cold down the garage. I reach for the switch to the right side of the door, beside the doorframe, and the soft glow of a lonely bulb hung up at the center warms the place. It feels like it’s thanking me for turning its light on after days of being unneccessary.

I spot Raleigh, a 2007 Venture 3.0 model, fixed against the corner crosswise from the threshold where I’m standing. I walk towards the old thing, dust dispersed on every part and hiding in every cants.  I flick a pinch of dust on its saddle and contemplate if I should use it or not. I kneel on one knee beside it with my hand placed on the saddle, and turn the crankarm to check the chains. It doesn’t squeak, and I didn’t hear any loose part tinkling against each other if there’s some.

In one corner of the room stands a two-shelf low-set wooden etagere with some common automotive supplies – small car bearings and discarded bolt caps on the lowest shelf, a large toolbox with a yellow top crammed against the corner on the uppermost shelf. Rags are in a scrapheap beside the toolbox, and I walk over it to pick one and use it to wipe dusts off Raleigh.

Dust particles float around, straying to my direction, as I bash them away from their lairs, and provoking coughs when some swim through my nose and tickle my nostrils and throat. I rub clean the saddle and the metallic pole supporting it, also the metals connecting and shoring up each other. When Raleigh’s finally dust-free and good to go, I release the lock that tacked it on an erected metallic pole by the corner, stretching from the ground up to the ceiling.

Warming up the bike’s chains, I pedal repeatedly on place, back and forth, up and down. I tug the straps of the face mask behind my ears and cycle slowly towards the garage door, disengage the lock and pull it up, the sunlit surrounding unveiling before me. I drive down the pathway quicker this time and take a turn to the left and find myself along the streets of the neighborhood biking casually.

Summer breeze, cool but dry from the sun’s heat, pick its way through my hair strands and running down my side, hugging me all the way to the back. Sunrays pinch my skin as the sun follows me along my course, always like a bright child following around everyone with its cheery smile and brilliant full glow.

Half a kilometre I have gotten over, passing by houses, thriftshops and small local stores set up early for the day, before I haul up on a narrow breadth of a parking lot by the side of a modest deli, the renown one in a half-kilometer distance.

I set Raleigh beside few other bikes on a space provided specifically for the type of vehicle, facing the cantaloupe-painted smudged sidewall of the deli. Wispy streaks of humus are smeared all over the wall by the muddy flower box, drowned from yesterday’s rain.

The morning is still premature, untimely for the deli to be crowded. Unbusy days of summer allow people to eat breakfasts at home when they were forced to rush into delis on busy months to catch up to their jobs or classes or whatever they’re up to be early for.

The conversation with Mom left me drained and truth be told, my stomach is not actually up for food, but I’m hungry and it’s a biological necessity to fill yourself when you want to be filled for forcing yourself to be out from the normal functions and basic physiological needs in life would degrade your organs. I order an instant food, at the very least, to compulsorily attend to my hunger.

While waiting for the food which is currently heating inside a small-scale microwave, from beside me, I hear murmurs and intuitively, I feel the eyes of their small voices directed to me. I glance stealthly at the corner of my eyes, though I had a cap on, but I can’t risk looking around casually, there might be people here who know me.

And the murmurs I hear just prove that there really are people who know me. After forcibly pushing my pupils to the very edge of my eyes, I catch in action two girls dressed up like Kpop wannabes but one is Asian-looking, the other an obvious American blonde, whispering to each other with their furtive gazes of me.

When Blonde senses that I am sneaking a look at them, she finally dares to speak up.

“Uhm, hi…” she speaks hesitatingly, “Are you…Joshua Hong? From Seventeen?”

I hold back my eyes from opening wider. I response in quick nods, while trying to prevent a frown to be shown on my face as I mentally ask myself how come they recognize me. Just then, I realize I slid down the face mask under my chin when I talked to the cashier about my orders awhile ago. I almost shake my head at the careless move I just did.

Asian girl's eyes perk up and I practically see her take a jump of joy in place if she wasn’t able to restrain herself, but she’s unsuccesful in hiding her itsy-bitsy bounces which makes her look like a cute little elf, considering her natural Asian height. She and her blonde friend look at each other with smiles stretching up to their ears. I see them looking down to their bags shortly after their mini show of excitement shared between each other, and rummage through the insides and I already know they’re looking for something, a piece of paper or a notebook and a pen for an autograph.

They hand me a mini notebook and a pen, and of course, ask me to sign on one of the blank sheets of the notebook. I fulfill their wish politely, putting out a kind smile on my face, and hand them back the notebook afterwards. They stretch out both their hands and clutch the notebook, squeeze it inside their grips, like it’s some precious scepter holding the future of their lives. Blonde, who owns it, gently snatches the mini notebook from the other girl’s hand and stuffs it back in her bag. After that, they put back their attention to me.

“Can we know..” Asian girl speaks up this time, “why you took a hiatus?”

I stare at them. Blink. Gulp. That isn’t the kind of question I expected. Or I half-expected it while I was picking up things for my disguise because it was actually one of the reasons why I have to blend in, to avoid being interrogated, but I didn’t fully anticipate it when they asked for my autograph because I thought it’s what they only care about.

Apparently, these two girls here are more than just Kpop fans, they might be Carats or are definitely Carats who care about Seventeen. Who care about my decisions of hiatus.

“Uhh…” it’s the only word (or I even doubt if it’s a word) my mouth can give tongue to. My nerve cells start to fumble for reasons, picking up scratch papers from the floor and throw them everywhere if  they find it not useful for the matter.

And suddenly, like I was saved by the bell from an upcoming knockout, “Oops!”

Blonde quickly shifts closer to Asian girl, tossing her hands to her head, and gaping at the sight of her coffee-stained shirt, recently ched few seconds ago.

“Sorry,” the spiller, though coffee was spilt and not blood, utters an apology. I turn to the side and it’s my turn to gape slightly when I discover Alisha. Chills start dripping down my spine. What is she doing here?  

In a jiffy, Blonde’s friend take out a hanky from her baby pink mini backpack with bunny ears and lightly pecks the coffee stain without making any progress of abrasing it, only circumfusing it.

Realizing there’s no hope to make it any cleaner, Blonde glares at Alisha and pushes past her roughly, grabbing Asian girl by her side. I wait for those two to be far enough to hear anything I’ll be saying.

I watch Blonde’s blonde hair swaying behind her while Asian girl’s pigtails bob up and down as she tries to catch up to her friend. “What was that for?” My question is directed to Alisha, who is also watching the two girls beside me.

“Didn’t I just save you?”

I quickly turn to her, surprised, “How did you know---”

“Forgive me for eavesdropping.”

She faces the counter and said something to the cashier about giving her another cup of cold coffee. She sweeps her BuyBook Bookstore  drawstring bag to her front and picks out a wallet, then flipping the drawstring to her back. While rummaging through her bills, I turn to the counter in time when another cashier slips across the ready-made food I ordered.

“Well…thanks, then,” I bashfully say while being careful in handling my heated food fresh from the microwave.

A half-smile spreads across her lips, “You’re always welcome.”

Although she saved herself out of a bit of suspicion from me, there’s still a large part which badly needs answers to these questions: How did she know my name? Why is she here? Is her being here a coincidence or does she know I’ll be here? Did she follow me?

I know. I know. This is a small world and Los Angeles is the smaller part of it which makes my questions far too paranoid because it will be always likely of her to encounter me somewhere in this city, much more somewhere in this town.

However, my arising suspicions can’t help it. Her being here and her saving me from that tight situation just makes it weirder than it is supposed to clear her off from baseless accusations. She could really be a stalker. A sasaeng, if she’s a fan. (I have a tiny feeling that says her saving me is part of an evil plan she’s up to.) There’s no other kind of person I can think of who magically knows my name, where I live and knows when and what I need saving from.

Moreover, she wouldn’t have saved me if she didn’t know the situation awhile ago had dipped me in hot water, not unless she – No, she doesn’t know. I haven’t told anyone else outside the house, and not even inside my circle of acquaintances. My secret is still safe inside the walls I’ve built around it. Only Mom had entered.

I don’t have a plan on when’s the high time to unravel the mystery of this girl beside me but I know I can’t wait any sooner, yet at the same time, I still think it’s way too early to judge. If she’ll be bothering me again these future days, I’ll jump on it to investigate. I only need a third and last encounter before making my move but I secretly hope this would die out by the next day or next week. I desperately want her to not magically appear in the places I go to, so I won’t have another concern to deal with.

Like what I said, I’ve had enough for now.

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[A/N: It seems like I'm keeping up consistently to my Saturday updates. I hope this consistency would continue though, and I'm really glad that despite my hectic schedule in school, I'm still able to come up with new ideas for a next chapter and write them before weekend comes. I also hope that kind of streak would continue. I badly hope I won't stumble upon writer's block which, I'm afraid, is slowly creeping up nowadays. Aahhh, I have to keep my head above the water. I shouldn't drop myself this time. Anyways, so much for a lengthy Author's Note, I should get straight to the point: Did you guys enjoy this chapter?? Let me know if you did, but if you didn't, still let me know. It's my pleasure to be bombarded with comments, whether they be negative or positive. Don't matter what, because what's important is I know what you can say about my work, so I'll be able to know more on how I do actually work on a story, based on a reader's perspective. And thank you so much for giving your time in reading this~ I hope this story didn't waste it. Stay tune for more chapters to come,  that is if I keep holding my head above the water. ;)