1 Moving In

Chanyeol’s rapping from Tzuyu’s phone has been blaring through its speakers. Only-God-Knows how many times has her phone played EXO’s ‘Drop That’ on an attempt to wake her up. The comforter, along with all her pillows, is discarded on the floor. The sun already shines so bright directly on her face, making her scowl. Abruptly, she stands up to draw the curtains and allow herself five more minutes of sleep.

“Isn’t ten times of your alarm ringing not yet enough? I’m getting tired of his voice, huh. Seriously. Change your alarm tone.” Jennie barged into her room like a mad woman which took her by surprise.

“Well, two and a half hours of sleep sure ain’t enough, Jennie. And Chanyeol’s voice is hot, okay? Who doesn’t want to wake up to his voice and sight of him?” Tzuyu clutches the pillow she can reach from the floor. “Please let me rest some more.”

“No, Tzuyu! It takes you 3 hours at least to get to Seoul! You still have to eat breakfast and wash up that tales an hour or two, roughly,” Jennie sits on Tzuyu’s vanity chair, picking on her make ups. “I’d wash up now, if I were you, hun.” She, then, stands up and grabs Tzuyu’s ankles, dragging her all the way from the bed to the bathroom.

“Hey! Will you,” Tzuyu swings her legs violently, trying to escape Jennie, “Let me go?” She swings her legs even more violently, leveling up the intensity for every word she says. Fortunately, Jennie quickly lets go of her and in response, Tzuyu stomps her way into the bathroom to wash up.

Tzuyu put on a striped shirt and her boyfriend jeans which styled her skinny long legs, swiped a pink lipstick, and tied her hair into a lazy bun. She turns around in front of the mirror to check herself out and once she believes she’s ready to go, she goes out of her room to go directly to the kitchen and have some breakfast.

She comes out of the room to be greeted by Jennie’s relentless cleaning of the living room. There really aren’t much to clean but she just rather seems restless. She’s been dusting off the coffee table, figurines, picture frames, and even the television set as if there’s still a speck of dust left on it when there’s already none from being cleaned thoroughly. She’s also been pacing from the living room to the kitchen too. All of these cleaning and restlessness make Tzuyu sick.

“Jennie! Can you please stop whatever you’re doing? It’s making me feel dizzy.” She says as she helps herself to breakfast. There’s an already-cooked fried eggs and bacon on the table and cup of rice on a bowl. Jennie prepared these alongside her oatmeal she ate as early as 4 in the morning. She’s actually more of a morning person…if it only weren’t for that someone who wakes her up every day…Byun Baekhyun, the loudest person, according to Tzuyu, and Jennie’s boyfriend.

“I haven’t told you this yet but someone’s coming. I need to make our place look presentable and neat,” Jennie says as she rearranges the pillows on the couch.

“Jennie Kim! How long will you keep arranging those pillows on our couch? It’s not as if we got a lot for you to arrange – we only got three. For my sanity’s sake, Jennie, please.” Tzuyu says as she starts spreading strawberry jam on the leftover wheat bread she found on the counter.

“Until it looks presentable, duh!”

“Who’s coming?” Tzuyu doesn’t really mind having someone come over. They still even have a spare room left where anyone can stay for a while. She just wants to know who’s going to come to prepare herself and activate her ‘Friendly Mode’ since she’s a shy type of a person, at least, that’s how she views herself. She may seem like a boss at work, ordering people around to fix this and that, but in reality, she’s an awkward human being.

“My boyfriend’s cousin, Kim Youngkyun.” Jennie looks at Tzuyu, waiting for her reaction.

Tzuyu isn’t surprised anymore at all – not for someone coming over unexpectedly or for the guest himself. She’s already used to be around personalities, may it be those in the politics or in the entertainment industry – but she works more in the entertainment industry. Her housemate, Kim Jennie, is actually a former K-Pop idol from the group, BlackPink. She became friends with her through Byun Baekhyun whom she met three years ago in a photo-shoot. He was also a former K-Pop idol from the legendary group, EXO. (Baekhyun always reminds her to add ‘legendary’ before mentioning their group, EXO and it’s not as if she had any choice not to. Or else, he might spill the beans she’s been keeping to herself for as long as they have met.)

“Oh, the rapper in SF9?” Tzuyu asks in confirmation. On this day and age, every one is sure to know SF9. If 2012 had EXO, and on 2013, the world got blessed with BTS, well, now, there’s SF9. They have debuted 6 years ago – October 5, 2016. And this year, 2022, they already have made history in the music industry. Their name is already known to the world and is well-established in the Hallyu world – it’s not actually all that surprising. They are very talented individuals, not to mention their nice personalities and being intellectuals. It’s no surprise they made it big today.

Jennie looks at her in utter shock, stops everything she’s been doing, keeping her busy. The only thing missing is her having hanging open to complete the starter set of being so shocked but thank goodness, she has it closed.

“Why?” Tzuyu asks.

Jennie, who was so quick to wave both of her hands in dismissal says, “No, nothing. I… I…,” she stutters. “I just thought you’d be surprised, you know,” she laughs a little loudly which becomes a tell-tale sign of ‘sbeing stuck in an awkward situation. Not that there’s anything to be awkward about… “SF9’s pretty big in the industry. I just thought you'd be surprised that someone from them is to live with us.”

“Not really. I’m already used to be around artists, remember? You’re an artist yourself too, Jennie.”

“I know,” she laughs more comfortably now.

The conversation ended and they both resumed to doing their own businesses. Tzuyu starts cleaning the mess she created in the kitchen while Jennie keeps arranging the pillows and dusting off their television set and coffee table.

It was only a matter of a couple of minutes before they hear the doorbell ring.

“It must be him!” Jennie rushes to the door to welcome the guy who was introduced by their company as ‘The Cold City Guy.’

Tzuyu quickly takes off her apron and washes her hands. When she hears the door opens and the laughing voice of the young man, she hurriedly runs over the living room to meet him. Youngkyun (who was already smiling widely) smiles even wider at the sight of the young lady who stands before him, panting. “Hi, I’m Hwiyoung of FNC Ent, but I prefer you call me Youngkyun instead.” Youngkyun smiles at Tzuyu like a new friendly transfer student.

“Hi, I’m Tzuyu. Nice to meet you,” Tzuyu greets rather brightly than she was actually supposed to. Maybe it was his presence or his smile that surprised her? She doesn’t know. Suddenly, she feels like she’s back in high school having a crush on an idol. She may have said she’s used to meeting personalities but sometimes she gets star struck too. Maybe she’s just star struck of Youngkyun. Maybe later on, when she comes back home, it’d feel normal already. Thinking about coming home to Youngkyun still makes her feel somehow uncomfortable… But speaking of coming back from work… “Shoot. I nearly forgot. I’m on a hurry. I’m already late for the photo-shoot,” she says and scrams her way to her room to retrieve her backpack with her camera in it.

She just hears a faint laugh from the living room and Jennie’s slap on Youngkyun, trying to stop him from laughing. “Youngkyun! Stop laughing! That’s not so nice!”

“But Jennie, she’s funny and quite cute because she’s a little clumsy,” Tzuyu hears him say even though her footsteps and her bag somehow hitting the floor are loud enough to overpower his voice.

Nice. As if one Byun Baekhyun is not enough, his cousin Kim Youngkyun comes into his life, Tzuyu thinks.