Uncomfortable Truth

Chaera still stands in the crowd, tries to enjoy the performance. She can see some of her acquaintances watching the performance also. “Chaera-ya!” someone calls her once again and she sees Hareum coming toward her with Junghyun and Minhyun. Wait, they’re here. She’s confused but she just thinks that they want to have fun.

“You guys are here,” Chaera says and Hareum smiles. Chaera slightly nods to Junghyun and Junghyun smiles at her. She looks at Minhyun and says, “You’re being a third wheel?” and the couple looks at him and just chuckles. Minhyun clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

“I’ll be separating from them later,” he says with coolly stands there with his hands on the pockets. “Anyway, we’re here to watch Dowoon’s play,” Minhyun simply says.

“What?” Chaera asks, she’s surprised by the information. “Really?” she asks one more time and she looks at her friends whom are looking at her strangely. They are like how come she doesn’t know about it. “Dowoon has a performance tonight? When?”

Minhyun intentionally says that because it’s part of their plan, they want to create a situation between Chaera and Sungwoo. Dowoon intentionally didn’t tell Chaera anything about it.

“He will perform last,” Hareum says. Did Dowoon tell me? She tries to remember. Last Friday even until today, Dowoon hasn’t told her about anything. What are they planning? She grows nervous inside because they might be planning something between her and Sungwoo. Living with them makes her quickly notice something, other than always being positive on the other side.

Right then, Chaera’s phone is vibrating. A message comes and Chaera takes her phone from her bag. It’s from Sungwoo and that adds to her surprise. Her heart is pounding fast, because there are many things occupying her mind. “Oh yeah,” she says and looks at them. “Did you guys know about Sungwoo’s performance tonight as well?”

“No, we haven’t heard anything from him,” Hareum says it fast. She lies and says it fast before Junghyun says unimportant things toward Chaera and fails her plan.

“Really?” Chaera is in disbelief and looks at them, furrows her eyebrows. Their faces look innocent, but Chaera doesn’t believe them easily. She doesn’t think that Junghyun knew about Sungwoo’s performance, so she doesn’t observe him.

Hareum and Minhyun nod at her, give her confirmation. “We just knew it from you,” Minhyun says.

Then, Chaera reads the message from Sungwoo. He tells her, “Can you do me a favor? Please come to the waiting room,” and the content astonishes her. Why me?

This case, she tells them. “Sungwoo tells us to visit him to the waiting room,” she tells them honestly as she wants to see how they react and respond. “I think we should go to visit him, give our support.”

The three of them are flustered with this, but Junghyun stays natural. Hareum suddenly links her arm to Junghyun’s and he looks at her strangely, is flustered with her sudden attack. She rarely attempts to make a first move. Chaera notices that is a bit strange because she catches Junghyun’s expression. Hareum says, “I want to go around with Junghyun oppa. Maybe we’ll just watch his performance later.”

Chaera looks at Junghyun and he’s flustered with her gazes. “Oh, yeah,” he answers with a stutter and Chaera looks at Minhyun whom is suddenly busy with his phone.

Hareum elbows him and he’s conscious from his activity. He’s acting but Chaera doesn’t notice it, but she thinks they are being strange. “Oh, what?” he innocently says and looks at Chaera.

She sighs and shakes her head. “Nothing. Just go,” she says and nods her head to them, gives a sign for them to leave.

“What?” Minhyun still puts his innocent face and asks. Chaera asks him to leave by her hands and Hareum drags him away.

“Bye, Chaera-ya! See you later!” Hareum says and Chaera just nods. Minhyun waves at her and she just raises her hand. They leave to the food stall direction. Chaera heaves a long sigh, at the same time try to calm her heart down.

Sungwoo’s message comes again. “Please, come. I’ll treat you something delicious,” and she grows nervous again reading that.

“Okay, where is it?” Chaera answers because Sungwoo asks her to come. She walks slowly to his direction with a lot of thoughts in mind. Why they didn’t know about Sungwoo’s performance? Why Dowoon didn’t tell me about his performance? Why didn’t he tell me from days ago? She remembers that when they went home together, the three of them, Sungwoo did say out loud about his performance on the art festival but still… why Dowoon didn’t tell me? Why did they put that strange expression on their faces? Ah right! She remembers one more thing. The day that Sungwoo and her kissed, she remembers that there was Haneul and Minhyun there being all excited with what they saw. Did they plan this all? For me to talk with Sungwoo? But they knew we’re fine already?

She unintentionally bumps someone as she goes into deep thoughts. “Sorry,” she says and nods politely. Thankfully that they receive the apology kindly. The thoughts haven’t stopped. She wonders if there’s another reason they did those kinds of things. Well, there’s one presumption. Just thinking about that, it makes her uncomfortable about the situation that might happen in the present.

Sungwoo’s feelings for her.

…

“You should always show your affection to me, Hareum-a,” Junghyun says and she glances at him, clicks her tongue. He whispers, “I was happy that you suddenly linked your arms to me.”

“ert,” Hareum comments.

“How is that a ert?” Junghyun complains and notices that Hareum is being shy. He pinches her cheek again and she’s annoyed, it hurts her cheek which result she’s slapping his arm using her free hand. He laughs because she’s cute when she’s shy.

…

Minhyun is walking around the food stall on his own. He sees that many famous food streets are applying their business to open a food stall here and that’s great. He’s standing in the front of food stall which sells kimbap from a famous brand.

“We finally come here!” a voice of a girl is heard and it attracts his ear because it’s a bit loud. “I can’t wait to see Dowoon oppa’s performance!” so she’s Dowoon’s fan, huh? Then he looks to his right where he can see the girls’ back. They’re walking to the watch the performance. That seems like a familiar ponytail. But he doesn’t stare at it for too long because his turn is up to buy kimbap.

…

Chaera arrives at a space full of partition. The committee makes it as the waiting room for the performers. She walks to find Sungwoo’s band on the signage posted on the partition. If it’s like this, she can find Dowoon at the same time. Some of the committee members walks around and glances at Chaera, notices she has no badge and Chaera is conscious of their attentions and it makes her restless. She wants to get away. Finally, she arrives and she carefully shows up her head and knocks to the partition.

Sungwoo, who is sitting while playing a game on his phone and waiting the others to get ready, looks to her right away and comes to her with his wide smile. She stands straight and waits until he gets to her. “Was it difficult to find it?” Sungwoo asks with his bright smile and Chaera just shakes her head as she averts her eyes to the inside. Somehow it becomes so hard to look at him in the eyes. “Oh, come in,” he says and she shyly comes inside. The band mates are glancing at her and she slightly and shyly nods at them. Sungwoo notices this and he says, “Sit here,” he takes a seat and offers her to sit beside him so she can feel at least comfortable around these strangers. “Thanks for coming, Chaera-ya,” he says and she looks at him smiling.

“You said that you wanted to treat me, so,” she shrugs and says it nonchalantly as she looks around the waiting area, because she doesn’t want to look at him. There’s nothing special inside here. “So, is Dowoon in here also?” she asks suddenly.

“Yeah,” he’s flustered by her sudden question out of nowhere. “Of course he is.”

“He didn’t tell me that he will perform tonight,” Chaera says and looks at him, observes his expression but Sungwoo just raises his eyebrows. It looks like he doesn’t know anything. “Never mind,” she says that to herself. “I told our friends to come here, but they had their own schedules.”

“Glad they didn’t come,” Sungwoo speaks in almost like a whisper.

“What?” Chaera responds fast and she suddenly gets nervous because she’s sure she doesn’t mishear him.

“Nothing,” Sungwoo answers with shaking his head and puts that innocent smile. Chaera narrows her eyes at him, she’s in disbelief. “Anyway, you should watch our performance. It’s best if you accompany me before going up to the stage.”

“Me?” Chaera asks in wonder. “Why? There’s person in charge from the committee here. I saw them walking back and forth, being a busy body.”

“Just be a good friend for today,” Sungwoo pleases her with his smile and because what he said is logical, she just nods but with a sigh. “Thanks,” Sungwoo is happy. Even though he has butterflies in his stomach, he just wants to deal with it right. On the other hand, Chaera tries so hard to be natural as ever.  Dealing with Chaera is not easy. He looks at her and says, “Dowoon will perform after me, so I can watch him right after I perform,” and she just nods. “Please wait for me for a minute before we watch Dowoon’s performance,” he makes a request once again and she just nods. He looks at her strangely with a smile, “You usually complain at me being so fussy.”

“You said you wanted to treat me, so,” she says the same thing again.

He clicks his tongue, “You and your pride,” and she just chuckles in victory. But he’s happy.

…

Chaera accompanies him by escorting him to the stage. They walk behind with his band mates are walking in the front of them and a person in charge in the most front. Before Sungwoo goes on stage, he turns to look at her, clenches his fist and throws it up. She raises her right eyebrow and scoffs. It should be her cheering him up with that, but he cheers himself. She watches him going and she goes to the outside, to watch Sungwoo’s performance in the front row.

It’s still crowded and it’s more crowded because Sungwoo’s band is performing. Chaera blends into the crowd, she can’t see Haneul, Hareum, or Minhyun here. In the end, she’s going to watch the performance by herself. She doesn’t want to see her phone because it’s too crowded and she prefers to be safe. The band is already on the stage and Chaera’s eyes look back and forth to the vocalist whom leading the crowd, and Sungwoo whom is ready with his drumsticks.

She noticed before that Sungwoo always changes his hairstyle when he’s about to perform. He gathers his bangs to the left and makes it stiff with gel and hairspray, but she has to admit that he looks cool. He knows how to make himself looks cool, so that’s why she thinks that he has many fans.

They’re performing two songs and Chaera is getting a sudden impressed on how Sungwoo plays the drums well and coolly. He puts on his arrogant, cool, chic face with a smirk while he’s playing. She can hear the girls are screaming his name. The girl besides her is sho