Chapter Nineteen

All three couples arrived around the same time that night and walked in together. They had received a text from Sunho earlier in the day that he was fixing supper so everyone was excited. Everyone ate, and those that had stayed home attempted to grill the others about their dates. The girls then said good night to the men and headed to their room to get ready for bed.

The girls agreed to change into their pajamas and then come back to their living room to gab about their dates. They all took their seats on the couches, curling up and Hyemi was dying to know how things went.

“Youngest starts,” Nik announced. Briley gladly took the floor. She pulled out her laptop and quickly uploaded the photos so everyone could look as she talked about her date. The girls all squeed in excitement as they looked at the photos and Briley told her tale.

“Wannie told me a secret,” she smirked as all three other women looked up from the monitor.

“Ok?” the other three said in unison.

“So he told me that they had all been watching us a lot longer than before our followers started harassing them. He said that Minwoo found our channel after looking for reactors to their comeback and that they all started watching our channel.” Nik and Lily looked shocked.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I could have told you that.” Hyemi chuckled and ran her hand through Lily’s hair who was leaning up against her. “Hyuk had shown me the video after he got home that day.” Lily and Nik gaped at her.

Briley continued. “They were going to come see us even before they were asked to. Pilkyo and Choongjae have apparently seen nearly every one of your solo videos as well. Dongwan said that all six of them have been watching at least one or two of our new videos a week since they found us.”

Lily leaned into Hyemi’s hand as she continued playing with her hair. “I can’t believe they never mentioned that. I mean, we’ve spent enough time with them by now.” Hyemi shrugged.

Nik chewed on her busted lip as she processed. “I’m gunna hit him. It even came up sort of on our date and he never said anything.”

Hyemi and Briley laughed, but Lily just rolled her eyes. “Maybe he has his reasons for not saying anything? Jae didn’t tell me, either.”

Nik looked and pouted. “I want to hit him.”

“You can hit him all you want. You should still listen to his reasoning, though.”

“I’m gunna hit him, and then I will listen...and then hit him again,” Nik said resolutely. Everyone laughed. “Ok, Lil, your turn. Spill it.”

The night went on for another hour as Lily and then Nik spilled about their dates, and then they all agreed to call it a night. Nik had testing and competition in the morning.

~

When morning came, Nik slid out of bed quietly in attempts to not wake her bedmate again. She managed to get ready and head out the door without waking any of her sleeping friends. Aaron waited for her outside, and the two took off to the convention center a couple blocks away.

“You know they all want to watch you,” Aaron said to his mother.

“Everyone should sleep. Besides, I don’t test until close to noon. And I won’t compete til after that. Why not let them sleep?” She ruffled his hair as they made it inside to find their instructor and friends.

~

Back at the hotel, there was a knock on the girls room that woke the New Yorker. When she answered the door, she saw Minwoo, Pilkyo, and Sunho standing outside, the little prince looking a bit more annoyed than the other two.

“What?” Lily yawned, sleepy gaze tracing over each of the three men standing in the doorway.

“They already left. They snuck out. I think Aaron turned off our alarms,” Pilkyo said in frustration.

Lily turned to look up at the clock on the wall. It was already after nine.  “I guess Nik did the same. I’ll get the girls up and dressed.” Lily yawned again. “She said she was only judging this morning. I guess she wanted us to have some time to relax.”

“We told her we were going to go watch. If you girls want to stay, you can. That’s the reason she left us here, but we figured we would at least check on you before we left,” Sunho informed her. He glanced at his older brother and attempted to hide his smirk.

“I’ll check with the others, but I want to go. It will be at least thirty minutes before we will be ready to leave though. You willing to wait?” Lily smiled. Seeing Pilkyo frustrated was indeed very entertaining.

“We’ll wait in our room,” Minwoo smiled and led his brothers back to their suite.

~

“Mom, he messaged again.” Nik nodded but didn’t look at her son. Aaron was sitting on the floor playing on Nik’s phone while Nik sat in a judging chair next to two other instructors, both higher ranks than her. They were organizing the papers for the first group of testing to start and she didn’t have time to look at her phone.

“Who did?” the middle seated instructor, a tall balding but in his late 30s Korean man asked, but didn’t look up from their paperwork that the three were sorting.

“Mom’s BOYFRIEND! He said that they’re all on their way,” Aaron responded before Nik could interject.

Nik spun around to glare at her son while both of the gentlemen next to her laughed. She quickly turned back to both of them and bowed her head slightly. “He is not my boyfriend. Not officially, TK-ah.”

“We will see,” TK Sabumnim chuckled to himself.

~

After everyone had loaded into the van, Pilkyo drove the short distance to the convention center and had the valet at the front take the van so that they could go straight in. He got their ring number from Aaron since Nik was too busy. Pilkyo messaged Aaron to let them know they had made it and Aaron stood up to meet them.

“Mom’s busy and can’t talk yet. They are still on forms. She said y’all may get bored so I can take y’all around if you don’t want to sit here and watch.”

“I’m going to stay here, but the others can go walk around if you want. Are you hungry?” When Aaron nodded, Pilkyo pulled out his wallet. “I saw some stands closer to the entrance. You can go grab yourself something to eat.” He handed the kid his credit card. “Just don’t lose this, yeah?”

Aaron grinned and nodded excitedly. “Come on, I’ll show y’all around the place. Mom won’t be called to testing for another two hours!” Everyone but Pilkyo followed after Aaron. Aaron first took everyone to the food stands and got some food, then proceeded to show everyone to the gift shop area.

Pilkyo sat down in one of the chairs at Nik’s ring that she was working when she looked over and noticed him. He was frowning but waved when she gave him a timid smile. The other two judges looked in his direction. The center judge quickly turned his head looking between her and Pilkyo for a moment.

Their testing ring was over a little over an hour later, and Nik motioned for Pilkyo to come join them on the mats. “Pilkyo-ssi, this is TK Sabumnim. His father was the founder of our organization.” She smiled nervously but stood at a relaxed attention. She turned her attention back to Pilkyo for a moment, who had grimaced at how she referred to him. “Sabumnim, this is...exactly who you know it is. Shinhwa’s Shin Hyesung, or Jung Pilkyo.

“Ah, it’s an honor to meet you,” the instructor said, bowing slightly. “My sister and I have been fans of yours for a while.” He turned his attention back to Nik, who couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes at this point and was silently chewing her bottom lip. “Is this who your son was referring to…?”

“Yes sir,” Nik interrupted, hoping and praying that he wouldn’t finish his sentence.

TK Sabumnim smiled and let one of his arms rest around Nik’s tense shoulders. He looked from Nik to Pilkyo, and back to Nik. “Well, ma’am, I think it’s about time for you to go get ready for your own testing.” Nik nodded, and he looked back up at Pilkyo once more. “Take care of her.”

Nik and Pilkyo stood there silently until the other was out of earshot, and Nik let out a sighed groan she had been holding in and rubbed her face before completely turning her body to face Pilkyo. She opened but before she could, Pilkyo spoke. “Pilkyo-ssi? Are we back to that now?” He was angry. Nik winced at his tone. “You left this morning without a word. Had your son turn off my alarm so that you could sneak out. Did your feelings change overnight?”

Nik chewed her lip and couldn’t find the right words. She finally forced herself to make eye contact with him. “I wanted you to get some rest.” It was barely a whisper, and Pilkyo could barely register that she had spoken.

“That’s not good enough. You didn’t answer the question.”

“Second and third degrees, ages 18-29, come to staging.”

The voice startled Nik. “I have to go to staging.” She reached out and took his hands in hers. “My feelings have not changed. I wanted you to rest.” She turned to look towards the staging area. She looked back up into his eyes, releasing his hands in favor of running hers up his forearm, over his bicep, and hesitantly wrapping them around his neck. She looked nervously into his eyes until he let his own hands reach up and wrap far more possessively around her waist, pulling her in closer. “I have to get to staging, and Kwanjangnim is now watching us. I guess TK went and blabbed.”

“I don’t care who’s watching, but you shouldn’t be late.” He sighed, still frustrated. They weren’t done with this conversation. “Can I go with you to staging.” Nik nodded and pulled herself out of his arms to grab her gearbag and weapons.

He followed close behind her. He watched as she spoke with the instructor in charge of staging, holding her gear for her as she checked in and warmed up. When she was moved to a ring, he messaged everyone else. When they arrived, they all sat together.

“Ok, what’s wrong?” Junghyuk whispered, plopping down next to his brother. Pilkyo shrugged. “Don’t give me that. Something happened.”

“It’s nothing. Drop it before anyone else hears. I don’t want to distract her.”

“Then tell me quietly what’s wrong.” Junghyuk raised an eyebrow.

Pilkyo groaned quietly. His hyung was like a dog with a bone. Once he had something, there was no convincing him to let go of it. “It’s just everything,” Pilkyo dropped his voice down as quietly as he could. When Junghyuk didn’t respond, he continued. “She snuck out so that we wouldn’t come this morning. She says it’s because she wanted us to rest but…”

“You should believe her on that. Is that all?”

“She introduced me to one of the other instructors. He’s probably close to our age. She kept referring to me as Pilkyo-ssi. After yesterday, that’s still how she introduces me? And they seemed really comfortable with each other.” Pilkyo sighed.

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“I tried, but then she had to go get ready. Look, their lining up.”

Junghyuk slung his arm around his brother’s shoulder, pulling him in and laughing when the younger made to try and pull away. They both laughed after a moment. “Talk to her. Before the end of the day, or I will.” Pilkyo groaned again, knowing that he was not simply making a hollow threat, and nodded.

Soon after, her ring began. Aaron sat and explained a lot of what was going on to the girls. Nik did well. Aaron was whispering the little mistakes that Nik had made. They wouldn’t count much against her, but Aaron had seen her form so many times that he could spot the tiniest errors. After forms, weapons, and sparring, Nik broke her boards and her cheering section erupted into chaos. Nik’s face flushed at the noise level and attention, but attempted to seem as unaffected as possible in front of the judges.

Just as her ring was being released and Nik began making her way over to her friends and family, there was another announcement. “Tournament of Champions is about to begin. All Black Belts, 18-29, please report to staging.”

Nik sighed. “There won’t be much difference between what y’all just watched and what I’m about to go do. Y’all should go do something more fun. Or at least go grab lunch.”

“We came to cheer you on. That was the whole point of us coming!” Lily said. Nik made a face at her.

“We’re all staying, and if you give us any more lip we will be twice as loud next time,” Minwoo threatened.

“I love you, too,” Nik rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’m headed to staging. I’ll text you the ring number when we get set up.” Pilkyo offered to go with her to help her with her stuff and text everyone so that she could stay focused. Nik argued, but gave in pretty easily.

Just as Nik had said, everything was pretty close to the same with the exception of there were not board breaking. Instead, they had weapon’s sparring as well as creative forms. By the time her ring was done, it was nearly two in the afternoon.

Nik was done with her competition. She had placed first in traditional and weapons forms, so she was elated. After receiving the medals, she was met with Sahboonim and Kwanjangnim and spoke with them privately for a few minutes. Her friends watched on as Nik played the part of her strict, instructor style character. She turned her head in the direction of her friends and signed for Aaron to come join the conversation. He quickly ran and joined the trio and mimicked his mother’s behavior. Twenty minutes later, they bowed to both instructors and headed back over to their friends.

“I’m so sorry that took so long. Y’all must be starving.” Nik pouted. “Why don’t we go get something to eat before this evening?”

“No reason to apologize,” Minwoo grinned as he wrapped an arm around her.

“You did really well. You should have won that last match you were in, judges missed several points,” Dongwan agreed. Nik shrugged and thanked them, leaning in to kiss each of them on the cheek.