"You know I'm not some serial killer, right?" 

Amber glanced over at Mr. Kim. "No. I don't know that. I barely know you at all." 

He chuckled, arranging his guitar on his lap. 

"You know this would be much better indoors? Nature is going to throw the sound off."

"Why are you so desperate to get me in some closed-up room?" 

He tossed his head back, laughing. "Okay. Fine. Fine. Go ahead and get your guitar out so we can see what you need to learn and if there are any bad habits you've picked up." 

Amber pulled her old, beat-up guitar from its case and balanced it on her folded legs, cradling it in her palms. 

"Play me something you know." 

Feeling a little self-conscious, Amber played the first song that came to mind, a gentle ballad that had been one of her dad's favorite to listen to on the radio. 

Mr. Kim appraised her. "You've got good emotion. I like the way you suspend some of the notes, but it's really clear that you need more practice to really understand the arrangement. I'm glad you agreed to let me teach you." 

Amber flushed happily. "Thank you, Mr. Kim." 

"I told you to call me, Jung Mo," he said with a saucy tilt of his handsome head. 

Amber leaned. "Thank you, Jung Mo. Just please don't turn out to be some creep?" 

"I promise. I'm not." 

She still eyed him skeptically but continued her lesson with a giddy heart. She would get better. She would become a proper songwriter. She would be able to actually put the melodies in her head to paper and play them for someone else. She glanced up at her teacher, eyes grateful. She really, really hoped he wouldn't turn out to be a creep because everything he was doing for her meant a lot. 

Krystal sipped her wine slowly. Seemed like once you were roped into one dinner party, you were roped into a million. She hadn't been able to study at the bookstore in weeks and she was often too tired to once she got home from chatting with one boring person after another. 

She sighed and accidentally knocked elbows with a guy next to her causing a bit of her drink to spill on his sleeve. He had a little round head like a monk and a peaceful smile. Kyungsoo, the son of their company's vice president. 

"Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. 

He calmly waved off her apology and dried his sleeve. "It's okay. Thank you for apologizing." He went right back to his food. 

He was always so quiet and stand-offish that she would forget he was in a room sometimes even though she'd been next to him at these functions for nearly seven years. He was about three years older than her and was trying to be an actor from what she could remember. His father didn't approve but that didn't seem to bother the peaceful young man.

"Who's that?" he asked, for once showing interest in the world around him rather than whatever was going on in his head. 

Krystal had left her phone on the table rather than her bag since it at least provided some small distraction, even if she was just looking at the light bouncing and glittering off the little pink fox charm Embo had given her. 

The screen had lit up briefly showing that someone she followed had made an Instagram post. 

She clicked through and grinned. She'd helped Embo set up an Instagram the last time they'd had a phone call. Embo had only made two posts since then, and now finally a third one. 

"Oh, it's a video," Kyungsoo said. 

Krystal considered asking him to mind his own business, but he was so chill it almost seemed rude to exclude him. Embo probably wouldn't mind anyway since he'd gone through the effort to make the video. 

She clicked on it, noticing that Embo had his guitar. 

"Mom, hold the phone just a little higher. Okay, perfect." 

Krystal laughed that Embo hadn't cut that part out of his video. It was interesting to see his room behind him and she couldn't help the little flush in her cheeks when she noticed half his wall was covered with the photos she'd sent him from Europe. 

Guess he really did like them. 

"Oh wow, her voice is really sweet," Kyungsoo noted. He pulled out his phone and went to Instagram to follow. 

"That's a guy," Krystal laughed. "My friend Embo." 

Kyungsoo looked at her funny then shrugged. He had a friend who used various pronouns as well although it was quite easy to hear and see that Embo had been born a girl. The other two images uploaded to Embo's Instagram was a bored looking selfie in a bookstore, and one taken by a third person of her and who he assumed to be her mom judging by how similar they looked. 

"Your friend likes music?" he asked.

"Umm, yeah. I'm not sure what kind though." 

Kyungsoo nodded and reached into his jacket pocket. "I have tickets to my friend's play, but I can't go because I'm filming that day." 

"Oh! You have a role?!" 

He grinned proudly, the most life she'd ever seen in the guy. "It's not my first role, but it's the first time I'm leading. I've been nervous about it all week." He shook his head. "Anyway," he passed her the tickets. "If you and Embo are free that night, I'm sure he'd love the extra support from the audience."

Krystal took the tickets and studied it. It looked interesting. She hadn't been to the theater in ages. "I'll ask him. You were just carrying these around?" she asked, waving them in his face. 

"I pretty much wear only this jacket. My dad cut off my money in hopes of luring me back to the business world. This is like the one fancy thing I have left until I get paid for this upcoming role." 

"Oh wow," Krystal looked at him in admiration. "Must be hard."

He shrugged self-deprecatingly. "I have food and a roof, that's all that matters." 

Krystal didn't think that would be enough for her. She liked the fancy clothes and the shoes and being able to travel whenever and where ever she wanted. It did feel a little empty though. She hoped that would all go away once she entered the business world and became her own woman. 

She glanced back down at her phone and wondered about Embo. She could tell from that video that Embo's room was small. His mom had been sitting on the other side but Embo had still been a bit cropped. She wondered what he would do if he ever achieved his dreams or got a lot of money. Some people spent it foolishly, but Embo didn't seem to be that sort of person. 

Why do I want to know more about him?