Taehyung

Between a bunch of appearances and premieres, a wicked cold, some photo shoots that hopefully made me look like I wasn't dying of said cold, and three round trips to Europe for interviews that totally could have been done via Skype, it was a solid month before I finally had some time to myself.

But now that I did, I was finally on my way to Seattle to see Ewon.

And oh my God, I was nervous. Like, the same kind of nerves that had kept me from sleeping on a flight to London a couple of years back. I'd been on my way to meet with a powerful and eccentric producer who'd made noise about wanting to cast me. I'd been terrified that when I got there, he'd take one look and dismiss me from his sight. He'd done that to people before, so my fear wasn't exactly unwarranted. I'd twitched and fidgeted and tried not to puke for the entire twelve-plus hour flight, and in hindsight, all that anxiety had been worth it. Because in the end he'd totally loved me and cast me in the role that really put me on the map.

In the moment, though, it had been miserable, and I had that same anxiety right now. What if Ewon and I didn't get along when it was just 

the two of us? We'd texted and DM'ed quite a bit over the last month, and we'd even talked on Skype a few times before my voice had crapped out thanks to my cold, but those were little snippets and sound bites. Ten or fifteen minutes at most. What if we sat down for coffee or dinner or whatever, and realized we actually couldn't stand each other?

I shifted in my seat for the umpteenth time and wondered if I should have gone for first class after all. At least then I could be comfortable while I mentally turned myself inside out. Except, no. I was trying to fly under the radar. I'd already had three people at LAX ask me if I was Kim Taehyung, and I'd done my usual "oh, I wish, I get that all the time." normally I adored meeting fans and I still kind of got a thrill out of people recognizing me, but I didn't want the press catching on that I was on my way to Seattle. The last thing I needed was some paparazzi lurking around and interrupting my chance at connecting with Ewon.

As it was, I'd taken a million precautions to keep them off my scent. I didn't bother with the hat-and-sunglasses routine. Nothing said something to see here like that particular ensemble. Instead, I'd hidden in plain sight. Styled my hair a little differently (which basically amounted to spiking it with seventeen different hair products instead of finger-combing it wet), carried a cheap old duffel bag instead of the triple-armored designer monstrosity I usually traveled with, and wore a pair of white Apple earbuds instead of the noise-canceling top-of-the-line headphones I preferred. Weirdly enough, subtle like that was all it took to convince people I was just a Kim Taehyung doppelgänger or take me off their radar completely. 

I hoped, anyway. I hadn't done an interview in weeks without someone asking about Ewon, and it was obvious they were digging for something. There'd been a number of articles after the talk show where people had speculated that there was a "connection" between us. That we had "chemistry". No one knew if Ewon was gay or straight, but I'd been out from day one, so any time I gave a man a second look, everyone assumed I was into him. Which, okay, to be fair...I totally was into Ewon. Whatever they thought they'd seen in my eyes on that stage? Oh yeah. They had. I just had no idea if Ewon was into me, and I didn't want a bunch of cameras showing up and ruining my chance to see if that connection or chemistry actually existed.

"Ladies and gentlemen." the captain's crackly voice startled me "We're about to begin our descent into SeaTac International Airport." he kept talking after that, but I didn't hear any of it, and that was only partially because my ears were starting to pop.

I closed my eyes and took a few slow breaths. Almost there. The way my heartrate was skyrocketing, you'd have thought Ewon would be waiting when I stepped off the plane. Except he wouldn't be. Instead, I'd pick up my rental car and head to my hotel, and we'd meet up for dinner later. He'd fallen all over himself apologizing that he couldn't get the day off work. Not if he wanted tomorrow and the weekend to spend with me. But really, I preferred it this way. Airports were full of people with cameras. Paparazzi lurked around LAX all the time, and for all I knew, there were some at SeaTac too. Even if I didn't manage to slip away from the airport undetected, no one would know who I was meeting. 

Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I sighed. I loved my job and wouldn't trade it for the world, but admittedly, I still longed for the days when I could go to the grocery store or walk through an airport without someone noticing me. You'd think I'd be used to that after growing up in a town of five hundred. Everyone knew me in Klinesville, but being famous wasn't like having to stop every ten feet at the grocery store to talk to my old English teacher or say hi to my Aunt Renee. Those were people I knew. These were strangers with cameras who believed I'd signed away my right to any semblance of privacy the day I stepped onto a film set. And, whether or not that was true, I wasn't about to compromise someone else's privacy just because he was willing to meet up with me.

The plane touched down, and moments later, pulled up to the gate. Heart beating wildly, I pulled my carry-on out from under the seat and down from the overhead bin, and followed the slow-moving line up the narrow aisle. I cast a longing look at the cushy first class seats, but didn't let those thoughts linger. It had been a fairly short flight, and flying coach had kept me on the down-low. Good enough.

SeaTac was an easy airport to navigate, and it wasn't as enormous as others I'd been through—or maybe my gate was just in a really good spot—and before long, I was settling into my rental car. The girl at the rental desk had looked at me like she'd recognized me, and she'd definitely given my name a second glance, but she hadn't said anything. Most people at those places were pretty good about not suddenly tweeting "OMG Kim Taehyung totally just rented a silver Prius from the SeaTac AVIS and is probably getting on the I-5 as we speak!!!" so 

hopefully she wasn't broadcasting my location while I sat here in the parking lot trying to figure out the unfamiliar car.

The shiny Prius had a million bells and whistles, but after a few minutes of fiddling, I had the seat where I wanted it and my hotel's address in the GPS. When the map appeared on the screen, I wasn't surprised to see the estimated travel time at forty-five minutes. In fact, I chuckled—Ewon had warned me that Seattle traffic was no joke, and that it would probably take me longer than that to get through downtown and up into Everett, where he lived. As if anyone who lived in LA ever believed a GPS when it said you could go forty-five miles in as many minutes.

I found a radio station that apparently played techno and dance music, and I hummed to myself as I left the airport. The GPS guided me through the tangle of ramps and merges, and finally I was on the I-5 and headed toward Everett.

I was still a nervous wreck and probably would be until I'd been in Ewon's company for a while. Now that I was on the ground, though, I was better. Which was no surprise. Flying seemed to be when most of my anxiety came out. Jennie guessed that it was because there wasn't much else to do while flying. Once we were on the ground, there were actual tasks like driving and navigating, and those could pull my focus away from how seriously ing nervous I was. Made sense. When I went to see that producer in London, I'd settled down a lot just walking from the plane to baggage claim (which, to be fair, is like fifty-eight miles at Heathrow, so that's bound to take care of some energy). I'd still been a mess, but I hadn't been powerless anymore.

So as I drove up the I-5 and Seattle came into view, I was doing okay. Tapping my thumbs on the wheel in time with some Europop song I would seriously have to download later, glancing at the map occasionally, and grinding through the thick midafternoon traffic—yeah, I was doing okay. If it weren't for that snug knot twisting in my stomach or the restless feeling in my limbs, I might've even been able to forget I had a reason to be nervous at all.

Except I did.

Because of Ewon.

I was going to see Ewon tonight. In just a few hours, we'd be together. No talk show hosts as a buffer. No cameras to make us think twice about what we said. Just us.

I swallowed hard. I stopped tapping my thumbs and gripped the wheel, which only served to remind me how sweaty my palms were getting. Christ, major auditions didn't stress me out like this anymore. What the hell was wrong with me?

Exhaling slowly, I shifted in the driver's seat. It would be fine. Even if we never saw each other again after this weekend, there was no reason to think this visit would be a disaster. But what if we didn't have anything to talk about? What if all our "connection" and "chemistry" started and ended with the conversation we'd had on Los Angeles This Morning or the brief chats we'd had since? I supposed I could always take an earlier flight back to LA. Or I could show myself around Seattle.

But damn it, I wanted the weekend to work. I had a feeling about Ewon. A gut feeling. Something I'd never felt before, something I couldn't explain, but something I hoped wasn't just my imagination. I wanted to believe the looks he'd given me—the long eye contact, those beautiful smiles—had meant something. That he hadn't just been starstruck.

I didn't think he was starstruck. Not when he'd smiled at me the same way he had at the diner back when I'd been a no-name nobody with every intention of crawling back home a failure. Whatever had been there in the diner that day had been there on the talk show, and I was hanging a lot more hope than I probably should have on it being something. Interest? Attraction? Some kind of tiny spark that could be fanned into friendship? I wanted to believe it could be fanned into more than friendship, but I tried not to let my mind go there. Not yet. There was no point in thinking about things like that until I knew we could be friends. After that, we'd see what happened.

Just don't let tonight be a disaster.

Or tomorrow.

Or the next day.