You weren’t starving yourself.

That’s what you kept telling yourself.

You were in Korea, and the food here was different, and the food here was spicy and that’s why you weren’t eating because you were picky and didn’t know what you liked here.

That’s what you kept repeating in your head.

You were in a cafeteria, you went to the right place to get food. There had even been a place with macaroni and cheese on the menu.

But they were out of mac and cheese for the next fifteen minutes… Thirty minutes ago.

Now you were settled, and anxious and you weren’t feeling like moving. No matter what you told yourself you couldn’t get the urge to get up.

You weren’t even hungry.

God, why weren’t you even hungry?

You hadn’t eaten all day. You should be hungry. But a single thought had meant that you suddenly had lost your appetite.

I’ve been eating too much. I shouldn’t eat so much.

And just like that, it was over.

Your hunger was gone in a flash. The past few days all you had done was eaten one meal, and you hadn’t been hungry at any other points in the day.

You went from eating 2000 calories to maybe 800, and the influencer? A single passing thought.

You weren’t overweight. You weren’t anorexically skinny. You didn’t have a problem with your weight or anything of the sort. You didn’t like people watching you eat, but that didn’t usually stop you from eating.

The power of your own mental influence had never been this intense before.

You had told yourself not to snack so much before in the past. You had a bad habit of eating too much when you got your hands on snacks. You got really bad cravings for really random sugary sweets a lot too, and if there was snack food around you couldn’t keep yourself from eating some.

You hadn’t had a craving since the eating problem first occurred.

Someone in the cafeteria stood up, sharply pushing back their plastic chair as they did so. The resulting sound was a loud screech that made you jump a little looking in that general direction. The person didn’t even seem to notice that they had made such a loud noise. They were laughing and smiling as they walked. Clueless to your mental state.

You tried to focus back in on the book you were reading.

Horror.

You had been very interested in horror recently.

Short films, long movies, short stories, web comics and more. You couldn’t focus on anything unless there was a scary scenario running through your head. The monotone words of someone recalling a story in which they were almost kidnapped had become the only thing that could keep your idling brain entertained recently.

You couldn’t do anything unless you were focusing on some sort of twisted horrifying scenario.

You had never been interested in horror stories before. In fact, horror used to genuinely terrify you. Over the years you had built an immunity to the scares. Jump scares didn’t get you much anymore. No, the ambiance was what was scary. Build a creepy scenario, and it sent chills down your spine.

A loud laugh ripped you from your thoughts. You looked to the side and noticed that there were two businessmen standing near you, having a conversation. You were surprised that you hadn’t noticed them before. They weren’t quiet and they were stationed pretty close to you.

Your leg began to bounce, nerves.

You leaned back in your chair, keeping your book propped open with your left hand, and chewing thoughtlessly on the tip of your thumb as you did so. You didn’t chew on your fingers. In fact, you didn’t really have bad habits like that. Sometimes you wondered what it was like to have a habit like that. You’ve had nervous ticks before. The normal things. You just sometimes wondered what it would be like if you had picked up other ones instead of the ones you had. So you consciously played with them, until you subconsciously picked it up, doing various odd habits from time to time.

The chair in front of you slid out from under the table. You glanced up in surprise, and what you found there made you jump.

Jihoon.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he commented. His expression was soft. He had makeup on, a lot of it, but it didn’t hide how heavy his bags were under his eyes. Even his smile, while genuine, was weary.

He set two trays on the table, one in front of you.

“Evening,” you responded. Seeing Jihoon smile made your concerns momentarily melt away.

He looked so damn happy, just to see you.

It was odd to think that anyone could feel happy just because you were there. Especially someone who you had realistically spent so little time with. But he was.

You knew that the boys had just been doing practice and heavy promotions for their upcoming comeback. In the pictures you had seen, Jihoon hadn’t looked all that happy. You had been trying to avoid thinking about how down he may be feeling with the stress of being an idol.

The last time you had looked at someone and seen them smile at you, you hadn’t wanted to smile back. You couldn’t remember actively seeing someone in person, and wanting to smile at them when they smiled at you. Even your friends you didn’t want to smile back to because you didn’t want to lie. You didn’t want to manipulate them into thinking that you were happy when you really weren’t.

This was the first time in at least a year that you smiled right back without feeling that dread in your stomach for smiling and not really wanting to. Probably because you wanted to smile.

“What’s this?” You asked gesturing towards the trey that Jihoon had brought to the table. He tilted his head.

“Macaroni and cheese. I’m hungry,” he replied. You gave him a small tilt of your head.

“Why is there two treys?” You reiterated.

“For you,” he replied. “It’s dinnertime you should be eating.”

You were a pretty impressionable person.

There were certain people that you held pretty highly in your heart. You never made it known that you held them so highly so they would probably be surprised to hear exactly how often they were in your thoughts. Unsurprisingly enough, Woozi was one of those people.

You remembered times in the past when those influential people had told you something that made you change something about yourself completely.

It was always something that you had been thinking yourself already but hadn’t been comfortable enough to say out loud.

You were told once that your hair didn’t look that good down. That was your high school crush. You didn’t wear your hair down for the next four years, and only wore it down after you got it cut.

You were told at another time that you looked good in bright colors. That was by a childhood friend. You wore bright colors from then on.

One time, a guy had liked you. He was nice, but you weren’t sure how you felt about him. Your best friend at the time was very aware of everything that went on in your life. You wanted him to meet the guy you knew liked you. You knew that his approval was what you were looking for. If he didn’t approve of him, well… You knew you wouldn’t want to date him.

He didn’t say anything about him after meeting him, so you stopped inviting the guy to hang out with you.

You were very impressionable.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, you just were. You knew you were.

So you were careful when getting to know your kpop biases, because if they had a preference of some sort in a girl, you were afraid you might cling on to that, and change yourself to try and conform to that.

“You watch anime don’t you?” He asked after a moment. You cocked your head to the side.

“Yeah,” you replied softly. He smiled.

“Are you keeping up with any anime this season?” He asked. “I haven’t been able to really but I know that there are a lot worth watching.”

“You’re probably way too busy producing to watch anime,” you agreed. “I haven’t been following many either because of school. But I have been watching Slime.”

“Really? I have too!” Woozi agreed. Excitement crossed his facial features, and for a second he didn’t look as tired. It made you smile even brighter.

“Yeah! Honestly, it’s one of my favorite anime right now! Rimuru Tempest is so cool!” You gushed. Woozi agreed just as brightly. Before you knew it the two of you had begun to have an in depth conversation about the show and quite honestly you were a little taken aback by Jihoon’s love of the japanese cartoons.

Jihoon acted a little bit like a jock sometimes. He didn’t seem like the type to be interested in something like anime on the surface. Of course, the short conversation you had with him proved otherwise.

An undeniable spark lit up in his eyes as he spoke about the characters in anime they had both watched, and when he got particularly excited about a plot you were able to add input that only made him more excited.

You got him talking about Goblin Slayer, a particularly controversial anime for a scene in the first episode, and your opinion on it had surprisingly enough aligned with his. After a while you just settled down and listened to the boy excitedly speaking in between large, sloppy  bites of food.

Your phone was actually the thing that interrupted the conversation between you two. You glanced down, surprised to see that you had a call from Caitlin. You answered it.

“Is everything okay?” You asked softly.

“Is everything okay? It’s late and you haven’t been answering your texts!”

Your eyes widened slightly and you pulled your phone down to look at the time. It was almost midnight. You lowered your phone and mouthed just that to Jihoon who looked to be just as surprised as you were. He looked at his watch, and then at his phone, and then at your watch, and then he reached forward and he took your phone from your hand. You didn’t understand why he did that, but you let him.

“Sorry I kept her out late, don’t worry, I’ll let her go back now.”

He didn’t wait for Caitlin to respond. He hung up the phone right afterwards, and stared down at it. He then looked at you. His expression was soft. God, he looked so tired.

“Do you still have promotions tomorrow?” You asked him, your voice so quiet that you didn’t think he would hear. Whenever your voice got this quiet people didn’t ever hear you.

“We have practice pretty early,” he admitted after a moment. Your expression solemned.

“Why did you stay out with me so late. If you push your body like this-”

“If I hadn’t have come over and brought you food would you have eaten at all?” Jihoon interrupted. There wasn’t a lot you could say to that. You could either lie, or you could tell the truth.

“I-”

“I could have lied to you about how early I had to get up,” Jihoon said interrupting you again. “You lie a lot don’t you? About things that don’t even matter sometimes. This matters, do you really want to lie to me about something that matters?”

“No.”

The word left your mouth before you could even think it through. You figured that gave you a pretty clear idea on what that meant.

“I wouldn’t have eaten,” you admitted. “I’m… It’s… Eating is weird for me right now.”
“I like a girl who eats,” Jihoon said.

There it was. The damning phrase. It was all over for you now. Any hope of you actually being able to get over that stupid eating habit yourself, or actually having yourself go through a really bad health habit was all over. That’s all Jihoon had to say.

“Not that that should matter,” Jihoon corrected immediately. “You can do what you want, you should just… You should try to stay healthy.”

Try to stay healthy.

You wanted to be mad at him for telling you to be healthy when he was an idol and you knew he wasn’t healthy himself, but you couldn’t rightly say it when you weren’t doing it either.

“I’m usually better about it, it’s just a recent thing,” you mumbled defiantly. You got to your feet and grabbed both of the trays. “We need to get you to bed.”

You walked them over to the trash and he followed behind you, and a soft expression on his face. You smiled at him tentatively.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing at all.”

Your expression turned into one of slight confusion, but the smile didn’t leave your face even as you did so.

“You’re much weirder in real life then I imagined you would be,” you mumbled back. Jihoon didn’t respond to that, and the two of you fell in line as you exited the building. “Where are you off to?”

“What do you think you’re going to do? Walk me home?” Jihoon asked, his voice a little bit quieter than before. You glanced over at him and noticed that he was stumbling just a tad as he walked.

“I know you’re a producer and a unit leader, but you really need to start prioritizing your rest,” you stated. “I’ve only gone like a week or two on that awful eating schedule. How long have you gone without rest?”

Jihoon didn’t respond and that was all the answer that you needed from him.

“God, I hate idols,” you murmured in English. Jihoon glanced at you, and you were pretty sure he had understood what you said, but he didn’t comment on it either way. He instead looked away from you at a passing car.

“How are you liking Korea?” He asked you. “I bet you’ve been planning this trip for a while right? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”

You nodded slowly, following Jihoon down the sidewalk to wherever he was leading you two.

“It’s nice. Different then America, but not that different you know? It’s weird seeing things in a language that isn’t my first, and eating food that isn’t the kind I grew up with,” you explained. “Different countries themselves are just strange. It’s not the first time I’ve visited one, but I’ve never been this far from home before. Especially not for this long and without my family.”

“Yeah but you don’t have a great relationship with your family anyways,” Jihoon agreed. You glanced at him.

“Yeah,” you agreed, but the question in your head remained unspoken. How did Jihoon know that?

“I know I’m an idol and all, but if you ever need anything, don’t be afraid to contact me,” he stated. Halfway through the statement he paused to yawn. “Where are you staying?”

“I don’t trust you to walk back on your own buddy,” you replied lightly. “I can make my way back without falling asleep. You on the other hand, I don’t think so.”
Jihoon glared at you lightly for the jab, but you weren’t able to take the expression all that seriously when you could tell just how tired he was. It was weird, but you had watched a number of compilations of Seventeen in their freetime. You knew how he acted when he was tired. He liked to lean on things and rest his eyes, hit people lightly on the side for attention and comfort. You wanted to offer to be that support, but you still weren’t really sure what this was. Were you in a spot that you could offer that? What were you two anyways?

“I can’t let you walk home alone,” Jihoon protested. You sighed.

“Don’t make me google where you guys live,” you threatened. He frowned deeper and paused to lean against the wall. His eyes fluttered shut for just a moment, which seemed to remind him exactly how tired he was.

“I’m just down this street. We’re a block away.”

“Good, good,” you murmured softly. You hesitated to offer your arm to him, and instead just waited for him to collect himself. Once he did you guys started walking again in silence. In fact, neither of you spoke until he finally stopped in front of a building that in your distant memory looked familiar.

“This is my dorm,” Jihoon murmured. You could tell he was reluctant to leave you there so you gave him a smile and waved him off.

“Get some sleep. Thank you for the food today,” you said in farewell. Before he could say anything else you the heel of your foot and started to walk away. He called your name after you and added a quick:

“See you later.”

“Good bye, Woozi,” you called back, giving him a stiff wave over your head.

It didn’t take you long to get back home after that. Seventeen’s dorm was fortunately only about a thirty to forty-five minute walk back to your apartment. Once you arrived back both of your roommates were luckily sleeping. You were worried that they would stay up waiting for you to return.

You tried to just lay down and go right to sleep, but it was super hard for you to focus. You kept thinking about your interactions with Jihoon today. Before. Even sooner then that.

You felt like you were crazy. Hallucinating maybe.

Had you possibly finally gone insane?

Sure, Caitlin and Julia had both seemed to see Woozi and the other boys as well. They were the ones who told you about the instagram comments in the first place. You had seen the picture of yourself on Woozi’s instagram.

웃어.

You tentatively upturned your lips. You let the expression drop after only a single small moment.

This was real.

To give yourself one more piece of proof you looked down at your phone, looking at the series of pictures the boy had left on your phone.

You need more pictures of me.

You closed your eyes and shoved your phone back into your pocket.

There were so many loose ends. This entire situation was just… Too bizarre. Like a bad fanfiction plot line. You weren’t a lucky girl. You weren’t stunning, and recently you were barely even Jihoon’s type. So why… How was this happening?

You changed into your pajamas and laid yourself down on to sleep.