2013

Seoul was nice at that time of the year, when it wasn’t very cold yet but the chill weather of winter had started to give its first sings, and there was a light breeze sweeping through the tall buildings during the dark evening.

The city centre had already started lighting up with decorations and in the air, you could feel that atmosphere you still remembered form when you were a child and the holidays were about to start, even if they were really a few weeks away; many people were walking around with shopping bags and cheerful smiles, children were jumping around excitedly, followed closely by their exasperated mothers. It was a rather cliché scenes, of the ones you saw in dramas, if you added up the couples walking around hand in hand without a worry in the world.
 
Hye-jin didn’t really wish they were one of those couples, but she admitted it would’ve been nice to be able to take a walk in peace without having to worry about teenage girls ready to attack her boyfriend, or without said boyfriend having to be buried in a kilometric scarf and with a beanie almost pulled over his eyes to hide his rather showy blond hair to avoid being recognised.

The strangest thing about that whole situation was that her friends were all against their relationship, and she couldn’t really say if they were sincere or just jealous; they usually said that it wasn’t healthy to date a famous man, because they would never have a normal life and so and so, that he would soon get tired of her and dumb her with a broken heart.

She knew that, somehow, they were right, but she didn’t really care, she considered it the same way she had done with all her previous relationships; it wasn’t like she intended to marry him, they’d been dating for barely two months, and she was trying to enjoy their time together while it lasted. Other arguments they’d thrown at her face were that he was ugly and she could do much better which always resulted in her walking away from her so-called friends, retorting that, even if he were ugly, at least he could sing and he didn’t treat her like garbage like some of her friends’ boyfriends did.
 
She liked him because, after all, behind his fame, he was just a normal guy, he was really a down-to-earth person, he didn’t act like he was somehow superior just because of who he was, he respected the people who were less fortunate than him and always had a caring eye for everyone; her friends could tell her what they wanted, they could be sincerely worried for her and she still wouldn’t listen because she knew how to take care of herself, and if they were just jealous, she knew they didn’t see him as a person, but only saw him for his name, they couldn’t want anything more than to end up on the front-page of some stupid gossip magazine. Rather than that, Hye-jin lived life as it went and tried to follow her heart when she could and she knew that had helped them get together in the first place, considering she’d found the courage to call him after their first meeting and she knew he would’ve never done that first because he ‘really didn’t want to bother her and was afraid she wouldn’t want to go out with him because he barely had time and was almost always in a different country’.
 
She glanced at him for a brief second and found him smiling at her (if he didn’t have such a great eye-smile she would’ve never guessed since she couldn’t see the bottom half of his face), and wondered if he’d been thinking about her just as such as she was thinking about him; knowing him, he probably was.

You couldn’t guess he was a romantic if you didn’t know him that well and only judged him from what was said in interviews or how he acted on stage, he came off as a rather flirty guy that wasn’t really looking for something serious, but he wasn’t like that; she’d been surprised more than once by how thoughtful and sweet he was. She stopped in her tracks and he followed soon enough, dragged back by their still intertwined hands; she laughed at his confused expression and stepped towards him, pulling down his scarf for a brief moment and kissing him.

Seemingly forgetful of the fact that they were in public and someone could recognize him, he didn’t pull back and just placed his hands on her waist, smiling softly yet once again; everything seemed to be going perfectly fine, until-
 
“Daesung-ah!” the voice was so loud that probably the entire square had heard and, when, hearing his name, he abruptly let her go to fix his scarf over his face again, she looked around and noticed some people glancing in their direction; or, to say it better, glancing in the direction of the owner of the voice, a tall and rather drunk raven-haired guy stumbling towards them.

She tried to see who it was, thinking that he had to know her boyfriend personally, considering he’d recognized him from so far away and the very informal way he’d just called him, but she had never met his friends and family, because he said he didn’t want to risk about the media finding out about them and it was better if less people knew; she sent him a puzzled glance when he stepped in front of her, holding out one arm slightly, as if he was trying to protect her and she started to worry a little bit.

They guy had finally caught up to them and stopped swaying a bit on the spot, his mask hanging helplessly from one of his ears, completely useless; he didn’t say anything for a while and she tried to analyse him peeking over Daesung’s shoulder.

She thought it was too early for him to be drunk, but he was clearly absolutely wasted, his eyes were hazy, his hair was sticking up in strange directions, his lips were swollen, his coat was half-open and he had traces of lipstick on his cheek; he was a rather peculiar apparition, which seemed to have jumped out of nowhere.
 
“Oppa! Oppa!” suddenly, a sweet and acute voice came from behind him and he was soon reached by a girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, with her long black hair tied up in a high ponytail, her face pale because of makeup and dressed in a black sparkly dress; for some reason, she looked so out of context beside the man, who seemed much older than her and much different, and Hye-jin sensed that something wasn’t right there and maybe could start seeing why her boyfriend was trying to shelter her, but she was still confused.

The man didn’t even turn around to acknowledge the girl and pretended not to see her when she hanged on his arms with her hands, he kept staring at them –or rather, at Daesung –with his head tilted on the side, as if he was in deep thought; the silence was starting to feel really awkward and she started to feel the need to say something, just, anything, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. When it was starting to feel like that would be their fixed situation for the rest of the night, Daesung sighed deeply and passed a hand over his face, before finally addressing the man.
 
“Hyung, do you want to make introductions?” he said with an exasperated voice and gestured towards the girl, who smiled politely in his direction, happy to have been noticed; Hye-jin felt relieved that even in that situation, her boyfriend was still trying to be the better person and wasn’t trying to avoid making the girl feeling more miserable than she was already feeling.
 
“I know who you are, Daesung-oppa!” the girl answered, not less cheerful than she had been the first time she spoke, smiling brightly at them, without letting go of the man she’d come with, who still hadn’t spoken a word; at that point, Hye-jin slowly started to realise what was going on and suddenly remembered why that man looked so familiar even if she’d never met him.

She always tried not to get involved into Daesung’s job, mostly because he said that he felt embarrassed about from time to time and she tried to respect it even if she didn’t really understand it, but sometimes she’d ended up with her friends showing their phones in her face showing her pictures of his group and of their concerts, trying to prove some point she never even bothered listening to, because she really didn’t want to argue with them over her own life; for that reason, she somehow knew his bandmates, and she was positive that the man was T.O.P and she hadn’t recognised him right away because of the  chaotic state he was.

She didn’t know him at all and she couldn’t judge him by what was happening right now, but she wondered if he was like that all the time and if he treated everyone like garbage.
 
“That’s Seunghyun, right?” she asked in a whisper, trying not to catch the odd couple’s attention; apparently, she’d failed, because, just as Daesung slowly nodded, the man in question turned his attention to her and looked at her with an unreadable look in his eyes.

It wasn’t totally unreadable, actually, behind that wall of fog in front of them, she saw a glint of a fire, and she couldn’t tell if he was enraged or just curious; she had to admit that it was scary, his pupils seemed so dark and intense they could bore holes into her soul.

Suddenly feeling like a coward hiding behind her boyfriend, she stepped beside him and grabbed his hand, interlacing their fingers; she noticed that the man followed the action with his eyes and she was couldn’t understand the reason, but she continued holding on tight and looking at him like everything was normal.
 
“Who is she?” he asked after a moment, his voice slurred and almost incomprehensible, setting his gaze back on Daesung, focusing on him once again and continuing ignoring the girl with him, who seemed desperate to just be seen by him and confused at the same time, as if she’d been getting all the attention from him before they met them, and Hye-jin was starting to feel extremely sorry for her and wanted nothing more than to help her out of that situation, because it was clear that she was hurting; her boyfriend sighed once again and shook his head slightly, tightening his grasp on her hand, trying to look for some comfort in their contact.
 
“She’s my girlfriend. But I asked that question first.” Seunghyun blinked at him as if he couldn’t understand the concept of him having a girlfriend and she couldn’t help but wonder how many other relationships he’d hidden from his friends before, even if she was slowly starting to see the reason why, if all the people he knew where so loud and obnoxious. After a moment, he finally seemed to remember there was someone with him and looked over at the girl, seemingly surprised by her presence, before smiling a crooked smile and answering, his words even more mumbled than before.
 
“Oh, that’s my fiancée. She—” he trailed off, staring at the girl intensely and knitting his eyebrows as if trying to remember something he’d forgotten. “What’s your name again?” in that moment, all hell broke loose.

Daesung’s hand slipped away from hers as he stepped forward and pushed his hyung back, who stumbled on his feet for a moment before regaining his balance and staring at him with the most puzzled expression she had ever seen on someone’s face; she’d never seen him behave like that before, and she surely had never seen him so angry before.

She tried to understand what he was half-screaming and half-hissing at the other, and, she could swear she heard the words ‘again? you ing jerk’, and she started worrying even more for the girl, who was watching the scene just as baffled as she was.

Taking a sudden decision, Hye-jin stepped towards her and grabbed her arm, to prevent her from doing something stupid like trying to help a man who had probably treated her like she was nothing for the whole night and she asked her if she was really his fiancée and she answered that she’d never met him in person before, but had been a fan of his for a long time; in that moment, she felt the sudden urge to help her boyfriend beat him up.
 
Restraining herself, she decided to only watch the scene as it evolved, glancing around to notice if they’d attracted attention, and noticed few people observing the scene, since everyone seemed too busy to care and had probably seen scenes like that a hundred times before; she counted of the fact that Daesung knew how to deal with his hyung, as he probably did all the time, if the other always behaved so carelessly and irresponsibly.

She observed them as her boyfriend dragged Seunghyun to sit down on a bench and hit the back of his head lightly; in that moment, he totally looked like a mother scolding her disobedient son and that made her smile sincerely.

Everything had calmed down, now that they weren’t beating each other (not that they’d been before, it was more of the older trying helplessly to hit the younger, who kept screaming at him and trying to get him back to his senses) and, when Daesung seemed sure he wouldn’t run away when he turned around, he got up from the bench and walked back to her and the girl.
 
“I’m sorry it had to go this way, but I think it’d be better if I took him back home.” Hye-jin wasn’t really upset about that, because she understood completely that he couldn’t let his hyung wander around in that miserable drunken state, without knowing what else he could do, other than playing with a girl’s feeling; she nodded and he sighed yet once again, stepping closer to her and wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her on the forehead softly.

In that moment, she felt once again just how amazing her boyfriend was, always putting others in front of himself, always kind and considerate in every situation, even when it didn’t seem like it; she knew she would choose him over and over again if they had to ask her, especially now that she’d seen how other people from his industry could be, and now that she’d understood that, after all, he’d only been trying to protect her. “I’ll call you when I get home.” he added after a moment, squeezing her hand for a brief moment before running back to Seunghyun and dragging him towards a taxi, while the other protested like he was being forced to jump in front of a car; she huffed out a laugh and turned to the girl, asking her if she wanted her to accompany her back home, noticing that there were tears of disappointment in her bright eyes.

She felt a surge of disgust for the man she’d just met a few minutes before and told herself just how lucky she was once again, looking at the two men disappear into the car.

- - -

Daesung forced his hyung to sit inside the taxi, and, to his surprise, he didn’t even try to object this time, he suddenly seemed like a lifeless puppet, as he kept staring in front of himself with an empty look in his eyes; he reached over and fixed his mask over his face, hoping nobody had recognized them making such a scene in a public space.

He climbed inside the car as well and told the driver the address, before leaning against the seat and closing his eyes for a moment, sighing deeply. That was not how he’d planned his evening to go, rescuing a drunk Seunghyun and preventing a much bigger disaster than the one that’d already happened; he couldn’t believe he’d done something like that again, as if once wasn’t enough.

They remained in perfect silence for a few minutes, before the rapper’s low and scratchy voice filled the enclosed space they were in, even if it was merely a whisper.
 
“Can you please forgive me once again?” at that point he looked at him, noticing that he was leaning his head against the window, looking at the people walking on the sidewalk and the cars passing beside them.

He sighed once again and shook his head slightly, asking himself why he was asking him to forgive him when he was the only person who didn’t need it.
 
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” he retorted, continuing feeling like a tired mom who had to pick up her son from a fight at school; sometimes even him found understanding Seunghyun difficult and this was one of those times.

He waited patiently for him to say something else and, when he understood he wasn’t going to, he decided that it was time for him to ask questions.
 
“What happened? Why were you out with that girl? She was way too young for you.”
 
“My girlfriend broke up with me.” that wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting and now he didn’t know what he needed to say to that; he didn’t even know he had a girlfriend in the first place and that was strange because him and the others were always the first to know it when the older got into a relationship.

Before he could stop it, a soft ‘oh’ escaped his lips and he could see the other smile acidly in the reflection on the window; he hated being pitied. “Do you love her?” he asked after a second, as if that question had been pounding in his head since the moment he’d met him and Hye-jin; he knew he hated lies even more than he hated being pitied, and, even if he didn’t want to rub his quite happy relationship on his face, he decided to answer truthfully.
 
“I think I do.”
 
“That’s the reason why my girlfriend left. She said she couldn’t be with a man who didn’t love her enough to let her in, to trust her. And I couldn’t stop her, because, after all, she wasn’t wrong.”
 
“I don’t understand…”
 
“I just—I can’t fall in love. I never have, and I don’t think I ever will.” Daesung blinked in his direction, wondering if what he was saying made sense even to him, because he couldn’t understand it at all; it was impossible to never fall in love with anybody and he didn’t understand why the older thought he’d never been in love.
 
‘If you weren’t in love with her, why are you so drunk and miserable right now?’ he thought, but he decided it was better not to express his doubt, because he didn’t seem in a situation where he could’ve thought about that for a moment longer than he had; he only reached out and touched his shoulder lightly, trying to be comforting.

Seunghyun turned towards him and looked at him for a second, his eyes shiny and foggy, as if he was about to cry; then, he leaned over to rest his head on his shoulder. Daesung let him be and caressed his hair for a moment, before whispering:

“Everyone falls in love, hyung. You will, too, sooner or later.”