Home to You

She supposes it’s lucky that she doesn’t really have to endure the penitence that is the rush hour traffic. Travelling from the filming location in Gangnam back home to Mapo-gu would have been nothing short of hellish at this hour, and she already has a headache from all the shuffling back and forth they’ve been doing all day. The last thing she wants to do is sit in the car and battle the heavy traffic, even if her plan has been to sleep during the entire ride anyway. 

“Ji Hyo-ssi, will I have to pick you up tonight?” her manager asks, looking at her through the rearview mirror. He seems like he knows the answer to his own question, but is asking to be polite anyway.

Despite herself, Ji Hyo finds herself blushing as she meets her manager’s eyes. You’d think that in all the years that she’s been doing this, it would no longer faze her, but no. She still blushes like a schoolgirl. 

She shakes her head no and looks away, peering through the windows to look through the long queue of cars on the road. “No need,” she says, having made up her mind to stay the night anyway. “Do I have anything for tomorrow?”

“No, you have the day to yourself,” comes her manager’s punctilious reply as he now keeps his eyes on the road, sparing her the embarrassment of having him stare at her as she answers. 

“Oh,” she murmurs with a nod, humming softly as she keeps her eyes on the unchanging view outside. She consoles herself that she won’t, at least, be sitting through this for very long. “That’s good then. I’ll stay over tomorrow, too.” It's almost surprising to get a free day when she's also shooting a drama besides, but she won't say no to it. 

Her manager just nods mutely to this, just as the traffic once again starts moving. Ji Hyo loses herself to another world, watching the cars as they pass by. She almost dozes off and is staggered into full consciousness when the car finally comes to a stop at the basement parking lot of an apartment complex. 

“We’re here,” she hears her manager say as she shakes her head and jolts forward. “Will you be needing anything before I leave?”

Ji Hyo frowns and thinks of anything she might need but nothing comes to mind, so she shakes her head and looks at her manager blankly.

“Dinner?” he asks in confirmation, but Ji Hyo is sure that they can manage, and anyway, she’s still too full from all the food from today, so it’s not a problem. Honestly, she’d rather sleep, so she tells him no again. “Alright, I’m off then, I’ll send you your schedule for Wednesday and I’ll see you then.”

“Alright, thank you,” she mutters before she fixes her cap and secures it tightly on her head. She opens her car door and climbs out, making sure to walk toward the building quickly, in case Dispatch is somewhere lurking around.

She feels almost like an automaton as her mind spaces out and she mechanically presses the buttons on the elevator, picking the floor she frequents here. In no time at all, she arrives at her destination, the door of the lift opening, baring the familiar view, and she walks out quickly. She makes her way to the unit she’s calling home more and more these days, and turns the doorknob, knowing that it would be open.

The house is quiet and there are no signs of any movement, making her look back at the door and at the shoe rack next to it. If her other members were here, they would have laughed at her perplexity, but she quickly realizes that the door had been open when she had walked in, and there is a pair of shoes on the rack — meaning there is someone here.

She toes off her shoes and trudges quietly towards the bedroom, taking the cap off and hanging it on the corner, knowin