Minjeong’s phone buzzed against her desk, the sound startling her away from her half-finished essay. She glanced at the notification before the screen died and caught a name that would never become quite familiar, no matter how often she saw it there.

Renjun. The Huang Renjun, talented singer, dancer, songwriter, and maknae of her favorite idol group, NCT. Just popping up on her phone to say hi. It felt too alien for words, that this person who belonged in front of the cameras of a TV show or across a crowded concert hall was now one button press away at any moment.

Well, not exactly. He was still pretty busy, so she doubted he’d pick up the phone if she were to call. Not that she did. Texting was enough for her. It was immaterial enough that she could still pretend like she wasn’t casually chatting to a superstar.

She wrapped up another paragraph and decided on a short break, quickly snatching up her phone to check the new message.

Renjun: don’t tell anyone but I might be writing a song for the new album

She squealed giddily at the prospect of both a new album and a new song from Renjun. If she was being honest, that was what she liked best about him. Cute face, sure, good voice, sure, but his songs were always fresh and out of the box, with no fear of combining old and new techniques and really pushing the limits of idol music.

Minjeong: you wouldn’t happen to have a release date for this new album

Renjun: I already revealed more than I should. You’ll tell all your friends and get me in trouble

Minjeong: sure, all my zero friends who like kpop

For once, Minjeong was actually glad that none of her friends cared about idols or fandom. She really wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep something like this a secret if her frequent mentions of NCT ever elicited anything more than a patient smile and possibly a groan – mostly when she’d been ranting about it for over ten minutes, in her friends’ defense.

The people she talked to at school just listened to whatever was on the radio, and everyone in her band, who were definitely more musically inclined, tended to prefer stuff closer to their own sound, rather than whatever was mainstream enough for broadcast. Minjeong was completely alone in her love for NCT.

All in all, it was only thanks to a miraculous sequence of events that meeting Renjun had even taken place at all, because no matter how much she liked the group, Kim Minjeong was too shy to ever attend an event all on her own.

That is, until the fateful day that her older sister got her a ticket to a fanmeet as a birthday present. Determined to go, even without company – Taeyeon had very deliberately bought a single ticket, to make sure Minjeong didn’t get any ideas -, she was surprised yet again when she won the giveaway for a backstage pass and got to actually exchange words with all the boys.

She was a little tongue-tied, overwhelmed at the turn of events and, now that she was here, not sure that she didn’t prefer the idol relationship she’d had before – with the boys far enough away that they’d never have to witness her getting her words mixed up and making a fool of herself.

She could actually feel her own face get warmer and warmer, hands trembling in the safety of her coat pockets, when Renjun himself tugged the heavenly Jaehyun far enough away that her nose was no longer invaded by his cologne. He kept himself at a distance too, offering a disarming smile that she could only return with a relief that she hoped wasn’t too obvious.

As the managers shuffled everyone around, making sure things ran smoothly, Minjeong found herself off by a corner, as quiet as she could manage in the relatively small room. By her side was Renjun again, still keeping far enough away not to crowd her, and she was chatting away with him before she knew what she was doing, gushing about his latest song cover.

He was intrigued by her musical knowledge. Rather than just listen, he started asking questions too, and soon Minjeong almost forgot that she was talking to an idol, and felt more like she was having one of her usual discussions with the guys from the band.

Just before she was called away, he ripped off a piece of one of the posters surrounding them and scribbled something on the back, their hands just barely brushing together as he stored it in one of her coat pockets.

It was his phone number.

Now, Minjeong wasn’t stupid. She might be a little shy, and awkward at times, but she could still tell when somebody was making a move. And it seemed pretty clear to her that whatever Renjun had in mind would be far more than she was interested in. Not when even seeing Jaehyun’s impossibly gorgeous smile in person had been enough to make her wish she could burrow into the ground.

Still, it was Renjun’s phone number. The Renjun! She couldn’t exactly ball it up and throw it in the trash, could she?

So she fired off a quick hello, just to make sure he had her contact, then let it be. He said hello back, some days later, and asked what she was doing. It was pretty late at night, but she happened to be up browsing Youtube, so she sent him links to whatever she was watching: a stage compilation for NCT’s latest comeback, some behind-the-scenes videos, then some fan-made edits, and a chipmunk live-stream.

There was no reply as she shared link after link. Finally, about ten minutes into the stream...

Renjun: why the chipmunks all of a sudden?

Minjeong: it’s what I watch to go to sleep

Renjun: oh

Renjun: good night

Minjeong: good night

He sent a little sleepy panda sticker along with his message. She giggled at it before she turned off the screen for the night.

From there, things progressed easily enough. He never tried to hint at anything, not even try for a video call, and seemed content enough to send off a text every once in a while, first asking for more video recommendations, then for more of her musical opinions, and eventually just asking how her day had gone or whether she’d done alright in her latest exam.

It was just like having a friend, only… Well, less of it. Like having a friend who lived in the mountains and only came down to where there was network service once every couple of weeks.

She supposed it was for the best. She wasn’t sure how comfortable she’d be with having daily chats with Huang Renjun of NCT. There were only so many stickers you could send back and forth, or descriptions of what you’d had for lunch, before the magic died off.

This way, it still hit her every once in a while. Who she was talking to. Whose contact she had saved on her phone, knowledge that she was sure many people would pay actual money to have.

Renjun sent her a sticker of a comforting hug and she snapped back from her memories to roll her eyes.

Minjeong: don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of friends. Just none of the kpop persuasion

Renjun: I’m sure you do

She scrolled through her own collection of stickers and sent off one that looked appropriately annoyed.

Renjun: no, I mean it

Renjun: you’re very easy to get along with, I’m sure you have tons of friends

That made her smile stupidly at the screen, glad that she was alone in her room. She was doing her best to compose some witty reply about him buttering her up so she’d praise his demo, which was really just a very transparent attempt at getting her hands on it, when he sent yet another text.

Renjun: hang on, my manager’s here. Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back

Minjeong: ok, see you

She messed around on her phone, killing time by checking social media and her group chats. After a few minutes with no reply from Renjun, she accepted that he’d be taking a while and put her phone down, returning to her essay with a weary sigh.

After the essay, she went out for a quick dinner, taking the long way back to the dorm to clear her head before she returned to her schoolwork. An hour of that and she got into her pajamas, eyes drooping closed as soon as she slid into bed.

Renjun still hadn’t texted back, but she was too tired to think of it for longer than a second. He was a busy man. She’d hear from him in another couple of weeks.

The morning found Minjeong more awake, but no more concerned. There was still no message from Renjun, so she gave him a day, and then another, and eventually concluded that her sleepy self had been right all along: he really wasn’t going to text back. Maybe he’d been given some exciting new project and Minjeong had slipped his mind, or he was suddenly too busy preparing for this mysterious new album to have time for pointless texting.

A week later, the whole thing had entirely slipped from Minjeong’s mind, busy as she was with her own work. She sat trying not to doze off towards the end of a lecture, everything but a pen and a single sheet of paper already packed up and ready for a quick escape to lunch as soon as the professor dismissed them, when she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket.

She silenced it before she could get in trouble and put on her most innocent face when the professor scanned the crowd with the scowl of someone who had definitely heard the interruption. The buzzing started up again, but her hand was already in place and shut it off in a flash.

She was starting to get a little worried at the insistent phone calls, but she couldn’t have expected what she found when she finally stepped out of the lecture hall, students rushing past her on every side, and her phone began ringing for the third time in as many minutes.

Huang Renjun was calling her.

What?

She took the call, bringing the phone up to her ear with some hesitation.

“H-hello?”

“Hello, is this Kim Minjeong?”

It wasn’t Renjun at all. It was a woman’s voice, pleasant but professionally distant. For a brief stupid moment, Minjeong worried that Renjun had done something crazy like set her as his emergency contact, but then she figured hospital staff wouldn’t use the patient’s phone to make the calls. No, that didn’t make much sense.

“Yes, that is she. Uh, me. Who is this?” she added after a pause, sure that that was the normal question to ask in these situations.

“This is Yu Jimin speaking. I’m a manager with NCT. I was wondering if we could meet.”

(…)

Renjun’s manager was pretty. Seriously pretty. Pretty enough that, if someone told Minjeong she worked at his company, she’d assume she was talent too. Then again, she’d heard before that at SM even the staff had otherworldly visuals.

The woman in front of her (Minjeong had forgotten her name and she was way too shy to bring it up now) sat with perfect posture, sporting a business-casual blazer that made Minjeong feel like maybe she shouldn’t have come to this meeting in her university sweater after all. But, she argued with herself, it wasn’t like she was coming here to impress anyone, right? It wasn’t like she was getting scouted.

She was pretty sure this wasn’t how people got scouted, anyway. And she was definitely too old to be getting love calls from idol companies, already on her last year of university.

To be honest, she wasn’t actually sure why she was meeting with Renjun’s manager. She hadn’t been very clear on the phone, just saying that they’d like to have a word about his conversations with her, only she’d given it a weird emphasis, like, his conversations with her, so Minjeong could only assume they’d either seen their last few texts and assumed he was leaking company intellectual property, or they’d really misinterpreted their relationship.

She tapped her fingers on the rim of her cup and waited for the woman to start talking, trying her best not to stare. She really wished she remembered the woman’s name.

“So, Minjeong. Ms. Kim?” the woman offered after a beat, looking at her questioningly.

“Oh, uh, either’s fine. You can call me Minjeong, I guess.” She suddenly had a genius idea. “And, for you?”

“Jimin is alright.” Jimin! Right! Minjeong would try her best not to forget it this time. “So, I’m sure you know why you’re here.”

“Oh. Um, kind of?”

“Kind of?” Jimin repeated dubiously. Minjeong silently urged her on, hoping she’d take pity on her and just explain. “Right. Well, we found your number on Renjun’s phone, obviously.” Minjeong nodded. “And, so, we know that you had a… relationship with him.”

She said it with that strange emphasis again, and hearing the implication in person somehow flustered Minjeong, causing an unwelcome flush to rise up her neck. She cleared and looked anywhere but at the pretty manager’s face – Jimin! Her name was Jimin! Minjeong would keep repeating it to herself until it stuck!

“I…” She tried her best to rally her courage and disagree with a total stranger, something that was made even harder than usual by the aura of authority that that blazer lent her. “I don’t actually… I guess we do have a relationship? Of some sort? But I think that you’re implying a specific kind that, uh, we didn’t have.” A single perfect brow quirked up questioningly. Minjeong pretended not to notice. “I mean, why would you assume that just because I’m on his phone? Doesn’t he have, like, family and friends and… whomever on there?”

“It was a… separate phone.”

That gave Minjeong pause, although on second thought she really hadn’t had any grounds to assume she was the only person Renjun had tried to contact. Still, it wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world to find out that her idol was out there picking up fans left and right. It felt a little… icky.

“Were there that many girls?” she asked before she could filter herself. Naturally, that quirked brow continued its upwards path.

“I think it’s best if we don’t get into that.”

“Right, of course, absolutely. Anyway, I can’t speak for any of the others- You’ll probably speak to them, actually, so I don’t even have to.” She lost track of where she was going with this and took in a slightly shaky breath. “I… We didn’t, though. Any of that.”

“’That’ being...?”

Minjeong swore that if this woman kept making words sound like that she was going to completely lose her grip on the conversation.

“Anything. We didn’t even meet in person. Or send videos or anything. I mean, the first time he called me was this Wednesday. And it was you.”

“So he didn’t contact you?”

“No, he did. We just texted every once in a while.”

Minjeong vaguely asked herself why his managers wouldn’t know this if they had his phone. Had they really just started going through contacts without even checking anything else?

“You texted.” That didn’t sound very convinced at all.

“Yeah, we just texted.”

“About…?”

“I don’t know, funny videos. He wished me good luck on an exam, once.” She mentall