The stack of paper was heavy in your arms and tall enough to hide your face when you carried them. You leaned your forehead against the stack gently enough so as not to tip the stack over, but firmly enough to push your glasses further up the bridge of your nose. The elevator was out of order today and the stairwell at SM Headquarters was busier than it had ever been. A tiny pool of perspiration collected at the small of your back, making your satin blouse stick to your skin. By becoming SM Entertainment’s newest intern, you had effectively condemned yourself to becoming SM’s slave.

You stopped at the next platform and decided to take a little break. It was Global Audition season and thousands of candidates were pouring in from all over the country and applications from all over the world were flooding in, too. It was your job to get the contracts and applications from reception to the CEO’s desk on the fourth floor. You were now on the fourth stairwell; four more stairwells to go after this.

Not that you minded of course; you were used to hard work. Before you were an intern, you stacked shelves at a grocery store and before that you worked at a pet store, lugging bags of dog food from a truck and onto a shelf. Carrying a stack of paper was nothing to you, the weight did not bother you. The obstruction in your sight was definitely a problem, though. With glasses in front of your eyes, you already had a disadvantage, visually. You hated these glasses, but you had to wear them.

It might seem frivolous to hate such a thing as glasses, but you had your reasons. You already hated your face, but if was easier to hate glasses than your own skin. Every time you looked into a mirror you swore you could see your father staring back at you. And you didn’t want to see him. When you were ten, he ran away from you, your sister, and your mother. Everyone said you looked like him, especially with your glasses. He said he was going to the United States to look for work. Bull. He ran away to the States and a year later, sent over a check for 400,000 won and a letter asking your mother for a divorce. You hated him and you hated having his face.

The internship at SM Headquarters was just a way for you to get experience working in an office environment. You applied to other places, but you figured that since you lived in Apgujeong anyway, SM Headquarters was closer and better known. You were bound to get a good reference from them. And a good reference meant a good future. And you needed a good future, not just for you, but for your mother and younger sister who depended on you as well.

Your mother was a sickly woman, frail, thin, and petite like you, although you knew that you would probably be healthier in old age than she. Your poor mother was still suffering the effects of a broken heart. She and your father had been childhood friends and high school sweethearts. When he asked for that divorce, half her soul must have died and now the other half was struggling to hold on.

Your sister, In Yeong, was a different story altogether. You were worried about her; you knew that she tended to hang out with the wrong crowd and had a bad habit of flirting with older boys over the internet. She was only 15; she needed protection. Unlike In Yeong, you had never been particularly boy-crazy. You were too independent, too busy, and too worried about other things. You used to think that it would a terrible thing if you ever did become boy-crazy; what would happen to you poor mother? Your sister? You never understood people and their romantic notion of “falling in love”. The thing was just a myth to you.

As you took another step, you suddenly remembered an exercise they made you do in elementary school. The students were asked to get up and stand behind each other and the person in front would fall backwards and trust the person in the back to catch them. You hated that exercise; you didn’t like the feeling of falling on the floor. You wanted to turn around and catch yourself before you hit the floor.

You never did like the idea of love. It was frivolous and ridiculous and as a whole, completely inconstant. You looked at yourself; your family was never meant to survive more than a year on its own after your father left you. After a month, social workers were supposed to come take you and your sister to foster homes. Look at you now; you and your mother had worked hard to make ends meet, and now here you were, almost ten years strong, working as an intern for one of the most renowned entertainment record labels in all South Korea. Love had nothing to do with it; you got this far because this was where you brought yourself.

On either side of you, people in business suits, idols, and staff alike were running up and down the stairs. That reminded you of the heavy stack of paper in your arms. You picked it up again and started the next set of stairs.

Suddenly, you lifted your leg to take on the next step. Your foot pressed down, expecting to feel the floor push up against your foot. Instead your foot found air, your heel had failed to find a firm setting and when you stomped down, you were thrown off balance.

Oh no. Not again. This feeling of falling. Air rushed past your ears. Your feet struggled to find a firm spot. Stupid high heels. You fell backward fast, like a vacuum was you backwards, your heart and stomach rose up to your throat. You closed your eyes and readied your back to feel the hard impact of stairs against your spine. Goodbye, mobility, you said to yourself. Surely, your spine would never survive such a fall; you’d be paralyzed for sure after this.

“Woah!” Someone yelled behind you and you yelped when you felt the unmistakable feel of fingers slipping around your waist. A pair of strong hands pushed against your back, pushing you back onto your feet. 

“Gotcha,” the voice said. It was a deep and sure voice, the one that belonged to the hands that had found their way to your waist, in a touch that was sensual and intimate at its worst and protective at its best. You had never let a boy touch your waist. 

You knew that you did not weight that much; maybe you were 118 pounds at your heaviest, but even then, an object in free fall increases it weight because of its velocity. A fall like that would have knocked anyone behind over as well. You turned around to face the person who had caught you.

“Thank you,” you said exasperatedly, but you lost your tongue after seeing him directly. 

You fell in love for four seconds. For four seconds you could have forgotten everything you thought about love being frivolous and stupid and unnecessary, you could torn down your walls that you had spent years building. He was probably the most handsome boy you’d ever seen in your life at this point. He must be an idol, you thought. He had to be. 

Even in your heels, and even though he was on a lower step than you, he was still taller than you. His hair had been dyed a dark brown and it was styled as though it had been messed up on purpose. His eyes were large and friendly and were now widened in surprise at you. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. You nodded furiously, your walls building themselves up again with each dip of your head. 

“I’m fine.” you answered. “Thank you.” You turned around and checked your step. You were back on your feet now. The stack of paper was still blocking your view, but you continued on. You were grateful to this idol for catching you and preventing you from falling on your back against some stairs, but for four seconds he had you scared. You always did hate that trust fall exercise.

You made a note to try avoiding him. It would terrible if you found someone or something that you liked. Then you’d have to dependent on that person, and being dependent meant trusting, and trusting meant risk.

—————

To Be Continued