Adam sat at one of the VIP seats at the front row, a distant which enable him to see the girls’ faces clearly and vice versa. He had his usual poker expression on, intensely monitoring the girls’ performance. He caught Hyosung looking his way a couple of times, but she was focused on her performance the entire time.

The showcase went well. After the event wrapped-up, the whole team of crews and staffs and the Secret members themselves headed to a restaurant in a five-star hotel nearby, specifically booked by the president of the company himself to celebrate Secret’s successful comeback. Adam was invited to the party as well, and to Hyosung’s surprise, he came.

Adam, being himself, sat quietly in the corner as he watched everyone else indulging in the after-party fun. They were all trying to smudge the icing of their congratulatory cake on Secret’s leader, Hyosung’s face, causing the girl to run around in panic, but ended up being held up by the Zinger and Sunhwa, while Jieun and Sungjin did the job of ruining Hyosung’s face with the cake icing. Hyosung whined at how mean they were, but ended up laughing about it. She seemed genuinely happy, and Adam was thankful for that.

Adam grew up in a painful childhood. He was left by his mother at the tender age of seven, left with a father who was too busy to spare a glance at him. Ever since then, he built walls around his heart, refusing anyone from entering it to protect it from crumbling to pieces again. But then, things happened the other way around. In order to protect his heart, he broke and tore and crushed other’s to pieces. To be exact, Hyosung’s. People were usually too intimidated by his icy cold exterior, or hated him for that to approach him at all, but Hyosung had never shown such remorseful reaction towards him. She was always kind and honest and transparent that he didn’t know what to do about her. She just kept coming back to him. When he treated her the way he did, realization finally dawned on him, guilt hit him like a tsunami. He was being mean, just like his mother and his father were. He trampled over the trust she had in him the way his parents did to him in the past. And he hated himself for doing that. He wanted to fix that because she didn’t need to suffer the way he did in the past.

Hyosung had left for the toilet to wash her face so Adam quietly left the party and waited for her at the turn of a hallway heading towards the janitor. He was patiently waiting for her to come out and passed by him from the main hallway, so when the chance came, he swiftly grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the narrow hallway he was waiting at. He firmly placed her againts the wall, and then covered her from being exposed to the people passing by with his body closely pressed to her, hiding her behind his towering height.

Hyosung finally registered the situation she was in, and then gently tried to push him away but to no avail.

“Adam,” she gently whined, but Adam placed a firm grip on her arms, his face hidden from her sight.

“Just give me a minute.” He told her in a whisper. The close approximity they shared caused her heart to race, forcing her to recall back all the feelings she had been harboring for him. There were in fact so many, all mixed up in her little heart that it ached her so much.

Hyosung stayed silent as to not create a commotion and thus attracting unnecessary attention. She waited for Adam to speak.

To her surprise, Adam slipped a piece of paper in one of her hands as he whispered to her ear, sending tingling senses down her spine.

“I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while, but there were too many people. The staffs, the media, your fans.” He paused to take a deep breath and then continued, “I hope you’ll come.”

He slowly loosened his grip from her and then took a step back, pulling himself away from her. They both exchanged gazes for a few seconds, and Hyosung realized how sad his eyes looked. Without another word, he stepped away, heading for the exit.

Hyosung looked down at her hand, and read the message on the note he left for her:

‘The foodcart outside the company’s building. I’ll be waiting for you there.’

It was already two in the morning. The party ended late; even the fans who were usually loitering nearby the company building had gone home. Hyosung had carefully sneaked out of her dorm, immediately after the manager dropped them off at the dorm, but now she was judging her decision. Will he still be there? Are those foodcarts still operating at this hour?

Hyosung sighed at her rather rash decision, but she was almost there anyway. The dorm was about 10 minutes away from the company building, but still, walking alone at two in the morning isn’t the safest thing to do for a girl.

However, as she got nearer to the building, she saw a lonely foodcart at the street side, brightly lit against the dark background, under the dim street light. And there was a guy, sitting at the small serving area of the foodtruck. That must be Adam, Hyosung secretly told herself. She could tell it was him just from his silhouette.

Hyosung’s heart rate quickened a little as she jogged towards him, and took a seat beside him.

“Hey,” she greeted simply, forcing a little smile on her lips. Truthfully, it was still a little awkward to be alone with him ever since that incident. They just stopped communicating whatsoever, except during recording session. Plus, when the recording was done a few weeks ago, they didn’t even meet often.

“Ahjumma, another glass please,” Adam requested at the owner of the foodcart. Once the glass was placed in front of Hyosung, Adam generously poured soju into it until ithe liquid reached the brim.

“Do you always eat here?” Hyosung asked first. She was always the one who spoke first when they were alone together, but she was actually curious about this foodcart. She didn’t know that it still opened at 2 in the morning.

Adam nodded as he poured more soju in his own cup. “Usually, I leave the building late. I found the foodcart still open everytime.”

Hyosung nodded, not knowing what else to add.

“Thank you for coming.” Adam suddenly told her.

“Yeah, well...” Hyosung smiled, trying to look composed but her fingers were tapping on the table nervously.

“I’m going back to U.S. tomorrow.”

“To-tomorrow?!” Hyosung blurted, automatically looking at him. She quickly cleared afterwards, trying not to appear too concerned about it. “So soon?”

Adam chuckled bitterly. “Yeah. It’s something I’ve planned since way back then.” Adam paused just enough to fiddle with his glass before he added, “I don’t think I’ll be coming back again.”

Hyosung’s composed exterior just now started showing it’s crack. Her eyes were saying that she was disappointed with his decision. Her expression showed how much she disapproved of that idea.

“But... Why not?” she asked, her voice laced with disappointment.

“It’ll be too hard with you around.”

Hyosung’s eyes grew wider in confusion.

“Hyosung, I’m sorry for the things I did to you. You’re an amazing girl. You’re kind and gorgeous, you don’t deserve that sh*t. You have to stay away from people like me, you got that?” Adam finished with a heavy sigh. He raked his long, boyish hair back with his long fingers, looking a little bothered this time.

“But... but why?” She asked. Adam could tell that she was on the verge of bursting into tears, and he was ready for that.

“You don’t know me, Hyosung.” Adam told her calmly. “I’ve lived my whole life without anyone who truly cares for me. But you actually, sincerely, do care about me, and I don’t know how to deal with that. I’m not capable of returning such feelings,”

“That’s not true! You... You were kind to us. Anyone can love someone else back.”

Adam shook his head. “Not me. I only know how to hurt people and you? You’re too precious for that. Nobody, I tell you, nobody should treat you the way I did.”

“But right now, you- you care enough about me to tell me all those things.”

“I’m asking you to meet me here because I want you to forget about me, Hyosung. I’m here to say goodbye.”

So he asked her to meet here to turn down her confession, to reject her feelings, that was what. That was the honest truth. Hyosung quickly hid her face under her bangs when tears began to stream down her smooth cheeks. She roughly wiped them away before she reached for the glass in front of her and emptied its content in one go. Adam was quick to refill that glass again with more alcohol.

“Drink up,” he told her, “You can drink until you pass out. I’ll take care of you.”

Hyosung forced a little laugh, to fake that immense pain she was feeling in her chest right now. It was almost too overwhelming that she couldn’t breath, but she still wanted to look fine in front of him.

“I’m not going to drink until I pass out!” Hyosung pouted playfully, “I’m- I’m fine, you see?” She smiled at him before she reached for the glass again and emptied it in one shot again. This time, she refilled the glass herself, and emptied it again. She repeated the process over and over again, until she actually reached the point of passing out.

She was swaying back and forth, and Adam could tell that she was close to losing consciousness. He gently placed his hand under her chin, and slowly pulled her close to him, letting her to fall asleep on his shoulder. He took the chance to take a closer look of her face, to burn the image and its every little details at the back of his mind. He wanted to remember how luscious her lips were, or how divine those lashes looked as they rested on her smooth, baby-like round cheeks. Her hair cascaded down her face and shoulders in gorgeous curls, and they felt as soft as feather to the touch. A tear escaped under her closed lid and rolled down her cheek in slow motion. He wiped the single tear away, and then tenderly kissed the eyelid which the tear came from.

It was the fourth day after Adam had returned back to America, and the girls were busier than ever with their promotional activities. It was close to midnight, and even though they had just finished the last schedule for the day, they still had to rehearse for tomorrow’s performance. The girls were all clad in casual training wear and sweating heavily as they practiced their dance routine. After only two days after the official release of their comeback song, their song had shot up to the first place on various charts, it was phenomenal. Demands for their appearance on television and music programs were enormous that everything got a little out of hand, but the girls weren’t complaining. They had been waiting for this moment their whole life, and they cherished each moment as long as they were together.

“Hyosung,” Sungjin entered the dance studio with a rather small teddy bear in his hand and walked to Hyosung. “Someone left this for you at the entrance.”

The girl gathered curiously around their manager and looked at the little brown teddy bear in wonder.

“For me?” Hyosung asked back as she received the gift from her manager.

“It wasn’t there when we arrived here just now, wasn’t it?” Zinger asked.

“Ah, and it came with this note.” Sungjin added and handed Hyosung a piece of square yellow paper to her. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the note before she read the message written on it.

To: Hyosung

Cold beer?

A wide grin instantly plastered on her face. She just lightened up after she read the message, leaving the girls whining and asking curiously about what was going on. Hyosung couldn’t answer all their incoming questions so she just stood there, smiling brightly at them. Sungjin on the other hand had a bad feeling about this whole thing, he asked worriedly if she was secretly dating someone.

“Oppa,” Hyosung looked up at Sungjin with that bright smile still carved on her beautiful face, “Give me 30, no, 15 minutes, okay?”

With that, Hyosung dashed out of the practice room, leaving the girls giggling at Sungjin’s frustration.

Hyosung ran to the park where she first drank beer together with Adam, where she first confessed her feelings to him. The place wasn’t that far from the compnay building, it took her only five minutes when she ran. She stopped exactly in front of the lake, at the spot they used to occupy that one time, frantically looking for him left and right all while catching her breath.

“That was quick!” A deep voice blurted.

Hyosung spun around, and there he was. Boyishly dressed in a casual gray shirt, paired with a pair of black denim and a pair of worn out sneakers. In his hand was a plastic bag with cold beer cans in it.

“You!” Hyosung stated in disbelief. “Why... what’s going on?”

With a smirk on his handsome face, Adam went down the steps before he landed on the last step and sat on it.

“Sit down, and have some of this.” He handed her a cold beer can which he had just opened. Hyosung took it from his hand and sat by his side, giving him judging eyes. She gulped down the cold drink which instantly gave her a refreshing feeling.

Adam chuckled at her reaction, causing her to slowly die inside. How can a guy who looked so cold and intimidating looked that adorable when he smiled?

“I threw my ticket away.” Adam started.

“You did?!”

“Let me finish first,” he smirked again, “I dont want to return there. I was thinking a lot that night, and I decided that I’m not returning to that kind of life again.”

Hyosung looked at him questioningly. Adam took that as a sign to continue with his explanation.

“I dont want to live like that, like my mother and father did. Cold, unforgiving, miserable. I don’t want to hurt anymore. Things that I don’t know, I can learn, right? And where else can I find a more perfect teacher than right here? Well, if she’s willing to teach me, of course,”

A wide, bright smile gradually adorned her face again.

That gorgeous smile again. That gorgeous smile he would never get sick of.

“Well, what do you want to learn about?” Hyosung asked, her voice gentle, just like the full moon which was shyly hiding behind the clouds that night.

“I would like to start from the basic. I want to learn how to not be rude and arrogant like everyone else says I am. Is that even possible?” He chuckled.

“Of course.”

They both exchanged understanding gazes, both were saying with their eyes how relieved they were that they had each other, and then after a while, both looked away shyly as they broke into awkward laughter.

The epilogue is coming up ;) Can everyone forgive Adam now? Thank you so much for reading everyone. Don't forget to leave me some replies okay? =D