He slightly slid his headphones off, which were still blasting that “Lose yourself” song  and while adjusting his hood, he looked around himself. He liked that state, when he wandered around Seoul not being recognized by anyone so he could immerse himself into the sounds of music. He felt almost like few years ago – plain, ordinary citizen of this enormous city. He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning back. But he came to his senses after a while, quickly regaining balance and adjusting the hood of his sweatshirt. He looked around once again, hoping that no one looked his way. He cursed inside his head, noticing Her. 

She was standing near the end of the bridge, looking at him with a slightly tilted head, touching her glasses in thick, black rims. She squinted her eyes, observing him a little more closely before approaching him with a faint, slightly shy smile. He held his breath, expecting an exposure, finding out who he really is, but when she got closer, he let out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t Asian.

‘ Excuse me, do you speak English?’ she asked timidly and stood in front of him. In her summer wedges sandals she was almost the same height as him. He straightened his back, smiling and nodding his head in response. ‘Oh, that’s good. Could you help me?’

‘What happened?’ He asked quietly, spreading his hoodie a bit. No, he couldn’t allow anybody to recognize him, it cost him too much stress lately. ‘Are you lost?’

‘Well, you can say that,’ she chuckled nervously, but after seeing his observant look she cleared with bewilderment and she lowered her eyes, ‘I just don’t really know what can you do in this city when you have too much free time on your hands. So I thought maybe someone could tell me where’s a shopping mall around here or maybe a good café where I can bury myself with a book. So I hope you can help me with this issue?’

‘Yeah, of course.’ He unintentionally sent her his self-confident smile and passed his hand across his terribly short hair which only started to grow back. He became serious. He can’t forget himself, not now, when all this storm started to calm down. He sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just a little confused right now.’

‘If I’m disturbing you, then sorry, I can find something myself.’ A little anxious, she gripped her bag’s handle tightly.

‘No!’ He interrupted her and smiled again, more naturally this time. Normally. ‘You know, after all a little change like that will be fine. So let’s go. How about a coffee in my, not really pleasant company?’

She laughed and he loosened up for the first time in a long while. He offered her his arm, which she grasped after a moment of hesitation and they headed towards the city centre. He took big sunglasses out of the pocket of his sweatshirt and put them on his nose, taking the hood off his head. Why is he worrying so much? In the worst case it’ll be the last thing in his life.

‘Sooo?’ She asked when they sat down in the most hidden place in a café which, to his relief, the girl chose herself. You could think that she didn’t want to be conspicuous. He peeked at her huge glass of strawberry mousse, which he really wanted to taste. Then he looked at his frozen mocha. Tough decision. He looked up suddenly realizing that she was talking to him. ‘How can I call you, mysterious stranger? Since you’ll have to spend a while in my presence, it would be nice to introduce ourselves.’

‘My name is too characteristic to talk about it,’ he smiled cheekily and she answered him with equally wide smile, taking a spoon of her mousse, ‘but what about being somebody else? We’ll never meet again anyways. Let’s make up nicknames that will last for only one day.’

‘I’m starting to like you.’ She said with a cheerful voice, in which he found a few melancholic notes. He twitched, looking at her with curiosity and noticing slight, dark roots on her long, ginger hair plaited into a loose braid. ‘Let me be a Carrot. My friends sometimes call me like that when they want to annoy me.’

‘Nice acquaintances.’ He chuckled silently and her green eyes narrowed with a smile. He liked when people smiled with their eyes. It was so genuine. ‘So I’m gonna be Beetroot. Yes, lately it suits me very much. And now… I hope you’ll leave some space in your stomach, ‘cause we’ll have a raid through  a few nice cafés.’

‘How do I look?’ She asked after she put on tacky sunglasses in a color of shocking pink and she grinned towards him. He chuckled, peeking at her over his lowered Ray Ban sunglasses. ‘Okay, I don’t wanna know your opinion. Right, now you wear this-‘ she put a purple little hat on his head and she burst in laughter, seeing the effect, ‘Oh God, no, take this off.’

‘Oh, is it possible that purple doesn’t suit me?’ He corrected the hat’s position with a dramatic gesture and covered his mouth with a theatrical, terrified movement. She laughed even louder, throwing her head back and grabbing a hanger to prevent losing balance. A few old women shook their heads with irritation and muttered something about “these wild tourists”. He showed them his tongue as a reply.  Even redder because of anger, they turned and walked away in a hurry. ‘All right. Since you forced me to wear this, now you have to wear this.’ He grabbed a green wig with a bowl cut. He put it on her skillfully and pushed a small mirror under her nose, so she could see the effect. ‘Lovely,’ he said, ‘You look good in green. Only your hair stick out of it, Carrie.’

‘Carrie?’ she asked with a smile, ‘That’s nice. You know, I think we should evacuate, that shop assistant is looking at us with weird eyes. Maybe we made her angry, B.’

‘Time to run’ quickly, he took of the hat and her wig and threw them on the shelves, pulling her out of the shop rapidly. He almost got recognized. They have to be more cautious. ‘Well, what do you say about a stroll around the park?’

‘ No problem.’ She shrugged her shoulders and started to walk behind him, swinging her bag joyfully, making him smile again.

‘By the way, what are you doing in Korea?’ he asked, slowing down a bit, letting her catch up with him. She shrugged, pulling away some strands of hair falling into her eyes.

‘My best friend has a boyfriend here and she took me with her.’ She said with a little gloomy voice, squinting her eyes in the bright sun. ‘Anyway, she’s busy with her comic’s promotions, so she doesn’t have much time to show me around Seoul. Of course her boyfriend offered that one of his friends would take me round the city, but they are… so Asian, if you know what I mean. They are so stiff and they don’t understand my specific jokes. Not even mentioning their English. So I’m really thankful you sacrifice your time for me. You probably have a lot of stuff to do.’

‘Not really,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘right now I have quite long vacation in my job, not really wanted, so I don’t have anything to do. Probably I would end up in some kind of pub and go back home to sleep.’ She looked at him in fear, so he laughed loudly. ‘Just kidding. But I’d be bored anyways, so don’t worry, you’re not pulling me away from anything important.’

‘Do you like reading?’ she asked suddenly after a long while of silence between them. He nodded. Who cares he didn’t have time to do this? Oh, he had enough time now. ‘Me too. Have you ever heard of Saga of the Witcher?

‘Yeah, it came to my ears…’ he replied, ‘but wasn’t it a video game? Assassins of kings, or something like that?’

‘There was a game,’ she confirmed, ‘But the books came first and they were a great success over the world and the games were made later. It’s a masterpiece from my home country. I was practically raised with these books. And now everyone suffers from my personality, but since they’ve put it under my nose themselves, they shouldn’t blame me now. What about you? You don’t look like a normal boy like those who I’ve met here up until now.

‘ ‘Cause I’m not.’ He sent her one of his special smirks and put his hands into the pockets of his dark blue hoodie with short sleeves. ‘ I’m one of these people, who parents warn their daughters about. You know, I like to party, I goof around, I’m never serious. I don’t even work a serious job. Nothing really in my life is stable.

‘What do you do for living?’ she asked with curiosity. They stopped for a moment near a big fountain where people were starting to gather around slowly.

‘I’m a musician’ he sighed quietly, ‘I compose music. And you?’ he asked, looking at her. Carrie was waving her hand in water, fascinated. She seemed to be completely absorbed in it, but she turned back, focusing her green gaze on him, her irises were the size of a pin’s head. She tilted her head to the left. ‘What do you do?’

‘Nothing special right now,’ she shrugged, ‘Not so long ago I graduated from university and I want to, together with that friend who dragged me here, open a shop with our clothes. But to be honest, I write some stories and send them to the newspapers . Sometimes they publish it, sometimes they don’t. So far it was enough to live through two majors in my family house.’

‘Artistic souls, huh?’ he muttered quietly, when the girl sat down on the edge of the fountain and sprinkled him with water, laughing loudly. She closed her eyes again and she leaned back. He also started laughing, wiping his face and taking revenge, sprinkling her. Who cares, that people are looking? Who cares? Everybody mind your business.

‘Why is it like this, why people can be so intolerant?’ she asked suddenly, when they ended up again in one of the cafés in the centre of Seoul, a bit tired. He looked at her, surprised. ‘You know, I know there’s a different mentality compared to my country, but… I’ve seen people’s looks when we passed them. I suppose non-Asians aren’t really welcome here.’

‘I think that’s not the case.’ he shook his head, even though he could understand her. She had to notice it eventually. This almost unnoticeable disgust, when they passed them, chatting in English. He looked around the café, which was one of the most popular lately. He pointed at the TV, which displayed the newest hits. “NalinA” just started. He restrained himself from shivering caused by disgust at his own self and he took a deep breath. Carrie turned and listened to the music for a moment. ‘You see these guys? Recently somebody mistranslated their words during a certain interview. And you know what? It ruined their careers, even though they had masses of devoted fans. This country, developed, modern and stuff, will always be terribly conservative. Their careers were completely crushed. All because of one person, who didn’t understand everything and translated it wrongly. Just this was enough.’

‘Korea is a really strange country’ she shook her head, still watching the music video attentively. ‘You know, this song is pretty nice. What’s it about?’

‘To be honest…’ he chuckled quietly, wondering about it for a while. ‘It’s about them being the best, about going crazy. Ya know, as you asked about it, these words started to lose any sense.’

‘Words don’t have to make sense to sound good’ she said, focusing her sight on him after that. ‘B., you know, you’re a bit similar to this guy in blonde? At least it seems to me like that.’

‘Cool, now I can boast about looking like a singer’ he smiled ironically, but seeing her frown her eyebrows, he added ‘You know, because of this whole scandal it’s not good to be connected with them. Anti-fans are an awful kind of people. Guess what they did during that translating incident? They made a petition. With a demand of group’s disband and a suicide of all Block B members.’

‘Sometimes I really hate people.’ She shook her head with discouragement, staring at the “Gorilla Dance”. Surprised boy gazed at her with astonishment. Maybe he expected disapproval from her, like from everyone else. ‘Just because of somebody’s mistake their image was destroyed, maybe even their careers. I’m not even talking about the petitions, ‘cause you really have to be mentally sick to write something like that. God, you live in a really weird country. If I was in your shoes, I’d lock myself in my room and become a hikikomori. What?’ she asked, noticing shock appearing on his face.

‘Just… You’re the first person who I talked to, who looked at it like this.’ He stretched on the sofa comfortably. ‘Everyone just criticizes them, ‘cause they behave a bit crazy. And now they had to stop themselves, so in fact they’re not their real selves. It really gets on my nerves, ‘cause people judged them, not knowing a thing about them. It’s so… primitive.

‘I get a feeling that criticism is actually fear’ she said, taking a sip of her coffee. She had ordered Flat White which, as she used to say, makes her hyperactive from too much caffeine. ‘It’s because a behavior like that is something new for you. You have gotten used to this false modesty, humbleness and obedience, so when suddenly somebody refuses to conform, it’s a huge shock for all of you. I’m not an expert, anyways it’s not my job to judge your culture. Just my observation, when I look at the people I’m living with now.’

‘Are you staying for long in Seoul?’ he asked, changing the subject with a faint feeling of relief. He his short, stiff and dark hair with a palm of his hand. A reminder that he has to be submissive. A silent sigh made its way out of his mouth. ‘When are you planning to go home?’

‘As soon as my friend finishes all her business here’ she answered, suddenly starting to search for something in her bag. She took her phone out and started typing on it very quickly with wrinkled eyebrows. ‘I think they’re starting to look out for me. I disappeared for a suspiciously long time. Ah, well…’ she tossed the phone back to the bag and smiled mischievously, adjusting the position of her glasses. ‘I’ll let them worry for a little more.’

‘Ya know what? You’re really mean.

‘Yeah, B., I like you too.’

It was starting to get dark, when they stopped in front of one of newly-built apartment blocks where Carrie was staying at her friend’s. They stood near the entrance and glanced at each other timidly. Beetroot tugged on his hood, peeking at the girl from under its hem for the last time. Her hair got tousled, there were playful sparks playing in her eyes, a shade of all today’s smiles still lingered on her lips. He sighed loudly, not knowing what to do.

‘So… thanks for a wonderful day’ Carrot said silently, pulling a few strands of hair behind her ear and correcting the slipping bag’s strap. ‘Really, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

‘It’s nothing, I already told you,’ he shook his head, ‘anyways, I have a feeling I should be the one thanking you. Let’s say you’ve opened my eyes to a few important things.

‘So we helped each other.’ She smiled with a smile he haven’t seen on her face yet. ‘It’s a give-and-take exchange. You have to give something, to get another.’ A moment of unforced silence emerged between them. ‘Can you tell me the name of the band you were talking about before?’

‘Block B’ he replied, observing her attentively and tilted his head to the left like she did. She chuckled as she noticed his motion. He smiled broadly in response. ‘And do something for me. Please.’

She lifted her head, listening carefully.

‘Read a bit about Zico. Their leader. You’ll find some interesting things.

‘Sure.’ She nodded her head. ‘Bye, Beetroot.’

‘Bye, Carrot.’

She turned away and went into the building. But before disappearing in a corridor she turned and waved to him vigorously, smiling widely. He snorted, making two people passing by turn their eyes to him, but he waved back. And waited until Carrie disappeared in an elevator, staring at the buttons with characteristic concentration. He sighed and turned away, putting on his headphones. It’s time to go back to reality.

‘Zico! You’ve got a package from a fan.’

The dark haired guy turned away from a giant mirror and looked at maknae with interest. The younger passed him the parcel on which were carelessly scribbled words “Zico the Beetroot”. He smiled and tore the paper, finding a book. He browsed through the pages and found a little envelope with an image of a carrot inside.

‘Zico?’ Ukwon poked him, but he just waved at him to leave him alone. ‘You’re not in contact with the world again. Why are you smiling like that?

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He replied, shoving the envelope into his pocket. A month has passed since she disappeared in the lift. He straightened himself up, putting the book away with care. ‘I just remembered something.’

‘What’s this book?’ P.O peeked at the cover. ‘”The Last Wish”. Hey, there’s dedication. Something in English. “For Beetroot- Carrie. For the Bad times.” It’s some kind of a Russian book?’

‘No, come on’ Zico shook his head. ‘It’s Polish. You’ve never heard of The Witcher?