Chaerin winced slightly as she jumped up and down on stage to the beat of the music. She had accidentally sprained her ankle during the first half of the concert. She was relieved that it was the last concert of the season and it was held in Korea so all she had to do was survive the night. The audience was great tonight and her adrenalin was pumping so she did not feel the pain much but now fatigue was setting in. She made sure that no one knew about her injury as she went on and off stage by keeping a dead-pan expression. Thankfully during that time there was merely soreness in her ankle and she was too busy concentrating on not messing up the next song to be too bothered by it. She did not want her injury to cause a commotion and break the focus of the other girls. “Focus Chaerin, only two more songs to go,” she thought to herself and put all her energy into maintaining the smile on her face.

“Thank you so much! We hope you guys had a great time tonight!” Chaerin screamed into the crowd after their encore performance. The crowd cheered and screamed for more but that was it for the night. Chaerin kept her cool and walked (albeit a little slower than the rest) backstage.

“Kyaaaa!” Dara lunged at Chaerin as she emerged backstage and enveloped her in a hug. Bom and Minzy soon joined in the group hug laughing happily. “We did it! We gave them one kick- concert!” Bom shrieked ecstatically and started doing a happy dance breaking out of the hug. “Well done girls!” Chaerin applauded them, plastering a smile on her face. She was getting incredibly irked by her ankle as the throbbing started to worsen. “Unnie let’s go change out of this stuff so we can go out and celebrate!” Minzy yelled down the hall and charged towards the changing room. Bom and Dara squealed excitedly and ran after her.

Dara stopped abruptly when she noticed that Chaerin was not following them and shouted, “Aren’t you coming CL-roo?” Chaerin’s head jerked up at the sound of Dara’s voice. It took her awhile to register what Dara was saying as she was too occupied by her dying ankle. She shook her head and gave Dara a wry smile, “You girls go on ahead without me, I need to talk to the person-in-charge for a bit, I have to settle something regarding the concert.” Dara shrugged, “Okay, don’t take too long!” before dashing after Bom.

Chaerin quickly turned and ducked into one of the rooms nearby. She knew she had to disappear long enough for her story to be believable. She was not about to let her injury get in the way of her girls celebrating; Chaerin knows that the moment Dara finds out about it Dara will be fretting and fussing over her the rest of the evening. Besides, given her personality, she hated to look weak in front of her other members. Truth be told, Chaerin does not have a very high tolerance for pain, she only forced herself to endure such stuff after she became the leader of the group as she always felt she had to be strong for herself and for the girls. Her eyes drifted around the room she had entered. It was a storage room filled with cardboard boxes. She didn’t even know what was in the boxes. She sighed limped her way to a sofa stool that was in the corner of the room. Now she just had to stay there for awhile, perhaps a good hour, until they all had a bit to drink. All she had to do then was to show her face for a little while and lie about being at the party the whole night the next day. No one would notice a thing. Chaerin let out a small sigh at the thought.  

Chaerin fished out her phone from her pocket which she got a member of the staff to pass to her right after the concert and sent a message to their manager asking him to leave a car behind for her explaining that she had some “unfinished business” to attend to and asked him to send the girls back first. She exhaled in relief when their manager did not insist on waiting for her and informed her that the girls would be leaving first. She glanced at the clock on her phone and realized only ten minutes have passed. She sighed yet again, annoyed at how slow time was passing.

Left with nothing to do, she was once again reminded of why she was stuck in this predicament as her ankle throbbed uncomfortably. She craned her neck trying to examine the extent of the damage without moving her leg and noticed that it was starting to swell. She groaned in frustration and muttered angrily, “what rotten luck.” She leaned her back against the wall and started occupying herself with the games on her phone while trying to take her mind off the pain.

“I last saw her talking to Dara-ssi somewhere around here.” Chaerin heard faint voices on the other side of the door but thought nothing of it as she was too engrossed in her game. She was about to get a high score! She did not even think about hiding when footsteps approached the door (though honestly there was probably nowhere to hide). She jumped up startled as the door swung open and her phone dropped into her lap.

“Ji..Jingyo oppa?” she stammered, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the figure before her.

“Hunchae?” Jiyong exclaimed in surprise with an expression that mirrored hers.

She merely sat there with agape as she grappled for an explanation but none seemed to come to mind. “Damn I should have thought this through,” she cursed under her breath.

Jiyong recovered from his initial shock and leaned back against the door and folded his arms. “Hunchae what are you doing in here?” he eyed her suspiciously.

“I..I” she started unsure. “I just needed some space to cool off and relax after such a taxing concert,” she continued smoothly once her brilliant mind conjured up an excuse.

“In a storeroom?” Jiyong raised an eyebrow.

She paused for a moment taking in the ridiculous situation she was in. “Yeah, uh, it’s, uh, very zen,” she nodded and put on the most convincing expression she could muster while she mentally face palmed herself.

 “So have you handled your unfinished business? Dara said you had to meet someone for some ‘concert stuff’.” Jiyong played along.

“Huh?” Chaerin’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Oh that, yeah totally, but I think I need just a little more time alone, you know, to calm my nerves. The girls have already left you can go on ahead too,” Chaerin rambled waving a hand carelessly at him. “Go on, I need my alone time,” she urged as Jiyong just continued to stare at her with an amused expression on his face.

Jiyong scoffed and gave her a pointed look. She cowered slightly under his intense stare and looked away hoping her fidgeting would not give her away.

 “Are you afraid of going to the party? Come on, who are you avoiding this time? Seungri?”

“Scared? What?! I’m not avoiding anyone, especially not that stupid panda boy!” Chaerin retorted defensively.

“I know you get nervous about parties where, well, things sometimes get a little out of hand with alcohol,” Jiyong quipped, “but you’ve been to quite a few already now I’m sure you can handle this one.”

“I told you it’s not that,” Chaerin rolled her eyes, “I just really need some time alone oppa.”

There was a moment of silence as Jiyong narrowed his eyes at her.

“You’re being absurd.”

“Am not!”

“Come on,” Jiyong said and strode up to her. He grabbed her hand then turned and pulled her out of the room.

“Oppa what-” Chaerin started but then hissed out in pain as weight landed on her left ankle. The adrenalin rush was long gone and the pain had only compounded during her stay in the storeroom. She collapsed on to the floor, banging her knee hard in the process. She winced in pain and unknowingly tightened her grasp on Jiyong’s hand.

“Hunchae!” Jiyong gasped and quickly helped her back onto the sofa.

“Are you alright?” Jiyong asked frantically, “Where does it hurt?”

“Oppa it’s nothing really-” Chaerin muttered hastily but Jiyong already picked up her swollen ankle and started examining it. “It’s swollen!” He exclaimed and turned her foot slightly to see the extent of the damage making Chaerin jump slightly as pain shot through her ankle. She bit her lip and held back her tears as he continued examining it. She grimaced every time he moved her leg, afraid that his actions would inflict more pain.

“Wow, it looks bad,” Jiyong stated.

“Yeah, no , now can you please stop touching it!” Chaerin pleaded fearfully.

He obediently complied and Chaerin raised her eyebrows, “Huh, he actually listened for once.”

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Jiyong stood up and slung her arm around his shoulders, attempting to half carry her out. Chaerin tried to hobble out but her ankle was not taking any of it and she barely moved an inch with each step.

“My ankle’s such a ,” she choked scrounging up her face as she felt the pain again.

“Hey don’t blame the ankle for being very unfortunately attached to a body with an idiotic brain,” Jiyong mocked.

“Shut up!” Chaerin scolded and pouted slightly thinking about all the suffering she will have to endure during the walk to the car.

Jiyong sighed and suddenly bent down and pulled her onto his back.

“Hey! What are you doing! Put me down!” Chaerin protested but Jiyong merely ignored her, as per usual.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m giving you a piggy-back ride because we’ll take forever to hobble to your car. I do actually want to get some sleep tonight.” Jiyong replied nonchalantly.

Chaerin made a face but did not argue further. “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked curiously.

“I came to congratulate you guys on finishing your tour, the other guys came too but they left with the rest of your girls. I wanted to be the first one to congratulate you so I stayed around but you were taking so long so I decided to look for you.”

“Tsk,” Chaerin scoffed, “And to what do I owe this honour…” though her heart fluttered slightly upon hearing that he wanted to be “the first one to congratulate her”.

Jiyong merely chuckled and said, “You know, you should be very thankful I stayed around. If I didn’t you’d probably be stuck there all night.”

“Says who, I’d crawl to my car!” Chaerin retorted.

“Yeah right,” Jiyong replied rolling his eyes, “You still have to thank me though.”

“What for?”

“You’re not exactly light you know…”

Chaerin smacked him playfully, “You should be honoured to have the opportunity to piggy-back someone as special as me!”

Jiyong chortled and shook his head in disbelief, “Have you looked in the mirror?”

“You’re an .”

They continued the rest of the walk in silence. Chaerin rested her chin on his shoulder and her heart beat wildly as she realized how close their faces were. Her face flushed pink as she found herself staring at his lips and she quickly turned away in embarrassment. She wondered if he could feel the crazy pounding of her heart as she laid against his back. The warmth that radiated from his back was so comfortable that she didn’t want to let go but eventually they reached the car.

Jiyong shoved her in the passenger seat though she insisted that she could drive and snatched the keys out of her hands. She pouted and eyed him as he started the engine but he simply kept his eyes on the road.

“You at driving! Gosh, seriously, you almost hit that car!”

“No, I did not.”

Chaerin decided that since he did not let her drive she was going to annoy the crap out of him.

“Hey! Hands off the steering wheel!” he swiped her hands off lightly and chuckled as she shot him a dark glare. She childishly turned her head away from him and crossed her arms, staring out of the window.

“Come on, you’ve got to be kidding, you’re mad at me for that?” Jiyong said after awhile. Chaerin had been giving him the silent treatment.

Chaerin remained unmoving and continued to face the window.

“Chaerin?” Jiyong asked slightly concerned but then realized she had fallen asleep as he saw her head nodding slightly and heard her heavy breathing. He smiled to himself and continued driving.

Chaerin was still fast asleep when they reached the dorm. Jiyong decided that she was in no condition to party anyway and thus drove her back. His gazed lingered on the sleeping girl and chuckled as her head lolled to one side. He reached out and his fingers brushed her bangs lightly. “You are really special you know that?” he whispered then he hesitantly leaned forward and his lips brushed lightly against her forehead.

A/N: Whee! That's it! (: