Chapter 3

As soon as the coast was clear, both Samantha and Peniel stopped to catch their breath. “Okay,” she crossed her arms, “Now, tell me what the hell happened back there? Fan girls?! Don’t tell me you’re an idol from some boy band.”

Peniel chuckled nervously scratching the back of his head in the process. “You sound like you’ve been through this before…”

Samantha’s mouth was agape at this point. “You’re—you’re an idol?!” she exclaimed frantically.

“Shhhh!” he immediately covered with his hand. “Yes, I am,” he whispered. “I’m actually a member of BTOB, if that answers your question. And those girls you saw back there? Those are crazy fan girls. They were waiting for us the whole time,” he groaned in frustration, “I can’t go anywhere without being followed.”

Samantha scoffed. “I’ve heard that one before,” she muttered.

“I need your help,” he said looking around.

“What have I gotten myself into?” she thought out loud.

“Hey!” he exclaimed coming to his own defense. “If I’m going down, you’re coming with me! You’re in this whether you like it or not.”

“Really? Because I think the only option we have right now is to hide for Pete’s sake!” she retorted. “This situation is a little different from last time…”

“What happened last time?” he asked giving her his full attention.

“I may have been in a similar situation before,” she answered coyly averting her eyes away from him. “However, we don’t have a lot of options. They seem to have blocked all the exits as you can see.”

She was right. There was no way out, he noticed as he looked around.

“My bit of advice is to stick it out like a man!” she exclaimed then immediately started cracking up when she realized what she said sounded dirty. (Get it? I wanted to insert: “That’s what she said” but decided against it lol)

Peniel was dumbfounded by the girl before him. She sure was weird, he thought. And she didn’t seem to care which amused him to no end.

Her laughter calmed down and she took a moment to catch her breath. “Sorry about that back there,” she finally said. “They say laughter is the best medicine when you’re in a horrible situation. I guess that’s the case for me. I needed a laugh.”

He took note of the slight frown in the girl’s pretty face. Somehow, he felt as if there’s more to her than meets the eye and he couldn’t help but become curious. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

Before she could answer, they were interrupted by a group of guys. “Peniel!” one of them called out to him as he towards them. He was very tall and had a baby face. And something about his demeanor told her he was younger than Peniel. Samantha also found him to be handsome but he was more on the adorable side, she thought.

“Where’d you go? You gave us a shock wandering off like that,” the young boy said as soon as he got to them.

“Did you lose them?” asked Peniel, referring to the fans.

“Security escorted them out,” the boy answered, then turned to Samantha. “I appreciate the attention but sometimes these fans take it too far, if you know what I mean.”

Samantha chuckled then nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean,” she responded.

“Hi, my name is Sungjae,” the boy extended his hand to her, “Yook Sungjae.”

Shaking his hand, she introduced herself, “Nice to meet you, Sungjae. I’m Samantha.”

“I hope Peniel, here did not cause you any trouble while we were gone,” Sungjae grinned looking at his band mate.

“No,” Samantha gave Peniel a dark look with a fake smile, “Not at all. Right, Peniel?”

“Right,” he answered looking away. “Hey Sungjae, what’s the plan for today?”

“We’re grabbing food since Ilhoon kept complaining about how hungry he was,” Sungjae answered. “We’re all hungry actually.” Looking at Samantha, Sungjae smiled widely. “Would you like to grab dinner with us, Samantha?”

Peniel’s eyes widened along with Samantha’s. She realized she hadn’t eaten on the plane and she had to admit she was kind of hungry. Turning her attention to Peniel, she eyed him silently asking if he was okay with it.

After much hesitation, he finally said, “I’m fine with it.”

She grinned at Sungjae. “I’d love to,” she answered. “That is, if you guys don’t mind.”

Sungjae exclaimed excitedly, “Of course not!” he put a friendly arm around his new friend’s shoulder, “The more the merrier! Come on! Let’s meet the guys!”

As they walked over the rest of the group, Samantha wearily glanced at Peniel. He remained silent as Samantha was introduced to the rest of the BTOB guys.

As they ate dinner, the guys chatted amongst themselves about their trip. Samantha sat and listened glancing at Peniel from time to time. But soon, the attention was shifted over to her when Minhyuk asked, “So what brings you here, Samantha?”

“You guys can call me Sam, if you want,” she said, “And to answer your question, Minhyuk, I’m actually here to see someone.”

“Who?” Hyunsik asked curiously. “Is it your boyfriend?”

The word ‘boyfriend’ caught everyone’s attention, especially the very quiet Peniel.

“No!” she immediately answered. “I don’t have a boyfriend. He’s just a friend.” Peniel felt a wave of relief upon hearing the clarification.

“How long will you be here?” Eunkwang asked, referring to her stay in the country.

“That is what I’m trying to figure out,” she answered, leaving everyone at the table confused.

Just then, Minhyuk’s phone chimed, in which he answered. Turns out, they will be joined by some guests that night. The guests were none other than their label mates and seniors Beast.

Samantha perked up at the mention of Beast. The demeanor BTOB reminded her a bit of Beast and now she gained an understanding as to why. They were label mates. When she thought about it, some of the guys of BTOB resembled some of the guys from Beast but she didn’t think much of it. They were similar yet so different at the same time. Knowing Beast would be joining them at dinner was enough to make Samantha nervous. She had to contain her excitement.

How would they react if they knew she was here? She wondered.

Soon, she heard the door to the restaurant open and in came the group she anticipated. Samantha stood from her seat and turned around to greet them. The 6 guys were stunned to see her. Eunkwang had to clear his throat to break the awkward silence. “Are you guys okay?” he asked, “You guys look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

Dongwoon was first to step forward and approached her. And then, he pulled her in for an embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here?” he asked pulling away from her.

“I was assuming you were busy, silly!” she playfully punched his shoulder. “I didn’t wanna bother you, Mr. Big Shot!”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said, “It’s about time you visited me instead of me having to visit you all the time.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Well surprise!" she exclaimed then walked over to greet the rest of the members. “Hi guys!” she greeted them happily hugging each of them. “You guys are looking good! Keep up the good work! You have no idea how much I missed you!”

“Sam!” Yoseob hugged her tightly. “It’s great to see you again!”

“We have a bit of catching up to do, don’t we?” she pointed out as they proceeded to settle down at the table.

She looked around at the two boy groups, flabbergasted by her behavior. Both were astounded for different reasons.

BTOB looked at the scene before them in confusion. Samantha knows Beast?! So was Dongwoon that ‘someone’ she was referring to? They wondered. She had a bit of explaining to do. Of the seven members, it was already apparent Peniel was the most curious. She owed him that much.

Beast, on the other hand, wondered why Samantha was here. Dongwoon was especially curious because she usually gave him a courtesy call to let him know she was around. It wasn’t like her to surprise him out of nowhere. The Samantha he knew hated surprises not to mention she was really bad at surprises. This time, her presence really caught him off guard. A part of him had a feeling Samantha never intended to come to Seoul. Something must have come up, he thought. And he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

A/N: Here's another update for you guys! I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this! I hope you enjoy it! When I write something, I don't stop until I finish no matter how late it is. I felt that if I stopped writing this chapter I might lose everything so I wanted to get it over with lol. The thing I'm trying to work on right now is titling everything. I feel like coming up with a title is difficult because the plot itself defeats the title of the story. So I'm trying to aim for a good plot for you guys and ending up with a weird title. The title came up when I was dealing with my situation with Jeremy. I kept my hopes up and upon seeing him again last month, the ounce of hope was still alive which is why I titled this as "A Slight Ounce of Hope". Anyways, enjoy! I'm heading to bed now. Good night!