Chapter 1

“I did it.” Yang Yoseob muttered to himself, his eyes wide with surprise, his hands crumpling the paper in his hands, shaking from excitement. “I did it!” He wanted to squeal with joy but then he remembered where he was at. The dorm.

The dorm. The place he has lived in for the past two years, with his four best friends and the love of his life. Of course, to everyone else, it’s where he lived with his five best friends. And to a certain extent, it was true. But deep down, he knew that along the way, he had inadvertently fallen in love with their leader, Yoon Doojoon. That wasn’t the exact reason why he had applied to go to college. Not entirely. Sure, being far away from him would totally help him get over his ‘I am in love with you, Doojoon, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep it a secret’ phase, and it was a phase, or so he kept trying to make himself believe. Oh who was he kidding. He was smitten and it was becoming unbearable. Being so close to the one you love yet not being able to do anything about it was taking its toll on him. The fear of rejection and disgust kept him quiet though. He would rather have him as friend than as nothing at all.

But going to college was something he had secretly dreamed of. He knew he was blessed the moment B2st debuted and their fan base grew. It had been hard, but they had pulled through it together, with the love of their Beauties to help them. But he was 21 now, and as bad as it sounded, he wanted to be normal. He wanted to experience the life every other twenty something year old got to experience. He had talked it over with their manager and after a lot of explaining and convincing (and turning his aeygo to the max), he was allowed to apply to college with the promise of being able to attend one term. After that, he would either stay in college, or return to B2st. A pretty generous deal. That was until the manager realized he had applied to college in America. That was an interesting scene. Sure he could go to colleges here, but that would defeat the purpose of living life as a completely normal young adult. His English wasn’t that bad, it had certainly gotten better, better than some of the other members, and the likelihood that someone would recognize him as a Kpop idol was really low. So that is why he had chosen to go overseas. And now that he was accepted into a university, the only thing left for him to do was to tell the others he would be leaving soon.

It suddenly dawned on him. His smile was replaced with a frown.

‘How am I supposed to tell them? What are they going to say? Are they going to hate me? Can I really leave? Will they understand? Will they think I’m betraying them? Will I be able to explain to them why I’m doing this? It’s not forever. They’ll understand. And be supportive, right? Right?’

Panic suddenly filled him. ‘Oh god, what will I do if they really end up hating me? No! Yoseob get yourself together. They will understand. They’ll be shocked of course, I mean who wouldn’t. But they will support you know matter what.’

Yoseob sighed as he sat down on the couch in the living room of their dorm, staring at the closed door to their shared bedroom, knowing they were all in there sleeping. “Let’s hope they do.”