“I know something’s gone awry but I feel like going on. I know I need to say goodbye for I’m off for the brand new days with you…” the last few notes rang inside Dara’s ears and instantly, she felt more relaxed especially because the song had a soft and calm feel to it.

 

As the music fully stopped, she heard a commotion which she hadn’t heard because her earphones were stuck in her ears and were playing in the maximum volume. She immediately removed the earphones and looked around her, towards the source.

 

“You are such a stupid waitress, you know that? I ordered my food half an hour ago and you go and serve the others who had just arrived. I came before them! Now, give me my food!” a fat lady complained.

 

Lee Hayi, Dara’s junior co-worker, bowed her head low in apology. “I’m sorry, madam, but what was you order again?”

 

The fat lady stood up and placed her hands on her waists. She stared down at Hayi who cowered in fear. “I asked you for my order thrice and you still can’t remember?!” she said, pointing at her accusingly.

 

When Dara saw the lady raising her hands, she immediately left the mop she was holding to fall and ran towards her junior. She was able to catch the lady’s wrist.

 

“What do you think are you doing?” Dara asked, her eyes glaring with fire.

 

Although shocked at first, the lady scoffed and shook her head. “Such manners the waitresses of this restaurant have.”

 

Dara raised her brow. “We’re ill-mannered? How about some fat lady like you think about what you just said?”

 

“What? F…Fat?” the lady said. She looked down at her body and then at Dara. “I’m not fat! I lost weight last week.”

 

Dara scoffed. “You’re not fat? Then what am I? A stick-figured girl?”

 

The lady was about to hit Dara across her face as she felt humiliated in the public. Dara raised her chin high as if challenging the lady to which it caused the lady to retreat his hand back.

 

“Unnie, let’s just go and get her order,” Hayi whispered.

 

“No, Hayi. I won’t let some kind of an obese lady insult you in front of these people. She’s complaining about our manners when she, herself, is the most ill-mannered. Just because we’re workers here does not mean she can just insult and step on us,” Dara spat, her eyes not leaving the lady’s. “Excuse me, Madam. If you’re too hungry and can’t wait for your food, to which I’m pretty sure that they were the reasons you were insulting this poor girl right here, you can step out of our restaurant and dine in another restaurant. We humbly do not care about the amount of cash you can pay us.”

 

Infuriated, the lady stopped herself from snapping as she just wanted to hit the waitress’ face and just get it over with. However, she noticed that they gathered quite an amount of attention from the diners so, grabbing her purse, she stepped out of the restaurant.

 

Dara placed her hands on her waists and raised her chin higher. “That’s right, lady, get lost,” she said. She then turned towards the spectators of the commotion. “Show’s over, sir and ma’am,” she said politely, bowing towards them. “I’m sorry for the bother. I’m sorry.”

 

Dara pulled Hayi towards their locker room. “What happened? Are you sick? Do you have a problem or something?”

 

“No, unnie. I’m just tired.”

 

Dara saw how tired she looked but she guessed it wasn’t from working or from her studies. Hayi looked pale, with her eyes in dark circles. “Is it your mother? How is she?”

 

Hayi bit her lip. “She’s getting worse, actually. Last night, she had been screaming in pain and I didn’t have anything to do but just stay by her side. That’s why I wasn’t able to sleep last night causing me to zone out during work,” Hayi said, her head bowed down.

 

“Is she taking her medication?”

 

“The doctor gave her new prescription but I wasn’t able to buy…” she trailed off. “Anyway, unnie, don’t worry too much, she’ll—“

 

“I received my paycheck a while ago. You can have it,” Dara said, handing her an envelope.

 

Hayi’s eyes widened. “No, I can’t. Why would I take the money you worked so hard for?” she said, pushing her hand with the envelope in it back to her senior.

 

Dara pushed it back to her. “Please… you need it more than I do.”

 

Although hesitant, Hayi took it. She then looked up at Dara. “How about your siblings and your mother back at Busan?”

 

“They’ll be fine,” Dara said and then put on a smile. “Now, let’s go back to work?”

 

When they went out to the busy restaurant, they were surprised to see people who weren’t in uniforms taking the orders from the customers. When one of them turned to them, Dara bit her lip and flashed out her peace sign.

 

“YAH! DARA! COME OVER HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING SLACKING OFF WHEN THERE IS A LOT OF CUSTOMERS?!”

 

Dara immediately ran towards her and took the pen from her. She copied the orders of a customer which she wrote on the palm of her hands. “Sorry, Bom! We weren’t slacking off though. We were just talking.”

 

“Well, you shouldn’t talk. You have a lot of customers and you know you lack workers here. We can’t always take your position like this when we come here,” another one appeared to whom Hayi immediately took the orders from.

 

“Sorry, Chaerin,” Dara said apologetically. “What made you come here so early though?”

 

“It’s an hour after your shift ended,” the youngest one said. “Dara-unnie should really trace her working hours. You always lose track of time because you’re always working so hard. Your mother and siblings will be so proud of you!”

 

Hearing this, Hayi immediately left them and went to get the customer’s orders. Dara signaled Minzy to shut to which the maknae of the band didn’t understand.

 

“Was it something I said?” Minzy asked innocently.

 

“I gave her my paycheck for this week because her mother needed it. She would feel guiltier if she heard the same phrase again about my mother and siblings back at Busan,” Dara explained.

 

Minzy bit her lip. “Sorry.”

 

“Now, quickly get off work now,” Bom ordered. “We still need to travel an hour for our performance.”

 

“Alright! I’ll come after you. I still need to change!” she exclaimed, running towards their locker room. On the way, she met her replacement on her shift so it wasn’t a problem when she gets off work.

 

After she quickly changed in her locker room, she ran outside but she met the manager on her way. She immediately greeted him.

 

“Wait!” the manager exclaimed, holding on to her arm. “What’s this commotion I heard a while ago? You, Dara, never learn. We need to protect the—“

 

“The reputation of our restaurant, yes, I know, JjangMae,” she said and then bowed politely. “I’m sorry. I need to go now. Bye!”

 

“YAH!”

 

However, on her tracks, she stopped when she remembered she was still wearing the hat which was part of their uniform. She ran back to her manager and put it on his head. “I worked an hour after my shift ends, I deserve a bonus,” she said and winked. She ran away again while waving backwards.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

While Dara was dozing off inside the van on their way to the club where they will be having their band performance, the other three girls were having a conversation of the latest songs that came out in the K-POP industry. The travel on the way was smooth until…

 

“Okay, what’s taking this traffic so long?” Bom complained.

 

The three girls looked outside and Chaerin’s cat eyes caught something. “Don’t tell me that’s…”

 

“What? What? What is it?!” Minzy interrupted, trying to look.

 

“KBS Guerilla Date?!” Bom exclaimed.

 

“Oh, shoot! Next week’s Guerilla Date will be GD-oppa! How could I forget?!” Minzy snapped. “They must be filming the episode right now.

 

Then the three of them stared at each other as if they had the same line of thoughts. They nodded at each other and then stared at their manager who was driving.

 

“Manager-oppa,” Bom drawled purposefully, earning the manager’s attention.

 

“What?” the manager snapped.

 

“Oops, he’s not in the mood,” Minzy whispered to Chaerin.

 

“Probably because of traffic,” Chaerin whispered back.

 

Bom cleared . “Oppa, can we go out for a while? The traffic don’t seem like it’s going to move soon anyway,” she said, giggling awkwardly.

 

The manager shot the three girls a glare and then he sighed. “Okay then. Be back in fifteen minutes or before the traffic moves.”

 

The girls didn’t waste a second as they immediately rushed outside towards the crowd of people.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Dara yawned loudly as she earned her much-deserved rest. When she was fully awake, she noticed that they were still on their way. She looked around her as her bandmates were gossiping and giggling to each other.

 

“Why aren’t we there yet?” Dara asked.

 

“We were caught in traffic,” Chaerin answered.

 

“But on a brighter side, guess what we got,” Bom said.

 

“New pair of shoes?” Dara asked, raising her brows innocently.

 

“No, silly unnie, Jiyong-oppa’s autograph!” Minzy exclaimed, showing her a piece of paper with a rather messy-looking autograph. “The traffic was caused by a crowd of people on the road because they were shooting an episode for Guerilla Date with Jiyong-oppa. You were sleeping so we didn’t wake you up. Sorry.”

 

Bom nudged the maknae. “It’s not like she cares though. Ask her who Jiyong is.”

 

“Is he an anime character?” Dara asked. “How can you ask an anime character’s signature though?”

 

Minzy facepalmed herself. “As usual.”

 

“Dara-unnie is hopeless,” Chaerin said, sitting back on her seat while pulling her phone to watch the fancam she took while Bom shook her head.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

After their performance, they went back to their dressing room. The manager told them to gather because he had news for them.

 

“My voice cracked again,” Dara said, upset. “Next time, let me just do the backing vocals.”

 

“Aish, unnie, you’re feeling sorry for yourself again,” Chaerin said, patting Dara’s back. “You must be just tired or something.”

 

“Or maybe you used too much of your voice this afternoon against that fat lady in the restaurant,” Bom said.

 

With that, the girls laughed, remembering the face of the fat lady as Dara imitated her.

 

“Good news everyone!” the manager exclaimed, causing the girls to jump on their feet.

 

“What kind of good news?” Minzy asked.

 

“A couple who frequents the last club we performed in saw you and wanted to hire you for their wedding next week. They’re willing to pay a big amount of cash. Among all the events you were hired in, this will be the highest one offered!”

 

They gasped collectively as they stood up on their toes, hopeful. “Are we going to go?” Chaerin asked.

 

“Of course! We can’t miss this chance, can we?” the manager asked as they all clapped hands and hugged each other. They will be sure to put on the best performance so that the couple wouldn’t regret hiring them.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Jiyong stepped inside his apartment after a whole day’s recording for Guerilla Date. He was tired, walking around and being interviewed. On top of it all, he just finished one of his recordings before he went to the shooting of the episode. He also lacked sleep because he was practicing for a surprise stage on one of the music shows especially that it would be his last stage for this album’s promotions.

 

He dragged his feet as he entered his apartment, throwing his things on the sofa. He then went to his bed and plopped himself on it.

 

As he was lying down, he noticed the piles of clothes on one corner and bottles of wine on another. His room was starting to smell already. He needed to clean up, but he had no time because he was too tired and he just wanted to sleep. He didn’t trust the cleaning Ahjumma because she might gossip to his sasaeng fans where he was living. This apartment was for him only. No one but his family and s knew this place. He couldn’t risk publicizing where he was living especially after that incident of his sasaeng fans appearing out of nowhere on the apartment he had before this.

 

“Aish, living alone is really difficult,” he said, ruffling his hair. He then buried his face on the pillow only to throw it away again because it smelled of puke. He scrunched his nose when he remembered puking on the pillow days ago after drinking beyond his limit. He hadn’t cleaned it since.

 

He thrashed around, flailing his legs wildly on the bed. “AAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

----

 

ANNYEEEOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG~~~~ bwhahahahaha. Here's the official first chapter. LOL. Sorry for the long wait. Also, please understand that this fic's updates would be slow and not as regularly as you want it to be so I hope everyone will be patient. T_T I am a busy university student.I hope everyone will understand. huhu

 

PS: The opening song (LOL), the song Dara was listening to at the beginning is called "You Are Everywhere" by Big Baby Driver. Try listening to it. It's very calming. I love it. hehehe

 

Also, THANK YOU TO ALL THE SUBSCRIBERS~~!