by J. S. Lee
Inside I wasn’t surprised to discover that Onyx weren’t waiting for me. There were too many fans outside of the large glass foyer for them to risk that. I was also a little relieved. I needed some alone time.
In my bedroom, I stripped out of my clothes and wrapped a bathrobe around me before opening the minibar and downing a bottle of water in one, despite the chilled water feeling uncomfortable as it went down my throat. I pulled a second one out and left it on the top to warm slightly. Then, before jumping in a much-wanted shower, I put in a call for room service: I was craving fries and a burger.
I stood under the water jet for a while, enjoying the hot water pounding over my body and washing all the sweat and dirt away. My headache was easing slightly too. I washed and conditioned my hair, shaved everywhere that needed it, and finally got out feeling more human again.
I quickly dried off and pulled on a fresh pair of pajamas, just in case room service appeared early, then stood in front of the mirror, wiping away what was left of my mascara panda eyes. I’d just finished when there was a knock at the door.
With my hair still in a towel turban, I answered the door, more than surprised when I saw MinMin and CX there. “Is everything OK?” I asked, peering past them into the corridor.
MinMin wasn’t looking at me, probably shy about me being in a robe, but CX was happy to meet my stare. Hell, he’d seen it all before and more besides. He held up a handful of sachets. “Facemasks. We figured you needed pampering.”
“I was going to have an early night,” I sighed, scratching at my collar bone.
“We can go if you want?” MinMin offered.
I was about to say yes, but voices travelled down the corridor. Judging from the accents, it was a German girl, a French girl, and an Irish girl, and they were all talking in English. “She said they were in this hotel, somewhere.”
“Get in,” I said, grabbing at their arms and pulling them in before the owners of the voices appeared.
“What’s that about?” MinMin asked as I closed the door behind them.
“How many fans were outside the hotel when you arrived?” I asked. I didn’t wait for an answer as I hurried over to the window and pulled the curtain open a crack to try to peer down at the street below.
“Three or four, but we said hello, signed a few things, and they disappeared.”
I glanced back at the two youngest members of Onyx and arched an eyebrow. “I’d say that number is at thirty now.” I closed the curtain. This high up they would never be able to see me looking down at them, but I felt like it was something I should do anyway.
CX was still at the door, peering out through the peephole. “You know, I think they’re going to be there all night.”
“I’m sorry,” MinMin apologized. “We’ll leave as soon as we can. I just wanted to make sure you were OK. You looked stressed at the concert tonight.”
“There’s someone coming!” CX said, then his tone fell. “It looks like a hotel employee. Someone ordered food.”
“That would be me, so go hide in the bathroom, the pair of you.” They did as I requested and moments later, there was a knock on the door. I stepped back to allow the guy in. “Excuse me, but do you speak English?” I asked him. He gave me a blank look. “Um, parlez vous anglais?” I offered again, even though he probably didn’t, given the fact he hadn’t understood me the first time around. I wasn’t surprised when he shook his head.
I waited for him to leave and then pushed the door to the bathroom open. “You can come out now.”
CX went straight to the door and peeked out the peephole again. “They’re still there. Who do you think told them where we are? That tour promotor?”
I hadn’t even thought about it, but it made sense. Wearily, I walked over to the small table by the bed and picked up my cell phone, sending a message to the group chat that fans were now roaming the halls and that everyone should probably stay in their rooms.
I set the phone back down on the table, and then flopped down on the bed in exhaustion. “What films does this hotel have?” I asked, not really caring.
“Your burger is going to go cold,” MinMin said, carrying the tray over and placing it down beside me. “You should eat.”
I turned my head, staring at the food. Yes, I needed to eat. I sat, reached for the burger and took an enormous bite out of it.
That was exactly what I needed.
While I ate my food, MinMin was moving around the room, clearing things from the beds. Then, he started pulling candles out from a small backpack I hadn’t realized he’d had on his back. While he placed them on surfaces around the room, CX was flicking through the channels on the television, before settling on a music video channel.
As a recent Shawn Mendes song set tone with the background music, MinMin started lighting candles, I couldn’t help but arch an eyebrow. “Are you trying to seduce me right now?” I asked CX suspiciously.
“Are you seducible?”
Slowly, I shook my head, conscious that I could see MinMin was watching us from the corner of my eye.
“It’s a good job I didn’t come here to seduce you then,” he smiled.
MinMin finished setting up the room, and then went to turn the main lights off. The candle light cast a soft glow around the room. It was welcome from my tired eyes. With an audience, who eventually helped me finish my fries, I ate my burger and drank the full can of Coke that I’d ordered with it. Before I could move the tray, MinMin had taken it and set it on the table on the other side of the room.
“You said you had facemasks?” I said as he joined me on the bed, crossing his legs under him.
MinMin grinned. “We do.” He reached behind him and grabbed a couple of pillows, then he placed them in front of him. He patted the bed, and I shuffled over, leaning back against the pillows. “But we need to get your hair out of this towel first.”
I was intrigued. I unwrapped the towel, tossing it to the side. In the meantime, CX had found my hairbrush and handed it to MinMin who started brushing the ends out. What was it with these guys and brushing my hair?
Meanwhile, CX had jumped on the bed in front of me, MinMin’s bag beside him. He rummaged inside of it, pulling out three bottles of nail polish: bright green like the coding in the Matrix, a green about four shades darker, and a glittery silver.
“If I’d have known this was going to be a sleepover, I would have ordered popcorn and wine from room service.”
CX’s eyes lit up. “They do popcorn?”
My dry humor was lost on him. I wasn’t a girly girl: that was pretty obvious. I wasn’t used to things like this. Even in college I’d avoided it as much as possible. That being said, I wasn’t going to complain if these two were set on a pampering session. “I have no idea,” I admitted. “But if you want to try and order some, and some wine, for you two, do so. I’m too tired and I have a headache.”
CX tilted his head, then patted the part of his legs where they crossed. “Feet.”
“Is this where I discover you have a weird foot fetish?” I sniggered, stretching my legs out.
“Eww.” He pulled a face but proceeded to give me a foot massage. Meanwhile, MinMin had begun gently massaging my scalp, now that my hair was free of tangles.
I had no idea what I had done to deserve this heaven, but I could feel my headache begin to melt away. After a while, MinMin leaned forward. “You can lie down now.”
I did as he requested, making sure to get the all clear from CX before moving so as not to knock the nail polish. Behind me, MinMin tore a mask pack open and then gently laid it on my face. It was cool, but comfortable.
“And me,” CX demanded.
I closed my eyes, listening as the two put on their own masks, the noise standing out over the background music. When MinMin started massaging my temples, I knew I was done.
제 12 장
Loved
I was surprised when I woke up alone in the bed. Firstly, because I didn’t remember falling asleep. Secondly, becaus
e my facemask had been removed and I had been moved under the covers. But also, because I had grown used to waking up with someone.
Actually, I kind of liked having the bed to myself.
And yet, I’d rather have had someone’s arms wrapped around me.
I’d not set an alarm, knowing that I would be up early enough for breakfast. We were meeting early morning and then there would be about four hours for us to see Paris. This was one stop I was looking forward to. The city of love… with Onyx… and their crew.
But if we ignored the fact the team would be with us, and I allowed a little bit of selective memory, I would be spending a day in the most romantic city in the world with the guys I was head over heels for.
I reached up and rubbed at my eyes. Only then did I discover my fingernails had been painted too. I’d slept through that one! I brought my hand closer to my eyes, studying CX’s handiwork. He wasn’t half bad. The coats were even, and there was only one finger with the smallest dot of nail polish on my skin. He’d managed to draw, with amazing accuracy, the Onyx logo on one of the nails. A thumbnail on the opposite hand had the letters CX painted on.
I guess that was one way to brand me.
At least it was slightly less awkward than the hickeys I had on the back of my shoulder thanks to Xiao…
I sat up and shivered in the chill of the bedroom. It wasn’t that it was cold, so much as I was no longer in the comfort of my blanket cocoon. I glanced over at the other bed and discovered I wasn’t as alone as I had thought. CX and MinMin had opted to take that one.
I ran a hand through my hair with a sigh. Judging from the fact MinMin had never mentioned it earlier, I was guessing he had no idea what was going on with me and the rest of his group. Maybe he did and they were being respectful anyway, but I had the feeling that wasn’t the case. In fact, I also suspected MinMin hadn’t told any of the others what he had told me.
We’d discussed telling MinMin a while ago, and somehow, that had never happened. Somehow, this felt wrong… not wrong… shady. Even if nothing had happened, the fact he had spent the night…
My thoughts got derailed as I watched them sleep, finally realizing that they had both dyed their hair.
CX was sporting an inky blue. In the dark of the room, it looked black, but as he rolled over and snuggled into MinMin, I caught glimmers of the blue. MinMin, who had, only recently, dyed his hair silver, was now ombre: black at the bottom, grey in the middle, and white at the top.
When did Onyx ever sleep? They had to be firing on three or four hours most nights, and yet here they were dying hair. Again.
But hell, they looked hot.
I glanced at the clock: it was still too early to be awake, but I knew I wasn’t going to fall back asleep now. I disappeared into the bathroom and dressed in there so as not to disturb the pair. When I came out, I grabbed a fresh bottle of water, thankful my headache had gone, and switched on my laptop. I had time to kill and photos to edit.
I pulled open the curtain enough to light my screen and set the photographs transferring from my camera’s memory card. As soon as I saw them on my screen, I wanted to cry.
The lighting was terrible. They were too dark and too yellow.
I had never lightened the skin on any of Onyx in any of their photographs. As far as I was concerned, it was beautiful as it was. I was aware that other companies did, and I was prepared for Atlantis doing further work to them when they got their hands on them, but so far, none had been manipulated after they left my computer.
These… these would need to be. And even then, I wasn’t sure I would be able to rescue them. I took the first one, playing with the saturation, hue, contrast and balance. Lightening shadow, dropping a mask on…
It took me nearly an hour to make that one picture look as close to natural as possible, and it still wasn’t right. The light curved, and that meant either Xiao was coming out too white, JongB was looking like an actual Simpson, or Jiwon’s golden skin tone were making him look like a walking Oscar.
And what worked for Onyx didn’t work for all of the fans having their photographs taken with them. My head went down on the desk with a frustrated sigh. This was going to take me hours.
“Are you OK, Kate?” MinMin asked, softly.
I lifted my head and found him with his head now at the foot of the bed, resting on his folded arms as he lay on his stomach, watching me. “I’m fine,” I assured him, sitting up. “The photos are another issue.”
“You made us look good in all the other photographs.”
I shook my head. “You made you look good in all the other photographs. And you look good in these, but my photography skills sucked yesterday.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the photographs; just the venue lighting.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. I swiveled in my chair and arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re going to kill people with that hair.”
“That’s a bad thing.”
I frowned, realizing that wasn’t something that translated well. “I love your hair.”
“Thank you.”
There was something in the way he said it that had me tilting my head as I stared at him. “Did… did you do it?”
MinMin nodded, proudly. “I like fashion and art.”
“Art?”
“I draw.”
Before I came on tour with Onyx, I wasn’t a fan. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but rather, I didn’t really know who they were. It was only because of Holly that I’d had any idea of what K-Pop was, and back then, my knowledge had been limited to BTS and thinking J-Hope was a ball of sunshine.
Once I’d met H3RO, I’d delved a little further into that rabbit hole to be able to recognize the names of dozens more groups and even some songs. But I’d never invested in it completely. I just hadn’t had the time, especially with so many groups out there.
And then Onyx happened. In the beginning, I was trying to get a feel for their personalities and their music concepts (and that had been a mindfuck). When we’d started dating, I’d watched a few clips on Instagram, and the odd full episode of a tv show, but I’d refrained from really getting caught up in it all. It was a strange thing to explain, but the Onyx on stage was only a part of the Onyx I shared a bed with, and I wanted to get to know them through questions and conversation, rather than through a screen.
Of course, the down side to this was that I hadn’t spent as much time with MinMin as I wanted to. I knew so little about him. “You draw?”
“Mainly animals. I tried to draw clothing ideas, but they all seemed so…” he shrugged. “I’m better at finding outfits than creating outfits. But I love drawing animals. I love animals. I have two cats, a chinchilla, a sugar glider, and a corn snake back at the dorm.”
“Hold up!” CX exclaimed, suddenly awake and sitting bolt upright with his eyes wide open. “No one mentioned a snake.”
MinMin grinned sheepishly. “She’s called Jenny.”
“I don’t care if she’s called Scarlett Johansson, nobody mentioned a snake. I’m not sharing a room with a snake!”
CX, it seemed, didn’t like snakes. I bit back my laughter at how high pitched he was getting in his indignation. “Sugar gliders are cute, though.”
“Do you like snakes?” MinMin asked me.
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t think to have one as a pet, but I don’t dislike them.”
“You’re both weird, and I’m not sharing a room with a snake.”
“You came after Jenny.”
“Do you think we’ll get to go up the Eiffel Tower?” I asked, quickly changing the subject. I was not about to get in the middle of an awkward ‘bros over hos’ conversation.
“I hope so!” MinMin exclaimed, happily – I wasn’t sure if that was at the change of conversation or because he wanted to go up it too. “Sungmin said we had tickets for something. I was hoping it was that or a boat ride on the Seine.”
“Not to kick you out, but you guys should probably go get dresse
d and pack. Sungmin wanted us to meet soon.”
“You’re coming?” I couldn’t fault CX’s surprise: I hadn’t taken part in many of the group tourist events because I needed to get the photographs done, and now that I’d seen the state of the pictures, I knew that it would be better to stay here again, and try to work on the disasters.
But it was Paris. It was the only city I really wanted to explore.
“Hell yes, I am.”
With a giant, goofy, grin on his face, CX leaped off the bed and bounded around the room, collecting the few belongings they hadn’t put away before going to sleep. At a slower speed, MinMin followed. “For the record, I’m not forgetting about that snake,” I heard CX say as they left the room.
Smiling to myself, I turned back to my computer. The smile fell from my face as I stared at the picture on my screen. Staying in really would be the better option.
Unfortunately, part of the appeal was that we needed to check out of our rooms. Sungmin had arranged for a late checkout on only one of them – so all the cases could be stored securely – and I didn’t have any other option.
I turned the laptop off, sticking it back in my backpack, then finished packing. I gave the room the final cursory glance to make sure I hadn’t left anything and then stepped into the corridor. Only to nearly knock three girls over. “Excuse me,” I muttered.
The three of them eyed me suspiciously but moved out of the way. Repeatedly glancing over my shoulder as I did so, I moved down the corridor towards Sungmin’s room. When his door opened after I knocked on it, I stepped straight into the room, urging him backwards before he could be seen. “I think we have a problem.”
“You’re telling me,” Sungmin sighed. “The fans haven’t left the front of the hotel.”
“The fans haven’t left the corridor.”
Sungmin’s eyes widened. “I called the front desk last night and they assured me they would remove all non-guests from the hotel.”