by J. S. Lee
That made no sense to me. The audience were amazing, keeping their energy up for the whole of the show. Onyx, were once again feeding from that, their moves sharper, their voices even better than they had been at the start of the show.
By the end of the show, I felt like I had been worked over, in the most welcome way, by each member. I was exhausted. The guys, on the other hand, were still hyped. I was relieved when Sungmin announced we were returning straight to the hotel. I needed a shower, and then I had plans for some photo editing.
I had taken my shower, dried my hair, packed my case, pulled on some pajamas, and done about seventy percent of the photographs before there was a knock at the door. Although it was nearly three in the morning and I was ready to go to sleep, I wasn’t surprised. I was more surprised that someone hadn’t knocked on my door sooner.
I opened the door, finding Jiwon. He looked devastated. “What happened?”
“My speech made the Korean news.”
I stepped back and ushered him. “Are the fans-”
“My family,” he cut me off.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, reaching up and giving him the hug I’d wanted to earlier. He held me tightly, silent. I wasn’t sure what I could say to that. Families sucked. Since I’d been out on tour with them, I’d had two text messages from my mom. One to say I owed her $1000 in rent (considering I wasn’t living there, I was still trying to work out how), and a second telling me I was a monster for having Damien arrested.
Thanks, Mom.
“If I could go out there and do something to help, I would,” I told him.
“You don’t need to go anywhere,” he muttered against my neck. “I just need you here with me.”
“What did she say?” I asked, quietly. “I was talking to Sungmin at the time and the next thing I knew, you were kicking her out.”
“Do you remember the fan who she swapped with?”
I nodded. “The fanboy who adored MinMin?”
“He’d made a comment about how MinMin and I looked cute together in the pictures. She exploded saying that it was all fake and how we could never be together for real because I wasn’t gay. She said it was disgusting.” Jiwon shrugged. “Aside from the fact it had upset MinMin, it had upset that fan too. I wouldn’t have let her get away with it anyway, but I’m not having her attack our Gems. We’re not about that. I may not show it well sometimes, but I want our members and our fans to be exactly who they are.”
There was a knock at the door. “I’ll tell them to go away,” I assured him, pulling free of his grip. While Jiwon moved towards the bed and out of the short hallway, I opened the door.
Before I could say anything, the rest of Onyx poured into my room. “Is Jiwon in here?” MinMin asked as the others filed in.
“He’s here!” JongB hollered back.
I quickly shut the door before we woke somebody up. “Guys!” I exclaimed in a hissed whisper.
“It’s cool,” Jiwon assured me. He was on the edge of my bed, an obvious gap between him and Xiao, who was already on his side.
I stood at the foot of the bed beside Youngbin and frowned. These beds were not made for seven people. “It’s going to be a cozy night,” he informed me.
“You know the rules, guys,” Jiwon declared, but his gaze was locked on me.
The hell with it.
I climbed up the bed, sinking into Jiwon’s embrace, using my own body to separate him from the others as they started piling on the bed, everywhere but on or next to him.
“Whose foot is in my face?” JongB demanded from somewhere at the foot of the bed.
“Mine,” Xiao responded. “Would you prefer it up your ass?”
“We have three hours before we have to be up to get to the airport,” Youngbin piped up. “Can you all be quiet so we can get some sleep.”
“If you wanted sleep, you could go to your own room,” Jiwon pointed out, gruffly.
“We could, but we aren’t leaving you alone.”
Arms wrapped tighter around me, leaving me frowning. I was grateful for the darkness of the room for that. As far as I knew, not all of Onyx knew about Jiwon’s family situation, which meant they were all naturally worried about their fellow group member. I hugged Jiwon back, wishing there was a way to make everything right.
제 18 장
Fly
The morning was slightly chaotic when the alarm went off and seven people had to extract themselves from each other, firing on very little sleep: I swear, JongB was the only one who managed to get any sleep because he was the one keeping everyone up with his snoring!
However, once everyone was upright, things moved quickly despite the delay, as everyone took turns sneaking out of my room. We were all downstairs, eating breakfast, before anyone else.
The smooth morning came to an abrupt halt ten minutes into the short journey to the airport.
Literally.
The bus driver slammed the brakes on, only just stopping us from rear-ending the car in front as they had done the same. Thanks to the slight height of the bus, we had a clearer view of the highway in front of us… and the wreck which had blocked the traffic. I had no idea what had happened for all the lanes of traffic to be closed, but a truck was on its side.
I could almost feel the stress level from Sungmin fill the bus.
“This isn’t good,” CX muttered in my ear.
I was inclined to believe him.
“Let’s not panic yet,” I told him. Sungmin, in his strict yet prepared manner, always made sure we were at the airport earlier than we needed to be. We still had three hours before the flight departed. There was time for this to be turned around.
By the time the traffic was given the go ahead to start moving again, that time had dropped to an hour. “We’re not making that flight,” JongB said, his face appearing over the top of the seats in front.
“It’s Sungmin,” I assured him. “He has been on his phone for the last hour. I’m sure we’re booked onto the next flight.”
Xiao appeared, holding his phone up showing an app. It was in Chinese, but it looked like some type of travel booking thing. “The next flights aren’t going to get us into Warsaw until just before five.”
“When the concert starts…” I shook my head.
“Guys, calm down,” Youngbin said from across the aisle. “We just push the start time back half an hour and do the meet and greet and photographs after the show. It’s not the first time we’ve started late.”
That was doable. Of course, it also filled me with an anxiety I wasn’t going to share: if we got there and I wasn’t able to at least talk to someone about what we needed with lighting, I was going to end up with crappy photographs and a long stream of complaints. Again. Despite Youngbin’s words, I could see Onyx getting agitated, so I decided against sharing.
Our suspicions were confirmed as Sungmin moved to the back of the bus where we were. “Boarding has begun. We’re not going to get this flight. We are already booked into the next flight, although seats are not together.”
“We can cope with that, hyungnim,” Youngbin told him.
Sungmin nodded. “I’ve rearranged the bus collecting us too. It will take us straight to the venue. I’ve put in a call to the venue to explain and someone from Atlantis will take care of the SNS while we’re in the air, so hopefully, fans won’t be too disappointed.” Sungmin looked at me. “That means the group photographs will be after the show.”
“I suspected that will be the case.”
“On the positive side,” CX spoke up. “It means we don’t have to rush through the airport.”
“Shame,” JongB pouted. “I was hoping we could get on one of those little go-kart things.”
“You know they’re not go-karts, right?”
Sungmin released his, now familiar, long-suffering sigh, and returned to the front of the bus with the rest of the crew.
I watched him go with a small frown. At some point, I had taken to sitting with Onyx instead of the crew
, and no one had said anything. Surely they had to have noticed that by now?
I didn’t have much time to think about that as we arrived at the airport. Even if they had noticed, I was grateful they hadn’t commented. I would check with Sungmin if they had ever said anything to him. Or maybe they could just see I got on well with the group?
Although CX thought we didn’t have to rush, I think the late arrival had pushed Sungmin into dictator mode. We moved with purpose to the new check-in desk, and it wasn’t until we were through security and were waiting at the gate that we were allowed to relax. We were there for all of five minutes before JongB announced he was hungry.
Sungmin looked ready to tell him to stay where he was until Ina and Eunhae agreed with JongB. It was lunch time. The closest thing to our gate was an udon and sushi place, and that, Sungmin had declared, was where we were eating.
I don’t think anyone cared. We piled in, taking over a large portion of the seating area between us and our luggage, and ordered food. I realized as we ate, that this was the first time we’d been in an airport in such a large group and not captured any attention. I guess if fans were travelling from Amsterdam to Poland, they had already caught the flight. I wondered how many had been booked on the same earlier flight as us.
I sat back in my chair, eating my sushi, and my gaze drifted to Sungmin. I watched him with sympathy. He looked more stressed with every passing moment. I moved over to him, pushing his barely touched bowl of udon noodles towards him. “You need to eat too,” I pointed out.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I doubt that,” I disagreed, folding my arms. “You’re spending all your time worrying and looking after Onyx, but you need to look after you too. Your fiancé won’t be happy if you come home ill.”
Sungmin glanced down at his bowl, and then picked up his chopsticks and spoon. “I guess you’re right.”
“I’m sorry if me being here is making life difficult,” I added in a low voice.
Sungmin ate a few mouthfuls of his food before turning to me. “Kate, they’re boys. Horny boys trapped in men’s bodies. I understand why the industry sets these rules, and the result is dedicated individuals who will work hard until they drop. But that doesn’t stop them having human needs. I can’t say I completely understand it, but the stress you all cause me is nothing compared to the stress you’re taking away from them. That is important to me.”
“Do the others know?” I asked, hesitantly. “I know you said you weren’t going to tell them, but surely they’ve noticed by now.”
“I gave up caring,” Sungmin admitted. “They’ve not mentioned anything, but the truth is, I’ve known them for some time, and I trust them. Even if I didn’t, they’ve all signed NDAs.” He took another mouthful of his noodles, then paused. “That doesn’t mean you can be pushing it in their faces. Keep it as you have been doing.”
“I’m sor…” my apology died as an announcement in the airport declared our flight had been delayed.
Sungmin dropped the spoon in the bowl and stood abruptly, sending udon slopping over the side of the bowl and over me. He didn’t hear my protests as he marched straight across the walkway to our gate and the woman there. Without considering cleaning myself down, I jogged after him: Sungmin’s English was marginally better than his Dutch, and I was willing to bet the woman on the desk didn’t speak Korean.
I was right.
By the time the others had joined us, I had established there was a problem with the plane and that they were “doing everything in their power” to have the problem resolved, but it would be at least an hour.”
“An hour?” Youngbin repeated in dismay.
“An hour is still acceptable. The show isn’t starting until seven. The only thing that’s not happening is the hi-touch and the group photograph, but we’d already decided that was being moved later,” Xiao said, calmly.
“That’s true,” JongB said, agreeing with a nod. “It will be tight, but it can still happen. The plane can get delayed another two hours, and we can still be OK.”
“Don’t jinx it!” MinMin cried.
“That’s not going to jinx it!” JongB objected.
JongB jinxed it.
Forty minutes later, the desk announced the flight had been delayed another hour.
I could see Sungmin on the phone, pacing back and forth. He’d been on it so much, it was now permanently plugged into a battery pack. The mood in the group had dropped considerably. I think it was fair to say we had all come to the conclusion this show wasn’t going to happen, but no one wanted to say it out loud.
When the announcement came that the flight was being cancelled and for all parties to form an orderly line while they moved us onto other flights, Onyx and I deflated into the seats.
“Our Polish Gems are going to be so disappointed in us,” CX said, miserably. Beside him, Youngbin had tears in his eyes.
I could see how upset they were, and how much they cared about their fans, but we were all completely helpless to do anything about it.
“We should get on the V Live app and make an announcement,” JongB muttered, although he seemed reluctant to do so.
Jiwon shook his head. “We should wait to see what Sungmin wants us to do. He might have a contingency in place. We can’t be the only group in history to have missed a flight.”
“That’s true,” Xiao said. Of the group, although he was upset, he was still the one who was most calm. “Sungmin might be able to get us on another flight and we might just have a very delayed start.”
I wasn’t about to rain on his parade, but I doubted it.
With a groan – airport waiting lounges were not comfortable – I got to my feet. Sungmin was nearing the front of the line, which meant he was going to need some translation help.
I joined him and we waited in silence until the desk was free. I pleaded our case, and somehow, miraculously, almost had us transferred onto a flight leaving in twenty minutes… only the luggage wouldn’t be removed from the current plane and get on the other to make it in time.
In the end, the next best flight was in three hours. We returned to the group, dejected. As soon as they saw us, they knew it was over.
While Onyx got together to find a quiet part of the airport to film the Live, I pulled out my laptop, found an outlet, and finished my editing. By the time I’d finished and painstakingly uploaded them to the Atlantis server a few at a time, it was time to board.
The flight was subdued. We weren’t seated together, and I ended up sleeping. I’d half been expecting the cases to go missing, but they were there when we arrived. Unlike the minibus. We had to flag down several taxis to take us to the apartment in the city, which also turned out to be a joke because there was no one there to meet us.
In the end, we dragged ourselves, and all of our luggage, across the street to a bar that served food. A bar where no one spoke English (and unsurprisingly, Korean, Chinese, or Japanese), and we didn’t speak Polish. It was Youngbin who pulled out his phone and opened up a translator app so we could order food and drinks.
At this point, we were all ordering alcohol.
It was probably the alcohol that made everything ten times worse than it was.
We ordered Zapiekanka to eat. According to the translator, this was pizza… And I suppose it was… if pizza was made with a baguette. OK, the food was good; a little unexpected, but good. But part way through the meal, when Sungmin had disappeared across the street to meet the woman who was giving him the keys to the apartment, Jiwon pulled out his phone.
“What’s wrong, hyung?” JongB asked, noticing the mood change in Jiwon first.
Jiwon rubbed at the back of his neck. “Netizens are claiming we cancelled the show intentionally as a protest, because I was preaching LGBT crap in Amsterdam.”
“What the fuck?” Youngbin demanded, tossing the pizza he had been holding back onto the plate so he could pull his own phone out. I stared over his shoulder as we looked at the various articles.
For the most part, the problem wasn’t the LGBT part. It was the cancelling of the show, and how Onyx had mistreated a fan site – a huge insult in Korean circles.
“We are talking about Anita, the girl who was essentially making homophobic comments, right?” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “And it was definitely announced that it was a plane problem that delayed us.” I folded my arms and glowered at the phone. “The girl has problems.”
“I don’t think making fun of her mental health is going to make matters right,” JongB told me.
I arched an eyebrow. “Mental health? I’m talking about me: I’m about to become her problem.”
“You’re cute,” Xiao told me, leaning over to pat my head. “But you shouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t even know what I want to do to her,” I protested.
Xiao put his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands. “Can we talk about what I want to do to you?”
“Can we talk about what I need to do to fix this?” Jiwon asked.
I instantly felt guilty at his plea. This wasn’t the time or the place to be thinking about sexy times with Xiao. I switched gears in my brain and focused. Or tried. The problem was, all of my suggestions probably weren’t appropriate to helping the situation. They were all some variation of finding and punching Anita.
“I’m not sure there is anything you can do to fix it, Jiwon,” Youngbin told him, quietly. “She’s clearly pissed that she was removed from the venue, and she also doesn’t agree with what you said.”
“How did she even hear it if she wasn’t there?” I muttered.
“Are you kidding?” CX asked in surprise. “Jiwon’s speech went viral. There are lots of reposts on Instagram all with tags about how he’s a forward thinker, and how Onyx are one of the most accepting groups out there.”
“They’re not wrong.”
“Jiwon, we agree with everything you said,” Youngbin assured him. “If we try to say anything else, it will probably get twisted against us. It’s shit, but there’s nothing we can do but ride it out. Either people agree with what you said, or they don’t. Either fans stick with us, or they don’t. I hope they do, but sometimes it goes against someone’s beliefs. As for the cancelled concert, we’ve already gone live – from the airport – to explain, and Atlantis has put out a statement. Hopefully the company can work some magic to reschedule it.”