“Got it,” He nodded, pressing himself against her gently.
“See that mark under his eye there,” She pointed out. “Its really faint, but it’s a scar he got as a kid when his mom threatened or sort of tried to kill him because she was angry with his father the king. Sort of messed up and all, because he also basically become an outcast because of it and was sent to some vassal warlord as a hostage. It kind of messed him up.”
“Right,” He nodded again, trying to keep everything in his head.
“In the last episode, someone tried to kill the king with poison but So, the guy with the bangs, took the poison instead but tried to hide it because he knew that Su, the lead girl here would be blamed for it, even though she had nothing to do with it.” Claire continued explaining. “When she realized what had happened, she tried to help him but of course that just meant she got caught there and was blamed for the poisoning anyway. Now she has that limp because they tortured her and only survived because the medicine maker lady who sort of took her in to work with the herbs and stuff in the Damiwon took the blame and was executed instead. Completely heartbreaking.
“See him, the guy turning away from her, the bastard, that’s the other brother, the one who wanted to marry her like an episode ago. He’s just letting her be kicked out of the palace after being tortured half to death.”
“And you’ve liked watching this?” He asked.
“Yes,” She laughed. “It was always a little heavy but it started out with some cute and funny moments in it as well. It’s a melodrama so I expected it to get sort of worse. But we can hope for a little bit of a happy ending…maybe…”
They settled in to watch the episode, occasionally commenting on the story and the beauty of the setting used for filming it. He got sucked into the story, enjoying listening to the little bits of background Claire filled in for them as they went. Outside the rain was still falling, pattering against the window.
Cheol was enjoying this cozy evening in, something he’d only sort of shared with other members of his band and with his family back home. It was the same but…different. He could smell the conditioner in both of their hair which smelled like grapefruit, fresh and summery. It was distracting. He had to admit, he was actually enjoying the show, despite how sad it was turning out to be. He used the hand he had on the cushion behind her to pull her hair out from between her and the couch to let it drape along the back of the couch before tucking his arm around her again.
“How can he just walk away, seeing her out there like that,” He scoffed, waving a hand at the TV angrily.
“Right?” She agreed, leaning away from him to be able to face him as she said it. “I was so rooting for them. In the beginning it was really sweet and romantic even though he was already married, which is a whole other thing.”
“He was married when he fell in love with her,” He asked, eyebrow raised questioningly.
“Well yes, but she was really sick and wanted her husband to marry her, too.” Claire tried to explain.
“Okay, sure, sure,” He squinted, trying to pretend it made sense.
“I mean, it’s not like the king didn’t have lots of wives,” She shrugged. “I’m sure the princes could have lots of wives or something, if they wanted…and lived long enough.”
“Of course,” He tried to sound sage and sophisticated. “Lots of wives sound good.”
“Right,” Claire burst out laughing at the look on his face. He smiled back, his dimples flashing merrily at her.
“Oo, the other prince is back,” He said, purposely redirecting her attention back to the program so that she would sit beside him again. As he had hoped, she tucked herself in to the space beside him, fitting there like she was made to be there. She made a soft awww sound as the prince came up behind Su, now a laundress, to give her a loving hug.
“See, that’s sweet,” She said softly.
“Mmmm,” He agreed, bringing his hand up to play with Claire’s loose hair as he leaned his head closer to hers. Her eyes were purposefully transfixed on the program and she didn’t notice until his chin came to rest on the top of her head. Her heartbeat a little faster. She really shouldn’t have left him walk her home and she shouldn’t have stayed on the couch….she should probably get up now, but she really didn’t want to. For a few minutes she could pretend that someone like him could like someone like her. And for a few minutes he could pretend he was just like any other twenty something with a crush. They stayed seated together as they watched, enjoying the stolen moment, neither wanting to test it by asking if they were alone in their feelings.
Claire had admired him long before they had ever met. Of course she would never say that she’d had a crush, it seemed too trivial or juvenile to say that. When she had found out what her job was, she had been both excited and scared. She couldn’t be a fan in her job, she knew, they had to be ordinary people who just happened to have extraordinary jobs. Honestly, she hadn’t planned on telling any of them that she had known who they were before she took the job, figuring it would just make things weird. But when she had talked to him, it had just come out. She had wanted to let him know she wasn’t just saying something nice to make him feel better, but that she had some understanding of him and what he and the other members had gone through. Thankfully, Cheol had seemed to take what she had said as she meant it and it hadn’t made things weird.
Cheol was doing his best to focus on the program and follow the story, but the competition for his attention was fierce. Sitting beside him was someone who had taken him completely by surprise. She was sweet and funny and made his heart skip a beat whenever she was near him. His interest had been piqued the first time he had laid eyes on her and had only deepened each time he had seen her since. It had become a highlight of his day when he stopped by her little ‘office’ to drop off a tea or just check in to see how things were going. He wondered if she’d thought it was a little strange since he wasn’t one of the members assigned to work with her, but maybe she was enjoying it a little too. At least, he guessed by her happily sitting with him like this now, she didn’t mind spending a little time with him. He loved the feel of her warm body pressed against his side and she seemed to fit perfectly. Changho was right, he thought to himself, she does smell good.
When Cheol arrived home late in the afternoon he found Hyunwoo reading by himself, most of the members having gone gone elsewhere to practice, exercise, or take advantage of some free hours to so what they wanted. Hyunwoo took note of the silly grin on his face as Cheol walked past him. He reached out and grabbed Cheol around the shoulders with a friendly hug.
“Mr. Park,” He said in a singsong voice. “What’s made you smile like that? You look happy.”
“Nothing really,” Cheol replied, hugging the arms around him back and leaning his head against the head that was fitted to his shoulder.
“Did you have fun with Claire-ssi?” He asked.
“Hmmm?” Cheol turned his head a little to try and read the expression of his friend.
“Was it fun hanging out with her,” Hyunwoo asked innocently. “She seems nice. I want to hang out with her more. What did you do with her today after you left?”
“It rained on the way to her place,” Cheol laughed at himself. “So while things were drying we watched the drama she talked about.”
“Did you like the drama you watched with her?” Hyunwoo was a big K-drama fan who had a history of being the instigator, along with Kitae, of the viewing of most series that other members had watched. Minjun had been an early convert of the group and the three of them often watched series together or at least at the same time so they could all discuss them together.
“It was good, but kind of sad, definitely a melodrama,” Cheol responded. “But I liked watching it, yes.”
“Good, maybe she can get you to watch more with us,” Hyunwoo was definitely excited by the prospect and grinned back at Cheol, who laughed and patted the arms still around his shoulders. Hyunwoo let go of his friend and
flopped back onto the couch to read a little more of his book while the house was quiet.
Chapter 5
Early in the next week Cheol found an excuse to walk her home from the KXO offices again, calling it an evening a few hours earlier than he might have otherwise done. Cheol had proposed they go over some of the interview questions she was covering with the other members to prepare him as well and maybe, as an aside, he could help her prepare for the other members. Claire agreed, offering to stay a little later at KXO to work on it, but Cheol had suggested having dinner while they worked. Dinner sounded delicious at the moment and her apartment would be quieter than a restaurant or cafe, as he had pointed out, so they headed to her place, picking up dinner on the way.
They settled down on the loveseat and started going over some of the newest interview prep she was working on for all of them. He read through them with her while they ate, taking the opportunity to reach out and brush her arm or scoot closer to her whenever he could. It didn’t take them long to go through all of them and then start looking at her plans for how to go through them with the members. He liked her ideas, they were brilliant really. She seemed to be able to make most of it fun to do.
When dinner was finally gone, an hour and a half had passed and Cheol couldn’t think of any more excuses to stay there with her. Reluctantly, he packed up his things and started to say his goodbyes. He paused in the hallway as he was slipping his shoes on.
“Can I make a confession?” He said, rubbing the back of his neck self consciously.
“Uh-oh,” She chuckled. “Should I be worried?”
“Ah no, I don’t think so,” He couldn’t help but laugh at himself. “It’s just...I’m not sure how much help I need on preparing for interviews and, to be honest, you are good enough at preparing everything for everyone else, I’m not sure what good I was being for you.”
“Okay,” She listened, waiting for the confession she was sure must be following this.
“Even so,” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to come back and hang out again. I guess I’m asking what you would think of maybe being friends? I’d like to get to know you better.”
“You want to be friends?” She was a little surprised by the request. “I...sure. If you want, we could be friends.”
“Okay, great,” He brightened, returning to putting his shoes on. “Then I’ll see you again soon.”
“Yeah,” She nodded. He slipped out of the door wearing a goofy grin. Still new to the country she didn’t really have many friends and her work didn’t really put her in contact with many other people inside the company. Cheol really didn’t need her help and somewhere along the way she had suspected he was making excuses to come and talk with her. If she was honest with herself, she had been happy to have excuses to see him too.
***
Claire was proud of herself for managing to organize mock interviews for each of the five ‘students’ and some more general prep questions for everyone together. She was going to have to talk to Cheol about doing something with the whole group to see how everyone could work together. She had watched interviews they had done before and he usually acted as the interpreter on the fly and was pretty quick to step in to help struggling members in their answers. It was sweet really, but it would be great to see them flourish more on their own.
She’d ask sometime soon about setting aside a couple of hours to do a quick fire interview series with all of the members. It was looking like some of the outlets were wanting to do some TMI segments as well as some modern life as a popstar things. Those would be fun and easy to work on with them. It would be harder to prep for the what have you liked doing here sorts of questions since they didn’t know yet what they would be doing on the trips aside from the cities they would be stopping in. Maybe she ought to look up tourist things to do in the city…and restaurants; food was one of their favorite things.
Claire wrote up the questions, now a pool of about 100 for them to draw their practice from. With any luck they could get through most of them this week before the first foreign reporter came to visit them ahead of their trip. The company had arranged for some paper press to cover them ahead of time to create some stir and hopefully foster a little interest in the group before their tour. A music magazine, a fashion magazine, and a teen interest magazine would all be coming. This would be easier for all of the members since there would be interpreters for both sides and in print answers in the readers language would be fluent, accessible, and relatable without feeling like the layers of separation from delay, translation, and interpretation were there at all. It was on camera that would prove to be the hardest. She knew from experience as a viewer that the rush to get the subtitles out on shows and events often resulted in awkward phrasing, stilted conversations, and flat out mistranslations. The more that they could ‘speak for themselves’ the less that would happen.
Cheol came by late in the afternoon to say hello and generally just check on how she was doing. He brought her tea on his way to the group practice so that she would have something while she was working hard for all of them. She was amused and flattered by his attention. He really was just the sweetest of people. A small part of her wished they had met in a different way and a different place, but she couldn’t imagine how they could have ever met another way.
***
Changho had decided that his reward would be watching a horror movie with everyone. Claire agreed, but FX and Seunghoon quickly declined, Kitae declined when he saw the movie trailer for Frightening Tales from the Dark, quickly followed by Hyunwoo when he saw it for himself. Cheol agreed, as it turned out, because Claire had, and proved to be the jumpiest of the watchers in the theater. Claire actually found it rather amusing that he had come, despite his obvious dislike of the genre. She was quite sure that, aside from actually enjoying horror movies in general, it was getting to see the other members reactions that had motivated him to choose that reward. On the upside, Claire got to see an adorably jumpy Cheol for a couple of hours in a dim theater. When the first jump scare appeared on the screen, he reached for her hand and held onto it for the rest of the movie.
He walked her home from the theater, going part of the way with the rest of the members who had opted to come along for the movie. They dropped off near the dorm and Cheol and Claire continued on to her apartment. As luck would have it, or perhaps just the season, they were caught in another rainshower on the way.
“This is becoming a tradition with you walking me home in the rain,” She joked.
“Heh, yeah maybe I need to start leaving something here to change into,” He suggested, mostly kidding.
“It would leave you something other than the towel I have to change into,” She admitted, pulling it out of the same drawer along with the shirt he had borrowed.
“Thanks,” He took them from her with a sheepish smile. “Is this where I say, we have to stop meeting like this?”
“Meeting doesn’t seem to be the problem,” She pointed out. “I can’t say I’ve had many people I work with end up in my shower this often.”
“Well, any reason to hang out, I guess,” He gave a nervous laugh. “Sorry for imposing.”
“No, it’s just bad luck,” She shook her head. “Here let me help.” Her hands went to the hem of his hoodie to help him pull it off, causing her fingers to brush the cool skin of his stomach. Cheol jumped at the touch which hit him like a spark. Claire apologized and dropped it along with the damp clothes she had draped on her arm. They both leaned down to pick up the fallen clothes and found their faces inches away from each other. She couldn’t help but think that he was somehow even more breathtaking sitting there barefaced with messy, damp hair. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and she had a half second to decide if she was going to let him kiss her or if she was going to do the right thing and pull away. He slid his hand around to the back of her head and pulled her to him, pressing his lips against hers gently, just a soft brush of skin against skin. She felt more than heard a sof
t moan rise from her throat, half expressing surprise, half relieved at the contact.
He pulled back to look at her at the sound, unsure what exactly it had meant. One glance at her face and he took it as the invitation it was. Leaning forward, he cupped her face with both hands and brought her lips back to his, nuzzling as he adjusted the angle of their faces. He hadn’t spent much time kissing, having spent much of his adolescence training and living in company dorms since his family lived back in Sydney, but he wasn’t completely without experience.
He nipped lightly at her lower lip, running the tip of his tongue along the same spot. Her mouth opened slightly and he pressed forward, slipping his tongue inside as he pulled her closer. Her hands came up to wrap around his wrists, half holding his hands on her face and half ready to pull away. He pressed himself closer to her, more eager than skilled.
When he paused, pulling back to take a breath, Claire felt her senses come crashing back, pulling herself off the couch and away from him with all the will that she could muster at the moment. She leaned away from him, until her back found the wall of the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” He mumbled, falling back onto his heels.
“No,” She brought her hand to her lips. “It’s my fault. I keep letting it go further and I shouldn’t. I’m so stupid.”
“Not stupid,” He wanted to comfort her but was afraid to get close again. “It wasn’t your fault, I just thought you wanted...I’m sorry.”
“No, but that’s the problem,” She hid her face behind her knees she had drawn up to her chest. “I can’t want this but I do. I let things go thinking, he couldn’t possibly...so I could pretend and enjoy just a little.”
“What do you mean? I couldn't possibly what?” He asked, reaching out to touch her.
The Tutor Page 7