“Mate,” FX shook his head as his laughter began to trail off.
“I know, you don’t have to say anything,” Cheol held his hands up in surrender. “I’ve heard it all from Wonjung tonight already, I promise.”
“What did you do to get words from Wonjung,” FX asked his friend, knowing that Wonjung tended to be the most reserved of the group.
“I guess he thinks I’m being reckless,” He admitted.
“Well…” FX gave him a shrug which indicated that he agreed with that assessment.
“Fine, fine,” He threw up his hands again. “I hear you guys. I’ll be more careful with her at KXO and when we are in public.”
“That’s a good start,” FX giving him half credit for effort.
“Just a start huh?” Cheol gave him a rueful smile.
“If it were me,” FX put a hand on his chest. “I’d say she is a girl worth waiting for.”
“What…” Cheol paused to swallow. “What if I’m not a guy worth waiting for? I mean, even after our contract to not date is over...how long until we can really come out? Am I just more trouble than I am worth?”
“Hey, man,” He tried to reassure his friend. “She doesn’t seem like that sort of girl.”
“When I’m not around her I can’t help but think she’s going to come to her senses and tell me it’s just not worth it,” He couldn’t help but feel stupid when he said it aloud.
“It is really obvious to everyone who sees the two of you that she is mad for you,” FX told his friend with conviction. Cheol smiled and nodded, feeling better but not completely at ease still.
“Why don’t you invite her to come by tomorrow,” FX suggested. “No one is going to wonder why she is here but maybe it is best if you don’t go to her place so much. We can, uh, invest in some sound proofing.”
“Oh God,” Cheol hung his head and chuckled. “Does everyone think that’s all we do?”
“All you do...no,” FX said carefully. “But every time you two are in the same room you can’t keep your hands off each other, so it’s pretty obvious that you two are in that phase.”
Cheol covered his face as he gave a groan of embarrassment and quickly scurried out of the kitchen, very eager to get away from the conversation. He headed for the bedroom to get the things he needed to shower before heading to bed. The bathroom didn’t really help him in keeping his mind off Claire, but it was motivation enough for him to get in and out of the shower as soon as possible. Getting into bed didn’t help too much either as her perfume and the smell of her shampoo still clung to his pillow. He turned over the pillow in the hopes that it would hide the smell, but it was like she was still there.
Changho heard the restless sounds from the bed across the room and poked his head over the edge of his bunk to look at his friend; tossing and turning every couple of minutes like the fussy princess who couldn’t sleep because of the pea buried under her mattress.
“You okay?” He finally asked after a couple more minutes of tossing and turning.
“Hmm?” Cheol poked his head out at the question.
“Everything okay over there,” Changho asked more loudly, to be sure he would be heard. “You are practically jumping around over there.”
“Just having trouble getting comfortable,” Cheol said weakly. “Sorry, I’ll try to be more quiet.”
“It’s ok,” He shrugged from the top bunk. “You miss her already, huh?”
“I don’t miss her exactly,” He tried to explain. “I just keep thinking about her. I’m trying not to but…”
“I was surprised you could concentrate enough to work on music earlier,” Changho told him honestly. “Even on the trip I could tell you were thinking about her whenever we weren’t too busy performing or practicing. Did you give her the things you bought on the trip?”
“You noticed?” Cheol sighed.
“Bro, you are about as subtle as a mountain trying to hide behind a tree,” Changho huffed.
“Do you think the manager noticed,” He asked, with a slight feeling of panic.
“Eh, even if he did, he wouldn’t know who it was for,” Shrugged Changho from the top bunk. “We all get little things for friends and family now and again. If they didn’t say anything then they probably didn’t think anything of it. Just don’t start getting weird stuff like lingerie or something.”
“She liked the socks,” He laughed with a half smile. “I was afraid she would think they were weird but we didn’t have time to shop in Chicago.”
“I think she likes that they were from you,” He looked down at his friend with a raised eyebrow. “Like, you could give her a leaf and tell her it was from the trip and she would love it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Still Cheol felt a satisfying warmth in his chest at the thought. “But I am glad she liked what I brought her.”
“You know you can still see her tomorrow,” Changho said with slight impatience. “If you just go to sleep now you can call her in the morning.”
“I’m trying,” Cheol protested. “Not that she is coming by tomorrow…”
“What do you mean?” He asked, surprised to hear that she wouldn’t be making an appearance the next day.
“She said ‘see you Monday’ when she left today,” He let out a long suffering sigh. “I don’t think she wants to come by tomorrow.”
“You can always invite her over,” Changho suggested casually. “The worst she can do is say she is too busy to come or that she doesn’t want to come.”
“Yeah...”
“She’ll come if you ask...or at least if you beg,” He teased. “You are just so lucky you got her. I’m not sure I get why she seems head over heels for you.”
“Me either…” Cheol admitted, taking some of the fun out of his teasing.
“At least you are aware of how hugely unfair it is that you have landed a hot girlfriend who can’t keep her hands off you.” Changho took some comfort in the knowledge.
“If only,” Cheol chuckled. “You’d be asleep and I’d be somewhere else if that were true.”
“Well at least one of those things can still be true if you just suffer a little longer in silence,” His friend joked back pointedly. “Just think about our newest choreography until you fall asleep.”
“Right, I’ll be quiet,” Cheol settled his head back down on his pillow as the door to the room opened again and Jaejin strode into the room.
“Why are you still up?” He asked, glancing from face to face between his roommates.
“Someone was tossing and turning and keeping me up,” Changho said as he rolled over, bringing the covers over himself as he did.
“What, didn’t get enough physical activity today?” Jaejin needled as he hopped into his own bed.
“Oh, he got plenty of that I would guess,” Changho interjected from his bunk.
“Ugh,” Cheol rolled over and hid his head under his pillow. “Good night.”
Changho snickered and Jaejin made a questioning sound before deciding to let the subject drop when he turned out the last light in the room.
Chapter 10
Cheol woke up in the late morning the next day and decided to send a message to Claire asking if she might come by sometime today, just for lunch...or something.
He was relieved she was coming over and the idea of helping her study Korean sounded like a lot of fun, actually. When FX had first joined the group his Korean had been rudimentary at best and the entire group had pulled together to help him improve it to make sure he would be able to debut from the ranks of the trainees at the company. Cheol had been one of the first to really help him, as someone who was fully fluent in both, he was able to explain a lot of the fundamental things that made the language so difficult. With the help of all the members, as well as tutors and time to study provided by the company, FX had quickly succeeded in becoming passably fluent in Korean and continued to improve over the year since their debut. Honestly, as the leader of the group, he could not have been more pro
ud of how well FX had done with that alongside everything else he had needed to worry about to get to debut.
There wasn’t a single member he didn’t think of as a member of his family and who he wasn’t deeply proud of for who they were and what they had accomplished so far. They were friends but better friends than he had ever had in his life before. It probably helped that they were all working together toward the same goal but he couldn’t think of any other people he would have rather shared this experience with than his bandmates.
Until he had met Claire, he hadn’t imagined that there was anything missing in his life. He had a loving and supportive family, though they lived far away, he lived and worked with his best friends, and he had the dream job he had been working towards since he was a kid. Everything seems to have fallen into place and he couldn’t have been happier, but he had a niggling fear that it was all too good to last.
“Hey, bro,” Changho poked his head into the dining room where Cheol had sat himself. “Come get your things, we decided to make a few changes to the rooms.”
“Huh?” Cheol scrunched his eyebrows.
“Come on,” He motioned. “We’re making some changes to help you out, you better appreciate it.”
***
Claire arrived to find the dorm full of chatter and activity. It always felt like a home when she came, something that warmed her heart. A few of them were gathered together in the living room discussing something, looking up and smiling at her as she came in, and she could hear more in the rooms nearby. Wonjung stood up to greet her as he saw her enter.
“We have a surprise,” He said as he came up to lead her into the hallway with all the bedrooms.
“Surprise?” She asked, still holding all of her things, barely having gotten her shoes off at the door.
“Yes,” He shuffled her to the first room in the hallway, next to the second bathroom. Opening the door, he guided her inside to find Cheol making the bed of the lower bunk, with a pile of his things in one corner of the smaller room.
“Oh, you’re here already,” He said, standing up and moving to give her a kiss hello when he saw her.
“What is going on?” She questioned as Wonjung waved goodbye and exited the room.
“Ah, well, they decided to shuffle the rooms a little to, um,” Cheol cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle. “Give me a little more privacy sometimes.”
“Give you...oh god,” Claire covered her face in embarrassment.
“Hey, even if we hadn’t already, well, you know...I’d still want a little time where it could just be the two of us.” He soothed, understanding her feeling slightly exposed by the kindly meant gesture of his friends.
“There is still another bunk in here,” She pointed to the bunk above his. “So this doesn’t really change much since I still don’t want to take over someone else's bedroom just because I...well...want...something...”
“I’m sharing with Hyunwoo,” Cheol interjected as her sentence trailed off. “He offered to share with me because he prefers to spend time hanging out with everyone else so he won’t be in here much, except to sleep.”
“This really isn’t helping me not feel like I need to crawl out of here and never look any of them in the face again,” She whined.
“No no no,” He tried to reassure her. “It’s not...well okay is it that they know we had sex, but they are really just trying to make you feel like you can be over here with me and it’s not a problem. Wonjung actually told me I needed to be more careful about going to see you at your place since it isn’t exactly someplace I am supposed to be going.”
“So you’re trying to tell me this is an incentive for you not to sneak over to my place anymore?” She said dryly.
“Yeah,” He sighed, again resorting to rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact with her. “Everyone has been nice enough to point out that it is very stupid of me to think I can just go to your place without being noticed.”
“I don’t think anyone is watching my apartment exactly, but they aren’t wrong,” She nodded.
“They’re right,” He admitted, taking her hands in his as he stood close to her. “I’ve been so worried about finding time to be with you I haven’t really been as careful as you deserve...as everyone deserves. I’ve been acting like...well like the only one who would face consequences if something went wrong would be me and it’s not true. It’s you and all my friends out there who might really get hurt if I screw this up.”
“Don’t worry about me,” She gave his hands a little reassuring jiggle. “I’m taking my own risks on this one; my choice. But, you’re right that we can’t do something to risk hurting them. I don’t know what I would do if something I did caused them harm. I don’t think I’d be able to forgive myself.”
“We’ll be careful...I’ll be careful,” He promised. “Will you help me finish setting up my room?”
“Sure, I guess I can do that,” She gave him a half smile. “What is left to do?”
“Hanging up my clothes and sticking all of the random things I have on shelves or the bed where we can find space,” He replied, looking at the messy pile of his things in the corner. Claire laughed and wandered over to start working on the pile.
Hyunwoo wandered in while they were still working on hanging his stuff up, his own arms laiden with clothes and things he was moving into the room. He greeted both of them happily as he set to work beside them. The room was small and it was a bit of a squeeze for all three of them to work but they finished the work relatively quickly.
“Bro, do you mind if I keep a few things on the desk, too?” Hyunwoo waved a couple of notebooks in the air as he asked.
“No problem, I mean it’s for both of us, of course,” Cheol nodded.
“Were you going to stay in here or do something somewhere else?” He followed up as he started placing a few things on the desktop and in the drawers.
“She wanted to study some Korean, so maybe it would be best to do it somewhere else,” He shrugged, tossing a glance in Claire’s direction.
“I think I’ll take a nap here if you don’t need the room,” Hyunwoo started climbing up to his bunk on the top. “I’ll only try and sleep for an hour or so I think.”
“Okay,” Cheol helped Claire gather up her things and headed out of the room, closing the door softly behind them.
“Where is a good place to study?” Claire asked, shuffling things in her bag as they moved into the living room.
“There is a little room over here that might be free.” Cheol motioned toward a door that led off the kitchen. “Usually Kitae uses it to study in the evenings, but I think it’s probably free now.”
“How handy,” She remarked as he led her into the small, windowless side room. They both took a seat on one side of the small desk and laid out some study material and the plain brown notebook Claire was using for her practice.
“So, where are we starting?” Cheol pulled himself close beside her.
“I’ve been working on memorizing the pronunciation rules,” She sighed, shaking her head. “But that is really just something I have to memorize at some point. It just throws me when I am supposed to read something, like, I just won’t recognize the word because it is written differently than it is pronounced. So maybe just work with me on some vocabulary.”
“Hmm, alright,” He agreed. “Let’s see, some important vocabulary in Korean…”
“We could look at this about travel,” She suggested, pointing at a chapter in the book.
“Mmm, sounds good,” He nodded with a grin. “Then you can help us plan the things we are going to do on the tour.”
“I don’t think you’ll need my help on that,” She elbowed him lightly with a chuckle. “I’m quite sure that the company has that well covered for you.”
“Maybe,” He nuzzled her cheek. “But maybe we could plan a trip for ourselves.”
“You wish,” She threw him a knowing look. “We’ll fit it in during the
collective day and a half you’ll have free over the next three months, yeah? Just enough time to go to Milan for a relaxing wine and dine experience.”
Eventually they settled down their teasing and managed to concentrate on the lesson, though he decided that the best way to reward her for giving correct answers to questions were soft kisses on the side of her neck. They managed to study that chapter and a second before Cheol decided he needed to introduce his own vocabulary to his lesson for her.
“If I tell you 난 네가 좋아 미치겠어[19],” He said softly against the back of her neck. “Would you understand what I meant.”
“Something about liking being crazy,” She giggled, half understanding what he was saying.
“Close enough,” His laugh tickled behind her ear. “Can I tell you 너 참 예뻐[20]?”
“I’m glad you think I’m pretty,” She couldn’t help but roll her eyes slightly.
“Do you think Hyunwoo is done with his nap?” Cheol wondered aloud. “I have a few things I’d like to teach you...in private, maybe.”
“You really want to try something...with everyone here?” She asked, realizing that it was perhaps a silly question given the bathroom incident yesterday.
“Yes,” He nodded, nipping her ear softly.
“It has been more than an hour, I suppose,” She melted against him slightly. “I guess we can check.”
Cheol eagerly packed up her things in her bag and took her hand as he moved out of the room. As he walked back towards the bedrooms he could already see that the door to his room was ajar, giving him hope that Hyunwoo was already up at least. When he poked his head inside the room was empty, much to his relief. Shooing Claire inside, he quickly scribbled in use on the little white board on the door before closing it behind him.
“You’re sure no one will come in?” Claire asked, casting a glance at the door as he drew her down to the bed.
“Yeah,” He promised. “No one is going to interrupt us.”
“You can’t, like, lock it or something,” She persisted, despite starting to succumb to the sweet feather-like kisses he was giving her cheeks.
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