To Kiss An Idol

He just wanted to see her every day. He had no idea that he would be able to see that to such an extent. She was standing before him without any clothes on her upper body. He never dreamed anything like that. It happened because of Jung-Hwa and to some extent because of Thae.

But he knew that Nivritti would be angry at Jung-Hwa for sure. He knowingly locked her inside with Kyung-Soo, and on top of that never forewarned her. She innocently was drying her clothes when Kyung-Soo barged in and saw her almost naked. She surely was going to kill him.

Nivritti was still hidden behind Kyung-Soo. She was praying to god that no one must see her like that. Jung-Hwa left the bag and locked the door behind him. Kyung-Soo turned towards Nivritti. She was looking at the floor, biting her lips with embarrassment. He softly placed his hand over her shoulder and assured her, “everything is alright. He is gone. No one saw you like this.”

“You did,” she complained and looked at him.

Kyung-Soo smiled at her, “well, it was unavoidable.”

“Right!” Nivritti lowered her head again.

He smiled at her shyness and patted her head softly. He left her standing and reached for his bag. He took out a neatly folded shirt, trousers and blazer for himself and a t-shirt and a jacket for Nivritti. He walked up to her and requested, “wear these; I’ll go outside while you change.”

Nivritti immediately raised her head at shouted at him, “What? Are you out of your mind? You can’t go outside like this.”

.....

“Oh, are you concerned people will see my sexy body? Jealous much?” teased Kyung-Soo.

Nivritti was shocked to realise that she in fact felt jealous. She didn’t want anyone to see his bare body, his carefully sculpted muscles, his broad shoulders, and his slightly narrow hips. She wanted this beautiful scene all for herself. Biting her lips, she closed her eyes and cursed herself for such a thought.

She shook her head and removed that image from her mind. She rebuked Kyung-Soo, “you and your flirting, can’t you just turn it off.”

“I have never flirted in my entire life,” mocked Kyung-Soo.

“Really?” she rolled her eyes at him making him smile. “Well just turn around so that I can change.”

Kyung-Soo was about to turn when his eyes fell on the stalls where he just had a bath. He shouted, “Shit! The stall!!” He turned towards Nivritti and said, “We completely forgot about the stalls. You change here, I’ll go change in the stall.”

They both looked at each other and started laughing. Kyung-Soo took his clothes and went to the stall. It took him a few minutes to get dressed. He came out with the towel in his hand and looked at Nivritti.

He smiled at her with pity. She was dressed in his t-shirt and jacket. Because of his large stature, his clothes looked as if they were hanging on a hangar on Nivritti’s body. Moreover, what grabbed his attention was, she was standing near the door with the door handle in her hand but was afraid to open it.

“Embarrassed to go out?” he inquired.

“Yes,” replied Nivritti. It was always easy for her to run away from her problem, but this problem had no way out. Inside the bathroom, she had to deal with Kyung-Soo and outside she would have to deal with all the prying eyes. She was locked with Kyung-Soo for a long time and people would talk. She wanted to run away but had no place to run away to.

“Let me help you,” proposed Kyung-Soo.

Nivritti never looked at him. He just grabbed all the clothes including towels and Nivritti’s wet dress which she left on the sink and dumped everything into his bag. He opened the door, grabbed her hand with one hand and carrying the bag with another, he pulled her outside.

As soon as they came out, everyone stopped talking. They looked at Nivritti dressed in an oversized t-shirt and a jacket, and their eyes widened. Everyone kept staring at both of them except Jae-Hwa. She ran towards them.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Nivritti realised that Kyung-Soo was still holding her hand. She pulled her wrist out of his hand and immediately Jae-Hwa hugged her.

“I’m fine, thank you,” assured Nivritti.

Jung-Hwa carefully approached her and cautiously apologised, “I’m extremely sorry, Ritti.”

His voice made her close her eyes with anger. She exhaled loudly and looked at him but instead of speaking to him, she gave him a death glare.

Kyung-Soo instantly signalled him not to talk to her. Disheartened, he took a step back and hung his head in shame.

“You should go home, Nivritti,” said Dae.

“Yeah, he is right, you should leave. Let me take you home,” offered Kyung-Soo.

But Jeong-Eun interrupted, “you have an appearance on the talk show in an hour, Hyung. You need to leave now.”

Kyung-Soo facepalmed, “Shit, I forgot.”

While Kyung-Soo was pondering over what to do, Dae explained, “And King, before you leave, I just want to ask you to give us time to sort through the scripts. It will take us at least 3-4 days before we could give you readable scripts.”

As soon as he heard what Dae had to say, he looked at Nivritti. It pained him a lot thinking about how he won’t be able to meet her for six more days, but he knew Dae was right.

Dae continued, “So, let’s meet on Monday. Nivritti, you go home, Jae-Hwa and I will go back to the office. See you tomorrow.”

Kyung-Soo agreed to his every word, “you are right, Seong-ssi. Let’s meet on Monday. And Ritti let me call you a cab.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll go on my own,” replied Nivritti.

Abruptly, Thae spoke, “I’ll drop you if it’s okay with you.”

Everyone looked at him shocked. They were not sure what they heard was right. But Nivritti just looked at him and nodded. He came to apologise to her earlier, but it was spoiled. She wanted to give him another chance to talk.

“Let me help you with your things, Ritti,” offered Jeong-Eun. He then addressed Jae-Hwa, “San-ssi, could you help me with her laptop?”

“Wh... what?” She was flustered. “Yes, definitely,” she somehow replied.

“Ritti, walk with me towards the door please,” begged Kyung-Soo. Nivritti nodded and followed him.

While they were walking toward the door, Jeong-Eun and Jae-Hwa moved towards the desk. Jae-Hwa started shutting down the laptop while Jeong-Eun collected Nivritti’s phone and papers that were on her side of the desk.

The moment he inserted his hands to place everything in her bag, Jae-Hwa too placed her hand inside to put the laptop in. An electric current ran through their bodies when their hands touched. Jae-Hwa instantly removed her hand letting the laptop fall into the bag.

Her pale cheeks turned crimson. Her cheeks were giving competition to her red hair. Seeing her blushing hard, Jeong-Eun could not help but smile. He was happy to see that he was able to stir emotions in her.

Jae-Hwa stood there, shocked while Jeong-Eun moved towards Kyung-Soo and Nivritti who were talking to each other near the door.

“Are you really, okay? You don’t have to go with Thae if you don’t want to,” said Kyung-Soo.

She just smiled at him. “I’m okay. It will be fine. He was there to apologise. I need to give him another chance. We will have to face each other someday so why not today.”

He too smiled at her maturity. But the next moment, his face turned serious. “So sorry on behalf of JJ. Please don’t be angry at him. If you want, you can get angry at me instead.”

“I am equally angry at both of you,” she gritted her teeth.

“What?” Kyung-Soo was confused.

“You need to leave, or you’ll be late,” she tried to change the topic.

But Kyung-Soo understood. “You are changing the topic.”

“Yes, I am, now go,” emphasised Nivritti.

Kyung-Soo shook his head in disbelief and smiled at her. He wanted to keep talking to her but the next moment, Jeong-Eun arrived.

“Here you go, Ritti,” he said and handed her, her bag.

Nivritti bowed and thanked him, “Thank you, PJ.” Hearing his nickname, he beamed with happiness.

Meanwhile, Thae collected his things and was ready to move out. He passed by Jung-Hwa and teased him on his way out.

“Looks like she is not angry at me anymore. Someone messed up good,” Thae mocked.

Jung-Hwa made an annoyed face and murmured through his teeth, “Shut up.”

Leaving Jung-Hwa standing alone, Thae moved towards Nivritti and asked, “Shall we?”

“Yes, please,” replied Nivritti.

Thae, Nivritti and Kyung-Soo left the room together. Jae-Hwa and Dae started packing their stuff to move to the office. Slowly all the dancers started leaving too after having their lunch. The only people left in the room were Jeong-Eun and Jung-Hwa.

“Looks like someone is scared now,” mocked Jeong-Eun.

“Ha ha,” laughed Jung-Hwa, sarcastically.

“Didn’t you find her anger endearing a few hours ago?” taunted Jeong-Eun.

“I’ll kill you,” screamed Jung-Hwa and ran after Jeong-Eun to hit him. Jeong-Eun kept running all over the room laughing out loud.