Dimmed Lights, page 5
part #3 of On Stage Trilogy Series
Had Joe made breakfast today as well?
I walked down the stairs in awe, one step at a time, taking in the amazing scent. Why had Joe made breakfast? The deal had only been for yesterday when I had “won” against him during our little fight. I didn’t think he’d make breakfast for me like, voluntarily, after how I’d treated him yesterday.
Yet there he was, laying down some pajeon with dip sauce on the dining table when I entered the living room. He wasn’t wearing a suit this time, which made him look oddly casual. Plus, the tight black t-shirt accentuated his arms with the way it stretched around his biceps…uh, let’s leave it at that.
The smell, which only grew stronger the closer I got, was heavenly to say the least. At last, there was something edible in the house. Joe hadn’t been very impressed at my food stock, so we had ended up eating instant noodles yesterday. Looked like he had gone grocery shopping as well.
As I sat down, he handed me a coffee mug, already filled.
“Good morning,” he said, and sat across from me.
That’s when I noticed his eyes…or rather, the bags under them. I didn’t even dare to ask if he had woken up to my nightmares. Instead, I muttered out something that might or might have not resembled a “Good morning” as well, but my main focus was on the coffee. It was just the way I liked it—strong, bitter, and black.
“So, what’s up with the breakfast?” I asked once the caffeine hit my system and I felt a little more like a human again.
Joe shrugged, offered me a quick smile, and opened a newspaper. “I woke up early. Plus, yesterday’s noodles hardly counted as breakfast.”
Fuck. I guessed the reason for him being up early, was my nightmares indeed. I topped my plate with pajeon. Once I cut myself a bite-sized bite, I popped it in my mouth. Instantly, I was in seventh heaven—they were better than Joonie’s and Tae’s combined. That, or I hadn’t had them in ages, and thus they tasted ten times better than normal. It had been over a month since I last tasted anything even remotely resembling a home-made breakfast. One that wasn’t a disaster I had tried to make, anyway. Emphasis on the word “tried.”
Closing my eyes, I let the taste melt my heart into a puddle. I couldn’t help a small moan escaping my lips. It was so unfair that Joe also knew how to cook.
Unfortunately, once I opened my eyes again, I saw the clock on the back wall.
“We should get going,” I mentioned, and started to gobble the remains of the pajeon on my plate.
“I know,” Joe simply said, folded the newspaper to the side, and yawned.
The second I was done, he snagged my plate away, and I rushed to help him clean out the kitchen. I must say that when we weren’t fighting or annoying each other, we were a fairly efficient pair in the kitchen, putting away the leftovers and filling up the dishwasher. I was surprised to see how much I liked it.
The normalcy.
I was like ninety-percent sure that I had woken him up during the night with my nightmares, given how tired he looked, but unlike Mr. Won, he never mentioned it. He never asked if I had slept well—because it was obvious I hadn’t. He never asked if I was okay or looked at me with pity in his eyes.
Instead, he had made breakfast.
I appreciated that.
So when he was about to rush out of the kitchen once we were done, I couldn’t help but stop him by stepping on his way.
“So, uh,” I started, not quite able to meet his eyes. “Thank you.”
“For the breakfast? Nah, I figured that since I’m here anyway, I could at least do that much.”
“Yeah, for that…” I paused. I could’ve left it at that. But more than the breakfast, I was grateful for something else. And in the name of having to live with the guy, I needed to get it out. “And also for, uh…”
One of his hands appeared on my shoulder and the other lifted my chin up.
“Don’t mention it. You’ve been through a lot. I get it.”
Out of habit, I swatted his hands off me—only GRiD and my family could touch me if I wasn’t fighting them—but I did elaborate. “Uh, okay. But also sorry, if…if I woke you up.”
Joe first reached out to me again, but then took a step back and shoved his hands in his jeans’ pockets, as if to stop them from touching me.
“‘S alright,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. It should be the other way around.”
Without another word, he pushed past me, to the hallway. After being stunned for a second, I followed him but couldn’t help but wonder what was going on inside his head. I mean…it was him who had left me early in the morning after our hot night way back when, why did it look like he cared so much now? It didn’t make any sense.
Well, worrying about me was technically his job, though. Maybe I was overthinking this whole thing. It’s not like he had asked to be stuck with me up here now had he? I yanked on some spent converses, a huge pair of sunglasses plus a cap, and followed Joe out the door.
Joe’s face was unreadable when he opened the passenger side door of my beauty—my black Lamborghini Aventador S—and stepped inside. It was no news we were taking my car—I had insisted on it. But while I had been like a kid in the candy shop when I had first hopped inside of this beauty, Joe didn’t show any excitement whatsoever, which was a much more of a surprise. I wondered if he just wasn’t a car person.
It was only after I sat down in the driver’s seat and pushed the button that made the V12 roar to life that I caught a slight glimpse of a smile on his lips. I couldn’t help but rev the engine—moderately—before steering it through the front gate with care.
Too Much
Joe’s face sported a greenish tint as I parked the car in one of the deepest, darkest corners of HQ’s gigantic parking hall. In his defense, I might have slammed the gas pedal all the way down once we hit the highway. Ever since, he had gripped the door handle as if his life depended on it. It’d amused me.
That amusement only lasted until we had to push through the crowd that surrounded the whole entire HQ. The Lamborghini’s windows weren’t very darkly tinted, which meant that there would be an entirely new photo-pile of my ruined face everywhere. I knew I should have gotten myself used to it sooner rather than later, now that the scars were a permanent part of myself, but it still stung like a motherfucker.
“I’m driving back,” Joe stated, opening his door, and climbing up from his seat.
“In your dreams.” I followed his example, but I might’ve put a little bit more force into slamming my car door shut than strictly necessary.
Admittedly, I wasn’t in the best of moods.
Joe ignored my little temper tantrum altogether and headed inside with a short dismissive wave aimed somewhat my way. I guessed he was going to meet the other guards or something—he wasn’t really needed here because the HQ had its own security personnel—but I still wondered if he just wanted to get rid of me, as he was so quick to escape.
Whatever. I definitely did not want him breathing down my neck the whole day anyway. He was a distraction I didn’t need. A way too hot, flirty, and enticing of a distraction, but nonetheless a distraction.
If I were to get back to work—which I wasn’t sure I was just yet—I needed to become better. A better performer, a better coworker, a better singer… I could no longer rely on my cute looks—there were no cute looks to rely on anymore. Poof. Gone.
I took a deep breath, shoved my sunglasses to hang by the neckline of my last non-ruined t-shirt (I seriously needed to visit the old dorms to get some undamaged clothes) and stomped through the door.
It was quiet in the hallways near the parking this time of the day, as most of the staff were already at work. But once I reached the common areas, the nerves seriously got to me. I would’ve been lying if I’d said the looks everyone gave me and my fucking scars didn’t affect me…or the fact that a trainee at the lobby even audibly gasped, and the girl beside her didn’t even try to hide the fact that her jaw dropped. Ignoring them all the best I could, I strode through the hallways and took the lift.
Once inside, I deflated against the back wall like a balloon, resting the back of my head against the cold mirror. A splitting pain surged up my arm; I had squeezed my goddamn keys so hard that they’d left red dents to my palm. I jammed them in my jeans’ pocket just before the lift doors opened.
Our floor was filled to the brim with random HQ staff, and every single pair of eyes turned at me once I stepped out of the lift. The silence that fell in the lobby was deafening. Shrugging off the soul crushing stares aimed my way, I strode straight into meeting room 4, our regular, and sat down on the nearest chair. It was right beside Minjae. He flashed me a friendly smile, and I could finally breathe again.
I glanced around the room. Obviously GRiD and Jiwoo where there, but also some company board folks and almost the whole entire publicity team. To say the meeting room was crowded would’ve been an understatement. Looked like this Billboard-thing was an even bigger deal than I had originally thought.
“Good,” Jiwoo said. “Now that Chris has arrived, I will officially start this meeting by stating that I went ahead and accepted all five invitations to attend and perform at the BBMAs. Including Chris’s.”
The way my jaw dropped. “You did what?”
At the same time, an elderly big-shot from the company board and the label’s director, Hangyeol-nim, stood up. “This is unacceptable.”
To which Tae reacted by banging his fist against the table. “GRiD is five.”
“It’s bad publicity,” someone from the publicity team muttered.
“Bad publicity is still publicity,” someone else countered.
In a nanosecond, it was a whole zoo condensed in one room, with everyone fighting for their territory. They shouted on top of each other. Papers flew in the air. Jiwoo looked like she was about to throw herself over the table and strangle Hangyeol-nim. Joonie was literally holding Tae back. Do-hyun covered Minjae’s ears.
I closed my eyes, let the ringing in my ears cancel out the rest of the room, and started rubbing my temples. What a nightmare. Almost worse of a nightmare than the regular ones. If I had known the LBR wasn’t as keen on having me back to work as the rest of GRiD was, I would’ve never come to the meeting.
Though, truthfully, I should’ve guessed.
After a while, I snapped.
“SHUT UP!” The room fell silent at once and everyone froze, turning their attention on me. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was to disappear through the floor. “Look, if you all think I’m so detrimental to the team, I might as well just quit.”
The chorus of “no” was pretty impressive. The one’s from the HQ officials’ part definitely took me by surprise. Weren’t they just now arguing I shouldn’t be allowed at the award show?
“Then what the hell do you want from me?”
“You, quitting, is out of the question,” Jiwoo said.
I turned my eyes to Hangyeol-nim.
Following my example, so did everyone else. Hangyeol-nim himself, sat and cleared his throat. “I mean, we don’t want you to quit…entirely. It’s just that this whole assault-charge happened with a very inconvenient timing. Billboard is going to get us a huge amount of press, but if it’s all negative…this can end very badly. For all of us.”
“Not if we clear Chris’s name before that.”
It was an entirely new voice. Jae-beom’s voice, to be exact. We all turned to look at him at the entrance to the meeting room. Except Jiwoo, who let out a heavy exhale.
“Finally,” she said. “It was time you cared to appear.”
“Sorry, I got stuck in traffic.”
Hangyeol-nim’s lips twitched, and he crossed his arms against his chest. “Are you saying you can win this on trial on time? Allow me to doubt.”
“Not win if it comes to trial, no. Not before the BBMAs anyway,” Jae-beom explained while walking in. He sat beside Jiwoo and leaned back. “But settle…before it even comes down to trial…sure.”
“How sure?”
“Depending on how much you are willing to invest,” Jae-beom said. “But considering the possible payoff for attending the award show with all members present, I’m sure we can reach a mutual conclusion.”
I nearly bursted into a hysterical laughing fit. I had no hopes in LBR Entertainment's willingness in throwing any money at my wrecked ass. But to my complete astonishment, it looked like Hangyeol-nim actually considered it. At one point, he even stood up and walked over to the window to stare into the distance. The silence dragged on, and the air turned heavy in the room as we all waited for the director’s say in the matter, every single stare directed at his back.
It was some of my life’s longest minutes, waiting for the director to turn around and open his goddamn mouth. When he finally did, I was already lightheaded for holding my breath.
“Fine,” he said, and the collective exhale of every set of lungs in the room was audible. “But this better be the last scandal I’m going through with you all. One more hint of a drama and I’m terminating all your contracts, whether you sell well or not.”
And with that, he was out the door, followed closely by his assistant whose name I could never remember. The publicity team exchanged a few words with Jiwoo and set up their own meeting of how to handle this, but then they were out the door too. While I still had a hard time wrapping my head around whatever had just gone down, everyone left, leaving behind only the rest of GRiD, Jiwoo and Jae-beom.
Jiwoo was the first one to break out a small smile and end the stunned stillness. “Well, looks like we’re going, then.”
I finally snapped out of the haze. “So no one asked if I even want to attend the fucking show.”
“Please…” Joonie let out a ringing laugh, standing up and starting to gather his things. “If you didn’t want to go, or get back to work overall for that matter, you wouldn’t have attended this meeting.”
I mean…fair. Maybe at this point it was time to admit to myself that I wanted to get back to work. Back to music. Especially if it involved living out our biggest aspiration. Sigh. “Y’all are not letting me quit are you?”
“Nope,” Tae said and stood up as well. I guess that marked the end of the meeting.
“In your dreams,” Jiwoo added. “Which reminds me, you should all check your new schedules tomorrow. I’m updating them tonight. We’re seriously getting back to work now. No more of this slacking-off business.”
With a choir of approving noises from us, we all headed out. I was the first one to reach the door, but I was stopped by someone grabbing my wrist. Luckily for Do-hyun, I saw it was him from the corner of my eye or I would’ve broken his wrist.
“Want to grab lunch?” he asked, Minjae attached to his side like they were glued together.
Me glancing at my wristwatch, and Joe appearing to my peripheral vision as he stepped out of the lift, confirmed that this thing had taken longer than scheduled—I was supposed to be headed to the hair salon already. “Sorry guys, but I need to go. Gotta get this disaster of a hair style fixed.”
Do-hyun nodded, a smirk plastered to his lips, and Minjae eyed my hair.
“Good idea,” Minjae said, the tone of mocking clear in his voice.
Around two hours later, I was grumpy, hungry, and walking out of the salon with slightly shorter, dark red hair. Apparently, that’s what you get if you request a haircut and dye called; “Whatever man. Use your imagination.”
When I reached the car parked to the side of the road, Joe’s glance snapped to my new hair. His eyes started to sparkle as he let out a low whistle. “Nice.”
“Not your business,” I stated, about to change the topic before it turned into more flirting on Joe’s part. “You wanted to drive, right?”
I tossed the car keys. Much to my dismay, Joe caught them with no difficulty whatsoever, despite the surprise.
“Sure, but what’s the catch?”
“No catch,” I said and rushed to the passenger seat.
Obviously, there was a catch, and that was me not trusting myself to drive to the old dorm—way too many triggers on the way.
But it took me maybe five minutes to regret letting Joe drive, and I promised myself I’d never let him drive again; he drove like a hundred year old grandma. My beauty didn’t deserve that kind of treatment, and our journey to the dorm ended up painfully slow. I didn’t say anything, though, because I hardly even dared to keep my eyes open when we started approaching the place. And at least Joe had brought me some take-away lunch while I was at the salon.
As the day had been exhausting already, I appreciated that Joe didn’t try to spark up any further flirting or conversation. We were in total silence until Joe pulled into the underground garage.
“Mind if I get some stuff from our floor as well?” he asked.
Maybe taking the Lambo wasn’t the best call. There wasn’t exactly much space in the thing. “Sure, but nothing big.”
Joe looked at me under his brows with a smug smile dancing on his lips.
This dirty-minded douche. “You know what I meant.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your stupid face told me enough.”
I guess the look on my face convinced him I wasn’t in the mood for his shit, because he didn’t mutter out another word on our way to the lift. But once the lift door closed behind us, something unexpected happened: my brain got entirely consumed by flashbacks, and my eyes closed. They were flashbacks from one very particular night in our past, which was not even the night when I lost my one man war against a lunatic, but before… When my face and sanity had still been intact… When Joe’s lips had found all the most delicate spots on my neck, in this very same lift… When my hands had freely roamed on his waist and chest under his unbuttoned shirt the heat of his naked skin under my fingertips sending butterflies to the pit of my stomach and—
