Gratefulness~ pt.5

The group forming day was supposed to be happy, so I wake up and get ready, take my handbag and head out of the front door. The girls wish me well and I smile for a change and, to be honest, it doesn't feel so bad. I think I could try to be positive today.
It's a beautiful weather, so sunny and warm, although the wind is blowing. I have plenty of time to get to Yang Hyun Suk's office but I think it wouldn't mind if I were early. I like making good impressions on people. While I walk, I see a black van driving past me as I cross the road. IKon propably, with their busy debut schedules. Soon it will be me and the other members of the group. Not too soon still, I hope. My mind isn't yet settled to think about all this being really reality.

I walk up the stairs to the highest floor, take a deep breath. Maybe I will be alone, or maybe there will be the other members too. But what if I don't like them? Or, more likely, they don't like me? Because that wouldn't be a surprise here. The thing is that I can't back up now, I think to myself. I have to grab the door knob and open the door and face them. And that's what I do.
I walk into the office and see Hyun Suk sitting behind his wide desk, handling some papers in his hands. There's no one else. But there's something I can get some information out of: three chairs. Three chairs in front of the desk. Hyun Suk looks up at me and gives a quick smile.
"Good morning," he says and piles the papers in front of him.
"Morning," I answer and walk closer to the chairs. I stare at them.
"There will be three of us...?" I feel curious but Hyun Suk just glances at me without really reacting to my question.
"Sit down to wait," he tells me and so I choose to sit on the chair on the right.
I wait there for a while. I was supposed to be there at 9:00 but the clock turns soon 9:03 and no one else has joined us. Hyun Suk is doing something on the computer, not even trying to explain to me what's going on. But then he closes the tab and turns to me, slowly, still moving the papers in his hands like it was a bad habit of his. I lean my elbow on the armrest and cross my legs, hoping it would make me feel a bit more comfortable in the situation. Although I'm not that crazy excited or nervous either. Just a bit.
"The others are late," I note silently.
"No," he says. "I told them to come later. 9:30 and 10:00."
"Oh," I'm a bit confused. "Okay."
"We'll have another meeting at twelve but right now I'm just talking with you individually," he tells me and hands me a paper of my past trainee schedules with a review of how I've been doing. I look at it and make sure there's nothing that should bother him. I don't remember doing any bigger mistakes or failing badly but if somebody has noticed anything I haven't... Hyun Suk laughs shortly.
"It's all good," he taps the paper. "You have worked hard but it must have been hard to be so far away from your family, right?"
"Um," I look up at him and then back at the desk. "Yeah..."
"Do you still want to do this?" he suddenly gives me a strict look under his black cap, freezing the air between us. It still disturbs me, the hat he's wearing. But it's his trademark after all.
"I mean, I have nothing else," I answer briefly and see that in the way his eyes are not blinking that it's not really satisfying him.
"Ah!" I slap my head. "What I meant to say is that this is my dream," I start enthusiastically. "I seriously can't wait to get to debut."
And then a wide smile spreads on the CEO's face.
"Good," he says, with a serious expression again. "I think you can become something big. But still," he reminds me. "You can never stop. You have to keep going all the time. Your first holiday will be either after debut schedules or album schedules and it won't happen in a long while..."
"No problem! Holidays don't matter so much if I love what I'm doing," I smile and he nods agreeingly.
"True. You're a wise girl. You know what you've gotten yourself into."
I bring some hair behind my back, feeling shy about his praises. He really doesn't need to tell me all those time after time. I don't want to let it get into my head. Because if I always thought that the CEO of one of the biggest music companies of South Korea just adores me and thinks that I will become something great, I would have propably exploded. But luckily that's not how I think. He's just my boss. My very very awesome boss.
Hyun Suk takes a pen and writes his signature on the line to seal the deal, clearing his throat a bit so that I can assume there's something more.
"How's Jiyong doing in the States?" he asks with a silent tone and I go all silent. It is so obvious he knows how he's doing but that I might know just as well too.
"Fine, I guess," I answer just as silently and without looking at me he just gives a few bouncy nods and takes the paper into one of his drawers.
"Good luck," he says to end the short meeting. I thank him, not sure if he wished me luck with the meeting with the members because that would be slightly weird or if he wished me luck with Ji because that would be slightly even weirder. But I will put my bet on the last option.

At lunch break I see Hyun Suk talking with Sandara in the hallway and I hear them talking about the new group. Sandara asks if they're really forming it today and Hyun Suk says yes. And then she asks if he's excited about it and he says that of course he is. That it's always a new opportunity and he has lots of plans for the group. Some plans that the world has never seen before.
I can't wait. And so doesn't Ji Yong who suddenly calls me. We have made a deal that he is the one making the calls because of the distance and how pricey the calls are. I go to take the tray to the cafeteria kitchen quickly before I answer him, on my way to the elevator. I sit down on the sofa in the lobby to talk.
"Hi!" I greet him cheerfully because it's always nice to hear his voice. Of course it is. It just gives me an instant happy smile that is extremely hard to try to wipe off my face for the rest of the day. Everything and everyone will try and fail in that.
"Hi, jagi," he greets me casually but in that kind of flirty and warm style you can get from him often. This time it's just for me and not for the fans. It's different, more personal And it makes me feel giddy. I smile by myself and Cecily laughs at me as she walks past me to her desk.
"Where are you now?" I wonder, curling hair between my fingers like I was a young teenager, not that I was so old yet but... How can anyone help the magical feeling you get with the one? I wonder. It's just crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. And I look like a crazy creepy clown with my toothy grinning smile but even if I try to keep my mouth shut, my eyes are sparkling like a trillion stars, so I just give up on trying to look like I was talking with my grandparents and freely shine like the car covered in diamonds I was drooling at yesterday. I saw it on Instagram and I just thought that I should get one when I succeed. If I do. I will.
"In New York at the moment. We're having a business meeting," he tells me.
"Oh, okay. What the time is there?" I ask out of curiousness.
"The time?"
"Yeah."
"It's... It's 10 pm."
"Oh, it's so late. Here it's--"
"Eleven, I know," he utters an adorable laughter and I can't help laughing myself.
"Ang~ I wish I could see you," I sigh.
"We should facetime sometime but we're soon going to a night club so I have to get ready," Ji says and I mutter something.
"I wish I could come with you..."
"Hey," he says with a soothing tone. "You promised me to stay strong. It's making me sad too if you miss me."
"I will miss you always," I remind him and laugh. "But true. Work hard and come back home sometime. I will take good care of your apartment."
"Thank you," he laughs happily and then remembers something.
"Minea," he says.
"Yeah?"
"Did someone come to meet you yesterday?"
"Oh, yeah," I almost had forgot about her already. "Why?"
"Youngbae had driven by and seen someone with black hair in front of the dorm like she was waiting for someone."
"Why didn't he call me? Why he told you?"
"I don't know. I called him yesterday to ask about something and he just mentioned it."
"Okay. Well, it was Kiko," I confirm.
"Really?" I hear from his voice that he might have guessed who the visitor was.
"Yep, it was. But it didn't bother me. She can't do anything to me even if she wanted to."
"Okay," he sounds serious. "Maybe we need to talk about this when I come back."
"Talk?"
"But now I really have to go. I love you," he ends the phone call without an explanation, leaving me anxious.
"I love you too..."

Notes

Teaser for chapter 4