Sun-kissed

Chapter 9

Amina woke up the following morning with a pounding headache and body ache. So much for pretending to be sick!  It had to be fate, punishment for lying the other day, she told herself.  She grabbed her phone and quickly dialed Dr. Park to let her know she wouldn't be able to keep her appointment that afternoon.

"Alright Amina-yah... If you want to want me to check you out, just come by the office okay?" replied Dr. Park.

"Neh... I will."

"I'll go ahead take care of today's morning appointment.  Hopefully you'll feel better tomorrow.  If you don't, just call me okay?  Tomorrow's appointment is extra early, at 8:00 AM, but I think that's because they have something going on later that day."

Amina could hear Dr. Park rustling with her paper calendar.  "The appointment scheduled for Friday will be later at night, so you'll need to check with Youngbae's manager on what time they'll want you there. That should be the last appointment until the final follow-up next week"

"Neh... Kamsahamnida."

After hanging up, Amina grabbed some acetaminophen with sleep aid and burrowed herself deep beneath the covers.  She hoped the pain would go away with a little more rest.

Youngbae's disappointment turned into irritation when Amina didn't show up for the appointment Wednesday morning. She must really being going out of her way to avoid me, he thought to himself.  He understood that she might need time to recover from yesterday's incident, but surely today she would be able to face him. Unless... I was mistaken.  Maybe she really wasn't into me as I thought? He questioned his previous assumptions and worried about it all afternoon.

On Thursday, the boys were having a private show at the Blue Square Musical Hall.  The small show was for VIPs that had backstage passes to the final concert last Saturday, but weren't able to attend due to the accident.  It was nearly 3pm on a chilly afternoon.  The skies were grey and the winds had calmed down. All of the Big Bang members had just arrived and were milling around the stage going over the final details.

"Do you have some idea on how many VIPs will be attending tomorrow?" asked Daesung.

"I don't know.  From what I heard, there were about fifty or so back-stage VIP passes that were sold or handed out for that evening," replied Seunghyun. "Since we have a short deadline, we can just pick something we've done before right?"

Jiyong looked up from where he was sitting in the middle of the stage.  "Yeah... let's just keep it simple.  Since Taeyang is injured, we'll just sing acapella - maybe 'Haru Haru' or do a little beat box mash-up of some songs." He turned to face Youngbae, who was sitting on a speaker box nearby. "What do you think, Taeyang-shi?"

It took awhile before Youngbae noticed they were waiting for him to answer. "Oh...yeah, I'm good with that."  His simple reply garnered the attention of everyone around him.  It was unusual to hear Youngbae say so little at these types of meetings.  But if anyone thought it was odd, they refrained from saying anything.

"Alright then," Jiyong interjected.  "Let's do that and also perform our encore song in acapella."

"'Last Farewell'?" asked Seungri.

"Neh," confirmed Jiyong.

The boys talked through their routine once more before moving on to the workshop portion of their event.  It was something they hadn't done before - giving their fans a taste of the YG life by grouping them into teams and "auditioning" them. "So we just need to group everyone in groups of five and have one of us mentor each group.  We'll let them sing a song from the tour and then give a prize to the winning group that does the best," announced Jiyong.