"What am I to you?," she asked, hunched over his bed, eyes downcast, her quiet voice disturbing the peace in Jin's mind.
What was Moon Byulyi to him?
A simple question that had a long and winding answer.
If you were to ask him 5 years ago, he would have said that she was a stranger. No more than a familiar face with an unfamiliar name. No more than a voice he'd hear in the waiting room as they waited for their cue.
They would rarely be placed next to Mamamoo's waiting room but whenever they were, it was always an interesting experience. They would scream, and shout, and laugh—and my God did they laugh hard.
He had learned a lot about the group this way due to the thin walls that separated each room.
Wheein was the one that laughed the loudest while Solar would be the one to round them up whenever they got too rowdy. Hwasa and Moonbyul, he had realized after a while, were the ones that cracked the jokes; which is probably why their laughter was the one that he heard the least.
But they were always there. She was always there. Laughing and telling jokes to her members.
A person so close and yet so far.
Then they met the next year and the shadow casted over Moonbyul's image was lifted in Jin's mind. He discovered that as much as she was loud backstage, she can be quite shy and reserved too as he observed her squirming with her hands clasped in her lap, smiling at whatever story Hani was telling her.
He also noticed that she had two linear dimples beside her nose despite her hardest to cover her smile.
Sandeul had told a particular funny joke that had the whole group laughing. Jin's eyes roamed the table, examining each person until his eyes finally landed on her. Both her hands were covering her nose as it scrunched itself cutely in delight.
'Cute,' he thought briefly with a smile, before following up Sandeul's joke with his own.
They started talking a lot more after that, mostly through their group chat. But then, there would be times when he would receive spontaneous texts from her, congratulating him, asking him how he's been, whether he was going to the afterparty after the award shows were over.
He found himself suddenly becoming addicted to his phone.
After the second time they had gone out drinking, Jin realized that Byulyi often wore her heart on her sleeve. She frowns when she is angry, laughs when happy, pouts when sad.
She wasn't a puzzle that needed patience to see the whole picture. She was a book that was open and easy to read; or a glass box—completely transparent and utterly bare to the people around her.
It fascinated Jin in a way that he couldn't explain. The thought of a potential crush creeped up on him and he immediately squashed it.
He found it absurd. This was Moonbyul for goodness's sake. The Moonbyul that was bad at escape rooms, good at drinking. The Moonbyul that understood his taste in fashion and his love for bad jokes. The Moonbyul that would crush him at Mario Kart and would always rub it in his nose afterwards.
Funny, talented, wonderful Moonbyul.
Of course he doesn't have a crush. Don't be ridiculous.
Then, a year passed without him noticing.
It was a shit year. The pressure of becoming the biggest boy band was starting to affect the group much as all of them tried to deny it. He couldn't vent to his members about it, not wanting to further bring them down. Sandeul wasn't in a good place nor was Hani, and Ken was always busy with concerts.
