Lucid

Chapter 16

POV: Liz
I woke up that morning feeling exhausted. Even though I had gone straight to bed, and had fallen right to sleep, I hadn't slept well at all. Even now, I'm still replaying last nights events in my head. I don't know how the others keep such good control of themselves. I could see Yujin-Unnie and Wonyoung-Unnie, they didn't even look worried. And Gaeul-Unnie was calm as ever. Even Hyunseo was calmer than she normally is. I felt like the only pot on the stove with heat, always on the edge of blowing my lid off. I got out of bed and started stretching. Maybe I should do yoga like Wonyoung. Maybe I should do a lot of things like Wonyoung. But it's too early for that.

After I stretch, I walk to the door and go to the living room. Rei is awake, but aside from her I don't see anyone else up.
"Good morning." She says. She's got a cup of something, and she's drinking it tenderly.
"Good morning. How are you?" She shrugs.
"I'm alright. What about you, Unnie?" I lean against the counter.
"Still... working though it." She nods sympathetically.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I wouldn't really know what to say."
"It isn't really something we know much about." We both stop for a minute. "You know who does know a lot about it?" She asks, a smirk on her face. That's not good.
"Who?"
"Fixer." Ugh, I should have seen that coming.
"You're quite a fan of his." She grins.
"I think he's funny. I think Wonyoung has a crush on him though." Gosh, this girl. These girls, actually.
"I doubt that."
"You didn't see the doe eyes Yujin was giving him either." She said, eyebrows raised while she looks at me over her mug. I should stop this.
"Alright, come here!" I reach out and grab her, rubbing my hand through her hair, frizzling it.
"Ya! My hair!" She tries to stop me with one hand, while putting her cup down with the other. Hearing the small commotion, Yujin walks out and gives us a strange look. I let go of Rei, and we both stand upright.
"Morning Unnie!" We both say, and she smiles.
"Good morning babies. How are you?"
"Good."
"I'd be better If Liz wasn't trying to ruin my hair." I elbow her gently, and Yujin rolls her eyes.
"I got a text from the managers, people will be stopping by in a little while. We should wake up the others. Rei, can you go wake Hyunseo? I'll get Wonyoung. Liz, get Gaeul." We all split to wake our respective targets. Entering the master bedroom, I step into Gaeul's area and grab her blanket lightly. I start to shake, and say
"Gaeul-Unnie, wake up. We have things to do." She shakes her head, and groans. I shake her again, hoping for her to move. She refuses. Grabbing the blanket by her head, I pull it back. Her hair is a mess, and her eyes seem red. Was she crying? "Unnie? Are you ok?" I sit down on the bed, and pull her upright. She comes up and sits there, a blank, sad look on her face. Then she looks me in the eye for a moment, and lets out a small sob. She leans in towards me, and I wrap my arms around her. "Hey, it's alright. I'm here for you. You don't have to take it all on yourself." She doesn't cry any more, but she lays her head on my shoulder for a bit, occasionally sighing.

Eventually, she leans up.
"Alright. I'm ok. What do we need to do?"
"We don't have to go now. You can take as long as you need." She shakes her head.
"No, I want to do something. What's happening?" I don't know if it's healthy for her to always bury her emotions under responsibility like that. I'll talk to Yujin about it, she'll know how to help.
"There's some people from the company coving over." She nods, and stands up.
"I should get dressed."  Oh, yeah.
"I should too." On my way out, I see Rei, who's just dragged Hyunseo out of bed and dropped her on the floor, to the sleepy girl's great dismay.

Time skip- half an hour later.

A knock on the door, and then our managers arrive, along with CEO Lee, the head producer, and the head of Idol Accommodations. Pretty much everyone in charge of our schedule. Oh, right, Fixer said yesterday he would get us some time off.
"Hello girls. I just wanted to stop by and let you know, you're going to get some time off. Given everything that's happened recently, we want to make sure you have time to rest and recover. Your stages have been pushed back, or canceled. For now, all we're hoping for you to do is rest, and recover. Whenever you feel up for it, we're hoping you can make some vlogs, and there are some production matters for your next comeback we're hoping you can look at. But any work you do is purely a bonus." Wow, that's generous. Idols don't usually get time off so easily.
"So, how long do we have?" Asks Wonyoung.
"Three weeks. After that, we're going to go back to doing one or two stages a week, as well as recording for your next songs. It'll be fairly light the first week, and building up after that." The producer nods, and begins pulling out his laptop. "I'll be heading out, but I wanted to stop in and check on everyone. I hope you all enjoy your rest, and feel better soon." He stands, tidies his suit, and walks to the door. Turning at the door, he raises his fist and calls, "fighting!" And we all respond, matching the fists,
"Fighting!" He leaves, and the producer starts pulling up some details and options about the upcoming songs. As he does so, a manager pulls out their phone and opens it to their camera.
"By the way, I got called into President Lee's office today. He explained his plan for your time off, but it was obvious to see why he suddenly decided to do it." Turning his phone around, he shows a picture of the CEO's solid metal desk with a large knife embedded into the top, right in the center. Rei gasps, then says
"That's one of Fixer's knives! It's identical to the one he-" she cuts herself off, and gulps. "he showed me yesterday."
"He knows how to send a message." The manager says, smiling. "You deserve the time off. I'm glad Mr. Fixer got President Lee to see that." I'm surprised, he really did convince them to give us time off. Does he actually care about the group like the others were saying? I wonder.

POV: Fixer
I was off on a mission, once again. This time, it was WM entertainment yet again. They called me, telling me RBW had caught on, and was making one last effort. I'm not exactly sure how it works, to be honest, I'm not a business person. But they need their idols and major people together, at their company. And the problem is that one of those idols isn't currently anywhere nearby. Chaeyeon was an hour drive's away, if one of their managers went to get her. But I was already fifteen minutes closer, and it was only half an hour if I drove. And this kind of contract, I'll take for free. I grabbed an extra jumpsuit and helmet, and packed them in my bag. Jumping on my bike, I knocked back the stand and gunned the throttle. It spun for a second, then its electric motor put torque to the wheels and the tires hooked. With that, I was flying down the ramp and into the tunnel. Jetting out the south end at 120MPH, I cut between lanes of cars, the traffic meaning nothing to me. I queued up some music, and Loona's 'Why not' played. Now that, is one amazing song to race to. And race I did, making a normally hour drive in around twenty minutes. Pulling to a halt in front of the Lee house once again, I messaged Lee (no, CEO Lee) (no, the other CEO Lee, from WM) and told him I had arrived.

A moment later, Chaeyeon opened the door, and walked up to me.
"Are you my driver?" She asks, seeming astounded. Flipping up my helmet, I say
"Yeah." As soon as she noticed me, she scoffs.
"You've got to be kidding me. You again?"
"In the flesh. Now, no time to chat. Put this on." I grab the bag behind me and hand it to her. "This has a driving suit. It'll keep you safe while I take you to your company." She looks at it, then at me.
"This won't fit me."
"It shrinks. Just put it on over your clothes and I'll show you." She walks back to the house, and I park the bike and follow her. Once I'm inside, I close the door. Chaeyeon walks into a room and closes the door. Hearing something off, Chaeryeong walks out. Seeing me, she goes to the kitchen and grabs ahold of a pan, and raises it threateningly at me.
"Please, go ahead. I could use the excitement." She rolls her eyes, as I expected.
"Why are you here again?"
"I'm here to pick up your sister." I realize my verbal blunder as chaeryeong starts to swing the pan at my head, so I raise my arm to block while saying, "and take her to her company! That's it! I'm driving her somewhere! Calm down." She stops just before she would have making a deafening clang against my armor, and lowers the pan.
"Oh." Well, at least she's not attacking me.
"People have been on a roll of making assumptions about me recently. It's really starting to hurt my feelings, you know?" I turn and lean against the wall. She casts her eyes down, suddenly having a shift of emotions. I can tell she's embarrassed, so I don't push it. She puts the pan in the table.
"Sorry." She says, pretty much whispering. I turn towards her more, and ask,
"What did you say?"
"Sorry. That's not fun. I shouldn't have assumed you were going to do something bad." Oh. That's.... Nice of her.
"It's alright. I'm used to it, in a way. You probably are as well. You don't need to apologize to me."
"Yeah, but..." she rubs her arm self-consciously. "I almost hit you with a pan."
"You can, if it would make you feel better." She shakes her head again, but I can see her smile. She finally looks up at me, and shows me her quite beautiful smile. Then, she slaps the top of my head.
"That'll be enough." She leaves the room quickly, and Chaeyeon enters.
"I'm ready."
"Let's go."

Timeskip- 20 minutes later.
We arrived at the WM building, and I stop the bike. Chaeyeon is clinging to me for dear life, and I can feel her breathing, as her chest presses against my back. She's strapped to me by a harness, but it's more reassuring to hold someone, and she needed the comfort. The ride was intense. Probably faster than she's even been, except flying. Which explains why she was clinging to me for dear life after acting like she detested me earlier. I detach the harness, and climb off and help her off. Once she gets on the ground, her legs are wobbling.
"Is it.... Done?" She asks, holding onto my arm
"We're done. You can go inside." I point to the door, and she takes off the helmet and walks in. She recovered surprisingly fast, honestly. Riding with me is rather scary for people who aren't used to motorbikes. She still has my jumpsuit on, though. I'll get it later, I guess.

A/N ——
Oh wow that was 2000 words. I usually aim for 1500. I was on a roll. Nice