past, present, and future | hwang hyunjin

t w e n t y - f i v e

c h a p t e r   t w e n t y - f i v e

"Oh my god, spill all the tea!" Sana shrieked, causing my sleepy self to jolt awake in an instant.

"Relax!" I groaned as I sat up. "I went to dinner with him, that's all. And, uh, he may or may not have kissed me."

"You kissed?" Sana squealed. "So, did he ask you to be his girlfriend?"

"No," I responded quietly. I wondered why. It was probably because we were both K-pop idols, and there was a specific, very strict rule where idols couldn't date. For JYP Entertainment,one could only date after three years of debut. Hyunjin may have passed that mark, but I surely hadn't. We could still have feelings for each other and maybe even, uh, kiss occasionally, but not be officially dating.

"Is it because of you both being idols?" Sana asked, curious. Then her expression shifted to be more serious. "Wait, does he know about..."

"Yes," I sighed. "I told him a few days ago, back when I was sick. I still wonder sometimes how he didn't get sick after spending so long with me."

"That's huge, Areum," Sana explained. It was? Actually, yeah. It was. It all had to do with the fact that Hyunjin was a guy and Sana wasn't. "You never trust boys with that kind of information."

"Well, what if I do trust him with that information?" I defended. Why was I even defending myself? Maybe I should just admit it already. I really put a lot of trust into that boy, and I would be extremely furious at him if he broke that trust.

"Well that means he's special to you. Is he?" Sana questioned, eyes never leaving mine.

"Yes. He's very special to me," I responded without hesitation. I think that showed just how whipped I was for him.

"You're really something, Areum," Sana murmured. "But that's why you're Areum."

- - -

I was at another promotional shoot, and at this point, we had moved on from promoting our title track and were now promoting the b-side, "Right Here". There were a couple other songs in the album as well, which thankfully hadn't been needed to be rerecorded, but they didn't have choreography and were just us singing, so not many promotions for them.

As I sat down to take a break and later change into the next outfit, notifications dinged my phone, and I pulled it out of my pocket to check who it was.

HandsomeBoyHyunjin:

hey, can i come to ur dorm tonight after we finish idol activities? 

I found ur schedule and it says that ur free after 7pm today

I read the texts with a smile, and I already knew exactly what I was going to answer. My expression changed to a frown, however, as I read over the contact name again. It was getting kind of old, wasn't it? I needed something new, and a profile picture for him. 

But what should I change his contact name to? "hyunjin"? "hyunjinnie"? Add an emoji behind it, maybe? "my hyunjin"? but we're not even official, so that would make no sense.

After giving it some thought, I changed the contact name. Then I thought of where I could find a good profile picture of him. One where he had a funny expression... ah! I could pause his Motley Crew performance video at some random time when his hair was flying all over the place and he was making weird, demonic expressions. That would surely be a funny thing to see.