stretch marks - yuta

-19-

[for some reason close as strangers and wherever you are by 5sos inspired this. I don't even like 5sos. Truly ironic. Also sorry for any typos or mistakes.]

Yuta was dressed and ready to perform. He waited impatiently behind the stage waiting for their turn. His eyes kept scanning the people around him while adjusting his mic.

His eyes landed in a corner where he saw a few idols and rappers gathered around something. They were maybe three or four, he couldn't tell. It seemed like a girl. They were all talking to her.

When one of them moved away, that's when he saw her. She was grinning from eye to eye and laughing loudly at something that one of them had said. But he couldn't do anything, not even react. He was gestured to go on stage. And he thought maybe his eyes were playing a trick on him.

Mira watched as all the friends of Jinwoo left after talking to her for a few minutes. They were kind of her friends too at this point. She had met them a few times over the last three years. They were all curious as what she was doing at this summer festival. Who wouldn't be? She had only comeback to Korea a handful times. Her only reason as to why she even returned was for Jinwoo.

He finally got signed three years back. He was getting more and more famous as time passed. She was proud of him. She came to attend his first performance and when he got his first win.

While he did all that, she herself was doing what most people wouldn't have expected from her.

"Mira!" She turned to look at the person that had called her. It was her co-worker, Camille. She looked like she was on the verge of having a mental breakdown. "They agreed!"

"Agreed to what?" Mira asked not understanding.

"The interview! SM finally accepted our request to interview NCT." She said breathlessly. "But there's a problem.."

"What?"

"Since I wasn't expecting them to actually agree... I have nothing prepared! No questions and I know nothing about them." Mira rolled her eyes at her unprofessionalism. She probably thought they'd never agree. She must have forgot that the indie magazine they worked for was pretty popular especially when it came to their articles on Kpop groups.

"How much time do we have?"

"About 45 minutes-" she said looking at her watch.

"I'll take care of it. It's intervening with another band that we're interviewing anyway." She nodded looking thankful. "But you have to give me full credit-"

"Whatever you ask for! This is the biggest group we've done yet. We can't let this article flop,"

Lucky her, Mira knew a little too much about nct. How ironic. She had taken one of their camera man to get ready for the interview which was inside their empty dressing room. She wasn't really sure where they were but she had to come a little early so the manager could look over the questions.

As he settled everything she kept looking at what she was supposed to ask in her notebook. It was stressful. She never thought that this would be the way she'd see him again. It's better than nothing.

---

She watched all of them enter giving her a friendly yet business-like smile. She looked at everyone but him.

They introduced themselves and she did the same. She had about thirty minutes which wasn't a lot but she had to do as much as she could do with that amount of time.

Everytime her eyes would lock Johnny's, he'd react in a weird way. He was trying to pretend he didn't know her.

"This question is for Yuta," she said. "How does it feel to debut in the same as company as one of your favourite artists?"

He was silent. He didn't answer right away. In all honesty, he was taken aback that she even spoke to him. His answer was something that she kind of expected. She nodded when he finished speaking.

"SM trainees are nice. I was friends with someone in SM." she said not really thinking before she spoke. The interview had ended but they weren't aware which is why she wasn't that worried that they were wasting time. Johnny had wide eyes but Yuta kept his poker face on. He was good at that.

"Who?" Mark asked. The others looked pretty curious too.

"He was a guy. I haven't talked to him about in three years," as the words left her mouth she was looking sharply at Yuta. Almost as if she was provoking him unknowingly. He showed no emotion. The rest of the group were getting more and more curious. "His name was Hansol,"

And that's when Yuta finally showed some type of emotion. He looked shocked but mostly he looked like he was betrayed.

He had no idea how much he had hurt her. But she had no idea that he was also holding back so many words. Only if they knew what happened that day when they last saw each other three years ago.

Maybe they wouldn't be sitting here acting like strangers.