Andromeda

III.

What I didn't know during my walk of shame back to my car was that only a few days later, I would be taking the train that I had previously missed to go back to that train station. I thought what I was doing was not only ridiculous but also crazy. It was a train station. People did not go to them to stay.

Still, I thought there was just something about that strange group of people that suggested they would be there. And I wanted to see them again.

I was only half-surprised when I stepped off my train and saw eight beautiful people sitting in or standing around uncomfortable seats that are made to be uncomfortable. The girl looked directly at me from across the terminal that very same second, and my heart lept. But then the girl smiled brightly, and I didn't feel nearly as alarmed. She waved to me, and it caught the attention of several of the boys, who also looked at me.

With my head hanging low, I shuffled to them, already regretting my decision to do this.

When I had reached them, the girl smiled. "We weren't sure if you'd come back."

I thought that was a very odd thing to say to a stranger. But then again, these people were strange.

The boy, Seokjin, the one I had insulted, made a grumbling noise and said something in a language I couldn't understand to the other boys. They grinned and the girl rolled her eyes.

"Don't mind Jinnie," one of the boys with lilac-colored hair and a book in his hands told me. "He'll get over it."

"He's all bark and no bite," the girl said.

The boy grumbled again.

She sighed and kicked his leg gently with the bottom of her suede boots that matched her jacket. "Well, think of it this way," she said. "If our new friend here thought you were sitting here looking attractive because you were working, which," she raised a finger, "nothing wrong with, everybody's gotta make a living somehow, but we're not in that particular career path, it means you all are pretty enough to even be considered that."

She looked at me.

"They are pretty, aren't they?" she asked, and I knew that she was trying to help me out. My heart thudded loudly.

"Definitely," I said. "I'm sorry."

The seemed to cheer Seokjin up just a bit, and the other boys looked happy enough. Well, except for the one that had a notebook on his lap and had yet to look up from it or the pencil in his hands.

I bit my bottom lip, a little hesitant about speaking to Seokjin casually just yet. "Um, what was it that you wanted to tell me?"

With a half roll of his eyes, Seokjin smiled.

The blonde-haired boy sitting next to the one with the notebook snickered and grabbed the book, making the other one make an indignant noise. On it was a pencil drawing that I realized must have been a wall of the train station, exactly across from where we were. "He was going to ask you to move. You were in Kookie's way. And these chairs suck and we'd already been here for like, three hours, so we kinda wanted to leave."

If I hadn't been embarrassed before, I certainly was then. All this because I was in an artist's way.

The boy with the notebook - Kookie - made another noise and tried lunging for his sketchbook, and the blonde threw it back to him. He caught it and scowled before returning to his drawing. I thought it was interesting that all the boys had thick accents, (from what Asian country I didn't know, I had never left the country I had been born in) despite the fact that we were in a small city with absolutely no importance, and had mostly died out. The only reason it was still on the map was the train system made a stop there.

A different boy lifted his head and spoke to me. "Hey, considering you thought we were prostitutes-"

"-which there's nothing wrong with," the girl interrupted,

"-I think we could at least learn your name?" The boy made a point of not paying attention to the girl, who scoffed and strut her way to the boy with the sketchbook and somehow elegantly sat down next to him as if she were a queen in the dingy, dark train station. Without looking at her, the artist boy leaned into her, and she ran a long-nailed hand through his hair.

Somewhat entertained by the display of familiarity and also somewhat pained with the realization that I hardly had anyone that I could act like this with, I told them my name.

"I'm Yoongi," the boy said. "I like your name. That-" he pointed to the boy standing next to him, who had been more entertained by the book in his hands than anything going on around him and who had been the one who told me to not mind 'Jinnie', "is Namjoon. The salty one is Seokjin." He hit Namjoon's leg with the heel of his shoe. "Be social, grape soda."

'Grape Soda' Namjoon looked up from his book and gave me a dazzling smile that absolutely had to be practiced, no one naturally had a smile like that. "Hoseok isn't here right now, he's probably locked himself in a toilet stall or something. But you'll know him when you see him. He looks sort of like a mixture of a kid's drawing of a sun and a Pokémon."

Yoongi elbowed him, looking right at me. "That's a reference. Please ignore him."

Namjoon pointed at a sunshine-blonde boy that was walking closer to them with a carton of four coffee cups in it. "That's Jimin."

"I'm Taehyung!" the boy who had stolen the notebook proudly announced. He shoved the artist boy into the girl, who glared at him.

"Kim Taehyung, I swear I will kick your ass into next week if you mess up Kookie's drawing again and we have to spend another day in this stupid underground cave," she growled.

"This is Jeonggukie," Kim Taehyung who was probably going to get his ass kicked into next week continued, pointing at the artistic boy, who looked up for just a second to give me a smile before returning to his drawing.

The girl played with the ends of her hair, most of which was being held in a perfectly messy updo. "I'm Andromeda," she said.

"Do you mind if I ask a question?" I asked.

Seokjin made another grumbling comment and Jimin, Namjoon, and Andromeda gave him annoyed looks.

Jimin said something in their native language, and by the tone, I had a feeling it was something along the lines of "Be nice."

"Sure," Namjoon said.

If I made a fool of myself now, it didn't make much of a difference. I'd already made a fool of myself in front of them. "Do I know you?"

There was a moment of the eight of them just staring back at me, and I was wondering how I managed to put my foot in my mouth two times in just two small conversations. Then Andromeda smiled and said, "Sure you do. These boys right here are International Kpop Sensation Sunshine Rainbow Traditional Transfer USB Hub Shrimp BTS."

They all managed to keep straight faces for about five seconds before they all burst into raucous laughter so loud it made the rat race businesspeople in the station look up from their phones and newspapers to see what the commotion was.

I had only intended to see them one more time to apologize and ask that question, but I had a feeling then that I would be meeting them many more times.