CMOL and Fearless

17

"Time to wake up!"

I opened my eyes. Why was Zeke being so loud this early in the morning? I checked the time. 5:32, what the heck?

"Zeke, you better explain why you are waking me up so early. I can actually sleep in today and you do this?" I questioned.

"Ya, you kept us up late last night because you were talking a lot, let us sleep now." Junsu explained.

"The flight got changed."

"What?! To when?" I exclaimed.

"Seven."

"And it's a thirty minute drive." Our leader reminded us.

"I call shower first!" Owen shouted, heading to the bathroom.

I made sure I had my mask and I picked out some clothes to wear before packing up the rest of my stuff. I looked around to see some of the members frantically packing their stuff, others were eating granola bars, fruit or packing food in their bags.

At 6:30 we were all ready. We got to our flight on time because the traffic wasn't bad and we got on the plane. We were heading to New York now. I slept most of the time, ate a little then continued sleeping.

At 10:30 that night I was standing on a stage. I couldn't see the stars but I knew they were there. The lightsticks waved back and forth to the beat of the music. The amount of fans with their lightsticks was crazy. I smiled, I liked this. I sang to my hearts content and I heard my fellow members singing. The fan chant was loud and I was happy for the time being.

"New York, how you doing?!" I shouted.

There were hundreds of replies.

"One more song?"

I said to my fellow members when they walked up to me.

There were lots of sad awwws from the audience who heard. I smiled, I would want to stay longer too but this was the time we had and it was running out.

"You guys are amazing!" I shouted into the crowd.

I started signing the last song of the night.

When the concert ended, I looked into the audience. I might not be able to talk to my fans right now other then fansign events but even just seeing my fans was enough to make me happy.

My eyes stopped scanning the audience when I noticed a familiar girl siting in one of the seats. I only noticed her because many fans had already left. Her black hair was in two braids and she was drinking a bottle of juice, maybe lemonade? I was too far away to tell. Mi Kyung was talking to her friend and it seemed they were having an interesting conversation because she didn't notice me looking at her. I quickly turned around and headed off stage where the other members were. Why was she here? Wasn't she in California? If she wanted to see my concert, why didn't she see my concert in California, maybe she was busy? It was definitely her though and I knew she didn't have a twin because I searched her up a few days ago, curious about her.

Arriving at the CEO's place for a meeting that night the man congratulated us on a great concert. The tickets sold well.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Junsu, I wanted to let you know that you are allowed to date whoever you want."

"What?" Junsu said.

"I'm letting you date, you can have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend. It will give you more publicity and that's what you guys need right now, or always need."

"Um. Okay." Junsu seemed confused.

"So I'm allowed to date someone but the other members aren't?"

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

"Because you are the maknae and I believe more fans would find it adorable that you are dating someone then make an issue out of it."

"Oh."

It made sense, Fans can be overprotective, and some could be obsessive. We didn't need any trouble like that right now.

That night I slept a little better then I had the previous nights. Maybe it was that I was really exhausted though. A couple weeks passed until it was the day before when we would return to Korea. We were now in another state and it was a little colder then New York. It was Owen's birthday tomorrow so we were having a party today because when we got off the plane the next day we would be busy. We would get to sleep in more tomorrow though.

I had bought Owen a new pair of headphones and some nice boots. Finding the right size for him wasn't hard at all because since we all lived together I had memorized his size. Some of us had the same shoes when we were doing concerts so I had to know what was my size because it was the only way to tell them apart. I hoped he liked the boots, I was pretty sure they were his style.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Sung Woong happy birthday to you!" The other members and I sang.

Sung Woong was smiling.

Owen cut a slice of cake for each of us and we started eating the cake with ice cream that Zeke had taken out of the freezer. I took a deep breath. How long would we have to live with this fear? Won't the ceo ever get tired of this? I wished I could enjoy time at least a little while we played games with Owen but I couldn't get my mind off the topic.

Each way I looked at it, the ceo wouldn't get blamed and nothing would change. It used to be that I'm still here because of the threat on my brother but is it even like that anymore? I mean, yes if I run away then I would be free, but then the threat on my brother would be real. And our fans, even if I ran away with my brother my fans would recognize me even with a mask on. They would make posts and the ceo would know exactly where I would be. There was no escape no matter how much I thought about it. No way out. Even if each member fled in different directions we would still be found and even if it was safe to leave I wouldn't leave the members here, I would make sure they left too.

Once again those were useless ifs. There was no leaving, no running away. This was our fate.

I had stopped believing that it was my fault. The members had made sure I had gotten those useless thoughts out of my head. I was thankful to them. I didn't know what I would be without them.

"Zeul!"

I focused back to the conversation.

"Zeul, Zeke seems to think that the lyrics to «Basic» by «NIGHTS» is "Do you think, luggage picked up at valet". But I think it's "Do your thing, luggage picked up at valet". Which is it?"

"Probably the one that makes more sense." I replied.

"See? I'm right!" Junsu exclaimed.

"But not all songs make sense!" Zeke said.

"Do I need to search this up?" I asked.

"Yes, you do. Before they continue arguing about this." Siwoo stated.

I took out my phone and searched up the lyrics. After reading through the lyrics for a moment I announced.

"«Always gotta get your way, you do your thing» then the next line is «Luggage picked up at valet»"

"Awww." Zeke said.

"I was right!" Junsu said.

"Not exactly right though."

"It was close enough!"

"Calm down Junsu." Owen said.

I smiled. I liked moments like this. They seemed so, perfect.

We left the next day. The days were busy after that. We were recording our last song of the album and creating the choreography for it. We were about to release our new song now, the album would start being sold and be on iTunes by tomorrow.

The ceo was in the room as we posted our last music video of the album. I could tell the other members were excited about it, but they didn't show their excitement. I was excited too. I had worked hard on this song. The choreography we created for this song was very difficult. If was fun to dance to though.

Tell me what you think, I'd love to read your comments about what you think of this book!