It Just Happened That Way || JEONGIN from skz!

10

The two of us are in high spirits as we practically skip to the convenience store for our daily fill of late night snacks.

"Oh man though, his face! This is the shit I live for, that was great," Jeongin smiles big, showing all of his teeth, giddy from the trick he pulled on Jaewoo.

I laugh along with him, endlessly rolling my eyes. To be honest, I was satisfied too. Not to sound like some evil man-hater, but seeing the look on Jaewoo's face as a well dressed and fit guy swept me away? Muah, chef's kiss -- priceless.

The streets are pretty empty, and our laughter echoes off of the walls of the buildings around us. I swing open the door of the convenience store, and head straight to the aisle of ice cream as Jeongin splits off to find some instant food.

The lady working the night shift recognizes us, and scolds us. "Oh you two, I don't know how you guys don't gain weight, eating like this every night."

"Aw Ahjumma, don't say that!" Jeongin says, pouting. "We're only young for so long — we have to make it count!!" She shakes her head and laughs at the two of us, while scanning our food items.

We check out and sit at our usual spot by the windows.

"How was work today?" I ask Jeongin. I honestly did wonder what he was up to these days, what with Stray Kids being on a hiatus. Obviously, I couldn't ask that pointedly since I was still pretending to be ignorant about his real profession.

"Oh, it was okay. I got a good work out in, did some dancing with an instructor. I think tomorrow I have to go into the studio to do some recordings." He looks off pensively, and shrugs his shoulders a little. "What about you, how's the manager? Is coding hard? Is it in Korean?" As usual, he asks a stream of questions to evade being asked any more, and slurps his noodles while waiting for me to answer. 

"No, it's all in English. Kinda nice — most big tech companies operate in English. Makes it easier for me. My manager's a chiller. I think he's taking next week off though, so I don't know what I'll do when I have questions."

"Has it been hard, adjusting to Korea?" Jeongin asks, looking at me more seriously.

I give him a half-smile, and shrug. It has been a bit hard living in Korea. I hadn't seen my extended family yet because I was so busy with work, and I hadn't worked on my hobbies other than climbing in a while — my music set up was gathering dust in the corner of my apartment.

"It's alright. I think I just need to settle in a little more. I ... This is going to sound silly to you since you actually work in music, but I kinda miss making music."

"Okay, I've always wanted to ask but I never did because I didn't wanna seem like an overly observant or obsessive person, but when we first met at the cafe, I remember seeing you working on music! Was that music or no?" Jeongin looks at me excitedly.

I crinkle my nose in embarrassment that he had noticed, and awkwardly lean my chin on my hand. "Yeah, I guesss? Haha, I'm not sure if I would call it music, but yes, I was trying to make a track." 

"Really?! That's so cool. I still don't really know how to produce anything — you've gotta teach me."

I laugh, thinking to myself about how he literally has Chan in his group to teach him everything and more.

"Okay, let's do that this weekend." I get up and throw out my trash. "Home?" Jeongin nods as he swallows his last bite and throws out his garbage.

Outside, there's only one girl hanging around on her phone, and other than that it's empty. I'm glad to have Jeongin to walk home with.

Once home, I immediately go inside and take a shower before going to sleep.

The next day, I wake up and check my phone to see that there's a flood of messages from Jessi. More surprisingly, I see over 300 notifications for DMs in my instagram. I frown and rub the sleep from my eyes.

First, Jessi's messages:

Yeona omg.

Yeona are you awake??

Bro look at this photo, it's you isn't it?

I look at the photos she's sent me, and my blood runs cold. One is of myself going into the convenience store with Jeongin, and another is of us eating and laughing inside. This second one, we aren't wearing masks, so it's easy to recognize us.

A sasaeng must've been following us.

I hesitate to open my instagram, but finally do it just to check one thing. I ignore the 300-some DMs notification bubble and the hundreds of new followers, and go straight to @RealStrayKids to look at their tagged photos. There. The two photos of us are circulating everywhere.

My heart is pounding hard, I feel blood rushing to my head. I'm dizzy. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, trying to clear my head. After a couple minutes, I open my eyes, and text Jessi back.

Hey — wow, this is low key messed up that someone was following us...

She replies immediately.

So it is you! With Jeongin from Stray Kids? That was the guy yesterday right?? Are you guys actually dating?

She's sent me so many texts in one go. I turn off her notifications, overwhelmed. Just as I do so, I hear knocking on my door.

I rush to open it, and see Jeongin with a frantic look in his eyes.

"Yeona," he says, out of breath. He looks at my own frantic expression and says, "You saw the photos. I can explain."

He comes inside, running his fingers through his messy hair. He must've just woken up too. He walks into the living room, as I stay in the adjacent kitchen, leaning against the counter top island. I rub my eyes and look up at him. His back is facing me, but he's tense. We are both still for a couple more seconds.

He turns to me with sad and desperate eyes before saying again, "Yeona, I— I can explain."