Seong-gi was dead silent when he led us out of the store accompanied by a nice-looking saleswoman. Walking through countless corridors of the “underworld” of the huge mall, we followed them all the way to the underground parking hall. Even when we reached Joe’s BMW, Seong-gi didn’t let out a single syllable, just opened the back door for us nonchalantly before heading to the front passenger seat himself.

I knew I had screwed up. 

The ride home was agonizingly slow. Maybe it was because of Joe driving slower than life, or maybe it was the fact that Seong-gi was unusually quiet. In any case, snails would have reached home faster. 

It had become dark outside as well. I hadn’t even realized we had literally spent the whole long-ass day at the mall. 

I should’ve told Seong-gi we were going out. Unfortunately my dumb-ass self had chose not to as it would have ruined the charm of having this one day of being a commoner. Too bad that in the end, it did end up ruined anyway. 

Meanwhile, Do-hyun was totally oblivious to all that. He was grinning like a maniac. Seemed like he was in a great mood. Or maybe he had lost his mind. Then again, Joe in the driver’s seat didn’t seem even nearly as upset as Seong-gi. Maybe he was used to Do-hyun’s shenanigans by now. No, scratch that—he was definitelyused to Do-hyun’s antics by now. They were friends. Unlike me and Seong-gi.

I couldn’t help but let out a long relieved sigh once the BMW dove into our underground garage. Finally, we were home. 

Unfortunately I didn’t get to escape Seong-gi to our living quarters upstairs. Not that I didn’t try to, but he stopped me by grabbing my arm before I could set one foot inside the lift. 

“You two can go ahead,” he said to Joe and Do-hyun. 

Joe nodded, while Do-hyun cringed and mouthed ‘sorry,’ right before the doors closed. 

Then it was dead silent. I couldn’t quite reach the eyes of Seong-gi when I did muster up enough courage to say, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not gonna lecture you,” Seong-gi said, pushing the button to call the lift again, letting go of my arm. “You’re an adult now. Gone through the army and all.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Then why did you keep me here?”

He placed his hand on my shoulder, turning me to look him in the eyes. “Look, I’ve been working for you for what? Seven years now? All the way from the debut, anyway.”

I nodded.

“So I’m only gonna say this once, and with respect. You know that right?”

I nodded again. 

He sighed, sounding a little exhausted. “I think that you should…spend a little less time with Do-hyun. You know, keep a little distance outside work hours.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Today, just now actually, I had come to the same conclusion. Only Seong-gi’s reasons were most likely different from mine. While he was most likely worried that Do-hyun would get me into more trouble, my reason was more of the personal kind. Meaning me worrying about my heart’s health. Seong-gi didn’t need to know all that though. Thus, I only nodded once again. 

“I know.”

“Good,” he said, at the same time the lift arrived and we stepped in. 

He exited the lift with a simple wave in floor two where the guards quarters were while I continued all the way to the top floor. 

I walked over to my room, dropped the single plastic bag containing my today’s shoppings on the armchair and planted myself face first on my bed. I was exhausted to the core. 

Navigating this whole fanservice thing while acting only friendly towards Do-hyun, who had started to flirt with me uncontrollably even outside work, was proving to be even more difficult than I had originally anticipated after the army. 

The worst part was that I had known it would be hard. Only…I hadn't realized it would be this hard. Then again, I didn't know back then that I was still in love with him.

I didn’t get to wallow in those thoughts for long, though. Because of course when seeing Do-hyun was the last thing on my mind, he entered my room and hopped on my bed beside me.

“Did Seong-gi give you a hard time?” he asked.

“Nope,” I mumbled against the pillow. “Just the usual.” 

Do-hyun didn’t need to know that Seong-gi didn’t want me to spend time with him. But I needed a reminder it seemed. I turned to look at Do, saw that he was already scrolling his phone as if it was his own bed he was laying in. 

“Hyung~, you know you have your own room too, right?” I asked, whining. It seemed like Do-hyun was well on his way to develop a highly annoying habit of invading my room. I wasn’t sure if I could take it for long. 

“Yeah, but you’re not there,” he said, flashing me a smile wide enough to show his perfect row of pearly white teeth, before focusing back on his phone. 

See, this was my problem. I could deal with the chemistry between us on stage, because I knew it was all acting on his part. But this, these side comments in real life, were driving me absolutely insane and had me imagining things I most definitely shouldn't.

I guess he had sort of always been like this—hence me falling in love with him in the first place—but it was now more intense. More fresh. He did it more often. 

It was like there were two sides of me. One which was painfully in love with him and whose heart thumped like crazy every single time something like this happened. And then there was the other part of me who realized it was a natural consequence to the fact that we were close friends and Do-hyun was a natural flirt. 

It was flirting, right? Or had I imagined all of it? Suddenly I started questioning my whole ability to read people at all. 

One thing was for sure though—overthinking this wasn’t going to make any difference. So I gave up on that and went to my walk-in closet instead. Then I grabbed a random pair of sweatpants and changed into them—it was like I died and entered heaven when I could wiggle my way out of the extremely tight skinny jeans. I tossed them carelessly to the floor and hopped back on the bed beside Do-hyun who had barely moved a centimeter while I was occupied. I started browsing my phone as well, too tired to try to get rid of Do. 

This close to our comeback, I was too scared to go to social media, which normally was my obsession. Which is why I only played this game I had been addicted to lately. It was simple—you barely had to circle around trying to gain as much of the playing area as you possibly could before someone killed you by crossing paths. I was almost gaining the top spot, when I felt Do-hyun’s eyes on me. 

A tingle went up my spine—a thing that happened every time he gave me one of his intense stares to gain my attention. Now what?