Sua held Seonwoo’s phone in her hand, as she searched the location Liza had sent on her own phone. Seonwoo sat in the passenger seat beside her, with his head on the dashboard, mumbling something inaudible, probably about how he’d rather walk, if she were going to base it off the things he had been saying for the fifteen minutes she rushed herself to get ready. She felt both underdressed, and overdressed. She knew that she was his chaperone, tonight, and she didn’t know exactly what he did, so she didn’t want to show up in clothes that she’d wear to give Levy her manuscript, but she also didn’t think that wearing something nice was really the best option either, with what she knew of Seonwoo, that was.

“Okay, can you remind me which lot I’m supposed to park in?” she turned her head to the mumbling man beside her.

He turned his head against the dashboard to face her, his hair sticking to it, “the one behind the building.” he mumbled, just loud enough for her to understand. He perked up, “since I can’t walk there, running would be alright, right?”

“We’re driving. If you have to be there two hours before 6:30, we have to leave now, and you’ll only be a few minutes later than 4:30, were you serious about walking?” she sighed, and watched as her dashboard was kissed by Seonwoo’s face again.

He shook his head no, but muttered a yes.

Why was she so comfortable with this man? She wasn’t sure, but she did want to know more about him. With the GPS on her phone, she pulled out of her driveway. To say that it was a peaceful drive was an overstatement. It was quiet, with Seonwoo’s occasional groans, she couldn’t play her favorite stories on audiobook, because Seonwoo muttered on how it gave him a headache if it was too loud, but it seemed like she could never reach the proper level that they’d both be happy with, so she just gave up. She thought maybe some soothing music would work, but it only made her too tired to drive. 

She pulled into the drive to the building, and was stopped by the security. Rolling down her window, Seonwoo tilted his head to feel the breeze coming from it. “Hello, I’m here for Phoenix Dragon’s performance.” Sua stated to the guard that came up to her.

“Sorry, miss, but we can’t let you just skip the line of people waiting for us to open the gates.” the guard stated, gesturing to the parked car she had pulled up next to.

“Ah, yes,” Sua answered, “but I have to get in there so he can get ready.”

“If you want to see Phoenix Dragon, you’ll have to wait until we open the gates, an hour before we open the doors.”

“Why are you opening the gates so late?” Sua asked, tilting her head to the side.

The guard sighed, and his eyes lowered from hers, before slowly coming back up, “since you’re hot, I’ll tell you, Dragon has yet to show up.”

Sua’s brow twitched from the man’s once over he did on her, “I know,” she answered, “Dragon is right here.” she gestured her hand to the man in the reclined passenger seat. “Seonwoo, I’m not moving right now, sit up.” She could have sworn she heard some mumbles from the car she was adjacent to.

With a groan, Seonwoo set up, his hair a complete mess, his eyes slightly swollen, and yet he looked really sick. “Why?” he asked, before leaning his head against her window.

A shriek. That’s what she heard next. The people in the adjacent car to her could clearly see Seonwoo’s face now, and they were freaking out. It made her feel sick. “He’s gotta go in, and get ready.”

The security guard looked beside her, and gulped, Seonwoo looked completely pissed off, though he was just angry that he had to sit up, feeling as awful as he did, “Ah, sorry, let me just record your license plate, and we’ll let you through. You’ll go through the left gate, and head up to the lot behind the building.”

“Thank you.” Sua smiled, irritated how Liza had told her the wrong amount of time.

As soon as she had parked. Seonwoo unbuckled, and swung open the door, face planting onto the asphalt. She gasped, before she realized that he was just relieved to be out of the vehicle. “Dramatic much? So, what door do you have to go through?” she asked, as the man stood up, closing her passenger door.

“I’m so glad you came, Sua. It makes this performance even more awesome.” he placed his hands behind his head, and walked up to the back metal door, gesturing for Sua to follow.

“Am I even allowed back here, Seonwoo?”

“Sure, you are.” Seonwoo answered, with a sigh, as he swung open the door, “I’m here!”

“Finally!” A woman with pretty, wavy, bright hair stated. As soon as the door closed behind Sua, the woman hurried over and started tugging at Seonwoo’s shirt, “You have to take this off, we can’t have you going on stage looking like that, and the make-up artist is here to do your flames, you wanted to look dragon-esque this time, right?” Seonwoo’s shirt was no longer on him. “Black pants, red shirt. Stylist chose the mesh shirt, I know it’ll show more skin than usual, but you wanted your tatts to show this time, right?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Seonwoo sighed, and Sua noticed his tattoos. He had always worn long sleeves so she hadn’t noticed them before. He had a full sleeve of flames down one arm that spread onto his breast. An almost abstract phoenix across his shoulder blades on his back, and it looked like he had some names on his other side. It looked like he was still in the process of making his other arm a full sleeve of fire, too.

“Did you rehearse your piece, Kang?” a man stated, holding a whole bunch of small poles that looked like large matches. He also had a large ring that looked more like a bike-wheel without its tire. “We have a large crowd tonight, make sure to not make the fire go toward the audience.”

“Does he not have a dressing room?” Sua asked, causing all commotion to stop, and everyone turned to face her. Too much attention, “Sorry for interrupting.”

“No, he does, now that he’s finally here, we can finally get a few other things done, though.” the bright haired woman stated, before picking up a clipboard. “Kang!” the woman yelled, causing Seonwoo, who was admiring the different colors of fire they were asking him to do, to turn and look at her. “I have a few questions for you, one, if you were going to bring your girlfriend, please inform us that it wasn’t Haejun with you tonight, and we need your opinion on where to put your props.”

“Sua isn’t my girlfriend,” Seonwoo answered, before turning to the person with the different fire colors, “Let’s do all of them.” he then turned and hurried over, “I don’t care. I’m just gonna burn them up anyway.”

“Was the fire ring supposed to go stage left or right?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Do you want your drink with you on the stage?”

“I don’t care.” Seonwoo sighed, before turning to Sua, “Hey, guess what!”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about your performance, and don’t you need to get ready!” Sua shrieked, as her eyes accidentally wandered down from his eyes, she shouldn’t be trying to convince herself he was different, again.

Seonwoo looked down, “Do I have a bug on me or something?”

“Ah, no,” she answered, now seeing him this close, she wondered why she didn’t freak out when they were taking his shirt off of him. “You just aren’t wearing a shirt.”

“Yeah, they took it off, told me they needed to wash it, before they gave it back to you.”

“Me?” Sua asked, forcing her eyes to go back up to his face. How come she was like this? With no other guy had she ever had to fight to look at their faces. But with Seonwoo, maybe it was because he was more muscular than the others, maybe it was the multitude of tattoos, or maybe it was because he really was just different from everyone else.

“Yeah,” he answered, “since you’re my acting driver and all, tonight.”

“Kang!” someone yelled, causing Sua to jump, and Seonwoo to frown and turn his head in their direction.

“We need you in the dressing room right now, you can bring your girlfriend with you, it’s quieter in there!” a woman called.

“Yeah!” Seonwoo responded, as he grabbed Sua’s wrist and hurried off to the person who called him, so that they could be shown to the dressing room.

As soon as they were seated, Sua sat uncomfortably on the couch beside the rack of different clothes, and a wardrobe. There was also a changing curtain, and it made her think they weren’t going to kick her out into that hustle and bustle of the backstage. Which was a huge relief to her.

“Kang, you should change into the black pants first, before we do your body makeup.” The woman stated, as another person handed him a pair of black pants.

“I’m sure she’s already seen everything, but use the changing curtain while we finish setting up your make-up.”

“Don’t make it too flashy this time,” Seonwoo sighed, as he snatched the pants from the make-up artist’s assistant.

“You do want that phoenix look, to keep your image, right?”

“Hell yeah!” Seonwoo smiled, “I don’t want to look lame!”

“Then change so we can put the make-up on you!”

Seonwoo pouted, but did as he was told.

“I’m actually really disappointed Seonwoo’s already dating someone.” the make-up artist sighed, and sat down next to Sua.

“Seonwoo and I aren’t actually dating.” Sua smiled, shyly.

“Ah, I see.” The woman answered before nodding, standing and making her way over to the changing curtain that Seonwoo was currently behind. “So you wouldn’t mind if I just slipped myself behind here, would you?” Her brown hair falling to her sides, as she grasped the edge of the curtain.

“No, I wouldn’t.” Sua answered, confidently. Though, she supposed she wouldn’t actually know until it was actually done. But she barely even knew Seonwoo, so who was she to judge, or make a claim?

“Ack! Hannah!” Seonwoo exclaimed, and Sua’s attention jetted back over to the curtain, the make-up artist was gone. “Stop! That feels weird!”

What the hell was she doing? He obviously hated it.

“I’m telling you, Seonwoo,” the make-up artist, who Sua assumed was Hannah, answered, “accentuating these is exactly what you want!”

The curtain slid open to reveal an annoyed, and angry Seonwoo, and an amused Hannah.

“What did she do?” Sua asked, sneaking up beside Seonwoo.

“She was checking my skin-tone,” Seonwoo sighed, “that’s what she said.” he sighed again, “she really needs to stop drinking though, she must have had some soju before heading over here.”

“Hey!” Hannah announced, “I only had three shots today.”

“A drinking problem?” Sua asked, confused.

“Yeah, a real one. You smell like alcohol, Hannah.” Seonwoo sighed, as he opened a small fridge, and pulled out some cold fire whisky.

“You say as you're about to drink some yourself,” she sighed, “Now sit down so I can contour your pecs.”

In all honesty, Sua wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Letting someone paint your body, that is. “So do you want me to just sit here?”

“Are you good with hair?” the assistant asked, “It looks like a mop. Did you want to have the spikes like last time you were here?” He handed her a photo of what his hair must have been styled like a while ago. He looked younger.

“Yeah, this should be easy enough,” Sua sighed, after all, her stylist, had elegantly also told her how he styled men’s hair.

She grabbed a brush, and placed it on the top of Seonwoo’s head, before brushing back, causing his whole head to swing backwards, “Ouch.” he mumbled, before lifting his head up, again, “Hannah are you sure you need to put all that make up here? I mean my shirt is gonna cover it up anyway.”

“If I don’t, then you might as well just wear a t-shirt.”

“I don’t care.”

“Haha, you’re so different from Haejun!” she laughed.

Sua placed the brush back in Seonwoo’s hair, but supported his head with her hand, this time.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Seonwoo complained.

“Sorry,” Sua quietly mumbled, before loosening her hand, and brushing through the rest of his slept through hair.

Seonwoo looked awesome, as Hannah finished dressing him with a tight mesh red turtle-neck tank. He looked himself over in the mirror, trying his hardest not to smile. Even though it had been such a hectic day for her, so far, Seonwoo seems perfectly fine with how things are. He looked so comfortable being with people, and talking with them. Joking around with Hannah. He looked like he was having fun. He looked like he was actually enjoying himself.

What does that feel like? Sua thought to herself, as she snuck up beside him, in the mirror, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” Seonwoo asked, turning his whole body to face her, ignoring the reflections in the mirror, the other people calling his name, his whole attention was solely on her.