“Do this.” she answered, gesturing to the people around him, the clothes, and makeup being put away on the table.

He tilted his head, confused, “because it’s fun?”

“You’re still yourself around other people, you’re still joyful, and energetic, and-”

He cut her off, “What? Hannah annoys the shit out of me. Yuna is completely obsessed with Haejun, he’s the only person she’s nice to, and the only reason she’s my manager is because Haejun didn’t want her to be his.”

“But you’re still able to smile.” Sua sighed, “and I don’t think you’re going to be frowning when you get out on the stage, either.”

“Of course not!” Seonwoo laughed, “I do this because it's fun! Do you not like writing?”

“Oh, no! I love it!” Sua smiled, before lowering her gaze from his, but quickly deciding it was a better option to just look away, “I just can’t deal with people.”

“Oh! I’ve got a great idea!” Seonwoo exclaimed, before he rushed out of his dressing room.

“Seonwoo!” Sua exclaimed, as the door closed behind him, don’t leave me here.

“You know what, Sua~” the man stated, as he grabbed an extremely revealing dress off the rack, “I think you’d look great in this.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, as one arm grabbed at my other.

“Go try this on, for me.” he shoved the dress in my arms.

“But I didn’t want to-” he placed a hand over my mouth, cutting me off.

Leaning over to my ear, he harshly whispered, “With boobs like yours, they’re meant for people to oggle. So shut up, before I strip you right here.”

I shuddered, before quickly hurrying to the dressing room door swung open, as Seonwoo hurried over to her, with a black dress bag, still on its hanger. She gulped, and stiffened herself on the couch, reminding herself that Seonwoo wasn’t like her most recent ex. Seonwoo was different, he wouldn’t force her to wear something she didn’t want to wear.

“How about you wear this, and come on stage with me!” he smiled, handing the bag to her.

“That depends on what it is,” Sua shyly responded, with a disinterested laugh.

“It’s a costume.” Seonwoo answered, as she pulled it out. “We still have a bit of time, I’ll ask Hannah to do some scales on your face, and then you can be the ‘Dragon’ in Phoenix Dragon, sounds fun, right?”

Sua pulled out the costume, and gulped, “What is this?” she asked, holding the shirt, “isn’t it a little too tight?”

Seonwoo shrugged, “I don’t know, Hannah said it’d be a good assistant’s costume, so I grabbed it.”

Sua pulled out the pants, “Seonwoo this is…” she stopped, and looked down, “great. I’ll go put it on, now.”

Seonwoo placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn around, “You don’t have to. I just thought it’d be fun.”

“Fun.” Sua answered, and continued to the curtain in the dressing room.

“You know what!” Seonwoo stated, grabbing the clothes from her, “I’ve got an even better dragon costume in here!”

“Seonwoo, I appreciate it, but I…” she trailed off. Did she want to tell him she didn’t want to be a part of his performance?

“Here!” Seonwoo exclaimed, pulling something out of the wardrobe, “I wore this to some pajama party the Mira hosted at the agency. I think it’d look good on you.”

“I’m not wearing that.” she still had some dignity left, after all. There was no way she was going out in a dragon onesie.

“Oh,” his huge smile dropped significantly, “do you want to be on stage with me, then?”

Should have asked that first, before you ran off and grabbed a skin-tight outfit, she sighed, and shook her head, too ashamed to look him in the eyes.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “sorry,” he grabbed her hand, and led her out, “I’ll show you to your seat, then! You’re in the VIP section at the front, don’t worry, it’s far enough away that the fire won’t reach you. Besides, the auditorium has a water curtain, so don’t worry.”

He opened the backstage door that led into the audience. Sua noticed that people were already filing into the VIP seats. Seonwoo paid them no mind, as he led her to her seat, front and center for the whole show. The seat had a red sign on it that read, “Phoenix Dragon’s Plus One. Reserved.”

She felt the other guest’s eyes on her, as Seonwoo gestured to the seat, “This one is yours, Liza talked with Yuna, and she made sure that nobody was sitting next to you, but of course, if you wanted to just write in my dressing room, that’d be fine, too. Though, I really wanted you to see the show,” he suddenly started laughing, “because you were so shocked that I could eat fire!”

Sua glanced at the doors, as the regular guests were held back by security, probably because Seonwoo was currently standing in the auditorium. It was a huge auditorium. The stage was giant. It probably sat around two thousand people. Was it going to be packed? Was Seonwoo that popular? Her eyes recognized the flash of a camera at the doors, and she was suddenly reminded that Seonwoo was still rambling, about fire, right next to her. She turned her attention back to him, “Thanks, I’ll just watch it then.”

“You will!” his eyes lit up, “Thanks, Sua!”

Don’t say my name! She whimpered to herself.

“Then meet me in my dressing room after the show, I’ve gotta go, because Yuna’s gonna be pissed, because I’m out here.” He smiled at her, before jumping onto the stage, the quickest way to get to Yuna, who was standing, just visible, backstage.

“Phoenix Dragon!” a woman’s voice cheered behind Sua, and she jumped.

Seonwoo turned around, and smiled, his eyes met Sua’s, “Wish me luck!” he chuckled, before running offstage.

“He looked straight at me!” the woman cheered behind her.

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” her date, Sua assumed, responded, “the guy eats fire, so what?”

“You know how impossible that is!” another VIP patron chimed in, and Sua pulled out her phone.

“Hey, but he’s hot, though!”

“Did you see his abs? He’s really toned!” a woman cheered.

“He’s hot, too.”

“He had a LOT of makeup on, though, how can you tell?”

“Come on, nobody can pull off makeup like that, if they aren’t hot.”

“Don’t think about dating him, though, his girlfriend is right there.”

“He said he was single in his last interview, you don’t know that’s his girlfriend, it could just be his sister.”

“Come on, they’re facial structures are completely different! I don’t think she’s his sister, cousin, maybe, but definitely not sister.”

“You really think he didn’t get any surgery?”

“You think he did?”

“Well, yeah! At least a nose job, it’s too smooth.”

“What was her name? I know he said it.”

“I think it was ‘Sua’ or something.”

“What type of name is ‘Sua’?”

“It’s probably a nickname.”

“Which means she’s probably his girlfriend!”

“What about friend,” a guy chimed in, “guys and girls can just be friends, you know.”

“Come on, with the way he looks at her?”

“Do you know him?”

“Well, yeah, I’ve been following him since before he was assigned to the MV Entertainment agency.”

“So what? When he was a minor?”

“How long has he been with MV Entertainment?”

“For a long time, I read that he’s been with them since he was ten.”

“So you’ve been following him since he was nine?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Come on, just admit it, you haven’t been following him for that long, he didn’t start his career when he was ten!”

“But he’s been with MV Entertainment for that long, doesn’t that mean he has?”

“Wait, so he’s been eating fire since he was ten?”

“What does him being with MV Entertainment have to do with how he looks at girls?”

Sua felt really awkward. She dropped her attention to her phone, and read the text from her publisher. He wanted Levy to submit her next book to them soon. She had to finish editing her manuscript before she gave it to Levy. He must have contacted Levy first, and then contacted her.

“Hey, Dragon’s plus one,” someone called to her, causing her to turn her head.

“She’s got a nice rack,” she heard someone mumble.

“Yes?” She ignored it.

“Are you his girlfriend? Or just a friend?” the one who called her asked.

“I’m just a friend.” she answered, before turning her attention back to her phone.

“Hey, Dragon’s friend!” someone else called, as the lights dimmed.

“Hello Seoul!” A cheerful voice rang out, as the lights changed to more of a turquoise green color, from their red hue, “I know you are all ecstatic about the Fairy Queen such as myself to grace you all!” she fluttered down by the fly-system, and fireworks shot out of the canons upstage, to illuminate her presence.

“Who are you?” someone called out.

Rude, Sua thought to herself, as her attention was on the woman calling herself the Fairy Queen.

“Eunja  I love you!” someone from the very back of the crowd yelled.

“Thank you, thank you!” she exclaimed, with a grand wave, “The first song I’ll be singing today, I wrote myself. It’s called, Blooming Love! I know you all will love it!”

Sua tried to go into the song with an open mind, but she wasn’t a huge fan of the genre of music Eunja  was singing, and it didn’t help that the whole song was about how fairy-like she was. The next song wasn’t any better, either, the words were changed up, but the message of the song was the same. Though she was surprised she was a pre-show, her music was essentially opera.

The lights dimmed, and a bunch of neon lights scattered across the whole auditorium, as the next pre-show took the stage, coming in from between the canons that had illuminated Eunja ’s entrance, now working as the curtain to the next performance, Kira Park. Sua knew, because of Liza telling her, but most of the crowd was yelling out, “The Archer!” “Queen!” and “Kira! Kira! I love you!”

Kira smirked, but froze on the stage. She pulled out a sword, from the sheath attached to her hip, as her voice shaked, “Hello!” she yelled, “Thank you for coming!”

“You know, she’d be better if she weren’t so timid.” a voice behind her stated, with a sigh.

“Timid? Have you seen her quick changes, though, she’s like super fast at it!”

“Oh, that’s true, she does it so quickly.”

“Wait, so what does Kira do again? I knew she was a model for Rogue but…”

“She is a model, but she also does these quick changes when she performs, and she’s an awesome shot, too.”

“So that’s why there’s a spinning target above her.”

“There’s also one hanging from the catwalk, too.”

“One, I saw three hanging from the catwalk.”

“So she’s gonna shoot arrows at us in that state?”

“Today I’m going to…”

“Kira!” Sua recognized Seonwoo’s voice, “You-know-who said he was going to take you on a date if you can hit every target!”

“Who?” a voice asked.

Sua glanced over, and saw someone about thirteen seats away from her with dark hair, covering his face. That’s probably who he’s talking about, she thought to herself, and looked back up to the stage.

“How can he say he’s gonna take me on a date if he can’t even get his life back together!” Kira grumbled, as a smoke screen shot up in front of her, she stepped out from the screen no longer wearing knight’s armor, but an archer’s attire from the middle-ages, except it was a leotard. She pulled the bow up and aimed at the spinning target above her, “he still has a lot he said he was going to do first!” the arrow shot, and hit bullseye to the spinning target. She aimed above the audience, taking one step forward. There was no light illuminating the targets, and Sua gulped.