My Summer in Seoul

Thankfully, Solia had given me pages and pages of what to watch out for, especially when it came to taking the guys to and from rehearsals. I assumed they had bodyguards, but I quickly learned that these obsessive fans weren’t deterred by much of anything, which made it even that much more complicated—and scary.

I might be curvy, but I had about zero muscle, so if someone came at us, all I could do was chuck my cell phone and say a prayer.

I wondered if that was what had happened to Lucas. A superfan attacked him, and now he was to blame for a scandal that wasn’t even his fault?

I couldn’t imagine being in the public eye twenty-four seven, record sales or not. You would have to truly love what you did in order to put up with it. And according to the manual I was reading, these guys even filmed on their off time, some sort of live-fan website where they would talk about their day, answer questions. It truly never stopped for them. Always working. Did they ever sleep?

I turned the page and stared harder than what was probably appropriate. All five of the guys’ headshots were glaring up at me.

Some of them had different colored hair now, but other than that, it seemed like a recent shot of them. Each one had their own personal style that clearly was strategically done in order to appeal to the masses. All I could compare it to was One Direction, and the thing that I noticed first was that One Direction was constantly pushed as a band, not as individuals, at least not really. Whereas these guys each had a different job, one was the main vocalist, one was a visual: which basically meant that they were the best looking of the group, another was the best dancer, and one, honest to God, was looked to as the “dad” of the group.

Hah, tell that to my friends’ dads, because they looked nothing like this. I mean, obviously, they meant it as a leadership term, but it still made me smile when I read through their bios.

I yawned behind my hand as laughter sounded from the kitchen; the chef had arrived about an hour into my studying.

I’d been sitting on that uncomfortable metal chair, coated in plane sweat, for the past two hours, and I could feel myself fading fast. Meanwhile, all the guys from SWT were joking and eating whatever amazing smelling thing the chef was cooking.

I wanted to complain, but this was an opportunity, and I was only a few hours in. I needed to suck it up and dream about three months from now when I’d have enough experience to apply to a few studios back in the States.

My eyes blurred as I quickly read through their different profiles, some of them only included the bare minimum like where they were born, favorite hobbies, and their position within the group. Interestingly enough, it actually said in the information pack that they purposefully didn’t give a lot of information to their fans as a ploy to be more secretive and clearly it was working. I quickly read through a few more, stopping when one of the profiles answered what their bias was when it came to dating.

My eyes widened a bit.

Their favorite type… Huh, almost all of them said “cute.”

I scrunched up my nose as I took a quick inventory of my slippers, joggers, hoodie, and gross bun.

Yeah, they weren’t talking about me.

I had zero cuteness.

I’d always been curvy—size zeros could suck it—and my mom always said that my features were the envy of every friend I had—bigger lips, a wide smile, catlike eyes, and enough muscle to look like I could at least fake my way through an arm wrestle session not that I’d ever won one, but that was beside the point.

More laughter had me looking up at about the same moment my stomach growled. Was I allowed to eat? Did I get bathroom breaks? These were the things I should have asked before Solia stormed off, but she was too angry, and I was too tired to even think about asking. The last thing I ate was that meatball sandwich from the plane, and I was being generous even calling that thing food.

I blinked, eyes heavy, and tried not to think of all the reasons I was ready to gnaw my own arm off.

Good opportunity. Good opportunity. Good opportunity.

I blinked a few times as my vision doubled and looked up just in time to see one of the guys poke his head around the kitchen to look down the hall.

I quickly glanced down at my profiles. It was Hwan-Sook or Sookie, the youngest one of the group, still apparently in high school. I spoke his name out loud, testing it on my tongue, and noticed his wide pretty brown eyes do a little double take at me before he disappeared around the corner again.