My Summer in Seoul

The guys all smiled and waved.

“Why don’t you all introduce yourselves?”

I noticed they went in the same order every time. And every time they spoke with someone who only spoke English, they all spoke English, which just made my misery even worse. They all knew, at least, a bit of English… enough to communicate.

Would it have been so hard for someone to give me a hint? I mean, at least Jay only kept the ruse for a few days!

Even Sookie was responding in English. True, he struggled a bit more than the rest of the guys, and I’d yet to hear Kai respond, but the other interview had been a mixture of both. They had heavier accents than the other guys but still managed to answer in a way that would please fans.

My ears burned for the truth as much as my entire face heated with embarrassment, pretty sure I talked about childbirth my first day.

I pressed my fingertips to my forehead and tried to take in a deep breath as the guys finished introducing themselves.

“Okay, first question,” prompted the interviewer. I learned his name was Sammy Sam—DJs and their names, sheesh. “And this one goes to Kai. Is your hair real?”

Kai’s smile was both bright and teasing as he paused, most likely to translate in his head into what he wanted to say. “What do you think?”

Annnd cue perfect answer.

Son of a bitch! I was killing them all!

ALL OF THEM!

Dead!

DEAD TO ME!

Fuming, I gripped my bag so hard I was surprised it didn’t just explode in my hands as Kai pulled his hair from his little man bun and ran his fingers through it; no doubt they’d make it slow motion in the edits.

Bastard!

He winked at the camera.

They were in for some serious cold shoulder during that van ride home.

No, they didn’t owe me anything, but at the very least, we should have a mutual respect for one another, right?

Next up was Jay, whom I knew could answer, so I ignored it.

Sookie’s question was about his favorite junk food. He struggled a bit, often looking to Rae to help him answer in a full sentence with the correct verbs and conjugations.

Okay fine, Sookie could live.

I’d buy him a steak one day as a thank you, then give every other member a giant middle finger while Sookie and I drove off into the sunset, shoveling food into our mouths until we were sick.

And then I’d replace every single thing in their fridge and freezer with freezer-burned chicken breasts and broccoli.

Merry… freaking… Christmas!

I was so distracted with my plan of retribution that I didn’t realize the interview was almost over.

“All right,” Sammy Sam said, laughing playfully. Then he sobered. “Final question. Not everyone has to answer, but when was your first kiss?”

The guys all got visibly uncomfortable, like they weren’t sure how to answer; each of them looked suddenly worried that they were going to offend someone.

Lucas swept in quickly. “Guess you’ll have to keep listening to our music to find out. We don’t kiss and tell…”

As much as I wanted to shove him off a cliff—damn, I was violent these days—it was a really good answer.

“Aw…” Sammy Sam laughed again and slapped his thigh with his hand like he was bummed the question was so smoothly evaded. “It was a nice try, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rae said, and the rest of the guys smiled again like it was an easy question and not so awkward that each of them had wanted to pass out.

Frowning, I suddenly wondered when they would have even had time to date, let alone kiss.

The more I thought about it, the more the question burned in my mind. Even Sookie didn’t have a normal high school experience. In fact, when I went through all of their profiles, they’d basically been training since they were pretty young.

And dating between trainees was frowned upon.

Had they even… had they even kissed a girl before?

Whoa.

No way.

It wasn’t out of the question.

I suddenly wished they would have actually answered it.

I mean, there’s no way.

And I was too irritated with them to actually ask it, not that they’d even tell me, because duh, they clearly still hated me despite what we’d been through in the last two and a half weeks.

“Thank you!” Rae said.

They all bowed and did another “We are SWT!”

Since their fandom was SWEET, they always finished the group announcement with a chef’s kiss.

Kiss, kiss, kiss.

Sookie was too innocent and probably terrified of girls despite his ability to turn it on while on stage.

Kai… well, Kai seemed like the type of guy that snuck out even if he was told he’d get in trouble, so I was gonna say fifty-fifty on Kai.

Jay was still a mystery, but something told me he’d done a hell of a lot more than kissing.

That left Lucas and Rae.