Page 10 of GR8VITY

“Want to do a live for our fans?” he asks, carrying his chair into the room and setting it next to mine.

“Sure,” I tell him excitedly. “We haven’t done one together in a while.”

For the next few hours, we hang out and do our live. The fans seem as joyous as we are that we’re together. Apparently, we’re not the only ones being neglected here. The guilt just seems to keep stacking up further and further. I just push that to the back of my mind as I spend time with them and my best friend, and hope that he’s not too mad at me tomorrow when he finds out my secret.

We ended our live after the first hour and spent the last couple just joking and laughing like we always do when we’re together. As the time got later, I had to break the news to him. “I’ve got to get going.”

When his expression drops as low as his shoulders, I clasp one of them and force him to look at me. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

“Okay,” he says with a small not-so-sad smile this time. Even though watching him pick up his chair and carry it back out of my room makes me kind of hate myself a little bit.

I could skip seeing Liz tonight and just hang with him, but who would I be doing it for? I feel like a completely selfish chud, but before I can make any kind of decision either way, he’s already made it to his room and shut the door.

Tomorrow. I promise in my head. To myself and to him. I’m not losing my friend.

I dress slowly, because I’m lost in my thoughts. Liz will notice, no doubt, which sends me on this unraveling path of what kind of person she’d think that I am if she knew how Dav En, the most important person in the world to me, is feeling and I practically picked her over him. Not a conversation I want to have with her. It’s not one I even want to have with myself.

It’s selfish, but I just want one more night of keeping her out of the idol life.

Of course, it’s the only thing I can think of on my walk to her apartment. I’m halfway there when the universe decides to have a go at me. The bottom falls out of the sky, and by the time I’m standing on her stoop, I’m soaked from head to toe.

When she opens the door, her lips part in surprise, “Kyung! Where’s your umbrella?”

I shrug with a grimace. “I didn’t know it was going to rain tonight.”

“Come on,” she says, pinching a small portion of my hoodie and using it to pull me inside. We make a beeline for the stairs. “Hurry, you’re dripping everywhere and have got to be freezing.”

I hadn’t really noticed until she said that, but there is a chill inside the building that makes the wet clothes worse. She leads us up to the second floor and unlocks the door on the left. Whatever I’d expected from her place, it’s so different, yet exactly how I would’ve pictured it. It’s smaller with a connected kitchen and living room space, and I can see the end of her bed through the only doorway other than the entrance. We drop our shoes off on the little mat by the entrance, and I feel bad, but I take my socks off too so that I’m not walking on her floors with them soaked.

Grabbing that same spot on my sleeve, she tugs again, leading me toward her bedroom. I look around and love seeing all of the small touches that are her. The small colorful blanket thrown on the back of the couch. The plants hanging from those pretty handmade holders out of the ceiling. There are several framed photos scattered around the room that I want to look at too when I’m not dripping water everywhere.

She drags me into a small bathroom off the side of her room, grabbing a thick robe off the back of the door and handing it to me along with a towel. “Here, put this on and give me your clothes so we can dry them.”

I’m too stunned to move for a second, my brain having not caught up with the series of events. It isn’t until she speaks again from the other side of the door that my brain finally catches up and I do what she said.

“I guess we’re ordering takeout tonight. Any preferences?”

Even through the closed door, I can hear the smile in her voice. Pushing all the thoughts and feelings from earlier to the back of my mind, I decide to enjoy tonight with her. Even if it has the potential to be my last one since I don’t know how she’s going to react to the other side of my life.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I tell her, and she knows I speak the truth. Neither of us is a picky eater, luckily, unlike some of my members. We have our go-to choices, like I know she’s going to order some kind of chicken for herself with vegetables. Depending on where she orders from, I’ll be eating the same or she’ll order me one of my favorites.

Unclothed, I throw the robe around my shoulders and tie the sash. Looking at myself in the tall mirror behind the door, I cover my mouth to keep from laughing. Better yet, taking my phone out, I snap a picture to show Dav En tomorrow. He deserves a good laugh after me leaving him tonight. I’m skinny enough that the material fits just right around the shoulders, even if the sleeves are a tad bit too short. But that’s nothing compared to how short the bottom is. Probably doesn’t help that Lizzy is tiny and I’m mostly legs. The bottom of the robe barely clears mid-thigh. I’ve not had this much skin on display since I was younger probably. It’s been so long that I can’t even recall.

“Are you decent?” she asks.

“Depends on what your version of decent is,” I answer honestly.

The door eases open, and I watch her carefully keep her eyes on mine until she realizes I’m wearing the robe. Then they slowly make their way down to my feet. I wiggle my toes just for good measure when she gets there, and her gaze jerks back to mine. I know she’s dying to laugh, at least just a little. God help her, though, because she doesn’t. She simply holds out her arms for my wet clothes. I’m glad she didn’t reach down for them, because with how short this thing is, that might’ve been a little awkward for us both.

When I hand them over, she takes them without another word, but I can swear that I see a smile on her lips as she turns to walk away. Following her out into the main room, I watch as she carefully loads my still dripping clothes into a washer and sets it to spin.

Before she can turn around and see me checking out how good she looks tonight, I distract myself looking at the photos near the TV.

She comes up beside me and points at one. “That’s my omma before she left Korea.”

“She’s pretty,” I say, not lying. Her mother has one of those classic beauty faces that girls pay for these days. With the cherry blossoms behind where she’s standing, the photo in itself is one that was meant to be framed.

Lizzy smiles softly at it as she agrees with me, “Yes, she definitely was. Inside and out.”