Page 14 of GR8VITY

“Kyung?” A cautious voice calls out softly.

Jerking my head in the direction of the sound, I see a small figure walking towards us. She looks like a Westerner only a little over half our height. Dark brown hair falls around her shoulders. Her bright green eyes are narrowed slightly in confusion. She glances at me, but not in the way that most women do these days. It’s not checking me out or in awe. There’s a spark of curiosity but more confusion than anything.

When she makes it to us, Kyung opens his arms and she steps into them easily. He takes off one side of his mask to lean down and drop a kiss on her lips. I’m glad that I’m still wearing mine, because my mouth has dropped open in surprise.

Kyung straightens but keeps an arm around her shoulders as he motions between us. “Dav En, this is Lizzy. Lizzy, this is Dav En.”

“Hi,” she says, surprising me even further by speaking in Korean. She glances up at Kyung, “This is not your dog.”

He laughs so hard that the other side of his mask falls off, forcing him to catch it before it hits the ground, but I’m not amused.

“Excuse me?” I say. “You thought I was a dog? What is even going on here?”

Kyung laughs again, but takes pity on us both. “I never said my friend was a dog, sunshine. Dav En, this is my reason.”

I hate that one of my theories was right, even if it’s not the worst one that crossed my mind. He goes on to explain how they met and the time they’ve spent together since I was gone.

My heart is racing, but I can’t figure out if it’s happiness for my friend, sadness for changes coming in our friendship, or anxiety because there might be a lot of people angry about this. It’s a lot to process all at once, but I need a solid answer on one thing. “So, are you guys a couple?”

“Yes,” Kyung nods, looking at me.

Taking a deep breath, I let it back out. I don’t want to bring up the problems this might cause in front of her. Especially when he just told me about his mental struggle. I decide to let the night play out. I will stand by my friend and his decisions. He won’t be taking this leap alone.

Kyung treats us to tteokbokki at one of the street vendors in our path as we walk. We sit to eat and talk. She tells me about how she came to be here and why she’s stayed for so long. Kyung and I get her to laughing, telling her stories from when we were kids. When he says he felt a calling for being an idol, I confess that I only wanted to do it because he was.

The more I watch the two of them together and listen to the way that she talks, I see it. I can tell that Kyung’s feelings are real. It’s not a passing fancy that he used as a distraction from who we are. I also come to understand what he sees in her. She’s smart, nice, and so, so very pretty.

I tell Kyung this as we’re walking home hours later after we’ve said our goodbyes to her. “I like when you make her laugh.”

“So, you like her?” he asks.

“Of course, I do,” I answer. “You should know that if you like her then I would too. We haven’t been friends this long for nothing.”

“Mmm,” he nods with a smile at the ground.

“How much does she know about who you are, though?” I ask cautiously. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the brightest out of all of us, but I definitely picked up on the fact that who we are wasn’t discussed at all. Almost like we aren’t idols to her.

“She knows,” he says. “I told her that I didn’t want her doing a deep dive on us just yet. I wanted her to meet you and the rest of our members before the internet ruined her image of us.”

“That’s smart,” I tell him, tucking my hands in the pockets of my jacket. “So, when are you going to tell everyone else?”

“Soon,” he says. “We’re just always so busy. It’s going to be hard to drop something like this and expect everyone to accept it. Especially, Seong Su. He works himself into the ground. I don’t want to throw anything else at him until I’m sure that it’s not going to hurt us as a team.”

“Yeah,” I agree, then it hits me. “Hey, can I come back with you tomorrow?”

He chuckles, bumping into my shoulder. “You can come with me any time that you want to.”

I take his words to heart and join them every night for the rest of the week and the next one, too. They never make me feel like the third wheel, including me in everything and all conversation. When we get stuck out of town for another photo shoot, I find Kyung video chatting with her and say hi. The next day is the first time that I don’t go with him to see her. I’ve got to rerecord a section of a song in the studio, but I wouldn’t have gone even if I didn’t. They might be inclusive, but I know that Kyung didn’t like being away from her. Tonight should be just for them. Especially since he told me last night about their first time being recent.

I’m still slightly in shock that my best friend has a girlfriend. Just thinking that makes me grin like an idiot, but then I have this inner fight with myself. Am I happy because he’s got a girlfriend and is happy? Or is it because she’s literally perfect? There’s been more than once the last couple days that I’ve found myself smiling because I’m thinking about her.

The thought has me sitting in turmoil in my chair until he gets home late into the night. Seeing my door open and the light still on, when he gets home, he peeks his head inside. “Why are you still up so late?”

“I was waiting on you,” I confess, jumping right into what’s been bothering me for hours. “Is it normal to think about your best friend’s girlfriend all the time?”

He strolls into my room, pulling up the sleeves of his hoodie as he sits on the edge of my bed facing me. “I guess that really depends. How are you thinking about your best friend’s girlfriend?”

If there’s one thing that I will never do with Kyung its lie to him. At the risk of sounding completely crazy and having my time with him cut in half, I ask him. “How did you know that you like liked her?”