Hidden Stars

Chapter 3

I ran frantically around my room and threw clothes into hiding spaces like under the bed and into the closet. I'd never had the time or motivation to keep my hotel room clean enough to have anyone but me in it. Now that Seunghyun was coming over, I wanted this place pretty clean.

I opened the window to let some air in. The cold shock from the winter air almost prompted me to close the window again, but my room had been shut up for long enough. I waited until my room got chilly to shut the window. I lazily threw the blanket on the bed and picked up my journals and sketchbooks from the side table. I turned on the brightest light I could find to illuminate the whole place brightly, so it looked less dead.

When I finally got the room to a state where it could pass as 'clean', I sat back on my bed and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I plugged it into the speaker on my bedside table and started playing refreshing music as a way to calm my brain. 

He's a coworker. Nothing but. Why am I scared? Who cares? It's not like you'll be in Korea forever. You can't be his friend.

I always had a habit of befriending random people I met, even if I knew I'd never see them again. I could befriend someone at the grocery store. I was just outgoing. People said I was too friendly and that one day I was going to end up getting hurt, but I know that isn't true, since my friends would never hurt me. The more people I know that like me, the happier I am, even if those people don't talk to me anymore. 

I sat on my bed staring out of the window and the cloudy sky, watching the cars drive by. Then I heard my phone go off.

6:18 am:
"What room number are you?"

I replied:

6:19 am:
"260 :)"

I turned my music back on and rushed to the bag I'd dropped by the door the night before to grab my script. I'd done a lot of work to it; highlighters really came in handy. I tried to be a little organized.

Minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I quickly opened the door, Seunghyun standing there with a coffee in either hand and a book-bag around his shoulder.

"I brought you coffee, too. It's the cheap kind, so don't expect much." He said nonchalantly, handing me the cup as I welcomed him in.

"It's the thought that counts." I replied, taking the coffee from him.

He walked in and set his coffee down on the dresser. I took a sip and did the same. He sat in the chair by the desk and took his bag off, pulling out his script. 

"We don't have as much time as I was hoping," he muttered while going over his script, "the traffic was Hell."

"We can always take off right now, I'm ready-"

"No, it's okay, we can just go over the small part for this morning's shoot and then we'll leave." he interrupted.

I flipped to the part we were shooting this morning and glanced over my highlighted lines. I saw that he was in the same spot and walked up next to him, glancing on his side notes. 

"Why do you have all of those side notes?" I asked.

"They're things that I'll need to remember when acting out those scenes. Things to remind me of the character's situation, that kind of thing." he replied, flipping through and showing me some of the messily written notes.

"That's a good idea." I sighed, glancing over my terrible work.

"So where we left off, I was crying." he said with a chuckle, "The next scene is where we're driving in your car to the hotel you're staying at and I hide out there. You call your friends to cancel plans you'd set up so they didn't walk in to see me, since I'm already in trouble anyways. Then the scene cuts to the other bad guys, Seongwon and Seungki, who are trying to find my whereabouts." he said, his voice trailing off at the end of every sentence as he flipped through the pages, reading lines here and there to get the idea of the scenes.

"God, they try to find me for a long time." he laughed, flipping through all of the pages. "I'm going to be so bored when they're shooting this."

I walked over and pulled the cord out of my phone so the music stopped and saw the time. 

"I'll practice my lines in the car, we need to go I think." I said, shoving my phone in my back pocket and walking to the door to shove my script back into my bag.