Where parallels meet

Close yet far

(not proofread)

Rex

I came back from shoot at 5 pm and laid in my bed in the five star luxury suite.

Exhausted!

In half an hour I was supposed to join the rest for practice session.
I started to undress,a quick shower would drain away my tiredness.
Suddenly a metallic sound of something hitting the ground!

That bangle!
I almost forgot about it.
I bent down to pick it up but... someone snatched it.

"Wohaa! What's this thing?" Se Jin said, looking at the bangle with narrow eyes.

Sejin was our maknae( youngest member), always curious about other people's business. He had a lot of knowledge about all the unnecessary information in the world.

"None of your business", I tried to take it back from him.

"Easy there! Hyung.... you're acting sus!" He gave me a look.

"I just found it on the road"

"On the ROAD? Hahaha...as if you could walk on the road," he clearly didn't fall for my words.

Now if I was to tell him how I got on the road... I'd be calling for trouble for not only myself but also the people with me.

"Aren't you supposed to be practicing now? What are you doing here?" I tried to change the topic.

"Oh shit! Yeah ...I almost forgot, I came here to call you for practice"

"Ok, gimme 10 mins, I'll take a quick shower" I said, taking the bangle from his hand.

The rest of the day went in a blurr... practice,rest, practice...repeat.
We were giving our 1000% into this.
For the rest of the world we were like "perfect boys"...who had good looks, singing , dancing, entertaining skills. People scrutinized each and every move of us. And we had to live upto the expectations of the people, otherwise there's no place in this industry.

I could finally get to bed at 2am .
Before sleeping, I opened Nebula ( it's an app built by our company where fans worldwide could interact with each other and with the idols).

Fans as usual had posted loads of comforting and encouraging messages for us. Some posted about their daily lives. Others complained why we were not much active these days.
I smiled scrolling through the posts.
Suddenly I had to stop.

A post popped up ,there was a picture of a girl in a weird red dress,her face blurred and a second photo of a man in his 40s, who looked familiar but I couldn't remember.

The caption read, ' The Indian girl in saree saved CEO of Markus... y'all know right Markus is sponsoring our boys? Let's all thank this girl'

CEO of Markus...Mr. Robert? I've met him in a shoot. So that was him she saved and she's from India?

There was so much to incite my curiosity. Was it possible that someone here knew her ID or something? I checked the comments...but fans usually didn't comment on posts unless we left a comment there.

Should I write something? I was about to type when a comment appeared.
TheD commented: " bravo! She's so cool." Dae su our leader.

Now fans all over the world would notice this post. More and more comments started appearing, mostly agreeing to dae su. Some Indian fans commented how proud they were of her but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Apparently nobody knew who she was.

I lost hope and sleep took over me.

Niharika

I woke up to missed calls from Arohi (my bff) and Lara.
I called back Arohi first,damn I missed her! Though we just talked last night.

"Hey!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa...asgsfjikklllll....you gotta check Nebula"

"Ughh...calm down,what happened? Why are you shouting in my ears first thing in the morning?"

"Morning?... huh! Time zones I forgot... anyways check Nebula first!"

" I logged out of all social media before coming here ..so just tell me okay?"

"Whyy would you do that? ... anyways take a deep breath because what I'm about to say would give you a heart attack!"

" Don't be dramatic and tell me.. you're making me anxious now",I rolled my eyes, annoyed.

"TheD....." and then she told me in brief what had happened.

She knew it was me because I had her updated last night about everything that happened. This was something I always do. Arohi was like my safe zone. I couldn't get my food digested until I spilled all the beans to her. Yes introverts can be selectively extrovert you see.

But what she said got me wide awake!
What!!..so she meant that TheD ...Dae su noticed me? For real? Though he wouldn't know it was me...still! Omg! What would I do with this information now!!!

Later Lara called me to update me with the same news.

I got goosebumps allover.
6 long years of fangirling and I finally got noticed by a member...this didn't feel real for some reason.

I was in a daze for the rest of the day...I went out for some site seeing in my bucket list ( people like us don't get to come visit foreign countries whenever we want so gotta make full use of the opportunity).

I had taken a total of 15 days vacation leave and it was already the 7th day.
The whole city seemed to be dressed up to welcome Orion . Their posters ,big advertisement screens displaying their MVs. Watching them like this as I felt proud,it also made me realise how different our worlds were. We're in the same city now, so close yet so far.

I was standing in front of Rex's poster while these thoughts crossed my mind. I extended my left arm to touch his face...I knew I could never touch it for real.

I walked away.