Fanboy

05 ~ Duet

After trying to reach Cats' cell for a million times she finally gave up and put her phone on the table in front of her. Joshua seemed to be having about as much luck as she had.

Sunny rolled her eyes imagining her friend Cat having kidnapped Jihoon and taken off somewhere for a passionate make out session while the two of them were sitting here worrying like some overprotective parents. She had to giggle at the thought of that and Joshua looked up from the phone he had been staring at with furrowed brows as if wanting it enough would make it ring. "What's so funny?", he asked meeting her eyes. "I just thought we look like helicopter parents obsessing over their babies.", she answered honestly. When she saw his expression she realised what she had said. "Did I just.. say that out loud?", she asked which made his surprised look change into an amused one. "It.. It's just that when I look into your eyes I spill everything that's on my mind..", she admitted honestly. "..Oh great I said that too... I just can't seem to shut up can I?" His amused smile had widened into a grin making the skin around his amazingly dark chocolatebrown eyes wrinkle slightly and tiny dimples appear on his cheeks.

"You know what?", he exclaimed finally giving her a break from his incredible smile and an opportunity to catch her breath. "What?", Sunny was back to whispering.

"I guess if they don't want to be found we should leave them to themselves and..", he paused shortly looking straight into her eyes making her shake. She wanted to break eye contact but couldn't. "..make the best of it?", he ended the sentence with what seemed like a question but wasn't waiting for an answer. Instead he took her hand pulling her out of her chair and directing her to a different section of the Café that she had already forgotten they were still in. She was quite shocked of him taking her hand like that but she couldn't say she didn't more than enjoy it so she let him drag her to a tiny platform that, as she realised a heartbeat later, was supposed to be a stage. There were some instruments and microphones and Joshua confidently grabbed a guitar and sat down on one of the small chairs. He began strumming the chords softly and she just started singing along realising only halfway in that he knew the chords and lyrics to one of her songs by heart. His research must have been thorough.

The song she had written some time ago for one of her stories was about a girl feeling safe in the company of a boy she was falling in love with and the way their voices harmonized it brought a whole new depth to the meaning of the song. Formerly recorded as a duet sung by her and Cat (in lack of a male duet partner) accompanied by piano it eloped to an indescribably emotional rush in this new interpretation with Joshua throwing in improvised guitar solos and incredible highnotes and Sunny singing it with an enthusiasm and a longing trembling in her voice that had never been heard before, not even by herself. On their last notes Joshua looked up and their gazes locked. She felt like falling down a bottomless hole and flying high in the sky at the same time.

The magical moment was suddenly interrupted by the sound of clapping. Startled by the unawaited noise she turned to see the staff of the Café applaud softly. She had completely forgotten about her surroundings. It was like waking up from a dream or coming up to the surface of water after a long dive.

Joshuas' face mirrored the feelings she was experiencing herself. It was the first time she could see through his sometimes so blank and unreadable expression and catch a glimpse of what was underneath. He slowly put the instrument down and got up. Then he suddenly seemed to be in a hurry, apparently it had dawned on him that being seen here together with Sunny was potentially dangerous. He threw the hood of his sweater over and put on a face mask. When he was finished he seemed to notice that Sunny hadn't moved a millimetre while he was getting ready to leave. "Are you coming?", his voice was stern but even though he was wearing a mask she could tell he was smiling at least a little as they left the Café together.

She had told him she could drive, she had only had a milkshake and her car was parked around the corner but he had just murmured: „Drink water." and insisted on taking her home. At least he agreed to taking her home in her vehicle so she ended up in the passenger seat of her own car, watching Joshua navigate it through the streets of the sleeping city. She gave him directions when necessary, apart from that they stayed in silence. She was glad he didn't turn on the radio, it was way too likely that she had left her Seventeen CD in and it would start playing at maximum volume.

Thinking about their music and especially Joshuas' voice her thoughts wandered back to what she had just experienced and she felt a little melancholic considering the fact that she would never sing nor hear that duet with him again. She brushed away the thought telling herself that it had been a moment too special to be captured. She looked over to Joshua who was keeping his eyes concentrated on the empty street.

The drive was over way too quickly and soon he pulled into the driveway in front of her building. When he parked the car and turned off the engine they were finally left in complete silence. In the darkness she noticed a strand of hair that had fallen down onto his forehead and she had to fight the impulse to just ruffle through his hair. Sunny seemed to be waking up from a trance once again. What was she even doing here? She barely knew him and here she was cooing over him like they had been a couple for ages. Despising herself a little bit she shook her head. The movement of her red hair seemed to break him out of his silence too.

"I had a lot of fun tonight", he said leaning back in his seat. He continued with a sigh: "I don't really know.. what to do now?" Finally he was looking at her. She was muted by the look of his chocolate eyes. "I..", she wanted to start but he had already turned around and opened the door to get out. The perfect gentleman that he was he walked around the car to open her door too. She got out and for a moment she was standing right in front of him. She was so close that she could feel the warmth radiating off his body. Her eyelashes fluttered as she looked up to him. "We will probably never meet again.", he said and all the warmth had vanished from his voice. "According to your stories you are pretty well informed about our contracts", he let out a cynical laugh that made her shiver. "I will talk to Jihoon. He cannot simply run off risking his entire life and career like that.", his emotionless voice gave her a sting in her heart that brought tears to her eyes. As his eyes met hers again she noticed his features softening. "I'm sorry", he added, his voice breaking at the last syllable. Then he turned on the spot and stormed off into the night.

She felt pretty exhausted when she had made her way to her flat. All the energy seemed to have been sucked out of her body and escaped into the night like Joshua had.

She wished she could run too. When she switched her phone back on the notifications blew up and she had more than a thousand messages on every account of her social media together with a load of missed calls from Cat. She opened the last of her friends' textmessages. It just said: "you need to see this! NOW!" As she opened the link that was attached to the message she gasped for air.

Even though the clip had only been uploaded barely half an hour ago it already had hundreds of thousands of views.

The video started playing in the middle of a song taking her back a few hours into a little Café and then Joshua started to sing and her voice joined in.