He was bulked up in a face mask, beanie, and thick puffy jacket despite the heat of the night in such a crowd, and had a sad panicked puppy dog look in his eyes that beckoned me desperately to help. I panicked a little too and looked around, before I remembered the closed back door of the building. Hopefully it wouldn't set off the security alarms or something? I gestured to my right wildly and ran out the room, though I could see the betrayal in his eyes as he misunderstood.
It was a short hallway before I reached two sets of doors, and I kept one propped open with one of the sandals I came to the lab with (yes, they were open-toed because no, I'm not doing weird chemistry stuff and I won't lose any toes). I slowly pushed the second one open into the night, and saw the guy huddled in a ball behind a tree. His eyes lit up when he spotted me, and I gestured for him to wait because the guard was rounding by his tree. I'd probably be in trouble if they found me here after they closed down the building too. As the guard turned his back to walk towards the vans, I nodded at the tabloid guy and he sprinted at me with alarming speed, really. Desperate about his job? That can be scary. He pretty much ran into me and I rammed the door close behind him as we both stumbled in.
He was about to open his mouth but I smacked his face and went "Shhh". When I could no longer hear the guard in the vicinity, I pulled my ear from the door and breathed a sigh of relief. As I turned I realized the guy had been doing the same right behind me. We both stood still for a moment awkwardly, and then the guy suddenly jumped into action, as of remembering something and stumbled his way into the lab. Realizing that I had let a stranger into a university lab, I ran after him and grabbed his arm as he got into the main lab space by our intern rooms. But he easily resisted the tug and I ended up getting dragged along as he quickly found my room to our right and sprinted to the window.
He squinted out of the window anxiously, I guess looking for the celebrities that had run off. He anxiously typed a message on his phone and looked up to see the guard walking in the direction of the window. He immediately grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down with him roughly so we were in awkward squats next to the window. "Excuse me... who are you?" I asked in Korean. He panicked and pushed me so I stumbled and fell back on my butt. "What the heck- why'd you—" he pretty much hopped over in his squat, pushed me down to the floor and held a finger to my mouth to shut me up while hovering next to me and eyeing the window suspiciously. I lay there in shock for a good second before whacking his hand away from my face and sitting up, glaring at him.
The lights in the room were just enough to see the glimmer of his eyes but not much else above his face mask. He sighed with relief as he saw the guard walk away and I exclaimed, indignantly, "What was that? He couldn't even hear us!" He shrugged a little and muttered, "Yes he could." I straightened myself and brushed off the back of my pants and suddenly froze when realization hit me. Wait, so... I flashed back to not very long ago, when I was bawling and screaming at the universe when this guy was covering my view of others (or I guess their view of me...) with his back. How ridiculously embarrassing.
WELL I brushed those thoughts away because damn that's awkward. Whatever. Who was this joker to me anyway. Instead I just notice him typing away on his phone too fast to read.
"Are you a reporter?"
He looked up and paused his eyes on mine for a second before resuming his typing.
"Yes."
His phone dinged with a response from whomever he was messaging and his eyebrows scrunched up indicating his nervousness.
"So are you reporting their dating scandal now?"
He glared at me and I just frowned back. "That's a really sad job to have. Violating people's privacy. Their fans go crazy when there's a dating scandal."
He mumbled a fuzzy "I know," but then sighed loudly in relief.
"They're not dating," he croaked.
I laughed a little and sat back down in my spinny chair with my laptop. "We both saw them."
He just responded softly, "No- they're just friends."
I shook my head, remembering what I saw of them making out earlier. "Dating."
"Trust me, they're just friends."
"I saw them, dude."
"Saw what?"
"Just... they're definitely romantically involved."
"Why do you keep saying that? Aren't you just lying to get my attention?"
"Your attention? Lying...? I've been standing here all afternoon. What made you think they're just friends?"
He looked genuinely irritated and a little hurt and stuck his phone out in front of my face. "She told me herself!"
It was one of those messaging apps popular in East Asia, and her nickname on the screen was something super cutesy. He whipped the phone back close to him but I caught a few familiar words like "No" "Friend" and "kek" before he snatched it back. Took me a second to process but I gasped when I did.
"Are you dating her?!"
"Yes. Now you tell me why you think she's cheating."
"She's dating paparazzi? That's so weak..."
"What did you see?"
I absentmindedly said, "I have a photo of-" wait. He was still paparazzi — and besides, why should I get involved in this?
"What? Photo of what? Can you show me?"
"No. I'm not selling you anything."
"Who said anything about selling? I'm not paying you for it."
"Are you actually dating her?"
He got exasperated and raised his voice, "Yes!"
I held on to my phone tightly and turned to look at the trailers and vans that were probably still holding the celeb in question. Poor guy. Got involved in some large scale drama with a celebrity who's just toying with him.
"Okay if you want money... I'll pay you to send me the photo and destroy it right after. How much do you want?" He sounded like he had forced himself to calm down a little.
I sighed and squatted again, then thought for a moment. "You don't understand. I can't potentially ruin a girl's dreams or career by just handing over photos to people, even if you're her boyfriend. Just... she's quite probably cheating."
In the light from the window I could see his eyes dampening with tears, but I stared at him, resolute.
"You're really not going to hand them over?" He took in a shaky breath, then proceeded to walk out my room and to the lab back door. I followed him as he kicked my sandal out of the way and got to the exit door. He abruptly turned around and I almost ran into him but shuffled back in time. In the dim hallway lights his eyes looked dangerously angry. I stepped back slowly, a little afraid.
As he saw my reaction his eyes softened and almost teared up. He had a light airy kind of voice but it cracked when he said, "I don't know if you're lying to mess with me or not but don't give that photo to anyone else then." I didn't know how to respond to that- I wasn't lying. Why was this so dramatic? She's not my girlfriend. So I pulled myself together and exclaimed at him.
"Dude what are you even doing? Dating a celebrity? Are you crazy? I'm willing to bet they're narcissistic and ridiculously... boujee, and don't care two bits about people like us- at least not personally. And who can blame them!- there's just so many fans, so much attention. Don't waste your time on this stuff. Focus on your career. Are you even actually a reporter?"
He threw me a dirty look as he opened the door to get out. "Well... you shouldn't cry so hard or look so ugly doing it either, okay? Mind your own business."
I gasped, a little shocked. "Mind- mind my own.. business? Excuse me? Am I the one with such a disgustingly stupid love triangle with someone clearly out of my league? First fix your own priorities, you ungrateful hoe." That last bit being in English, mainly because I don't really know how to swear in Korean naturally.
He paused for a moment as if he was going to yell back, but then rolled his eyes pointedly and closed the door behind him, but not before saying, "Your problem is that you keep butting into other people's business. And next time, try not to steal other people's bags either."
"What the **** are you talking-" the door shut loudly behind him and I growled with frustration.
As if it wasn't pathetic enough, we both stood on either side of the door before I heard a furiously fast tapping on the other side, and opened it to see him panicking again, because our tantrum had attracted another guard's attention. He refused to make eye contact for the five more minutes he spent with me but I didn't care either. I just played awkwardly with my sandal. When he was finally gone, quietly this time, I threw my shoe at the door he closed behind him and went to the window in my room to listen to the rest of the concert, my head swirling with crazy thoughts.
I took a taxi back to the hotel at 10 pm, working on my laptop the whole time. I was almost done with all my work, too. When I finished the last run of a program I'd been tasked with writing yesterday, I closed my laptop and stared at the wall clock in front of me - it was midnight, and according to all known laws of jetlag- well, scratch that. I wasn't jetlagged. I was deathly tired. So, for the first time after moving out of my home since college had begun a couple of months ago, I cried myself to sleep, and frankly, I don't know why.